renewed and glorified earth will be the blissful abode of the saved, as is clearly and fully stated in the Book of Revelation, where it is written: 'I ¹ saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth are passed away; and the sea is no more. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, made ready as a bride adorned for her husband.' Then come those lovely and heart-thrilling verses which we have already quoted: 'And I heard a great voice out of the throne, saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he shall dwell with them, and they shall be His peoples, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God: and he shall wipe away every tear from their eyes; and death shall be no more; neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain, any more: the first things are passed away.'

What we have here mentioned is what is told us in the word of God regarding the glory, happiness and character of the world to come. Although the exact nature of the glory and happiness which the true believers in Christ will obtain and enjoy in that world, and the precise condition of things there, have not been described in detail, but rather these have been set forth only metaphorically and as it were in parables in many passages of the holy Scriptures, yet enough has been told us to enable us to make sure of attaining that glory and happiness,

and to learn as much about these things as man's feeble and limited mind can comprehend. We are told enough to enable a man by God's grace to give up the sensual pleasures of this transitory world and to meditate upon the way to attain to the pure and holy delights and the unfading glory of eternity.

There seem to be two reasons why the New Testament does not detail to us fully the nature of the joy, happiness and glory of the world to come. The first is, that in human language there are no words fitted to describe at all completely the beauty and the bliss of that invisible and eternal world, and that man's intellect is not strong enough to understand such spiritual and ineffable matters at all perfectly, or even adequately to imagine them, because the happiness and glory of that state of existence differ so much from what we here call by these names. This present world is unreal and temporary, that world is real and eternal. Therefore the consideration of what we here mean by the terms glory and happiness will not help us to realize what is the true nature of the glory and the happiness which God has there promised to bestow upon his own. The greatest glory and the highest bliss of this present life are but a feeble type and an imperfect shadow of what is there reserved for those who are counted worthy through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ to enter the presence of God. Hence it is not possible to describe adequately to man,