onceivable
reason can there be for appointing a day in which all the wicked and
the righteous are to be assembled, only to receive their respective
sentences of condemnation or acquittal?

I know not how such questions can be answered by those who suppose the
day of judgment to be nothing more than one on which Jesus Christ will
_publicly_ declare what the eternal fate of His creatures is to be for
ever; without any trial beyond that which has already taken place in
the court of each man's conscience, and in the presence of the living
God.

We at once admit that the difficulty, or impossibility even, of
answering such questions, is no adequate reason for our denying any
fact clearly revealed in Scripture which may suggest them. But if
these belong, not to the fact itself, but to what appears to us to be
a wrong interpretation of it; if a different view is freed from
such difficulties, without others, more numerous and serious, being
evolved; if the information afforded by Scripture is to be received as
authentic; and if, moreover, while keeping strictly to the letter
of Scripture, it is more in harmony with the grand ends to be
accomplished by the kingdom of Christ, and discloses more of the glory
of the great King, surely a presumption is thereby afforded in favour
of its truth, though, perhaps, at first sight it may interfere with
preconceived opinions.

Instead, then, of the day of judgment being a day of twenty-four hours
merely for the passing of a righteous sentence upon the good or bad,
it seems to us to be clearly revealed in Scripture that it will be a
period of time long enough for the peaceful and orderly ongoing of
all its august proceedings;--when Jesus Christ will summon to His
immediate presence all who have been the subjects of His mediatorial
kingdom, or have been placed under His authority for accomplishing the
purposes of His reign;--when each person will be tried in the presence
of the assembled universe, and his true relationship to his King must
be proved upon evidence minute, sifting, and unquestionable;--in one
word, when the whole government of the Mediator, from the beginning
till the end of time, over men, angels, and devils, shall be fully
disclosed, and its excellence manifested to the confusion of the
wicked, the joy of the righteous, and the glory of the Triune God!

Difficulties will, no doubt, be suggested by the view we have thus
so briefly stated, as well as by the others I have b