New Heaven

“ Come, and by thy love revealing,
Dissipate the clouds beneath:
The new heaven and earth's Creator,
In our deepest darkness rise,
Scattering all the night of nature,
Pouring eye-sight on our eyes. ”

“ By the new earth we may understand a new state for the bodies of men, as well as a heaven for their souls. This world is not now newly created, but newly opened, and filled with all those who were the heirs of it. The new heaven and the new earth will not then be distinct; the very earth of the saints, their glorified bodies, will now be spiritual and heavenly, and suited to those pure and bright mansions. ”

“ A new religion beats down through space to us. A new poetry lifts away the ceilings of our dreams. The old sky, with its little tent of stars, its film of flame and darkness burning over us, has floated to the past. The twentieth century—the home of the Infinite—arches over our human lives. The heaven is 82no longer, to the sons of men, a priests’ wilderness, nor is it a poet’s heaven—a paper, painted heaven, with little painted paper stars in it, to hide the wilderness. ”

“ Long ago a prophet looked over the sea at a vision of a new heaven and a new earth. Two thousand years have passed away and no new heaven or new earth has come—but as sure as truth is stronger than falsehood it will come—just so sure we shall one day see a new heaven and a new earth, where dwelleth no political corruption, but righteousness. ”

“ I too come out gladly under the fair new-year's dawn, which gleams through all the clouds, and flames up the high hemisphere of heaven. In a year I shall look into the sin from another world: O how my heart, for this last time, under the earthly cloud, overflows with love toward the Father of this fair earth, toward his children and my brothers and sisters, toward this flowery cradle, wherein we only once awake, and amidst its rocking in the sun only once fall asleep! ”

“ Why, indeed, but because new light has dawned on the world, making more and more manifest the things of darkness? Why, but because heaven has been opened, and the rejoicing beams of the spiritual Sun have begun to penetrate the dark corners of the earth, and compel the creatures of the night to retire to their hiding-places? ”

“ An inspiring and penetrating freshness flowed together with the shimmer of light, through the augmented glory of the heaven, a glory exalted, undimmed, and strangely startling as if a new world had been created during the short flight of the stormy cloud. ”

“ When God is reconciled to us, which gives us a new heaven, the creatures too are reconciled to us, which gives us a new earth. The future glory of the saints will be so entirely different from what they ever knew before that it may well be called new heavens and a new earth, 2 Pet. ”

“ The Holy Scriptures expressly say there will be a new earth and a new heaven; and the Lord himself assures us that the foundations of the earth will be overturned and the stars shall fall from the heavens. ”

“ In the clouds of heaven, with power and great glory, He will be seen with all His angels. The mortal Saints yet on the earth will be instantly changed and caught up to meet Him. The holy cities will be lifted up. Then the elements will melt with fervent heat. The earth will die as all things must, and be resurrected in perfection and glory, to be a fit abode, eternally, for celestial beings. All things will become new; all things will become celestial, and the earth will take its place among the self-shining stars of heaven. ”

“ The new heaven under the wisdom of God or Science could create a new belief wherein could be peace and happiness that the old heaven or wisdom knew nothing of where there should be peace and joy in the Holy Ghost or explanation of this new world, where no error, selfishness, or jealousy dwells, so that all ignorance and superstition shall be cast out into outer darkness, never to return. ”

“ A natural heaven visible to the eyes, and a natural earth inhabited by men, are not meant by a new heaven and a new earth; but a spiritual heaven is meant, and the earth of that heaven, where angels dwell. ”

“ And this association would continue, till the power of Divine Truth, breaking through and dispelling the clouds of spiritual darkness, would form a New Heaven in the spiritual world, and a New Church in the natural,—thus rescuing the good in the world of spirits, and raising them up into heaven, and at the same time permitting the wicked to go to their own place. ”

“ Lest this should be done these words were spoken by the Lord, that they might certainly know that these heavens with their earths would perish, and that the Lord would create a new heaven and a new earth; at which time those that did not suffer themselves to be led astray would be saved. ”

“ Then with uplifted hands, and eyes devout, Grateful to Heaven, over his head beholds A dewy cloud, and in the cloud a bow Conspicuous with three lifted colours gay, Betokening peace from God, and covenant new. ”

“ The apostle Paul speaks of God as "dwelling in light, whom no man hath seen, nor can see, whom no man can approach unto." These testimonies show that heaven is a place, location, and can be thought of and spoken of separately from the earth and other parts of the universe. Heaven is generally spoken of from our standpoint as being up or above. The literal meaning of the word is "that which is heaved up," that which is above, which is high. "Heaven is my throne and earth is my footstool," it is said, in which figure of speech it is represented as above the earth. ”

“ As I was saying, we have sacrificed all things, and have come to a land whereof the Old World hath scarcely heard, that we might make a new world unto ourselves and painfully seek a path from hence to heaven. ”

“ And the term heaven, which in its natural sense refers to elevation in space, in its spiritual sense denotes elevation of state;—that exalted condition of mind and heart, that state of clear perception of whatever is beautiful and true, and of disinterested love for all that is good and right, in which the angels are. ”

“ Awakening and vitality are in the very atmosphere which brings a new hope, a new day, a new world of possibility and life. New heavens and a new earth thus present themselves to mortal cognisance, for the most part quite unconscious of them, every day. ”

“ And earth was heaven a little the worse for wear. And heaven was earth, done up again to look like new. ”

“ The majority, probably, of the ablest expounders of the Bible have maintained, as previously shown, that the apostle Peter most unequivocally teaches us that the new heavens, or atmosphere, and the new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness, are merely our present earth and atmosphere, melted and burnt by the fires of the last day, and fitted up anew,—a second and a lovelier paradise,—to be the everlasting abode of holiness and happiness. ”

“ These Heavens and Earth are growing old, and shall be changed like a garment: Psalm cii. They shall melt away, and be burnt up with all the works that are therein; and the Most High Eternal Creator shall gloriously create new Heavens and new Earth, wherein dwells righteousness: 2 Pet. ”

“ The result of my journey was to bring a certain mental peace. Where there had been chaos there was now order. My mind was at rest. I had a philosophy at last. The words of Christ "The Kingdom of Heaven is within you," had a new meaning for me. Not in the past or in the future, but now and here is Heaven within us. All our duties lie in this world and in the present, and trying impatiently to peer into that which lies beyond is as vain as fruitless. ”

“ And what would not hope do to reveal the new heavens and the new earth—that is, to show us the real, true, and gracious aspect of those heavens and that earth in which we now live so sadly, and are not at home, because we do not see them as they are, do not recognize in them the beginning of the inheritance we long for! ”

“ Gently, and without grief, the old shall glide
Into the new; the eternal flow of things,
Like a bright river of the fields of heaven,
Shall journey onward in perpetual peace. ”

“ The world was blotted out—sun and bay and wheeling sky. A new world was born—of two souls and swift desire. The heart of the universe opened to them. When they drew apart, her eyes were lighted with tears. ”

“ There shall come a day when the same sky that bends in blessing above your head shall bend,—no cloud to darken, but only to adorn, no fogs to hide, but only mist-wreaths to deck its blue,—soft, serene, and beautiful, above an earth purified by the same love which makes to you all things pure. Through that new atmosphere, my poet, the tuneful voices of your song shall go, wakening all the woods to melody, summoning shy response from the ever-charmed hills, ringing out over the listening waters, giving and gathering sweetness wherever a human heart throbs ”

“ An earthly sunset told?
Hark! like a holy bell
Over that spirit Sea,
Time, in the world it loves so well,
Tolls for Eternity.
Earth calls us once again,
And, through the mystic Gleam,
The grey old City of mortal pain
Dawns on the heavenly dream.
Sweet as the voice of birds
At dawn, the years return,
With little songs and sacred words
Of human hearts that yearn.
The sweet same waves resound
Along our earthly shore;
But now this earth we lost and found
Is heaven for evermore. ”

“ And perpetual gladness shall crown their heads. Joy and gladness shall they obtain; And sorrow and sighing shall flee away. LOCALITY OF THE NEW HEAVENS It is frequently the case that the change of heavens and earth is spoken of in the Scriptures in connection with Mount Zion. ”

“ And it may be, the renewed soule is called the new man, or new creature, because it is noble, beautifull, fresh and vigorous, never to wither or decay with age. And whatsoever we must understand by the new heavens and the new earth promised, Isai. ”

“ In the Domain of Nature, during early Spring, one sees the Spirit of New Life as an avatar, a coming of the Deity, or manifestation of the Mind in Nature, down to earth—to produce a resurrection of thought, being, joy, from an apparent death and past. ”

“ At that hour will the Mystic Herald, bearing the joyful tidings of the Spirit, shine forth from the City of God resplendent as the morn, and, through the trumpet-blast of knowledge, will awaken the heart, the soul, and the spirit from the slumber of heedlessness. Then will the manifold favors and outpouring grace of the holy and everlasting Spirit confer such new life upon the seeker that he will find himself endowed with a new eye, a new ear, a new heart, and a new mind. He will contemplate the manifest signs of the universe, and will penetrate the hidden mysteries of the soul. ”

“ And that before a new blossom the old one is slain by a chilling blight;
Visions, all visions grow mute at the vision of souls new-bom,
And God in His temples trembles at new gods that rise to smite. ”

“ By the end of the church, or the consummation of the Age, therefore, is meant its spiritual consummation, the loss of genuine charity and faith which are the essential things of the church, and not the abandonment of its places and forms of worship, its rites and ordinances, or any of the externals of religion. When the leading doctrines of Christianity—doctrines concerning the Lord, the Atonement, the Sacred Scripture, Redemption, Regeneration, the Resurrection, Heaven and Hell—have become so misunderstood and falsified that they darken rather than enlighten the human understanding ”

“ He saw in his prophetic mind depicted The opposite visage of the earth, and, turning With joyful defiance to the ocean, sailed Forth with two secret pilots, God and Genius. Last of the prophets, he returned in chains And glory.
In the New World are the traces, as in the Old, of a restless humanity, wandering from coast to coast, growing, building cities, and utterly vanishing. There are graves and ruins everywhere; and the poet's thought returns from these scenes of unstoried desolation, to follow again the course of man in the Old World annals. ”

“ The world was new, fresh with young dew, the very Eden of Genesis; and her soul was a soul of newness, born anew in a metempsychosis of greater perfection, of closer approach to the goal, that distant goal, far away yonder, hidden like a god in the sanctuary of its ecstasy of light, as in the radiance of its own being. ”

“ When rising from my knees I exclaimed, 'Old things have passed away, all things have become new.' It was like entering another world, a new state of existence. Natural objects were glorified, my spiritual vision was so clarified that I saw beauty in every material object in the universe, the woods were vocal with heavenly music ”

“ But when the light of the setting sun came streaming through the great window in the west, and kindling up the picture of Christ healing the sick, his soul would leap up for joy, a new light would come into his eyes, and this thought would rise within him like a song—"The Golden Age itself—the Age into which all other Ages open and look back—is pictured there." ”

“ Faintly at first, but with increasing splendour, even as dawn floods the sky and heralds the{297} day, dimming the stars and turning the moon to ashes, so the New Spirit permeated her, extinguishing the lesser lights of self-respect which demanded of her an efficient performance, and filling the inter-stellar darkness with the glory of the sun not yet risen upon the earth. ”

“ When, through the influence of the new religion, the hopeless mental state of the people shall yield to joyful expectation, the aural atmosphere gradually will grow penetrable, and Sensitives whom now we cannot approach will develop into Mediums through whom Spirits will communicate to mortals the glorious truth that their present existence is but a momentary experience of unending life. ”