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"THINGS WHICH MUST SHORTLY COME TO PASS."

REVELATION i. 1.

No XIII. (Continued from February.)

BEFORE, however, considering the new heavens and the new earth, let us contemplate awhile the heavenlies and the glory of our new home there, as best we can from the description given us of Jerusalem descended, and what John saw her to be. Set forth under the similitude of "a city that lieth foursquare, the length, and the breadth, and the height of it equal," we discern an aggregate of living stones, square every way and mathematically true-men whose ways are equal-always square and square all ways, earth's true nobility, each a temple of the living God, and together God's building, an habitation for God, in which He will eternally dwell, and through whom He will eternally shine. Once in nature's quarry they were in due. time quarried, and roughly hewn awhile with hammer and chisel, plumbline and square in the hand of our Zerubbabel, they have become fitted to His purpose and their place in the great building. Not all of one size, but all in like proportion, squared each to its fellow-stone, angles are no more; the angular selfhood has, under the action of the fire, been burnt out of them, or by the hammer chipped and chiselled off them, and by long continued friction becoming polished stones, they have at length been placed by God, according to His great plan, a fitting stone for every place, and a fitting place for every stone. For " now hath God set the members, every one of them, in the body as it hath pleased Him." And, in the names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb inscribed on the twelve foundations, and, in the names of the twelve tribes of Israel inscribed on the twelve gates, we see the household of faith united and recognised as forming one bride. No longer two folds or two flocks, but one flock under one shepherd. And the building of lively stones, having Jesus Christ himself for the chief corner stone, into whom the stones are built and fitly framed we see the building now in its completeness grown unto an holy temple in the Lord, having the glory of God in such sort and degree as to render each stone transparent; its light like unto a stone most precious, even like a jasper stone, clear as crystal." No temple is here, no candle is here, for every stone is a temple of transparent light and beauty, "the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple of it," neither hath it "need of the sun or of the moon to shine in it, for the glory of God doth lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof." What its wall great and high can mean, we must wait to see; what "pure gold like unto clear glass" means, we must wait to see; what "the measurement of a man, that is, of the angel," can mean, we must wait to see; whether twelve thousand furlongs bears any proportion to fifteen hundred miles square, as the extent

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and limit of the city, may be understood literally, we must wait to see. But, with three gates northward, eastward, southward, and westward, we see that " they shall come from the north, the east, the south, and the west, to sit down with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of God," and that their number shall not be few, but many; we see not one gate but three in either wall. That the foundations of the wall are garnished with all manner of precious stones, should make us very tolerant one of another. Not all jaspers, not all sapphires, not all emeralds, but all precious stones, and precious alike to Him, who has paid one price for our redemption. And now, in all their blest variety shining in His light, and radiant with His brightness, for the glory of one God doth lighten it, and one Lamb is the light thereof.

Here Immanuel will hold his Court, and thither will saints as kings and priests resort for high commission, and thence go forth to fulfil His high behests. And in glorified bodies, no longer bound by time or space, they shall traverse the infinite, rapid as light or thought, on their errands for the king. When needful to converse with men in the flesh, they shall be able to make themselves appear as did our Lord on His way to Emmaus, and anon to vanish out of sight. Thus, holding His Court in Jerusalem descended, and sitting on the throne of His father David in Jerusalem restored, He shall in the persons of His saints "have dominion from sea to sea, and from the river to the ends of the earth." For then shall"the saints be joyful in glory, the high praises of God in their mouth, and a two-edged sword in their hand, to execute vengeance on the heathen, and punishments upon the people, to bind their kings with chains, and their nobles with fetters of iron, to execute upon them the judgment written; this honour have all His saints. Thus will He beautify the meek with salvation, and the Lord will take pleasure in His people." (Ps. cxlix.) Long has been the testimony of the Holy Spirit to the true worshippers" Ye are come," but, hitherto, in spirit only. Now, shall it be manifestly true that we are come unto Mount Zion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly and church of the first-born, which are written in heaven, and to (more than) the spirits of just men made perfect, for then shall spirit, soul, and body complete our glorified manhood.

Egypt and Tyre and Greek and Jew,
Shall here begin their lives anew,
Angels and men shall join to sing,

The hill where living waters spring.

So much for the Jerusalem descended, but suspended over Jerusalem restored, after the manner of the cloud overshadowing Israel in the wilderness, a cloud by day and a fire by night, ever visible, verifying the name of the city Jehovah-Shammah, The Lord is there. (Ezek. xlviii. 35.)

Now, let us consider millennial glory, in its sevenfold aspect, as it shall affect Jerusalem restored, and the material earth, of which it will be the City Metropolitan.

1st. In relation to the heavenly bodies and the atmosphere surrounding our planet. As chief among these heavenly bodies we notice first the sun and the moon, concerning which we read, "the moon shall be confounded and the sun ashamed." (Isa. xxiv. 23.) And, again, "the sun shall be no more thy light by day, neither for brightness shall the moon give light to thee, but the Lord shall be unto thee an everlasting light, and thy God thy glory." (Isa. lx. 19.) And then immediately following, "Thy sun shall no more go down, neither shall thy moon withdraw itself,"-this we take to be figurative of joy and peace, because it is added-“ for the Lord shall be thine everlasting light, and the days of thy mourning shall be ended." But then, again, we read the light of the moon shall be as the light of the sun, and the light of the sun sevenfold, as the light of seven days, in the day that the Lord bindeth up the breach of his people, and healeth the stroke of their wound." (Isa. xxx. 26.)

From all which we understand that the glory of Jerusalem descended will exceed that of the sun and moon; shining by night with a brilliance approaching that of the sun, and by day with the brightness of a sevenfold sun. And thus the sun would no more be needed by Jerusalem restored, neither for brightness would the moon give light to it. But, for the earth at large, the sun would still be its light by day, and the moon by night; no change would appear in the laws affecting them or their relations to the earth.

In the promise of "new heavens and new earth" (Isa. lxv. 17), we understand the earth and the atmosphere surrounding it to exist under new conditions, and subject to new laws. And whether the glory of Jerusalem descended will be a presence of heat as well as of light we can only suggest. But if rivers are to be opened in high places and fountains in valleys, where hitherto they have not been, so that the wilderness shall become a pool of water, and dry land springs of water; if He will plant in the wilderness the cedar, the shittah tree, and the myrtle, and the oil tree; if in the desert He will set the fir tree and the pine and the box tree together, that men "may see and know and consider and understand together that the hand of the Lord hath done this, and the Holy One of Israel hath created it" (Isa. xli. 18-20); if the wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad, the desert rejoice and blossom as the rose; if the glory of Lebanon shall be given to it, the excellency of Carmel and Sharon" (Isa. xxxv. 1, 2); well, then, may we expect such results to be accomplished by considerable changes in the laws that at present prevail. Moreover, the removal of the curse from the earth, from man and from beast, so that creation shall cease its groaning-expressed in thorns and thistles, fell diseases, and ravening wolves-appears to necessitate some material

change in the atmosphere upon which all life depends. But more of this anon, for we are far from thinking that He who framed the laws that now exist, has environed Himself by those laws, or exhausted His resources for framing others when need appears.

2nd. In relation to art and science.

Whether the fiery ordeal, through which the world and its inhabitants shall pass in the day of the Lord's anger, will utterly destroy the treasures of art and literature with which the libraries and museums of the earth's great centres abound may be fairly questioned, God's and man's estimate of true worth so widely differing. But in Isa. ii. 15, 16, we read that "the day of the Lord shall be upon every high tower, and upon every fenced wall, and upon all the ships of Tarshish, and upon all pleasant pictures, and the idols He shall utterly abolish "" things of desire" (see margin). Whether these words contain sentence upon books and pictures and sculpture, the day must declare. That there are books, pictures, and sculptures, too, that righteous and pure-minded men would destroy now if they could, there need be no more question than that their teaching and tendency is immoral and corrupt. That the day of the Lord will be upon all such we cannot doubt, but that the vandalism of Cromwell and his Ironsides, in their earnest but mistaken zeal, which turned cathedrals into stables, and demolished sculptured sepulchres, will be repeated, we think not. Whether the structures of ages long past and recently restored, with others newly raised in our own day, will abide still and become consecrated to the worship of the Most High, delivered from all the false and idol worship with which too many now abound, will be a question of deep interest to antiquaries. That some of the structures about which will ever cling most hallowed memories, and some of the compositions in music and literature, little less than divine, might be spared to see the light of millennial glory we could even desire; to say nothing of the Bible in its hundred-fold form of arrangement and dialect, the monument of many laborious lives. That varieties of dialect will continue long into the period now under consideration we think unlikely, for we read, "then I will turn to the people a pure language, that they may all call upon the name of the Lord to serve him with one consent." (Zeph. iii. 9.) And if Israel restored, as priests of the Lord and ministers of our God, shall go forth unto the nations, "to Tarshish, Pul, and Lud, that draw the bow, to Tubal and Javan, to the isles afar off," and these from their far-off distance shall eventually send delegates, who "shall go up from year to year to worship the King the Lord of Hosts, to keep the feast of tabernacles" at Jerusalem, it is most reasonable to think that one lip in a pure language shall express that praise.

But that art in music, painting, sculpture, and literature, will obtain development in millennial times far in advance of any preceding age we doubt not. More especially when the pen, pencil,

and chisel shall be in hands clean, the instruments of minds pure, expressive only of the beautiful and true in God and man. When heaven-born art shall be no more an earth-bound slave, degraded to minister to man's worst passions; for what else is the choicest work of art in painting or sculpture which, when executed, is veiled or ought to be? That the temple built at Jerusalem, after the pattern shown to Ezekiel, will be a gem of architecture the world has never yet seen we doubt not. That the power of locomotion by land and sea will be some element more subtle than steam, and more readily applied than with our present cumbrous machinery, we doubt not. That the marvels of electricity shall be known and applied with perfect success there need be no doubt. That the new atmosphere surrounding us will conduct sound with the rapidity of light may be among its possibilities. And Jerusalem restored shall be the college that shall send forth its tutors for the regeneration of the nations afar off, so fulfilling their high destiny as God's witnesses among men. Already are we indebted to the Hebrew race for some of our finest compositions of music in modern times. Mr. Disraeli, in his "Life of Lord George Bentinck," written thirty years ago, inquires, "Who are the great composers who hereafter will rank with Homer, with Sophocles, with Praxiteles, or with Phidias? They are the descendants of those Arabian tribes who conquered Canaan, and who, by favour of the Most High, have done more with less means than even the Athenians. Forty years ago the two most dishonoured races in Europe were the Attic and the Hebrew, and they were the two races that had done most for mankind. Their fortunes had some similarity; their countries were the two smallest in the world, equally barren and equally famous; they both divided themselves into tribes; both built a most famous temple on an acropolis; and both produced a literature which all European nations have accepted with reverence and admiration. Athens has been oftener sacked than Jerusalem, and oftener rased to the ground, but the Athenians have escaped expatriation, which is purely an oriental custom. The sufferings of the Jews have, however, been infinitely more prolonged and varied than those of the Athenians. Greek, nevertheless, appears exhausted. The creative genius of Israel, on the contrary, never shone so bright; and when the Russian, the Frenchman, and the Anglo-Saxon, amid applauding theatres, or the choral voices of solemn temples, yield themselves to the full spell of a Mozart or a Mendelssohn, it seems difficult to comprehend how these races can reconcile it to their hearts to persecute a Jew." And in these times that we are contemplating we expect to see Mozarts and Mendelssohns multiplied seven or, perhaps, seventy-fold, when music will be a main feature, even as praise shall be the main business of that age; when a fulness of meaning shall be felt as never hitherto, in the words, Make a joyful noise unto God all ye lands, sing forth the

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