fragrant as the rose; its sky around like the rainbow, and over it all flowered with stars; and its distant hills shall be for ever alive with light. Darkness shall flee away from it like a doubt before the truth of God, and no night shall draw its sable curtains over earth's head. All space shall be full of Deity, the stars shall be the scriptures of the sky, and the light of the Sun of Righteousness the apocalypse of all. All sounds shall be harmony, and all mysteries light; the universe itself shall be a glorious hymn, and worlds the words in which it is written; and pine-forests, and palm-groves, the lichen and green fern, and the giant oak, and the hill-tops visited all night with troops of stars, shall overflow with the light of love, and life, and glory, and all so pure that snow would stain, and dew defile them. A new and yet more glorious genesis shall come upon our world. This poor earth, for six thousand years a vast sarcophagus, shall recover more than Eden life and beauty after its baptism of fire. It shall be "A cathedral boundless as our wonder, Whose quenchless lamp the sun and moon supply; Its dome the sky." Magnificent scene! Yet more magnificent citizens! The antediluvian will be there, whose prospective faith, penetrating clouds and darkness, reposed on the Lamb of God. The patriarch, who saw Christ's day from afar and rejoiced, will be there also. Each age of the world will contribute to this happy city; and that age will be seen to have been the noblest and the best which poured through these twelve gates the mightiest crowds of redeemed citizens. Persons from every climate will be there. The African from his burning sands, and the Laplander from his everlasting snows; the Jew from his wanderings, and the Arab from his tent. All of the descendants of Ham, Shem, and Japhet, who have seen and accepted Jesus as their Saviour, drawn by a great centripetal attraction, shall meet in that New Jerusalem; and, like globules of quicksilver, mingle in fact, as they have met in spirit, and so be for ever with the Lord. Men from all ranks shall be there. The monarch and mechanic, the prince and the peasant, denuded of all circumstantial differences and distinctions, and glorious in that common righteousness which humbles the heart while it exalts the person of the wearer, shall there see in each other brethren, and wonder they failed to see it before. Monarchies and republics, schools and universities, sects and parties, shall all present to this city happy citizens-the fruits of that living Christianity, which so many of them would neither understand, nor patronize, nor thrust out. Such is our inheritance, incorruptible and undefiled. How should we rejoice in the prospect, the certainty, rather, of spending a blissful eternity with those we love below! to see them emerge from the ruins of the tomb, and the deeper ruins of the fall; not only uninjured, but reformed and perfected, with every tear wiped from their eyes, standing before the throne of God and of the Lamb, with palms in their hands, crying with a loud voice, Salvation be unto our God and to the Lamb for ever and ever." What delight will it afford to renew the sweet counsel we have taken together; to recount the toils and labours of the way, and to breathe, and to gaze, about the throne of God in heaven! nay, rather to join in the symphonies of holy voices, amid the splendours and fruition of the beatific vision. To that state all the pious on earth are tending. Heaven is attracting to itself. whatsoever is congenial to its nature, is enriching itself with the spoils of earth, and collecting within its capacious bosom whatsoever is pure, permanent, and divine; leaving nothing for the last fire to consume but the objects and slaves of corruption; while every thing that grace has prepared and beautified shall be selected from the beauties of the world, to adorn that eternal city which "has no need of the sun or moon to shine in it, for the glory of God doth lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof." There has existed in every age of the world a longing after a state on earth more pure, permanent, and divine, than any yet realized. Travellers have explored all realms, and poets have embodied their highest presentiments, and traditions have handed down dim and distant recollections of departed beauty as pledges of its return. From Cain to Job, and from Job to Abraham, and from Abraham to Columbus, weary humanity has been in pursuit of a city that hath foundations, and "desiring a better country, that is a heavenly." This glorious city is the response to these yearnings; it is the coronal of the brightest hopes-the consummation of the grandest prophecies-the satisfaction of the deepest and most earnest yearnings of the human heart. It is plainly a literal city—a material as well as moral structure -for risen bodies as well as regenerated spirits; and thus matter as well as mind and conscience will reach its perfection. This city will show what a renovated earth is capable of; what an array of glory, order, harmony, and perfection this chaos shall become at the bidding of Him on whose head are many crowns. It will be that brilliant focus on which shall converge all the beams of material and moral glory which are at present scattered over all the realms of Deity. Its permanence, too, shall equal its perfection. There shall be no waning moons, and setting suns, and enveloping night; no flood, nor ebbing tides, nor drifting snows, nor frosts, to injure the everlasting verdure of that scene. No lightning shall smite its walls, or scathe its cedars; nor whirlwind disturb its air, nor fire leave its black footprint in any of its dwellings. Earth, thus restored, with Jerusalem its sublime capital, may be the great school of the universe, the sublime instructress of other worlds, and thus it may play a part in the future that will cover all the shame of its first aberration. The These are truths which we should do well to study more. contemplation of its approaching glory would dim all earthly lustre, and draw off our affections from things seen to things uuseen, and constrain us to confess that here we are pilgrims and strangers. We should feel, too, the force of the apostle's appeal: "Seeing ye look for such things, what manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation and godliness?" Does the prospect wing our souls with new zeal, and energy, and strength? Does it lift you above all that is grovelling and impure? Just in as far as it elevates, sustains, and sanctifies us, do we believe it, and no further. Open your eyes to this brightness, and your hearts to this warmth and love, as the expectants of such a home. Its advent becomes nearer every day; all things hasten it. Earthly cities are dissolving; kings are falling from their thrones; nations are convulsed and agitated, as if struck successively by irresistible tempests; the bonds and joints of the social fabric are being loosened and dissolved. "The cities of the nations fall." Great Babylon is coming into remembrance before God. These are the "removing of those things that are shaken, as of things that are made, that those things that cannot be shaken may remain." Oh, let it not be forgotten that our preparation for this glorious city is not an acquaintance with its mineralogical or geological characteristics, nor a poetic sympathy with its glory and pure splendour. We may be poets able to sing all sweet songs, and painters able to transfer to the canvas all bright scenes; we may be able to group and catalogue the stars, describe and classify the flowers, and yet not be Christians. It is the pure in heart who shall see God. It is they who are like Christ, who shall live eternally with him. It is holy character that abides for ever. The New Jerusalem is being prepared for those who have new hearts, new affinities, new affections, and new natures. Corruption cannot inherit its incorruption. Unsanctified feet may not tread its golden streets, nor impure eyes rest upon its beauty, nor one unregenerate heart beat amid its blessedness. There is but one essential franchise-a new nature: "Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of heaven." No qualification will be accepted as a substitute for this. Make sure of a new heart, and you may safely calculate on an entrance into this city. This is the only indispensable qualification. It matters not how obscure, despised, or forgotten you may now be; you may be renewed, and sanctified, and made meet for this "inheritance of the saints in light," by that Holy Spirit who is promised to all that ask. "If ye, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Spirit to them that ask him!" It is no superiority to the necessity of a vital moral and spiritual change, that you belong to the very highest orders in the realm. "Ye must be born again." Nothing besides is any other than responsibility. This alone is meetness for the inheritance of the saints in light. 55 LECTURE IV. THE SORROWLESS STATE. "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."-Revelation xxi. 3, 4. WE have seen the descent of the New Jerusalem, and endeavoured to describe that peculiarity of it-"the tabernacle of God with men," or the disclosure of the shechinah in the midst of it: I now proceed to consider, the emphatic relationship which is to be enjoyed by its people in the midst of it-"they shall be his people, and he shall be their God." This promise has been repeated since the world began. Patriarchs, prophets, and apostles, all have heard it. We are his by his own sovereign and everlasting choice: "I have chosen you, ye have not chosen me;" "chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world," thus we were the objects of distinguishing mercy before the world began; and eternity to come, our promised home, is only the response to the aboriginal purposes of eternity past, the epoch of actualizing of our predestination to "an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled, reserved in heaven for us." I do not here make an attempt to explain this truth; election lies far above the reach of humanity; it is a mystery, and I merely assert it as the unequivocal announcement of everlasting truth, reiterated and repeated, calmly and clearly in Scripture, as the expression of the mind and purpose of God. Whether we can harmonize it with our responsibility-another great doctrine -or not, cannot affect its truth. God has said it, and it must be true. As such, and on such authority, let us receive it; and "what we cannot see now, we shall clearly see and know hereafter." Man's responsibility and God's sovereignty are truths |