long enjoy the work of their hands." "For the child, a "But the fearful and hundred years old, shall unbelieving shall have die :" "But the sinner, being a hundred years old, shall be accursed." "For as the new hea their part in the lake "And he that sat upon vens and the new earth, the throne said, Behold, which I will make, shall I make all things new. remain before me, saith And he said unto me, the Lord, so shall your Write: for these words seed and your name re-are true and faithful." main." 66 "As the days of a tree Blessed are they that are the days of my peo-do his commandments, ple." Or, as by some that they may have it has been read, "the right to the tree of life.” *He that overcometh not, though a hundred years old, is a child, fearful and unbelieving. And what may we call the old sinner, abominable, &c. I should have thought it strange, had not John, under the head of the new heavens and new earth, noticed Isaiah's old child and sinner; and if he has noticed them, he interpreted their death to be the second death. days of my people shall be as the days of the tree of life."* There are but few parts of Scripture, taken the one from the other, which so nearly compare, as these prophecies of Isaiah and of John. It may also be observed, that both Isaiah and John, describing the new heavens and earth, and the new Jerusalem, allude very particularly to the promise made to Abraham and to his heirs : "They shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God"-They shall inherit and inhabit—“ mine elect shall long enjoy the work of their hands"-"For they are the seed of the blessed of the Lord, and their offspring with them"-"As the new heavens and the new earth which I will make shall remain before me, saith the Lord, so shall your seed and your name remain"-" He that *It has appeared to me a thought unworthy of the promise of life to which it relates, that this tree is a common or natural tree. Perhaps the greater part of these do not live the age of man, threescore years and ten; or perhaps, taken together, their ages would not average so high and if some natural trees live several centuries, what is that? Would it not be dishonorable for him that inhabiteth eternity to make a promise of life to his people who all have laid down their lives for his sake, of which such a poor-lived thing as even the oak or the pine could be a surety and pledge? Would God say his elect shall long enjoy the work of their hands, in a life that was merely as the life of the oak or cedar? From a careful examination of this passage, I am persuaded that this promise of life, as the days of a tree, is as perfect as even that, as I live: but this is the life of the millennial saints. overcometh shall inherit all things, and I will be his God, and he shall be my son.' Doubtless, the new heavens and new earth was the country promised to Abraham and to his seed; which neither he nor they received, but desired and sought, having seen afar off. And, doubtless, this great and holy city, the new Jerusalem, prepared in heaven, and coming down upon the new earth, adorned as a bride for her husband, having the glory of God, &c., is the very city promised to Abraham and his heirs ; which they looked for, and on account of which God was not, and is not, ashamed to be called their God." We shall now take a view of the happiness and glory of the world to come-the land of Emmanuel. No natural evil shall be there; the voice of weeping shall no more be heard among the Lord's people, nor the voice of crying. God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death: for the former things are passed away. The whole creation, which now groaneth and travaileth in pain together, shall then "be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God." They which shall be accounted worthy to obtain that world, and the resurrection from the dead, neither marry nor are given in marriage, neither can they die any more; for they are equal unto the angels, and are the children of God in the full extent of the promise made to Abraham; "being the children of the resurrection." Weakness shall not be there; either of infancy" there shall be no more thence an infant of days;" or of disease-"neither shall there be any more pain"—" the inhabitant shall not say, I am sick;" or of age-"nor an old man that hath not filled his days." As, on the one hand, there shall be no more an infant of days, weak and helpless; so, on the other, there shall not be an old man who has outlived his strength, usefulness, and enjoyment-whose days are empty, both to himself and others. No weak, crying children, or old, sighing men, shall be seen in that happy world. No helpless, weeping babes shall be found there, rocked in a cradle, carried in the arms, or wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger:" nor shall be found there old men whose days are not filled with high praise to God-with unabated usefulness to others, and with rich blessedness to themselves. All shall be in strength, health, and immortal vigor.t "The inhabitants shall not so much as say, I am sick."-Bellamy on the Millennium. How can we look for so healthful a country upon the shores of mortality? Surely this must be the incorruptible, deathless world. If the pale horse, sickness, enter not the millennial world, neither will his rider, death. And then will the good soldier throw off the harness and triumph, when he has conquered and gone beyond the reach of his last enemy; but one who has been bereaved repeatedly of the dearest objects of his affections in the world, must feel his wounds too sensibly to enter freely into the millennial triumphs whilst the king of terrors is still before him. We would not be understood, that, in the resurrec tion, there will be no distinction among those that died in I know some take the sense of Isaiah, respecting the old man in the millennium, thus: Nor an old man who is not an old man-there shall not be found then, as sometimes now, an old man in weakness and infirmities, who in days is not an old man. But if this be the sense, how low and trifling is the thought in such a connection! Would we keep up the greatness and grandeur of Isaiah's present theme-the new heavens and the new earth-must we not prefer the sense which we have given, viz., that age will not then impair-none will then have retired, through age, and left their posts empty, and, as it were, their days and lives a blank: but the ancients shall say respecting their powers and capacities to serve and enjoy God and his people, as the oldest man in Israel once said respecting the work of his day-"I am this day fourscore and five years old yet I am as strong this day as I was" at forty; as my strength was then, even so is my strength now, for war, both to go out and to come in." age and in infancy. Of such a distinction we cannot easily divest our minds; and it is often made in the language of the Scriptures. But, though in some respects there be this distinction of the old man and the child, yet it will not be in respect of either infirmity or weakness. Thy children shall come again to their own border. See Jeremiah xxxi. 15, 16, 17. That the loss of children, and mourning, is here to be understood literally, and therefore that their coming again means their resurrection from the dead, appears from its being applied by the evangelist to the little children that Herod slew. Ramah's little children, in the time of the restitution of all things, shall come again to their own border. |