VII.

THE TWOFOLD CHARACTER OF CHRIST'S GREAT

EMPIRE.

"And I, John, saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband."-REV. xxi. 2.

"The kingdom of heaven is at hand.”—MATT. iii. 2.

THE object of this last lecture is to give more full illustration of the twofold nature of the Redeemer's glorious dominion. This is the more necessary, because the views commonly propounded by those who hold the doctrine of the pre-millennial advent of Christ, respecting the mode of His reign, do not appear satisfactory. The expression, "personal reign of Christ on earth," has been studiously avoided, because it is fitted to lead to a confusion of ideas. The view that Jesus Christ shall reign visibly in glory on the world among mortal men involves insuperable difficulties. The idea generally put forth by writers who hold the personal coming of Christ to be at the close of this Gospel dispensation is, that the Lord Jesus shall reign on earth in outward glory with His risen saints. And while the world is literally peopled with the myriads

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of the redeemed,—those who have lived in all the past ages, and who have been raised out of their graves to immortal life and happiness,—it is at the same time maintained that the earth shall be inhabited, as now, by incalculable multitudes of men in their mortal state. The great difficulty attending this view may be easily stated.

It implies the dwelling together in the same earthly habitation of two classes of Christ's subjects, essentially distinct in their physical nature. (1) Those who are in their resurrection and glorified bodies; (2) Those who are in their mortal natures, like ourselves-like all now on the earth. To this opinion there is the simple but unanswerable objection, that in such a state of things there would be a violation of all congruity, an utter incompatibility. Observe what is the condition of things which is supposed to exist on earth after the second advent of Jesus Christ. The Jews are restored and converted. The literal Jerusalem is the capital of the new kingdom, but the inhabitants are, of course, in their earthly natures, though in a social condition of superior privilege and blessedness. And at the same time, according to the supposition, Jerusalem, the capital of Palestine, is to be the seat of the government of the glorified Monarch and of His glorified subjects, who have been raised from corruption to incorruption. How could two classes so distinct in their constitution as mortal and immortal, earthly and spiritual, clayey and heavenly, opaque and glorious,

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dwell and mingle together in the same kingdom, with the same metropolis, and the same legislation? such a case there would be either an undue humiliation of the glorified Sovereign and His resurrection subjects, or an incongruous exaltation of those who are, as we are now, in the body.

It is to be remembered that these two classes of men, before and after death, belong, physically considered, to two distinct kingdoms. They necessarily move in different spheres, are not under the same physical laws, cannot mingle in each other's society except on rare occasions, and then under special restrictions. Prison walls, the bolts and bars of dwellings, which effectually obstruct mortal men in their freedom of ingress and egress, present no such hindrance to those who are immortal. The angel enters the prison in which Peter is confined without the slightest noise or difficulty, liberates him from his keepers, to whom he was chained, and sets him free from all iron gates and fetters. The Saviour enters with perfect ease into the presence of the disciples in the upper-room, the doors being shut for fear of the Jews. And in His ascension His body mounts up to the clouds with absolute freedom, in opposition to the law of gravitation. It is essentially necessary, then, for consistency's sake, that we explain the constitution of the kingdom of Christ in harmony with the laws of existence.

The question is, How to explain the difficulty? How is Christ to reign in Jerusalem in glory with His

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risen saints, while the restored Israel are dwelling in the body there also? It will not remove the difficulty to suppose that the two classes might have allotted to them different geographical limits, within which they should respectively dwell, without any unnatural intercourse with one another. The objection would still lie in all its force, that the immortal, if dwelling on the earth, could not possibly be subject to the material laws by which the world is governed. There cannot be assigned to spiritual beings any of the limitations with which men in the flesh are familiar. It involves inconsistency, in the nature of the case, to speak of immaterial creatures having their habitation in a world of gross matter. The essential distinction between the mortal and the immortal demands that there be a welldefined distinction in the places of their abode and in the modes of their settled life.

In further explanation of the important distinction to be expected in Christ's great kingdom, let the following particulars be considered.

I. THERE IS A WIDE DISTINCTION EXISTING ALREADY IN THE KINGDOM OF CHRIST.-At the present time there is the Church in heaven and the Church on earth, both together constituting the one kingdom of the Lord Jesus. Now there is a complete distinction between the two. There is no confusion, no unnatural commingling. The localities are separate, and the laws of life and action are quite dissimilar. There are distinct limits, which cannot be freely crossed by

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the one or the other, and yet the two are united under one governing Head. After the resurrection of the righteous, the kingdom must still be twofold. There shall be just, as now, the heavenly and the earthly departments, the glorified Church above, and the Church occupying the lower locality in the world, yet both constituting one mighty empire under the one Lord and King. In the upper portion of the great dominion there will be Jesus in His glory shining above the brightness of the sun, and all His risen and glorified people, of every age, and clime, and tongue, shining like the stars in the firmament. the lower part of the kingdom there will be the Jews brought back to the promised land, living full of faith in Christ and of the Holy Ghost, and the Gentiles who have been spared from the previous judgments, all forming different nations and kingdoms on the face of the earth. The entire population shall be found acknowledging and worshipping the Lord Jesus as their one Almighty Sovereign, rendering to Him unlimited homage, practising His laws in private, and in social life serving Him in the way appointed, living in the highest physical happiness, cultivating the loftiest mental, moral, and spiritual progress, and showing that when the laws of the kingdom are faithfully obeyed, then the result is that there are not only no wars, but the highest enjoyment, the most delightful peace. Between these two departments of the kingdom there shall be, just as now, a definite