Omnipotence, to purify the atmosphere from vapours which would soon become deadly. Sin rises from the world in rebel lion against his dominion "who rides in his excellency on the sky." His patience bears with the madness of transgressors; and, after ages of disobedience and floods of evil, He still causes "his sun to shine, and his rain to descend," on thoughtless, impious, hardened, and unrelenting man.

Could we translate the words of the heavens, without diminishing the force of the divine original, what pious soul would hear them and not adore? Our skill, however, reaches not so far; yet, let us make one effort, though but poor and feeble, to convey some portion of their meaning. Their voice to mortals is,—" He who made us is God! Seek, O ye sons of men, his favour, and ascribe to him all glory. Think not that we exist by our own being, that we shine by our own brightness, and cherish you by our own beneficence. We are the servants of Him who calls you his children-He made us burst into being from the womb of emptiness, and into order from the womb of confusion. Our serenity is but the effect of his smile-our vital air is the breath of his goodness-our thunders are his voiceour lightnings his messengers-our innumerable lights are but the lamps which his hand kindles and hangs out to dispel your darkness. He alone exists-he alone is good and patient, and wise and unchangeable. Seek his friendship, O mortals, with the whole heart, and ye shall exist in happiness when we are no

more."

Why do "the heavens declare his glory," but that he may be glorified by us? In vain do they preach if we will not attend ; -in vain do we gaze and listen if we do not admire and adore; -in vain do we pretend to glorify him if we slight his records of mercy, and neglect to seek him for our all-satisfying portion. "Happy is he whose hope is in the Lord his God, who made heaven and earth, and sea, and all that in them is!"

And here, let us think of Him " by whom all things were created," and by whose blood "we have redemption." From the starry heavens hasten, O my soul, to Calvary, and see the "Lord of all," whom heaven, with all its host, worshippeth,

giving up the ghost for thy transgression. "Worthy! worthy is the Lamb that was slain !"

Rev. xx. 11.-" AND I SAW A GREAT WHITE THRONE, AND HIM THAT SAT ON IT, FROM WHOSE FACE THE EARTH AND THE HEAVEN FLED AWAY, AND THERE WAS FOUND NO PLACE FOR THEM."

A vision of more tremendous grandeur and sublimity than this cannot possibly be conceived. The throne of the Most High, before whom the holy seraphim vail their faces, is represented to John, and he is enabled to view it. This is an awful vision, even were the throne alone displayed, vacant, standing in solitary majesty, without its accustomed attendants. Yet, he sees not only the throne, but also him that sits upon it. He is admitted to the beatific vision. Description fails here;-no words can convey any adequate idea of that which the thoughts cannot reach.

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I saw him that sat on it," says the inspired writer, in all the artless simplicity of a narrator of facts which were become familiar to his mind by frequent recollection and meditation. There is no labour in his recital-no exhausting effort to dazzle and overwhelm his reader by a matchless style, rivalling in magnificence the scenes it was intended to record. Nothing but the most simple dress of thought was becoming, that the ideas might be left to pervade the mind, with their native and intrinsic grandeur, without any ornaments of diction. Here, indeed, if any where, such ornaments are utterly needless. A vision more majestic was impossible. A style of narration more simple was never employed :-I saw him that sat on it.

You are next surprised by an entirely new idea; which, while its magnitude confounds the imagination, appears to be so just and so perfectly suitable to the infinite dignity of the divine Ma. jesty, that it would seem to be the only proper representation that could be given of the grand effects of his appearing. The universe is annihilated in the presence of its Author! It vanishes precipitately into its original nothingness, that He alone might appear who alone is worthy TO BE. The frame-work of creation is dissolved in the splendour of the rays that issue from

his face. On former occasions "the earth trembled at his presence, the everlasting mountains were scattered, and the perpetual hills did bow;-the deep uttered his voice and lifted up his hands on high, while He stood and measured the earth, and beheld and drove asunder the nations." But these were only transient effects of his less majestic manifestations. His appearance on the final day of retribution, when "He cometh to judge the world in righteousness," will be in the fulness of his power and glory. The visible heavens and the terraqueous globe will disappear amidst the radiant beams of his countenance, as darkness is annihilated by the rising sun, and resigns at once its empire and its being to the effulgence of the light of day.

From whose face the heavens and the earth fled away, and there was found no place for them. Nature has previously trembled,-now she dies. Formerly she has quaked,— now she is annihilated. Oh! how can any man see God and live, when the skies, the seas, the mountains, the globe itself, disappear and are dissolved and perish in his presence, as the flake falls from its place and dies away in the gentlest touches of the warm and powerful sun !

By what agency the heavens and the earth will be destroyed, we are elsewhere informed:-"The heavens and the earth which are now, are reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men."

Some writers suppose that the earth will take fire at the command of God, and that there is sufficient fire already in its bowels to effect its destruction. There is no doubt that the quantity of fire within the earth is astonishing. There are raging furnaces of immense extent and power, perpetually burning; and, for ought we know, they may be necessary to preserve a genial warmth in the earth, that corn may grow on its surface. This would seem to be intimated in the inspired book of Job, where it is said,-" As for the earth, out of it cometh bread, and under it is turned up as it were fire." That the quantity of fire is very great, appears from the burning mountains which, to the number of 195, have arisen on the surface of the earth. These volcanoes are but as chimneys to the furnaces beneath,

through which sometimes immense quantities of smoke and flame issue. When you happen to have a stone in your fire, you may have observed it, on a sudden, to burst with heat and be scattered about the room: thus, immense rocks, when they are thoroughly heated in the earth, explode and fly out of the craters of volcanoes with such force, that they are propelled for miles through the air before they fall; or else they melt, and, uniting with other substances in a state of fusion, boil up and bubble over the mountain-top, and run down its sides, overflowing vineyards, villages, towns, and cities, in their progress. Pliny might well think it a miracle that the globe itself could exist and not be destroyed by the fire generated in its own bowels: as a house, when it takes fire, burns to the ground. Nothing but the power and goodness of God either can, or will, preserve us another moment from the final conflagration.

Besides burning mountains, earthquakes are indications of fire below. When a subterranean furnace has been burning for ages, it sometimes may undermine one of the many subterranean rivers that flow through the shell of the earth, or sometimes the sea itself. No sooner does a great quantity of water force itself into one of these furnaces, than an immense quantity of steam is generated, which heaves up the shell of the earth for several miles; sometimes opening great gulfs and swallowing up houses, streets, and towns, into the bowels of the earth in a moment of time. Nearly one-third of the surface of the globe is supposed to have been broken up and displaced by these violent explosions.

If any other evidence were necessary, we might advert to the mineral waters and hot springs which are found in so many places on the surface of the earth; but, surely, further evidence is not required.

It is, however, a question in what way the general conflagration will be produced. It may be accomplished by the providence of God giving power to the pent-up fires to burst forth, as he once "broke up the fountains of the great deep" to produce the deluge. In that case we may conclude that all the volcanoes in the world will break forth in discharging smoke,

fire, and burning rivers of molten stones, with vast fragments of rocks, in all directions, scattering terror and consternation, wounds and pain, among the nations of the ungodly, then receiving their sentence of everlasting punishment. At the same time tremendous earthquakes will rend the globe from pole to pole, and make its vast continents heave and sink, and whirl like the ocean in a storm. The globe will literally burst and be violently torn to pieces before its final dissolution.

Or, perhaps, as some think, a comet may be permitted to approach sufficiently near to the earth to heat it red-hot, in order to its purification or final destruction.

If otherwise, it may be accomplished by the ministry of angels; or, perhaps, rather by a stream of fire from the presence of the Almighty Judge. At the same time "the heavens will pass away with a great noise;" the whole surrounding atmosphere, charged with electric fluid, will groan in mighty thunders, compared with which the discharge of all the artillery in the world at once, would, doubtless, bear scarcely any proportion. Peter expressly states the passing away of the heavens ; which, for ought that the scriptures say to the contrary, may include sun, moon, and stars; nor do I well see how they can be

excluded.

Only, it may be asked, whether the earth will remain in a purified and renovated state? This I am inclined to believe. Some think that the "sea of glass mingled with fire," mentioned in the "Revelation," is the new earth reduced to glass, and not yet cooled. "The heavens and the earth,” therefore, will pass away," as to their present state; "and there will be found no place for them."

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