Page:The Last Judgement and Second Coming of the Lord Illustrated.djvu/361

 branches, leaves, blossoms, and finally fruit; but in the fruit is stored up the seed, from which it first began. Nor is this true only of the vegetable kingdom, but also of all animated nature.

Now the first principles of a Church are the enlightened acknowledgment of God, the love of Him and of our neighbour, purity of affection, and innocence of life; these principles distinguished those who are represented by Adam and his wife before they fell. But by that catastrophe they were cast aside, and for a long period they appear to have lost their vitality in the world; still no one really doubts that those interior graces of the primeval Church will be revived, and become part of that which is called the New Jerusalem. So also the essential excellence of the Noetic and Israelitish dispensation must be revived in the final Church. The Divine providence does not permit any of its teachings to perish; they may pass out of human recognition for a time, but their final restoration is clearly taught us in the closing chapters of the Word. What else can be the meaning of the golden city coming down from heaven, having the glory of God, and the foundations of its wall garnished with all manner of precious stones, and every gate a pearl? Surely the river of life and the tree of life are said to be in it, to assure us that it is to be the tabernacle for the evolution of every blessing.

From these considerations we learn that those Churches which preceded the promulgation of Christianity must have contained within them some principles necessary to the existence of Christianity and, without which it could not have been developed. The dispensations of God, which the Bible relates, are not to be regarded as isolated events; each has some relation to the other, and all are so connected, as to their essential principles, that, to enlight-