Our subject is now so far plain (according to our views) that the phrase "_kingdom of God_" will be readily understood. Though it has, by different writers, been made to bear many different significations, yet we shall take the liberty to contend that it simply means as follows--1. First an immortal existence beyond the grave brought to light by the resurrection of Christ;--and 2. Second a belief in _that reality_ is the kingdom of God we here enter and enjoy _by faith_. Into this kingdom, infants, idiots and heathen and unbelievers do not enter, because faith is the only condition. This is the kingdom of heaven that men, blind leaders of the blind, shut up. They neither enter themselves, nor suffer those that would enter to go in. They keep the evidence of the reality out of sight so that men cannot look beyond the vail to its brighter glories and enjoy its peaceful reign in their hearts by faith. When faith is lost in certainty, _then_ this kingdom will be delivered up, and to know shall be life eternal. This definition we believe will hold good, and apply to any passage in the New Testament where it may occur. Though some contend that it very seldom has reference to an immortal existence, yet we strenuously contend that there is no propriety in the phrase only in connexion with such an existence. We cannot enter or be born into the kingdom of God by faith, unless we admit the reality in the first place to have an existence, any more than we could, by faith, enjoy eternal life unless there is such a reality as eternal life beyond the grave. The above, the reader will please to fix in his mind. We now perceive that man drops into the sleep of death, and that the resurrection, or new birth is his only hope of a future happy state of existence, and is the only change that can free him from imperfection, and sin, and make him a new creature in a new and immortal existence beyond the grave. We will here introduce an example to make our argument so far plain. Suppose you were now in ignorance respecting the doctrine of life and immortality through a resurrection. You know you must die, and sincerely think that death will terminate your existence forever. You see your children one after another laid upon their dying bed, and with distraction shake the farewell hand of eternal separation, and with the most solemn melancholy and wo, look forward to the period when you must follow them down to the chambers of eternal silence, and cease to be.