4. The persons to be judged, who can count any more than the drops of rain, or the sands of the sea? I beheld, saith St. John, a great multitude which no man can number, clothed with white robes, and palms in their hands.How immense then must be the total multitude, of all nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues? Of all that have sprung from the loins of Adam, since the world began, till time shall be no more? If we admit the common supposition, which seems no ways absurd, that the earth bears at any one time, no less than four hundred millions, of living souls, men women and children: what a congregation must all those generations make, who have succeeded each other for seven thousand years?
“Great Xerxes world in arms, proud Cannæ’s host,
They all are here: and here they all are lost.
Their numbers swell to be discerned in vain;
Lost as a drop in the unbounded main.”
* Every man, every woman, every infant of days that ever breathed the vital air, will then hear the voice of the Son of God, and start into life, and appear before him. And this seems to be the natural import of that expression, the dead, small and great: all universally, all without exception, all of every age, sex or degree; all that ever lived and died, or underwent such a change as will be equivalent with death. For long before that day the phantom of human greatness disappears and sinks into nothing. Even in the moment of death, thatvanishes away. Who is rich or great in the grave?
5. And every man shall there give an account of his own works, yea, a full and true account, of all that he ever did while in the body, whether it was good or evil. O what a scene will then be disclosed, in the sight of angels and men! While, not the fabled Radamanthus, but the Lord God Almighty, who knoweth all things in heaven and earth,
Castigatque auditque dolos; subigitque fateri
Quæ quis apud superos, furto lætatus inani,
Distulit in seram commissa piacula mortem.