Page:The Last Judgement and Second Coming of the Lord Illustrated.djvu/93

 poses for which it was established, it was brought to an end by the execution of a judgment; and thereupon provision was made for the establishment of a successor. So that from the Scriptures we learn that three general judgments have been actually executed; that the world of spirits was the scene of their execution; and also that each has been attended by a Divine coming, in some specific way; of which, however, the Lord's advent in the flesh was the most ultimate, and consequently the judgment then executed reached a lower plane in man's spiritual life than any of the rest.

But were there any circumstances visible among mankind which may reasonably be considered as the results of this last judgment on the Jewish Church having taken place in the world of spirits? We certainly believe there were. Such an event would necessarily, sooner or later, give forth to the world of men some indications of its occurrence. Such indications appeared in the cases of those judgments which attended the end of preceding dispensations, and to which we have previously referred; and they are found to stand out very distinctly in the history which immediately follows that judgment which we have now before us. From that period the Jewish people gradually sank into a powerless community; and the fig-tree, to which it was said, "Let no fruit grow on thee henceforward for ever," presently withered away. Within seventy years of that judgment Jerusalem was besieged by Titus; its population was reduced to a condition unexampled in the sufferings attending warfare; the survivors of that terrible conflict, with their descendants, were dispersed, and their national existence was destroyed. From that period, too, the decline and fall of Pagan Rome began; and all who are acquainted with its history know something of the idolatry