An Amicable Controversy with a Jewish Rabbi, on The Messiah's Coming

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 t