out of which he had been loosed, (v. 7.)—­Of the beast it was said, he “ascendeth out of the bottomless pit,” but not that he was remanded thither again:  he is said to “go into perdition,” which must be “the lake of fire.” (Compare ch. xvii. 8, with xix. 20; and xx. 1-3 with v. 10.)—­The plain and obvious meaning of these closing verses of the 20th chapter, as delineated in its general import by appropriate and familiar symbols and intelligible words, for ever excludes, and emphatically condemns the conscience-stupifying heresies and blasphemies of Unitarians and Universalists.  The God-man Mediator, seated upon the “throne of his glory,” before whose face the “earth and the heaven fled away,” is thus evidenced to be the Son of God, Jehovah’s Fellow.  And we may here adopt the assertion and caution of the “beloved disciple,”—­“This is the true God and eternal life.—­Little children, keep yourselves from idols.” (1 John v. 20, 21.)—­Moreover, these verses reveal a place or state, more to be dreaded than the “killing of the body,”—­“the lake of fire, which is the second death,” “where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched.” (Matt. x. 28; 2 Thess. i. 8-10; Heb. x. 26-31.)

With the 20th chapter of the Apocalypse terminate the events of time, in which the divine Author demonstrates, that “known unto him are all his works, from the beginning of the world.” (Acts xv. 18.) Many, indeed, of the learned and pious have supposed the remaining chapters of the Apocalypse, to be a description of the church on earth during the millennial period.  But besides the series, coherence and dependence of the several parts of the book, precluding such retrogression, this interpretation overthrows the scriptural distinction between the militant and triumphant state of the church.  And it is not to be thought out of place, that the inspired prophet should describe, by suitable emblems, the outline of the heavenly state; for this he has done briefly already in a number of instances. (See chs. ii. and iii., also ch. vii. 15, 17.)—­Those who consider the last two chapters as a delineation of the church on earth, have first formed in their minds ideas of a corporeal or bodily presence of Christ, and of a literal and visible reign on the earth.  Such views we have already shown to be without scripture warrant, yea against plain declarations of the Holy Spirit, (as Acts iii. 21; Matt. xvii. 11, 12; Heb. ix. 28.) Hence we shall contemplate the symbols of the following chapters,—­except as incidents or allusions may render this incompatible,—­as shadowing forth the glories of the church’s heavenly state.

CHAPTER XXI.

1.  And I saw a new heaven and a new earth:  for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away; and there was no more sea.

2.  And I John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.