.—How the Church of our Saviour, the New Jerusalem prophesied of in Scripture, was built.
was the emperor’s letter; and his directions were at once
carried into effect. Accordingly, on the very spot which witnessed the
Saviour’s sufferings, a new Jerusalem was constructed, over
against the one so celebrated of old, which, since the foul stain of
guilt brought on it by the murder of the Lord, had experienced the last
extremity of desolation, the effect of Divine judgment on its impious
people. It was opposite this city that the emperor now began to rear a
monument to the Saviour’s victory over death, with rich and
lavish magnificence. And it may be that this was that second and new
Jerusalem spoken of in the predictions of the prophets, concerning which such abundant testimony is given in the divinely inspired records.
First of all, then, he adorned
the sacred cave itself, as the chief part of the whole work, and the
hallowed monument at which the angel radiant with light had once
declared to all that regeneration which was first manifested in the
Saviour’s person.