In the same manner, to take _inspiration_ in the proper sense, or to say that good _spirits_ entered into men to make them prophecy, or evil _spirits_ into those that became phrenetic, lunatic, or epileptic, is not to take the word in the sense of the Scripture; for the Spirit there is taken for the power of God, working by causes to us unknown. As also (_Acts_ ii. 2) the wind, that is there said to fill the house wherein the apostles were assembled on the day of Pentecost, is not to be understood for the _Holy Spirit_, which is the Deity itself; but for an external sign of God’s special working on their hearts, to effect in them the internal graces, and holy virtues he thought requisite for the performance of their apostleship. ------- CHAPTER XXXV. OF THE SIGNIFICATION IN SCRIPTURE OF KINGDOM OF GOD, OF HOLY, SACRED, AND SACRAMENT. [Sidenote: The kingdom of God taken by divines metaphorically, but in the Scriptures properly.] The _Kingdom of God_ in the writings of divines, and specially in sermons and treatises of devotion, is taken most commonly for eternal felicity, after this life, in the highest heaven, which they also call the kingdom of glory; and sometimes for the earnest of that felicity, sanctification, which they term the kingdom of grace; but never for the monarchy, that is to say, the sovereign power of God over any subjects acquired by their own consent, which is the proper signification of kingdom. To the contrary, I find the KINGDOM OF GOD to signify, in most places of Scripture, a _kingdom properly so named_, constituted by the votes of the people of Israel in peculiar manner; wherein they chose God for their king by covenant made with him, upon God’s promising them the possession of the land of Canaan; and but seldom metaphorically; and then it is taken for _dominion over sin_; (and only in the New Testament;) because such a dominion as that, every subject shall have in the kingdom of God, and without prejudice to the sovereign. From the very creation, God not only reigned over all men _naturally_ by his might; but also had _peculiar_ subjects, whom he commanded by a voice, as one man speaketh to another. In which manner he _reigned_ over Adam, and gave him commandment to abstain from the tree of cognizance of good and evil; which when he obeyed not, but tasting thereof, took upon him to be as God, judging between good and evil, not by his creator’s commandment, but by his own sense, his punishment was a privation of the estate of eternal life, wherein God had at first created him: and afterwards God punished his posterity for their vices, all but eight persons, with an universal deluge; and in these eight did consist the then _kingdom of God_. [Sidenote: The original of the kingdom of God.]