THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD, AS AN ORGANIC WHOLE.
On this subject Benjamin Morgan Palmer, D. D., preached a sermon in New Orleans, La., published in the Homiletic Review of May, 1901, from which we take pleasure in quoting the following glowing description of that everlasting kingdom which the God of heaven will set up. After speaking of the course of earthly kingdoms, and the working of God’s providence to His own beneficent ends in the affairs of men, he describes the grand consummation as follows:— The Consummation in the Everlasting Kingdom.—Now I come to the last thought with which I shall address you. We have seen through the whole progress of ancient, medieval, and modern times, how God, with definite purpose, has been moving along all lines, until we reach the dawn of this century. What is to be the final outcome? . . . Ah, my hearers, guilty and sinful as this world is, shaken by wars prompted by human ambition through all the centuries of the past, there is yet to be a period of rest for the agitated and unhappy earth; when the angel with the silver trumpet shall fly in midheaven, and proclaim to the stars that “the kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of His Christ.” But what is there beyond that? There shall come a time when the earth, which has revolted from the law and authority and government of this King, and which has been stained through all its history with guilt and sin, shall, through that amazing love which can be found only in a divine Being, be redeemed with all the people that dwell upon it, and His kingdom established here below. There will be a cleansing by fire, answering to what took place in the beginning, with the baptismal waters of the flood. The earth, redeemed, shall stand at the blessed feet of Him who came to die so that the dead might live through the power of His name, and He shall come and reign forever. This earth, in that day of its purification, wrapped in its winding-sheet of flame, shall tell the most distant world that the time has come, in the decree of Him who reigns above, when God shall be honored by the whole universe for His matchless justice, upholding government, providing salvation for the lost, and building up for himself a kingdom which shall never be moved. “And I John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God.” My brethren, human language is inadequate to do anything more than state the simple fact. There is no speech given to man, nor, I suppose, even to the angels, that shall ever describe the glory of that kingdom which shall never be moved, which shall be a kingdom upon this earth, and which shall be inhabited by men in their raised spiritual bodies; and there will be seen upon that new earth the golden city, which the prophet describes in his vision, in which there were twelve gates, and each gate a several pearl, and at each nothing unclean or defiled shall ever enter,—a city that has no need of the sun nor of the moon to shine in it; “for the glory of God did lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof.” And on this earth, through all the cycles of uncounted eternity, will God Almighty dwell with His redeemed and glorified saints; and it shall be His kingdom, an eternal kingdom, and yet an earthly kingdom, a standing witness before the universe; for all those stars which shine in space, our science tells us, are revolving worlds, vast systems circling around their appointed centers, and all combined in a joint movement around some center common to them all, which, perhaps, may be the burning throne upon which Jehovah, the King of kings and Lord of lords, sits forever in His glory. This earth, and we—we—we, in this sanctuary to-day, a part of this inhabited globe, shall, I hope, stand on this redeemed earth, this glorious and purified earth, this earth that, as it sweeps in its orbit around its appointed sun, shall testify to the glory of God in the redemption of man and the building up on earth of the kingdom which is righteousness and peace and joy forever. The vast significance of all this history of our ransomed earth is to reflect itself upon the destinies of moral beings occupying, it may be, myriads of worlds, and teaching them the glory of God in the last perfect revelation of himself through the splendor and majesty of His love.