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!
The strongest proof ever been adduced to prove that the earth or Canaan was the sanctuary, is found in Exodus xv: 17. Now what place is this which the Lord has made to dwell in? The answer is, "in the sanctuary O Lord, which thy hands have established." Paul says this sanctuary is in the heavens which the Lord pitched and not man. Heb. viii: 1, 2. The only other passage for proof of the land is Psalms lxxviii: 54, both of which go to strengthen the testimony before adduced. "And he brought them to the border of his sanctuary, even to this mountain which his right hand had purchased." Does he in either text say that the mountain is the sanctuary? If I can understand him, he says that the mountain is the border of his sanctuary; just as Ezekiel has shown where his guide measured the land, and then said that the sanctuary of the Lord should be in the midst of it. Now the word sanctuary is mentioned more than seventy times in the bible, and the whole of them,—with but a few exceptions, represent it a dwelling place, a building. The Psalmist says, that the "Lord looked down from his sanctuary from heaven to the earth." Not to his sanctuary. But let us see what Daniel and the angel Gabriel called a sanctuary. Dan. viii: 10-12. Is it not plain here that Popery took away the daily (i. e. destroyed Paganism) by arms or armies that stood on his (Popery's part, or side)—xi: 31. The taking away his sanctuary or polluting it is the same; for it would be absurd to say that the land was taken away, (11 v.) or that by this transaction the land was now polluted—xi: 31. Now read ix: 17, 19. Is not Daniel praying for the restoration of old Jerusalem, the city and sanctuary (the temple where God's people worshipped) which had been desolated, burnt up, by the king of Babylon's army, about seventy years before? (see Jer. lii: 12, 14) and remained a burnt district until the commandment by Cyrus to Ezra, and afterwards to Nehemiah, to build the temple and city. Now in answer to this prayer, God immediately despatched the angel Gabriel from the court of heaven, to give Daniel "skill and understanding"—22d v. In the 26th verse he informs him that Messiah shall be cut off, (crucify the Saviour) and the people of the prince that shall come, shall destroy the city and the sanctuary. How was this accomplished? Josephus who was an eye witness and historian, informs us that Titus the son of Vespasian, the Emperor of Rome, about A. D. 70, (five hundred and sixty years after the temple and city had been rebuilt by Nehemiah) came with his mighty Roman army and took Jerusalem, and burned up the city and temple (the sanctuary) and it was soon after "ploughed as a field," (Micah iii: 12) "and not one stone left upon another." This, then, was the very circumstance, Prince, and people, alluded to by the angel Gabriel. I believe no one undertakes to dispute this point.
Now we learn from this, that the angel Gabriel's instructions from heaven in answer to Daniel's prayer was, that it was the Temple in the city of old Jerusalem, which is the pattern or figure, or as Paul says "answereth to the new, which is above, which is the mother of us all." Can anything be more plain and explicit than that this is the sanctuary to be cleansed, "unto two thousand three hundred days."
In the 11th verse he says, "the daily was taken away, (that is, Paganism) and the place of his sanctuary cast down." How plain it is that this wicked sanctuary (where idols and devils were worshipped) was a building, cast down. How could they cast down the earth to the earth? (12th v.) and it (this same Popery) cast down the truth to the ground, so the ground was not destroyed; clear proof it was not the sanctuary. Well, but we don't believe that God will ever cleanse the wicked sanctuary of Paganism.