and take you into this kingdom at His coming. For that you will pray without ceasing; for that you will renounce the world; for that you will crucify the flesh with its affections and lusts; for that you will be willing to forsake all the dear and beloved ones on earth; for that you will be willing to lay down your life. Any thing and every thing to attain this kingdom-to be an heir of this kingdom," the inheritance of Christ and of the saints in light." Ah! yes; to attain this the most precious inheritance, the most glorious and blessed of all habitations, you will ever be examining your own heart to see if there is any good evidence of obtaining the kingdom. You will be scrutinizing your affections to see if they are really set upon the kingdom of Messiah; and you will not rest till you have the satisfactory evidence of God's Spirit within you, that with Christ Jesus you are an heir of all things, and consequently an heir of his kingdom.

If you are a believer in Jesus, then you can be looking forward to the inheritance of that kingdom with the most rapturous emotions and thrilling joy, for that kingdom is yours by covenant and promise, and will soon be yours by actual possession. You will soon move among its shining inhabitants, glorious as they; you will soon be a participant of its supreme and everlasting blessedness. The short-lived sorrows of time need not distress you here; like the morning cloud these will soon pass away, and be succeeded by "the exceeding and eternal weight of glory," and joy in the

kingdom. Sink not under the griefs of the present night of weeping, for through its darkest gloom and deepest distress some comforting beams of the cloudless joy-light of the coming Kingdom are struggling; and endless joy cometh in the morning of the eternal day-the morning of the ushering in of the kingdom. There remaineth a rest for the people of God and that rest will be yours. “With Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob you shall sit down in the kingdom."

But if you are not a believer in Christ-what then? Solemn, awful thought; you cannot be admitted into the kingdom. Ah! no, you cannot. You must and will be excluded unless you believe. Christ is inviting you by his word, urging you by his obedience, suffering, and death to believe in him, and enter into his kingdom of matchless, boundless glory and blessedness. If you believe you shall be admitted; if you remain in unbelief, true indeed a kingdom shall be yours; but it will be the kingdom of misery, and darkness, and eternal death. You may not now realize what will be the awfulness of your situation then; and when you actually feel it, it will be too late to change it. Are you willing to be consigned to the kingdom of eternal misery, darkness, and death? Surely you cannot be! Your soul must shudder at such a thought, and shrink with unutterable horror from such a doom. If this be so, then hasten to Jesus the almighty Saviour -believe in him that you may be saved, and welcomed with the multitude of redeemed into "the kingdom of God and his dear Son."

CHAPTER III.

THE DURATION OF MESSIAH'S KINGDOM.

"He shall reign over the house of Jacob for ever; And of his kingdom there shall be no end."-LUKE i. 33.

WE have seen by the clear light of prophecy, that Jesus Christ is to sit upon the throne of his father David. That throne once occupied by David in Jerusalem, which for thousands of years has been, and still is in ruins, is destined by God's unchangeable oracle to be rebuilt and occupied by the raised up humanity of the Son of the virgin-by the Man-God, Christ Jesus. That throne is to be erected upon earth, and occupied by the Lord the King for ever. "The Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father David." As David literally occupied a throne upon the earth, so shall the Son of the virgin, the Son of the Highest, literally occupy that throne rebuilt; for the sure word of prophecy repeatedly declares, he shall sit upon the throne of his father David.

When He ascends that throne, he is to reign over the house of Jacob. The house of Jacob, we have seen,

is used to denote all the believing descendants of Jacob-of Abraham, and that when Christ returns to earth to occupy that throne, all the believing seed of Abraham slumbering in their graves shall be raised, and all his living seed shall be converted and brought from the four winds of heaven into their own land, the land of Israel, which is the land of covenant and promise. Exalted to the throne of his own peculiar kingdom, and reigning over that, his own land, his brethren according to the flesh converted, and rebaptized with more than a double portion of the missionary spirit-Satan, the great author of evil and adversary of men, cast into the bottomless pit, they go forth everywhere, preaching the gospel, and all who hear believe, till all nations are converted, and "the kingdoms of this world become the kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ.”

Having seen Messiah exalted to his royal throne, and reigning over "the kingdoms and the greatness of the kingdoms under the whole heavens," we come now to consider the duration of that reign upon the earth, which the angel Gabriel describes in these words to his mother, "He shall reign over the house of Jacob for ever; and of his kingdom there shall be no end." If we rightly understand the teachings of scripture that reign upon and over the earth will be eternal. Be not surprised at this announcement, but hear patiently and candidly the teachings of scripture, and if they furnish not conclusive evidence, that Christ

seated upon the throne of his father David, shall reign over the house of Jacob for ever, upon this earth renewed, it is your duty to reject such a doctrine; but if they do teach, that in person he shall reign for ever upon this earth, then by heaven's authority you are bound to believe it. And the moment you see it with heavenly unscaled eyes you will believe, and you will rejoice in believing it, with an ecstacy of joy such as has never thrilled through your bosom.

The earth renewed, we say, is to be the place or scene of Christ's eternal reign with his redeemed and glorified people. In order to prove this doctrine, it is manifestly necessary at the very outset, to prove that the earth must exist for ever. And the evidence to prove the everlasting duration of the earth must be deduced from the word of God; and some of its teachings upon this subject shall now be examined.

In Psalm xciii. 1, it is thus written, "The Lord reigneth, he is clothed with majesty; the Lord is clothed with strength, wherewith he hath girded himself: the world also is established that it cannot be moved," or rather as it is in the original, "yea, he hath established the world that it shall not be moved." If according to this language the world is established that it cannot, or shall not be moved, then beyond all controversy, it is destined to endure for ever; its eternal existence is secured. If it shall not be moved it must remain, and remaining, continue to remain; and hence its everlasting duration is declared in the