PSALM 67

1 Elohim be merciful unto us, and bless us; and cause his face to shine upon us; Selah.

2 That thy way may be known upon earth, thy saving health among all nations.

Human Government is a blasted and withering oak, but the New Jerusalem Evergreen of the kingdom when grown is the greatest among herbs, and becometh a tree, so that the birds of the air come and lodge in the branches thereof. The birds of the heaven are the chiefs of the nations, whose subjects seek its fruit from one new moon to another, ministered to them by its Healing Leaves for their salvation.

Blessedness and saving health is promised unto all nations. The leaves of the wood are the medicine of their cure. Naturally, there are powerful medicinal properties in leaves: but none so powerful and efficacious as in the Leaves of the Wood for the healing of the nations.

Only think, what a wonderful enlightening, purging, and healing property there must be in leaves that can cure ignorant and bigoted papists, protestants, Mohammedans, Hindoos, and such like, of all their superstitions and abominations, clothe them in a right mind, and cause them to say in their convalescence,

"Come, and let us go up to the mountain of YAHWEH, to the House of the Elohim of Jacob; and he will teach us of his ways"

- He who is the Life of the Wood and Water of Paradise. He will then produce, or reveal knowledge, pertaining to "his ways," which knowledge will be exhibited in "the law", and in "the word" that are to go forth from Zion and Jerusalem.

The law and the word of the Spirit will issue from the throne through the Healing Leaves at duly appointed times, or

"from one New Moon to another, and from one Sabbath to another" (Isa. 66:23).

The "twelve fruits of the wood of life" are the knowledge of good tending to life, being made known, and fed upon, in all the year.

Fruit is any thing produced. It is not produced to all the world at once; that is, in a single month: but at every new moon of the year's twelve shall strangers present themselves in Jerusalem for instruction, and "from one Sabbath to another". The living water through the wood produces the healing knowledge, the leaves yield it to the nations, according to the administrative institutions of the new Mi!lennial constitution and order of things.

Eureka 22.3.

3 Let the people praise thee, O Elohim; let all the people praise thee.

4 O let the nations be glad and sing for joy: for thou shalt judge the people righteously, and govern the nations upon earth. Selah.

5 Let the people praise thee, O Elohim; let all the people praise thee.

4 O let the nations be glad and sing for joy: for thou shalt judge the people righteously, and govern the nations upon earth. Selah.

The Beautiful

"Beautiful for situation, the joy of the whole earth is Mount Zion."

Nature ascending from the pleasing and the lovely to the grand and majestic, will put on the most smiling attire that ever she was known to wear since the days of Eden; when the time comes for God to comfort Zion and all her waste places, and make her wilderness like Eden and her desert like the garden of the Lord. (Isa. 51:3; 35:1, 2; 55:12, 13; Jer. 31:12.)

When the Saviour of the world hung upon the cross, nature hid her face beneath a pall of darkness that covered the earth; but when he returns to re-create human affairs, and to bless the world with righteousness and peace, all nature will clap her hands and rejoice. (Ps. 95:10–13; 65:12.)

Engulphing earthquakes, consuming famine and pestilence, tearing tornadoes, devouring plagues, and destroying storms will then be under the control of him who spake peace to the tempestuous waters of Galilee, who will then be on the scene again, to carry into effect the more beneficent designs of the Almighty, that wait the removal of sin from the earth and its planting with trees of righteousness and life for the healing of the nations. (Isa. 61:3; Rev. 22:2.)

Then at the last all curse shall cease from creation, and with it all pain and death and surging sorrow (Rev. 21:4; 22:3.) The whole spectacle will be one of peace—nature at peace, the animals at peace (Isa. 11:6–9), man at peace with man and with his Maker, and God at peace with all the works of his hands, at last wholly conformed to the image of his Son, now the Prince of Peace and the King of Glory.

The "love of the beautiful" which God has planted in human nature will then be provided for as never before. The sights and sounds that will then greet the ear and the eye will everywhere be such as create pleasurable sensations and delight of the highest type. Fine art will be eclipsed by the finer and ever-present realities of immortal existence, and the world in the possession and keeping of a righteous king (Isa. 32:1), whose unfading beauty (Isa. 33:17) and dazzling splendour will mightily eclipse everything that ever went by the name of "royalty" before.

Of literature, the nations will then have nothing but the very best. The world of literary husks, upon which the dark minded populations of the earth now feed with swinish greed, will then be swept clean off the face of the globe, as polluting and corrupt. Life will then have an object worthy of existence—a supreme and towering object, for it will lay hold on God and the eternal.

The emancipated nations will be "glad and sing for joy" (Ps. 67:4) when they find themselves in full realization of the saving health that will everywhere be imparted to human society by the righteous administration of Israel's Bethlehem ruler.

Great and glorious will be the change from the human to the divine; and from the petty and mean in mortal ways to the results of immortal wealth and wisdom. Labour under such circumstances will be a luxury, and its results a fortune.

It will be the age of the beautiful—"the beautiful for ever;" an age of perfect institutions... perfect government, surmounted by the perfect worship of God, and the unceasing mention of his name in words of praise and everlasting gratitude for all his poured-out goodness (Isa. 59:19; Mal. 1:11) upon earth.

The crowning institutions are all to come, when the present age of iron and clay shall give place to the golden splendours of the age without political clouds and social disquiet. Its greatness cannot be measured, neither can its power to root and bless and comfort and prosper be easily overstated.

All the world will be one vast "paradise of God," with the tree of life in its temple centre, and the earth everywhere cloven with rivers of life and gladness. (Ps. 45:4; Rev. 22:1.)

The Christadelphian, July 1888

6 Then shall the earth yield her increase; and Elohim, even our own Elohim, shall bless us.

The man who believes in God has peace on many points where the world can find none. The population question does not trouble him. He knows that the career of flesh and blood upon earth has fixed limits, and that there is no fear of that overcrowding which appals the contemplations of the naturalist who has no faith in the purpose of God.

"But there is not in every man this knowledge."

So we find the newspaper prognosticators contributing their dismal statistical probabilities to the general gloom that is settling on the thinking portion of mankind. They are pointing to the fact that whereas "in 1780, the British Isles had "a population of only twelve and a half "millions, it is now three times that "figure; whilst in the States the population "has increased within the century at "least tenfold."

They argue that, "if "this rate of increase should continue "till the year 2,000, the States alone "will have five hundred millions of "population, whilst all they can do "with, at ten acres per head, is less than "half that number; and British America "will not be large enough to accommodate "the surplus, even should it stand "still in the meantime."

It seems beyond doubt, say they, "that, by the close "of the twentieth century, if not even at "an earlier date, the population question "will have attained a mighty significance."

That is, will it not be a question whether at that time the earth will not have reached the limit of its power to sustain humanity?

The writer piles up figures to show that according to the calculated capacity of the land to yield food, it is probable that in a few generations the habitable world will have become overcrowded; and what then? is the doleful question.

The Bible contains the answer, but the wise of this world heed not the answer. The Kingdom of God is coming. Its establishment will be attended by a vast thinning of the human species through war and destroying judgment; and its ascendancy for a thousand years will be marked by a bounty of the divine blessing that will amply provide for the increase of healthy and enlightened population that will follow.

The fertility of the soil will be quickened to a degree naturalists have not dreamt of. "The Lord our God shall bless us: then shall the earth yield her increase." A thousand years of such a state of things will develop a population more numerous than is now upon earth; out the plan provides for the prevention of overcrowding.

There will be a stoppage of propagation with the cessation of its need; and thenceforward, a population of immortals will rejoicingly inhabit the earth, to whose capacities their numbers, with perfect wisdom, will have been adjusted.

The Christadelphian, Sept 1886

7 Elohim shall bless us; and all the ends of the earth shall fear him.