"And there shall be no night there, and they need no candle, neither light of the sun; for the Lord God giveth them light: and they shall reign forever and ever." "Then the moon shall be - confounded, and the sun ashamed, when the Lord of hosts shall reign in Mount Zion, and in Jerusalem, and before his ancients, gloriously."

O Jerusalem! thou shalt be called the city of the Lord, the Zion of the Holy One of Israel. 'And I will make the place of my feet* glorious,' saith the Lord. "For brass I will bring gold, and for iron I will bring silver, and for wood brass, and for stones iron: I will also make thy officers peace, and thine exactors righteousness. Violence shall no more be heard in thy land, wasting nor destruction within thy borders; but thou shalt call thy walls salvation, and thy gates praise. The sun shall be no more thy light by day, neither for brightness shall the moon give light unto thee; but the Lord shall be unto thee an everlasting light, and thy God thy_glory." "Thou shalt also suck the milk of the Gentiles, and shalt suck the breast of kings, and thou shalt know that I the Lord am thy Savior and thy Redeemer, the mighty one of Israel "-I will make thee an eternal excellence.

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Thy sun shall no more go down, neither shall thy moon withdraw itself: for the Lord shall be thine everlasting light; and the days of thy

I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth." Job xix. 25. The righteous, "when their Redeemer shall stand at the latter day upon the earth, shall be exalted forever; then they shall shine forth as the sun, and be made kings and priests unto God."

mourning shall be ended. Thy people also shall be all righteous: they shall inherit the land forever, the branch of my planting, the work of my hands, that I may be glorified."

O Lord our Lord, the Son of Man, we look for thy world; and now, by faith, behold all things created new, all things in subjection under thy feet; thy glory set above the new heavens. Jesus, how excellent is thy name in all the new earth! The Lord hasten it in his time.

Seeing, then, that we look for such things, what manner of persons ought we to be in all holy conversation and godliness: and, beloved, let us be diligent that we may be found of him in peace, without spot, and blameless.

*They shall inherit the land forever, which is the inheritance promised to Abraham, and to his heirs-the branch of my planting, which is the tree of life planted by the hand of God in Paradise-the work of my hands, which is the city that Abraham sought, whose maker is God.

LECTURE VIII.

THE NEW JERUSALEM.

And I John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a great voice out of heaven, saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God. 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: for the former things are passed away.-REV. xxi. 2, 3, 4.

THE writings of the modern millenists, upon this doctrine of the new Jerusalem, afford more evidence of the fruitfulness of their imaginations than of the truth of their system, and are a striking instance of the liberties they take in handling the prophecies.

They confess that things are said of the new Jerusalem too perfect for this world, and also that things are said of it that undeniably describe its situation in the earth. And the method they have devised to reconcile these things, without adopting the sentiment of a restoration of the

natural world, is to pass it backward and forward, from earth to heaven, and from heaven to earth, keeping it continually on the dance in one sentence it is here, and in another sentence it is there. When they meet with things in the new Jerusalem too perfect for this world, such as the tree of life, which must exclude from it all want, sorrow, tears, pain, and death, it is only to carry it to heaven, and all is consistent. Again, when they meet with the nations walking in its light, and healed with the leaves of its tree of life, and with the kings of the earth bringing their glory and honor into it, they have only to bring it back into the earth again, and all is natural enough; but when they behold the tabernacle of God, yea, God himself there, and the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple of it; and there is no night there, but one eternal day; and it has no need of the sun, neither of the moon, to shine in it, for the glory of God lightens it, and the Lamb is the light thereof; then it must be carried back to heaven again: and when they find it compassed about by Gog and Magog, it must be brought back again to the earth, and all things are as they fancy they should be.

All this we view as play, and still look for a city which hath foundations, too solid to be thus moved and tossed.*

But, it is said, there is a necessity for understanding the new Jerusalem sometimes of the

"The new heavens and new earth is that heavenly country which the patriarchs looked for. When the great God promised them that he would be their God and bless them, they understood it of his bringing them into this deathless and sinless world."DR. COTTON MATHER.

church on earth, and sometimes of the church in heaven, or to mean the church in different states; but this necessity arises from misconceptions of the Scriptures and of the millennial state. "They who expect the rest promised for the church of God upon earth to be found anywhere but in the new earth, and they who expect any happy times for the church in a world that hath death and sin in it,—these do err, not knowing the Scriptures nor the kingdom of GOD."* With these gross ideas, they stumble at the millenarian doctrine of the new Jerusalem, and start difficulties to their advancing consistently in our path, as insuperable as the Sadducees did to their getting along with their matrimonial connections in the resurrection.

They, however, who attend to the Scriptures as revealing new heavens and a new earth-the world to come, the world of the power and glory of Jesus Christ-can easily believe their united testimony, that in the new Jerusalem there shall be no want, no weakness, no error, no sin; but the fulness of joy and blessedness-heaven upon earth

yea, in many respects, heaven improved by coming upon earth-into a redeemed natural world

as well as by the accession to it of thousands of glorious resurrection bodies, and of all the saints, changed into the same glory, that are alive and remain at that day upon the earth.

Millenarians believe that the seat of the new Terusalem will be in the earth-the new earth to come-and that it will be a perfect state.

For these sentiments we offer the following

Mather.