Ghost:" the name of a trinity in unity.

All thus baptized

belong, nominally, to the kingdom of heaven. They have been named in the name of the King of heaven, and are called Christians-Christ being the King of heaven.*

This kingdom, composed of all nominal Christians, includes all men, good and bad, thus baptized. But within this kingdom there is another kingdom, receiving only the good. All are baptized outwardly with water, but few are baptized inwardly by the Spirit. The few baptized by the Spirit, are in intimate spiritual union. Accordingly, we shall find "the kingdom of heaven" described in these two characters,-one to import the nominal union, including good and bad; the other the positive union of the good.

We have seen where the term is used in the one sense; let us see where it is used in the other.

"Blessed are the poor in spirit, for their's is the kingdom of heaven" (Matt. v. 3).

"Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for their's is the kingdom of heaven" (Matt. v. 10).

"I say unto you, That except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven" (Matt. v. 20).

"Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God" (1 Cor. xv. 50).

"It is easier for a camel to go through a needle's eye, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God" (Luke xviii. 25). These are some of the instances in which the term is used, wherein it is seen not to mean the nominal kingdom, but a true and especial kingdom.

In some instances, statements are made in connection with the term, which seem to contradict each other; and the explanation of the apparent contradiction is to be found in the two meanings to be assigned to the term. It is written,

I and my Father are One. John x. 30-38; Ibid xiv. 10, 11.

"The kingdom of God cometh not with observation: neither shall they say, Lo here or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you" (Luke xvii. 20). And, again, it is written, "There be some of them that stand here, which shall not taste of death, till they have seen the kingdom of God come with power" (Mark ix. 1). These two apparently contradictory declarations find an explanation in the two uses to which the term kingdom of God, or kingdom of heaven, is put. When it is said, "The kingdom of God cometh not with observation, for it is within you," the true spiritual kingdom is meant; and when it is said, "There be some stand here which shall not taste of death, till they see the kingdom of God come with power," the nominal kingdom is intended.

The spiritual eternal kingdom we all know mentally. We all know that it is the world of spirits in union and communion with the Great God, the Eternal of heaven. In this kingdom are many spirits yet in the flesh. They are a stream of men who, like the faithful, converted, Hebrew Christians, are come unto Mount Zion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly (or new) Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly and Church of the first born, which are written in heaven, and to God the judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect" (Heb. xii. 22, 23). These spirits in the flesh are the justified in Christ (Rom. viii. 1). They are those that have life in Christ; and this life is eternal, present, everlasting life* (John iii. 36). These spirits in the flesh, together

* I have argued in the "True Church," that the death to which our first parents were subject, as the consequence of disobedience, was not, as is supposed by divines, mortal death, but spiritual death. To have life in Christ is to be restored from that spiritual death. Consequently, we find it declared that all in Christ have eternal life (John vi. 47). That this eternal is present, as well as future, is self-evident, and that our Lord does not account anything of mortal death, and that this follows as a simple law of all flesh-nature, He said, "If a man keep my saying he shall never taste of death (John viii. 52). Now all flesh tastes of death;

with those departed out of the flesh, compose the Church, the bride, the Lamb's wife.

The nominal kingdom is composed of good and bad. Over this kingdom God rules. God rules over the whole world, but in a particular sense, He rules more especially over a people called after His name. Other people claim other gods to rule

and this was so evident that the Jews took great offence at the declaration, and said, "Now we know thou hast a devil."

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This spiritual life affords an explanation to the prophetic language of Isaiah in the 26th chapter (see especially 18th and 19th verses), and to the language of our Lord as given by St. John (v. 24-29): He that heareth my word, and believeth on Him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life The hour is coming, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God: and they that hear shall live." And succeeding these words, our Lord further declares prophetically, "The hour is coming," the period is approaching, "when all that are in their graves shall hear his voice and shall come forth: they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation," or condemnation.

I have stated in the "True Church," that the language of Daniel, in his last vision, applies to his own people the Jews; and when he writes"And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life and some to shame and everlasting contempt' (Dan. xii. 2), it is predictive of their condition when they are in-gathered into the Christian body; that is, some will be nominal, others true, Christians. Just as with the whole world, when all nations are nominally Christian up to the time of the end, some persons will be spiritually born again, or rise out of the grave of spiritual death to the resurrection of life; or they will hear the voice of Him and not believe and rise to a resurrection of condemnation.

All have life in Christ (1 Cor. xv. 22; 1 Tim. iv. 10; John iii. 17; Ibid. xii. 3). Some who now hear the word and believe on Christ have present and eternal life (John v. 24, 25). And some who hear and do not believe have a resurrection unto condemnation (John v. 29; Ibid. iii. 17, 18).

Let the literalists pause before they condemn these observations; "the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life” (2 Cor. iii. 5, 6).

Upon the subject of life in Christ, see the Rev. Thom's "Universal Salvation." I do not uphold all he advocates, but there is, in my judgment, some truth in this book.

over them, but this people claim to be ruled over by the God. God in Christ came upon earth, and a new name was given unto men. From the time that men were first called Christians at Antioch, have they gathered together under this then new, but now familiar name. This name is the name of the King of heaven, and all bearing this name are within "the kingdom of heaven." The kingdom of heaven, in this sense, is composed of persons bearing the name of Christ, and they are ruled over by Christ, or the God of heaven. Any people, or nation, having other gods than the God, belong not to the kingdom of heaven. This explains the meaning of the prediction in the Revelation, "The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of His Christ." When this prediction is fulfilled, all heathen kingdoms will have become Christian kingdoms, that is, nominally, Christian kingdoms. "The kingdon of heaven," in the sense intended, is put in contradistinction to other kingdoms -the kingdom of Mahomet, the kingdom of Confucius, &c., &c.

In the kingdom of heaven, in this sense, are numerous visible communities, called Churches: congregations of men recognising one common bond of unity, but separated into individual bodies, by some one or more distinctive differences. These Churches are numerous; but they may be classed under two designations, which include them all, National and Denominational. The common bond of union is the name of Christ-the members of all Churches being baptised in the name of God, Christ being God, they are baptised in the name of Christ. By this they are held in nominal union with Christ. These as a whole compose the kingdom of heaven in the sense of including good and bad.

Christians, misled by the teaching of eminent divines in past ages, have concurred in believing that the kingdom of heaven, of mixed good and bad, is the Church. The learned, judicious, and good man Hooker has, in this matter, led men astray. Far be it from me to detract from the merits of this undoubtedly great man. He wrote at a time when it did not please God, no doubt

for great and wise purposes, to permit a perfect knowledge of the Church. This is evident from the tenor of prophecy. It detracts, therefore, nothing from the merits of a writer of the sixteenth century, that he should not be acquainted in all its force with that which a wise and gracious God intended for the nineteenth.*

Hooker had a clear conception of the holy Church, or, as he terms her, the mystical Church; and which he perceived had relation to earth, by the existence of some of her members on earth, yet in the flesh. He writes at page 285, vol. 1 :†

In this language we have faithfully pourtrayed the Church, and which it will be perceived Hooker rightly declares "can be but * See "True Church."-Explanation of Ezekiel's prophecy.-Ezek.

xlviii. 35.

"That Church of Christ, which we properly term his body mystical, can be but one; neither can that one be sensibly discerned by any man, inasmuch as the parts thereof are some in heaven already with Christ, and the rest that are on earth (albeit their natural persons be visible) we do not discern under this property whereby they are truly and infallibly of that body. Only our minds by intellectual conceit are able to apprehend that such a real body there is, a body collective, because it containeth a huge multitude; a body mystical, because the mystery of their conjunction is removed altogether from sense. Whatsoever we read in Scripture concerning the endless love and saving mercy which God sheweth towards His Church, the only proper subject thereof is this Church. Concerning this flock it is that our Lord and Saviour hath promised, ‘I give unto them eternal life, and they shall never perish, neither shall any pluck them out of my hands.' They who are of this society have such marks and notes of distinction from all others, as are not objects unto our sense; only unto God who seeth their hearts and understandeth all their secret cogitations, unto him they are clear and manifest. All men knew Nathaniel to be an Israelite. But our Saviour, piercing deeper, giveth further testimony of him than men could have done with such certainty as He did, ‘Behold indeed an Israelite, in whom there is no guile.' If we profess, as Peter did, that we love the Lord, and profess it in the hearing of men, charity is prone to believe all things, and therefore charitable men are likely to think we do so, as long as they see no proof to the contrary. But that our love is sound and sincere, that it cometh from ‘a pure heart, a good conscience, and a faith unfeigned,' who can pronounce, saving only the Searcher of all men's hearts, who alone intuitively doth know in this kind who are His?"