Page:The Last Judgement and Second Coming of the Lord Illustrated.djvu/97

 bodies of the saints which arose out of their graves and went into the Holy City.—The scene of this occurrence.—The meaning of the grave and the Holy City.—Conclusion.

it be true, as we have attempted to show in a preceding chapter, that several judgments are recorded in the Scriptures to have taken place; and, specially, that at the personal advent of the Lord a general judgment was really executed in consequence of the height to which the corruption of Divine religion had attained—that judgment being one of the declared purposes for which that advent was undertaken—then it will follow that the doctrine concerning the world of spirits, the truth of the existence of which has been occasionally assumed in the process of the argument, must, in reality, be true. And this being so, the expectations commonly entertained respecting the last judgment, the second coming of the Lord, the cessation of the human race, the resurrection of the natural body, and the destruction of the world, cannot be founded in correct views of the Scripture teaching. These subjects it will be requisite to consider, in order that our main argument may be sufficiently clear. We shall therefore treat of them in the present and following chapters: considering in this chapter that region in the spiritual world which is the first common receptacle for the souls of all who die, and also the place of judgment.

The existence of a spiritual world is conceded upon all hands, but by that term is generally meant heaven and hell as the final destination of the good and the evil of mankind. It appears, however, to us, that there must be an intermediate region for the reception of the soul between the periods of natural death and final judgment. This region we call the world of spirits. The existence of such a world is not commonly accepted, at least among the