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Thames Star, Volume VII, Issue 2621, 2 June 1877, Page 3

NEBUCHADNEZZAR;' 08, THE WOELD POWER IN ITS RELATION TO THE APPRO ACHING KINGDOM OF GOD. LECTURES delivered by Mr Henry Clayton at the Presbyterian Chapel, Bombay Settlement, 1877. I -—' ' LECTURE THE FIRST. The natural desire of man, theidol of his inmost heart, tbe object of his most earnest effort throughout life, and; that object which is most absolutely incapable of attainment, is independence. Man is born in a condition of dependence, and in a condition of dependence upon one or other power above him and beyond his own control; in spite of all his efforts he remains and must remain through life and to all eternity. Liberty he may attain unto. But true liberty consists in a voluntary and intelligent obedience to that rule which reason tells us is just and wise and good.. Lawful obedience is liberty. -,Want of obedience to lawful rule/manifested in habit of thought, word or'deed, is lawlessness and sin. This condition of lawlessness is the natural condition of the unregenerated heart of man. Lawless pride and impatience of dependence upon the holy and just authority of God was, we are given to understand, the original sin which reduced the bright Archangel, Lucifer, the Light Bearer, the Day Star, Son of the Morning, to the miserable condition of the Prince of Devils, th 6 prime mover of all iniquity. Satan found a too-ready pupil in the man whom God set over the works of His hands and invested with a lawful authority, and the result is that lawlessness has extended itself like a leprosy, and has spread like a corrupting leaven through the whole mass of humanity. ...'..'.-, God has proposed to remedy tin's evil; not in man's way, not in man's time ; but | in His own way, and in His own good time He has purposed to restore a lost and ruined world to a condition of happiness and peace, by showing unto man man's folly, and by bringing mankind once again into that condition of voluntary and intelligent obedience to His own just and wise and good and lawful rule which constitutes perfect liherty. „< The first little word upon the inarticulating lip of an infant is a matter of time and difficulty; and the first: word which j it is necessary for the untutored heart of man to learn is a matter of time and difficulty too. Yet learned it must be; and when once learned how quickly others follow in. its . train ! That first word is " obedience ; " obedience of the heart and not of the. lip, and that obedience is a matter of absolute necessity. The child's first duty is to learn obedience; the man's first duty is to be obf-dient to the laws of the country of which he is a citizen; the wife's first duty,.which she undertakes by her marriage vow, is voluntary and intelligent obedience to the husband of her choice; >nd even Christ, the Son of God, condescended to learn obedience in the things which He suffered. Perfect-obedience does away with all punishment or fear, retaining only love, and is a perfect liberty. In Heaven perfect obedience reigns, and also perfect liberty. In the Kingdom -of Heaven, to be presently established by Christ on the earth, nearly perfect obedienco will reign, and then, also, there will be nearly perfect liberty. To this end our Lord Christ Jesus, bade us pray, "Father, let Thy Kingdom come (the time when); Thy will shall be done upon earth as it is done in Heaven." To redeem the world unto 'this Kingdom Christ came. To receive for Himself the sovereignty of this Kingdom He has ascended up on high. To establish this Kingdom, the "Kingdom of God," upon the earth, He will come again. To carry on, in conjunction with Himself, the government of this Kingdom, He is now selecting from, among the nations of the earth "a peculiar people, zealous of good works," who3e deeds shall bear them witness of their faith in Him, and whom,'though they sleep in Christ, God shall raiso them from their sleep, and they shall come with Him in glory, with the holy angels, in the clouds of Heaven. The burden of the Book of God is the Kingdom of God. The* holy oracles are full from beginning to end of things pertaining to the "Kingdom of Heaven." It is the themo aliko 'of.prophets and apostles, of. evangelists and of Christ Himself, and the law is full of its types. It is the ultimatum, the grand result of the whole, the conclusion of the whole matter. It is the sea into which all the Scripturo rivers run; the Great City, the t ity of our God, into which all the Bible pathways lead. It is the well barred fortress too, into which the devil would desire his pathway too, shall lead, to which, he stealthily, with all his hosts, approaches, hoping it may suffer violence, and that he may violently take it by force, but of . which the massive gate firmly closes suddenly on his approach, and crushes him between its portals. All things lead onward to the. " Kingdom of God." The pathway of the Church, the pathway of the Jewish race, and the pathway 1 of the powers that be (the nations of the earth, the Gentile world) lead upward, through they know it not, to the establishment of the "King-, domofGod." It is said of the earthly potentate, "Tlowbeit in his heart he meaueth/not so, but ifc is in .his heart..'to destroy and to cut off nations not a few ; " but, well, we' read in the service of the English Church "that the. hearts of kings are in His rule and guidance, and that He does dispose and turn them as seemeth best unto His. godly wisdom; and so it is, O Lord ! Thou hast ordained that the wrath of man shall praise>Thee, and the remainder of wrath Thou wilt restrain." ■ ' As the Jewish .Church,y the. Gentile Church, and the Gentile nations are all concerned in the "Kingdom of God," yet each and severally occupy different positions in that Heavenly Kingdom, so also are tho pathways by which they arrive at that Kingdom separate and dissimilar. Yet there are points at which the one crosses and recrosses the pathway j 'of the other, and as in the natural world | r before our eyes that which stands at the ' junction of the cross roads is usually an object of interest and prominence, so also here. At such a' point of prominent.interest stands the subject of our lecture.-; To understand exactly the relation in which Nebuchadnezzar stands towards 1 the Jewish nation it will be necessary to sketch rapidly the course of the pathways of the Jewish and the Gentile nations in their progress towards the " Kingdom of