X. THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN. MATTHEW Xix, 24. And again I say unto you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God. Parallels. Mark x. 25; Luke xviii. 25; Luke xvii 21. For behold, For the king the kingdom of God is within you. Rom. xiv. 17. dom of God is not meat and drink, but righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost. 1 Cor. iv. 20.- For the kingdom of God is not in word, but in power. 1 Cor. xv. 50. - But this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God. Gal. v. 19. Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these: Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, 20. Idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, 21. — Envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like; of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they who do such things, shall not inherit the kingdom of God. 22. But the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith. 23. — Meekness, temperance. Against such there is no law. 24. And they that are Christ's have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts. Ephesians v. 5. For this ye know, that no whoremonger, nor unclean person, nor covetous man (who is an idolater), hath any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ or of God. THE Kingdom of God is the subject of this Dis course. 18* [217] In considering it, let us first inquire what is meant by the phrase, “The Kingdom of God." We ought to have, not merely an exact theological, but an exact geographical idea of God's kingdom. We must fix its boundaries. We must draw a line of demarcation between God's kingdom and all other kingdoms, so as to include within it whatever does belong to it; and so as to exclude from it whatever does not belong to it. But you ask; Is not God's kingdom a universal one, an all-comprehending one? does it not, so to speak, reach to the very circumference of infinitude? Can there be anything sheer outside of it? Nay, if we could, according to the bold imagination of the poet, climb those walls "Whose battlements look o'er into the vale Of non-existence, Nothing's strange abode," should we not, even in that solitude, and darkness, and vacuity, still behold God's kingdom? true. Certainly, in a physical or dynamical sense, this is There is no outside to God's power. If immensity were any less, it would not contain all God's energy, for want of room. If eternity were any shorter, some part of the drama of God's providence must be omitted in the performance, for want of time. But there is another sense, in which these facts are almost reversed. To make this more intelligible, let me resort to etymology and definition. The word kingdom is a compound word. Its first syllable, "king," means leader, ruler, sovereign, lord, and the last syllable, "dom," when used as a termination, denotes jurisdiction. or property, as in the words, carldom, wisdom, freedom, &c. Earldom is the dominion of an earl; wisdom is the power of the wise; and freedom is the liberty of the free. If, then, the kingdom of God means, intrinsically, the moral supremacy, the undisputed sway of God's holy law; and, if it means, geographically, the place where that law is supreme, unresisted, unquestioned, then the difficulty will consist rather in finding where God's kingdom is, than where it is not. We shall find trouble in tracing out the circumference or boundary of God's law, not because the included territory is so immensely large, but because it is so microscopically small. Where in the moral world, where in all the realms of mortal free-agency, of human accountability, is God's kingdom, or the reign of God's law, absolute, perfect, perpetual? — not a sin to cloud its cerulean sky, or curse its flowery earth; not a tongue silent, and every voice a concord! Alas, my friends, to find such a kingdom of God as this in our sin-stricken world, we must have some new geographer, some more successful explorer than Captain Parry or Sir John Franklin; we must discover some new region not yet laid down in any atlas, in any terra cognita, or terra incognita of human history. For myself, I would sooner undertake to find the Northwest Passage in mid-winter, or to make a Coast Survey around the Antarctic Continent. If the kingdom of God be "love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance; "if it be to love the Lord our God with all our heart, and our neighbor as ourselves; if it be to do unto others as we would have them do to us; if, in fine, it be to do all these things, and to feel all these things habitually, systematically, spontaneously, to practice them without the compulsion of fear, and to enjoy them without the hope of other reward, then, indeed, there is not a petty prince in Europe, across |