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reverence-that it is only in conjunction not what else can be done, than to urge with the faith which justifies, that the love upon you the great propitiation of the New of gratitude, and the love of moral esteem, Testament-nor are we aware of any exare made to arise in the bosom of regene-pedient by which all the cold and freezing rated man; and, therefore, to bring down sensations of legality can be done away, the virtues of heaven, as well as the peace but by your thankful and unconditional acof heaven, into this lower world, we know ceptance of Jesus Christ, and him crucified.

SERMON VIII.

The Nature of the Kingdom of God.

"For the kingdom of God is not in word, but in power.”—1 Corinthians iv. 20.

THERE is a most important lesson to be derived from the variety of senses in which the phrases "kingdom of God," and "kingdom of heaven," are evidently made use of in the New Testament. If it, at one time, carry our thoughts to that place where God sits in visible glory, and where, surrounded by the family of the blessed, he presides in full and spiritual authority-it, at another time, turns our thoughts inwardly upon ourselves, and instead of leading us to say, Lo, here, or lo, there, as if to some local habitation at a distance, it leads us, by the declaration, that the "kingdom of God is within us," to look for it into our own breast, and to examine whether heavenly affections have been substituted there in the place of earthly ones. Such is the tendency of our imagination upon this subject, that the kingdom of heaven is never mentioned, without our minds being impelled thereby to take an upward direction-to go aloft to that place of spaciousness, and of splendour, and of psalmody, which forms the residence of angels; and where the praises both of redeemed and unfallen creatures, rise in one anthem of gratulation to the Father, who rejoices over them all.

larity and of the world, looks as if he had been cast over again in another mould, and come out breathing godly desires, and aspiring, with a newly created fervour, after godly enjoyments. And so, without any such conversion as this, heaven may still be conceived to minister a set of very refined and intellectual gratifications. One may figure it so formed, as to adapt itself to the senses of man, though he should possess not one single virtue of the temple, or of the sanctuary; and one may figure it to be so formed, as, though alike destitute of these virtues, to adapt itself even to the spirit of man, and to many of the loftier principles and capacities of his nature. His taste may find an ever-recurring delight in the panorama of its sensible glories; and his fancy wander untired among all the realities and all the possibilities of created excellence; and his understanding be feasted to ecstacy among those endless varieties of truth, which are ever pouring in a rich flood of discovery, upon his mind; and even his heart be kept in a glow of warm and kindly affection among the cordialities of that benevolence, by which he is surrounded. All this is possible to be conceived of heaven; Now, it is evident, that in dwelling upon and when we add its secure and everlasting such an elysium as this, the mind can pic-exemption from the agonies of hell, let us ture to itself a thousand delicious accom- not wonder, that such a heaven should be paniments, which, apart from moral and vehemently desired by those who have not spiritual character altogether, are fitted to advanced by the very humblest degree of regale animal, and sensitive, and unrenewed spiritual preparation, for the real heaven of man. There may be sights of beauty and the New Testament-who have not the brilliancy for the eye. There may be sounds least congeniality of feeling with that which of sweetest melody for the ear. There may forms its most essential and characteristic be innumerable sensations of delight, from blessedness-who cannot sustain on earth the adaptation which obtains between the for a very short interval of retirement, the materialism of surrounding heaven, and the labour and the weariness of communion materialism of our own transformed and with God-who, though they could relish glorified bodies. There may even be poured to the uttermost, all the sensible and all the upon us, in richest abundance, a higher and intellectual joys of heaven, yet hold no taste a nobler class of enjoyments and separate of sympathy whatever, with its hallelujahs, still from the possession of holiness, of that and its songs of raptured adoration-and peculiar quality, by the accession of which who, therefore, if transported at this moa sinner is turned into a saint, and the man ment, or if transported after death, with the who, before, had an entire aspect of secu-frame and character of soul that they have

at this moment, to the New Jerusalem, and | cumbrance of a vile body, the spiritual repast the city of the living God, would positively which is thus provided, is not without its mixfind themselves aliens, and out of their kin-tures, and without its mitigation. In a word, dred and rejoicing element, however much the essential elements of heaven's reward, they may sigh after a paradise of pleasure, and of heaven's felicity, are all in his posses or a paradise of poetry.

drawn in a direct stream, through the channels of love and of contemplation, from the fullness of the Creator. It emanates from the countenance of God, manifesting the spiritu al glories of his holy and perfect character, on those whose characters are kindred to his own. And if on earth there is no tendency towards such a character-no process of restoration to the lost image of the Godhead

sion. He tastes the happiness of heaven in It may go to dissipate this sentimental kind, though not in its full and finished deillusion, if we ponder well the meaning gree. When he gets to heaven above, he will which is often assigned to the kingdom of not meet there with a happiness differing in heaven in the Bible; if we reflect, that it is character from that which he now feels; but often made to attach personally to a hu- only higher in gradation. There may be man creature upon earth, as well as to be crowns of material splendour. There may be situated locally in some distant and myste- trees of unfading loveliness. There may be rious region away from us-that to be the pavements of emerald-and canopies of subject of such a kingdom, it is not indis- brightest radiance--and gardens of deep and pensible that our residence be within the tranquil security-and palaces of proud and limits of an assigned territory, any more, in stately decoration-and a city of lofty pinfact, than that the subject of an earthly nacles, through which there unceasing flows sovereign should not remain so, though a river of gladness, and where jubilee is travelling, for a time, beyond the confines ever rung with the concord of seraphic of his master's jurisdiction. He may, though voices. But these are only the accessaries away from his country in person, carry of heaven. They form not the materials about with him in mind a full principle of its substantial blessedness. Of this the of allegiance to his country's sovereign; man who toils in humble drudgery, an utter and may, both in respect of legal duty, and stranger to the delights of sensible pleasure, of his own most willing and affectionate or the fascinations of sensible glory, has got compliance with it, remain associated with already a foretaste in his heart. It consists him both in heart and in political relation- not in the enjoyment of created good, nor ship. He is still a member of that king-in the survey of created magnificence. It is dom in the domains of which he was born; and in the very same way, may a man be travelling the journey of life in this world, and be all the while a member of the kingdom of heaven. The being who reigns in supreme authority there may, even in this land of exile and alienation, have some one devoted subject, who renders to the same authority the deference of his heart, and the subordination of his whole practice.no delight in prayer-no relish for the The will of God may possess such a moral ascendency over his will, as that when the one commands, the other promptly and cheerfully obeys. The character of God may stand revealed in such charms of perfection and gracefulness to the eye of his mind, that by ever looking to him he both loves and is made like unto him. A sense of God may pervade his every hour, and every employment, even as it is the hand of God which preserves him continually, and through the actual power of God, that he lives and moves, as well as has his being. Such a man, if such a man there be on the face of our world, has the kingdom of God and Christ by his atoning death, and set up in his heart. He is already one of perfect righteousness, has purchased this the children of the kingdom. He is not capacity for those who believe; and they, locally in heaven, and yet his heaven is be-by the very act of believing, are held to be gun. He has in his eye the glories of hea- in possession of it, just as a man by stretchven; though, as yet, he sees them through ing out his hand to a deed or a passport, a glass darkly. He feels in his bosom the becomes vested with all the privileges which principles of heaven; though, still at war are thereby conveyed to the holder. Now, with the propensities of nature, they do not in the zeal of controversialists, (and it is a yet reign in all the freeness of an undis point most assuredly about which they puted ascendency. He carries in his heart cannot be too zealous)-in their zeal to the peace, and the joy, and the love, and the clear up and to demonstrate the ground on elevation of heaven; though under the in-which the sinner's legal capacity must rest,

sweets of intercourse with our Father, now unseen, but then to be revealed to the view of his immediate worshippers--then, let our imaginations kindle as they may, with the beatitudes of our fictitious heaven, the true heaven of the Bible is what we shall never reach, because it is a heaven that we are not fitted to enjoy.

But such a view of the matter seems not merely to dissipate a sentimental illusion which obtains upon the subject. It also serves to dissipate a theological illusion. Ere we can enter heaven, there must be granted to us a legal capacity of admission

there has, with many, been a sad overlook- | man happy in heaven, it would suffice siming of what is no less indispensable, even ply to transmit him there with the same his personal capacity. And yet even on the taste, and to surround him with the same lowest and grossest conceptions of what circumstances. But God has not so orderthat is which constitutes the felicity of hea-ed heaven. He will not suit the circumven, it would be no heaven, and no place stances of heaven to the character of man; of enjoyment at all, without a personal and therefore to make it, that man can be adaptation on the part of its occupiers, to the happy there, nothing remains but to suit kind of happiness which is current there. the character of man to the circumstances If that happiness consisted entirely in sights of heaven; and, therefore it is, that to bring of magnificence, of what use would it be to about heaven to a sinner, it is not enough confer a title-deed of entry on a man who that there be the preparation of a place for was blind? To make it heaven to him, his him; there must be a preparation of him eyes must be opened. Or, if that happiness for the place-it is not enough that he be consisted in sounds of melody, of what use meet in law, he must be meet in personwould a passport be to the man who was it is not enough that there be a change in deaf? To make out a heaven for him, a his forensic relation towards God, there change must be made on the person which must be a change in the actual disposition he wears, as well as in the place which he of his heart towards him; and unless delioccupies, and his ears must be unstopped. vered from his earth-born propensitiesOr, if that happiness consisted in fresh and unless a clean heart be created, and a right perpetual accessions of new and delightful spirit renewed-unless transformed into a truth to the understanding, what would rights holy and godlike character, it is quite in and legal privileges avail to him who was vain to have put a deed of entry into his sunk in helpless idiotism? To provide him hands-heaven will have no charm for with a heaven, it is not enough that he be him--all its notes of rapture will fall transported to a place among the mansions with tasteless insipidity upon his ear-and of the celestial: he must be provided with justification itself will cease to be a privia new faculty, and as before a change be- lege. hooved to be made upon the senses; so Let us cease to wonder, then, at the frenow, ere heaven can be heaven to its occu-quent application, in Scripture, of this pier, a change must be made upon his phrase to a state of personal feeling and mind. And, in like manner, my brethren, character upon earth; and rather let us if that happiness shall consist in the love press upon our remembrance the important of God for his goodness, and in the love of lessons which are to be gathered from such God for the moral and spiritual excellence an application. In that passage where it which belongs to him-if it shall consist in is said, that the "kingdom of God is not the play and exercise of affections directed meat and drink, but righteousness, and to such objects as are alone worthy of their peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost," there most exalted regard—if it shall consist in can be no doubt that the reference is altothe movements of a heart now attracted in gether personal, for the apostle is here conreverence and admiration towards all that trasting the man who, in these things, is noble, and righteous, and holy-it is not serveth Christ, with the man who eateth enough to constitute a heaven for the sin- unto the Lord, or who eateth not unto the ner, that God is there in visible manifesta- Lord. And in the passage now before us, tion, or that heaven is lighted up to him in there can be as little doubt, that the refera blaze of spiritual glory. His heart must ence is to the kingdom of God, as fixed and be made a fit recipient for the impression substantiated upon the character of the of that glory. Of what possible enjoyment human soul. He was just before alluding to him is heaven, as his purchased inherit-to those who could talk of the things of ance, if heaven be not also his precious and his much-loved home? To create enjoyment for a man, there must be a suitableness between the taste that is in him, and the objects that are around him. To make a natural man happy upon earth, we may let his taste alone, and surround him with favourable circumstances-with smiling abundance, and merry companionship, and bright anticipations of fortune or of fame, and the salutations of public respect, and the gaieties of fashionable amusement, and the countless other pleasures of a world, which yields so much to delight and to diversify the short-lived period of its fleeting generations. To make the same

“I

Christ, while it remained questionable
whether there was any change or any effect
that could at all attest the power of these
things upon their person and character.
This is the point which he proposed to
ascertain on his next visit to them.
will come to you shortly, if the Lord will,
and will know not the speech of them
which are puffed up, but the power. For
the kingdom of God is not in word, but in
power." It is not enough to mark you as
the children of this kingdom; or as those
over whose hearts the reign of God is es-
tablished; or as those in whom a prepara-
tion is going on here for a place of glory and
blessedness hereafter-that you know the

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terms of orthodoxy, or that you can speak | dom of God cometh to them in word only its language. If even an actual belief in while not in power. its doctrine could reside in your mind, without fruit and without influence, this would as little avail you. But it is well to know, both from experience and from the information of him who knew what was in man, that an actual belief of the Gospel, is at all times an effectual belief-that upon the entrance of such a belief, the kingdom of God comes to us with power, being that which availeth, even faith, working by love, and purifying the heart, and overcoming the world.

But again, what is translated word in this verse, is also capable of being rendered by the term reason. It may not only denote that which constitutes the material vehicle by which the argument conceived in the mind of one man is translated into the mind of another; it may also denote the argument itself; and when rendered in this way, it offers to our notice a very interesting case, of which there are not wanting many exemplifications. In the case just now adverted to, the mere word is in One of the simplest cases of the kingdom the mouth, without its corresponding idea of God in word, and not in power, is that being in the mind; but in the case immeof a child, with its memory stored in pas-diately before us, ideas are present as well sages of Scriptures, and in all the answers as words, and every intellectual faculty is to all the questions of a substantial and at its post, for the purpose of entertaining well-digested catechism. In such an in-them-the attention most thoroughly awake stance, the tongue may be able to rehearse-and the curiosity on the stretch of its utthe whole expression of evangelical truth, while neither the meaning of the truth is perceived by the understanding, nor, of consequence, can the moral influence of the truth be felt in the heart. The learner has got words, but nothing more. This is the whole fruit of his acquisition; nor would it make any difference, in as far as the effect at the time is concerned, though, instead of words adapted to the expression of Christian doctrine, they had been the words of a song, or a fable, or any secular narrative and performance whatever. This is all undeniable enough-if we could only prevail on many men, and many women, not to deny its application to themselves if we could only convince our grown-up children of the absolute futility of many of their exercises-if we could only arouse from their dormancy our listless readers of the Bible-our men, who make a mere piece-work of their Christianity; who, in making way through the Scriptnres, do it by the page, and, in addressing prayers to their Maker, do it by the sentence; with whom the perusal of the sacred volume, is absolutely little better than a mere exercise of the lip, or of the eye; and a preference for orthodoxy is little better than a preference for certain familiar and well-known sounds; where the thinking principle is almost never in contact with the matter of theological truth, however conversant both their mouths and their memories may be with the language of it-so that in fact the If it be of importance to know, that a doctrine by the knowledge of which, and man may lay hold, by his memory, of all the power of which it is, that we are saved, the language of Christianity, and yet not lies as effectually hidden from their minds, be a Christian-it is also of importance to as if it lay wrapt in hieroglyphical obscu- know that a man may lay hold by his unrity; or, as if their intellectual organ was derstanding, of all the doctrine of Chris shut against all communication with any tianity, and yet not be a Christian. It is thing without them; and thus it is, that our opinion, that in this case the man has what is not perceived by the mental eye, only an apparent belief, without having an having no possible operation upon the men- actual belief-that all the doctrine is contal feelings, or mental purposes, the king-ceived by him, without being credited by

most eagerness-and the judgment most busily employed in the work of comparing one doctrine, and one declaration with another-and the reason conducting its long or its intricate processes; and, in a word, the whole machinery of the mind as powerfully stimulated by a theological, as it ever can be by a natural or scientific speculation-and yet, with this seeming advancement that it makes from the language of Christianity to the substance of Chris tianity, what shall we think of it, if there be no advancement whatever in the power of Christianity-no accession to the soul of any one of those three ingredients, which, taken together, make up the apostle's definition of the kingdom of God-no augmentation either of its righteousness, or its peace, or its joy in the Holy Ghostthe man, no doubt, very much engrossed and exercised with the subject of divinity, but with as little of the real spirit and charac ter of divinity, thereby transferred into his own spirit, and his own character, as if he were equally engrossed and equally exercised with the subject of mathematics-remaining, in short, after all his doctrinal acquisitions of the truth, an utter stranger to the moral influence of the truth; and proving, in the fact of his being practically and personally the very same man as be fore, that if the kingdom of God is not in word, it is as little in argument, but in power.

him-that it is the object of his fancy, and its departed excellence. The one is without being the object of his faith-and what faith will do on the other side of that, as on the one hand, if the conviction time. But the other just as certainly faith be real, the consequence of another heart, must do on this side of time. It is here and another character, will be sure; so, on that heaven begins. It is here that eternal the other hand, and on the principle, of life is entered upon. It is here that man "by their fruits shall ye know them," if he first breathes the air of immortality. It is want the fruit, it is just because he is in upon earth that he learns the rudiments of want of the foundation--if there be no pro- a celestial character, and first tastes of ceduce, it is because there is no principle; lestial enjoyments. It is here, that the well having experienced no salvation from sin of water is struck out in the heart of renohere, he shall experience no salvation from vated man, and that fruit is made to grow the abode of sinners hereafter. If faith unto holiness, and then, in the end, there is were present with him, he would be kept life everlasting. The man whose threadby the powers of it unto salvation, from bare orthodoxy is made up of meagre and both; but destitute as he proves himself to unfruitful positions, may think that he be now of the faith which sanctifies, he will walks in clearness, while he is only walkbe found then, in the midst of all his sem- ing in the cold light of speculation. He blances, and all his delusions, to have been walks in the feeble sparks of his own kinequally destitute of the faith which justifies. dling. Were it fire from the sanctuary, it And it is, perhaps, not so difficult to stir would impart, to his unregenerated bosom, up in the mind of the learned controver- of the heat, and spirit, and love of the sancsialist, and the deeply-exercised scholar, the tuary. This is the sure result of the faith suspicion, that with all his acquirements that is unfeigned--and all that a feigned in the lore of theology, he is, in respect of faith can possibly make out, will be a fictiits personal influence upon himself, still in tious title deed, which will not stand before a state of moral and spiritual unsoundness, the light of the great day of final examinait is not so difficult to raise this feeling of tion. And thus will it be found, I fear, in self-condemnation in his mind, as it is to do many cases of marked and ostentatious proit in the mind of him who has selected his fessorship, how possible a thing it is to one favourite article, and there, resolved, if have an appearance of the kingdom of God die he must, to die hard, has taken up his in word, and the kingdom of God in letter, obstinate and immoveable position-and and the kingdom of God in controversyretiring within the intrenchment of a few while the kingdom of God is not in power, verses of the Bible, will defy all the truth But once more---instead of laying a false and all the thunder of its remaining decla- security upon one article, it is possible to rations; and with an orthodoxy which car- have a mind familiarized to all the articles ries on all its play in his head, without one---to admit the need of holiness, and to moving or one softening touch upon his demonstrate the channel of influence by heart, will stand out to the eye of the world, which it is brought down from heaven both in avowed principle, and in its corres-upon the hearts of believers--to cast an eye ponding practice, a secure, sturdy, firm, of intelligence over the whole symphony impregnable Antinomian. He thinks that he will have heaven, because he has faith. But if his faith do not bring the virtues of heaven into his heart, it will never spread either the glory or the security of heaven around his person. The region to which he vainly thinks of looking forward, is a region of spirituality; and he himself must be spiritualized, ere it can prove to him a region of enjoyment. If he count on a different paradise from this, he is as widely mistaken as they who dream of the luxury that awaits them in the paradise of Mahomet. He misinterprets the whole undertaking of Jesus Christ. He degrades the salvation which He hath achieved, into a salvation from animal pain. He transforms the heaven which He has opened into a heaven of animal gratifications. He forgets, that on the great errand of man's restoration, it is not more necessary to recal our departed species to the heaven from which they had wandered, than it is to recal to the bosom of man its departed worth,

and extent of Christian doctrine---to lay bare those ligaments of connection by which a true faith in the mind is ever sure to bring a new spirit and a new practice along with it: and to hold up the lights both of Scripture and of experience, over the whole process of man's regeneration. It is possible for one to do all this--and yet to have no part in that regeneration---to declare with ability and effect the Gospel to others, and yet himself be cast away-to unravel the whole of that spiritual mechanism, by which a sinner is transformed into a saint, while he does not exemplify that mechanism upon his own person--to explain what must be done, what must be undergone in the process of becoming one of the children of the kingdom, while he remains one of the children of this world. To him the kingdom of God hath come in word, and it hath come in letter, and it hath come in natural discernment; but it hath not come in power. He may have profoundly studied the whole doctrine of

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