What _signs_ shall announce his arrival! On earth distress of nations, with perplexity; men’s hearts failing them for fear—wars and rumours of wars—earthquakes in divers countries—pestilence and famine—all nature thrown into universal convulsions, dreadful pangs that presage her approaching dissolution—the earth shaken to its centre, and sea horribly agitated—the heavens wrapped together like a parchment scroll, and passing away with a great noise—the elements melting with fervent heat; while the heavens and the earth are in one general flame—the sun turned into darkness, being utterly eclipsed by the overpowering lustre of the Sun of Righteousness; and the moon into blood—the stars falling, as when the untimely fruit of a fig-tree are thrown down by the wind—the tremendous blast of the trump of God, so loud as to pierce the caverns of the earth and the depths of the sea, to sound an alarm in the abyss of hell, and carry an awakening summons through the regions of the dead—the grave and _hades_ resigning their respective charge—gaping tombs, and parting seas giving up their dead—bodies that slept for thousands of years in a bed of dust, roused at the Archangel’s voice, to sleep no more; and re-united to immortal souls, their ancient mates, all thronging to the tribunal of GOD. See the JUDGE himself enthroned! a mixture of majesty and mercy, of vengeance and love, seated on his brow;—the clouds his chariot, and the heavens his canopy; while rocks and mountains flee before his face! “His lightnings flash, his thunders roll, How welcome to the faithful soul!” Millions attend his bar. Men, angels, devils, all receive the summons, to await his decisive sentence. Adam and his numerous posterity, Lucifer and his apostate train, and all the angels who kept not their first estate, compose the awful levee. The righteous fly swifter than the wind or the rapid lightning, to meet their Lord in the air; devils and the wicked, like criminals in chains dragged from their cells, are compelled, though reluctant, to appear at his tribunal. _Small and great stand before God_; _the books are opened_; Rev. xx. 12; the judgment begins; the grand transaction that is to decide the fate of the world goes on, till at last sentence is passed, _Come ye blessed_, or _Depart ye cursed_; and then, upon the one hand, are heard doleful cries, tumultuous lamentations, bitter weepings, that bespeak guilt and despair; but upon the other, the triumphant songs of elect angels and redeemed sinners, rending the heavens with applausive shouts and acclamations in honor of the Judge; and with a voice, louder than the noise of many waters, and more harmonious, than that which celebrated the creation of all things, shouting SALVATION _to our_ GOD _who sitteth upon the throne_, _and unto the LAMB_!