(Continued from previous issue, and its longer title, “Of the Day of Judgment and World to Come.” At the beginning of this segment we reproduce part of the paragraph closing the last issue, to connect the thought. This article is of historic importance, but the reader is cautioned to weigh specific interpretations.)

This city [new Jerusalem] must be understood to comprehend as well Christ and the children of the resurrection, as the race of mortal Jews on earth. It signifies not a material city but the (spiritual) body politic of all those who have dominion over the nations, whether they be the saints in heaven or their mortal vice-regents on earth. Therefore the Apostle Paul in his Epistle to the Hebrews chapter 11 understands it of the saints in heaven and in Galatians 4:26 calls it, “Jerusalem which is above.”

DIMENSIONS

Hence, this city is not only long and broad as other cities are but rises high from the earth into heaven. Hence also the dimensions of the sides thereof are double to those of the terrestrial Jerusalem described by Ezekiel: for understanding which, you are to know that the Prophets have written of superficial and solid measure as well as of linear. Ezekiel tells us that the oblation, which was 25,000 cubits in length and as much in breadth, shall be five and twenty thousand by five and twenty thousand, and calls it foursquare.

So John tells us that the wall of this city was 144 cubits according to the art of measuring used by men, that is 12 cubits high and 12 cubits broad and so in square measure 144 cubits. For he had told us a little before that this wall was great (that is broad) and high, and now he gives the measures of it according to those dimensions. Ezekiel had put the wall of his Temple six cubits high and six cubits broad (Ezekiel 40:5), and John puts the measure of his wall double. And as the Angel in the Apocalypse measured the wall by superficial measure so he measured the city by solid measure, for John saith that he measured the city with the reed twelve thousand furlongs, the length the breadth and the height of it are equal. The last words shew that the measure of 12,000 furlongs respects all the three dimensions and so is a solid measure. Whence the cubic root of 12,000 furlongs will be the side of the city and this side repeated four times will be the compass thereof below, which by my computation is 91 and 4/7 furlongs or in round numbers ninety furlongs, that is thirty six thousand cubits reckoning four hundred Jewish cubits to a Jewish furlong as authors teach.

A vision of New Jerusalem (Revelation 21)

And the half of this compass being eighteen thousand cubits is the compass of Ezekiel’s city. (Ezekiel 48:35), that is 22.894 furlongs of 9,157 cubits (reckoning 400 Jewish cubits to a Jewish furlong) will be the side of this City, and this side, if you take the round number of 9,000 cubits, is double to the side of Ezekiel’s city, which was only 4,500 cubits (Ezekiel 48:16,32). As the linear dimensions of the Temple under the Kings were double to those of the Tabernacle under the Judges, so those of the City under the King of Kings are double to those of the City under the Kings.

THE INVISIBLE PRESENCE

But whilst this doubled City is the inheritance of the saints both mortal and immortal, we are not to conceive that Christ and the Children of the resurrection shall reign over the nations after the manner of mortal Kings or converse with mortals as mortals do with one another; but rather as Christ after his resurrection continued for some time on earth invisible to mortals unless upon certain occasions when he thought fit to appear to his disciples: so it is to be conceived that at his second coming he and the children of the resurrection shall reign invisibly unless when they shall think fit upon any extraordinary occasions to appear. And as Christ after some stay in or near the regions of this earth ascended into heaven, so after the resurrection of the dead it may be in their power also to leave this earth at pleasure and accompany him into any part of the heavens, that no region in the whole Universe may want its inhabitants.

For Christ at his second coming must rule the nations with a rod of iron and reign till he hath put down all rule and all authority and power and when he hath put all enemies under his feet – the last whereof is death, to be conquered in these regions – he shall deliver up the Kingdom to God the Father (1 Corinthians 15:24), that is he shall withdraw himself from it and depart into the heavens. For when the Martyrs and Prophets live again they may reign here with Christ a thousand years till all the nations Gog and Magog be subdued and the dominion of the new Jerusalem be established and death be vanquished by raising the rest of the dead and all this time they may be in the same state of happiness in or near these regions as afterwards when they retire into the highest heavens.

– Isaac Newton

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