LECTURE IV. THE KINGDOM OF GOD. To give even the most elementary account of Christianity, and make no allusion to the "Kingdom of God," would be to overlook an idea which was fundamental in Christ's teaching. The memory of this great idea is kept alive in Christendom by the Lord's Prayer, which has passed into universal use; but the three Creeds which are supposed to embody the essential features of the Christian religion, take no notice of it. The teaching of the Master appears to be the 1 The only apparent exception is the statement in the Constantinopolitan form of the Nicene Creed, that Christ's "kingdom shall have no end," which I cannot regard as in any way equivalent. This clause might seem to be directed against Paul's statement that there will be "the end, when he shall deliver up the kingdom to God, even the Father, . . . that God may be all in all" (1 Cor. xv. 24 sqq.). The belief in the Church is the ecclesiastical substitute for Christ's doctrine. last thing that occurs to the minds of many Christians; and if they can only pronounce some formula descriptive of his nature and person, they think it superfluous to dwell with loving reverence on the principles which he taught. But when from the strife of tongues we turn to the quiet study of the Gospels, we cannot but be struck with the constant recurrence of the phrase, "the Kingdom of God" or "the Kingdom of Heaven,” and with the supreme place which the idea conveyed by it occupied in the mind of Jesus. It forms the subject of a number of parables. It is invariably assumed that the attainment of the kingdom of God is the highest end of human activity. It is said to have formed the substance of his preaching, not only at the beginning, when he took up the message of the Baptist, "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand," but also in the later period of his ministry.1 It is therefore incumbent upon us to inquire what he meant by this phrase; for while we have admitted that there is a legitimate growth in Christian theology, we have also contended that this must be checked and 1 See Matt. iv. 17, Mark i. 15; Matt. iv. 23, ix. 35; Luke viii. 1. The disciples were to preach in the same strain, Matt. x. 7; Luke x. 9, 11. DIFFICULTY OF THE SUBJECT. 125 tested by reverting to its source; and though Christ, in his popular teaching, may have used some ideas and images which no longer appeal to us, we cannot afford to overlook a conception which evidently coloured his entire view of life and its duties. The inquiry on which we are thus entering is not without its difficulties, for the Gospels do not give an absolutely consistent picture; and it will be necessary for us to disengage, if we can, the original and dominant idea from various imaginative accessories, which may be due partly to Christ's own poetic adoption of popular figures in setting forth his own deeper thought, partly perhaps to his sharing in some anticipations which were not contrary to the spirit of his life, though not destined to be fulfilled by history, and partly to misunderstanding on the part of his hearers, occasioned by their full participation in the national hopes, and the eagerness with which they endeavoured to recollect any words of his that could justify their confident belief in his second coming as a glorious Judge and King. It is only a reasonable rule of interpretation, in seeking to understand any original thinker, to separate the independent and governing thought from what may be owing to the accidents of time and |