SQLite format 3@   ltÊl\5yindexidx_topics_rel_ordertopicsCREATE INDEX idx_topics_rel_order on topics(rel_order)BatableconfigconfigCREATE TABLE config(name text, value text)dtablecontentcontentCREATE TABLE content(topic_id integer primary key, data text, data2 blob) mtabletopicstopicsCREATE TABLE topics(id integer primary key, pid integer default 0, subject text, rel_order, content_type string) ì繌["ì4e05-The Practical and Experimental Bearing...7k04-The FUTURE extent of this Mediatorial reign./[03-Nature, Object, Extent, and Duration+S02-The Execution of This Purpose...,U01-The Eternal Purpose of the Father+00-IntroductionöŒûö87 ½öìؽ/titlePhilpot-King.topx)schema.version1user1type3 ÜúôîèâÜ now approach the consideration of that still greater and more glorious title which he wears as Zion's enthroned King.\par But O, at the very outset, how unworthy, as well as unable, do we feel ourselves to be to set forth in any suitable, any befitting manner the glory of that exalted Sovereign who sits at the right hand of the Father as Head over all things to the Church! When the sun veils its rays behind a cloud we can look upon its milder glories with undazzled eye. But who can gaze on its meridian beams in all their undimmed splendor? Thus when the Son of God veiled the brightness of his eternal glory by assuming a tabernacle of flesh, faith can view him as a suffering yet sacrificing High Priest in the garden and on the cross with undazzled, though with sympathizing, eye. In a similar way, when Jesus still speaks as a Prophet in the word of his grace\emdash "Take my yoke upon you and learn of me, for I am meek and lowly in heart," faith can now sit at his feet and hear his words without being overwhelmed with his glory. \par But when we look up and attempt to view him sitting at the right hand of the Majesty on high in all his exalted dignity and power as King of kings and Lord of lords\emdash then we feel as if dazzled and overborne with a sight and sense of his surpassing glory. In the days of his flesh, the beloved disciple could lean on the bosom of Jesus and stand by his cross; but when in Patmos' lonely isle he appeared in his majesty so that "his eyes were as a flame of fire," and "his countenance was as the sun shines in his strength," John fell at his feet as dead! Yet if he has made us willing in the day of his power, has brought us to his feet in all humility to touch the scepter of his grace and own him Lord of all, we may, in company with his saints, "speak of the glory of his kingdom and talk of his power, to make known to the sons of men his mighty acts, and the glorious majesty of his kingdom." (\cf1\ul Psa_145:11-12\cf0\ulnone .) And as we have undertaken to set forth the covenant characters of the Lord Jesus, we must not now sink under the sense either of his glory or of our own insufficiency, and throw aside our pen as we are tempted to do, but endeavor, as the Lord may enable us, to trace out what is revealed to us in the word of truth of his present dignity as Zion's exalted King.\par But as we desire to present the subject before the mind of our readers with as much clearness and distinctness as possible, we shall arrange our views and Meditations upon it in the following order:\par I. The eternal purpose of God the Father to glorify his dear Son, and exalt him as Lord and King.\par II. The execution of this purpose in the incarnation, death, resurrection, ascension, and glorification of the Son of God.\par III. The nature, object, extent, and duration of his kingdom.\par IV. Its future development and glorious manifestation.\par V. The practical and experimental bearing and influence which the royal power and authority of Jesus have on believing hearts.\par \par } hroned King\par \b0\fs20 by J. C. Philpot \par \b The eternal purpose of God the Father to glorify his dear Son, and exalt him as Lord and King. \par \b0 To glorify his dear Son, to set him at his own right hand in kingly majesty and sovereign dominion over all things in heaven and earth and under the earth, was the eternal purpose of him who works all things after the counsel of his own will. As the Son of the Father in truth and love, Jesus is "the brightness of his glory and the express image of his Person." That this glory, then, of the Father might be seen and reverently adored by the sons of men; that a view of it here by faith and hereafter by sight might fill millions of redeemed saints with immortal joy; that all the love, beauty, blessedness, holiness, and happiness of a Triune Jehovah might shine forth in the glorified humanity of the Son of God; and that by virtue of their union with him he might dwell in his elect as his Father dwells in him, that thus they all might be one, (\cf1\ul Joh_1 7:21; Joh_17:23\cf0\ulnone ,)\emdash this was that mystery of eternal wisdom, love, and grace which was hidden in the bosom of God from before the foundation of the world. For this purpose all things were created; and that this purpose might be fully accomplished are they still preserved in being. Redemption by atoning blood being a part\emdash an all-important part of this wondrous scheme\emdash Jesus suffered, bled, died, and rose again to fulfill it, and now sits at the right hand of the Father in royal dignity and power, fully and finally to accomplish all that yet remains to be done.\par But that we may not darken counsel by words without knowledge, we shall endeavor, as far as we possibly can, to take the Scriptures for our sole guide. Ill would it become us to seek to penetrate with unhallowed gaze into the purposes of God, were they not revealed in the word of his grace; for though "secret things," that is, things purposely hidden from view, "belong unto the Lord, yet those things which are revea led belong unto us and to our children forever." (\cf1\ul Deu_29:29\cf0\ulnone .)\par i. In opening then this subject, we shall tread as closely as we can in the footprints of revelation, and commence with the witness of the \b New Testament.\par \b0 We will take first our Lord's own testimony of himself.\par 1. At the last supper, just before the gloomy hour when he was to pass into Gethsemane, Jesus said to his disciples, "You have remained true to me in my time of trial. And just as my Father has granted me a Kingdom, I now grant you the right to eat and drink at my table in that Kingdom. And you will sit on thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel." (\cf1\ul Luk_22:28-30\cf0\ulnone .)\par 2. So when he stood before Pilate, and the Roman governor in all the plenitude of his power and authority asked, "Are you a king then?" what was his meek yet firm reply? "You say," that is, say truly, "that I am a king. To this end was I born." But to show that his kingdom was not of this world, he had previo usly declared, "Now is my kingdom not from hence." (\cf1\ul Joh_18:36-37\cf0\ulnone .)\par 3. To these plain testimonies of the Lord concerning himself we may add the promise given to Mary by the angel Gabriel\emdash "He will be very great and will be called the Son of the Most High. And the Lord God will give him the throne of his ancestor David. And he will reign over Israel forever; his Kingdom will never end!" (\cf1\ul Luk_1:32-33\cf0\ulnone .)\par 4. In full accordance, then, with this angelic testimony, as "King of the Jews" was he born and worshiped by the wise men of the East; (\cf1\ul Mat_2:2; Mat_2:11\cf0\ulnone ;) as "King of Israel" was he owned and worshiped by his believing disciples, (\cf1\ul Joh_1:49\cf0\ulnone ,) and as "King of the Jews" was he crucified, and proclaimed as such in the three then best known languages, that Hebrew, Greek, and Roman might read his title* firm and good, standing on high in the fixed purpose of God, in spite of protesting chief priests in whose heart the gnawing pang of guilty fear would gladly have altered the title to a more qualified declaration.\par * We do not remember to have seen the remark, though sufficiently obvious--that it was this title that arrested the attention and was blessed to the soul of the dying thief, the Holy Spirit arising up faith in his heart that Jesus then and there crucified before his eyes was indeed the Son of God and King of Israel, and as such had a kingdom beyond death and the grave.\par ii. But we shall now direct our readers' attention to the intimations given in the \b Old Testament\b0 of the kingly reign and authority of Jesus. Declarations of greater or less clearness of the eternal purpose of God to give his dear Son a kingdom are scattered through the whole of these scriptures with so liberal a hand that we can only select a few.\par 1. The first clear intimation of it, if we except the typical appearance of Melchizedek, king of Salem (\cf1\ul Gen_14:18\cf0\ulnone ,) and the prophecy of dying Jacob that "Shiloh would come, and to him should the gathering of the people be," (\cf1\ul Gen_49:10\cf0\ulnone ,) is contained in the thanksgiving song of Hannah\emdash "Those who fight against the Lord will be broken. He thunders against them from heaven; the Lord judges throughout the earth. He gives mighty strength to his king; he increases the might of his anointed one." (\cf1\ul 1Sa_2:10\cf0\ulnone .) This is the first mention of the title which Jesus was to bear as the "Messiah," or the "anointed" Prophet, Priest, and King of his people\emdash that being the word in the original. Its second mention is in \cf1\ul Psa_2:2\cf0\ulnone .\par 2. But the clearest intimation given to the Church not only that she should have a King but that God's own eternal Son should be that King is contained in that Psalm of Psalms, Psalm 2, where the fixed decree is brought to light and written as with a beam of dazzling glory to assure the friends and confound the enemies of the Son of God. Sitting upon the throne of his glory and looking forth to that time when counsel should be taken against the Lord and against his anointed, the God of all power and might asks by his Spirit, "Why do the heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain thing? The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together against the Lord, and against his anointed one." (\cf1\ul Psa_2:1-2\cf0\ulnone .) Their rebellious hearts cried out, "We will not have this man to reign over us. Let us break these bands asunder, and cast away those cords which would bind us in any subjection or in any submission to the Person and work, the reign or rule of the Son of God." But vain is their rage, idle their counsel. "He who sits in the heavens shall laugh; the Lord shall have them in derision." "Yet (in spite of all their wrath and rebellion) have I set my King upon my holy hill of Zion." Then the Son meekly answers, "I will declare the decree." This decree was the result of the eternal counsels of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, hidden in the bosom of a Triune God from before the foundation of the world, and then first brought to light in the page of revelation from his mouth who, as revealing the mind and will of the Father, is eminently and emphatically "the Word." "The Lord has said unto me, You are my Son, this day have I begotten you." Then the Father speaks\emdash "Not only have I set you\emdash already set you, as my King upon my holy hill of Zion," but, "Ask of me, and I will give you the nations for your inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for your possession." In this Psalm, then, we have the first as well as fullest and clearest view given to the Old Testament Church of the purpose of the Father to exalt the Son of his love to be Lord and King.\par 3. Psalm 8, as opened up and commented upon by Paul in the Epistle to the Hebrews, gives us a view of the humiliation of the Son of God and his subsequent exaltation. "But one in a certain place testified, saying--What is man, that you are mindful of him? or the son of man, that you visit him? You made him a little lower than the angels; you crowned him with glory and honor, and set him over the works of your hands. You have put all things in subjection under his feet." (\cf1\ul Heb_2:6-8\cf0\ulnone .) The Apostle, in his spiritual interpretation of this Psalm, brings Jesus before our eyes as the man who was "made a little" (or for "a little while," margin,) "lower than the angels"\emdash as indeed he was by assuming the flesh and blood of the children, human nature being in itself intrinsically inferior to angelic. But the Holy Spirit in the Psalm,* as interpreted by the Apostle, looked not only beyond the original thought of the Psalmist, as he first contemplated the starry heavens, in all their midnight oriental splendor, and then viewed man in his first creation, as made a little lower than the angels, and yet crowned with glory and honor, as invested with dominion over the works of God's hands\emdash the Holy Spirit, in inspiring this Psalm, looked, we say, not only beyond this primary intention of the Psalmist, but also beyond the humiliation of the blessed Lord to his glorification at the right hand of the Father, and testified to his regal dignity by the words, "You crowned him with glory and honor, and set him over the works of your hands. You have put all things in subjection under his feet."\par * We have often thought, and indeed may say we fully believe, that the inspired writers of the Old Testament did not themselves always fully see or understand the meaning of their own language. The Holy Spirit so influenced their mind and guided their pen that fuller, deeper truth was lodged in and conveyed by their words than they knew of. Thus when David cried out, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" (\cf1\ul Psa_22:1\cf0\ulnone ,) he was crying out under the hidings of God's countenance from himself. But the Holy Spirit had a deeper meaning by them, even the dolorous cry of the suffering Son of God. The inspired penmen knew indeed that the sufferings and glory of Messiah were intimated by the Holy Spirit, but their views of both were dim and feeble. Yet they sought to penetrate into the mind of the Spirit, as Peter speaks\emdash "This salvation was something the prophets wanted to know more about. They prophesied about this gracious salvation prepared for you, even though they had many questions as to what it all could mean. They wondered what the Spirit of Christ within them was talking about when he told them in advance about Christ's suffering and his great glory afterward. They wondered when and to whom all this would happen." (\cf1\ul 1Pe_1:10-11\cf0\ulnone .)\par 4. A similar testimony was given by the Father to his sovereign purpose to exalt the Son of his love in those memorable words which the Lord himself quoted in the days of his flesh, (\cf1\ul Mat_22:41-45\cf0\ulnone ,) "The Lord said unto my Lord--Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies your footstool." (\cf1\ul Psa_110:1\cf0\ulnone .) The 'right hand' is the place of dignity, power, and authority. To set his dear Son there in all the grace and glory, power and authority of his Person as God-man\emdash the Son of God incarnate, that in him all the perfections of Deity might shine, that the invisible, self-existent I AM, who dwells in the light that no man can approach unto, might come forth, as it were, out of this unapproachable shroud of dazzling, overwhelming light, and appear in a form in and under which he might be seen, known, believed in, loved, worshiped, and adored by millions of redeemed men and elect angels, was a part\emdash a leading and principal part of that "counsel of the Lord which stands forever," of "the thoughts of his heart" which will endure "to all generations." (\cf1\ul Psa_33:11\cf0\ulnone .)\par 5. But though the Psalms, and especially such as Psalm 72, 89, 96, 98, 149, contain intimations more or less clear of the fixed purpose of God to set his dear Son on the throne of his glory, yet nowhere in the inspired page do we meet with such plain and positive declarations of this eternal counsel as in the prophet Isaiah. The promised reign of Messiah shines with steady light all through the pages of Isaiah; but, we shall direct our readers' attention chiefly to chap. 49, which contains, so to speak, a holy dialogue between the Father and the Son on the subject of his work of redeeming love, and the reward promised him in consequence. The chapter opens with the address of the Son to the lands, as preparatory to the expression of his utterance, and the Father's gracious answer\emdash "Listen to me, all of you in far-off lands! The Lord called me before my birth; from within the womb he called me by name. He made my words of judgment as sharp as a sword. He has hidden me in the shadow of his hand. I am like a sharp arrow in his quiver. He said to me, "You are my servant, Israel, and you will bring me glory." (\cf1\ul Isa_49:1-3\cf0\ulnone .) The blessed Lord here prophetically intimates to the distant lands\emdash may we not say, to our own favored land among them?\emdash his then future incarnation as called from the womb to be God's servant, and as even from the womb of his virgin mother bearing a name which should be above every name. He then speaks of the words of authority and power which the Father had already in eternal purpose given him to kill and make alive in making his mouth "like a sharp two-edged sword;" and then brings to view the protecting hand of his heavenly Father in hiding him from all the malice of earth and hell in the shadow of his hand. He next intimates, that the Father\emdash who, by giving him a prepared body, had made him "a sharpened arrow" would hide him in his quiver until the appointed time when he would send him forth from his right hand to execute judgment; for the Father had, in eternal counsels and covenant transactions, said to him, "You are my servant, O Israel, in whom I will be glorified." (We need not suppose that these words contain an exact representation, or are a literal transcript of the solemn transactions between the Father and the Son; but they convey to our mind, under a prophetic form, certain realities which it was the eternal purpose of God to accomplish, and which have been already partially and will one day be wholly fulfilled.)\par But foreseeing his rejection by Israel after the flesh\emdash that he would come unto his own and his own would receive him not, he prophetically utters the language of complaint\emdash "Then I said, I have labored in vain, I have spent my strength for nothing and in vain." Still meekly submitting to his Father's will, and finding a sacred joy in leaving in his hands the result of his sufferings and work, he adds, "Yet surely my judgment," (that is, the decision of my righteous cause,) "is with the Lord, and my work," (or "reward," margin,) "with my God." But even if Israel after the flesh should reject him, this would not alter his glory\emdash "And now the Lord speaks\emdash he who formed me in my mother's womb to be his servant, who commissioned me to bring his people of Israel back to him. The Lord has honored me, and my God has given me strength." (\cf1\ul Isa_49:5\cf0\ulnone .) The Father then answers\emdash "And he said, It is a light thing that you should be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob, and to restore the preserved of Israel. I will also give you for a light to the Gentiles, that you may be my salvation unto the end of the earth." (ver. 6.) Here is contained that gracious, that blessed promise of which we Gentiles are now enjoying the fulfillment. Should Israel after the flesh reject, yes, crucify their promised Messiah\emdash will that foreseen rejection disappoint the purposes of Jehovah? No! It is already foreknown, already fore-provided for. The incarnate Son shall see of the travail of his soul and be satisfied. To the poor Gentiles, despised and abhorred by the proud Jews as out of the covenant, and therefore without God and without hope in the world, he shall be a light to guide elect sinners into the way of peace, yes, shall himself be God's "own salvation unto the end of the earth." Then comes that glorious promise of the exaltation of his dear Son as Lord and King, of which the first fulfillment began when Jesus, after his ascension, took the throne, but of which the full accomplishment awaits the further unfolding of the purposes of God.\par With this promise, being unusually pressed for time and room, we shall conclude our present paper\emdash "The Lord, the Redeemer and Holy One of Israel, says to the one who is despised and rejected by a nation, to the one who is the servant of rulers: "Kings will stand at attention when you pass by. Princes will bow low because the Lord has chosen you. He, the faithful Lord, the Holy One of Israel, chooses you." (\cf1\ul Isa_49:7\cf0\ulnone .)\par It is sweet to view by the eye of living faith the eternal purposes and fixed counsels of the Father to exalt and glorify the Son of his love. That Jesus should be eternally glorified; that he should wear the crown so anciently promised, so righteously won; that he should sway, as if with those very hands that were nailed to the cross, his righteous scepter over all things in heaven and in earth\emdash a scepter of grace to his friends, a rod of iron to his foes; and thus fully accomplish the counsels of God's heart and the sure word of his lips, is the desire and joy of all who love his name. To them, therefore, the contemplation of the fixed purposes of God to exalt his dear Son and put all things under his feet is full of sweetness and blessedness. An "everlasting covenant, ordered in all things and sure;" deep counsels of eternal wisdom; fixed purposes of grace and glory; the word and oath of a God who cannot lie; the infinite knowledge of an omniscient, and the boundless power of an omnipotent Sovereign\emdash these deep mysteries, which are hidden from the wise and prudent, are revealed to the babes who long to be taught and love to learn. \par They see and feel what a sin-worn world the present scene is; what wreck and ruin everywhere meet the enlightened eye; what misery, what crime, what contempt of all divine authority; what rebellion against every restraint of law or conscience; what open defiance of all check on pride or passion, everywhere abound. Viewing, then, this state of things, and seeing, as wealth increases and population advances, what an influx of foreign ways and manners, of modes of thought and reckless ungodliness, seems more and more rushing in as with an overflowing tide, the child of grace is almost tempted to lose sight of Him who sits above the waterfloods, and to feel or fear as if the god and prince of this world were the real master of the scene, and the great controller of events. \par As a relief against such unbelieving, God-dishonoring, infidel thoughts, faith is sometimes enabled to look through and beyond all these dark mists of the valley to those unclouded heavens where the Son of God sits at the right hand of power. The present reign of Jesus cannot be seen by the eye of sense. Indeed we have no evidence that Jesus reigns at all, but by watching and discerning his hand in providence, believing the word of his grace, or feeling the power of his resurrection in the heart. These are the three witnesses against all the persuasions of sense and the cavilings of the reasoning mind\emdash the grand sustaining props of the soul when the floods of ungodly men make it afraid. \par But the chief witness is the sure word of promise, the sworn oath of the Father to the Son, as recorded in the Scriptures of truth\emdash "I have made a covenant with my chosen, I have sworn unto David my servant, Your seed will I establish forever, and build up your throne to all generations. My covenant will I not break, nor alter the thing that is gone out of my lips. Once have I sworn by my holiness that I will not lie unto David. His seed shall endure forever, and his throne as the sun before me." (\cf1\ul Psa_89:3-4\cf0\ulnone ; 34-36.) As, then, Abraham, the father of the faithful, "staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief, but was strong in faith, giving glory to God, and being fully persuaded that what he had promised he was able to perform," so faith rests upon the sure promises of God that the throne of his dear Son shall be established forever. Were sense and reason not opposed to the fulfillment of this sure word of promise, there would be no need of a faith like Abraham's\emdash against hope to believe in hope.\par Meanwhile, may it be our happy portion to touch for ourselves the scepter of his grace, to submit to his sovereign will, and whoever may say, "We will not have this man to reign over us," to yield ourselves to his unseen, yet not unfelt authority as Lord and King in our hearts and consciences.\par But as we have shown, in our last paper, from the word of truth, the eternal purpose of God the Father to glorify his dear Son and exalt him as Lord and King, we shall now consider, with his help and blessing, the execution of this purpose in the incarnation, death, resurrection, ascension, and glorification of the Son of God.\par \par } des alone; but if it dies, it brings forth much fruit." (\cf1\ul Joh_12:24\cf0\ulnone .) Under this figure, the grain of wheat, the Lord intimated his death and resurrection, and the fruit which was to spring out of them. Using the same figure, the Apostle says, "But God gives it a body, as it has pleased him." (\cf1\ul 1Co_15:38\cf0\ulnone .) Thus, in order to carry out God's eternal purposes to glorify his dear Son, it was needful that he should take a body chosen and prepared for him by the Father. He was to be exalted to regal dignity and power, not merely as the Son of God, but as the Son of man, or rather as the Son of God and the Son of man in one Person. In this mysterious and most blessed union of Deity and humanity in one glorious Person, lie hidden boundless treasures of grace and glory. To be a King he became incarnate. In reply, therefore, to Pilate's question, "Are you a King, then?" Jesus answered, "You say (that is, say truly,) that I am a King. To this end was I born," (\cf1\ul Joh_18:37\ cf0\ulnone .) The road to royalty, to a throne which should endure as the days of heaven, lay through the Virgin's womb. The eternal Son of God must become in time a man, that he might reign as God-man forever and ever. He must come down to earth, that all power might be given unto him in heaven and in earth. (\cf1\ul Mat_28:18\cf0\ulnone .) He must be made lower than the lowest, that he might become higher than the highest; must serve, that he might rule; wash his disciples' feet, that a crown of glory might be put upon his head; take upon him the form of a servant, that God might "highly exalt him and give him a name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth." (\cf1\ul Phi_2:7-10\cf0\ulnone .) \par Through the disobedience and transgression of man, created in the image of God to be his representative on earth, God's lower creation became marred and defaced. Sin, the spoiler, entered Paradise. With sin! entered death; and with death--disorder, wreck, and ruin spread themselves far and wide over this once fair domain which God himself pronounced very good, until earth has become a very Aceldama\emdash a field of blood. How dishonorable, then, would it have been to the ever-living God had Satan been thus permitted to triumph. Would it not have been the boast of devils and the wonder of angels, that the arch-fiend of hell should have, as it were, outwitted by his skill all the wisdom of Omniscience, and defeated by his power all the strength of Omnipotence? \par To destroy, we all know, is easier than to create. A child may, by accident or thoughtlessness, in a moment break a priceless vase; a madman set fire to the accumulated wealth of ages; a vile assassin take at one thrust a life precious to a whole nation. But if to destroy be so much easier than to create, how much more difficult is it to restore what is destroyed! What skillful hand shall repair the shattered vase? What are can give us back the pr"ecious manuscripts, the antique cameos, the statues of a Phidias, the paintings of a Raphael? What Promethean skill renew the murdered statesman's life? Here the skill of man fails; here the mocking devil seems to triumph, and to gather up fresh strength to go on with that infernal work whence he borrows his name, "Abaddon," the destroyer. (\cf1\ul Rev_9:11\cf0\ulnone , margin.) \par But where man falters in despair and Satan shouts in triumph, the wisdom of the All-wise, the might of the Almighty, the grace of the All-gracious, eminently shine and display themselves with infinite luster before the eyes of all created intelligences. Over man Satan prevailed by craft and infernal skill; but by man\emdash by that very nature which he sought utterly to destroy, shall he be baffled, defeated, overwhelmed with shame and everlasting contempt. He was allowed to bind wretched man in the chain of sin until the iron entered into his soul; but by man shall everlasting chains be bound round him unto the judgment of #the great day. As Apollyon, the destroyer, shall he destroy the image of God in man; but by man shall that image be restored, and not only so, but raised to a glory, a brightness, and a luster to which it never could have attained by its original creation. \par Pride and envy, inflamed by desperate malice against God and man that human nature, inferior to angelic by creation, should be promoted to the favor from which he had fallen, urged on Satan to plot the deadly deed. He would ruin and destroy that nature. The image of God should not shine upon earth. He would mar and deface it; he would pollute with his own infernal spawn the very nature on which that image had been stamped; would debase it to the lowest hell; would fill it with bestiality and filth, blood and crime, until, as sunk below the brute creation, God should loathe and abhor the work of his own hands. In this hellish plot he was, in the inscrutable wisdom of God, allowed so far to succeed as to make the world what we now see it, a hideous $wreck and ruin, festering and sweltering, like a huge carcase, in its own corruption, until the burning flames of hell seem to be the only place into which it can be cast out of the sight and presence of a God of purer eyes than to behold evil, and who cannot look on iniquity. \par But O the depths of eternal wisdom and surpassing grace! Into this very time-worn scene of sin and woe, just as the spring-tide of iniquity had risen to its utmost height, and the whole world seemed flooded with evil as with the waters of a second deluge into this wrecked and ruined world, and what was far worse, amid these degraded and debased wild beasts of men, the Son of God came in the flesh. From the bosom of the Father did the Son of his love come forth to repair the waste places, the desolations of many generations. On this very sin-stricken earth, this abode of misery and crime, did the feet of the Son of God in our nature rest. This valley of tears he trod with holy steps--in the world but not of it--a man of sorrows% and acquainted with grief. According to ancient promise, "when the fullness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law to redeem those who were under the law." (\cf1\ul Gal_4:4\cf0\ulnone .) In that sacred humanity\emdash real flesh and blood, the flesh and blood of the children, though not fallen like theirs, but holy and pure--the eternal Son of the Father stood in the gap and repaired the breach, took a holy portion of that nature which sin and Satan had defiled into union with his own divine Person, obeyed in it the law, enduring the curse, offered up his holy body and soul as a sacrifice for sin, laid down the life which for that purpose he had taken, and raising his incorruptible body from the tomb, took it with him into the courts of bliss, there to sit down at the right hand of the Majesty on high. \par O the wisdom and power of God! O the unfathomable depths of mercy and grace! O the unsearchable treasures of goodness and love! O the opening visions of ete&rnal glory! Satan baffled! Sin blotted out! The image of God restored! Human nature raised to inconceivable dignity by its personal union with the divine Person of the Son of God! The fallen Church washed, justified, sanctified, and glorified with all the glory of her Head and Husband, and an eternal revenue of glory brought to a Triune Jehovah\emdash to God the Father for his eternal purposes of wisdom and love; to God the Son for his unspeakable condescension in the work of redemption; to God the Holy Spirit for his forming the sacred humanity of Jesus, and sanctifying the elect of God to know his grace, be conformed to his image, and partake of his glory.\par But carried away by the grace and glory of a theme so precious, we have rather anticipated our subject. We proposed to show the connection between the incarnation and death of Jesus--and his exaltation to royal dignity. We have thus far, then, showed that, in the boundless depths of the wisdom of God, his dear Son took flesh that as our great Hig'h Priest he might put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. But the same boundless wisdom and grace which provided the sacrifice assured him of a crown as his reward. This was a part of "the joy set before him, for which he endured the cross, despising the shame." Death was not only necessary as a part\emdash a main part of the sacrifice which he, as Priest, offered, but as a requisite for the glory with which he, as King, should be crowned. In fact all his three offices, as Prophet, Priest, and King, required to be sustained and magnified by his sufferings and death. What an example of meekness and martyrdom, what lessons of suffering and patient endurance of the deepest agony and shame are seen in the dying Prophet; what precious blood in a dying Priest; what grace in a dying King! How this last shone forth so conspicuously that the dying thief acknowledged him as King, and begged for an interest in his kingdom.\par But there was another reason why the road to the throne lay through the valley of the s(hadow of death. Our blessed Lord had "to destroy death and him that had the power of death, that is the devil." But this was "through death." (\cf1\ul Heb_2:14\cf0\ulnone .) Through sin death had come into the world, and had no sooner entered than it set up its throne on the earth, for "it reigned from Adam to Moses, even over them (that is, infants) who had not sinned after the similitude of Adam's transgression," which was a voluntary act of disobedience, but as overwhelmed in his original sin, they had fallen under the power and authority of the grim king of terrors. The scepter had therefore to be wrung out of his hand. But, according to the eternal appointments of infinite wisdom, this could only be by the Son of God submitting to die. He therefore took a nature which could die\emdash not in itself mortal, but capable of dying by a voluntary act. No man took his life from him. The Lord of life could not be robbed of life by the creatures to whom he had himself given breath. But he could lay down the )life which he had taken by a voluntary submission to the reign of death. He could thus snatch the scepter from his grasp, destroy and disannul him, and by the same act of meritorious obedience break to pieces the reign of Satan, "who had the power of death," as ever terrifying by it the children of God, whom by this terror he held in cruel bondage. \par It deserves our utmost attention and prayerful consideration to see, by the eye of faith, the display of wisdom and power shining forth in the way in which the all-wise God sent his dear Son "to destroy," or as the word is in the original, to unloose "the works of the devil." (\cf1\ul 1Jo_3:8\cf0\ulnone .) Satan had, so to speak, spun a raveled knot when he cast the cords of sin round man's heart. This tangled and tightly drawn knot could not be cut through as by a sword of omnipotent power; but had by infinite wisdom and patience to be unraveled through its whole length. The work which Satan had done was to be undone. Disobedience had to be repaired by o*bedience\emdash the voluntary obedience of the Son of God, and therefore of infinite value. Sin had to be atoned for by sacrifice\emdash the sacrifice of the nature which had sinned, in union with the Person of the Son of God, and therefore deriving from it unspeakable efficacy. Death had to be destroyed by the ever-living Son of God submitting to die. The law must be magnified by being obeyed by him who by his divine Person is above law. The Lawgiver must be the law-fulfiller. He who is the ever-blessed One must be made a curse; and the holy One of Israel, who know no sin, must be "made sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him." "Who will set the briars and thorns against me in battle?" asked the Lord; "I would go through them," is his answer. (\cf1\ul Isa_27:4\cf0\ulnone .) So our blessed Lord went through these thorns and briars set against him in battle. He thoroughly went through all that he undertook; and by going through unraveled the work of Satan.\par Let us explain this more d+istinctly, as a point full of truth and blessedness. Thus he went through temptation\emdash wholly through, for he "was in all points tempted like as we are," (\cf1\ul Heb_4:15\cf0\ulnone ,) and by going through every possible temptation which can beset us, threaded, so to speak, the whole avenue of temptation from beginning to end. So he went through the whole of the law, rendering a perfect obedience to it in every demand of unfailing love to God and his neighbor. So he went through the whole of suffering, for "he was a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief," experiencing every possible form of suffering that was compatible with a holy nature. And, in a sense, he went through the whole of sin\emdash not as a personal transgressor, for he was perfectly holy in body and soul, "a lamb without blemish and without spot"--but by imputation, feeling the weight, grief, and burden of all the sins of his elect people. So also did he go through the whole wrath of God, for he drank the cup of his indignation aga,inst sin to the very dregs. We can only glance at these things, but they are full of the deepest import--and might, with God's help and blessing, form a theme of most fruitful meditation, for they embrace the whole of the work which the Father gave him to do.\par But in thus going through, and by going through undoing the works of the devil, it is desirable to bear in mind and have, as it were, before our eyes that the blessed Lord went through all that we have mentioned in his complex Person as God-man. Thus his sacred humanity, in union with his Deity, went through the law, temptation, suffering, and death\emdash the human nature tasting each and all in their utmost intensity--but the divine nature sustaining, dignifying, ennobling, and bestowing unutterable value, merit, and validity upon every thought, word, and act of the suffering and obedience of the holy humanity--for there was but one Person, though two natures, and therefore all the acts were personal acts. As an illustration of this, look at t-he actings of our own soul and body. These are distinct, but as united in one person are viewed as one. Thus, as our blessed Lord went through the whole work which the Father gave him to do, his Deity, being in union with his obeying, suffering humanity, stamped each successive movement, as he went through it, with all the value and validity of Godhead. If this is difficult to understand\emdash or at least realize, for who can understand it?\emdash revert to our figure. Is not the mind of an artist stamped upon his work? Does not our soul impress itself and express itself by our body? So Deity stamped value and validity on all the acts of the Redeemer's humanity. \par This is beautifully alluded to, Psalm 45, in the description of the bridal garments of the Church as the queen\emdash "The King's daughter is all glorious within; her clothing is of wrought gold. She shall be brought unto the King in clothing of needlework." The gold was to be wrought into her clothing, the clothing to be of needlework, int.imating that her robe of justifying righteousness was wrought, as it were, as in needlework, stitch by stitch; yet that every thread was embroidered with gold. Here we have the thread of the humanity in union with the gold of Deity, and yet each in such close union that the thread is but one. In gold thread the beauty, the value is in the gold; yet how close the union. Gold by itself could not be made into embroidery. So Deity cannot suffer, bleed, or die; but humanity can in union with it. It is this union of Deity with humanity which made the work of redeeming love so unspeakably glorious, and so meritoriously efficacious. As Hart says--"Almighty God sighed human breath."\par It is indeed a mystery; but "great is the mystery of godliness, God manifest in the flesh." O glorious mystery!"\par "The highest heavens are short of this;\par 'Tis deeper than the vast abyss;\par 'Tis more than thought can e'er conceive,\par Or hope expect, or faith believe."\par Yet what or where would redemption have been/, unless Deity had imparted value and validity to every thought, word, and act of the obedient, suffering humanity.\par Our blessed Lord, then, passed through death seemingly conquered, but really a conqueror; seemingly overthrown by Satan, but really his overthrower; seemingly covered with shame, but only to be crowned with glory and honor; seemingly under the curse of God, but really enduring the curse that he might be made a blessing; as a servant, obedient unto death, for crucifixion was the mode of punishment for slaves, yet that he might be exalted in that very nature which there suffered, bled, and died--to a throne of immortal glory. Thus, too, he lay in the grave, that as by dying he might rob death of his sting, so by the tomb he might spoil the grave of its victory. But death could not hold the Lord of life, nor the grave enchain the hand that held the keys of hell, as the Apostle preached, and as faith believes\emdash "Whom God has raised up, having loosed the pains of death; because it was n0ot possible that he should be held by it." (\cf1\ul Act_2:24\cf0\ulnone .) He fought, he won, and to him as the overcomer was the crown given\emdash "To him that overcomes will I grant to sit with me in my throne, even as I also overcame, and have sat down with my Father in his throne." (\cf1\ul Rev_2:21\cf0\ulnone .)\par But the question may arise in the mind, When, that is, at what particular period, did the blessed Lord enter upon his kingly office? We have already shown that in his other offices there was an initial entrance before his full assumption of them. Thus, as Priest, he entered initially into the priestly office at his circumcision; as Prophet, he entered initially into his prophetical office when, a child in the temple, he sat among the doctors, both hearing them, and asking them questions. But he did not enter fully upon his prophetical office until after his baptism, nor upon the priestly until he consecrated himself in the prayer recorded John 17. In a similar way he entered initially u1pon his kingly office at his birth, for he was "born King of the Jews;" (\cf1\ul Mat_2:2\cf0\ulnone ;) but he did not enter actually upon it until after his resurrection, for then it was that "all power was given unto him in heaven and in earth." (\cf1\ul Mat_28:18\cf0\ulnone .) But it was more especially when he went up on high, and sat down at the right hand of the Father that the scepter of royal dignity and power was put into his hands. In Psalm 24 we have a beautiful description of Zion's anointed King entering into the courts of bliss as he returned victorious from the conquest over sin, death, and hell\emdash "Open up, ancient gates! Open up, ancient doors, and let the King of glory enter. Who is the King of glory? The Lord, strong and mighty, the Lord, invincible in battle. Open up, ancient gates! Open up, ancient doors, and let the King of glory enter. Who is the King of glory? The Lord Almighty\emdash he is the King of glory." Then did God highly exalt him, and give him a name which is above eve2ry name.\par In bringing before our readers our thoughts and Meditations on the Kingly Office of the Lord Jesus Christ we have thus far attempted to trace out, in full harmony, we trust, with the word of truth, two prominent, though as yet preliminary, features of its peculiar character, and have shown, 1. The eternal purpose of God the Father to glorify his dear Son, and exalt him to his own right hand as Lord and King; and, 2. The execution of this purpose in the incarnation, death, resurrection, ascension, and glorification of our adorable Redeemer.\par The point at which we somewhat abruptly stopped was the exact period at which the blessed Lord entered upon the full exercise of this royal dignity and power. We drew, as our readers will doubtless remember, a distinction between the initial and the full assumption of his kingly authority, and showed, from his own words to the disciples, that "all power in heaven and in earth" was not given unto him until after his resurrection and just antecedently t3o his ascension and glorification. Until then, though his Son, he was the Servant of the Father, meekly doing his will, and finishing the work which he had given him to do. (\cf1\ul Isa_42:1\cf0\ulnone ; \cf1\ul Isa_49:3\cf0\ulnone ; \cf1\ul Joh_17:4\cf0\ulnone ; \cf1\ul Heb_10:7\cf0\ulnone .) Even among his disciples, in the days of his flesh, he was "as he who serves;" (\cf1\ul Luk_22:27\cf0\ulnone ;) and "being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross." (\cf1\ul Phi_2:8\cf0\ulnone .) He was then "a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief;" who "hid not his face from shame and spitting." Out of his mouth there went not then "a sharp two-edged sword," (\cf1\ul Rev_1:16\cf0\ulnone ,) but "prayers and supplications, with strong crying and tears." (\cf1\ul Heb_5:7\cf0\ulnone .) "His visage" then, as viewed in vision by the evangelical prophet, "was so marred more than any man;" (\cf1\ul Isa_52:14\cf0\ulnone ;) for "his countenance" was not y4et, as seen by the beloved disciple in the Isle of Patmos, "as the sun shines in his strength." (\cf1\ul Rev_1:16\cf0\ulnone .) Lots were then cast on his vesture; (\cf1\ul Mat_27:35\cf0\ulnone ;) for on it was not yet written, "King of Kings and Lord of Lords." (\cf1\ul Rev_19:16\cf0\ulnone .) The kiss which touched his sacred cheek was the kiss of a base traitor, (\cf1\ul Mat_26:49\cf0\ulnone ,) not that of loving, loyal, submissive allegiance. (\cf1\ul 1Sa_10:1\cf0\ulnone ; \cf1\ul Psa_2:12\cf0\ulnone .) The crown of thorns then pressed his brow, not the diadem of glory; a reed, not a scepter, was put into his right hand; and the knee bowed before him was not the knee "of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth," but the knee of mockery and scorn. (\cf1\ul Mat_27:29\cf0\ulnone ; \cf1\ul Phi_2:10\cf0\ulnone .) \par Yet was there a joy set before him; and this was the joy of being "set at the right hand of God in the heavenly places, far above all principality, and power, and m5ight, and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world, but in that which is to come;" in seeing of the travail of his soul, and having "all things put under his feet, and made the Head over all things to the Church." \cf1\ul Eph_1:20-22\cf0\ulnone .) But when exalted to the throne of glory, then was fulfilled the promise, "The Lord said unto my Lord--Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies your footstool. The Lord shall send the rod of your strength out of Zion. Rule in the midst of your enemies." (\cf1\ul Psa_110:1-2\cf0\ulnone .)\par This present kingly power is mystically represented in the word of truth by his sitting on Mount Zion; for that is "the city of the great King," (\cf1\ul Psa_48:2\cf0\ulnone ,) and as such typified the royal dignity and sway of Jesus.* As thus mystically his royal residence, Zion became the perfection of beauty, for out of it God had shined; and out of it now sends forth the rod, or scepter, of his strength. (\cf1\ul Psa_50:2\cf0\ulnone ; \cf1\ul6 Psa_110:2\cf0\ulnone .)\par The peculiar glory and blessedness of this exaltation of Jesus is that it is in our nature. As one with the Father and the Holy Spirit, he ever was King; for "Christ is the one through whom God created everything in heaven and earth. He made the things we can see and the things we can't see\emdash kings, kingdoms, rulers, and authorities. Everything has been created through him and for him. He existed before everything else began, and he holds all creation together." (\cf1\ul Col_1:16-17\cf0\ulnone .) He who created all things must be the King of all things; he who is before all things must rule all things, as their rightful Sovereign; he who daily holds all creation together, must needs ever sway over them his protecting scepter. But this is not the regal dignity which Jesus now wears, nor the peculiar scepter put by the Father into his hands. The peculiar glory of his kingly office is that the scepters held by human hands\emdash by those very hands through which the nails of the cross were driven. Yes; that very hated Nazarene, against whom "the kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers took counsel together;" that very abhorred Jesus, against whom the maddened crowd, in their bitter enmity, cried, "Crucify him, crucify him;" that despised One of men, and rejected of the people, whom they, in their judicial blindness, did "esteem stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted;" that "very Man of Sorrows," who poured out his soul unto death, and who was numbered with the transgressors, now seated on his throne of glory, reigns with sovereign sway, and must reign until he has put down all rule and all authority and power. This exaltation to the right hand of power was the promised reward of his humiliation, sufferings, and death. (\cf1\ul Phi_2:9-11\cf0\ulnone ; \cf1\ul Heb_12:2\cf0\ulnone ; \cf1\ul Rev_3:21\cf0\ulnone .) But as we shall have occasion to enter more fully into this subject before we close our Meditations, we shall now proceed to our next point.\par \par } ®Ÿ®©‚Ò+{\rtf1\ansi\ansicpg1252\deff0\deflang1033\deflangfe1033{\fonttbl{\f0\fswiss\fprq2\fcharset0 Arial;}} {\colortbl ;\red0\green128\blue0;} {\*\generator Riched20 5.40.11.2210;}\viewkind4\uc1\pard\sb120\qj\b\f0\fs28 Jesus the Ent œN¹{\rtf1\ansi\ansicpg1252\deff0\deflang1033\deflangfe1033{\fonttbl{\f0\fswiss\fprq2\fcharset0 Arial;}} {\colortbl ;\red0\green128\blue0;} {\*\generator Riched20 5.40.11.2210;}\viewkind4\uc1\pard\sb120\qj\b\f0\fs28 Jesus, the Enthroned King\par \b0\fs20 by J. C. Philpot \par In our past Meditations we have, though in scanty measure and with feeble pen, attempted to set before our readers a few leading features of that surpassing grace and glory which the Lord Jesus Christ bears as anointed of the Father to be the interceding High Priest and the teaching Prophet of his Church and people. We ~Ê~„˜8ˆ°q{\rtf1\ansi\ansicpg1252\deff0\deflang1033\deflangfe1033{\fonttbl{\f0\fswiss\fprq2\fcharset0 Arial;}} {\colortbl ;\red0\green128\blue0;} {\*\generator Riched20 5.40.11.2210;}\viewkind4\uc1\pard\sb120\qj\b\f0\fs28 Jesus the Enthroned King\par \b0\fs20 by J. C. Philpot \par \b The nature, object, extent, and duratio9ËJƒ—{\rtf1\ansi\ansicpg1252\deff0\deflang1033\deflangfe1033{\fonttbl{\f0\fswiss\fprq2\fcharset0 Arial;}} {\colortbl ;\red0\green128\blue0;} {\*\generator Riched20 5.40.11.2210;}\viewkind4\uc1\pard\sb120\qj\b\f0\fs28 Jesus the Enthroned King\par \b0\fs20 by J. C. Philpot \par \par \b The EXECUTION of this purpose in the incarnation, death, resurrection, ascension, and glorification of the Son of God.\par \b0 Our blessed Lord, speaking of himself, said, "Verily, verily I say unto you, Except a grain of wheat fall into the ground and dies, it abi:n of this royal dignity, as now invested in the Person of the risen, ascended, and glorified Son of God.\par \b0 A. And first, the \b NATURE\b0 of his kingdom. This, like the place where it is exercised, and whence it issues its royal mandates, is heavenly. Our blessed Lord, when he stood before Pilate's judgment bar, declared that his "kingdom was not of this world." It is, therefore, a kingdom, not earthly but heavenly; and as such possesses peculiar characteristics which entirely distinguish it from all other kingdoms.\par We will take a glance, therefore, at some of the peculiar features of this heavenly kingdom:\par 1. It is eminently a \b spiritual\b0 kingdom. When our blessed Lord went up on high, he received gifts for men, as is declared in those exulting words of the Psalmist, "You have ascended on high; you have led captivity captive; you have received gifts for men, yes, for the rebellious also; that the Lord God might dwell among them." (\cf1\ul Psa_68:18\cf0\ulnone .) These gifts were sp;iritual gifts, different measures of heavenly grace, as the Apostle explains\emdash "But unto every one of us is given grace, according to the measure of the gift of Christ. "When he ascended up on high he led captivity captive, and gave gifts unto men." (\cf1\ul Eph_4:7-8\cf0\ulnone .) So also testified Peter, on the day of Pentecost, when the risen Lord, as he had promised, baptized his disciples with the Holy Spirit\emdash "This Jesus has God raised up, whereof we all are witnesses. Therefore, being by the right hand of God exalted, and having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, he has shed forth this, which you now see and hear." (\cf1\ul Act_2:32-33\cf0\ulnone .) This blessed Spirit was not given, in his full measure of heavenly gifts and graces, until Jesus was glorified. (\cf1\ul Joh_7:39\cf0\ulnone .) Comforting, therefore, his sorrowing disciples, their gracious Master said to them, "Nevertheless I tell you the truth; It is expedient for you that I go away\emdash for if I go nocourt dress is not "scarves, ankle chains, sashes, perfumes, and charms; their rings, jewels, fine robes, gowns, capes, and purses" (\cf1\ul Isa_3:20-22\cf0\ulnone ), but "the fine linen, clean and white, which is the righteousness of saints;" to issue not pensions, but pardons; and to grant to favored objects not trophies and medals, but "bands of love," and "the morning star" of his dawning smile, (\cf1\ul Hos_11:4\cf0\ulnone ; \cf1\ul Rev_2:28\cf0\ulnone ,)\emdash such are some of the objects of the King of saints. \par Say that the Lord after his resurrection had appeared in majesty and glory to put to flight the Roman armies; say that he had made Jerusalem his metropolis, and subdued all the nations of the earth; would that have been a conquest worthy of his coming from the bosom of the Father, or in harmony with his agonies in the garden, and his sufferings and sacrifice on the cross? To reign spiritually over believing hearts; to quicken and regenerate, save and sanctify, pardon and bless the obje?cts of his eternal love; to conform them to his suffering image, and make them fit for the inheritance of the saints in light--what would the highest, greatest, and most glorious earthly conquests have been in comparison with such and similar spiritual triumphs of his grace?\par 2. As being, therefore, a spiritual kingdom, it is a kingdom of \b grace\b0 , for in it, as administered by its heavenly Sovereign, grace "reigns through righteousness, unto eternal life." (\cf1\ul Rom_5:21\cf0\ulnone .) This is one of the chief blessings of the exaltation of the Lord Jesus to the right hand of power, that the throne on which he sits is "a throne of grace." (\cf1\ul Heb_4:16\cf0\ulnone .) Thus, having finished the work on earth which the Father gave him to do, he has gone up on high to carry into execution those purposes of grace which brought him down. To begin, carry on, and complete, from heaven his dwelling place, the work of grace on thousands of his chosen saints here below; by grace to pardon their sins; b@y grace to subdue their iniquities; by grace to purify their hearts by faith; by grace to sanctify their affections and fix them on things above, where he himself sits on the right hand of God\emdash such and similar conquests of his all-victorious grace make Jesus unspeakably precious to those who believe. \par But what heart can conceive, or what tongue recount the daily, hourly triumphs of his all-conquering grace? We see scarcely a millionth part of what Jesus, as a King on his throne, is daily doing; and yet we see enough to know that he ever lives at God's right hand, and lives to save and bless. What a crowd of needy petitioners every moment surrounds his throne! What urgent wants and woes to relieve; what cutting griefs and sorrows to assuage; what broken hearts to bind up; what wounded consciences to heal; what countless prayers to hear; what earnest petitions to grant; what stubborn foes to subdue; what guilty fears to quell! What clemency, what kindness, what long-suffering, what compassion, wAhat mercy, what love, and yet what power and authority does this Almighty Sovereign display! No circumstance is too trifling; no petitioner too insignificant; no case too hard; no difficulty too great; no suer too importunate; no beggar too ragged; no bankrupt too penniless; no debtor too insolvent, for him not to notice and not to relieve! Sitting on his throne of grace, his all-seeing eye views all, his almighty hand grasps all, and his loving heart embraces all whom the Father gave him by covenant, whom he himself redeemed by his blood, and whom the blessed Spirit has quickened into life by his invincible power. The hopeless, the helpless; the outcasts whom no man cares for; the tossed with tempest and not comforted; the ready to perish; the mourners in Zion; the bereaved widow; the wailing orphan; the sick in body, and still more sick in heart; the racked with hourly pain; the fevered consumptive; the wrestler with death's last struggle\emdash O what crowds of pitiable objects surround his throne; andB all needing a look from his eye, a word from his lips, a smile from his face, a touch from his hand. O could we but see what his grace is, what his grace has, what his grace does; and could we but feel more what it is doing in and for ourselves, we should have more exalted views of the reign of grace now exercised on high by Zion's enthroned King!\par 3. But it is a kingdom also of \b life\b0 . A living King needs living subjects. The dead in sin, the dead in profession, have neither part nor lot in the matter. "Death cannot celebrate you." "The living, the living, he shall praise you, as I do this day." (\cf1\ul Isa_38:18-19\cf0\ulnone .) Jesus is "the way, and the truth, and the life;" and as such says to his people, "Because I live, you shall live also." Thus he appeared to John in the Revelation, calming his fears when he fell at his feet as dead\emdash "And he laid his right hand upon me, saying, Fear not, I am the first and the last. I am he who lives, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive for eveCrmore." (\cf1\ul Rev_1:18\cf0\ulnone .) To give life, and that more abundantly; (\cf1\ul Joh_10:10\cf0\ulnone ;) to be "the resurrection and the life, so that he who believes in him, though he were dead, yet should he live," (\cf1\ul Joh_11:25\cf0\ulnone ,) was a part of his divine mission. As, then, the kingdom of the beast is full of darkness and death, (\cf1\ul Rev_16:10\cf0\ulnone ,) so the kingdom of Jesus is full of light and life, for he has declared that he is "the light of the world;" and that "he who follows him shall not walk in darkness, but have the light of life." (\cf1\ul Joh_8:12\cf0\ulnone .) \par The nature of this kingdom is beautifully unfolded in Psalm 21.* "How the king rejoices in your strength, O Lord! He shouts with joy because of your victory. For you have given him his heart's desire; you have held back nothing that he requested. You welcomed him back with success and prosperity. You placed a crown of finest gold on his head." (\cf1\ul Psa_21:1-3\cf0\ulnone .) It will be observDed that among the blessings thus asked and granted was life. "He asked you for life, and you gave it to him--length of days, forever and ever." (\cf1\ul Psa_21:4\cf0\ulnone .) This life is his mediatorial life, and, therefore, a given, not a self-existent life. As he himself declared\emdash "For as the Father has life in himself, so has he given to the Son to have life in himself." (\cf1\ul Joh_5:26\cf0\ulnone .) Of this mediatorial life he gives to his people; and thus they live by him and on him, as he lives by the Father, according to his own words\emdash "As the living Father has sent me, and I live by the Father; so he who eats me, even he shall live by me." (\cf1\ul Joh_6:57\cf0\ulnone .) This life quickens, animates, and sustains the Church of Christ as she comes up from the wilderness, leaning on her Beloved. Thence comes all her union and all her communion with her risen Head. She lives by it in him, and he lives by it in her. Thus Head and members are one; for as in the natural body the life of Ethe head is that of the members, and this oneness of life makes them one, so is there one life in that mystical and spiritual body of which Christ is the glorious Head. But the subject of Christ as our Life is too wide for our present limits, for it embraces all those communications of divine life which make and manifest his people to be a living people, and comprehends every breath of spiritual life in their hearts from the first cry of a convinced sinner to the last hallelujah of an expiring saint.\par * Psalm 21 is a kind of pendant, or what is sometimes called a complement to Psalm 20. In Psalm 20 the Church, fore-viewing the sufferings and sacrifice of Messiah, thus prays on his behalf to his heavenly Father\emdash "The Lord hear you in the day of trouble; the name of the God of Jacob defend you. Send you help from the sanctuary, and strengthen you out of Zion. Remember all your offerings, and accept your burnt sacrifice." (\cf1\ul Psa_20:1-4\cf0\ulnone .) She has a confidence that the Father will aFccept his burnt sacrifice, will "grant him according to his own heart"\emdash the salvation of his people, and will "fulfill all his counsel"\emdash the counsel of peace "between them both." (\cf1\ul Zec_6:13\cf0\ulnone .) In this anticipation she says, "We will rejoice in your salvation," &c., and adds, in the confidence of faith, "Now know I that the Lord saves his anointed"\emdash that is, his Messiah, his Christ, the very name which Jesus bore, and by which he is still called. But as in Psalm 20 the Church viewed the suffering, sacrificing Messiah, so in Psalm 21 she views the triumphant, reigning Messiah; and sees the Father setting a "crown of pure gold on his head," thus exalting him as King to his own right hand. She sees all his petitions granted, "honor and majesty laid upon him," and himself made "most blessed forever." Thus the two Psalms, as it were, fit into and mutually explain and illustrate each other. Psalm 20 is prayer, Psalm 21 is praise; Psalm 20 sees the cross, Psalm 21 sees the crowGn. In the one we see what Jesus was; in the other what Jesus is. Read in this point of view, they cast much light upon both the past and present work of Christ; and especially show the deep interest and sympathy which the Church takes and feels in both his humiliation and exaltation.\par 4. For a similar reason we can only just briefly remark that the reign of Christ is in its very nature a kingdom, also, of \b light\b0 , (\cf1\ul 1Jo_1:7\cf0\ulnone ,) as opposed to the power of darkness; (\cf1\ul Col_1:13\cf0\ulnone ; \cf1\ul Eph_5:8\cf0\ulnone ;) a kingdom of liberty, (\cf1\ul Joh_8:32; Joh_8:36\cf0\ulnone ; \cf1\ul 2Co_3:17\cf0\ulnone ,) as opposed to the reign of bondage; (\cf1\ul Act_15:10\cf0\ulnone ; \cf1\ul Gal_4:24-25; Gal_4:31\cf0\ulnone ;) a kingdom of love, (\cf1\ul 1Jo_3:1; 1Jo_3:16\cf0\ulnone ,) as opposed to the reign of enmity and alienation; (\cf1\ul Rom_8:7\cf0\ulnone ; Col, 1:21;) a kingdom of peace, (\cf1\ul Isa_9:6-7\cf0\ulnone ,) as opposed to war and strife; and a kingdom of holineHss, (\cf1\ul Isa_35:3\cf0\ulnone ; \cf1\ul Dan_7:22\cf0\ulnone ; \cf1\ul Heb_12:14\cf0\ulnone ,) as opposed to a reign of sin and uncleanness. (\cf1\ul Rom_5:21\cf0\ulnone .)\par 5. But its peculiar characteristic and chief glory is that it is an \b internal\b0 kingdom. "The kingdom of God is within you." (\cf1\ul Luk_17:21\cf0\ulnone .) "The King's daughter is all glorious within." (\cf1\ul Psa_45:13\cf0\ulnone .) This internal kingdom is that "kingdom of God," of which the Apostle declares that it "is not food and drink--but righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit." (\cf1\ul Rom_14:17\cf0\ulnone .) It is, therefore, "not in word but in power;" (\cf1\ul 1Co_4:20\cf0\ulnone ;) requires a new and spiritual birth to see it and enter into it; (\cf1\ul Joh_3:3-5\cf0\ulnone ;) is the special inheritance of "the poor in spirit;" (\cf1\ul Mat_5:3\cf0\ulnone ;) is entered into "through much tribulation;" (\cf1\ul Act_14:22\cf0\ulnone ;) "suffers violence, and is taken by force;" (\cf1\ul Mat_11:12\Icf0\ulnone ;) and, when received in faith, is "a kingdom that cannot be moved." (\cf1\ul Heb_12:28\cf0\ulnone .) \par It is, therefore, not a kingdom of outward grandeur--but of inward grace; not one of temporal majesty--but of spiritual authority; not one of visible pomp and show--but of invisible influence; not a display of rustling robes, clashing bells, pealing organs, painted windows, medieval architecture, white-robed choristers, intoning priests, surpliced processions, and all that sensuous appeal to the mere natural feelings and passions of the human mind, whereby Satan, as an angel of light, deceives the nations--but a holy, heavenly, spiritual reign of the Lord of life in a broken heart, a contrite spirit, and a tender conscience. Happy those who, illuminated from above by a heavenly light, and made alive unto God by a new and divine life, are not to be imposed upon by the baubles of an empty religion; who, knowing the truth for themselves by the teaching and testimony, work and witness of the Jblessed Spirit, cannot and will not "call evil good or good evil, nor put darkness for light and light for darkness, bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter." Happy those who see, feel, and know the difference between form and power, deception and reality, a name to live and Christ formed in the heart, the hope of glory! Happy those to whom the King of kings has extended the golden scepter of his grace, whom he has made willing in the day of his power, and on whose hearts he sits enthroned as their only Lord and Sovereign.\par In viewing with believing eyes the Person and work, grace and glory, qualifications and offices of the blessed Lord, we are apt to fix our faith upon them more in reference to ourselves\emdash to our own personal salvation and consolation, than as eternally designed to manifest the glory of God. It is, indeed, as seeing him fully and wondrously suited to all our wants and woes that we are first led and enabled to believe on the Son of God unto eternal life. A High \b Priest\b0 who hKas put away sin by the sacrifice of himself, and who, as now at the right hand of Power, is "able to save to the uttermost all who come unto God by him," well suits a self-condemned, guilty sinner; a kind and condescending \b Teacher\b0 , at whose feet we may humbly sit to hear his words dropping with unction into the heart, is well adapted to those who feel their ignorance, and long for heavenly instruction; and a \b King\b0 who cannot only manage for them all their temporal and spiritual affairs, but\emdash harder work still!\emdash can rule over their stubborn wills and subdue their iniquities by his Spirit and grace, well meets the case of those who sigh after deliverance from the power and prevalence of a body of sin and death. \par But though these benefits and blessings, which come down to the people of God out of the mediatorial life and fullness of the Lord Jesus, are in themselves exceedingly great, and, as realized by heart experience, unspeakably precious, yet are they really but second and,L as it were--subsidiary to higher and more glorious purposes. No final object can be so dear to God as his own glory. To fill heaven and earth with his manifested glory must be a purpose of greater significance with the Lord, than to save and bless a ruined race. To forgive iniquity, transgression, and sin is a part of God's glory; (\cf1\ul Exo_33:18-23\cf0\ulnone ; \cf1\ul Exo_34:5-7\cf0\ulnone ; \cf1\ul Num_14:17-18\cf0\ulnone ;) but the glory itself must be greater than that of forgiveness, of which it is but a part. Thus after the Lord had said to Moses, "I have pardoned, according to your word," he added, "But, as truly as I live, all the earth shall be filled with the glory of the Lord." (\cf1\ul Num_14:20-21\cf0\ulnone .) The glory of his holiness, of his justice, of his power, of his faithfulness, of his love, and all the other perfections of the divine nature, must be equal to that of his forgiveness of sin, not to mention the essential glory of his eternal existence as a Trinity of Persons, FathMer, Son, and Holy Spirit, in the Unity of the undivided Essence. To reveal this glory, that thus it might be seen and admired both in heaven and earth, was the eternal purpose of the Most High, even of him who has said, "My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure." (\cf1\ul Isa_46:10\cf0\ulnone .)\par But as God is essentially invisible, dwelling in the light which no man can approach unto, whom no man has seen or can see, this glory could only be revealed in the face of his dear Son, who is "the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his Person." This is John's express testimony\emdash "No man has seen God at any time; the only-begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, he has declared him." (\cf1\ul Joh_1:18\cf0\ulnone .) In almost similar language speaks the Apostle Paul\emdash "For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, has shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ." (\cf1\ul 2Co_4:6\cf0\ulnone N.) We see, therefore, that to glorify his dear Son was the eternal purpose of God; for in glorifying him he glorified himself, as our Lord declares\emdash "I have glorified you on the earth;" (\cf1\ul Joh_17:4\cf0\ulnone ;) and again, "Father, glorify your name. Then came there a voice from heaven, saying, I have both glorified it, and will glorify it again." (12:28.) \par But the glory of the Father and of the Son are one, according to the words of our Lord's intercessory prayer\emdash "I brought glory to you here on earth by doing everything you told me to do. And now, Father, bring me into the glory we shared before the world began." (\cf1\ul Joh_17:4-5\cf0\ulnone .) Thus we see that the Son of God glorified his Father on earth, and that the Father now glorifies his Son in heaven. And as he set him at his own right hand in the heavenly places that he might be thus glorified in him, so the main purpose of the present royal dignity of Jesus is to manifest that glory.\par These few remarks may perhaps pOrepare us to enter more clearly into the consideration of that part of our subject which now lies before us, that is, the object, extent, and duration of the royal dignity of Jesus at the right hand of the Majesty on high.\par B. The \b OBJECT\b0 of this regal sway demands first our consideration.\par In that sublime and most affecting prayer which the Lord Jesus offered up to his heavenly Father on the eve of his sufferings in the garden and on the cross, he himself unfolded one special object of his present possession of supreme authority and power\emdash "As you have given him power over all flesh, that he should give eternal life to as many as you have given him." (\cf1\ul Joh_17:2\cf0\ulnone .) From these words of the gracious Lord we gather two things\emdash 1, that the Father has given him power over all flesh; 2, that it was necessary he should possess this supreme authority in order to bestow the gift of eternal life on as many as the Father had given him. The execution, however, of this lattePr purpose, implies and involves several others, which we shall now, therefore, attempt to unfold.\par 1. The execution of God's will upon earth is entrusted to the hands of the risen and exalted Son of God. God's open will is made known to us in the Scriptures, and this must ever be our guiding rule, for secret things belong unto the Lord God, but those things which are revealed belong unto us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law." (\cf1\ul Deu_29:29\cf0\ulnone .) But besides this open or express will, God has a secret will, not revealed, at least not plainly and clearly revealed, as is his positive will in the word of truth, though there doubtless are dim intimations of it, could we see them. \par But as all our readers may not see the distinction we make between the open and the secret will of God, let us explain our meaning a little more distinctly. One instance may suffice as an illustration of the distinction between them. It was God's open or expressed will that whQen he sent his dear Son, Israel after the flesh should believe in him as the promised Messiah; but his secret will was, that his people by outward covenant should reject him, and nail him to the accursed tree, that redemption by atoning blood might be accomplished, and also that the Gentiles should be the first-fruits of the Savior's finished work. \par Now, as the secret will of God thus sometimes differs from his open will, who is so fit to carry into execution this hidden will as the Son of his love, of whom we read, "No man knows the Son but the Father; neither knows any man the Father save the Son?" He who ever lay in his bosom as his dear Son must fully know all the mind of the Father, for he declares, "As the Father knows me, even so know I the Father." (\cf1\ul Joh_10:15\cf0\ulnone .) To carry out this will demands infinite wisdom and infinite power, as well as an infinite knowledge of the mind and purpose of God. But in whom shall we find this union of infinite knowledge, wisdom, and power but iRn the exalted Son of God? \par To bring the subject more fully before your mind, take as an instance the execution of the secret purpose of God to save his elect people from all their sins and all their foes. Consider for a moment the countless complications of events connected with the execution of this purpose! Look at the millions of human beings and of human passions which lie in the path as obstacles; the opposition of all the powers of earth and hell; the dreadful state of alienation and enmity into which the elect are sunk; the several and special call of every vessel of mercy; the temptations, trials, and deliverances of each, all which need infinite wisdom to know and almighty power to meet\emdash do but consider these complicated circumstances, and what a view will it give you of the present reign of Jesus as carrying into execution this secret will of the Father. We have named but one instance, but that is sufficient to give us some little idea of the authority and power committed to the handsS of Jesus as enthroned King in Zion.\par 2. Another purpose of the exaltation of the blessed Lord to the throne of mediatorial glory is that he should be a living Head of influence to his Church. This, is beautifully set forth by the Apostle in that heavenly prayer which he put up for the Church of God at Ephesus at the close of the first chapter of his Epistle\emdash "I pray that you will begin to understand the incredible greatness of his power for us who believe him. This is the same mighty power that raised Christ from the dead and seated him in the place of honor at God's right hand in the heavenly realms. Now he is far above any ruler or authority or power or leader or anything else in this world or in the world to come. And God has put all things under the authority of Christ, and he gave him this authority for the benefit of the church. And the church is his body; it is filled by Christ, who fills everything everywhere with his presence." (\cf1\ul Eph_1:19-23\cf0\ulnone .) In what grand, noble, eTloquent, expressive language does the Apostle here set forth the exaltation of Jesus, "far above all principality, and power, and might, and dominion" in earth, heaven, or hell, and "all things" past, present, and to come put under his feet," that he might be a glorious Head of life, power, and influence to the members of his mystical body. \par It has pleased the Father that in him should all fullness dwell\emdash a fullness of all grace and gifts as well as all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. Out of this fullness he is ever supplying the members of his mystical body; for from him, as an ever-living Head, "For we are joined together in his body by his strong sinews, and we grow only as we get our nourishment and strength from God." (\cf1\ul Col_2:19\cf0\ulnone .) It is only by this union with Christ as a living Head, and by receiving supplies of grace and strength out of his fullness, that we come experimentally and feelingly to know that he lives at the right hand of the Father. We may indeed belieUve it to be so from the testimony of God in the written word, but we have no such evidence as the Lord speaks of when he says, "At that day you shall know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you;" (\cf1\ul Joh_14:20\cf0\ulnone ;) or that which John means when he declares, He who believes on the Son of God has the witness in himself." (\cf1\ul 1Jo_5:10\cf0\ulnone .) \par This is the grand, the vital distinction between the living and the dead, that the living have union and communion with a living Head, while the dead are "alienated from the life of God, through the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart." (\cf1\ul Eph_4:18\cf0\ulnone .) This blessed truth and divine mystery of union and communion with him, the Lord unfolded to his sorrowing disciples in those heavenly discourses, before his sufferings and death, which the Holy Spirit has recorded by the pen of John\emdash John 14, 15, 16. But we shall merely refer to one passage in them as chiefly illustrating our Vpresent point\emdash "I will not leave you comfortless; I will come to you. Yet a little while, and the world sees me no more; but you see me. Because I live, you shall live also." (\cf1\ul Joh_14:18-19\cf0\ulnone .) Let us seek to enter into the meaning of our Lord's gracious words here. His bodily presence was now to be withdrawn from the world. It had despised, it had rejected him. It knew him not, it valued him not. It had proved itself utterly unworthy of his continued presence; it should therefore be deprived of that blessing; it should "see him no more." This polluted earth should no more be trodden by his holy feet. His miracles of mercy should cease; his words of grace and truth should be no more heard; and as the world had no powers of sight but the bodily organ of the eye, when he left the earth it ceased to behold him. "But you," he says to his disciples, "but you see me. Because I live, you shall live also."\par Our Lord in these words unfolds two mysteries of his heavenly grace\emdash sightW and life. The believer sees, the believer lives. But whom does he see, and by whom does he live? He sees Jesus, he lives by Jesus. He sees by a spiritual sight, he lives by a spiritual life, for Jesus is his life; and because Jesus lives, he shall live also. Thus the child of God carries in his own bosom the clearest proof and sweetest evidence that the Son of God is risen from the dead and reigns supreme in the courts above, for he sees him there, he feels him there. His anointed eye, like the eye of Moses, sees him who is invisible;" (\cf1\ul Heb_11:27\cf0\ulnone ;) and his believing heart, rising up on the wings of love, seeks those things which are above, where Christ sits at the right hand of God. (\cf1\ul Col_3:1\cf0\ulnone .) \par In the parable of the vine and the branches, this mystery of vital godliness is more fully and clearly unfolded, especially in the words, "Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, no more can you, unless you abiXde in me. I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in me, and I in him, the same brings forth much fruit; for without me you can do nothing." (\cf1\ul Joh_15:4-5\cf0\ulnone .) A living Head in heaven is the great object of our faith. Without faith in him, there is no union with him; without union with him, there is no communion with him; without communion with him, there is no fruitfulness; without fruitfulness, there is a casting into the fire as a withered and dead branch. Such is the circle of divine life and fruitfulness in the mystery of faith; such the outcome of barrenness and death in the mystery of unbelief. Let us trace it a little more distinctly. \par Jesus lives at the right hand of God; because he lives, he quickens into spiritual life the members of his mystical body; as a fruit of this quickening power, they live; they see him; they believe on him; they have union and communion with him; they live a life of faith upon him; and bring forth fruit to his praise. The whole mystery oYf this life is contained in the experience of the Apostle\emdash "I am crucified with Christ; nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me." (\cf1\ul Gal_2:20\cf0\ulnone .) \par But as this life of faith on the Son of God is exposed to countless fluctuations, and is opposed by countless inward and outward foes; as it has no power to maintain itself, but, like fire, must go out if left untended; and as the extinction of this life would involve the oath and promise of God and the faithfulness of his dear Son, it needs the Almighty power of the enthroned King of Zion to maintain it in being by continual communications of grace and strength out of his own fullness.\par 3. Another purpose of the regal sway of the Son of God is to subdue all things unto himself. When the Father raised him from the dead and set him at his own right hand in the heavenly places, he virtually put allZ things under his feet. This was the promise made in Psalm 8, as spiritually interpreted by the Apostle\emdash "You made him a little lower than the angels; you crowned him with glory and honor, and set him over the works of your hands. You have put all things in subjection under his feet. For in that he put all in subjection under him, he left nothing that is not put under him. But now we see not yet all things put under him." (\cf1\ul Heb_2:7-8\cf0\ulnone .) When God created Adam, he gave him dominion over the works of his hands. This dominion, however, he forfeited by transgression. But the dominion given to the first Adam is bestowed in a much larger measure on the second Adam; for to the first Adam was granted dominion only over all things in the earth, but to the second Adam of "things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth." (\cf1\ul Phi_2:10\cf0\ulnone .)\par But though this dominion is virtually and absolutely given him, and though he sits at the right hand of the Majesty in [the heavens, as a sure pledge of the Father's absolute gift, yet its full accomplishment is still incomplete. This is clearly intimated by the Apostle in the last clause of the words quoted by us from \cf1\ul Heb_2:8\cf0\ulnone\emdash "But now we see not all things put under him;" and in that remarkable passage\emdash "After that the end will come, when he will turn the Kingdom over to God the Father, having put down all enemies of every kind. For Christ must reign until he humbles all his enemies beneath his feet. And the last enemy to be destroyed is death. For the Scriptures say, "God has given him authority over all things." (Of course, when it says "authority over all things," it does not include God himself, who gave Christ his authority.)" (\cf1\ul 1Co_15:24-27\cf0\ulnone .) \par We shall have occasion, in the course of our Meditations, to dwell somewhat fully on these words; but the point to which we wish to call present attention is, the declaration in them that Christ "must reign until he has h\umbled all enemies under his feet." But why this necessity? Because the Father has virtually put all things under his feet, both by promise and by performance; by promise when he said, "Ask of me, and I shall give you the nations for your inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for your possession;" and by performance when he raised him from the dead and set him at his own right hand in the heavenly places. He must, therefore, reign until he has fully executed the Father's purpose and the Father's promise. Were he to leave the throne before he had "put all things under his feet," where would be the faithfulness of God; where the promised reward of Jesus? But we must bear in mind that as the reign of Jesus is a spiritual reign, so the enemies put under his feet are the spiritual enemies of his people. Their enemies are invisible, and therefore the power exercised against them is invisible also. \par We see sin and wickedness universally prevailing; a most cruel, bloody, and fratricidal war (the ]civil war in America,) desolating some of the fairest provinces of the earth, and by its consequences affecting millions of our own countrymen; Satan raging as if his time were short; vital godliness at a very low ebb; churches torn to pieces with internal strife; few faithful ministers in the land, and these often walking apart as if half afraid of, or half jealous of each other; error widely spreading; and popular preachers either pandering to the worldly spirit of their hearers, amusing them with jokes and anecdotes, and entertaining them with stories, or arresting attention by novel interpretations of Scripture, and running a reckless combat against established truths. \par When, then, we survey a scene like this, our hearts may well sink, and our faltering lips may almost say, "Does Jesus reign? Why, then, do these objects meet our eye so opposed to his holy government? If 'all things are put under his feet,' why is the world, why is the Church what we cannot but see they are?" To silence this quest^ioning spirit, which the more it is indulged the more perplexing it becomes, let us bear in mind the great truth which we have endeavored to enforce--that the reign of Jesus is eminently a spiritual kingdom, and exercised for his spiritual people. Thus it is not consistent with his present counsel to put down in an open manner, by visible acts of authority, the enemies of his people, but to strip them of so much of their power as affects the salvation and sanctification of his own loyal subjects. \par To set this in a clearer light, let us bear in mind that an evident distinction may be drawn between the partial and the full display of the present power of Jesus. A king may possess in himself absolute power, and yet restrain himself in the exercise of it. So with the Lord Jesus Christ as King in Zion. None who believe in the power of the Lord Jesus as the exalted God-man can doubt his ability to sweep away from the face of the earth every vestige of sin and misery. But he does not do so. Sin still reigns_ rampant, and the cry of misery rises up on every side. We must come, then, to one of these two conclusions--either that Jesus does not reign with supreme authority--or that his power is for wise purposes not fully put forth. The first conclusion is infidelity; the second agrees with the views that we have put forth of the spiritual reign of Jesus. And to this agrees the testimony of the written word, for we read\emdash "Then the seventh angel blew his trumpet, and there were loud voices shouting in heaven--The whole world has now become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he will reign forever and ever. And the twenty-four elders sitting on their thrones before God fell on their faces and worshiped him. And they said--We give thanks to you, Lord God Almighty, the one who is and who always was, for now you have assumed your great power and have begun to reign." (\cf1\ul Rev_11:15-17\cf0\ulnone .) \par From this prophetic declaration it is plain that until "the kingdoms of this world become the` kingdoms of our Lord and his Christ," which they are not now, the Lord has not "taken to himself his great power and reigned," that is, has not displayed his sovereign authority in visible manifestation. It is now spiritual, and therefore invisible, but not the less real because at present necessarily partial. Were it otherwise, this world would not be a place of temptation and trial, nor would we be conformed to Christ's suffering image by walking here as he walked. View this point, then, of real though partial authority and power as exercised by the Lord, in relation to the various \b enemies\b0 of his people. \par Take, first, that enemy of God and man, the arch enemy \b Satan\b0 . By his death, Jesus "destroyed," or, as the word rather means, broke his power; (\cf1\ul Heb_2:14\cf0\ulnone ;) and when he ascended up on high "spoiled" him and all his associated "principalities and powers, making a show of them openly." (\cf1\ul Col_2:15\cf0\ulnone .) Does not this look like a complete conquest of the apowers of hell? Yet Satan is still permitted to blind the minds of those who believe not, (\cf1\ul 2Co_4:4\cf0\ulnone ,) and hurl his fiery darts against the children of God. Satan could fill the heart of Ananias with evil, (\cf1\ul Act_5:3\cf0\ulnone ,) and hinder Paul from good. (\cf1\ul 1Th_2:18\cf0\ulnone .) Can we reconcile these two statements? Is he destroyed who can blind and ruin the sinner? Is he spoiled who can distress and hinder the saint? Yes--but not fully nor finally. He is virtually destroyed as regards the saints of God, because he cannot destroy them, either body or soul; he is spoiled, if not of all power to hinder or distress them, yet of that overwhelming authority which he is allowed to exercise over the world as being still its god and prince. Thus we can understand how the kingdom of Christ is a real kingdom, and his power a really exercised power, though not at present triumphant in full and open manifestation. But though thus wisely and necessarily limited as to conspicuous dispblay, as regards its spiritual exercise it is full and effectual. \par Take as an instance, more fully to elucidate this point, another enemy which is put under his feet\emdash\b death\b0 . The consideration of this may give us a still clearer insight into the nature of the authority exercised by the Lord in his kingdom than the one already adduced. That beautiful chapter, 1 Cor. 15, will throw great light on this part of our subject\emdash "For he must reign until he has put all enemies under his feet. The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death." (\cf1\ul 1Co_15:25-26\cf0\ulnone .) Observe the connection here between the reign of Christ until he has put all enemies under his feet, and the destruction of the last enemy, death. As death is still destroying, he is not yet destroyed, that is, in the full sense of the term. But he will be fully destroyed. When? At the resurrection; for then, and not until then, "will be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory." But isc there no destruction of death until his final destruction? Surely. When, by a manifestation of pardoning love, the sting of death is taken away, is not death then spiritually destroyed? Many a dear saint of God has shouted on a dying bed, "O death, where is your sting! O grave, where is your victory?" even at the moment when Death is stinging him to death, and the victorious grave is about to claim for its prey the worn-out body.\par We need not pursue further the train of thought. The examples we have given, and to them we might add those of the \b world\b0 and of \b sin\b0 , sufficiently show that the apparent incompleteness of the Lord's triumphs over his enemies, the wide prevalence of sin and misery, and all the opposition made to his authority and power, are no valid arguments against the reality of his reign, or the exercise of his government. It is full and complete for all its intended purposes. If more were needed, more would be displayed. Is it not enough that he reigns spiritually in the hedarts of his people; that he controls the power of all their enemies; that he subdues their iniquities; that he sets a limit to the strength and subtlety of Satan; that he deprives death of its sting, and robs the grave of its victory; that he keeps back the raging waves of an ungodly, persecuting world; defeats all devices against his Church; and brings every member of his mystical body through all the storms of time and waves of corruption to the eternal enjoyment of himself? Is not this a real kingdom? Is not this supreme and successful authority? And is not the exercise of this sovereign government, invisible though it is, as effectual as if it were more openly displayed and shone more brightly and conspicuously before the eyes of men?\par But here we shall pause, reserving to our next paper our considerations upon the extent and duration of this kingdom of the Son of God, the nature and purpose of which we have thus far, however feebly and imperfectly, attempted to unfold for the edification of our reeaders and the promotion of the glory of a Triune God.\par C. The nature and object of the Mediatorial kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ having thus far formed the subject of our Meditations, we shall now, with God's help and blessing, attempt to unfold the two next points which we proposed for consideration--its \b EXTENT\b0 and \b DURATION\b0 .\par Both these points involve difficulties, and have been the subject of frequent as well as warm controversy. But without flinching from expressing our views on the subject, we shall endeavor, while we avoid doubtful and controversial points, to tread as closely as we can in the footsteps of Scripture, and advance nothing which is not, at least in our judgment, in strict accordance with the inspired testimony.\par By the extent of the Mediatorial reign of the Lord Jesus Christ, we may understand two things:\par 1. The present extent.\par 2. The future extent.\par Both of these points will demand our careful and prayerful consideration, that we may advance fnothing inconsistent with the word of truth or the dignity and glory of the blessed Lord.\par The future extent will come more conveniently under the next section, in which we propose to consider the future development and glorious manifestation of Christ's Mediatorial kingdom; and its duration will fall also better into its place when we have taken a view of his future glory. \par We have, therefore, now chiefly to examine the PRESENT extent of the Mediatorial kingdom of Jesus. One word will express this extent\emdash unlimited. Nothing short of, nothing less than this, will be in accordance with his own words\emdash "All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth." (\cf1\ul Mat_28:18\cf0\ulnone .) What possible limit can be assigned to "all power in heaven and in earth?" All power in heaven includes dominion over all the angelic multitudes above; and all power on earth embraces absolute, uncontrolled authority over all men, things, events, and circumstances beneath the starry skies.\par But the qugestion may, perhaps, arise, "Did not the Lord Jesus, as the Son of God, co-equal and co-eternal with the Father and with the Holy Spirit, already possess supreme dominion over angels and men, and so over all things in heaven and in earth?" Surely he did. But his power and authority, as the Son of God, are distinct from his power and authority as now exercised at the right hand of the Father. \par The peculiar glory of his Mediatorial kingdom is that the Lord Jesus reigns in our nature\emdash not simply, therefore, as the Son of God, but as the Son of man. This Stephen saw in the vision of faith\emdash "But he, being full of the Holy Spirit, looked up steadfastly into heaven, and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing on the right hand of God. And said, Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of man standing on the right hand of God." (\cf1\ul Act_7:55-56\cf0\ulnone .) This was also the prophetic view given to Daniel\emdash "As my vision continued that night, I saw someone who looked like a man cohming with the clouds of heaven. He approached the Ancient One and was led into his presence. He was given authority, honor, and royal power over all the nations of the world, so that people of every race and nation and language would obey him. His rule is eternal\emdash it will never end. His kingdom will never be destroyed." (\cf1\ul Dan_7:13-14\cf0\ulnone .) \par Exactly similar are the declarations of the Holy Spirit in the New Testament\emdash "I pray that you will begin to understand the incredible greatness of his power for us who believe him. This is the same mighty power that raised Christ from the dead and seated him in the place of honor at God's right hand in the heavenly realms. Now he is far above any ruler or authority or power or leader or anything else in this world or in the world to come. And God has put all things under the authority of Christ, and he gave him this authority for the benefit of the church. And the church is his body; it is filled by Christ, who fills everything everywheire with his presence." (\cf1\ul Eph_1:19-23\cf0\ulnone .) "And in human form he obediently humbled himself even further by dying a criminal's death on a cross. Because of this, God raised him up to the heights of heaven and gave him a name that is above every other name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father." (\cf1\ul Phi_2:8-11\cf0\ulnone .) These testimonies demand our careful and particular attention, as in them are locked up some of the deepest mysteries of our most holy faith; and we will therefore bestow upon them, before we proceed further, a few moments' attentive consideration.\par The Holy Spirit has set before us in the word of truth the blessed Lord as the object of our faith under three distinct points of view:\par 1. What he was from all eternity\emdash the only-begotten Son of God; the Son of the Father in truth and love.\par 2. What he became ijn time\emdash the Son of man, by taking upon him the flesh and blood of the children.\par 3. What he now is\emdash the exalted God-man at the right hand of the Father; still the only-begotten Son of God, still the very and true Son of man; but uniting both these distinct natures, the divine and the human, in one glorious Person, and thus crowned with glory and honor, and sitting as a Priest on his throne in the highest heavens. These three points are all embodied in one verse, as spoken to his disciples by our gracious Lord\emdash "I came forth from the Father, and am come into the world. Again I leave the world, and go to the Father." (\cf1\ul Joh_16:28\cf0\ulnone .) "I came forth from the Father;" there is his eternal Deity and Sonship. "And am come into the world;" there is his sacred humanity. "Again I leave the world, and go to the Father;" there is his present glorified state as God-man.\par It has been our aim and desire to set him before the Church of God under these three points of view, so fark, at least, as we have seen him by the eye of faith and felt him precious. In one series of papers, we endeavored to set him forth in his Deity and Sonship, as the Son of the living God; in another series, we attempted to unfold the mystery of his sacred humanity as the Son of man; and in the present series, now coming to a close, to bring him before the Church in his Mediatorial grace and glory as the enthroned Priest, Prophet, and King of his redeemed people. May he graciously smile on this feeble attempt to set forth his praise, and more and more reveal himself to both writer and reader as the chief among ten thousand and altogether lovely.\par It is, then, in his glorious complex Person as Immanuel, God with us, God in our nature, that he now sits at the right hand of the Majesty on high; and in him, as thus exalted to be the head over all things to the Church, faith believes, hope anchors, and love embraces. To look to him, even at times, from the very ends of the earth; (\cf1\ul Isa_45:22\cf0\ulnonle ; \cf1\ul Psa_61:2\cf0\ulnone ;) to call upon him; (\cf1\ul Act_7:59\cf0\ulnone ; \cf1\ul Act_9:14\cf0\ulnone ; \cf1\ul 1Co_1:2\cf0\ulnone ;) to confess and bewail at his feet our grievous sins and innumerable backslidings; to seek after clear and renewed manifestations of his glorious Person and finished work, of his atoning blood and dying love; to desire the promotion of his glory, not of our own; that his will should be accomplished in and by us, and not that our own wretched inclinations and sinful desires should be gratified to our fancied present pleasure, but real future glory; to live to his praise; to listen to his voice, and obey it; to be separated from the world and worldly professors and enjoy union and communion with him; to walk in his footsteps; and when this life, with all its sins and sorrows, comes to a close, to die in his loving embrace\emdash is not this to live a life of faith in the Son of God, and thus "to know him and the power of his resurrection?"\par It was a special mark mof the primitive believers that they "called on the name" of Christ, that is, addressed their prayers to him as God. Thus Saul came to Damascus "with authority from the chief priests to bind all that called on his name;" (\cf1\ul Act_9:14\cf0\ulnone ;) and Paul addressed his epistle "to the Church of God at Corinth," etc., "with all who in every place call upon the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord, both theirs and ours." (\cf1\ul 2Co_1:2\cf0\ulnone .) So the heathen writer, Pliny, in his letter to Trajan, the Roman Emperor, written about A. D. 102 or 103, giving an account of the early Christians, says, "They are accustomed on a stated day to meet before daylight, and to repeat among themselves a hymn to Christ as God." It was this worship of Christ, as the exalted Son of God, which drew down upon them such a load of shame and persecution. That they should worship as God one who had been crucified as a common malefactor, was unto the Jews a stumbling-block, and unto the Greeks foolishness; but unto those whno were called, it was Christ, the power of God, and the wisdom of God. (\cf1\ul 1Co_1:23-24\cf0\ulnone .)\par But though we do not tie ourselves strictly down to a prescribed line of thought, and do sometimes avail ourselves of the liberty implied in the very word "Meditations" to wander, not, indeed, from the truth, nor even from the subject, but from a rigid adherence to a fixed path of discussion into the green pastures of musing contemplation of the grace and glory of the Lord the Lamb, yet we feel that we have rather digressed from our point, which was to show the present extent of the Mediatorial reign of Jesus.\par We have already pointed out that in all the office characters undertaken by our blessed Lord, there was an initial entering upon them on earth prior to their full assumption as now exercised by him in heaven. In his priestly office there was an absolute necessity for this, as the Apostle so cogently argues\emdash "For every high priest is ordained to offer gifts and sacrifices; wherefoore it is of necessity that this man have something also to offer." (\cf1\ul Heb_8:3\cf0\ulnone .) What he offered was himself\emdash "Nor yet that he should offer himself often, as the high priest enters into the holy place every year with blood of others; for then must he often have suffered since the foundation of the world; but now once in the end of the world has he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself." (\cf1\ul Heb_9:25-26\cf0\ulnone .) As, then, the blessed Lord entered initially into his priestly office when he put away sin by the sacrifice of himself, so he entered initially into his kingly office while here below, before his full assumption of it as now administered by him at the right hand of the Father. Thus we see the subjection of all things to his dominion, even in the days of his flesh, as a pledge of all power being given to him at his resurrection in heaven and in earth. At his rebuke, as Lord of the elements, stormy winds and roaring waves were hushed into a calm. At hisp approach, diseases fled, for there went virtue out of him and healed them all; under his creative hand, food for famishing multitudes multiplied itself, without stint or limit; at his bidding, water was at once changed into wine; at his commanding word, the paralytic started up from his year-long couch, and the dead from his grave-borne coffin. He had but to speak, and the deaf heard, the blind saw, the lame walked, the leper was cleansed. \par Was not this to walk on earth as its King and Lord? Yes; as Lord of the sea, he walked, in calm grandeur, upon its waves; as Lord of the earth, he bade the grave give back the buried Lazarus; and as Lord of hell, cast out devils, and made those infernal spirits cry out as in terror, "Are you come here to torment us before the time?" If, then, his dominion and authority were so unlimited in the days of his flesh, before he ascended the throne of his Mediatorial glory, what possible limit can be assigned to them now? But as our views of it are too often sadly narroqw, and our faith in it proportionally weak, let us endeavor to show in some detail how wide, how unlimited is its present extent.\par 1. First, then, view it as extending over all people; and bear in mind that this includes enemies as well as friends\emdash those whom he will one day break with a rod of iron and dash in pieces as a potter's vessel, and those who serve the Lord with fear and rejoice with trembling. We are very apt to lose sight of the unspeakable benefits and blessings which we enjoy in the Lord's exercising kingly authority over all persons, and especially those in high places. Our beloved Queen, our temporal rulers, our judges, magistrates, and all administrators of government; our justly-prized and inestimable constitution; our just and moderate laws; our civil and religious liberties; and all, in fact, that we enjoy as citizens of this highly-favored country, we owe to the real power of our exalted Lord. \par How plainly does it declare this under his name as "Wisdom," in the word ofr truth\emdash "By me kings reign, and princes decree justice. By me princes rule, and nobles, even "the judges of the earth;" (\cf1\ul Pro_8:15-16\cf0\ulnone ;) "The king's heart is in the hand of the Lord, as the rivers of water he turns it wherever he will." (\cf1\ul Pro_21:1\cf0\ulnone .) Similar is the testimony of the New Testament\emdash "Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no power but of God; the powers that be are ordained of God;" (\cf1\ul Rom_13:1\cf0\ulnone ;) "Submit yourself to every ordinance of man for the Lord's sake\emdash whether it be to the king, as supreme; or unto governors, as unto those who are sent by him for the punishment of evildoers, and for the praise of them that do well." (\cf1\ul 1Pe_2:13-14\cf0\ulnone .) Thus all civil authority is of God; and, as the Lord of life and glory sits at his right hand in the plenitude of his power, we cannot err in ascribing to his royal authority every temporal privilege that we enjoy. \par And not only in this fasvored island, the Queen of the isles sitting on her sea-girt throne, the envy and admiration of surrounding nations, but everywhere on this earthly globe, as far as waves roll, winds blow, sun shines, or stars hold on their nightly courses, does the scepter of Jesus sway the destinies and control the designs and actions of men. If, amid all the turmoil and confusion of passing events, it is difficult to realize this, consider the consequences which would result both to the world and the Church, were no such supreme dominion exercised. Look for a moment at the fierce, we may say ferocious, passions of carnal men, and see what earth would soon become--were they left unchained in all their natural ferocity. Without the restraints of law and government, which, as we have shown, are instruments of Christ's supremacy, men would tear each other to pieces, like infuriated wild beasts, and deluge society with blood and crime. Where, amid this awful storm, with every element of fury let loose, would society be? Imatgine London given up for one day to the unchecked passions of its criminal population, and then ask yourself, "Is there no mighty power which holds in check these worse than wild beasts?" Yes, there is a power as wide-spread as light, as universal as air, as pervasive and far mightier than that which holds the earth itself in its orbit\emdash the supreme dominion of heaven's exalted Lord. Not to believe this, is not to be a believer at all.\par But you will, perhaps, say, "If Jesus reigns thus supreme, why all this disorder, this misery and crime? why is earth what it is? why this bloody, fratricidal war in America? why this appalling distress in Lancashire, if he holds the reins of government?" But are you a judge of order or disorder? Where you see little else but confusion, there may be the greatest order; and wisdom where you would gladly charge the Almighty with folly. Are you a prophet, or the son of a prophet? Can you foretell what blessing is to spring out of this horrid war, or this sore distresus? Does not a king punish as well as rule? And how can the Lord more effectually punish men than by scourging them with their own sins? It is God's special prerogative to bring good out of evil, and order out of confusion. If you were to watch carefully from an astronomical observatory the movements of the planets, you would see them all in the greatest apparent disorder. Sometimes they would seem to move forward, sometimes backward, and sometimes not to move at all. These confused and contradictory movements sadly puzzled astronomers, until Newton rose and explained the whole; then all was seen to be the most beautiful harmony and order, where before there was the most puzzling confusion. \par But take a scriptural instance, the highest and greatest that we can give, to show that where, to outward appearance, all is disorder, there the greatest wisdom and most determinate will reign. Look at the crucifixion of our blessed Lord. Can you not almost see the scene as painted in the word of truth? See those vscheming priests, that wild mob, those rough soldiers, that faltering Roman governor, the pale and terrified disciples, the weeping women, and, above all, the innocent Sufferer with the crown of thorns, and enduring that last scene of surpassing woe, which made the earth quake, and the sun withdraw his light. What confusion! what disorder! What triumphant guilt! What oppressed and vanquished innocence! But was it really so? Was there no wisdom or power of God here accomplishing, even by the instrumentality of human wickedness, his own eternal purposes? Hear his own testimony to this point\emdash "Him, being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, you have taken, and by wicked hands have crucified and slain." (\cf1\ul Act_2:23\cf0\ulnone .) The "determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God," in the great and glorious work of redemption, was accomplished by the wicked hands of man; and if so, in this the worst and wickedest of all possible cases, is not the same eternal will also now wexecuted in instances of a similar nature, though to us at present less visible?\par But having taken this hasty glance at the authoritative rule of Christ over and in the midst of his enemies, let us now look at his mild and merciful dominion over his own people. Here we seem to stand, if not on surer, yet, at least, on plainer and more evident ground. The ancient promise of authority and power given unto the Son of God in prospect of his future exaltation, and of this the Scriptures are full, embraced two things\emdash the subjection of enemies, and the willing obedience of friends\emdash "The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies your footstool. The Lord shall send the rod of your strength out of Zion. Rule you in the midst of your enemies. Your people shall be willing in the day of your power, in the beauties of holiness from the womb of the morning; you have the dew of your youth." Willingly or unwillingly, all should be made subject to his scepter; for "those who dxwell in the wilderness shall bow before him" in the voluntary obedience of love, and "his enemies shall lick the dust" in the forced submission of power. \par This distinction between the willing obedience of friends and the forced subjection of foes runs through many other inspired declarations of the nature and extent of the Mediatorial reign of Jesus. Thus, addressing his heavenly Father, the Lord speaks in ancient prophecy\emdash "You have delivered me from the strivings of the people; and you have made me the head of the heathen. A people whom I have not known shall serve me. As soon as they hear of me, they shall obey me. The strangers shall submit themselves unto me." (\cf1\ul Psa_18:43-44\cf0\ulnone .) We prefer the marginal reading of the last clause, "The strangers shall lie, or yield feigned obedience," as closer to the original, and more in accordance with the next verse\emdash "The strangers shall fade away, and be afraid out of their close places." Almost the first act of faith is to obey. yIt was the first act of the faith of Abraham\emdash "By faith Abraham, when he was called to go out into a place which he should after receive for an inheritance, obeyed; and he went out, not knowing where he went." (\cf1\ul Heb_11:8\cf0\ulnone .) The faith of the gospel, therefore, is called "the obedience of faith," (\cf1\ul Rom_16:26\cf0\ulnone ,) and to believe the gospel is to obey the gospel, as the Apostle speaks\emdash "But they have not all obeyed the gospel. For Elijah says, Lord who has believed our report?" (\cf1\ul Rom_10:16\cf0\ulnone .) When, therefore, we believe the gospel, as made the power of God unto our salvation, we obey the voice of the Beloved as speaking in and by it. "You who dwell in the gardens, the companions hearken to your voice. Cause me to hear it." (\cf1\ul Son_8:13\cf0\ulnone .) My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me." (\cf1\ul Joh_10:27\cf0\ulnone .) As, then, the good Shepherd speaks, the sheep hear, and, as they hear, they believe and obey. The Przince of Peace sways his scepter of love and grace over their hearts; they take his yoke upon them, which, by submission, they feel to be easy, and his burden to be light; and thus find rest unto their souls.\par But this unlimited dominion extends also over all things\emdash all events and circumstances, as well an all persons. This is hard to believe, but, were it not so, what security would there be for the salvation of the Church of God? "All things are yours," says the Apostle; "things present and things to come, all are yours." But how and why are all things yours? "Because you are Christ's, and Christ is God's." (\cf1\ul 1Co_3:22-23\cf0\ulnone .) But how could "all things" be ours, unless all things were subjected to the sovereign sway of Jesus? Again, we read that heart-cheering declaration\emdash "And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to his purpose." (\cf1\ul Rom_8:28\cf0\ulnone .) But how can "all things work together for{ good," unless these all things are in the hand, and under the supreme control of the Lord Jesus? for were any one thing exempt, that one thing, like a misplaced wheel in a piece of intricate mechanism, might make the whole machinery go wrong, and work for ill instead of good. \par At the end of the same noble chapter from which we have just quoted, the Apostle enumerates a whole series of dangerous and distressing incidents to a Christian course. "Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written, For your sake we are killed all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for slaughter." (\cf1\ul Rom_8:35-36\cf0\ulnone .) He then adds, "No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us." (Rom. 37.) But how "in all these things" could the suffering saints of God be more than conquerors, if he who loved them had not supreme control over them? Rising in a glorious climax of triumphant faith, he then declares\emdash "For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." (ver. 38, 39.) "Things present and things to come" must be under the sovereign control of Jesus, as well as "angels, principalities, and powers," or some of them in height, or some of them in depth, or some of them in creation, would be able to separate the saints from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus their Lord. Have we not said enough to show from the word of truth what many believe in doctrine, but few believe in real, heartfelt, practical experience, that all things, events, and circumstances are subjected to the sovereign control of the King of kings and Lord of lords? But we now pass on to more difficult and delicate ground\emdash the FUTURE extent of this Mediatorial reign.\par \par } }ed20 5.40.11.2210;}\viewkind4\uc1\pard\sb120\qj\b\f0\fs28 Jesus the Enthroned King\par \b0\fs20 by J. C. Philpot \par \par \b The FUTURE extent of this Mediatorial reign.\par \b0 Now, at the very outset, we express our firm belief that this will be beyond all that has been ever witnessed, or seen, or known. To assert, as some are now asserting, that this present is the millennial dispensation, and that we are to have no other, is one of those wild, heady, unscriptural declarations which may be well expected from men who deny the true and proper Sonship of our adorable Lord. Can nothing content them but to strip Jesus of his "many crowns?" (\cf1\ul Rev_19:12\cf0\ulnone .) First, they rob him of his dearest and eternal crown\emdash that he is "the Son of the Father in truth and love," and now they will strike another from his head, and will not allow that all nations shall call him blessed, or the whole earth be filled with his glory.\par That Christ shall reign to an extent hitherto unknown is so cle~arly revealed in the word of truth that, to our mind, nothing but the most obstinate unbelief or inveterate prejudice can deny it. Whether this reign is to be a personal or a spiritual reign we shall not discuss. It has been the subject of much controversy, and our object is not to discuss vexed questions, but to bring forth out of a believing heart that which is good to the use of edifying, that it may minister grace to our readers. But we cannot pass the subject by without expressing two convictions, founded, we trust, on the word of truth, as far as it has been opened up to our spiritual understanding:\par 1. That the reign of Jesus will be from sea to sea and from shore to shore; and 2, that this reign, whether personal or spiritual, will be in full accordance with every gospel doctrine, every heavenly truth, and every part of living experience. We have no idea of a carnal kingdom, or any sympathy with those who by their sensual views of Christ's future reign have done so much to prejudice the minds of God's family against it. Man must ever be what he now is, a poor, fallen, sinful creature, whom the blood of Christ alone can save and the Spirit of Christ alone regenerate. What the blessed Spirit can do, when poured abundantly out, was seen on the day of Pentecost. No carnal paradise, no earthly delights, no worldly thrones or scepters, no rivers of literal milk and honey, no amount of wheat, or wine, or oil, no abundance of the young of the flock and of the herd can satisfy the souls of those, whether few or many, now or hereafter, who come and sing in the height of Zion and flow together to the goodness of the Lord. Unless their soul be as a watered garden, watered with the blood and love of the Lamb, God's people would not, could not be satisfied with his goodness. (\cf1\ul Jer_31:12-14\cf0\ulnone .) There will be an abundance of earthly peace and temporal prosperity in those happy days when men shall beat their swords into ploughshares and their spears into pruning hooks; when "nation shall not l€ift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more;" but if all the earth shall be filled with the glory of the Lord it can be no other glory than that seen by the saints now\emdash "For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, has shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ." (\cf1\ul 2Co_4:6\cf0\ulnone .) This must be a spiritual glory, according to the Apostle's testimony\emdash "But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord." (\cf1\ul 2Co_3:18\cf0\ulnone .)\par But while we believe that there will be a display of the future glory of Christ's Mediatorial kingdom such as earth has never yet witnessed, but which all the prophets have foretold in their highest strains, and as with one harmonious voice, yet would we guard ourselves strictly against forecasting either the time or the manner of its accomplishment. When the disciples asked their risen Master, "Lord, will you at this time restore again the kingdom to Israel?" what was his answer? "And he said unto them, It is not for you to know the times or the seasons, which the Father has put in his own power." (\cf1\ul Act_1:7\cf0\ulnone .) He did not say that the kingdom should never be restored to Israel, but he checked their inquisitive spirit into God's sovereign disposal of the times and seasons, and bade them, by implication, not indulge in vain dreams of an earthly kingdom in which they should hold power and authority; but directed their faith to the promised gift of the Holy Spirit and their own personal witness of him\emdash a witness in faith and suffering, unto the uttermost part of the earth. No one thing has cast more contempt on the prophecies of the Scriptures, than the innumerable rash attempts to settle dates and times for their fulfillment; for when these anticipated dates have been falsified by the events not then taking place, occasi‚on has been taken from these mistakes to throw discredit on the prophecies themselves. We dare not, therefore, fix any date or time for the fulfillment of any one unfulfilled prediction.\par Nor, again, do we venture to entertain in our own mind any idea of the manner in which the Lord will accomplish what he has promised. But this we will say, that we have no faith in missionary exertions, at least as at present exercised; or any hope that by huge mixed Societies of believer and unbeliever, or any cumbrous, worldly apparatus of subscriptions and donations, patrons, presidents, secretaries, and deputations, or by what are called revivals, or united prayer-meetings, or any similar means, the glory of the Son of God will be made to shine upon earth. No. The Lord will take his own way as well as his own time. No arm of flesh shall put the crown on his head, as no arm of flesh can take it off. Whatever attempts man may make, until "the Spirit be poured upon us from on high," the wilderness will not be a fruiƒtful field. But when he sets his hand again the second time to recover the remnant of his people, then his own way will be at once the mightiest, wisest, and best; and when accomplished, the whole fulfillment of his eternal promises to glorify his dear Son will be not only in the strictest accordance with the word of grace, but in harmony with every glorious perfection of a triune God.\par We know by painful experience how unbelief and infidelity fight against this testimony of God to the manifest glory of his dear Son on earth. When, then, we feel so much unbelief within, can we wonder that in these last days there should be "scoffers, walking after their own lusts, and saying, Where is the promise of his coming? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation." (\cf1\ul 2Pe_3:3-4\cf0\ulnone .) Fixing the eye of sense on visible objects, and seeing "all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation," men naturally resist the declar„ations of God in his word, that there shall be "new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwells righteousness;" and where they cannot and do not openly deny "the testimony of Jesus" which is the very "spirit of prophecy," they so qualify and explain away the express language of the Holy Spirit, as to amount to a virtual denial of his kingdom and glory beyond its present manifestation. \par No heart is naturally more unbelieving than that which beats in our bosom; but we cannot and dare not resist the testimony of God, which forces itself, as it were, upon us more and more as we examine the sacred page. When, for instance, we read such a testimony as this\emdash "The earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea," (\cf1\ul Isa_11:9\cf0\ulnone ,) we ask ourselves, "Are these the words of him that cannot lie?" Surely they are; for they are in the book of God. But are they fulfilled? Is the earth, at the present moment, as full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the …sea? How do the waters cover the sea\emdash partially or fully? Who can say that the knowledge of the Lord, that knowledge of which Jesus says it is "eternal life," (\cf1\ul Joh_17:3\cf0\ulnone ,) fully covers England, or one town, or one house, or one whole family in it? We must either, then, believe in the future fulfillment of such a promise, or deny that God means what he says. See, then, how the case stands, a case that has often tried us to the very quick. The submission of faith, or the denial of unbelief. There is no other alternative. Which of them, reader, is yours? \par But take another testimony. "In his days shall the righteous flourish, and abundance of peace so long as the moon endures. He shall have dominion, also, from sea to sea, and from the river unto the ends of the earth." (\cf1\ul Psa_72:7-8\cf0\ulnone .) And again, "Yes, all kings shall fall down before him; all nations shall serve him." "His name shall endure forever; his name shall be continued as long as the sun; and men shall †be blessed in him; all nations shall call him blessed." (Verses 11, 17.) Are these predictions fulfilled? Do the righteous now flourish? Is there "abundance of peace so long as the moon endures?" Let America testify. Let the fields of Maryland, covered with 30,000 wounded or dying men, proclaim aloud, "Yes, this is the millennium. There is no other. This is the fulfillment of all the prophecies which proclaim, 'All kings shall fall down before him, all nations shall serve him.' Is not the whole American nation serving the Prince of Peace, when brother meets brother on the battlefield? Is not the knowledge of the Lord covering Maryland as the waters cover the sea, when heaps of dying men strew her plains, and putrid corpses choke up her rivers?" But the booming cannon, the bursting shell, the volleys of musketry, the shrieks of the wounded, the groans of the dying, the wail of mothers and widows, and the very blood of the battlefield all cry, "No, no! This is not the domain of the Prince of Peace. This is ‡rather hell broken loose upon earth than the binding of Satan; rather the pouring out of the vials of God's wrath than the pouring out of the Spirit from on high."\par Wearied, then, and sick at the sight of such scenes of human sin and woe, our mind has sometimes felt a sweet relief in the belief that even this sin-worn world shall not always be what it now is, a very Aceldama, a field of blood and crime; that a day will come when "the Lord shall be king over all the earth; in that day there shall be one Lord and his name one." (\cf1\ul Zec_14:9\cf0\ulnone .) Is this beyond the power or beyond the promises of God? "Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven," the Lord bade his disciples pray. Is that prayer yet accomplished? Is it ever to be? If not, why were the disciples taught to pray for what God never meant to grant? We might fill our pages with similar testimonies and with similar arguments, but we will content ourselves with one already referred to\emdash "I saw in the night visions, and beholˆd, one like the Son of man came with the clouds of heaven, and came to the Ancient of days, and they brought him near before him. And there was given him dominion, and glory, and a kingdom, that all people, nations, and languages should serve him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom that which shall not be destroyed." (\cf1\ul Dan_7:13-14\cf0\ulnone .) \par Is this testimony fulfilled? Do all people, nations, and languages serve the Son of man? Does China serve him, or Turkey? Or, not to mention heathen lands, does France, does Italy, does England serve him? We need not pursue the argument. It is such passages as these, the force of which we cannot evade or resist, which, after many years of thought and examination, as well as temptation, have made us come to the conclusion that if there be no future development and manifestation of the kingdom and dominion of Christ more than what is now seen, the testimony of God in the Scripture cannot be true. But "let ‰God be true and every man a liar." Here faith rests; and here for the present we lay down our pen.\par The end of the year admonishes us that it is time for us also to bring to a close our Meditations on the Office Characters of the Lord Jesus. Without further preface, then, we proceed to the consideration of the two remaining points which we proposed to examine in reference to the royal authority and power now exercised by the risen Son of God as Zion's anointed and enthroned King. These two points were,\par 1. The duration of his Mediatorial Kingdom;\par 2. The experimental influence and practical bearing which a knowledge of his royal sway has, or should have, upon believing hearts.\par We shall now, then, with God's help and blessing, attempt to consider both these points in their order.\par The \b DURATION\b0 of the Mediatorial reign of the blessed Lord we find most plainly and clearly intimated by the Apostle in that noble chapter which has so stirred and comforted the hearts of thousands of tŠhe saints of God. (\cf1\ul 1Co_15:24\cf0\ulnone .) We there read, "Then comes the end, when he shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father; when he shall have put down all rule and all authority and power. For he must reign, until he has put all enemies under his feet." These words clearly and definitely fix the period of the Lord's present reign as now seated on the right hand of the Majesty on high. "Then comes the end." An end therefore is to come. But what end? An end to the present state of things\emdash to the existing Mediatorial dispensation; an end to that peculiar form of government which Jesus now exercises. He is now on his throne of grace; but he has to sit on his throne of glory, according to his own words\emdash "When the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory." He is now "an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous." (\cf1\ul 1Jo_2:1\cf0\ulnone .) But he is "ordained of God to be the J‹udge of the living and the dead." When, then, he shall leave his Mediatorial throne "to judge the living and dead at his appearing and kingdom;" (\cf1\ul 2Ti_4:1\cf0\ulnone ,) then his regal government, under its present form of administration, will cease.\par But we must not suppose from this that he will cease to be King. Such a supposition would violate a thousand promises made by the Father to and on behalf of the Son of his love. We will content ourselves with adducing one from the Old Testament and another from the New\emdash "My covenant will I not break, nor alter the thing that is gone out of my lips. Once have I sworn by my holiness that I will not lie unto David. His seed shall endure forever, and his throne as the sun before me." Agreeing with this is the promise made by the angel Gabriel to the Virgin Mary\emdash "He shall be great and shall be called the Son of the Highest; and the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father David. And he shall reign over the house of Jacob forever; and of his kingdom there shall be no end." The kingdom then will remain--but the mode of administration be changed. \par It is now a kingdom of grace, but will then be a kingdom of glory. Christ now reigns in his people, but he will then reign with his people. "If we suffer, we shall also reign with him." (\cf1\ul 2Ti_2:12\cf0\ulnone .) He now sits as a priest on his throne;" (\cf1\ul Zec_6:13\cf0\ulnone ;) but when he appears a second time, without sin unto salvation, intercession will be no longer needed, for he will come and all his saints with him, and raising up their sleeping dust will present them to his Father conformed in body and soul to his own glorified image. The Apostle therefore tells us\emdash "For he must reign, until he has put all enemies under his feet. The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death." When, then, he has destroyed this last enemy by the resurrection, his Mediatorial reign will cease, and a reign of glory commence, which shall endure forever and ever.\par \par } ­V­€a‚C{\rtf1\ansi\ansicpg1252\deff0\deflang1033\deflangfe1033{\fonttbl{\f0\fswiss\fprq2\fcharset0 Arial;}} {\colortbl ;\red0\green128\blue0;} {\*\generator Ric€b‚E{\rtf1\ansi\ansicpg1252\deff0\deflang1033\deflangfe1033{\fonttbl{\f0\fswiss\fprq2\fcharset0 Arial;}} {\colortbl ;\red0\green128\blue0;} {\*\generator Rich|Žhed20 5.40.11.2210;}\viewkind4\uc1\pard\sb120\qj\b\f0\fs28 Jesus the Enthroned King\par \b0\fs20 by J. C. Philpot \par \b The practical and experimental bearing and influence which the royal power and authority of Jesus have on believing hearts.\par \b0 But we now approach a part of our subject which is of the deepest importance as personally affecting the case and state of every one who professes to believe that Jesus reigns as King in Zion\emdash the experimental and practical influence which a knowledge of this truth has or should have on believing hearts. If we have no experience of the reign of Christ in our own bosom, and his royal power and authority have no practical effect on our lives, there is little evidence that we know him or the power of his resurrection by the teaching and testimony of the Holy Spirit. We know his royal power only as far as we experience it; we experience it only as far as we act upon it. Thus the evidence of knowledge is experience--the evidence of experience is practice. See then the golden chain which binds truth, knowledge, experience, and practice together, and all to the throne of the King of Zion. He is himself "the truth;" a revelation of him gives a knowledge of it; a knowledge of the truth works an experience of it; an experience of the truth produces the practice of it. Thus truth is in Jesus; knowledge from Jesus; experience out of Jesus; and practice after Jesus. Is not the chain complete? What shall we add to or take from it? \par But do not all the links, so closely bound together, derive alike their union and their power from his kingly sway? And over whom does he wave his royal scepter? Over believing hearts; for his reign is a reign of grace, and therefore demands gracious subjects; a spiritual kingdom, and is therefore set up and maintained by the power of the Spirit; a rule of love, and is therefore received by faith and embraced by affection. It is impossible, therefore, to dissociate his kingly authority from a gracious experience of its power, or the scepter of his grace from a practical obedience to its rule. To separate truth from experience--and experience from practice--is to put asunder what God has joined together; and woe be to the man who proclaims such a divorce by his lips or by his life.\par Let us, then, with the Lord's help and blessing, attempt to trace out this connection, and to do so with greater clearness we will view them separately, directing our attention first to the experimental influence which a knowledge of Christ's kingly authority has upon a believing heart.\par i. Few words have been more misunderstood, and, as a necessary consequence misrepresented, than the term experience. It has actually been stigmatized as almost synonymous with corruption; and many a proud lip has angrily curled at the word, and many a libelous tongue hurled at it an arrow of contempt. But by the term is meant, at least by those who use it aright, a gracious knowledge of the truth. It thus comprehends the whole work of God upon the heart\emdash‘ every branch of the divine life in the soul. Without it, therefore, there is neither faith nor repentance, neither regeneration nor conversion; and to be without it is to be destitute of the Spirit of Christ and so to be none of his, to be dead in sins, without God and without hope in the world. \par By an experience, then, of the authority of Jesus as King in Zion we understand a spiritual, gracious, and saving acquaintance with his kingdom as set up in the heart by the power of God. This kingdom is an internal kingdom. "The kingdom of God is within you." (\cf1\ul Luk_17:21\cf0\ulnone .) "The kingdom of God is not in word, but in power." (\cf1\ul 1Co_4:20\cf0\ulnone .) "The kingdom of God is not food and drink, but righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit." If, then, it be within us, there must be an internal perception of its presence; if it be in power, it must do something for and in us; if it be "righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit," there must be some spiritual tasting o’f these heavenly fruits. But before this kingdom can be set up in the heart there must be a breaking to pieces of every other kingdom there. This is beautifully shown in Daniel's vision of the image. "You saw until that a stone was cut out without hands, which smote the image upon his feet that were of iron and clay, and broke them to pieces. Then was the iron, the clay, the brass, the silver, and the gold, broken to pieces together, and became like the chaff of the summer threshing-floors; and the wind carried them away, that no place was found for them\emdash and the stone that smote the image became a great mountain, and filled the whole earth." (2:34, 35.) The "stone cut out without hands" represents the Lord Jesus, a reference being intended to his human nature as not formed by ordinary generation; and the breaking to pieces of the feet, of the image mystically foreshadows the wreck and ruin of everything which stands in the way of the setting up and full development of his kingdom. (We do not say th“ere is not a prophetical sense of the passage besides the spiritual meaning here given.)\par That Christ, then, may reign and rule in the heart, there must be a previous breaking to pieces of all other authority and power. The reign of sin must give way to the reign of grace; idols must be dethroned; rivals banished; lusts subdued; the flesh mortified and crucified; the old man put off, the new man put on. But who is sufficient for these things? Who will pluck out his own right eye, or cut off his own right hand? Who will drive the nails of crucifixion into his own quivering flesh? No one! The Lord, then, must do it all for and in us by his Spirit and grace. The means which he uses is his word, for "where the word of a king is, there is power;" and he himself says, "Is not my word like a fire? says the Lord; and like a hammer that breaks the rock in pieces?" (\cf1\ul Jer_23:29\cf0\ulnone .) To revert, then, to our figure, upon the toes of sin and self, on which the image stands, the stone falls and break”s them to pieces. This fracture brings down the image, and, with the same crash, the iron, the clay, the brass, the silver, and the gold become like the chaff of the summer threshing floors, so that no place is found for them. In this way pride and self-righteousness, unbelief and infidelity, hypocrisy and vain confidence, carnality and worldly mindedness, sin and self in all their various shapes and forms, whether strong as iron, base as clay, bright as brass, precious as silver, or glittering as gold, become smitten as with a deadly blow, and scattered to the winds of heaven, so as to form a compact and standing image no more. Now this fall and ruin of self makes way for the setting up of the kingdom of Christ in the heart. Jesus reveals himself to the soul, thus broken and humbled, as its Lord and King. He thus becomes known, believed in, and loved; and these three things, knowledge, faith, and love, lie at the foundation, and form the root of all gracious living experience.\par Let us view them separ•ately.\par 1. KNOWLEDGE. Unless we know the Lord, how can we trust him? for it is those, and those only, "who know his name," who can or will "put their trust in him." (\cf1\ul Psa_9:10\cf0\ulnone .) Indeed, without a spiritual, experimental knowledge of the Son of God, there is no eternal life, for "this is life eternal, that they might know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent." (\cf1\ul Joh_17:1\cf0\ulnone .) But how can we thus spiritually and savingly know him unless he manifests himself unto us as he does not manifest himself to the world? (\cf1\ul Joh_14:22\cf0\ulnone .) As, then, he manifests himself, his divine Person and finished work, his surpassing grace, and heavenly glory, his matchless beauty and supreme blessedness, his complete suitability and all-satisfying sufficiency are clearly seen. This is to see light in God's light; (\cf1\ul Psa_36:9\cf0\ulnone ;) to be enlightened with the light of the living; (\cf1\ul Psa_56:13\cf0\ulnone ;) and to enjoy the blessing des–cribed by the Apostle\emdash "For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, has shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ." (\cf1\ul 2Co_4:6\cf0\ulnone .)\par 2. FAITH. This revelation of Christ gives a spiritual knowledge of him, and out of this knowledge of him springs faith in him; "I know," says the Apostle, "whom I have believed." (\cf1\ul 2Ti_1:12\cf0\ulnone .) Of this faith Jesus is the author, and Jesus the finisher, for it stands "not in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God." (\cf1\ul Heb_12:2\cf0\ulnone ; \cf1\ul 1Co_2:5\cf0\ulnone .) But view this grace of faith chiefly as raised up and drawn forth upon the Person of Jesus as King of Zion. What is its first work? To give him a place in the heart. When Jesus reveals himself with power, faith immediately stretches forth its arms, and embraces him, and thus brings him into the soul. This is beautifully expressed by the Bride\emdash "It was but a little that I passed— from them, but I found him whom my soul loves; I held him, and would not let him go, until I had brought him into my mother's house, and into the chamber of her that conceived me." (\cf1\ul Son_3:4\cf0\ulnone .) It is by faith that Christ dwells in the heart, (\cf1\ul Eph_3:17\cf0\ulnone ,) for faith first gives him admission, and afterwards maintains him there.\par 3. LOVE. And as faith works by love, love next flows forth to delight itself in him who is altogether lovely, and thus to enshrine him in the warmest, tenderest affections of the soul. This is the crowning grace of the Spirit, the richest, ripest fruit of the whole heavenly cluster. As, then, Jesus is thus known, believed in, and loved, by this threefold cord the heart is bound to his throne, and to him who sits thereon in the fullness of his Mediatorial grace and ascended glory.\par 4. From this knowledge of him, faith in him, and love to him, springs UNION with him as the Church's living Head; for the same holy and blessed Spirit, through˜ whose heavenly teaching and unction these graces are communicated, gives and cements by them a spiritual union with thus Son of God. (\cf1\ul 1Co_6:17\cf0\ulnone .)\par 5. From this spiritual union with the Lord flows COMMUNION or fellowship with him\emdash "God is faithful, by whom you were called unto the fellowship of his Son Jesus Christ our Lord." This made holy John say, "And truly our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ." (\cf1\ul 1Jo_1:3\cf0\ulnone .)\par 6. From this communion flows FRUITFULNESS, as the Lord so beautifully opens up in the parable of the vine and the branches.* How plainly he there declares that "without him," that is, without union and communion with him, we can "do nothing," that is, bring forth no fruit to his praise; but that, if we "abide in him" by faith and love, and he "abides in us" by his Spirit and grace, fruit will be abundantly brought forth to the glory of God. (\cf1\ul Joh_15:4-8\cf0\ulnone .)\par The whole of this beautiful chain of vita™l godliness may be found by a spiritual eye, in those wondrous chapters wherein the Lord comforted his sorrowing disciples\emdash John 14, 15, 16, 17. \par 1. The glory of Christ with his Father\emdash 17:5, 11, 24. \par 2. The manifestation of Christ to the soul\emdash 14:21, 22; 16:16, 22. \par 3. A saving knowledge of Christ\emdash 14:19 16:14, 15. \par 4. Faith in him\emdash 14:1, 10, 11, 29; 16:27; 17:8. \par 5. Union with him\emdash 14:20; 15:5; 17:21, 23. \par 6. Communion\emdash 15:4, 7, 10, 11. \par 7. Fruitfulness\emdash 15:2, 5, 16.\par ii. We thus see the necessary connection between an experience of the kingly power of Jesus, and all real \b PRACTICAL OBEDIENCE\b0 to his will and word, all inward and outward submission to his sovereign sway and divine authority. Of this obedience love is the main-spring\emdash "The love of Christ constrains us." (\cf1\ul 2Co_5:14\cf0\ulnone .) For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments; and his commandments are not grievous." (\cf1\ulš 1Jo_5:3\cf0\ulnone .) Does not our blessed Lord himself say,"If you love me, keep my commandments?" No, so closely is obedience connected with love, that, not only is it made the test of it, but the very manifestations of Christ are closely connected with it. "He who has my commandments, and keeps them--he it is that loves me; and he who loves me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him." (\cf1\ul Joh_14:21\cf0\ulnone .) \par Practical obedience; a godly, consistent conduct and conversation; a daily walking in the fear and love of God; a fruitfulness in every good word and work; a living not unto ourselves but unto the Lord; a seeking of God's glory and not our own; a desire to do good to the bodies and souls of our fellow men; and a cleansing ourselves of all filthiness of the flesh and spirit--by the word of God's grace. All such and similar fruits of faith are generally left out of the Calvinistic profession of the present day. 'Good works' are left to the Arm›inians. The very word would desecrate, it is thought, a Calvinistic pulpit, and to enforce them would seem to smack too strongly of free-will and self-righteousness to please the pew. \par But though left out of the ministry of the day, and left out of the practice of the people, they are not left out of the book of God, nor out of the consciences of those who truly fear and love him; and it will be seen in the great day how far they have been safely left out of the profession and practice of many who are considered by themselves and others champions of truth. But whatever such men may think or say, the word of God bears a sure, an unerring testimony that "holiness becomes the house of the Lord forever," and that "without holiness no man shall see the Lord." (\cf1\ul Psa_93:5\cf0\ulnone ; \cf1\ul Heb_12:14\cf0\ulnone .)\par Thus far, then, have we seen what a holy, sanctifying influence a true experimental knowledge of Christ as Lord and King has over a believer's heart and life. His throne, though to oœur unspeakable comfort a throne of grace, is at the same time "a throne of holiness." (\cf1\ul Psa_47:8\cf0\ulnone .) The hill of Zion on which the Father has set his Son is a "holy hill." (\cf1\ul Psa_2:6\cf0\ulnone .) To that holy throne, to that holy hill, sinners are welcome, but not sin. If we serve the Lord it must be with fear; if we rejoice in him it must be with trembling. (\cf1\ul Psa_2:11\cf0\ulnone .)\par But it is time for us to bring our Meditations to a close. Our desire and aim in them have been to bring before our readers the Mediatorial grace and glory of the exalted Son of God--as Priest, Prophet, and King, to his redeemed and regenerated people; and in pursuance of this object, we have sought to make our Meditations edifying and profitable, by not handling these sacred topics as mere matters of doctrinal speculation, but as blessed experimental themes of heavenly meditation and practical efficacy and influence. \par We cannot but feel how weakly, how imperfectly, we have treated these heavenly mysteries; but they have not been handled by us without some thought and care, as well as prayer for divine instruction for ourselves, and a spiritual blessing upon them for our readers. We have not written carelessly for careless readers; but while we have endeavored "to hold fast the faithful word as we have been taught, so as to be able by sound doctrine both to exhort and to convince the gainsayers," we have also aimed so to blend experience with doctrine, and practice with experience, as to edify the living family of God. They will be both our best and most lenient judges, for as they, and they only, know the value and blessedness of the subjects which we have brought before them, so they, and they only, will throw a mantle of love over our imperfections.\par And now what remains but to beg of the Lord that, as these Meditations on his Office Characters were written to magnify the exceeding riches of his grace, so he would make them redound to the praise of his glory! Amen.\par \par }