will be tried by
fire, but they themselves will be saved, "yet so as by fire." We have
now to enter upon the important inquiry as to whether Scripture reveals
an analogous dispensation with respect to the rest of mankind.

Hard as it may be for us to conceive by what means the deeds and
experience of all men, the living and the dead, will be brought under
review in the day of judgment, that so it will be is undoubtedly the
teaching of Scripture. Our understanding of this wonderful event may
perhaps be assisted by taking into account what St. Paul said to the
Athenians: "In Him we live, and move, and have our being;" whence it
may be inferred that all our works and {47} words, and even feelings
and thoughts, are known to God. With reference to this question, it
would, I think, be legitimate to call to our aid the knowledge of the
external creation, which has been so largely extended in the present
day. After long attention given to the acquisition of such knowledge,
I seem to see that it points to the conclusion that all the forces of
nature are resident in a universal aetherial medium, extending through
all space, and pervading all visible and tangible substances, by the
intervention of which all power is exerted, whether it be by the
immediate will of God, or mediately, by that of angels or of men. (I
assume that there can be no exertion of power apart from the will and
consciousness of an agent.) Consequently the Spirit of the Universe
must be cognizant of every exertion of power and of its effects. To
this consideration another of peculiar significance is to be added.
The faculty which we possess to a limited extent, depending on bodily
conditions and organization, of _remembering_ the consequences of
exerted power, whether as operating ourselves, or being operated upon,
must be conceived of as pertaining, without any limitation, to the
Creator of the aetherial substance and the Source of all power. In
this manner it seems possible to understand how all actions and all
events may be written down (speaking metaphorically) in the Book of
God's _remembrance_, and so be brought into judgment.

{48}

The universality and the character of the future judgment are declared
in Rev. xx. 11-13, with particular reference to the presence and
majesty of "One who sat on a great white throne," who, doubtless, is
God the Father, the Creator of heaven and earth. The seer says in this
passage, "I saw the dead, small and gr