they are classed together by Paul, in the passage quoted from first Corinthians, they may be taken as three gates on the third side of the holy city.

501. The remaining three figures may be termed those of identitymarriage, communion, and inheritance. The first of these has been so frequently adverted to in the course of these remarks, as a figure of the means by which the disciple is admitted to a participation of the benefits of redemption, that it appears unnecessary to enlarge upon it under this head. They two shall be one flesh was the law of the institution when God first created man, male and female, and they two have been so accounted one throughout the whole course of divine and human legislation to the present day. The law of Moses so contemplated man; Jesus Christ pronounced that law unchanged; and the prophets and the apostles alike employed the rite of marriage as one of their most striking illustrations of the mystery of redemption.

The second means (communion) was represented under the Levitical dispensation by the participation of the offering at the altar, in the offering made, (1 Cor. x. 18,) and may be considered as identic with what we usually term the mediation or intercession of Christ: not an oral intercession, but the coming in of the victim sacrificed between the offender and his offended God-the medium of access-the new and living way, by which man is virtually presented before God in the name of Christ, and is contemplated as in the face of the anointed: a medium of reconciliation desired by the patriarch Job as a days-man; represented under the Levitical economy by the high-priest entering within the vail as the representative of the suppliant; and applied in the writings of the apostles to the person and office of Christ as the high-priest of our profession-" the mediator of the new covenant," "our peace," " through whom we have access by one Spirit unto the Father."

The third means, that of inheritance, was typified by the gift of the promised land, as by testament to Abraham and his seed; by which title it was inherited by his heirs according to the flesh. It is illustrated also by the laws of inheritance under the Levitical dispensation; and, we may say too, by principles of human law nearly as universal as those pertaining to the marriage state; and is so alluded to by the apostle Paul, in adverting to the operation of a testamentary title, (Heb. ix. 16, 17.)

The inheritance left by Christ to his followers, we take to be the inher itance of his own merits: the merit of his own justifying righteousness. and the merit of his own atoning sacrifice; the disciple coming into possession of these, as by bequest of a testator who has the perfect right to dispose of his possessions as he may himself see fit. The bequest being made, on the death of the testator the heir succeeds to the possession of the estate as identic with the former possessor; the one proprietor being substituted, in the eye of the law, for the other.

We are by no means tenacious of this classification of these figures for of their appropriation to particular avenues; our main design is to show the probability, that the twelve gates of one pearl are put for so many doctrinal illustrations, intended to bring home to the understanding of the disciple the one way of salvation opened in Jesus Christ. The apocalyptic holy city we suppose to be a vision or representation of the economy of grace. The things coming into its gates are principles peculiar to this economy; no principle or doctrinal element, inconsistent with this representation of God's plan of salvation by grace, is admissible into it. The gates represent the means of discrimination, (§ 485;) these means of discrimination are certain views of the way of salvation through Christ; every principle therefore admitted into this representation must accord with one or the other of these views, and must be so admitted either as a principle of adoption, sanctification, substitution, or some other mode illustrated by one or the other of these gates. The means of discrimination, or criteria of admission, are all in effect identic. The doctrines represented by them all result in the same truth: Christ is the only door, way, or avenue; so the gates are all of the same pearl. There is but one way of salvation, although in the sacred writings there may be a certain variety of modes by which that one way is accommodated to human apprehension.

$502. And the street of the city was of pure gold,' &c.,-gold so pure as to possess the transparency of crystal-truth, (§ 27,) especially revealed truth. With the transparency of this gold of the city we may associate also the glorious character of the particular kind of truth represented by it; but we think the prominent peculiarity of this gold is its perfect purity, its freedom from the smallest admixture of error.

The whole city was said in the eighteenth verse to be pure gold. The word rendered street (zlazɛia) signifies broad way, coming from λáros, breadth, which expresses (Rev. xx. 9) the whole surface of the ground, (Rob. Lex. 593.) The platea of the city may be put here for its whole site or platform. The edifices being of gold and the site of gold, it was all of pitre gold. The whole of this vision of peace, including its platform, is of pure unalloyed truth. The street, or broad way of the city, might indeed represent the way of salvation, but we think the description of the avenue is more particularly comprehended in what is said of the gates. The ways of the city, corresponding with the portals, are all of the same character, and lead in the same direction: as it is said of true wisdom, all her ways are

* The elements of the mixed system (Babylon) were, as we have seen, principally of the mercenary character, merchants, &c. Principles of this character could not be admitted into the representation afforded by the holy city, through either of the avenues enumerated; they could not be contemplated as belonging to either o those modes of illustration.

pleasantness, and all her paths are peace: they all tend to reconciliation with God, that peace which passeth understanding.

Gold, however, we are to bear in mind, is valuable as well as pure, and precious in proportion to its purity. The gold of the street thus reminds us of the exceeding riches of the grace of God in his kindness (benignitate) towards us through Jesus Christ, (Eph. ii. 7;) the unsearchable riches of Christ, (Eph. iii. 8;) the wealth of him who, though he was rich in merits of his own, for our sakes became poor, that we through his imputed righteousness might be enriched.

'And I saw no temple therein, for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are [is] the temple of it;' or, as we should render it, Jehovah the Almighty God is its temple and the Lamb. The verb is not in the plural, the Lord God and the Lamb constitute one and the same nominative singular. Dominus Deus omnipotens templum ejus est, et Agnus, (G. & L.) A temple is a place of worship, and the worship or service of a temple consists in the offering of sacrifices. The Jews contended that Jerusalem alone was the place where men ought to worship, or to offer sacrifices; that it was the temple at Jerusalem alone that sanctified the offering; for the Jews themselves seem to have had their synagogues or places of meeting for prayer and praise and religious instruction in every country in which any considerable number of them were domiciliated. The pious Jew, if at a distance from the city, worshipped with his face toward Jerusalem, (Dan. vi. 10, Ps. v. 7,) because there the temple was located; the position as an act of faith being equivalent to a being in the temple, and conforming to the petition of Solomon, (1 Kings viii. 30,) in his dedication of that sacred building. The eunuch came from Africa to Jerusalem to worship; that is, to offer certain sacrifices, (Acts viii. 27.) Paul came to Jerusalem for the same purpose, (Acts xxiv. 11;) and the angel was directed, (Rev. xi. 1,) to measure the temple and them that worshipped or sacrificed therein, previous to the passing away of the former things. A holy city without a temple, therefore, must have appeared in ancient times an anomaly. Jesus Christ has given the assurance that the time cometh when God is to be worshipped neither in Jerusalem, neither in the temple at Jerusalem, nor in a certain mountain, but in spirit and in truth: and Paul speaks of the kind of sacrifice called for in this spiritual worship (Rom. xii. 1) as the offering of the whole body of the disciple; an entire dedication of one's self to the service of God, as the reasonable return to be made for the benefits of salvation. We suppose the worship alluded to by Jesus, and the living sacrifice spoken of by Paul, to constitute the temple service of the New Jerusalem.

The temple, under the Levitical economy, was the medium of approach to God-the way of access; and sacrifices were there offered, because through this medium they were made acceptable to Him to whom the offer

ing was made. The disciple who comes to God in Christ, has a new way of access, a new medium through which his sacrifices and services are made acceptable to God; a way of which the former was a symbolical representation. What the temple was to the Jews, Christ is to his followers. The Christian, therefore, has no need of a temple, because Christ, the Lamb of God, is his temple: he worships in Christ, and the Lamb of God is identic with the Almighty God; he therefore worships in God—Jehovah himself thus constituting the temple of the economy of grace; or, being manifested as the temple in the representation of the economy afforded by the new vision of peace. The service or worship of the old temple, as before noticed, consisted of two species of sacrifice, the propitiatory offering, and the thankoffering. The service of the new temple consists of but one of these sacrifices on the part of the believer-Christ having made an offering for sin once for all; although the merit of that offering ever virtually pleads, or makes continued intercession in the sight of God. In Christ, then, the disciple offers his body a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God: holy, because set apart in Christ: acceptable, because contemplated in Christ; and this we presume to be the worship of the Father in spirit and in truth, spoken of by Jesus in his conversation with the woman of Samaria.

503. Under the Levitical dispensation, even the thank-offering and the peace-offering of thanksgiving were to be sprinkled with blood, and that too by the priest, (Lev. vii. 12–14.) So it is only in Christ, and by virtue of his atonement, that even the reasonable sacrifice of the disciple's grateful service can be acceptable to God. In the nature of the case it is only in Christ that the disciple's service can be divested of a mercenary motive; as, in the nature of the case, it is only in Christ, that the unworthy disciple and his imperfect service can be regarded with complacency by Him, in whose sight even the heavens are unclean. As to be in Christ is to be a new creature, so to be in him is to be in a position enabling the worshipper to serve God continually, in the strict sense of the term.

To this peculiar position we may suppose allusion to be made by Jesus, when he speaks of the temple of his body; his material body being the type of his spiritual body, which latter constitutes the spiritual temple of the holy city-a temple of which the glory must infinitely exceed that of all earthly temples. As it is said of it, Haggai ii. 6-9, "For thus saith the Lord of Hosts, Yet once, it is a little while, and I will shake the heavens, and the earth, and the sea, and the dry land; and I will shake all nations, and the desire of all nations shall come; and I will fill this house with my glory, saith the Lord of Hosts. The silver is mine, and the gold is mine, saith the Lord of Hosts. The glory of this latter house shall be greater than of the former, saith the Lord of Hosts: and in this place will I give peace, saith

the Lord of Hosts."

1

The passing away of the first heaven and the first earth of the Apocalypse, has been already considered equivalent to the shaking here predicted; and the coming in of the new heaven and of the new earth, and the exhibition of the New Jerusalem may be taken as equivalents for the coming of the desire of all nations; that is, for the spiritual manifestation of Christ himself. The display of the richés of the holy city, such as they are exhibited in this revelation, is an evidence that the silver and the gold are the Lord's-the means of redemption are his alone; and we have in the declaration that the Lord Goi and the Lamb are the temple of the New Jerusalem, the explanation and fulfilment of the prophecy that the glory of the latter house is greater than that of the former. To this spiritual temple David must have alluded in saying, "Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life; and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever," (Ps. xxiii. 6.) The earthly temple was not then built; when built its duration was to be but temporary, and it was only in the spiritual house of the Lord that the Psalmist could find a dwelling forever.

A like allusion may be found, Ps. cxxii. 1, 2: "I was glad when they said unto me, Let us go into the house of the Lord. Our feet shall stand in thy gates, O Jerusalem." To be within the gates of Jerusalem is here apparently an interchangeable expression for being in the house of the Lord. The spiritual temple covers the whole site of the city; such we may suppose to be the case with the apocalyptic vision of peace. The temple is identic with the city, and the city and the temple are identic with God and the Lamb; as the bride or wife is identic with the Lamb, and the Lamb is identic with the sovereign God. The accounted identity of the worshipper in the temple with the medium of worship, and with the object of worship corresponding with the prayer of Jesus, (John xvii. 21-23 ;) as it also corresponds with the language of the apostle, (2 Cor. vi. 16,) “For ye are [accounted] the temple of the living God;" and, (1 Cor. iii. 16, 17,)" Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you? If any man defile (corrupt) the temple of God, [that is, cause it to decay,] him shall God cause to decay ;* for the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are."

Vs. 23, 24. And the city had no need of the sun, neither of the moon, to shine in it: for the glory of God did lighten it and the Lamb (is) the light thereof. And the nations of them which are saved shall walk in the light of it: and the kings of the earth do bring their glory and honour into it.

Καὶ ἡ πόλις οὐ χρείαν ἔχει τοῦ ἡλίου οὐδὲ τῆς σελήνης, ἵνα φαίνωσιν αὐτῇ· ἡ γὰρ δόξα τοῦ Θεοῦ ἐφώτισεν αὐτήν, καὶ ὁ λύχνος αὐτῆς τὸ ἀρνίον. Καὶ περιπατήσουσι τὰ ἔθνη διὰ τοῦ φωτὸς αὐτῆς, καὶ οἱ βασιλεῖς τῆς γῆς φέρουσι τὴν δόξαν καὶ τὴν τι μὴν αὑτῶν εἰς αὐτήν.

*The verb ɛlyo or p9ɛçã, translated defile, is the same in both members of the sentence, and we could not say, if any one defile the temple of God him shall God defile.