power; but ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you; and ye shall be witnesses unto me," &c.

Our Lord's answer at first seems discouraging and darkening to their hopes, and yet, like other apparently [314] dark answers, it is full of profitable thoughts. The very darkness may shew that he could not mean to speak of a merely spiritual kingdom; there was no reason to withhold from them the fact of the time and season of its commencement; that had already commenced, and of the increase of that he tells them explicitly in the promise which he, in his answer, gives, "of the Holy Ghost coming upon them."

The very question is instructive. When we remember that he had just been "opening their understanding to understand the scriptures," (Luke xxiv. 45,) and conversing with them "for forty days on the kingdom of God," (Acts i. 3.); it is most improbable that they should still have had a visionary notion about its establishment, or if they had, that at such a moment he should have left them under the power of so serious an error.

The words, however, encourage their hopes; just as he had done in the whole of his discourses, from the early promise, Matt. v. 3, (see Psalm xxxvii.) to the fuller glory assured them, Luke xxii. 29, 30. He says, the Father hath put in his own power, the times and seasons of restoring again the kingdom; then might the apostles justly conclude, it will again be [315] restored. It is similar to the answer given to the mother of Zebedee's children; that the right and left hand seats in his kingdom should be given to them for whom it was prepared of his Father, (Matt. xx. 23.)

Infinite wisdom marks these replies. Look back. We stand on the eminence of eighteen centuries. See what those centuries have been. Generation after generation, Apostles, Martyrs, Fathers, Confessors, and Reformers have lived; view their conflicts, labours, sufferings, persecutions, and cruel deaths.

all the earth in that day; there shall be one Lord, and his name one. Zech. xiv. 9.

We doubt not, whatever first-fruits may have been given, the fulness of these promises is yet to flow in at the latter-day glory of the church. In another place, our Lord connects the coming of the Son of Man in a cloud, the redemp tion of his people drawing nigh, and the kingdom of God being nigh at hand. Luke xxi. 27, 28, 31.

An objection has been made by Archbishop Whately to the temporal restoration of the Jews, with pre-eminence above the Gentiles, from the parable of the Labourers, (Matt. xx. 12—16.) each receiving the same sum. We must not set aside plain predictions by a parable we dimly understand. Earthly privileges may be given, with a pre-eminence and visible glory to the Jew; while heavenly things may be the common privilege of Jew and Gentile.

See the rise of Popery and Mahomedanism; the dark ages; the reviving and quenching again of light; the struggles of infant Protestantism, and its subsequent decay, and the spread of infidelity over countries professedly Christian: oh! had the apostles been plainly told all this, what needless despondency, what heart-sinkings, must have overwhelmed them! 1800 years of deferred expectation; 1800 years of Israel's dispersion and the treading down of Jerusalem; 1800 years to come of the Gentile monarchies; with what wisdom this prolonged scene of darkness and sorrow was kept from them, by the very obscurity of the reply! while they were shewn at the same time, that the kingdom would come at the precise period when GOD THE FATHER, infinite in wisdom and boundless in love, should see to be best.

Our Lord manifestly designed that his church should never be without the lively hope of his coming the second time. That his church might have a waiting Spirit, and all the benefits of a prepared, watchful, and hopeful state of mind, the times of the kingdom were not fully revealed, even when the [316] sealed book was given to the Lamb, and the seals opened by him; the obscurity is only to be removed at the time of the end, (Dan. xii. 4, 9; Rev. xxii. 10,) that thus the church might ever pour out the fervent prayer, "This kingdom come; thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven."

Our Lord's kingdom is then yet to be fully established.

It may be well to make this still clearer; for the power and coming of our Lord to establish such a kingdom, was esteemed of old a cunningly-devised fable, (2 Peter i. 16,) and has been too much lost sight of.

Our Lord tells his disciples, "The Son of Man shall come in the glory of his Father with his angels, and then he shall reward every man according to his works;" language that can only be applied to his second personal and visible coming. He then immediately proceeds expressly to assure his disciples, (Matt. xvi. 27, 28,) that some standing with him should not taste' of death till they had seen the "Son of man coming in his kingdom," or (as Mark ix. 1,) the "kingdom of God come with power;" and then six days after, (Matt. xvii. 1, &c.) he takes Peter, James, and John into a high mountain apart, and is transfigured before them,—his face shines as the sun,-his raiment is white as the light,-Moses and Elias appear with him in glory, and speak of his decease, his disciples witness these things,-and Peter says, it is good to be here. Then a cloud overshadows them, and a voice is heard from it, "This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; hear ye him."

We have here then the liveliest display of the coming of

Christ's kingdom with power, of which we can at present form a conception. This view is [317] greatly confirmed by the allusion of St. Peter to it. After exhorting Christians (2 Peter i. 11,) to every excellence by the animating motive"so an entrance shall be ministered unto you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ," he tells them, (verses 16-19,) "we have not followed cunninglydevised fables, when we made known unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eye-witnesses of his majesty; for he received from God the Father honour and glory, when there came such a voice to him from the excellent glory-This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. And this voice which came from heaven we heard, when we were with him in the holy mount; we have also a more sure word of prophecy, whereunto ye do well to take heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark place, until the day dawn, (or shine out,) and the day-star arise in your hearts." The power and coming cannot be applied here merely to the miracles of his first coming, when he came, not in majesty, but in humiliation; they are connected by Peter, not with those, but with his transfigured and glorious body on the Mount, and the glorified bodies of Moses and Elijah appearing with him; his coming, in fact, "in the glory of his Father with his angels," (Matt. xvi. 27,) as is indeed more fully set forth in the 3d chapter of 2nd Peter.

Again, it is not till the seventh angel sounds his trumpet, that there are great voices in heaven saying, "The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ, and he shall reign for ever." Rev. xi. 15.

The return of our Lord is the season of THE FULL ESTABLISHMENT of his kingdom. It takes place at the coming of Christ, (Dan. vii. 13, 14, with Matt. xxvi. [318] 64; 2 Tim. iv. 1;) but this could not be at the birth of our Saviour, nor at the destruction of Jerusalem, for there was no judgment in, or destruction of, the Roman empire at that time, (Dan. ii. 45; vii. 26.) It was to become as the chaff of the summer threshing-floor, Dan. ii. 35; but we know that empire subsisted in its glory for centuries after the first coming of Christ. this kingdom is not merely a heavenly glory, but one to be established on earth, is clear also from Daniel's plain prediction, chap. vii. 27, "The kingdom and the dominion, and the greatness of the kingdom, UNDER THE WHOLE HEAVEN, shall be given to the people of the saints of the Most High, whose kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and all dominions shall serve and obey him." The expressed hope of the church is,

That

"Thou hast made us unto our God Kings and Priests, and we shall reign on the earth." Rev. v. 10. Our Lord Christ is the acknowledged, and only supreme monarch of this kingdom. What may be the manifestations of his glory we know not. There was a visible appearance of the divine glory in the Holy of Holies under the Jewish Theocracy, and many have supposed that there will be a similar appearance in the administration of this kingdom. The hope of the Christian Dispensation is, however, far more excellent than that of the Jewish; "if that which was done away is glorious, much more that which remaineth is glorious." 2 Cor. iii. 7—12. The different descriptions given of Jerusalem, one in the 40th and following chapters of Ezekiel, and the other in the 21st and 22d of Revelation, have led many to think that there will be two Jerusalems; one heavenly, of which we know that "the throne of God and of the Lamb shall be in it," (Rev. xxii. 23,) and the other earthly, of [319] which it is also true, "the name of the city from that day shall be, The Lord is there." Ezek. xlviii. 35. It has indeed been said, because our Lord told the woman of Samaria, "Believe me the hour cometh when ye shall neither in this mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem worship the Father," that the literal temple would never be built for worship at Jerusalem. But our Lord's prediction has already received its sad accomplishment in this hour or season. In the kingdom to come, it may be far different. That is of an everlasting duration. Ezek. xliii. 7. When Nathanael calls our Lord, "the Son of God, and the King of Israel," (John i. 48-50,) our Saviour tell him, "Verily I say unto you, ye shall see heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of man;" this has yet to be fulfilled; and however we may accommodate it to spiritual intercourse with heaven, and spiritual blessings bestowed through Christ, it sets before us a communication between heaven and earth, through the Son of Man, far more glorious than anything which has yet been realized.*

[320] There is therefore a visible and glorious kingdom of Christ, yet to exist on this our earth, with infinitely more holiness, spirituality, and blessedness, than any thing that the world has yet seen. The saints, raised at the coming of Christ, and

* Some statements of Mr. Mede shew that he was rather disposed to err on the side of caution than of rashness. He says, (Works pp. 603, 604,) "The presence of Christ in his kingdom shall no doubt be glorious and evident, yet I dare not so much as imagine, which some ancients seem to have thought, that it should be a visible coNVERSE upon earth. For the kingdom of Christ ever has been and shall be Regnum Cœlorum, a kingdom whose throne and kingly residence is in heaven. There he was installed where he sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on High, (Heb. i.) and there as in his proper

changed, and made like him, (1 Thess. iv. 15, 16; 1 Cor. xv. 23, 52-54.) shall share its glories and reign with him, (Matt. xix. 28; Luke xxii. 28-30; Rom. viii. 17, 18; 1 Cor. iv. S; 2 Tim. ii. 12; Rev. iii. 21; v. 10; xx. 1-4.)

The thousand years' reign of the saints, is not mentioned to limit their reign for that time; it is perfectly clear that they shall reign for ever and ever. (Dan. vii. 18;) but it is mentioned to shew that at the end of that period, there shall be among the nations then living in the flesh, another rebellion of Satan, to himself and his followers, fatally ruinous, but utterly ineffective to overthrow the kingdom of the saints; and that after that time, he shall be for ever shut up in the lake of fire, and they shall reign in uninterrupted glory through eternity, (Rev. xxii. 5,) in that [321] kingdom where God shall be all in all; the millennial kingdom is but a preparatory step to the everlasting kingdom.

We pretend not to describe what is meant by the language expressive of reigning, or in what way our Lord may be visible, and sit on the throne of David, or what part the glorified saints will have in the future kingdom of Christ; but it is clear that God has promised that they shall share its blessedness and glories, and holds this out as an animating motive to fidelity. 2 Tim. iv. 8; Rev. ii. 10; iii. 11, 21; v. 10; 1 Cor. ix. 25. We must not let infidelity, we must not let Satan and the world, rob us of this hope.

God is, "in the ages to come, to shew the exceeding riches of his grace, in his kindness towards us, through Jesus Christ."

temple is continually to appear in the presence of his Father, to make intercession for us. Rom viii. 34; Heb. ix. 24. Yet may we grant that he shall appear and be visibly revealed from heaven, especially for the calling and gathering of his ancient people, for whom he did so many wonders in the days of old." He proceeds to prove this by our Lord's words, Matt. xxiv. and Rev. i. 7, compared with and founded on Dan. vii. 13, and Zech. xii. 10.

"Those who shall be partakers of this kingdom are described to be of two sorts: 1. The deceased martyrs, who, (as far as I can yet understand,) shall resume their bodies and reign in heaven: 2. Such of the living, as have not worshipped the beast, nor his image, neither have received his mark, these shall reign on earth, for so I construe the words. Rev. xx. 4.

"This rising of the martyrs is that which is called the first resurrection, being, as it seems, a prerogative to their sufferings above the rest of the dead; who, as they suffered with Christ in the time of his patience, so should they be glorified with him in the reign of his victory before the universal resurrection of all: Blessed and holy are they who have part in the first Resurrection, for on them the second death hath no power, namely, because they are not in via, but in patria, being a prerogative, as I understand it, of this sort of reigners only. Thus I yet admit the first resurrection to be corporal, as well as the second, though I confess I have much striven against it."

The presence of our Lord both in earth and in heaven is confessedly mysterious; but John iii. 13 may shew us that there is no inconsistency in both being true.

VOL. II.-68