Deuteronomy xxxi. 22. Notwithstanding that the verses which immediately follow this passage in Deuteronomy describe the temporal calamities of the Jews, by which they should be justly overtaken for their sins, we think it evident that it relates to the same period which forms the subject of the present Chapter. In the two preceding verses, the Lord declares that he would "hide his face from them," and "see what their END" should "be." This is partly fulfilled, and partly to be accomplished, as has been fully described in preceding portions of this work. Moreover, the Lord says, that he would "move them to jealousy with those which are not a people, and provoke them to anger with a foolish nation," clearly predicting the Roman empire; i. e., “ divided,” (as Daniel interpreted the vision of Nebuchadnezzar,) or, as "iron mixed with miry clay,—partly strong and partly broken,” (or, brittle,) “not cleaving one to another,"-i. e., the ten kingdoms represented by the toes of the image. Thus, after having seen or guided them by his providence to their final destination,after having moved and provoked them to sustain the knowledge of himself amid the idolatries and persecutions of the Roman empire, and throughout the world,-after having moved them in the end, more emphatically to proclaim the Lord Jesus Christ, "the true God and eternal life,"-he then foreshows, that "a fire is kindled in" his "anger, which shall burn unto the lowest hell, and shall consume the earth with her increase, and set on fire the foundations of the mountains,"--and this, as we think, immediately preceding and operating the renovation of all things.

Psalm civ. 35. Let sinners be consumed out of the earth, and let the wicked be no more.

Psalm xcvii. 3-5. A fire goeth before him, and burneth up his

enemies round about. His lightnings enlightened the world: the earth saw, and trembled. The hills melted like wax at the pre

sence of the LORD, at the presence of the LORD of the whole earth. "The fatal period, the great hour is come,

And Nature shrinks at her approaching doom.
Black rising clouds the thickened ether choke,
And spiry flames dart through the rolling smoke.

From heaven's four regions with immortal force,
Angels drive on the wind's impetuous course
T'enrage the flame; it spreads, it soars on high,
Swells in the storm, and billows through the sky :
Here winding pyramids of fire ascend;

Cities and deserts in one ruin blend."

See also Heb. x. 27; Matt. xIII. 40-42, 49, 50; Rev. vi. 12-17; 1 Sam. 11. 10; Psalm CXLV. 20; xxxvii. 22, 28; Prov. x. 30; Rev. xi. 18.

2 Peter 111. 7, 10-12. The heavens and the earth, which are now,

are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men. . . . But the day of the Lord will come, &c., in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up.

"There is not only the most terrible sublimity and solemn grandeur, but also much philosophical propriety in the description 'given us by the apostle Peter' of the awful dissolution of the heavens and the earth; when 'The heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat.' As the heavens mean here the whole atmosphere, in which all the terrestrial vapours are lodged; and as water itself is composed of two gases, oxygen and hydrogen; and as the electric or ethereal fire, is probably that which God will employ in the general conflagration; the noise occasioned by the application of this fire to such an immense congeries of aqueous particles

as float in the atmosphere, must be terrible to the extreme, A piece of iron, red hot, placed over a drop of water on an anvil, and struck with a hammer above the drop, will cause a report as loud as a musket: when, then, the whole strength of these opposite agents is brought into a state of conflict, the noise, the thunderings, and innumerable explosions, (till every particle of water on the earth and the atmosphere, is, by the action of the fire, reduced to its component gaseous parts,) will be frequent, loud, confounding, and terrific beyond every comprehension but that of God Himself. When the fire has thus conquered and decomposed the water, the elements, σTOLKEia, the hydrogen and oxygen airs, or gases, will occupy distinct regions of the atmosphere; the hydrogen by its great levity ascending to the top, while the oxygen by its superior gravity will keep upon, or near, the surface of the earth; and thus, if different substances be once ignited, the fire which is supported in this case not only by oxygen, which is one of the constituents of atmospheric air, but also by a great additional quantity of oxygen obtained from the decomposition of all the aqueous vapours, will rapidly seize on all other substances, on all terrestrial particles, and the whole frame of nature will necessarily be torn in peices; and thus the earth and its works be burnt up.' It is probable, however, they will merely be all separated and decomposed, but none of them destroyed. And as they are the original matter out of which God formed the terraqueous globe, they may enter again into the composition of a new system; and therefore the apostle says, 'We look for a new heaven and a new earth' the other being decomposed, and a new system will be formed from their materials. Seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought we

to be in all holy conversation and godliness, looking for and hasting unto the coming' (or, hasting the coming) of the day of God.""*

This "may strike the imagination," says Mr. Fry, "as if the solid globe were to be reduced to a cinder, or dissipated into gaseous fluids!" It "has indeed startled the minds of some, and led them to state the difficulty, as to how the remnant of Israel, and of the other nations of the earth, are to be saved in such an overwhelming destruction!

'The elements shall melt with fervent heat;' yet God can speedily recreate, and from his all-melting laboratory throw out new combinations, as fast as he dissolves the former. And in the midst of all he can make a way to escape, where he is pleased to spare.

"St. Peter compares this conflagration to the universal deluge. We know the scheme of Providence, which on that occasion preserved a small remnant, when all flesh perished in the waters, and 'the earth was turned as clay to the seal.' So in this approaching destruction and reproduction by fire, though it be, in a manner, as universal, and to some guilty nations as destructive, as the 'waters of Noah,' yet God can rule and moderate the whole, and, as he speaks, 'put discernment in the meteors of heaven.' If the body of the fourth empire' is given to the burning flame,' and in other regions the earth be burnt up and few men left,' yet in other cases, the fiery element may be more tempered in its developements, and notwithstanding the electrical phenomena of the blazing sky, the fearful sights in the heavens, with the disemboguing of the central fires, which so often shake the earth; in this general wreck of nature, many may have cause 'to glorify God in the fires.' On ex*Dr. Blackwall.

tensive continents, for aught we know, such vast general results may be so soon produced, and by such a process, that the lives of multitudes, both of men and beasts, will have been preserved." See Luke xxI. 36.*

"In the most tremendous convulsions of the elements,

even over the very centre of the subterranean force which has produced the greatest earthquakes, and has been sufficient to change the face of nature in very extensive districts, all have not, on every occasion, perished. Though the earth has opened her mouth at no great distance, and swallowed down thousands and ten thousands of human beings, other cities have stood unimpaired, or received but a partial overthrow. Thus we read expressly, that in that earthquake which attends the coming of the Redeemer, when his feet shall stand on the Mount of Olives, and that mountain be rent, and flow down at his presence, and as it should seem, those new formations begin to take place, which are to renew the surface of the Holy Land, and make the desolate places like the garden of Eden,-we expressly read, on this occasion, Ye shall even flee as ye fled from the earthquake in the days of Uzziah, king of Judah.' Zech. XIV. 5. This may be but a specimen of what takes place in 'divers places.' In some regions of the earth, indeed, we know the destruction will be entire; and no blessed reproduction is promised, but a perpetual scene of desolation remains. 'He shall stretch over her the

line of ruin, and the plummet of desolation.' No sound of a rejoicing, no sound of an inhabitant or busy multitude,

"The atmospheric heavens shall be dissolved, and their elements shall melt with fervent heat, yet the perishing of the earth in this instance by fire is put in contrast with that destruction by the waters of the flood."-Begg's Scriptural Evidence.

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