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Million Book Collection - The Fishers of Men Ministries

Million Book Collection - The Fishers of Men Ministries

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THE FIRST AND THE SECOND MAN.81completely finished the work given Him to do.13But here He describes this work to be the bearingwitness to the truth. For, indeed, it was worthy<strong>of</strong> the eternal wisdom to clothe Himselfin flesh14in order that truth, the good <strong>of</strong> the intellect, andthe end <strong>of</strong> the whole universe, might stand forthrevealed to His rational creatures : and He whomade all things in truth would Himself restoretruth, when it had been obscured by the traducer.1. Let us take the character which He acknowledgedo and claimed before Pilate : His character <strong>of</strong>King, and the kingdom in which it is exercised.<strong>The</strong> Person <strong>of</strong> Christ, as that <strong>of</strong> the eternalWord, is the Truth itself. But He has assumeda body, and in that body He declares that He isa king, and that the exercise <strong>of</strong> His royalty is thebearing witness to the truth.15 His words thereforeindicate no less than the creation <strong>of</strong> a kingdomto which the truth should be the principle <strong>of</strong>subsistence. But what in the material or temporalngdom is that by force <strong>of</strong> which it subsists ?Plainly power. A kingdom may be larger ormailer in population, wealth, extent, stronger orweaker in the quality <strong>of</strong> its people ; but as longas it retains in itself that in which power culminates,sovereignty, it will be a kingdom. Ifthis power departs from it, if it falls into subjec-13 John xvii. 4. H S. Thomas, Swnma contra Gentiles, 1. i. c. 1.15 John xviii. 37. " Thou sayest that I am a king. To this end wasI born, and for thithe truth."II.G

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