_shall be ashes_, under the soles of the saints’ feet. Not that the saints will literally walk on ashes, but the wicked, having been reduced to ashes, like all other sin-and-curse-polluted things, are incorporated into the substance of the new earth, which the saints are evermore to inhabit, as it emerges from the renovating fires of the last day. Then will the universe be clean and pure. Then the stain of sin will all be wiped away forever; sinners, and the great enemy that deceived them (for he, too, shall be destroyed, Heb. 2:14), being rooted out of the land of the living. Its every scar now impressed upon the handiwork of God shall be effaced; and this unfortunate earth shall be re-adorned, as only God, omnipotent in power and omniscient in wisdom, is able to adorn it. And then will arise that glad anthem of universal Jubilee, in which shall join _every creature_ which is in Heaven, and on the earth, and under the earth, and such as are in the sea, ascribing blessing, and honor, and glory, and power, unto him that sitteth on the throne, and unto the Lamb forever and ever. Rev. 5:13. There is no room here for a great receptacle of fiery torment, where an innumerable company of human beings shall burn and blaspheme and sin and suffer forever and ever. There is no room in this great song of joy for the discordant and hopeless wailing of the damned. There is no provision made for an eternal rebellion against the government of God, and eternal blasphemy against his holy name! No! only the loyal subjects of the great Captain of our salvation, only such as love immortal life, and seek for it, and prepare themselves for its inestimable blessings, shall ever enjoy the glorious boon; while those who put from themselves the word of God, and “judge themselves unworthy of everlasting life,” Acts 13:46, will be remanded back to the original elements from which they sprung; and strict Justice will write upon their unhonored and unlamented graves that they themselves were the arbiters of their own fate. CHAPTER XXXIII. GOD’S DEALINGS WITH HIS CREATURES.