SERMON XVIII.

THE KINGDOM OF GOD.

MARK ix. 1.

Verily I say unto you, that there be some of them that stand here, which shall not taste of death, till they have seen the kingdom of GoD come with power.

NOTHING recorded by the holy Evangelists, as spoken by our blessed Saviour, can fail to be interesting and profitable to Christians; and even those points of doctrine which appear most speculative have their excellent uses in the edifying of the body of Christ, if the enquiries to which they invite us be undertaken in a right spirit, and conducted to a right end.

It is, indeed, too much the temper of modern times to disregard all but practical knowledge, and to view the studies and contemplations which are not immediately applicable to the daily purposes of life, as visionary and devoid of utility.

But this is false philosophy, and shallow reasoning: the permanent prosperity of society depends upon the formation of sound principles; and sound principles can only rest upon pure doctrine, and pious sentiments. To imagine that persons of all persuasions, and of all opinions, are equally to be trusted for integrity, and equally relied on for soundness of views and rectitude of purposes, is the consummation of fatuity, and can never be sincerely professed by any man whose judgment is not altogether perverted by mischievous designs, and sinful desires.

It is certainly true, that the more easy and obvious among moral and religious doctrines, respecting which there can be

little avowed diversity of opinion, are generally the most important; but it is also true that the effect and stability of these depend in a great measure upon others less immediately perceptible, less generally admitted; and that, where the speculative opinions of men are materially warped from the truth, their moral principles, more or less, partake of that obliquity. To suppose otherwise is, in effect, to impute to our Creator the needless revelation of a number of useless mysteries, to no purpose but to promote disputes and dissensions. It is not so: every doctrine of Holy Scripture is not only necessary to be believed as an article of faith; but is also, more or less, essential to the formation of sound practical principles.

It cannot, then, be an idle or unedifying speculation, if properly pursued, to enquire the precise signification of our blessed Lord's surprising declaration, that there were persons whom he was then

addressing, who should not taste of death till they had seen the kingdom of GoD come with power.

The "coming of GoD's kingdom" is thought to be used by our Lord in a prophetic sense; that is, in a sense admitting of more than one construction, of a literal, and of a figurative or typical interpretation; and hence divines have applied the "kingdom of GOD" to a very great variety of events and periods which they have supposed to be representative of the last and eternal establishment of His empire, when "GoD shall be all in all.” This has, perhaps, been done somewhat too freely; and the consequence has been a great confusion in our ideas, resulting from the indefiniteness, not so much of the terms employed by our Lord, as of the senses in which interpreters have thought fit to understand them.

In the present instance, many of the older divines have understood the "kingdom of God" in this text, to signify the

triumph of our Lord over sin and death in the resurrection and ascension to heaven. But, as Bishop Horsley argues, this interpretation reduces our Lord's prediction, in substance, to this: that some persons, out of the great multitude here present, shall live to be witnesses of an event which shall take place within a few months, a prediction obviously nugatory, since its fulfilment could scarcely fail unless a miracle were worked to defeat it.

Bishop Horsley himself supposes the kingdom of God to mean the day of final judgment; and the "death," of which some of those then present before the Lord should not taste until the coming of that kingdom, to be the "second death, in everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels ;" and he imagines the awful denunciation thus conveyed by our Lord to be particularly directed against the traitor Judas.

It would be scarcely becoming in any one, much less in me, to say of the opi