merely: Peter plainly said, we look for a new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness:[1] this implies the continuation of mankind; for how is righteousness to dwell upon the earth, if they are to be taken away from it? About this there is no information. But the Lord has expressly said, "As the new heavens and the new earth, which I will make, shall remain before me, so shall your seed and your name remain."[2] The notion then that the human race will some day cease, receives no countenance from the Scriptures; it breaks down in the hands of those who expect the destruction of the old earth; because we find that man's duration is to be co-extensive with the new one; and about the destruction of this new earth no one will pretend to find any evidence in the Scriptures.
It is written, "Thus saith the Lord that created the heavens; God Himself that formed the earth and made it; He hath established it, He created it not in vain, He formed it to be inhabited."[3] From this we learn that the Lord would have regarded the earth as a vain thing if it had not been created as a dwelling-place for the human race. That being the end for which it was created, must also be the end for which it is to "abide for ever." Whether those terms be understood of the natural earth or of the Church, it amounts to the same thing; for the existence of the Church requires the existence of the earth, and the continuation of the Church involves the continuation of man.
The Lord said, "The heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool."[4] The heaven here referred to is not the blue expanse above us, but the habitation of the angels; His throne is His government among them; and the earth spoken of as His footstool is not the physical
