Perhaps the most specious arguments to this purpose are such as the following:—­“That the New Jerusalem is distinguished from the Old, because of the superior light and grace of the present dispensation of the Covenant.  Moreover, the glowing descriptions of the church militant given by the prophets, especially Isaiah, are thought to be as boldly rhetorical as those of John; yet those lofty flights are confessedly descriptive of the church on earth.  Besides, who can conceive how “the kings of the earth bring their glory and honour into” the heavenly state? or how are “the leaves of the tree of life for the healing of the nations,” when there are no nations to be healed? etc.

To these arguments the following answers may be given.

The church is one under all changes of dispensation, and by what names soever she is called:  but it does not appear that we are warranted by Scripture usage to view the New Jerusalem as a designation of the church in her militant state.  She is indeed sometimes called in the New Testament by Old Testament names:  as when Paul calls her by the name Zion, (Heb. xii. 22.) But he does not say, new Zion.  Again, when our Lord promises, (as in Rev. iii. 12,) to reward “him that overcometh,” it must be supposed from the connexion, that, as in all similar cases of spiritual conflict, this reward is to be conferred in a future state,—­heaven.  But part of the reward he describes in these words:—­“I will write upon him the name of the city of my God, which is New Jerusalem.”  Surely it may be supposed without presumption, that in this place New Jerusalem means heaven.  Nor is the assumption true,—­that the descriptive language of the Old Testament prophets is always to be understood of the church on earth.  For instance, can the following language (Is. xxxiii. 24,) be predicated of the saints while in the body:—­“The inhabitant shall not say, I am sick?” “The glory and honour of the nations” are the “saints of God, the excellent;” who while here, are “the light of the world, the salt of the earth;” and doubtless nations as well as families and individuals “have learned by experience that the Lord hath blessed them for their sakes:”  (Gen. xxx. 27; xxxix. 5;)—­and that he has also “reproved kings” and destroyed nations for their sakes, (Ps. cv. 14; Is. xliii. 3, 4.) And when all the saints who are to rule the nations, (Rev. xx. 4, 6,) for a thousand years, shall have been brought home to glory, then emphatically will the glory and honour of the nations be brought into the New Jerusalem.

As to the “leaves of the tree for the healing of the nations,” it may be remarked, that their sanative virtue will have been experienced by national societies on earth:  and there is not, there never was, nor will there ever be, any other healing medicine for them, (Ezek. xlvii. 12) In addition to what has been said, it is worthy of notice that the tree of life, in allusion to the delights of the garden of