The Conflagration of the Earth.
By F. W. Gotch, M. A.
2 Pet. iii, 10. “But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night, 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.” If, with the majority of interpreters, we refer this prediction to the end of the world, to which it seems most naturally to apply, we could not have a more distinct statement of the fact that the present order of things is to be terminated by the world we inhabit and all the works of man it contains being ‘burnt up.’ There is no reason for assuming that the whole material universe is to be involved in this catastrophe; the mention of the heavens leads our thoughts no further than the atmosphere and vapors surrounding this planet. Nor should we regard this conflagration as involving the absolute destruction or annihilation of the world: it is more consistent with the narrative itself, as well as with physical science, to consider it as introductory to a new and better state of things—‘new heavens and a new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness’ (ver. 11). By what means the conflagration is to be effected we are not informed, and all attempts to explain how this is to be accomplished must be mere speculation, into which we do not think it necessary or advantageous to enter. We have only at present to remark that such an event is not inconsistent with physical facts. We know that the temperature of the earth increases gradually and with considerable regularity as we descend below the surface (Phillips, Geology, vol. ii, p. 232), and have every reason to believe that the central mass is intensely hot. We know, moreover, that there are subterranean fires of great extent, if not forming a part of this heated central mass. The means, therefore, of combustion are near at hand. But even if there were no such central heat, chemistry points out very easy means by which the conflagration may be effected through the agency of various elementary substances. Phillips, Geology, vol. ii, p. 211.—F. W. Gotch, M. A.