"The Scripture testimony accounts for no other spirits but those seen in the shape of men." One of the three which came to Abraham was the Lord. Gen. xviii. The Angel Gabriel was called the "man Gabriel." Danl. ix. The angel which appeared to Gideon was called the Lord. I think here is sufficient proof from the Scriptures to justify the true believer to be still looking for a personal Saviour, and that God the Father is a person, and looks like Jesus and we like him; and God has a habitation where he dwells, as the Scriptures testify:
"And I John saw the Holy City new Jerusalem coming down from God out of Heaven."
Another writer in the same paper undertakes to prove that this same City has began to appear; has been developing itself since the fall of 1844. Who has seen this City? O, he says, it is evident, that it is the saints. Is it possible that the Saints have been coming down from Heaven this eighteen months! Why, there is not the least particle of proof that the righteous dead have yet been caught up? Thes. iv: 16, 17. I can readily believe that both of these brethren have been fearless advocates for the truth, and I do not doubt their sincerity. They have clearly proved that they are not seeking the applause of the world. I sincerely hope that they will not get so far into the fire on one side of the "highway" as some are in the "slough of despond" on the other. The main business of the Devil is now to make God's people change their course, and it is matter of no moment to him on which side of the "highway" they fall. In either case he will make sure of his prey. God help us to be on our watch. The great error here has arisen in consequence of taking the symbolical meaning and rejecting the true. The author of the Apocalyptic Dictionary, R. C. Shemeall, says, "Holy City, Jerusalem. Used symbolically of the present visible Church; Literally, that City which comes down from God." Let us examine a few texts: "Go and cry in the ears of Jerusalem." Jer. ii: 2. "And he carried away all Jerusalem." Kings xxiv: 14. "The cry of Jerusalem is gone up." Jer. xiv: 2. "Jerusalem has sinned they have seen her nakedness, yea she sigheth." Lam. i: 8. "Jerusalem is a menstrous woman." 17 v. "Awake, awake, stand up O Jerusalem." Isa. li: 17. "Arise and set down O Jerusalem." lii: 2. "O Jerusalem wash thine heart from wickedness." Jer. iv: 14. "Cut off thine hair O Jerusalem and cast it away." Jer. vi: 8. Here we see that old Jerusalem is personified. The prophets exhort her to "stand up" and "set down," and "awake from sleep," and "wash her heart," and "be instructed," to "cut off her hair and cast it away." She is also called a "menstrous woman," and said to "cry and sigh," and be "carried away." A "tumultuous city;" a "joyous city;" a "glad city." "Thou art comely, O my love, as Jerusalem." Songs vi: 4. "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest," &c. Now this language never could be understood, unless there was 1st: a Jerusalem, people and government; neither could we understand what is said of the new Jerusalem in many places, without associating organization, as the "Zion of God," "the Zion of the Holy One of Israel." Isa. lx: 14. "Like the kingdom of God among the Pharisees." Luke xvii: 21. This old Jerusalem at his second coming would be the place for the capital of his kingdom; his disciples the subjects; he their king. As also in Daniel viii: 13—connecting the "Host (God's people) and sanctuary." Paul to the Galatians says, "Agar is Mount Sinai in Arabia, and answereth to Jerusalem, which now is, and is in bondage with her children. But Jerusalem which is above is free, which is the mother of us all." Can this testimony be credited? Did not "Abraham look for a city which had foundations?" Paul also says of the pilgrims and strangers on the earth, that they "were seeking an heavenly country for God hath prepared for them a City"! Heb. xi. in the past tense; then it cannot be developing now in his Saints, but they are preparing to enter the CITY.
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!