'The very doctrine of St. Peter concerning the last day of judgement': Bishop Bull on the Last Judgement and the Psalms

In the previous extract from Bishop Bull's sermon 'The Vanity of this Life, the Eternity of the next', we saw how he pointed to Psalm 1 as declaring the judgement that is to come. Here he also turns to Psalm 102 as an example of the Psalter proclaiming the Last Judgement, particularly seeing in Ps.102:25f "the very doctrine of St. Peter" concerning the end of the ages. Again, it is a reminder to us that to pray the Psalter, not least in these days of Advent, is to be called to prepare for the "dissolution of this present world":

In the time of the captivity lived the penman of the 102d Psalm, as clearly appears from the thirteenth and following verses; and he is thought by some learned interpreters to have been Nehemiah. But whoever was the writer of the Psalm, we have therein a very remarkable passage to our purpose in the twenty-fifth and following verses: "Of old hast Thou laid the foundation of the earth: and the heavens are the work of Thy hands. They shall perish, but Thou shalt endure: yea, all of them shall wax old like a garment; as a vesture shalt Thou change them, and they shall be changed." Here it is most plainly asserted, that as the heavens and the earth were at first created and made by the almighty power of God, so by the same power they shall one day, as to their present constitution, perish and be dissolved; and that a change or new state of things shall ensue.

Now what is this, I beseech you, but the very doctrine of St. Peter concerning the last day of judgment; "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 all the works that are therein, shall be burnt up. Nevertheless we, according to His promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness." Certainly the end or dissolution of this present world, and a future state or world to come, have a necessary connection one with the other, and are both alike matters of divine revelation. Nor can it be imagined why, and to what purpose, the former should be revealed to the sons of men without the latter. But besides, as I have already noted, the words of the Psalmist expressly speak of a "change" of things at the end and dissolution of this present world; such a change, as when a man puts off, folds up, and lays aside an old garment, and puts on a new and fresh one.

(The photograph is of St. Davids Cathedral, Pembrokeshire. Bull was Bishop of St. Davids 1705-10.)

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