II.]

The Church a kingdom.

57

Christians, who had separated themselves from the public worship, . . . . were illegal in their principle, and in their consequences might become dangerous.' "The extent and duration of this spiritual confederacy," says the historian, "seemed to render it every day more deserving of" the "animadversion" of the magistrate. For "the active and successful zeal of the Christians," we are told, "had insensibly diffused them through every province and almost every city of the empire. The new converts seemed to renounce their family and country, that they might connect themselves, in an indissoluble band of union, with a peculiar society, which every where assumed a different character from the rest of mankind'." "The Christians," says the historian, speaking of the time when the question how Christianity should be treated was agitated in the councils of Diocletian,-"The Christians (it might speciously be alleged), renouncing the gods and the institutions of Rome, had constituted a distinct republic, . . . which was already governed by its own laws and magistrates, was possessed of a public treasure, and was intimately connected in all its parts by the frequent assemblies of the bishops, to whose decrees their numerous and opulent congregations yielded an implicit obedience 2."

Such was the idea which, the unbeliever himself being witness, the heathen might derive from what he saw in the earth of the "kingdom" set up by the God of heaven. It was not a mere body of doctrines, a system of abstract philosophy, a code of moral precepts, that the Author of the new religion had introduced into the world. He had "set up" a visible

1

Chap. 2. p. 39. chap. 16. pp. 628, 629.

2

Ibid. pp. 681, 682.

58

The kingdom of heaven.

[LECT. Church, had appointed over it rulers and ministers, and had instituted outward rites by which men were to be admitted into the new society, and to be privileged to partake of its benefits. And the records of the Gospel history exhibit prominently this Divine polity. "The kingdom of heaven is at hand," was the announcement of John the Baptist and of our Lord Himself"; "the time is fulfilled, the kingdom of God is at hand: repent ye, and believe the gospel +." The period at which it appeared was precisely that when the Roman empire was now firmly established, and the decree which went forth from Cæsar Augustus declared that "all the world 5" was under his sway. Then did HE come down from heaven, who was destined to have the dominion of the whole earth. And though, before the tribunal of the Roman governor, He declared "My kingdom is not of this world... now is my kingdom not from hence," yet, when "Pilate therefore said unto him, Art thou a King then? Jesus answered, Thou To this end was I born,

sayest that I am a King. and for this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth"."

And because

He made Himself a King, He was treated as an enemy of Cæsar; and the superscription on His cross testified that He was crucified as a King, "the King of the Jews","

8 99

And not of the Jews only was He to be King, but also of the Gentiles, "yes, of the Gentiles also And we, of the furthest isles of the Gentiles, once barbarians, scarcely counted part of the Roman world, have been made subjects of the kingdom which

3 Matt. iii. 2 + Mark i. 15. 3 Luke ii. 1.

;

iv. 17.

7

"John xviii. 36, 37.

Chap. xix. 19-22. 8 Rom. iii. 29.

II.]

Its universal dominion.

59

hath "filled the whole earth"." May its heavenly origin and its Divine power be not only, in true faith, acknowledged by us, but also seen and felt, more and more, continually, in us! May the power of that kingdom, unseen yet mighty, so imparted to us, "break in pieces and consume" in us every thing of earth—the gold, and the silver, the brass, the iron, and the clay, and "set up" within us that which "shall never be destroyed," but shall "stand for

ever!"

9

' [Preached on the first Sunday after Epiphany.]

LECTURE III.'

DAN. vii. 26, 27.

And

"But the judgment shall sit, and they shall take away his dominion, to consume and to destroy it unto the end. the kingdom and 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.”

THERE is nothing more remarkable in the structure of Sacred Prophecy, than the manner in which one prophetic vision takes up and continues another. Expositors have pointed out, in several striking instances, more particularly in the prophecies of Daniel and St. John," this method of Divine prediction, presenting at first a general sketch and outline, and afterwards a more complete and finished picture of events." It is the observation of Sir Isaac Newton, that "the prophecies of Daniel are all of them related to one another, as if they were but several parts of one general prophecy, given at several times;" and that "every following prophecy adds something new to the former 2." "To this we may add," says

Vision of the four beasts.

61

Dean Woodhouse, "that the same empires in Daniel are represented by various types and symbols. The four parts of the image, and the four beasts, are varied symbols of the same empires. . . . We are not, therefore, to be surprised, when "-as in the Apocalypse "we find the history of the Church beginning anew, and appearing under other, yet corresponding types; and thus filling up, with additional and important information, the outlines which had been traced before "."

3

The vision of the four beasts was revealed to Daniel in the first year of Belshazzar, the "son," or grandson of Nebuchadnezzar, to whom had been vouchsafed the vision of the image. The application of the four symbols here described, the lion, with eagle's wings, the bear, the leopard with four wings and four heads, and that other fourth beast to which no name is given, "diverse from all the beasts that were before it," with great iron teeth and ten horns, -to the four great empires, as they are commonly called, the Babylonian, the Medo-Persian, the Macedonian, and the Roman, is sanctioned by the same general consent of Jewish and Christian antiquity, and of the great body of modern expositors, which has recognized these same kingdoms in the four component parts of Nebuchadnezzar's image, -the gold, the silver, the brass, and the iron mixed with clay. The exceptions which are to be found,

that shineth more and more unto the perfect day.' The four great empires of the world, which were shown to Nebuchadnezzar in the form of a great image, were again more particularly represented to Daniel in the shape of four

great wild beasts."-Diss. xvi. vol. ii. p. 83.

3 Woodhouse's Annotations on the Apocalypse, pp. 106, 107.

"The identity of the subjects designed in the two visions is incontestable. For if the re