We reject the Gospel as men, and we are lost and ruined as men—that is, soul and body. Hence, then, if this last resurrection consist of those who have rejected the glorious Gospel of the Son of God, who have repudiated Christ as the only Saviour, may it not be that those that come from the four corners of the earth are the lost ones raised from the dead at the second resurrection, retaining all their antipathy to truth, all their hatred of the Saviour; who shall, out of sheer desperation and malignant feeling, make this last assault-which is crushed in its birth; for the instant they make the assault fire descends from heaven, and utterly destroys them; may it not be, that just as the risen saints, risen believers, reign with Christ for a thousand years in joy and felicity, those who make this last assault are the risen unbelieving, who have resisted the truth, and make this final and unsuccessful effort to extinguish it? You say, it is strange that they should do so; and yet it is not strange. The Jews sinned against God amidst the most stupendous miracles; they saw the pillar of fire march them through the nights in the desert; they saw the pillar of cloud shade them from the intense heat in the day; they saw the cloven ocean form a promenade for Israel, and collapse and become a grave for pursuing Pharaoh; they heard the strains of Miriam as she celebrated a grand deliverance; and yet, in spite of miracles, in the midst of miracles and manifestations of the living God, the Jews sinned, apostatized, plunged into idolatry, and denied the God that led them through the desert! So in the case of Satan himself; you might argue, how can Satan at the end of the thousand years attempt to do what he must know must be a failure? The devil knows now that his whole policy must end in a gigantic failure; he knows that success is impossible; but it is just as much his nature to deceive as it is the nature of a bird to sing, or of a happy heart to unload its happiness in song; it is the nature of the fallen archangel to do so. So if we find that God's ancient people—at least called by his name in the midst of stupendous miracles tempted him, disbelieved

him, blasphemed him; if we find that Satan, after the experience of six thousand years, persists in his old policy, and wields his old weapons, and tries his old plans, it is not unreasonable to suppose that the risen wicked, retaining all their passions, appetites, desires, hatred, antipathy, malignity, may make this last effort under the inspiration of him who is the murderer, the liar, and the deceiver, from the beginning to the end. This may meet what is otherwise an inexplicable incident in that grand panorama which begins with the thousand years, and continues for ever and ever in blessedness, in beauty, and in joy. All that we can

learn, so far as we have been able to cast any light upon it, is that at the end of the thousand years there is an interval of trouble: we, if we be Christ's people, shall not be scathed by it, for we are with him, our Prophet, our Priest, and our King, and no weapon formed against us can prosper; the victory is certain; the Prince of Peace is King of kings and Lord of lords. The awful thought—and it is I must say a most awful one is that there shall be multitudes of the lost. Yet, if there be multitudes of the lost, it will be nothing in comparison of the vast multitudes of the saved. The vast majority of the human race will be saved; a minority only will be lost. It is an awful thought that a minority should be lost; it is an awful thought that one immortal spirit should perish for ever and for ever. The thought is so dreadful that I do not wonder at men recoiling from it; and if it were not asserted broadly, unmistakeably in the Bible, I would not believe it. But we know too that angels, and Satan their leader, have been suffering in chains, and darkness, and torment ever since they fell; and they will suffer for ever and ever. We sometimes think it must make us unhappy that there should be anywhere near us such awful sufferings. This only is certain, we shall not be unhappy in heaven. At present it ought to make us unhappy that there are several hundred criminals in Newgate, in Millbank Penitentiary, in the prison at Holloway. The palace of the Queen is in the midst of prisons; your

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places of business may be some of them very near Newgate does it not make you often unhappy that there should be such a state of things within those dark, thick stone walls? Does it not make you unhappy that there are dens, and cribs, and dungeons, poetically called homes, in every neighbourhood where there is squalid misery, and hunger, and wretchedness, and destitution, and want, and where efforts to improve recoil sometimes in leaving them worse? does not that make you unhappy? Does it make the angels that are in heaven unhappy that a large avalanche of their number, a mighty landslip from glory, has plunged into the depths of hell? It is not said it does so. All that we are sure of is, there shall be no tears, nor sorrow, nor grief in glory. What we now lament is that any human being should be the victim of so terrible, so enduring a calamity. But what should that teach us? If it be true, if we cannot resist what is plainly written, the lesson like the duty is abundantly plain. Are you safe? are you Christians? If you are in a ship foundering at sea, you would try to save yourself and every passenger and sailor on board of that ship. If, therefore, you believe that such a catastrophe as that which is here spoken of, and which is called the second death, and into which the devil and his angels, and all that have repudiated Christ, shall be cast for ever-if you believe this fearful but Scripture truth, take care that you are not in that number. And in the second place, let every man try to the utmost of his power, wherever his influence can reach, to be able on the margin of heaven to quote one whom he has been the means of rescuing from darkness and translating into God's marvellous light. If we know the Saviour, what are we doing to make him known? If we have tasted his salvation, what are we doing to spread it among others? Instead of thinking of contingencies which we cannot explain, or trying to sound the depths of an agony which is unfathomable, let us lay aside speculations about a matter painful in one extreme, if glorious in another; and let us bind ourselves to instant duties, using our influence, our wealth, our

power to make known the unsearchable riches of Christ. Let me ask, what are you doing in the church to which you belong, in the neighbourhood in which you live, to bring souls to Christ? Are you teaching any one child, are you helping any one school? are you doing the utmost that you can to bring out of darkness them that are its victims, and to lessen the number of the lost by multiplying and increasing the numbers of the saved?

I have tried to explain this passage; I admit the diffi. culties to be great; but perhaps we are not so far distant from these great events; and then what we know not now we are assured we shall know then. And if we belong to Christ's flock, and are among his people, and are trying, as I have told you, to lessen the number of the lost by increasing the aggregate of the saved, ours will be the blessedness of Daniel, who tells us that "they that turn many to righteousness shall shine as the brightness of the firmament, and as the stars for ever and ever."

LECTURE X.

THE GREAT WHITE THRONE.

WE now see in the advancing panorama a sublime and solemn spectacle. God help us to read it aright. "And I saw a great white throne, and him that sat on it, from whose fuce the earth and the heaven fled away; and there was found no place for them. And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened; and another book was opened, which is the book of life; and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works. And the sea gave up the dead which were in it; and death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them; and they were judged every man according to their works. And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death. And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire."-Revelation xx. 11-15.

WE have seen that the resurrection consists of two distinct parts: the first, which takes place when Christ comes, is the resurrection of all believers from Adam to the last hour; the second, which is here described, is the resurrection of the rest of the dead, who lived not till the thousand years were finished. Referring to the former, he says: "Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection; on such the second death hath no power." This benediction would imply that on the rest, that do not then rise and reign, the second death will have power. This leads to the inference that the

great white throne, Mr. Elliott thinks, may be erected at the commencement of and continue throughout the