This is, indeed, an evidence of the accuracy of the reports, for if the discourses of our Lord were not genuine, how could they have been marked by this distinctive peculiarity when the Church had become used to employ a different word?
And surely it is the Church, this kingdom which our Lord spoke of as a field where tares were growing, as a little seed which became a tree, as a net which embraced alike good fish and bad?
It is the organised coherent power of the world to come, confronting evil with an influence and mastery superior to its own.
Repent, said Christ, because the empire of wickedness is tottering—because the iron sceptre of the tyrant is about to break—because the prince of this world is soon to be cast out.
What do we know of the constitution, and what of the spirit, of this divine kingdom upon earth?
Jesus declared its constitution when He said that, while the kings of this world put forth an imperious sway, and men obsequiously reckon them benefactors who exercise lordship over them, with us the conditions are reversed, and he is greatest who stoops, helps, serves, and forgets the ambitions that usurp and trample.
What encouragement for the penitent! In the realm which he now enters—where he fears to be reproached for his past rebellion—every true leader has it for an ambition to help and serve him; and he is made sharer in a vast and sublime citizenship, where all, from the Prince of Life to the lowliest true servant, are united in desiring his victory and joy.
Oh, if this is true, if the Conqueror of Death and Hell has received gifts for us, and ever liveth to make intercession for us, and if, in one grand and organised strain and stress of effort for the right, angels and principalities and powers, and things present and to come, and Paul and Cephas, all are ours, then, in the approach of such a kingdom, in the voice that bids us rally to such a standard of emancipation, what hope, what animation, what an opening of prison doors!
Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.
With mutual help for its constitution, now what is its aim and temper?