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MOSES. To cling to God continually, and as you say inseparably to hold
fast to meditation on Him, is impossible for a man while still in this weak
flesh of ours. But we ought to be aware on what we should have the purpose
of our mind fixed, and to what goal we should ever recall the gaze of our
soul: and when the mind can secure this it may rejoice; and grieve and sigh
when it is withdrawn from this, and as often as it discovers itself to have
fallen away from gazing on Him, it should admit that it has lapsed from the
highest good, considering that even a momentary departure from gazing on
Christ is fornication. And when our gaze has wandered ever so little from
Him, let us turn the eyes of the soul back to Him, and recall our mental
gaze as in a perfectly straight direction. For everything depends on the
inward frame of mind, and when the devil has been expelled. from this, and
sins no longer reign in it, it follows that the kingdom of God as founded
in us, as the Evangelist says "The kingdom of God cometh not with
observation, nor shall men say Lo here, or lo there: for verily I say unto
you that the kingdom of God is within you." But nothing else can be
"within you," but knowledge or ignorance of truth, and delight either in
vice or in virtue, through which we prepare a kingdom for the devil or for
Christ in our heart: and of this kingdom the Apostle describes the
character, when he says "For the kingdom of God is not meat and drink, but
righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Ghost." And so if the
kingdom of God is within us, and the actual kingdom of God is righteousness
and peace and joy, then the man who abides in these is most certainly in
the kingdom of God, and on the contrary those who live in unrighteousness,
and discord, and the sorrow that worketh death, have their place in the
kingdom of the devil, and in hell and death. For by these tokens the
kingdom of God and the kingdom of the devil are distinguished: and in truth
if lifting up our mental gaze on high we would consider that state in which
the heavenly powers live on high, who are truly in the kingdom of God, what
should we imagine it to be except perpetual and lasting joy? For what is so
specially peculiar and appropriate to true blessedness as constant calm and
eternal joy? And that you may be quite sure that this, which we say, is
really so, not on my own authority but on that of the Lord, hear how very
clearly He describes the character and condition of that world: "Behold,"
says He, "I create new beavers and a new earth: and the former things shall
not be remembered nor come into mind. But ye shall be glad and rejoice
forever in that which I create." And again "joy and gladness shall be
found therein: thanksgiving and the voice of praise, and there shall be
month after month, and Sabbath after Sabbath." And again: "they shall
obtain joy and gladness; and sorrow and sighing shall flee away." And if
you want to know more definitely about that life and the city of the
saints, hear what the voice of the Lord proclaims to the heavenly Jerusalem
herself: "I will make," says He, "thine officers peace and thine overseers
righteousness. Violence shall no more be heard in thy land, desolation nor
destruction within thy borders. And salvation shall take possession of thy
walls, and praise of thy gates. The sun shall be no more thy light by day,
neither shall the brightness of the moon give light to thee: but the Lord
shall be thine everlasting light, and thy God thy glory. Thy sun shall no
more go down, neither shall thy moon withdraw itself: but the Lord shall be
thine everlasting light, and the days of thy mourning shall be ended:"
and therefore the holy Apostle does not say generally or without
qualification that every joy is the kingdom of God, but markedly and
emphatically that joy alone which is "in the Holy Ghost." For he was
perfectly aware of another detestable joy, of which we hear "the world
shall rejoice," and "woe unto you that laugh, for ye shall mourn." In
fact the kingdom of heaven must be taken in a threefold sense, either that
the heavens shall reign, i.e., the saints over other things subdued,
according to this text, "Be thou over five cities, and thou over ten;"
and this which is said to the disciples: "Ye shall sit upon twelve thrones
judging the twelve tribes of Israel:" or that the heavens themselves
shall begin to be reigned over by Christ, when "all things are subdued unto
Him," and God begins to be "all in all:" or else that the saints shall
reign in heaven with the Lord.
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