Joab responded, "Now, the Lord thy God add unto the people, how many soever they be, an hundred fold, and the eyes of my lord the king may see it; but why doth my lord the king delight in this thing? And David's heart smote him after that he had numbered the people. And David said unto the Lord, I have sinned greatly in that I have done, and now I beseech thee, O Lord, take away the iniquity of thy servant, for I have done very foolishly."

God, for this, sent a message to David by Gad the Prophet, offering him the choice of three evils: seven years' famine throughout the land, three months' fleeing before his enemies pursuing him, or three days' pestilence in the land. 1 Chron. xxi. 1, " And

But we have another representation of this matter. Satan stood up against Israel and provoked David to number Israel." "Joab answered, The Lord make his people an hundred times so many more as they be; but, my Lord the king, are they not all thy servants? Why doth my lord require this thing? Why will he be a cause of trespass to Israel? Nevertheless, the king's words prevailed against Joab. And Joab gave the number of the people to David." Israel had 1,100,000 warriors, and Judah 470,000 warriors; in all, one million five hundred and seventy thousand warriors.

Be it remembered, that there was no sin in numbering the people, abstractly from the motives which dictated it. In Exodus xxx. 11, it was allowed, indeed commanded. "And the Lord said to Moses, When thou takest the sum of the children of Israel, after their number, then they shall give every man a ransom for his soul to the Lord, when thou numberest them, that there be no plague among them when thou numberest them."

But in this case it is said, "God was displeased with this thing, therefore he smote Israel." Indeed, we are told that "the king's word was abominable to Joab." So that he did not number all the tribes (1 Chron. 6-7.)

To reconcile these statements to all minds, it is necessary to remark, that God, in the first statement, is represented as hostile to Israel, and as moving David to number them; and in the second statement, that "Satan stood up against Israel, and provoked David to number them." Both God and Satan are represented as co-operating in this thing-therefore, there is no contradiction. Both are true. God withdrew his protection from the nation, and left David and them to their own counsels. But why was it so? The passage is translated by some of the moderns to indicate that “the anger of the Lord was again kindled against Israel, because an adversary stood up against Israel." Boothroyd and some others so translate this passage and 1 Chron. xxi. 1: “ An adversary stood up against Israel, and moved David to number Israel." This is not relieving the passage from any difficulty. The Lord would not have so punished David, simply because an adversary stood up against Israel. It is Satan, and so understood the seventy, and translated the Hebrew Satan by the Greek Diabolos, Devil, or calumniator.

There was sin in this matter on the part of David and Israel. Joab, his great captain, saw that it was pride. If, then, the man Joab could see his uncle David sin in this affair, it must, indeed, have been palpable. "It was abominable" in Joab's eyes, and the work was performed imperfectly and reluctantly on his part. Satan's hand was in it. He hated David, and God, to chasten David, gave him into his hands. David was vulnerable in one point, and Satan saw it. He had risen to great eminence, as we say, by his great talents. He had a long, a prosperous, a glorious reign-more than most men could endure. Satan suggested, in harmony with his condition, that he ought to know the greatness of his kingdom, and the number of the men of war within his realm; and imme

diately David set about it. God was justly offended at his pride and self-glorification in this way, and punished him in the very point in which he had sinned; so that in a single day he lost, of the pride of his kingdom, seventy thousand men. So far, then, we have been tracing the wiles of Satan in carrying on his treasonable projects and malignant purposes against the sons of men. His temptations are numerous, various, and malignant.

In another essay, we may develope still farther this important subject, too much neglected and too little appreciated by the great multitude of professors. There is a silent, reserved, growing, scepticism in this age, on the whole subject of spiritual influence. With many, angels, demons, Satan, and even the Holy Spirit, are mere phantasies-creatures of fiction or of superstition. Hence the growing servility to the world that now is-to the earthly, sensual, and animal wants and enjoyments of our corruptible bodies. How axiomatic and evident it is, that "they that are after the flesh, do mind the things of the flesh;" while those "that are after the Spirit, are minding the things of the Spirit." It is a solemn and awful truth, that "the minding of the flesh is death, while the minding of the Spirit is life and peace." A. C.

[We have three Essays on the "Spiritual Universe," from the pen of A. Campbell, remaining for publication; and as these comprise the series, we shall give an Essay in each Number until completed.]

THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN: WHAT IS IT?-No. III.*

ADDRESSED TO ALL WHO DESIRE ITS PROMOTION.

THE aim of every Christian's life should be to labor with Christ in his kingdom on earth, that he may enjoy its honors in Heaven. This is the only rational aim of human existence. Presuming that no one will deny these general propositions, we proceed to inquire, What is the precise meaning of the phrase,

KINGDOM OF HEAVEN, OR OF GOD?

We meet it in the very commencement of the sermon on the mount: "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." What meant the Saviour? That they shall enter heaven after this lifee-or the church here-or both? Are not the views even of the well instructed somewhat vague upon the subject? Let us look to the testimony, to the whole testimony.

The Jews understood the phrase as used by Jesus and John, to mean the earthly kingdom of Messiah when they preached, "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand" (Matt. iii. 2-17.) In the 13th chapter of Matthew we have seven parables concerning this kingdom, some of which must refer to the earthly reign of Christ. In the parable of the SOWER, he presents the manner in which his word would go forth and be received and rejected by the people. In that of the WHEAT AND TARES, he teaches that of those who receive him and enter his earthly kingdom as subjects, some would be worthy and some unworthy. This cannot apply to heaven. The parable of the GRAIN OF MUSTARD SEED, teaches the small beginning and wondrous extension of his kingdom, as an institution in the world. That of the LEAVEN, the spiritual or inward nature of that kingdom as an influence. That of the HIDDEN TREASURE is similar, and presents the unseen blessings of its subjects, as the PEARL OF GREAT PRICE its outward or apparent blessings. The seventh parable, of a NET, shows its earthly form-its subjects evil and good, who remain together until at death, or some other undefined future period, they shall be separated. Jesus afterwards speaks of his * We insert this from the pen of J. B. F. in preference to one of our own.

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kingdom as "not of this world"-as a kingdom of truth;" and his Apostle Paul declares, "that it is not meat and drink, but righteousness, peace, and joy, in the Holy Ghost:" and also, "that flesh and blood cannot enter it." Christ tells Nicodemus, that " Except a man be born of the Spirit and of the water, he cannot enter it." Again, "That many shall come from the East and the West, and sit down with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven"-which must apply to the future. He says to his disciples also, "That they shall eat and drink at his table in his kingdom." And in his figurative description of the judgment, he addresses the good or accepted by saying, "Inherit the kingdom prepared from the foundation of the world." From all these divine declarations, which we have often examined in connection with, perhaps, every theory upon the subject, whether propagated by our brotherhood or others, we feel prepared to state that the,

Kingdom of Heaven is both an INSTITUTION and an INFLUENCE. As an institution it was first authoritatively presented upon the day of Pentecost, as recorded in the 2nd of the Acts; while, as an influence, more or less powerful, it has spread over every department of civilized society. As a grain of mustard seed, it was planted in the height of Israel on that day. As leaven, it has penetrated the world. As an outward institution, it comes" to every city, neighbourhood, and individual, wherever you organize a Christian church-wherever you gather together or "call out" a company of believers to engage in the worship and service of God as revealed through Christ. As an influence, it comes wherever righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost, prevail. By this contrast we mean, simply, that the idea of the kingdom of heaven enlarges as we look at it. Christ reigns as king in this world and in the other-in the world of flesh and the world of spirit. The first notion of it was that of a Jewish or confined Messiah reigning over the Jewish people. This was a correct but a partial view; and this idea, a little extended, so as to embrace the Gentiles, seems to have been the ideal of many of our early Reformers, the followers of Miller, and all who still look for a literal Jerusalem, and a Millennial heaven in the land of Judea. It is the Jewish idea-the first, the rudimental. The second idea was that of the Son of Man, or a great moral teacher, reigning over the hearts and minds of all who become his disciples. Then came the idea of Jesus as the Son of God, divinely sent to found a great church, which should unite men in love with God and man in all time, having him as their living head. And then, the extension of this union beyond time into eternity, beyond this world to the next -the saints below making one communion with the saints above-already come to the spirits of the just made perfect, death ceasing to be to them anything more than a separating line between two divisions of the same family. Through these changes, or similar ones, every mind seems to be led in its sincere struggles to understand the mind of the Spirit, unless it stop upon some one of them to form a party or make a creed. Sidney Rigdon stopped upon one of them, and was carried away in the vortex of a mixture of Mahometanism and Romanism, called Mormonism. William Miller paused upon the same, and we have seen the result. We might mention a host of others who have stopped to talk of an Elpis Israel, as earthly as any ever anticipated by the opening mind of a Jew, when first the clarion note of "the kingdom of heaven" sounded in his ears. But the allusion might be considered invidious, and it would lead us to speak of some who have not paused, and whose hope seems brighter and brighter as they near the darkness of the grave, and hail a spiritual kingdom which even the gulf of death cannot separate, in terms better used after they pass the Jordan. But it is truth and not men, of which we desire to speak. We state again, then

The kingdom of heaven is, first, the reign of the Jewish Messiah-next, the reign of Jesus as a moral teacher-next, his reign over the redeemed church, including the saints of God in every age, living and dead, in earth and above it. He that grasps the latter, grasps the spiritual idea, and in proportion as he holds it, will find peace and joy in believing. He cannot be disturbed by the crude notion of an earthly kingdom, an earthly Canaan, or an earthly Jerusalem-he has heard these views, has seen their foundation in the abuse of the most figurative language of the Bible, and has left them never to return to them save as a help to others. He will not, for he cannot, know either Christ or his brethren

after the flesh, after time, or after mere external association. He knows them after the spirit, to which he makes the fleshly and time relations subservient, waiting for the day when in his spiritual body, his building with God, he shall partake of the knowledge and intimacy of the spiritual, i.e. the only real kingdom of heaven. By the cultivation of the spiritual graces of faith, virtue, knowledge, godliness, and charity, he provides for an abundant welcome into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.

There is, then, a reign of Jesus in the world. As an institution, it is his church into which the believer enters by baptism. As an evidence of a reigning influence, it is his power to purify the heart and life of man-to refine and elevate society to redeem the race from ignorance and vice. All these ideas, some of which may be indefinitely extended, are included iu the phrase, kingdom of heaven." We may, in some of its aspects, both pray and labor for it to come: at least so we pray and desire to pray daily, "Thy kingdom come"-by which we sometimes mean, Let thy power, O God, over me prevail-let it be extended outwordly and inwardly, over my heart and life, to forgive the sins and strengthen the weakness of both-let it prevail here and hereafter, over the church and the world and may every one connected with that kingdom which has been presented to the world by the Apostles, make it the aim of his life to cause it to reign over all human consciences, human hearts, and human lives, to the full, if possible, but to any possible extent. This is the central and practical idea. All else is mere information without wisdom. This idea becomes the centre of our daily religion and life. It was, too, the radical idea of the apostolic teaching. The Apostles announced that Jesus was Christ-the Messiah who came to establish the kingdom of heaven. Those who believed Him to be the Christ, expected to come at once under his government, and to enter THIS kingdom, which they did by baptism. In this baptism they received full promise for the future, for they were clothed as it were with the name, mercy, and spirit of God, being baptized into the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. Then, as the subjects of that kingdom, they were to labor to extend it over the minds, hearts, and lives of themselves and others—to cause Christ by his spirit, teaching, and example to reign over their own souls and those of all mankind. While they did this they were safe, or "SAVED;" thus realizing the fulness of the promises, "He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved"- "You are saved you keep it (Christ) in memory." They were taught that thus they should "never fall"-their salvation being secured upon the condition that they would work or co-work with Christ. They were to work while God worked in them. This should be the idea of the present time. There is no other safety. Christianity is a war against unbelief, i. e. disobedience to God, the rightful proprietor, as He is the Creator, and only hope of man. It is a kingdom of light in the midst of darkness. Its light shines in darkness still, and we do not always comprehend it. We profess to believe, and doubtless do believe, and it is well for us to believe, in a historic Christ, who lived, taught, and died a long time since, and in a kingdom which was presented and which gloriously prevailed some dead centuries agone. But do we believe in Jesus as a living King? This is a spiritual idea. Do we believe him still carrying on his warfare against darkness and sin? Do we believe him the leader of all the good of the world?-the centre of all healthful influences?-the fountain of all life, welling up in every good man's heart, and flowing out in the waters of knowledge, safety, and comfort? “HE EVER LIVES." Again we say, this is the spiritual, the true idea. Others are partially true-this is all truth. Where two or three are met together he is there. He was with his disciples in miracles and gifts of the Spirit, when these were necessary; he is with them now in faith, and hope, and love, which are always necessary. He went away, that by his Spirit he might come to them. In the flesh he could be with but few; in the Spirit he could be with all, in every place, in all time, in death and eternity. "I desire to depart," said one, not to be absent, but to be "present with the Lord." The two great errors, which as remarkable phenomena, have attended the history of the church for many ages, are founded upon this truth: The Roman doctrine of transubstantiation, and the belief in the second coming of Christ. The sacrifice of the Mass seems to keep Christ personally present to every believer, and the expectation

if

The error

of his second coming feeds the hope of a personal presence hereafter. is the error of a fleshly kingdom-the abuse of the first and lowest idea of the kingdom of heaven-the substitution of an outward, local, and temporal presence, for an inward, constant, and universal presence. Many minds seem incapable of believing in a real and personal presence of Jesus without the idea of a sensible and outword Christ. The difficulty is in the grossness of their mental images. But when they shall arise above the shadow to the substance and reality, then can they joyfully believe Christ to be personally present when spiritually present, and then transubstantiation and Millerism will appear no more. The idea of his spiritual presence alone, gives meaning to the promise of the Comforter, which he identifies with himself. It also gives meaning to the idea of his kingdom. He has a kingdom in me when he is present to my heart-and he is always present when actively I believe in him-to give strength to my heart, to work for him as a member of his church. He is present to his church when through his ordinances it can appreciate his mediation in their pardon, acceptance, and prospective redemption from the body, by which they receive strength to work for and with him in the world. He thus comes to the church as he promised, and he comes into the world as his religion of truth and love becomes more and more powerful to overcome the evils which prevail in society. This is a noble idea, and gives a beautiful and divine aim to every thing we do in life, if we do it in his name and by the power of his Spirit. We cause the kingdom of heaven, the promise of "all good things," of "the Holy Spirit," to prevail more and more in our hearts, as we receive more and more of the spiritual presence of Jesus. Thus, too, the church receives not only the truth and the way of the truth, but its daily life, by receiving its Lord and King: and this disconnects it more and more from human sources. It makes his kingdom prevail by making ourselves his hands, feet, and voice, to carry light, love, and joy into every haunt of darkness and despair. And all this is realized by faith, as it is written, "The just shall live by faith." "Wherefore, holy brethren, partakers of the heavenly (i. e. spiritual) calling," consider, not only the Apostle, who has come and who has made himself an offering for sin-but also the High Priest of our profession, who now comes in the faithfulness of all his promises, to succour, to help us, and make us partakers of himself, "if we hold fast the beginning of our confidence steadfast to the end." Yea, we say unto you, consider him. J. B. F.

READING THE BIBLE.

AMONG the myriads who religiously read the Bible, why is it that so little of the spirit of it seems to be caught, possessed, and exhibited? I will give one reason, and those more wise may add to it others. Many read the Bible to have a general idea of what it contains, as a necessary part of a polite educationmany read it to attain the means of proving the dogmas which they already profess many read it with the design of being extremely wise in its contentsmany read it that they may be able to explain it to others-and alas! but few appear to read it supremely and exclusively that they may practise it—that they may be conformed to it, not only in their outward deportment, but in the spirit and temper of their minds. This is the only reading of it which is really profitable to man, which rewards us for our pains, which consoles us now, and which will be remembered for ages to come, with inexpressible delight. In this way, and in this way only, the spirit of it is caught, retained, and exhibited. Some such readers seem to be enrapt or inspired with its contents. Every sentiment and feeling which it imparts seem to be the sentiments and feelings of their hearts; and the Bible is to their religion what their spirit is to their body -the life and activity thereof. The Bible to such a person is the medium of conversation with the Lord of Life. He speaks to heaven in the language of heaven, when he prays in the belief of its truth, and the great God speaks to him in the same language; and thus the true and intelligent Christian walks with God and converses with him every day. One hour of such company is more to be desired than a thousand years spent in intimate converse with the wisest philosophers and most august potentates that earth ever saw. A. C.