342 THE COMING OF THE KINGDOM
(3) Was, then, this all that was necessary ? Not so, and for two reasons. In the first place, the sin of Israel was continually defeating the Divine purpose for it, and Israel itself, in conse- quence, continually falling under the cruel despotism of its heathen neighbours. And in the second place, Israel was not the world, while the rule of God was needed everywhere. And so we find that, while prophet and psalmist do the fullest justice to the Divine rule that already exists, while they love to dwell upon it and long for themselves and for their country to appropriate it more and more, they nevertheless look beyond the present to a far fuller establishment of the rule of God. Israel itself must be purged of its sin ; it must be brought to a new and willing sub- mission to its true King ; the laws of God must be put into its mind and written upon its heart ; then the oppressor will be cast down, and all be well with Israel under its Divine Judge and Law-giver and King. And, to pass to the wider hope, the Kingdom of God must come to the other nations also, and come, just as it had come to Israel, by God's personal action, by His own free and loving gift.
(4) Moreover, to those who thus hoped and believed, every manifestation of Divine judgment or mercy was a real coming in power of the Kingdom of God. This manifestation might not accomplish all that was needed; that might be man's fault, and not God's. But it was a real manifestation, so far as it went, and it pointed to a further and fuller manifestation in the time to come. If God smote Egypt or Babylon, if He brought back His people from captivity and established them in their own land, God's servants rejoiced in the present, and looked forward with the greater confidence to the future. That was the mind of the Israel to whom the Lord came. It believed in a present kingdom, and it beheved in a future kingdom, and in both as in the closest connexion the one with the other.
2. Kow, what is the conception of the Kingdom in the New Testament and the history of the Church of Christ ? Has the thought of the Kingdom of God been there substantially different from the thought of Israel ? On the contrary, it has been sub- stantially the same. Since the coming of the Spirit, the Church
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has felt itself to be far more truly the Kingdom of God than ever Israel was of old.
(1) Before our Lord's attack the powers of evil have already fallen. He " has made us a kingdom," as St. John says. God has " delivered us out of the power of darkness, and translated us into the kingdom of the Son of his love." In our personal lives, | if we will but respond to the grace of God, the Kingdom of God is already " within us." " The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made us free from the law of sin and death." We are led by the Spirit of God — God's sons because we are so led. If that is not to enjoy the Kingdom of God here and now, what is ? Yes, and not only in our individual lives do we enjoy it, but in our corporate life as well. In the Catholic Church, into which the little company of our Lord has grown, the world has already the Kingdom of God " in the midst of " it. Imperfect as the Church may be, it is in God's intention the sphere of the Divine rule, as the world outside is not. The Church is the Body of Christ, the Temple of the Holy Ghost, in God's intention a true theocracy like Israel of old.
(2) But of course we can no more rest in such thoughts as these than the best minds of Israel did. We, too, feel how, within ourselves and within the Church, human sin mars the Divine purpose, and we long for that sin to be purged away "by the Spirit of judgment and by the spirit of burning." We, too, feel ourselves only too often under the dominion of alien powers, and long for their dominion to be broken. Yet again, we, too, chafe at the present limitations of the Divine rule. We desire it for the whole world of men and for the whole world of nature. And so we too, like Israel of old, cannot rest in the Kingdom as we at present experience it. We look forward, as Israel did, to the day/" of the Lord, or rather to that which is our Christian translation of it, the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. He, our Lord, must come — I again and again it may be — to judge all that need His judgment, and to be gracious to all that need His grace. So, remembering how He said that " henceforth " we should " see the Son of man sitting at the right hand of power, and coming on the clouds of heaven," we recognize His coming just as Israel recognized the coming of God, in every overthrow of the powers of the world, in every signal mercy vouchsafed to the Church, while we look