Holy City

“ Earthly cities and palaces cause him to remember thee, O thou holy city, heavenly Jerusalem, whose walls are salvation, and thy gates praise, and the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple in the midst of thee! He who sees the world in this light will draw its sting, and disarm it of its power to hurt ”

“ If you stay in the Holy City long enough to fall into anything like regular habits of amusement and occupation, and to become, in short, for a time “a man about town” at Jerusalem, you will necessarily lose the enthusiasm which you may have felt when you trod the sacred soil for the first time, and it will then seem almost strange to you to find yourself so entirely surrounded in all your daily pursuits by the designs and sounds of religion. Your hotel is a monastery, your rooms are cells, the landlord is a stately abbot, and the waiters are hooded monks. ”

“ Having entered the holy city yesterday, they are returning from their first visit to that sacred spot where I am going in my turn; poor pilgrims who come here by the thousand, on foot, sleeping out of doors in the rain or the snow, suffering with hunger and dying on the way.
In proportion as you approach, the Oriental objects in the stalls give place to objects of an obscure Christian piety: thousands of chaplets, crosses, religious lamps, and images or icons. ”

“ How truly does this explain the return of the Christian mind to the simple Gospel and the right understanding thereof!
The new heaven was formed of those gathered by the judgment into the fold of the Good Shepherd. The new earth, its child in the world, is being born and nurtured. But the holy city, the new Jerusalem, what is that? A city is the abode of a community of men, with separate dwellings but with common streets in which they walk in concert, and public grounds and buildings for common interests. ”

“ It is evident, therefore, that the true church and the false church of the gospel era are represented.
Notice carefully the symbols: holy city, temple, altar, worshipers, and living witnesses, or prophets. These represent the sum and substance of all divine revelation in the Mosaic age: holy city, Jerusalem—the place where God set his name; the temple—divinely authorised, holy, acceptable worship based on careful adherence to God's commandments formerly given; the altar—the great symbol of atonement, the reconciliation of humanity with the divinity ”

“ When we ask if the city is holy, we mean nothing about basilicas, or churches, or convents; but we mean, are the people like Jesus Christ, like a people prepared as a fit population for a sinless heaven? ”

“ If you would be cheated out of your eyeteeth, come to Jerusalem. Its bazaars are filled with tricksters and traders, and it has its usurers and money changers as in the days of the Saviour. The people prey upon the pilgrims and tourists. Their main object is to get gain, and they work the holiness of the Holy City for all it is worth. They sell candles which if burnt in the Church of the Sepulchre will carry away your sins in their smoke; and rosaries upon which if you count your prayers you may be sure of their ascending to heaven. ”

“ Was trodden without the city.—“In symbolic prophecy a ‘city’ signifies a religious government backed by power and influence. Thus, for instance, the ‘holy city, the new Jerusalem,’ is the symbol used to represent the established Kingdom of God, the overcomers of the Gospel Church exalted and reigning in glory.” (D. 25.) “The treading of the winepress is the last feature of Harvest work. The reaping and gathering is all done first.” ”

“ And I, [John] saw the Holy City, New Jerusalem.—“The New Jerusalem is not ‘that great city [government] which ruleth over the kings of the earth’ (Revelation 17:18) but is the new Spiritual Government of the Millennial Age. It is not reared by men; but, descends from God out of Heaven. It is for this Kingdom, this Government, that our Lord taught His disciples to pray, ‘Thy Kingdom come; Thy will be done on earth, as it is done in Heaven.’ ”—Z. '16-392 ”

“ This is the most glorious city of God; this is the city which knows and worships one God: she is celebrated by the holy angels, who invite us to their society, and desire us to become fellow-citizens with them in this city; for they do not wish us to worship them as our gods, but to join them in worshipping their God and ours; nor to sacrifice to them, but, together with them, to become a sacrifice to God. ”

“ Thus Jerusalem the Holy City, Athens the city of culture, and Rome the city of power, combined to prepare the world so that the matchless ethical and religious [49] teaching of Jesus of Nazareth could capture the hearts and heads of men, replace the national religions, and become realised in the outward forms and inward beliefs of the Christian Church, which was soon to exercise a controlling power in the civilised world. ”

“ As a holy city Jerusalem was a thing of the past for long years, and it is only in the beginning of the second century that we find a strong Christian Church growing up in the rapidly increasing city, called no longer Jerusalem, but Ælia Capitolina. ”

“ And in all good faith, by direct revelation from the Lord, as in days of old, we commenced the glorious work, that a holy city, a new Jerusalem, even Zion, might be built up, and a temple reared in this generation, whereunto, as saith the Lord, all nations shall be invited. ”

“ Happy are those that belong to this city, who are fellow-citizens with the saints, and of the household of God; whose citizenship is in heaven, and they have a right to enter in through the gates into the holy city, the new Jerusalem ”

“ He drew them as a flock after Himself, and His disciples gathered them into the fold of Church fellowship. This is of as vital importance to the cause of Christianity as the civic organisation of Jerusalem was to that of Judaism. The Christian City of God stands out before the world on her lofty foundation, the Rock of Ages—a beacon of separation from sin, a testimony to the grace of God, a centre for the confession of faith, a home for social worship, a rallying point for the forces of holy warfare, a sanctuary for the helpless and oppressed. ”

“ An American society of Second Adventists has been resident here for some years, while isolated religious cranks find in the Holy City an appropriate dwelling-place, for reasons known only to themselves. ”

“ When great men choose the holy city for their habitation their example brings holiness into reputation, and their zeal will provoke very many. 2. There were some that willingly offered themselves to dwell at Jerusalem, nobly foregoing their own secular interest for the public welfare, v. 2. It is upon record, to their honour, that when others were shy of venturing upon difficulty, loss, and danger, they sought the good of Jerusalem, because of the house of the Lord their God. Those shall prosper that thus love Zion, Ps. ”

“ For the continued noise and uproar of the City, for its crowds, for its smells, the people cared nothing. They were part of the City. They loved everything that belonged to it—their great cathedral; their hundred churches; their monasteries; their palaces and the men-at-arms; the nobles, priests, and monks; the Mayor and Aldermen; the ships and the sailors; the merchants and the craftsmen; the ridings and the festivals and the holy days; the ringing, clinging, clashing of the bells all day long; the drinking at the taverns; the wrestling and the archery; the dancing; the pipe and tabor ”

“ Thus the gospel Jerusalem is purified by the blood of Christ and the grace of God, and made indeed a holy city. 2. That they should be relieved and rescued out of their captivity, that the bands of their necks should be loosed, that they should not now be any longer oppressed, nay, that they should not be any more invaded, as they had been: There shall no more come against thee (so it may be read) the uncircumcised and the clean. The heathen shall not again enter into God's sanctuary and profane his temple, Ps. ”

“ Thirty-four years have now elapsed since our city found within its walls 200,000 strangers, all actuated by a pious longing after this holy relic, before which they might present their adoration, and, in lively feelings of devotion, strengthen themselves in the faith and the love of the Lord. ”

“ The whole city shall be inhabited in the utmost extent of it, and no part of it left to lie waste. The utmost limits of it are here mentioned, between which there shall be no ground lost, but all built upon, from Benjamin's-gate north-east to the corner-gate north-west, and from the tower of Hananeel in the south to the king's wine-presses in the north; when the churches of Christ in all places are replenished with great numbers of holy, humble, serious Christians, and many such are daily added to it, then this promise is fulfilled. ”

“ Hundreds of villages and towns bear the names of holy missionary monks who built first a cell, and then a monastery around a chapel, which became the centre of a village, that grew in time to be a city. ”

“ Furthermore, since your City is regarded with affection by the adherents of three of the great religions of mankind, and its soil has been consecrated by the prayers and pilgrimages of multitudes of devout people of those three religions for many centuries, therefore do I make it known to you that every sacred building, monument, holy spot, shrine, traditional site, endowment, pious bequest, or customary place of prayer, of whatsoever form of the three religions, will be maintained and protected according to the existing customs and beliefs of those to whose faiths they are sacred. ”

“ But there is in heaven the eternal Jerusalem, where are our fellow-citizens, the Angels: we are wanderers on earth from these our fellow-citizens. We sigh in our pilgrimage; we shall rejoice in the city. ”

“ They are driven to set pillar against pillar in the same temple, while we can set city against city across the plains of the world. While for us a church rises from its foundations as naturally as a flower springs from a flower-bed, they have to bless the soil and curse the stones that stand on it. ”

“ We possess a City which was founded with the divine approval as revealed in auguries and auspices; in it there is not a spot which is not full of religious associations and the presence of a god; the regular sacrifices have their appointed places no less than they have their appointed days. Are you, Quirites, going to desert all these gods - those whom the State honours, those whom you worship, each at your own altars? ”

“ The great city spreads her dusky mantle over innumerable races and creeds, and I believe there is scarcely a known form of worship that has not some temple there (have I not attended at the Church of Humanity, in Lamb’s Conduit, in company with an American lady, a vague old gentleman, and several seamstresses?) or any communion of men that has not some club or guild. ”

“ In the Heavenly Jerusalem all is peace and eternal harmony, the beginning, fulfilment, and end of everything being pure and perfect happiness; the city is filled with splendid buildings, decorated in such a manner as to charm every eye and enrapture every sense; the inhabitants of this delightful abode are overflowing with rapture and exultation, the gardens gay with lovely flowers, and the trees covered with delicious fruits which give eternal life. ”

“ To come out of the sloping High Street past the ancient city Cross, through the narrow passage-way into the precincts, and to pass down that great avenue of secular limes across the Close to the great porch of the Cathedral, is to come by an incomparable approach to perhaps the most noble and most venerable church left to us in England. ”

“ But let me remind you of another city of quite a different character, blessed with every privilege of a religious kind—the city of Jerusalem. Though that city had every blessing which God could shower on it, the people rejected God in all His love, and grace, and kindness. Their wickedness may have been of a different kind, but it was as great in the sight of God as that of Nineveh. The Lord Jesus Christ Himself came as the great Missionary to that city—the city of His love. ”

“ After some short Pause, the old Knight turning about his Head twice or thrice, to take a Survey of this great Metropolis, bid me observe how thick the City was set with Churches, and that there was scarce a single Steeple on this side Temple-Bar. A most Heathenish Sight! says Sir Roger: There is no Religion at this End of the Town. The Fifty new Churches will very much mend the Prospect; but Church-work is slow, Church-work is slow! ”

“ For this is none other, as we read and sing, than the house of God in which to pray, the court of God to offer praise, the choir of God to sing unto Him, the altar of God whereon to celebrate, the gate of God whereby to enter heaven, the ladder of God to rise above the clouds. As a noble city is preserved with walls and gates and bars, so also is the monastery of the religious with many devout brethren, with sacred books, and with learned men. ”

“ But the excited crowds that fill the city streets and make the Cathedral Square look like a deep cornfield stirred by a strong west wind, and the gathering of villagers in the open place in front of their tiny church alike betray one quality that is no more Christian and new than it is Pagan and old. An unquestioning and swift hospitality to strangers is as much in evidence as is the lighted taper borne by each man, woman, and child. ”

“ The city, white-walled and red-roofed, with its numerous churches, and immense and magnificent Cathedral overtopping all, stood out grandly beautiful in the double light, a sight to look upon and admire, and to exult over in memory henceforth through all our lives. ”