come: here all the great concerns between God and man are transacted; here is agitated the important question of empire, and here the main strife between good and evil lies; hence rolls the tide of war: and on this invisible theatre is decided the contest for the crown of life-a struggle for heaven by the inhabitants of the earth much more than one that we read of*.

But heaven and earth are not the only departments of this universal kingdom: it takes in another likewise, according to the Psalmist, where he beautifully avers, "If I climb up into heaven, thou art there: if I go down into hell, thou art there also. If I take the wings of the morning, and remain in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there also shall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me" (Ps. cxxxix. 7-9). Every part of the universe is equally subject to God's power and observation, though some are more particularly blessed with his auspicious presence, (as may be seen by their works or productions,) and some are far enough from him, “though he be not far from every one of us" (Acts xvii. 27), namely as his children (Ib. xvii. 28), because the distance is in nature, and not in locality. For the region of guilt being spiritual, is yet farther from God than the region of innocent matter; but he rules it over the wicked. And though earth is the proper fee, doom or dependence of the kings of the earth, so that they cannot rule any thing but earth, for spirit and intellect are above their jurisdiction; yet God also rules the earth over them, as he rules both heaven and hell over their superiors, and with a very different sway from that which belongs to any earthly king, or chemist either, who is also a king of the earth. And whereas the same kingdom of God is founded in a certain line or dynasty, commencing with the Firstborn as usual, we name it likewise after that, namely as the kingdom of God in Christ; who exemplifies at once both the King, the Kingdom, and also the intermediate

* The fabulous war of the giants.

government in himself.

"For of him, and through him, and to him are all things" (Rom. xi. 36). "Of him", meaning of the same constituents of which he partook, a sample of which is soon to be enumerated; "through him," by the divine power here manifested in the same constituents; " and to him," the said power and constituents united as one object or presence; "are," consist, result from, and belong to; "all things," not only the creatures or combinations known to us upon earth, but others not known, of whatever nature, quality or description in earth or elsewhere.

When we name the kingdom of God in Christ, therefore, we mean his kingdom as we apprehend it on earth particularly, and generally all beyond it, the terra incognita, as we may say, of that kingdom. The idea of such a kingdom comprehended and incarnate, may seem like the idea of a mountain in a nutshell: yet with God the same is very possible; as possible as the comprehension of one shell in another, or of his own indivisible presence in any thing as well as in every thing. The kingdom of God incarnate by Christ must needs be owned an humble specimen of the province above defined: humble, however, as it may be, a man can give no higher specimen of the same, than such kingdom affords, with the help of selection and amplification. For these two are the utmost bounds of his invention: he can give no idea of any new principles, of any that he does not perceive in himself. If men had been angels instead of men, the kingdom would have been represented to them in an angelic form perhaps, whatever that may be; but, as the matter stands, if any of us should pretend to shew the kingdom in that form for a specimen, he could not exhibit a grain of goodness different from what his own nature and experience afford. He might indeed pick out all the light properties that are usually mingled in a human composition to shew an heavier sample than ordinary; but he could not assign any properties to angels essentially different from

what he has or might have himself in some share or respect; and purely for this reason, because he has no idea of any other. And on the other hand, as human nature presents the highest sphere in which the kingdom of God can be exhibited to human conception, so there is found no other nature too low to share it with this, there being no principle in any, whether animal, vegetable, or mineral, that is not in man. This, with his higher affinities abovementioned, will make the kingdom of God in man equivalent with the kingdom of God, as far as man is able to conceive it.

Therefore, conceiving this kingdom in its proper latitude, we cannot strictly sever between it and any other intellectual kingdom, suppose that of Antichrist, e. g.; as in the natural department we can, generally, between the animal and vegetable, and more particularly between the animal and mineral kingdoms. For the kingdom of God in Christ is the kingdom of intellect in intellect: imperium in imperio, and not abs, nor yet absque; concurrent, and not distinct. The character accordingly given of the kingdom, in divine revelation, is steady and consistent, and remarkably precise; shewing and foreshewing too, in every kind of language, the procession of that perfect order emphatically styled, in prayer as well as narration, The Kingdom of God, by one medium after another to the farthest extent of creation. There are two ways or courses particularly in which the said order may be traced, and is in that authority, v. g.,

I. OF PRINCIPLES.-II. OF COMBINATIONS,

1. For the way of principles, the first appearance of this order, according to the said authority, is in intellect (Prov. iii. 19, &c.); then it appears in spirit (Ps. xxxiii. 6); then in matter, forming by such means, first, the spiritual and intellectual, next the visible or material world (Ib. cxxxix,6), and equally ruling throughout by itself, i. e., not one part by another, as the material by the spiritual, and the spiritual

by the intellectual; but every part by itself, the order aforesaid; as will be hereafter more particularly explained.

II. In the way of combinations, the same order still holds on; one combination, whether kind or individual, continually ruling and spreading by different mediums, both spiritually and corporeally as 1. spiritually; God the Word by God the Holy Ghost incarnate in Christ, descending to the apostles by his spirit, and so through the real church, the same again in the professing, a sort of halo or vapour belonging to it, the atmosphere of the church; and this halo, vapour or atmosphere, in the vast expanse of intellect: 2. Corporeally, by a seed of Abraham in the house of David, the house of David in the tribe of Judah, the tribe of Judah in the family of Jacob; and, to be short, the family of Jacob in the posterity of Adam, according to promise (Gen. xxii. 18), as Adam himself in the earth.

It is evident how, by all these means employed regularly in succession, "God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself" (Cor. II. v. 19). And this intromissive order being rightly understood will serve to explain many particulars relating to the kingdom that were otherwise unintelligible; as expecting and praying for its arrival, when the kingdom is here already; praying for that which belongs only to God, and he is determined not to part with (Isai. xlii. 8) on the one hand: as also praying for that, a part of which we should rather decline, and a part be frightened at on the other. It will also account for the disowning of one part of the kingdom, by Christ, its universal sovereign, in the first place, as where he says, "My kingdom is not of this world" (John xviii. 36); his limiting the same, in the second place, to a little flock, as where he says, "Fear not, little flock: for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom" (Luke xii. 32); and lastly, his throwing it open to all comers, as in the parable of the net cast into the sea (Matt. xiii. 47), which is indeed a most happy illustration of the subject

in two respects; first, in respect of the fish-in a net-in the sea, resembling the intromissive order of the kingdom just mentioned; and next in respect of the promiscuous multitude comprised in the net, by which, as before intimated, the universality of the kingdom is likewise supposed.

But on the first consideration of this, or of any other object in particular, we apprehend what are generally called its two sides, v. g., inside and out; but which, if considered with attention, would be found to signify only perceptible and imperceptible, or known and unknown, or obvious and inferential, constituents--the imperceptible, unknown and inferential being a reality inferred from the perceptible, known and obvious; as St. Paul intimates, when, speaking of the most obvious and, at the same time, most unknown object in the universe, he says, "The invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead" (Rom. i. 20),— meaning that these supreme constituents are seen as it were by the medium of reason and inference. So the inside and outside of a subject, or its matter and mode, or essence and presence are fundamentally, or as we say, in substance, only one and the subject is only one, however many our imagination or perception might make of it. Yet we find a convenience in retaining this distinction, and in understanding the particulars of a subject to be primarily divided thereafter into two species, which we call essential and characteristic; or into two parts, matter and mode.

It does not accord with the objects of a practical discussion, or of a discussion, however, that should be more practical than theoretical, to. plunge all at once into metaphysical details on such topics as substance, essence, and presence, being so many different shades of the subject; or so many types, varieties, or conditions of which every subject is capable. But it will be useful