he taught the gospel, and he taught the Church; but he never taught them as the same thing.*

There is one revelation—God is going to take to Himself His great power, and to reign. There is another truththere is to be a bride and body of the King. Again, certain things setting out the grace of God are necessary for the soul to be saved. These three thingst are, very plainly, quite distinct.

From the moment Israel was called as a people, God had evidently the thought of having a king. Man's way of setting about it was quite wrong.

Up to the time of Samuel, priesthood was, morally, the regular point of association between the people and God. But the priests were unfaithful, and then the Lord wrote Ichabod upon all that had been Israel's glory. The link between God and the people was broken. The ark was taken by the Philistines. The priests were slain. He delivered His strength into captivity, and the Philistines were in the mount of God.

as unto them." (Heb. iii. 3.) To them it was the promise of the land. The word is not restricted to the grace now preached, it is simply

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good news;" and there may be the good news of the kingdom, or the good news of Canaan.

*He preached the kingdom of God; but it is a very distinct thing that God should set up a reign of power on the earth (take the word "reign" instead of "kingdom," and you will see at once that this is quite distinct from the idea of the "Church"); that would not necessarily touch the question that Christ was going to have a Bride united to Him in glory. And when he speaks of his ministry, he distinguishes his own ministry into a ministry of the gospel, and a ministry of the Church.

+ The kingdom, the Church, and the salvation of the soul.

This thought was not brought fully out until David; but in the days of Moses it was brought out that he would not only have a kingdom, but a king. Moses was called "king in Jeshurun" (Deut. xxxiii. 5), but he was not their king.

*

(1 Sam. x.) He found There were people that

This was the sign given to Saul. people going up to Bethel. (v. 3.) had faith in the God of Bethel† (i.e. that God would never leave His unchangeable promise to Jacob). Everything else might be gone; but God's connexion with Israel could not be broken up. This became the resting-place of faith. God could not fail. Secondly, he was to go to the mount of God (v. 5); and there was the garrison of the Philistines-the power of the enemies of the Lord in the place where God's altar ought to have been, and thus power against those who were acting in faith. Still, Bethel could be visited with a tabret and pipe; faith could take up the joy that was proper for the people who had Jehovah for their God. There was also the spirit of prophecy given to him. (v. 6.) But neither of the signs did Saul understand, though clear and instructive to the eye of faith.

David was the opposite of this, and was the type of Christ as king.

After the king is brought in there is a change in the position of the priesthood; it ceases to be the habitual link of connexion between the people and God. When Eli is set aside (1 Sam. ii. 35) God says, "I will raise me up a faithful priest, . . . and he shall walk," not before me, but " before mine anointed for ever." There I get a royal person (another link between God and the people) set up above priesthood. † So that Solomon was quite right in thrusting out Abiathar (1 Kings ii. 27.)

When Solomon dedicated the temple, and the priests could not stand to minister because the glory of the Lord had filled the house of God, the king praised God and blessed the people.§

*He ought to have understood it, but he did not.

† Bethel was the place where Jacob had seen that God was the unchangeable God of Israel. (Gen. xxviii.)

From this time the people's fortunes followed the king. § As Melchisedec.

At length THE KING was presented in humiliation in the person of Christ.

John Baptist comes (Matt. iii.) and says, "Repent ye: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. He that cometh after

me is mightier than I, . . . whose fan is in His hand. He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.Ӡ

John is rejected; and then (after he is cast into prison) Christ takes up the same testimony. (Matt. iv.) "From that time Jesus began to preach, and to say, Repent: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. And Jesus went about all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing all manner of sickness," &c. The power of God was with Him in testimony, and was seen.

The disciples-the King having been rejected-are given to know "the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven," which to the multitude are parables. (Chap. xiii.) And they have God with them.

The apostles were to go on (and they went on) preaching the kingdom.

The kingdom is still to be set up; that is, the power of heaven in the person of Jesus Christ. He shall take to Him His great power, and reign. It will be set up in heaven. He must go to a far country to receive a kingdom, and to return. (Luke xix. 11, 12.) He has gone up on high; but He has not yet been sent in in the power of the kingdom.

It will be a "world to come," not merely a state of Judaism, the kingdom of the "Son of man ;" not merely the Jews and their Messiah. (Dan. ii. vii.) Heaven will be, in the highest sense, the seat of the kingdom; but it is still the kingdom.

There is another revelation-we are to reign in the kingdom. I get "joint-heirs," and those who are to "reign with Him," and those who are to "sit on thrones ;" but it is still the kingdom (largely extended, a wider sphere; but I am still travelling in the circuit of the kingdom).

* i.e. the King is coming in judgment.

The destruction of Jerusalem was the setting it aside in judicial power; but still we can preach the kingdom of God. There will be the effect of the actual employment of power in setting things to right. At present it is rather in testimony than in power. The effect of the power of Christ in "the world to come" will be to set aside the power of Satan.*

In all this we have only the kingdom.

There is another ministry that goes out altogether on another principle. In Paul's ministry I get that which is beyond the reach of dispensations. I have here what man is (not merely "sinners of the Gentiles," or Jews). He may prove it, as regards the Gentiles, in one way, and demonstrate it, as regards the Jews, in another; but what he proves and demonstrates is this, that man, as man, is at enmity with God. If we begin at Jerusalem, we begin with a testimony to Jerusalem. In Paul's ministry, Jews and Gentiles alike are known only as "children of wrath." We get him preaching the gospel "to every creature under heaven." §

But Paul was not simply a minister of the gospel; he was a minister also of the Church, to “fulfil" (fully to preach) "the word of God."

* Miracles were "miracles of the world to come." (Heb. ii. 5; vị. 5.) †The testimony in Matt. xxviii. 19 goes out without a word about the Jews. Christ had been with the Jews, but the testimony is to go out unto the Gentiles. In Luke xxiv. 47 the “beginning at Jerusalem” marks the greatest possible grace.

In the common sense of the word.

§ It was not a different gospel, as to the salvation of the soul, from that of Peter; but the testimony was more indiscriminate. I may distinguish in speaking to a man, but I must come to the same point“You are a lost sinner, and God is a holy God, and (Jew or Gentile) if not washed in the blood of Jesus, you must perish."

In order to the completion of the word of God, the doctrine of the Church (as taught by him), must be preached, as well as the kingdom.

We read (Col. i. 12): "Giving thanks unto the Father, which hath made us meet to be, partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light: who hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom* of His dear Son; in whom we have redemption through His blood, even the forgiveness of sins; who is the image of the invisible God, the first-born of every creature ;t for by Him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers; all things were created by Him, and for Him: and He is before all things, and by Him all things consist. And He is the Head of the body, the Church: who is the beginning, the first-born from the dead; that in all things He might have the preeminence. For it pleased the Father that in Him should all fulness dwell; and having made peace through the blood of His cross, by Him to reconcile all things unto Himself; by Him, I say, whether they be things in earth or things in heaven. And you,§ that were sometime alienated, and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now hath He reconciled, in the body of His flesh through death, to present you holy and unblameable and unreprovable in His sight" and now as to the ministry-" if ye continue in the faith grounded and settled, and be not moved away from the hope of the gospel, which ye have heard, and which was preached to every creature which is under heaven; whereof I Paul am made a minister; who now rejoice in my suffer

*There I get the kingdom.

+ Besides being the image of God, He is Head over creation, and the reason of that is that He has created it all.

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It is now, "Head of the body, the Church," as first-born from

the dead."

§ The Church. Here (as there was the Headship over all things, and the Headship of the church, so) we get the reconciliation of all things in purpose, and the present reconciliation, through faith, which is the Church.