listlessness appear when you are enveloped in the glories of heaven and are filling the celestial arches with your bursting praise? Up, every redeemed soul, and do what you can for your God and Saviour. Take your harps from the willows and begin the raptured song. Let all the country around be charmed and won by your sacred melody. Go on your way enchanting the ear of a Christless age with your harp and your song; and when you come to the last enemy, enchant the ear of death itself with the same celestial notes; and let your praises die away from mortal ears, only to burst in new and louder tones on the ear of heaven. Amen and Amen.

SERMON XXXI.

NEW HEAVENS AND NEW EARTH.

II. PET. III. 13.

Nevertheless we, according to his promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness.

In the preceding verses the apostle had given a distinct and literal account of the dissolution of the earth and visible heavens by the final conflagration. He passes in our text from dissolving worlds and a smoking universe, to the new heavens and new earth which are to come in the place of the old; which are the object of the joyous expectation of good men; and which, (to wit, both the new heavens and new earth,) will be inhabited by righteousness, namely, by the same righteous men that so eagerly expect them. The Scriptures distinctly teach us that when Christ shall come to judgment, this earth, together with the visible heavens, including all the heavenly bodies that were made durVOL. II.

57

ing the six days of creation, will be dissolved by fire, will pass away, will perish, will have an end, will be no more. They also teach us that new heavens and a new earth, in a literal sense, will be formed to supply the place of those which shall have passed away; and, though the highest or third heaven will continue to be the principal abode of the saints, that both the new heavens and new earth will be inhabited by righteous men.

A question here arises, whether the new heavens and new earth will be created out of the ruins of the old; that is, whether the old will be renovated and restored in a more glorious form; or whether the old will be annihilated and the new made out of nothing. The idea of the annihilation of so many immense and glorious bodies, organized with inimitable skill and declarative of infinite wisdom, is gloomy and forbidding. Indeed it is scarcely credible that God should annihilate any of his works, much less, so many and so glorious works. It ought not to be believed without the most decisive proof. On the other hand, it is a most animating thought that this visible creation which sin has marred,-which the polluted breath of men and devils has defiled, and which by sin will be reduced to utter ruin, will be restored by our Jesus,-will arise from its ruins in tenfold splendor, and shine with more illustrious glory than before it was defaced by sin.

After a laborious and anxious search for light on this interesting subject, I must pronounce the latter to be my decided opinion. And the same, I find, has

been the more common opinion of the Christian fathers, of the divines of the Reformation, and of the critics and annotators who have since flourished. I could produce on this side a catalogue of names which would convince you that this has certainly been the common opinion of the Christian Church in every age, as it was also of the Jewish. Some of the reasons which may be offered in favor of this opinion, are the following.

1. The words which are employed to express the destruction of the world, do not necessarily imply annihilation. The texts which speak of the removal and passing away of the world, do it in such terms as are often used to denote a mere transition from one place or state to another. The figures taken from the wearing out of a garment and from the vanishing of smoke, do neither of them import the destruction of substance. For the substance of a garment when it moulders away, and of smoke when it vanishes, is not annihilated; only the form is changed. Is it said that the world shall perish ? The same word is used to express the ancient destruction of the world by the flood, when certainly it was not annihilated. Is it said that the world shall have an end and be no more? This may be understood only of the present form and organization of the visible system. When the present world shall be reduced to ashes, it may properly be said to end and to be no more. And when a new organized universe shall arise from the ashes of the old, it may be properly considered, not the same universe continued, but a new and different one. Is