ritance incorruptible, undefiled, and that fadeth not away," the everlasting kingdom of God. Oh, upon the right solution of this question depends your everlasting life and happiness in the presence of the throne and its occupant! Your interest for eternity, vast in magnitude beyond all computation; your happiness for eternity; oh, your eternal life, and blessedness, and glory, depend upon the right solution of this question, upon your standing before that throne when rebuilt! Reader, will you then be among the number who shall stand in glory around that throne? Shall I meet you there? Shall God's redeemed people meet you there? Shall Christ see you there? And shall you for ever feel the blessedness of being there? The LORD the KING waits your answer.

CHAPTER II.

MESSIAH'S KINGDOM.

"He shall reign over the house of Jacob."-LUKE i. 33.

WE have seen that David had a literal throne, in his palace on mount Zion, in Jerusalem; and that he sat literally upon that throne, and reigned literally over the Jewish nation and people. He never had any other throne, nor any other kingdom, nor exercised any other government. This throne, then, was the throne promised to the Messiah, who was to be of David's seed. And though this throne of David has long ago tumbled into ruins, amidst the changes and convulsions of earth, the overturning of this world's kingdoms, yet the sure word of prophecy reveals and declares that it shall, at a set time, at an appointed. season, be rebuilt, for the occupancy of the resurrection humanity-of the man-God, Christ Jesus. Prophecy does not speak of a throne which has had no previous existence, to be occupied by the raised up seed of David, namely, Jesus Christ, but only of the

throne of David.

If then it is admitted that Christ is

to occupy a throne, according to the sure word of prophecy, it must be the literal throne of his father David. It will not do merely to affirm that the human heart is the throne here meant, and that Christ is to sit and reign spiritually there, until it is proved that David's throne in Jerusalem was the human heart; and that his reign was also a spiritual reign; and until it is shown how David, a literal man, could sit in the heart of men; and that he could sit in the heart of each individual of the entire Jewish nation at one and the same time. When that is done then, by the help of this wonderful new light poured upon us, we may be enabled to see or understand, in some measure, though of this we have doubts, how the raised up seed, the true humanity of Jesus Christ, may enter the bosom and sit in the heart of his people; how he may, in human nature, be in every heart of the vast multitude of his subjects, the number of whom shall be as the stars of the sky, as the dewdrops of the morning; and how the whole multitude of the risen saints, who are to sit with him upon his throne, shall, in their resurrection bodies, sit with him in every human heart in which he is to sit and reign when he occupies the throne of his father David.

As this, however, has not been done, and, as we presume, cannot be, we are constrained to hold the literal view presented in the word of God, and sustained by his providential fulfilment of prophecy, that

Christ shall sit in all his divine and kingly glory upon the rebuilt throne of his father David. And if he is to sit personally and literally upon that throne, so also is he to reign literally and visibly. Not only will he reign in the hearts of men, but he will reign visibly, as any other king reigns. This is the conclusion to which we were led by the grammatical meaning of prophecy, and by God's own interpretation, as given in his providence, in the literal fulfilment of prophecy, which hitherto has had its accomplishment.

If Christ is to occupy a literal throne, and be a literal king, and we think this is most clearly and certainly taught in Scripture, then he will and must have a literal kingdom, a literal territory, and people over which he must reign; and this is also clearly taught by the angel Gabriel, in his prophecy and promise to his virgin mother. Nor is this all; but in that same prophecy the kingdom, and the extent of Messiah's kingdom, is pointed out in these words: "He shall reign over the house of Jacob." And we propose now to glance for a little at the locality and extent of this kingdom.

It is predicted and affirmed by the angel Gabriel, that Jesus Christ, the Son of the Highest, who is to sit literally upon the rebuilt throne of his father David, shall reign over the house of Jacob. In order that we may form something like an accurate idea of the locality and extent of the kingdom described by the house

Jacob, we must take into consideration God's

ancient promise and covenant with the patriarchs ; the full extent of its meaning, and the subsequent descriptive predictions of the prophets, pointing out the far extending boundaries of that kingdom. We must look at it as it is set forth in Scripture from the first time it is mentioned to the last, and thus endeavour to see it in all its amplitude. And here, too, we must guard against the darkening influences of prepossessions and prejudices, and endeavour to see it in the clear unclouded light of revelation.

Jacob was the younger son of Isaac, and the grandson of Abraham. Now God gave by covenant to Abraham and his seed the whole land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession. The deed of gift, or covenant, is as follows: "The Lord said unto Abram, after that Lot was separated from him, Lift up now thine eyes, and look from the place where thou art, northward, and southward, and eastward, and westward, for all the land which thou seest to thee will I give it, and to thy seed for ever. And I will make thy seed as the dust of the earth; so that if a man can number the dust of the earth, then shall thy seed also be numbered. Arise, walk through the land in the length of it, and in the breadth of it, for I will give it unto thee" (Gen. xiii. 14-17). The land in which Abram was at this time, and which is here spoken of, was the land of Canaan. And while Abram, at the command of Jehovah, looked upon that land which lay before and around him, he did certainly believe that it was of