Although we believe the evidence furnished is conclusive beyond cavil or doubt to every intelligent mind, yet we will still add more affirmative arguments which we desire that all should consider.
First, Let us refer again to the declarations—we have several times repeated—of the Prophets and Apostles. That heaven, and the Holy City in it, hath no need of the light of the Sun. That the "glory of God doth lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof." That there is no night there, but one eternal day.
Now let us call to your mind the extent of that empire wherein the Sun does not shine. From astronomical measurement, we may form in our minds an approximation of its dimensions. To fix for it a low estimate, we may safely conclude that the domain proper, is at least five hundred thousand miles in diameter, and one million five hundred thousand miles around it. The empire is vast indeed, so great that, by comparison, we can form no correct idea of it. We can only approximate by saying that it would require about one million of earths, the size of this, to make a globe of equal magnitude.
In order to bring all home to your own reason and comprehension, let us ask, Where else is it feasible for so large a place to be whereon, or into which the Sun, or suns, do not or cannot shine? We have shown you that suns (the surrounding volumes of photospheric ethereal fire) are—so far as we can comprehend—the natural sources of light throughout the Universe of Jehovah's empire. They seem as God's own eternal lamps, scattered and placed at His will in different regions of illimitable space, to illumine the universe without, and give light everywhere, as also life and animation to all their surrounding worlds. Each perhaps to its own, even as our Sun does to its own planet-worlds. Now when we consider that the fact is well established by all leading Astronomers that this outside flame or volume of fire is far out from that INNER GLOBE, or world, and that between them there is a void, possibly thousands of miles in depth; that the fires and light of the Sun have no perceptible effect upon this non-luminous void—and, indeed, the void shields the globe within from the light and heat of the Sun—we can readily imagine the wise arrangement of the Great Architect, and also comprehend the truth of His own declarations, that heaven is a place where neither the Sun nor its heat shall light upon its inhabitants.
Now the nature of the element of this intervening void or space, whether it is ethereal or not, we cannot now comprehend. That it is a safe covering or shield to the world within, we can readily suppose. For Sir John Herschel says that it seems as "an awning or screen, protecting the body," or world within, from the Sun's heat.
But we are not left to conjecture alone, without philosophical reason in this matter. We know the laws of gravitation and attraction are fixed and sure, and upon these universal laws we can base correct conclusions.
The tendency of fire or heat is outward and upward. The sense in which we use the term "upward" is that of space far out from the earth, or like solid bodies. We have shown, in our explanation of the law of gravitation, that upward is simply away from the earth. Thus, we ignite material with fire and produce combustion here, and we see the flame rise, and feel and know the heat ascends upward. So also may the Chinaman do the same, at the same moment, on the opposite side of the globe—while his position is directly under us, as we construe downward—and yet the flame and heat of his fire ascends upward from the earth where he stands, which is in a directly opposite direction from the course ours pursues. Thus, to us, outward from the earth is upward, no matter where our position on it.
This tendency of heat upward, or away from the base of the fire, is plainly evident by the fact that heat will not penetrate to any considerable depth downward, neither when on the earth, or on a solid non-combustible foundation; nor yet when on an elevated platform, for its tendency, as we have shown, is always outward or upward. So also with the fires of the Sun; whatever the base of its fires may be, we see by the fixed laws of Nature that the tendency of its heat is outward, no matter from what portion of that base it may emanate. We cannot now comprehend the nature of the base of the Sun's fires, but we know that the great Jehovah has provided it, and that it is founded in His wisdom, and is fixed and sure, and we have reasoned conclusively that it cannot be of combustible material. Hence, the only rational conclusion we can arrive at—from a thorough investigation of Divine revelations; from all the lights afforded by the science of astronomy; from the true philosophy of Nature, as well as from all that is visible and perceptible—is, that far within the circling photosphere of ethereal fire which we see and realize as the Sun, there is a solid body, a globe, a VAST WORLD, and that world is the heaven for all the righteous from this earth; that it is the Saviour's allotted empire, and that He is there the ruler of His people.