And what makes the matter still worse is, that the passages they have adduced are among the most highly figurative in the Apostle's descriptions. The following are among them: "Behold He cometh with clouds, and every eye shall see Him; and they that pierced Him; and all the tribes of the earth shall wail because of Him." i. 7. "And I beheld when he had opened the sixth seal, and lo, there was a great earthquake; and the sun became black as sackcloth of hair, and the moon became as blood, and the stars of heaven fell unto the earth; even as a fig-tree casteth her untimely figs when she is shaken of a mighty wind; and the heaven departed as a scroll, when it is rolled together, and every mountain and island were moved out of their places." vi. 12, 13, 14. "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: and I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God." xx. 11, 12. "And I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away, and there was no more sea." xxi. 1. Such are the texts of Scripture by which the doctrine before us is supported; the greater part of which have clearly no reference to the subject, and the remainder being not the literal language of narrative, but the _correspondent_ and mysterious words of prophecy. Yet, even viewing them in their outward meaning, we can scarcely fail to be struck with the wide difference which exists between them and the description of Mr. Wesley. There is nothing in them of an earthquake, amidst some general concussion in which every island shall flee away:--nothing of "the air resounding with thunder from pole to pole, and being torn with ten thousand lightnings:"--nothing of the connexion of every part being destroyed, and every atom torn asunder from the others. We may therefore fairly set these down as additional horrors, supplied by the imagination of the writer, and unsupported by anything like Scripture proof. And with regard to what remains, we will now see how far that _literal_ sense upon which it rests, will stand the criterion by which we are to determine the meaning of Scripture. If the outward meaning is reasonable and consistent, then it must be adhered to, and the doctrine is established: but if, on the other hand, such interpretation leads to absurdity, then, by the consent of every Protestant church, that meaning must be laid aside; and with it, too, must be cast off the tenet of this world's destruction.