Part 3

When John was describing the _City_ in xxi. Rev. he said he saw no temple there "for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the Temple of it." Now Peter and Paul distinctly describe the Saints (not the city) coming to this Mount Zion, and Temple, which makes it perfect and complete. Peter says of his "spiritual house," "Ye also as lively stones, [be ye built--_margin_.] up a spiritual house." 1 Pet. ii: 5. To whom coming as unto a living stone. 4 v. For, says sixth verse, behold I lay in Zion a chief corner stone. (Jesus.) Peter says of this Temple, _be ye built_. Paul says it is _growing_. Read how admirably he describes it to the Ephesians. "Fellow citizens with the Saints, and of the household of God. And are built upon the _foundation_ of the Apostles and _Prophets_," (see John's twelve gates representing the twelve tribes in Rev. xxi: 12; and the twelve Apostles of the Lamb representing the twelve foundations of the wall, 14th verse, which encloses the whole,) Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone, _In whom all the building fitly framed_ GROWETH INTO _an holy Temple in the Lord_; In whom ye also are builded _together_ for an habitation of God. Eph. ii: 19, 22. His Epistle to the Hebrews shows how they are brought together and where. "But ye 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 (enrolled--_margin_) in heaven; And to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect, and to Jesus the Mediator of the new Covenant." Now has not Paul distinctly described _what_ the Saints _shall come to_. O but, say you, we have already come. No, no, friend, you are too fast. Paul will explain: "_Mount Zion_ the _City the Heavenly Jerusalem_ to the innumerable company of Angels (or Cherubims) to the Church of the first born and to God, and to Jesus." xii: 22, 24. Now where? See 25, 28, when he speaketh from heaven. His voice once shook the earth, but now he is about to speak and shake heaven also, wherefore we receiving a kingdom which cannot be moved, (this is after every thing else is moved,) therefore wait until God shall speak in the language of Joel, and "Roar out of Zion and utter his voice from Jerusalem." Paul shows the Corinthians how it is finished. Hear him: "What agreement hath the temple of God with idols? for _ye_ are the _Temple_ of the living God, as God hath said I will dwell in them, and walk in them, and I will be their God and they shall be my people." Then God and Christ and immortal Saints, constitute the Temple in this glorious City of Zion.

I have been thus particular in quoting the Scriptures, in answer to the questions proposed, to endeavor if possible to dispel some of the thick darkness and mist of Shakerism, Quakerism, Swedenborgianism, and all the Spiritualisms that now seem to be settling down all over the moral world, and shutting out even the very light from the horizon. To my mind this spiritualizing system, when God's word admits of a literal interpretation, and--according to rule--the literal first; is, to use a sailor phrase, like a ship groping her way into Boston Bay in the night, in a thick snow with the moon at full. Nothing could be more deceptive to the mariner; the flying clouds at one moment light up the firmament by the thinness of its vapor, (encouraging the mariner to believe that he shall now see the light house) the next moment it grows darker, and so it continues to deceive them, until of a sudden the breakers are roaring all around them--the ship is dashed upon the rocks--one general cry goes aloft for mercy! and all hope is forever gone--ship and mariners strewed all over the beach! Good God! help us to steer clear of these spiritual interpretations of Thy word, where it is made so clear that the second coming and kingdom of Christ will be as literal and real, as the events that transpired at the first Advent, now recorded in history.

When the Saviour comes the second time, it will be with the City, (the Capital of his kingdom) seated upon his throne. Hear him: "When the son of man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, then shall he be _seated_ upon the throne of his _glory_." Matt. xxv. 31. "And the city had no need of the sun--for the glory of God did lighten it, and the lamb is the light thereof." "But the _throne_ of God and the Lamb shall _be in it_." Rev. xxi: 23, and xxii: 3. This _glory_ is none other than the golden City. When "one like the son of man came before the Ancient of days," in Daniel, he received "_Dominion_, and _Glory_, and a _Kingdom_." Glory, signifies worldly splendor, and magnificence. What, I ask, will be more splendid and glorious than this City of Gold poised fifteen hundred miles into the Heavens. The Psalmist cries out in view of it, in this sublime language, "Let thy Glory be above all the earth!" and so it will be; and as his dominion is from sea to sea, and from the rivers unto the ends of the earth, so I believe his _glory_ will be seen from the uttermost border. Other views of the glory of God and Christ do not destroy this. Saint John has connected in one, the "_Holy City_, _New Jerusalem_, _Tabernacle of God_, _Bride the Lambs Wife_, coming down from God, _out of Heaven_ to dwell with his _people_." PROOF--"And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain." "And he that sit upon the throne said, behold I make all things new, and he said unto me write, for these words are true and faithful." Rev. xxi: 4, 5. Is it not clear that the _City_, and the _King_, and _Saints_, are here distinctly described. Why, then, all this shouting about a figurative fulfillment, while yourselves and the world are groping through the "_snow storm_."

THE HEAVENLY JERUSALEM.

The old Prophets looking down through the vista of time to the coming of this heavenly city, break forth in language like the following: "And it shall come to pass that he that is left in _Zion_ and he that remaineth in _Jerusalem_ shall be called holy, even every one that is written among the living in _Jerusalem_." "Then the Moon shall be confounded and the Sun ashamed when the Lord of hosts shall reign in Mount _Zion_ and in _Jerusalem_--(why? because John says they will 'have no need of the sun nor the moon,') and before his ancients gloriously." Who are they? Noah, Abraham and the Prophets. Again: "Look upon _Zion_ the _City_ of our solemnities; thine eye shall see _Jerusalem_ a quiet habitation, a _Tabernacle_ that shall not be taken down; not one of the stakes thereof shall ever be removed." "Break forth into joy, sing together ye waste places of _Jerusalem_ for the Lord hath comforted his people, he hath redeemed _Jerusalem_." "Give no rest till he establish and till he make _Jerusalem_ a praise in the earth." Do they mean old Jerusalem? The Saviour's prediction is against it, "left desolate," its inhabitants "carried away captive and trodden down by the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled." Luke xxi. Further: "But be ye glad and rejoice forever in that which I create, behold I create _Jerusalem_ a rejoicing and her people a joy, and I will rejoice in _Jerusalem_ and joy in my people, and the voice of weeping shall be no more heard in her, nor the voice of crying." Isa. iv: 3; xxiv: 23; xxxiii: 20; lii: 9; lxii: 7; lxv: 18, 19. Also read xl: 1; lii: 1; lx: 14, and xxxv: 10. "At that time they shall call _Jerusalem_ the _throne_ of the Lord, and all the nations shall be gathered into it--neither shall they walk any more after the imagination of their evil heart." "In those days shall Juda be saved and _Jerusalem_ shall dwell _safely_ and this is the name wherewith she shall be called, THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS. For thus saith the Lord, David shall never want a man to set upon the throne of the house of Israel." Jer. iii: 17; xxxiii: 16, 17. "The Lord also shall roar out of _Zion_ and utter his voice from _Jerusalem_, then shall _Jerusalem be holy_, and there shall be no stranger pass through her any more." Joel iii: 16, 17.

Here then, in every instance save one or two, the people of God are connected with the "_Zion_ of God," "_City_ of God," "_Jerusalem_ which is to be in the last days." The Psalmist says, "Glorious things are spoken of thee, O _City_ of God." lxxxvii: 3. John's record is, "Him that overcometh will I make a pillar in the Temple of my God, and he shall go no more out, and I will write upon him the name of my God and the name of the City of my God, (what union, and yet, how distinct!) which is new _Jerusalem_ which cometh down _out_ of heaven from my God, and I will write upon him my new name." How could the Saviour have been more explicit and plain. "Him that overcometh." Who? Why, the Saint; not the City, the _new Jerusalem_. Again: "Blessed are they that do his commandments that they may have right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city." If the city is the Saints, what is this that enters into and have right to the tree of life? Can the _City_ go into the _City_? If so, then we acknowledge the _City_ is the Saints. But it reads, the Saints go in there.

In Rev. xxi: 16, the City is said to be four square, twelve thousand furlongs; the length, and the breadth, and the height of it are equal. Then, according to arithmetical computation, it is fifteen hundred miles square. Now, if the City spiritually means the Saints of God, then, to carry out the figure, the Saints must stand over, or upon each other (according to the common stature) one million and four hundred thousand deep; or will it be asserted that they are fifteen hundred miles tall!

SANCTUARY.

Well, says one, are you going to call this _City_ the Sanctuary too? If you will allow the Bible testimony you will have to believe it is, or search more diligently for it in this planet than any one else ever has that I have heard of. But it has been proved by most able men, and learned men, that it is the Earth, or the Land of Canaan. Well, let us look at it again. But allow me first to recommend to your particular notice, O. R. L. Grosier's article in the Day Star Extra, for the 7th of February, 1846, from the 37th to the 44th page. Read it again. In my humble opinion it is superior to any thing of the kind extant.

"_Sanctuary_ was the first name the Lord gave the Tabernacle, which name covers not only the Tabernacle with the two apartments, but also the court with all its hangings, and all the vessels of the ministry." Exo. xxv: 8, 9, and 38, 21; Num. i: 53. This, then, was a dwelling place, and a true pattern of the heavenly, embracing within its "jaspar" walls "the Paradise of God," with the "pure river of the water of life," and the "tree of life," and the "Golden City in the midst," all to come down from heaven and be located in old Jerusalem. Za. 14th chapter. That's too absurd to believe, says one. Is it any more so, than to believe the Apostle John's testimony? Does he not show us that the tree of life is inside of the gates, in xxii: 14. Read also the two first verses. Do not the waters issue out from the throne? and is not the tree of life on either side of it? and is not the promise--to him that overcometh I will give to eat of the tree of life which is in the midst of the Paradise of God? Well, continues the objector, I don't know but that I could have believed your Scripture testimony concerning the city, but I can't believe that God has such a place in the third heavens, and that it will descend to this earth with a river of water in, or on it. How can you believe then, what you are experiencing every day of your life, on the planet in which we live? While she is flying in her orbit around the Sun at the rate of fifty-eight thousand miles per hour, she is at the same time whirling over like a ball from East to West, at the rate of six hundred miles per hour, in her diurnal or daily motion, bottom upwards, as it would appear, every twenty-four hours, and yet, by an unseen power, (readily accounted for by Astronomers,) not only the rivers and the lakes, but the mighty ocean, remains unmoved.

As we have before quoted, Moses says that a river went out of Eden to water the Garden, and became into four heads. Gen. ii: 10, 14. Now let us turn to Ezekiel's prophecy for a corresponding view, as "in the mouth of two or three witnesses, shall every word be established." In chapter 43, 1st and 7th verses, he testifies that this accords with the vision he had by the river Chebar twenty years before, (previously quoted.) Here he sees the Glory of God on the east side of the _Sanctuary_, (where Moses said the flaming sword and Cherubims were,) and his "voice like the noise of many waters saying to him that the house of Israel shall no more defile God's name." Afterwards, in 47th chapter, 1st and 5th verse: "He brought me again unto the door of the house, and behold waters issued out from under the threshold of the house eastward--(observe how particular to mention the "east side")--for the fore front of the house stood towards the east, and the waters came down from _under_, from the right side of the house." His guide then measured the waters one thousand cubits (more than one-fourth of a mile) "the waters were to the ankles," but when he had measured four thousand cubits, they had become waters to swim in, that could not be passed over. In 12th verse he describes the tree of life yielding its monthly fruit, for meat, and its unfading leaves for medicine. Why all this? "Because the waters issued out of the Sanctuary." Now read again in Rev. xxii: 1, 2; does not John tell the same story: the waters issuing from out the throne, the tree of life, the monthly fruit, the leaves for healing, the nations. Is not this after the city comes down? In 48th chapter, 8th verse: "And the sanctuary shall be in the midst of it." Once more the measuring rod is run over it, showing the four sides just like the old pattern in the wilderness, and then says the Sanctuary shall be in the midst thereof. From 30th to 35th verse, he describes the wall and the gates as John does in Rev. xxi: 13, and closes up his prophecy in these words, "And the name of the city from that day shall be, the Lord is there." Now let the old prophet Isaiah testify to what he saw: "Look upon _Zion_ the _City_ of our solemnities, thine eyes shall see Jerusalem a quiet habitation, a Tabernacle that shall not be taken down; not one of the stakes thereof shall ever be removed, neither shall any of the cords thereof be broken. But there the glorious Lord will be unto us a place of _broad rivers and streams_, wherein shall go no galley with oars, neither shall gallant ships pass thereby." xxxiii: 20, 21.

The Psalmist says, "there _is_ a river; the streams whereof make glad the city of God, the holy place of the tabernacle of the Most High. God is in the midst of her"--46: 4, 5. Jeremiah says, "A glorious high throne from the beginning is the place of our _sanctuary_." xvii: 12. The Psalmist replies, "For he hath looked down from the height of his _sanctuary_; from heaven did the Lord behold the earth." cii: 19. (If he had said _sanctuary_ instead of earth, we should not have been easily moved from our former exposition.) "The Lord is in his holy temple, the Lord's throne is in heaven." xi: 4. Paul says to the Hebrews, "We have such an high priest, who is set on the right hand of the throne of the majesty, in the heavens; a minister of the _sanctuary_ and of the _true_ Tabernacle, which the Lord pitched, and not man." Heb. viii: 1, 2. "For the _invisible things_ of Him from the creation of the world are _clearly_ seen, being understood by the _things that are made_." Rom. i: 20. Paul tells the Hebrews how they may understand these _invisible_ things, which he says are _clearly seen_. See viii. c., 5 v. "Shadow of heavenly things." For see, (saith he) "that thou make all things according to the pattern shewed to thee in the mount." Now then, whenever we want to understand about the heavenly _sanctuary_, we must turn to Moses's description of the sanctuary in the wilderness, which he made after the pattern God gave him; which Paul says were shadows of heavenly things. How will a man dare (in the face of all this inspired testimony) to stand here on God's earth, and assert that the heavenly sanctuary with all that pertains to it is a FIGURE, and spiritualize it away. It would be ten thousand times easier for him to spiritualize the old Tabernacle and Solomon's Temple, seeing the one that is to come as far exceeds the temple of Solomon or Nehemiah, (although, it is allowed, that nothing on earth ever exceeded them) as the most splendid palace of the king does the sentry box of his guard. Much safer would it be for him to teach that the rocks had never been rent, or as he passed the streets in the afternoon and saw the shadow of the buildings, should insist upon it that the shadows were real, but the buildings, which cast the shadows, were spiritual. Such doctrine should be ranked with Mahometanism and Jesuitism, save their demoniac spirit; it comes from the "bottomless pit and will go into perdition: and they that dwell on the earth will wonder." Rev. xvii: 8. But I wish to present further evidence of the real (not spiritual) coming of this heavenly _sanctuary_. Ezekiel says in his 37th chapter, where God has promised his spirit and life to the whole house of Israel, "Moreover, I will make a covenant of peace with them; it shall be an _everlasting_ covenant with them, and I will place them and multiply them, and will set my sanctuary in the midst of them forevermore; my _tabernacle_ also shall be with them: aye, I will be their God, and they shall be my people. And the heathen shall know that I the Lord do sanctify Israel, when my _sanctuary_ shall be in the midst of them forevermore." 26-28 v. Now here is God's sacred promise that his sanctuary shall be in the midst of his _people_; and I have already quoted his 48th chap. 10 v. where he says when the angel had "measured the land twenty-five thousand reeds in length and ten thousand in breadth," said, "and the _sanctuary_ of the Lord shall be in the midst thereof." Now will it be insisted upon that the land, or his people, is the sanctuary; rather let us submit to the Scripture testimony. On the last night of our Saviour's ministry here on earth, in company with his disciples, when everything else had failed to arouse them, he to quicken their drooping spirits says, "Let not your hearts be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me. In my father's house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you; and if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you unto myself, that where I am, there ye may be also." John xiv: 1, 3. I think I have now proved by unquestionable authority, that this heavenly _sanctuary_ is the very place with _mansions_ which he has been preparing, and according to his promise is now coming to receive his saints. But may there not after all be a failure here. "Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my word shall not pass away." Having such testimony as this, we rejoice in "hope of the glory that is to be revealed."

"Unto two thousand three hundred days then shall the sanctuary be cleansed." Dan. viii: 14.

This, then, I understand, is the selfsame "_heavenly Sanctuary_, the _New Jerusalem_, the _Paradise of God_." Well, says the reader, this cannot be; how can Paradise, which Paul said was in the "third heavens," and where you say Jesus our High Priest is, be defiled? Where was the first sin that ever cursed this world committed? O, say you, that was six thousand years ago. Admit that it was, has God ever pardoned that sin? Turn to Gen. iii: 17, 19. The ground is still cursed, and man gets his living by the sweat of his brow. Why? Because the extent of this great sin could never be known, until God had put the last seal upon his saints, "and the dead be judged." But say you, the curse was upon the earth and its inhabitants. Yes; but was not Paradise polluted by this sin? But how can it be that anything in heaven is polluted, or unclean? Have I not proved by the astronomer's conclusive arguments, that this earthly ball which we inhabit is continually flying through the regions of unlimited space, in the same direction with all other planets, seen or known in the solar system? Think you that this little speck of earth is the only thing that is defiled, among the millions and myriads of worlds which stud the diadem of space? We are told that the "stars are not pure in his sight." "Yea, the heavens are not clean in his sight." Job xv: 15; xxv: 5. Was not the sanctuary on earth which the high priest cleansed the tenth day of the seventh month every year, a pattern of the true? Does not Paul tell us that Jesus our high priest has entered into the true _sanctuary_, into heaven itself. See Heb. ix: 12, 24; and viii: 1, 2. Then is not our high priest in the proper place to "cleanse the sanctuary?" I cannot for the life of me see, how the pattern or type can be made to appear in any other way. How then can the earth (as one in the voice of truth, and many other writers say) be the _sanctuary_; while spiritualizers are saying it is the saints. O Lord give us the truth!