In like manner St. John, when foreshowing the final establishment of true Christianity, uses the same metaphor of a city and a bride, that had been previously used by Isaiah. (Rev. xxi. 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, &c._ But let it not be erroneously supposed that the figurative character of prophetic language consists merely in the use of these terms to express the Messiah’s kingdom; or that the proof of its spirituality is confined to the employment, however frequent, of such phrases as _trees of righteousness, waters of life, wells of salvation_, &c.; the fact is, that every allusion to that kingdom is couched in terms, which admit only of spiritual interpretation: and where any lengthened description occurs, the language assumes the form of continued allegory, in which the moral and religious state of mankind is foreshewn in terms appropriate only to the physical world. As in Ezekiel xxxiv. 26. _And I will make them, and the places round about my hill a blessing; and I will __ cause the shower to come down is his season; there shall be showers of blessing._ _And the tree of the field shall yield her fruit, and the earth shall yield her increase, and they shall be safe in their land, and shall know that I am the Lord._ When Jeremiah (xxxi. 12.) in similar language foretels the abundance of blessings promised in this kingdom, even the Rabbi admits that the figurative and not the literal sense is to be taken; and that spiritual, not temporal blessings are here intended by the prophet. _Therefore they shall come and sing in the height of Zion, and shall flow together for the goodness of the Lord, for wheat and for wine, and for oil, and for the young of the flock, and of the herd_, &c. But the main point aimed at in the following exposition; and what the writer wishes to be its distinguishing characteristic is, that of making scripture its own interpreter; for in every passage that has been referred to, and perhaps it may be said, in every one that can be referred to, there will be found in the context sufficient intimation of the purport of the figurative expressions employed. On this plan the boldest metaphors will be found to admit of easy explanation; and passages otherwise inexplicable will find their solution, upon one consistent and uniform principle of interpretation. A few examples will afford illustration of the proposed plan of exposition. One of the boldest metaphors used by the prophets in reference to the Messiah’s kingdom is, that which represents the establishment of this new order of things, promised in his reign, as _a new heaven and a new earth_; in fact as a new creation: a mode of expression, which has no doubt been often understood, by those who are not sufficiently conversant with the nature of prophetic language, as literally foretelling a change in the physical world, that we inhabit.