obeys the creative word of God, is included within tlie will of God, and called forth by Him' {OT Theul. ii. ISO, Kng. trans.). On this com iqition of God as Creator rests the doctrine which pervades the whole OT of Hii unlimUf.d dominion or riilt in nature and proridcnce. Tlie ethical or spiritual kingdom of^ llod rests on a basis of natural dominion. This is e-xpressed in the clearest way in psalmists and prophets. God is King of all the earth (I's 47') ; His kingdom ruleth over all, and angels, His hosts, and all His works in all places of His dominion, are exhorted to bless Him (Va ly;ji8-2a) . natural agents are His ministers (Ps 104*), and continue according to His ordin.ances as serving Him (Ps HO'-'""') ; He is the God, even He alone, of all the kingdoms of the eartli, for He made heaven and earth (Is 37'°) ; ' all that is in the heaven and in the earth is thine : thine is the kingdom, 0 Lord, and thou art exalted as head above all ' (1 Ch 29")- This natural dominion or kingdom of God embraces all beings and events — the affairs of men as well as the agencies and powers of nature, which He disposes at His will. Nothing is withdrawn from His providential government, which takes in events great and small, remote and near, of nations and of indi\dduals, the thoughts of men as well as their outward actions, the army of heaven as well as the inhabitants of the earth (cf. Gn IS'" 45»-9, Ex 9'»-'», Dt 32", Pr 21>, 2 Ch 16", 2 K 19^, Is 10", Dn 4** etc.). The disobedience of men does not withdraw them from the range of the Divine control. If men will not serve the purposes of God willingly, they are made to serve the Uivin ends unwillingly (Ex 9'°). They are the clay : God is the potter ; tliey cannot escape from the potter's hands ; and if they will not ue made vessels of honour, they are turned to other uses as vessels of dishonour (Jer 18"; cf. Ro O^''^). Their very wrath is made to praise Him, and the remainder of wrath He restrains (Ps 76'").
There is therefore recognized in Scripture — OT and NT alike — a natural and universal kingdom or dominion of God, embracing all objects, persons, and events, all doings of indiWduals and nations, all operations and changes of nature and history, absolutely without exception, which is the basis on which a higher kind of kingdom — a moral and spiritual kingdom — is built up. The natural creation obeys God undeviatin"ly by an inherent law of its constitution (Ps 119'*', Is P-'); to man alone belongs the possibility of entering into personal relations with his Maker, and of render- ing Him a free and intelligent obedience. We have seen that God's ordinary providential rule in the worlds of matter and mind is never for a moment suspended, even in the case of bricked men ; but altogether higher in quality is a moral rule,^a rule in the minds and hearts of men, a rule by moral means over willing and obedient subjects. For man is not a mere natural existence ; in Kant's famous phrase, he is a member of a kingdom of ends ; is capable of entering into the will of hia Creator, and of rendering Him a spontaneous and willing obedience. Here, then, is the idea of a kingdom of God of a higher kind — a realm of free, personal spirits, yielding voluntary obedience to the known will of their Creator, — and it lies in the nature of the case, and is already implied in the narrative of the creation of man, and of God's dealings with him, that the production of such an ethical kingdom in humanity was God's end in creation from the first (Gn 1. 2). ' How would it now look to you,' says the philosophic Saxon king Alfred, ' if there were any very powerful king, and he had no freemen in all his kingdom, but that all were slaves? Then, said I, it would not b« thought by me right nor reasonable if men in such a servile condition only should attend upon him.
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Then, quoth he, it wo\ihl l)e more unnatural if God, in all Ilia kiugiioni, had no free creature under His power. Therefore, He made two rational ereaturea, free anj;ela and men, and gave them the great gift of freedom. Hence, they could do evil as well aa good, whicliever they would. He gave this very free gift, and a very fixed law to every man unto this end.' AVe have here, therefore, a higher type of dominion, one in which God's will is freely accepted by rational and moral intelligences ; and had this been realized on the lines originally laid down, there would ha\o been, even on a creation basis, a kingdom of God in humanity.