icked is included in two classes of texts, and may be summed
up in a few words. One class of texts relate to the visible
establishment of Christianity as the true religion, the Divine
law, at the destruction of the Jewish power, and to the frightful
woes which should then fall upon the murderers of Christ, the
bitter enemies of his cause. All these things were to come upon
that generation, were to happen before some of them then standing
there tasted death. The other class of texts and they are by far
the more numerous signify that the kingdom of Truth is now
revealed and set up; that all men are bound to accept and obey it
with reverence and love, and thus become its blessed subjects, the
happy and immortal children of God; that those who spurn its
offers, break its laws, and violate its pure spirit shall be
punished, inevitably and fearfully, by moral retributions
proportioned to the degrees of their guilt. Christ does not teach
that the good are immortal and that the bad shall be annihilated,
but that all alike, both the just and the unjust, enter the
spiritual world. He does not teach that the bad shall be eternally
miserable, cut off from all possibility of amendment, but simply
that they shall be justly judged. He makes no definitive reference
to duration, but leaves us at liberty, peering into the gloom as
best we can, to suppose, if we think it most reasonable, that the
conditions of our spiritual nature are the same in the future as
now, and therefore that the wicked may go on in evil hereafter,
or, if they will, all turn to righteousness, and the universe
finally become as one sea of holiness and as one flood of praise.

Another portion of Christ's doctrine of the future life hinges on
the phrase "the kingdom of heaven." Much is implied in this term
and its accompaniments, and may be drawn out by answering the
questions, What is heaven? Who are citizens of, and who are aliens
from, the kingdom of God? Let us first examine the subordinate
meanings and shades of meaning with which the Savior sometimes
uses these phrases.

"Ye shall see heaven open and the angels of God ascending and
descending upon the Son of Man." No confirmation of the literal
sense of this that is afforded by any incident found in the
Gospels. There is every reason for supposing that he meant by it,
"There shall be open manifestations of supernatural power and
favor bestowed upon me by God, evident signs of direct
communications between