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forward, beyond all present judgments and present grace, to a final judgment, and a perfected " salvation ready to be revealed in the last time."
(3) How the final judgment and perfected salvation will come we know not at all ; that the figures in which we speak of them are figures only, we know full well. But that they will come in God's good time we know full well also. So far from the belief in the present Divine Kingdom excluding the belief in the eschatological kingdom, the one belief leads on to and implies the other. It is our experience of the present kingdom, which we know, that gives all its best content to the hope of the eschatological kingdom, which we do not know, while it is the very imperfection of the present kingdom that leads us to look beyond it. Of a contrast, an opposition, between the two, the Church knows nothing, nor has ever known anything. Like Israel of old, she believes in them both, and maintains them both.^
IJ Jesus' Kingdom commends itself to the imagination because it is to come when God's will is done on earth as it is done in heaven — it is the Kingdom of the Beatitudes. It commends itself to the reason because it has come wherever any one is attempting God's will — it is the Kingdom of the Parables. An ideal state, it ever allures and inspires its subjects ; a real state, it sustains, commands them. Had Jesus conceived His Kingdom as in the future only, He had made His disciples dreamers ; had He centred it in the present only, He had made them theorists. As it is, one labours on its building with a splendid model before his eyes ; one possesses it in his heart, and yet is ever entering into its fulness.2
The City paved with gold,
Bright with each dazzling gem I
When shall our eyes behold
The new Jerusalem? Yet lo ! e'en now in viewless might Uprise the walls of living light!
The kingdom of the Lord!
It Cometh not with show:
Nor throne, nor crown, nor sword,
Proclaim its might below. Though dimly scanned through mists of sin, The Lord's true kingdom is within ! » H. L. Goudge. 2 j^i^n Watson, The Mind of the MasUr,
ST. LUKE XVII. 20, 21 345
The gates of pearl are there
In penitential tears:
Bright as a jewel rare
Each saintly grace appears: We track the path saints trod of old. And lo ! the pavement is of gold !
The living waters flow
That fainting souls may drink;
The mystic fruit-trees grow
Along the river's brink: We taste e'en now the water sweet, And of the Tree of Life we eat.
Not homeless wanderers here
Our exile songs we slug;
Thou art our home most dear,
Thou city of our King ! Thy future bliss we cannot tell, Content in Thee on earth we dwelL
Build, Lord, the mystic walls !
Throw wide the unseen gates !
Fill all the golden halls,
While yet Thy triumph waits! Make glad Thy Church with light and love, Till glorified it shines above !^
IL
The Coming of the Kingdom.
We have seen that the coming of the Kingdom of God isi both present and future ; it is come, and it is coming. Before touching each manifestation separately, let us consider the attitude of our Lord. It is a most important matter for us to understand our Lord's position. The eschatological question, as it is called, is the burning question of our day, and much depends upon its proper solution.
With the mind of Israel what it was, and the mind of the Church what it has ever been, is it in the least probable that the
» W. Walsham How.
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mind of our Lord was out of harmony both with the one and with the other, and exhibited a narrowness and one-sidedness from which both the one and the other have been free ? Is it in the least probable that, while Israel and the Church have believed in a present Kingdom of God as well as in a future one, our Lord believed only in the latter and ignored the former ? Why should we think so ? Is it because of the witness of the Synoptic Gospels ?
If we take them as they stand, they witness to no such narrowness. They represent our Lord, no doubt, as an enthusiastic believer in the grand hope of the coming reign of God. So were the best minds of Israel, and so are the best minds of the Church to-day. They represent Him as thinking far more of the future kingdom than He thought of the present one. So did the best minds of Israel, and so do the best minds of the Church to-day. But they do not represent Him as confining to the future the thought of the Kingdom of God. Israel was to Him all, and more than all, that it had been to prophet and psalmist before Him. Jerusalem was *' the city of the great King." His own followers, the foundation on which His Church was to be built, were to Him even more. The keys of their society were " the keys of the kingdom of heaven." He taught that the rule of God was already being realized in His own activity ; if He " by the finger of God cast out devils, then is the Kingdom of God come upon us " ; and He provided for the extension of that activity in the work of the Church. He spoke of the Kingdom of God as growing like the mustard-plant, and working like leaven; and whether we explain His words as applying to the Church or to the individual or to both, it is manifestly of a present kingdom that He spoke.