made
herself ready," and the robes in which she comes forth--the white
linen--are indeed the righteousnesses of the saints, but these have
been "washed and made white in the blood of the Lamb."

But "_all_" must stand before Him; and not even yet has that been
fulfilled. Cain and the long line of rejectors of mercy and light,
ever broadening as time's sad ages have passed till their path has been
called the "broad way," have not yet stood there. Has death saved them
from judgment? No, for we read of the "resurrection of judgment"--the
judgment that comes necessarily after death, and includes the dead, and
only the dead. "I saw a great white throne, and Him that sat on it,
from whose face the earth and the heavens 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." Here, too, we see an exact,
perfect, retributive, discriminating judgment. The Book of Life bears
not the name of one here. There is that one broad distinction between
the saved and the lost--the "life-line," as we may call it. How
carefully are we told at the very last of this Book of Life, that we
may most clearly understand, for our comfort, that the feeblest touch
of faith of but the hem of His garment--perhaps not even _directly_ His
Person, but that which is seen surrounding His Person, as the visible
creation may be said to do--(Psalms cii. 25, 6) let any have touched
Him there, and _life_ results. His name is found in the Book of Life,
and he shall not see the second death. Apart from this--the second
death: "the lake of fire!"

And yet, whilst "darkness and wrath" are the common lot of the
rejectors of "light and love," there is, necessarily, almost infinite
difference in the degrees of that darkness and fierceness of that
wrath, dependent exactly on the degree of rejection of light and love.
As our Lord tells us, "he that knew his Lord's will, and prepared not
himself, sha