s no
intimation that any events shall intervene between the casting of the
devil into the burning lake, and the appearing of the Judge.

The "great white throne" is suitable to the majesty and holiness of the
Judge. He is not at first called by any name, for "every eye shall see,"
and seeing, recognise his divine dignity. In the next verse he is styled
God, not to identify him, but as a matter of course in the
narrative.--No sooner did the Judge take his seat, than "the earth and
the heaven fled away." The simplicity and sublimity of this language are
inimitable by human genius; and rarely if at all equalled, even by those
who spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost. The first inspired
writer uses language very similar. (Gen. i. 3.) We are frequently and
sufficiently taught that the Lord Christ in person is to be the judge of
quick and dead. (Acts xvii. 31.) "All must appear before the judgment
seat of Christ." (2 Cor. v. 10.) No person is competent to this work of
judgment but one who is omniscient and omnipotent, not to speak of other
divine perfections. The "Judge of all the earth" is a divine person,
possessed of all the attributes of deity; and as there is not _now_
among apostate angels, so there will not _then_ be a child of Adam, to
_deny the supreme deity of Jesus Christ_. (Matt. viii. 29.) Of this he
gave intimation at the beginning of the Apocalypse:--"Every eye shall
see him, and they also which pierced him," (ch. i. 7;) yes, they pierced
him for _blasphemy_, "because that he, being a man, made himself God."
(John x. 33.) Here the Judge on the throne demonstrates to an assembled
universe, the scriptural warrant for the language of the Reformers when
they say he is "very God, and very man." "God is judge himself," (Ps. l.
6,) in the person of the Father; but "he hath appointed a day in the
which _he_ will judge the world in righteousness, by that _man_ whom he
hath ordained."--(Acts xvii. 31.)

Before the righteous Judge "shall be gathered all nations," (Matt. xxv.
32,) all that have ever lived upon the earth, from the creation till the
end of time, all ranks and degrees, however diversified by sex, age, or
social position; righteous and wicked, Jews and Gentiles, Herod and
Pontius Pilate, Cain and Abel, Judas, etc.

In order to this general assize, "the dead shall hear the voice of the
Son of God," (John v. 25, 28, 29;) "and many of them that sleep in the
dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasti