al; that laws are limitations, the
spirit is free and the property of all men of all ages and climes; that
he was determined to drop everything which could retard his progress.

In the fifth place, and this was the worst, they could not forgive him
for preaching the theological kingdom of heaven. A kingdom of Israel--a
throne of David, a Davidian prince, a Zion and a Jerusalem in heaven,
and slavery, misery, and oppression on earth--was so new and foreign to
them, so contrary to what they had heard from their Master, that they
could not accept it. What should become of Peter's Messiah, of the hopes
and promises connected with the second advent, if all at once the whole
scheme is transported from earth to heaven? It was too much
disappointment, they could not endure it. Those men did not understand
that Paul had carefully to avoid every conflict with the Roman
authorities. He was too prudent to be crucified. They could not
comprehend that his great object was not to remove the evil at once; he
intended to sow the seed, to bring forth the plant; to give to the
heathens correct notions of God, duty, responsibility, purity, holiness,
morality, justice, humanity, and freedom, which in proper time should
necessarily break the chains, revolutionize the sentiments, and elevate
the views, hopes, aspirations, and designs of the nations.

They could not comprehend that their Messiah and kingdom of heaven,
together with his terrible message of the end of all flesh and the last
judgment day, were means, and nothing but means, to captivate and reform
the heathen. His Son of God was crucified and resurrected from the dead
to forewarn all of the approaching end of all flesh; to show that in a
little while all the dead should resurrect and the living should be
changed to spiritual beings. He had been given all power by the Almighty
to conduct the catastrophe of the world, and would be present at the
last judgment day. But after all that is over, the earth and man changed
to a new state of spiritual life, then the Son of God returns the
kingdom to the Father, and God will be again all in all. So the Son of
God was a general superintendent, the demiurge for the time being, a
doctrine of which the apostles had no knowledge, and to which they
could not give their consent. He could not get them to understand that
these were the means for the conversion of the Gentiles, and that he had
quite another gospel for the enlightened portion of the c