THE THREE WORLDS | AdventAI

Publishing Committee · Rochester, N. Y. · Nov 14, 1854

THE THREE WORLDS.

The past, the present, and the future. These are the three all-embracing divisions of events and things, through which human imagination and human research pursue their course. The past—dim, shadowy and obscure; the present—restless, changeful and inconstant; and the future—vast, portentous and uncertain; these furnish a field for the widest wanderings of those thoughts that roam throughout eternity—for the farthest stretch of human imaginations.

But whether we inquire concerning the past, the present or the future, we find ourselves surrounded by numberless perplexities. History is brief in its extent, meagre in its details, and often contradictory in its declarations. Opinion, as it regards the present condition of earthly affairs, is vague, various and conflicting. And the veil of futurity hangs its gloomy folds over the obscure, the mysterious, the unknown hereafter.

Surrounded then, as we are, by uncertainty and anxiety, longing for a more definite apprehension of human history and of human destiny, we invoke external aids to assist us in pursuing the object of our desires. Navigating this stormy and tempestuous sea, we desire a chart to inform us of our locality, and look forth for some guiding star to direct our course. Groping in a dark and devious pathway, we seek anxiously for some lamp which shall illuminate our footsteps, and conduct us to a peaceful termination of our wearied journey.

That chart is granted us! That star we can see! That lamp is placed within our hand. It is the Word of God—the transcript of the divine will and mind—the certified and attested copy of the things “noted in” those awful “Scriptures of Truth” which mortal eye has never gazed upon, and upon which the hand of mortal was never laid. By this, alone, we thread the mazes of the intricate past. By this we correctly estimate the inconstant present. By this, too, we behold as through a glass the dim and shadowy future, revealed in bold and striking outline, thrilling us by its terror, cheering us by its beauty, or entrancing us with its sublime and resplendent majesty.

The Word of God, in its historical records, its declarations, and its prophetic delineations, brings to our view three worlds, with which human destiny has been, is, and is to be connected. These worlds, existing in successive and consecutive chronological periods, distinctly separated from each other by unmistakable periods and processes of transition, are termed “The World that then was,” “The Heavens and Earth that now are,” and “The World to come,” or “The new Heavens and the new Earth.” To sketch, briefly, these worlds in their origin, progress, and course, is the object of the present writing.

What occurred prior to “the beginning,” an account of which we find in the opening pages of Divine revelation, it is neither important nor possible for us to ascertain. Beyond that landmark, eternity expands its vast extent. There we may conjecture, but we cannot affirm. The silent depths of the eternal Past are unfathomed and unfathomable.

“In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” This is the sublime announcement of the world’s origin. “He spake, and it was DONE. He commanded, and it stood fast.” At His word, a flood of light burst in upon the heaving mass, that lay formless and unfurnished beneath the overshadowing wings of night. His mandate gathered the waters together, shut up the sea with doors, made the cloud the garment thereof, and the darkness its swaddling bands. He established his decree upon it, saying, “Hitherto shall thou come, but no farther; and here shall thy proud waves be stayed.” His word established the earth in strength, and robed it in verdure and beauty, while trees of God’s own planting stood, in all the magnificence of Paradise, on every hand. Above, the stars and planets were marshalled at his call; by day, a flood of glory, and by night, a still, calm radiance fell softly on the new made world. At His voice, earth teemed with life. The noble forests and the verdant fields were peopled with hosts of living ones. Gay birds, of beauteous wing and melodious note, were waving their sun-lit pinions and trilling their gushing songs; and the blue and silent waters of the mighty deep were swarming with ten thousand things of life and joy, from the mighty leviathan to the smallest creature that played and gamboled amid the riplings of the sparkling waters.

And when the mighty work was accomplished, and a new province, created for the glory of God’s name, was added to His vast dominion—when the seal of perfection was set upon it all, then God created its ruler and lord. Moulded of clay, formed in the image of God, enlivened by the breath of the Almighty, and receiving at his hands the sceptre of universal dominion, he became the ruler over all the world. The gay phantom of universal dominion so often pursued by mad ambition, was here a sober reality. To Adam were committed the reins of government. Earth was his dominion, and all its multitudinous inhabitants were his peaceful and rejoicing subjects.

“And the Lord God saw EVERY THING that was made, and behold it was VERY GOOD.” Our ideas of good are relative, not absolute. To the savage, his hut is good; it affords him shelter from the storm. To the peasant, his cottage is good; it is his joy-lit home. To the hunted Christian, the cave is good; it is a hiding place from foes. To the warrior, his castle is good; it is a tower of strength. To the king, a palace is good; it is the repository of regal magnificence. To the Hebrew, the temple was good; for a day in its courts was better than a thousand. But what must that be, when the infinite God, dwelling

in the heavenly abodes of light and glory, could look with approval upon it, and pronounce it “very good.”

How pure such a world must be—how holy, how full of peace and love; how sweet the rich beauty of its landscapes, and how perfect the character of all its inhabitants, ere God, beholding all, could pronounce it “very good.” It was very good. The earth was good, as it expanded in firmness and beauty—the abode of the creatures of God. The sea was good, as it glittered in the sunbeams, or rippled like a flood of molten gold beneath the breathing of the evening zephyr and the shining of the setting sun. The sun was good, as it declared the glory of the Lord, and went forth in its diurnal splendor to illuminate the world. The moon was good, as it walked in its brightness, mellowing all around with its silver light, and shedding a softened glory through the star-lit heavens. The animate creation were good, as they dwelt in peaceful companionship, yielding obedience to their common Lord. Adam was good, as he stood erect in all the majesty of manhood, imaging forth in his noble countenance the glory of his Creator. Everything was good, and at the conclusion of Creation’s week, God’s Sabbath—earth’s first day of solemn rest—sat like a crown of light upon the wondrous week, hallowing, calming, and sanctifying all around.

Thus was earth created, and, as if this was not enough to reveal the fullness of Divine beneficence, away in the eastward, amid the spice-laden trees and flowery fields of Eden, beneath the first beams of the rising sun, God planted a beauteous garden.

We have heard of the royal gardens of antiquity; we have seen the gardens of the rich, where wealth, and art, and taste, and pride united to lavish all their beauties on some little spot of earth. But what are these gardens, with their stately trees, with their gorgeous flowers, with their sparkling waters and their verdant banks, compared with that beauteous work of God? On that virgin soil grew “every tree that was pleasant to the sight, and good for food.” How stately were the palms of Paradise! How beauteous the orange-laden groves! How rich the pending fruits! How gay and glorious the flowers! How sweet the floating fragrance of the sighing zephyr! How soft the murmur of the passing breeze! How brilliant the gushing music of the fair-winged birds! How fair the Tree of Life, with its monthly fruits and its healing leaves! How bright the waters of that crystal river, that spread perpetual beauty on its verdant banks, and rolled its divided waters to the far-off regions of Havilah, Ethiopia and Assyria! Ah! those were happy days, when this garden stood like a gem of unfading beauty upon the peaceful bosom of the world that then was.

We have tried to imagine some of the glories of that world. Shall we dwell upon its ruin? Shall we speak of the entrance of sin; of the consequent guilt, and shame, and condemnation; of the sorrow and remorse of those erring ones who go forth in tears from that fair abode; of the dazzling glare of the flaming sword, and of the majestic glory of the guardian cherubim? Shall we mark the disorder that reigned from that fatal hour when Jehovah said, “Cursed is the ground for thy sake?” The fields of Paradise a tangled mass of thorns and thistles—the flowers fading, the leaves drooping, the beauty fleeting, the strength decaying; the beasts howling, and roaming far and near in their thirst for blood; the winds wailing and moaning amid the upturned trees; dark masses of clouds rolling angrily about the sky, and all nature giving signs of commotion and unrest. Shall we follow man through his life of toil, and misery, and anguish, and woe, and guilt, and sin, and fear, and trembling, and infirmity, and sickness, and old age, until finally he sinks into the darkness of a dishonored grave? Alas! the picture is too dreary for our lengthened contemplation, and we cannot forbear a sigh as we behold the fair image of God reduced by sin and death to corruption and to dust. “By one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin, and so death passed upon all men.”

The subsequent history of “the world that then was” is brief, but sad in the extreme. The first-born of earth was a murderer, and the second was a martyr. Generation succeeded generation, and degeneracy and sin marked the protracted periods of their misspent lives. A few holy men stood forth as lights shining in a dark place, holding forth the truth of God; but they were like the oasis in the desert, the island in the sea, or the faint glimmering of a single star amid the blackening rage of the midnight tempest. Of one of these it is recorded, that he walked with God for many years, and after predicting the advent of the Lord, with ten thousand of his holy ones, he passed gently away from earth, unharmed and unhindered by the hand of death, and the simple record of his departure was, “God took him.” But the common character and the common lot of mankind were widely different. The prevailing tendency of human character and of human purpose from the beginning, was from good to bad, and from bad to worse. There were men of might, and honor, and renown, before whom men couched in terror, or bowed in suppliance, but the penetrating glance of the All-seeing One beheld “that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and every imagination of his heart was only evil every day.” The earth was corrupt—all flesh had corrupted its way, and the earth was filled with violence. This was the result of man’s revolt—this the return for the Divine indulgence which had lengthened out his hour of probation. Throughout the world sin had spread like some loathsome pestilence, and scarcely an individual had escaped its polluting power.

Amid this world-wide transgression, one person was “found righteous”—one man was “just and perfect in all his ways”—one man walked with God, and notwithstanding the surrounding impiety, found grace in the eyes of the Lord. He alone was found worthy to escape the things that were coming on the earth. He was selected as the only proper medium for the communion of the Divine will and the Divine warnings to mankind. In his ear the mysterious whisperings of the Eternal Spirit could find audience. His obedient heart would heed them and obey them. Accordingly he was warned of approaching danger. His eye, anointed by the Holy Ghost, foresaw the approaching deluge; and moved with fear, he not only warned others and preached faithfully to the world, but he prepared an Ark for the saving of himself and house. Thus he condemned the world. Thus he was justified before God, and became heir of the righteousness which is by faith.

But the same spirit of disobedience which invoked the righteous indignation of God upon that race

closed their ears against the warnings of the Almighty, and sealed their eyes to the denunciations of approaching and impending danger. Hence the hours that might, well filled with penitence, have averted the dread calamity, were employed in filling up the cup of sins to its brim, and in heaping up iniquity before Jehovah, thus treasuring up wrath against the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God.

Swiftly the appointed day sped on. Men pursued their ceaseless round of business, sin, and pleasure, forgetting that they were wearing out the last brief moments of divine forbearance and of human probation, and thus braving the vengeance of the Almighty.

Let us sit down within the Ark. The family of Noah are there, and the animate creation have their representatives. The door is closed by an invisible hand, and now we wait the departure of the last hours of human probation and impiety. How solemn that last week! The dying hour of a single sinner, or the execution of one criminal, is enough to chill the stoutest heart. But what emotions swell within us as we mark the solemn march of probation’s departing hours, and await the execution of a guilty world? How dread the suspense! how breathless the anxiety!

The world goes on as usual. The farmer in his field, the merchant in his shop, the drunkard at his cups, the reveler at his revelry, and the sinner at his sin. Violence and strife and iniquity roll on in resistless current, the world is given up to destruction, and yet fears no danger. What a scene! to-night a world’s feast, to-morrow a world’s funeral! To-night a world’s revel, to-morrow a world’s ruin. To-night a world’s exultation, to-morrow a world’s execution! To-night a world’s debauch, to-morrow a world’s destruction!

The last day dawns. . . . The laborer goes to his toil, the tradesman pursues his calling, the murderer marks his victim, the robber watches for the unwary, the harlot gads about in gay attire, the drunkard cracks his maudlin joke about Noah’s Ark, little children join in mockery of the man of God, men shake their heads and say, We’re safe enough, and Noah will feel different to-morrow. But hark! The swelling echoes of the distant thunder. . . . See! swift as the eagle’s flight, vast inky clouds roll up the sky. Earth rocks like a storm-tossed vessel beneath the blackening heavens, and on every hand the ground swells and yawns beneath our feet. Who can depict the scene? The floodgates of heaven are opened—the foundations of earth are broken up—the deep rolls up its floods—the waves roar—the winds howl—the clouds gather—the rains descend—the lightnings blaze—the thunders bellow—sinners wail—joy perishes—hope expires—and all above, beneath and around is one wild scene of confusion, darkness, anguish and dismay.

What a funeral! The funeral of a godless world! The wide earth was their burial place—the rushing wave their winding-sheet—the swelling thunders their funeral knell—the hanging clouds their gloomy pall—and the mourners—who are they? Were they too those eight lonely survivors who surveyed in safety the terrific scene? Were they not the angels who once shouted for joy over that now ruined earth? Ay! and was there not sadness in the very heavens, and did it not repent the Lord that he had made man upon the earth?

What a night succeeded that fearful day! No sun, no moon, no stars; no peace, no joy, no hope; but one dread scene of alternate blackness and brightness, of gleaming lightnings, and of booming thunders, of falling torrents and of rushing waves. How different from the previous night! What a change from the music, mirth and blasphemy which were then wide as the world, to the awful roar of deep calling unto deep and thunder answering thunder. So suddenly were they cut off! so fearful did the storm break in upon their carnal slumbers! Shall I anticipate? Shall I drop a warning in the careless reader’s ear? Hear it! “As it was in the days that were before the flood, they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered into the ark, and knew not until the flood came and destroyed them all, so also shall the coming of the Son of man be.”

That flood closed the history of that dispensation and of that world. This is distinctly affirmed by the Apostle who declares that “The WORLD that then was, being overflowed by water, PERISHED.” 2 Pet. iii, 6. The history of that world is a sad one, as we have seen. Good at first, evil at last. Created by God for man’s happiness—cursed by God for man’s transgression—and destroyed by God for man’s ungodliness. Alas, that we should be constrained to say that it furnished but too true an index of human character—always progressive, but progressive towards ruin, always advancing, but advancing to destruction.

A year passed away, and on the towering summit of Mount Ararat, from the door of a strange and weather-beaten structure, there came forth (with no scoffer to interrupt them) a solitary family, to stand upon the bosom of a new world. Every thing around was strange. Nothing familiar was visible. Paradise and everything else which reminded man of the days of human innocence and primeval happiness, had been “pushed by the horned flood” into the watery depths, or buried amid the ruins of some upturned mountain; while the marine remains scattered every where around, gave evidence that the highest summits once lay beneath the level wave, and the whole wide landscape was but a memorial of God’s disapprobation of sin and iniquity.