Plenty of Room in the Heavenly City.
By JOHN MATTESON
It has been strongly objected by some that our literal view of the New Jerusalem makes too small a space for the myriads of saints which no man could number, and that the infants alone would cover the city three feet deep. The best answer to this, I think, is a few plain figures. The measure given of the city is 12,000 furlongs. Rev. 21. This, according to ancient manner of measuring, makes 375 miles to each side, which gives an area of 140,625 square miles, about the size of Wisconsin, Illinois and Indiana; 1 square mile contains 27,878,400 square feet, which, multiplied by 140,625, equals 3,920,400,000,000 of square feet in the heavenly city. The present number of inhabitants in the world, small and great, is about 1,000,000,000. Twenty generations to Abraham, and forty-two from Abraham to Christ, make sixty-two generations. Fifty-eight generations since Christ make in all one hundred and twenty generations. To average half of the number of the present generation to every generation since Adam, would certainly be a high estimate. Then we have one hundred and twenty generations multiplied by 500,000,000, the number of inhabitants, making 60,000,000,000 of inhabitants in this world since Adam. Now divide this into the number of square feet of the city, and it gives 65⅓ square feet to every man, woman, and child, that ever lived upon this earth. But if you should say these figures are too small, and you would want to double the number of people, which you certainly must admit is much too large an estimate, yet it would leave over thirty-two square feet to every one in the first story of the city, to say nothing of the glorious hight of the city, which is in equal proportion to its immense length and breadth. This proves the city, if need be, even large enough for Universalist views. But if we take the Bible view, that by far the smaller number of mankind will be saved, and that a host of wicked people, “the number of whom is as the sand of the sea,” are devoured by fire outside of the city, Rev. 20: 9, in the day when the Lord says that all the proud and all that do wickedly shall be burned up and be ashes under the feet of the righteous, Mal. 4: 1–3, then there is, indeed, abundance of room in the mansions of glory, where Jesus is now preparing a place for them that love him.