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him shall he gathered all nations ; and he shall separate them one from 
another , as a shepherd divideth the sheep from the goats; and he shall set the 
sheep on his right hand, hut the goats on the left ; then shall the king say to 
them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom 
prepared for you from the beginning of the world. 
Now by the sheep on the right hand , we must undoubtedly understand 
the righteous, who are to go fa* M ww, or St. John’s blessed and holy, who 
are to have a part in the first resurrection, and are to reign with Christ a 
thousand years. By the goats on the left , are most assuredly meant those 
Who are to gO tO eig ko\u<u outcvtov J or St. John’s rest of the dead, who are to be 
cast into the lake of fire . 
But that these cannot exist at each side of the judge at one and the 
same time, is evident from this, that the former are to be admitted in 
consequence^ of the sentence passed upon them bis fyw or, as St. John 
says, shall reign with Christ a thousand years, before the rest of the dead, 
the wicked (the goats on the left), shall live again, and of consequence before 
they can become capable of being judged at all. Come, ye blessed of my 
Father, receive the kingdom prepared for you from the beginning of the 
world . Now what other kingdom is it possible our Saviour can here 
mean, than that kingdom in which, St. John tells us, the saints are to reign 
with Christ a thousand years? 
Previous, however, to a possession of their complete state of happiness 
there will be a judgment passed even upon the saints themselves, and all 
those that shall have a share in the first resurrection. Agreeably to which, 
says St. Paul, we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that 
every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he bath 
done, whether it be good or bad. By the pronoun we, the Apostle meant 
to include himself, that eminent church at Corinth, to which he was then 
writing, and all the elect people of Cod; intimating that the end and design 
of Christ’s judging the world would be, in the first place, to distribute 
rewards to him and all the other saints, in proportion to their respective 
deserts. For it is neither necessary, nor even warrantable, to suppose that 
all will arise entitled to the same degree of happiness indiscriminately in the 
kingdom of heaven. 
Again: it will perhaps be urged that St. Paul’s account of the second 
coming of Christ, in his epistle to the Thessalonians, and of the immediate 
consequent effects of it, plainly prove that the righteous will arise at once to 
