Wesley Corpus

10. Moreover, faith opens another scene in the eternal world; namely, the coming of our Lord in the clouds of heaven to "judge both the quick and the dead." It enables us to see the "great white throne coming down from heaven, and Him that sitteth thereon, from whose face the heavens and the earth flee away, and there is found no place for them." We see "the dead, small and great, stand before God." We see "the books opened, and the dead judged, according to the things that are written in the books." We see the earth and the sea giving up their dead, and hell (that is, the invisible world)"giving up the dead that were therein, and everyone judged according to his works. 11. By faith we are also shown the immediate consequences of the general judgment. We see the execution of that happy sentence pronounced upon those on the right hand, "Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world!" After which the holy angels tune their harps, and sing, "Lift up your heads, O ye gates, and be ye lifted up, ye everlasting doors, that the heirs of glory may come in!" And then shall they drink of the rivers of pleasure that are at God's right hand for evermore. We see, likewise, the execution of that dreadful sentence, pronounced upon those on the left hand, "Depart, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels." And then shall the ministers of divine vengeance plunge them into "the lake of fire burning with brimstone; where they have no rest day or night, but the smoke of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever."