This is Christianity, a spiritual society, not because it has no worldly concerns, but because all its members, as such are born of the Spirit, animated and governed by the Spirit of God. It is constantly called by our Lord the kingdom of God, or heaven, because all its ministry and service, all that is done in it, is done in obedience and subjection to _that spirit_ by which angels live, and are governed in heaven. Hence our blessed Lord taught his disciples to pray, that this kingdom might come, that so God’s will might be done on earth, as it is in heaven; which could not be, but by that same spirit by which it is done in heaven. The short is this: The kingdom of self, is the great apostasy from the life of God in the soul, and every one wherever he be, that liveth unto himself, is still under the fall and apostasy from God. The kingdom of Christ is the Spirit and power of God, dwelling and manifesting itself in the inward man; and no one is a member of this kingdom, but so far as the Spirit reigns in him. These two kingdoms take in all mankind, he that is not of one, is certainly in the other; dying to one, is living to the other. Hence we may gather the following truths: _First_, That when the call of God to repentance first ariseth in thy soul, thou art wholly to disregard the workings of thy own will, reason and judgment. It is because all these are false counsellors, the sworn servants, bribed slaves of thy fallen nature; and therefore, if the operation of God is to have its effect in thee, all these are to be silenced, till they have learned obedience and subjection to the Spirit of God. Now this is not requiring thee to become a fool, or to give up thy sense and reason; but is the shortest way to have thy sense and reason delivered from folly, and guided by that light which is wisdom itself. A child that denies his own will and reason, to be guided by the will and reason of a truly wise and understanding tutor, cannot be said to make himself a fool, and give up the benefit of his rational nature, but to take the shortest way to have his own will and reason made truly a blessing to him.