to their everlasting destruction, when all their seeking, and
all their prayer, will be as rejected by God, as, in part, it has
been already.

LECTURE XIII.

* * * * *

MARK xii. 34.

_Thou art not far from the kingdom of God_.

Whoever has gone up any hill of more than common height, may remember
the very different impression which the self-same point, whether bush,
or stone, or cliff, has made upon him as he viewed it from below and
from above. In going up it seemed so high, that we fancied, if we were
once arrived at it, we should be at the summit of our ascent; while,
when we had got beyond it, and looked down upon it, it seemed almost
sunk to the level of the common plain; and we wondered that it could
ever have appeared high to us.

What happens with any natural object according to the different points
from which we view it, happens also to any particular stage of
advancement in our moral characters. There is a goodness which appears
very exalted or very ordinary, according as it is much above or much
below our own level. And this is the case with the expression of our
Lord in the text, "Thou art not far from the kingdom of God." Does this
seem a great thing or a little thing to be said to us? Does it give us a
notion of a height which we should think it happiness to have readied;
or of a state so little advanced, that it would be misery to be forced
to go back to it? For, according as it seems to us the one or the other,
so we may judge of the greater or less progress which we have made in
ascending the holy mountain of our God.

But while I say this, it is necessary to distinguish between two several
senses, in which we may be said to be near to the kingdom of God, or
actually in it. These two are in respect of knowledge, and in respect of
feeling and practice. And our Lord's words seem to refer particularly to
knowledge. The scribe to whom he used them, had expressed so just a
sense of the true way of pleasing God, had so risen above the common
false notions of his age and country, that his understanding seemed to
be ripe for the truths of that kingdom of God, which was to make the
worship of God to consist in spirit and in truth. Now as far as the
knowledge of the kingdom of God is concerned, although, undoubtedly,
there are many amongst us who are deficient in it, yet it is true also,
that a great many of us are in possession of it; we are familiar enough
with t