torment. Now I want you to consider this. All the dealings of God in this matter are with men upon the earth, and not at all with "disembodied souls "-words unknown to Scripture. 66 And it was commanded them that they should not hurt the grass of the earth, neither any green thing, neither any tree; but only those men which have not the seal of God in their foreheads. And to them it was given that they should not kill them,"-which means that the torments would cease as soon as death took place-" but that they should be tormented five months: and their torment was as the torment of a scorpion, when he striketh a man. And in those days shall men seek death,"-death is deliverance from torment, of course-" and shall not find it; and shall desire to die, and death shall flee from them." Now how is this reconcilable with the invisible post-mortem hell about which men speak? The thing will have a reality-a dread reality-but it will be the last, the end of being to them, the second death.

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Then we have in Rev. xiv. 9-11 also a dread picture of torments. "If any man,"-of those living upon the earth at that time— worship the beast, and receive his mark in his forehead, or in his hand, the same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, and he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the Lamb and the smoke of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever." This is all very awful; but the great fact is that Christ will be present, and will be visible, and His holy angels, executing judgment upon the earth; and those rebels who worship the beast instead of Christ will be tormented. You remember the plagues of Egypt; the plagues of the Apocalypse are of the same character upon a vastly greater scale. The plagues of the Apocalypse have their root and initial meaning in the plagues of Egypt, just as Pharaoh was a type of this wilful King the beast. "And the smoke of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever." Ascendeth up to the ages, as an undying memorial; just as the ruins. of ancient Babylon prove that it was burnt, and as the Dead Sea marks the site of Sodom and Gomorrah, which were destroyed by fire and brimstone; the memorial of the judgment will last unto the ages.

And now mark: "And they have no rest day nor night." What does that mean? Eternity ? No. You do not speak of day and night when speaking of eternity. They have no rest day nor night on earth. They worship the beast, and as long as they do this rest will be impossible; for it is the day of judgment, and the Lord is the judge, and He will reign until he hath put all enemies under His feet.

"Here is the patience of the saints; here are they that keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus. And I heard a voice from heaven saying unto me, Write, Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth." You will find this on

many a gravestone, but it is misapprehended. The persecutions of the Antichrist, the sufferings of the Christians of those days who were not ready when the Lord came, will be so fearful, that the statement is true, "Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth," for they escape the torments of those who worship the Beast, and they rest from their labours, and their works follow them. They would not, they will not, worship the Beast. Death flees from the rebels that do this; but comes as a blessed deliverance to the loyal servants of Jesus Christ.

One passage more, brethren; a passage of extreme importance, as it embraces the whole of this doctrine about life and death. 2 Cor. ii. 14-16, "Now, thanks be unto God, which always causeth us to triumph in Christ, and maketh manifest the savour of His knowledge by us in every place. For we are unto God a sweet savour of Christ, in them that are saved and in them that perish : to the one we are the savour of death unto death: and to the other the savour of life unto life." Literally, "To these it is the odour of death unto death; to those the odour of life unto life." Life given in Christ to all who receive Him; and in the case of those who will not receive Him, death. In this passage, as in multitudes of others, we have this thing: life bestowed by Him Who only hath immortality, upon mortal beings; for the root of all the mischief that has for ages cast its black shadow upon the bright character of our Father is the pagan notion that man as such has an immortal soul. There is only one Being in the universe that can say, "I live for ever," and that is God; and Christ has God's life in Him, and He imparts this life to believers, and that constitutes the hope of the Christian-the hope of immortality in his immortal Head; that is the doctrine of Scripture, and God was justified in saying that His creation was "very good" because He meant it to be the theatre of a splendid redemption, which, in its issues, was to put an end to evil, an end to sin, to pain, to tears, to sorrow, to death for ever.

A cleansed universe, dear brethren, is to me a splendid, a wonderful idea. God said "Very good," and He will say it again when He looks down from His heavenly throne upon a restored world, handed back to Him by His glorious Son, a world-wide empire brought into subjection to holiness and truth.

Age after age men have sinned and suffered, although with our sufferings there are mingled multitudes of mercies which call for thanksgiving; age after age tempest, war, pestilence, and famine have come and gone; the earth has drunk the blood of its inhabitants through countless generations. Shall these things last for ever? God's character says no; Christ's work says no; the nature of man, who is only mortal except he be in Christ, says no; the whole arrangement of this Book declares no; and one looks forward with exceeding joy to the time when the former things with their tears and sorrow and sin and suffering and death shall

be done away to make room for the new heavens and the new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness.

Now just look at the text for a moment. Mark it well. God is seen wiping away tears from the eyes of men. He loves them, then. They are His children. He is kind, compassionate. Tears are the sign of sorrow and grief. God wipes away tears, that is to say, by having put an end to all grief and all sorrow. No tears, means no cause for tears, nothing to be sorry for.

And there shall be no more death. "O death, I will be thy destruction." The destruction of death enters into the arrangement of Christ's redemption. What does that mean? It means the bestowal of immortality, of His own sinless immortality; for you may rely upon it that such a thing as an immortal sinner is entirely out of the question; it would be a monster in God's creation.

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"Neither sorrow nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain for the former things are passed away." Now let me remark that any being who is capable of pain is by that fact proved to be mortal; he who suffers has in that suffering a proof that he must go down to the dust some day. Nothing can be immortal but that which is perfectly sinless; and this brings us back to the fact that Christ Jesus came to give "life." Again and again the Gospel puts this truth in this condensed form. I have heard men say "We have this immortal soul and we cannot get rid of it; God Himself cannot destroy it if He would." This is gross blasphemy, and a thorough misunderstanding of the Divine meaning of redemption. You have been told that Christ came to give us happiness, and to take away sufferings and sorrow; He came to redeem men, and so to make them fit for a blessed heaven. But, brethren, we must take God's words to mean what they say; the interpretations of commentators under the influence of traditional theology will lead you astray; but if you accept what is set before you in this Book you will not mistake.

The Lord Jesus came that we mortals might have life in Him. This is the record, that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. That this includes blessedness is certain; for eternal life in misery is unknown to the Bible.

Let me explain my meaning in a few words. It is not the belief of certain truths to which I am referring. It is the reception of life. The gift to us of an immortal soul? Not that. It is the in-breathing of Christ's nature, Christ's life into us, that constitutes the Christian. The spirit of life or the life of Christ given to a man makes him one with Christ, and there is the basis of immortality, of incorruptibility, for that is the word. Not an immortal man, but a man made incorruptible in the image of Christ; a thorough man, a man after the image of Christ, Who is the image of God; that is God's idea of perfect manhood.

Well now, finally, if this view be correct, you see why God insists

upon human belief of His truth; why such stress is laid on faith in the Scripture: God intends to make us His sons, the sons of the resurrection; and then we can die no more; just as in His case, Who is our Leader, Who says, "I am He that liveth and was dead, and, behold, I am alive for evermore.'

It just comes to this. We are asked to believe in the Son because we have sinned, and stumbled, and fallen, and are unable to escape from the mire and pollution into which we have fallen; we have dishonoured our Creator, and He graciously wishes to remedy the evil by a new creation. Our strength is weakness; our boasted deathlessness is the old lie of the devil, who said to our first parents, "Ye shall not surely die." Our only immortality is in Christ; may God in His infinite grace grant that we may all meet by-and-bye at the right hand of the Life-giver, when the Church shall be glorified at His second coming, and then there will be an end of all evil! Amen.

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THE SCRIPTURE DOCTRINE OF THE KINGDOM.

"The kingdom of God is within you."-LUKE XVii. 21.

my paper on this subject Mr. F. Moore offers three principal objections.

First." The non-necessity for founding such a paper on Luke xvii. 21." In reply, I observe (1) that Mr. Moore is not opposed to "my definition of the nature of the kingdom." (2) He admits it is a subject "very generally misunderstood." (3) He says there is a very prevalent but untenable belief that it is simply a spiritual " kingdom. (4) He must also admit that this passage in Luke is very often urged as proof that it is "simply a spiritual kingdom."

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Under these circumstances, I confess my inability to understand on what grounds Mr. Moore is "impressed with the non-necessity" of my paper.

Is there no necessity for trying to correct a "very general misunderstanding" of such an important subject as the "kingdom of God?" or for calling attention to what is a "very prevalent but untenable belief” concerning it? And in our humble endeavours to help our fellow-men to a better understanding, is it not wise to take those Scriptures which are relied on, and endeavour to show that they give no support to the position sought to be proved?

Not long ago, I heard Luke xvii. 21 and Romans xiv. 17 referred to as proof of its spiritual nature, and this is far from being an exceptional case. How then is there "no scope for treating upon the nature of the 'kingdom of God' to be found in this passage?"

A second objection is, "The text has been isolated."

The few words at the head of my paper are undoubtedly isolated there; but is there any ground for implying that they are used in an "isolated " position? It has long been with me a matter of first importance to avoid building anything upon an isolated passage, knowing the evils of

such a course. Mr. Moore "looks down the whole paragraph, and sees nothing but the most elaborate illustration of what our Lord intended to teach." In this we do not differ, although, it appears, we differ as to what He intended to teach. Yet, instead of looking at an "isolated text," I have surpassed Mr. Moore in breadth of survey; for both what goes before, and what follows, as well as the "whole paragraph," together with time, place, circumstances, what gave rise to the words, the evident design of His questioners, the warning given to His disciples, and His teaching that followed, were all duly taken account of, and all seemed to agree in illustrating and supporting the view I have taken. If I have failed to get at the meaning of the words notwithstanding, it certainly has not been by isolating them from their surroundings.

Third. Mr. Moore objects to the "Exposition," and thinks it an "attempt to bring out of the passage a meaning which is not contained in it." Well, infallibility is not claimed; and, although we may differ as to the meaning, I cordially concur in the "desire that every portion of Scripture should be expounded so as to convey the intended sense," and have no desire or wish for more. But an honest effort to bring out the sense of a passage is not to be despised, although the meaning should be. missed or mistaken. And although not "set apart for the ministry," there is no reason why we should not "aim at examining a text as deeply" and thoroughly as we can. "Examining a text" is not a privilege belonging exclusively to those "set apart for the ministry," and a suitable paper finds a place in the RAINBOW irrespective of the writer's position in society.

Trusting, then, to the reader's acquaintance with text and context, let us again look at our Lord's reply to the Pharisees. "The kingdom of God cometh not with observation." This is His first statement. What can it mean? For, although it is illustrated by what follows, it nevertheless seems to have a meaning and significance of its own. It "cometh not with observation." This I take to signify that in some sense the kingdom will not be observed or seen coming. And the next clause," Neither shall they say, Lo here! or Lo there! serves to show it what sense it "cometh not with observation." It cannot mean that it will come absolutely concealed from view. But it may mean, and I think it does, that it will not come in such a manner as to afford an opportunity for any one to tell others of its approach. A vessel homeward bound, and looked for, may be seen at a great distance, and the observer may raise a cry, "See, there it is!" or in the case of a friend, his approach may be announced, "See here!" he is at the gate; or, "See there!" he cometh on the road. Such announcement, however, can only be appropriate when the vessel or the visitor first comes under "observation," or within view; for, "See here! or see there!" necessarily supposes a discovery of what is not known to the others, and the moment the latter become cognisant of it, the "See here! or See there!" is needless. The vessel arrived, visible to all, or the visitor in midst of his friends, would make the cry of "See here! or See there!" wholly out of place; the vessel and visitor being "among," or in the midst of them. Or, if their arrival should take place "unobserved," when approaching, then, in that case, there would be no room for the "See here! or see there!" at all.