Unless we should write a full treatise on these antecedent institutions, we can not with propriety descend farther into details. The outlines, as far as subordinate to the theme of this essay, are now before the reader; and with this preparation we shall now invite his attention to,

      And why, an American will say, is it not called the Republic of Heaven, and the Chief called the President of a Celestial Republic? Certainly there were the Republics of Greece and Rome before the doctrine of this Kingdom was first promulged, and the Gentiles as well as the Jews could have understood the figure of a Republic as well as that of a Kingdom. It was not, then, because there was not in society a model or type of this sort; but because such a type would have been inapposite to the nature of this institution.

      History testifies that Republics are better adapted to peace than war, and that they are forced and unnatural organizations of society, Aristocracies and Republics owe all their attractions to the excessive corruptions of the governments under which they have originated. They are the reaction of force and fraud, of cruelty and oppression, and are sustained by the remembrance and apprehension of the evils which occasioned them. They have always been extolled and admired either in contrast with the vices and enormities of degenerate and profligate monarchies, or in the freshness of the recollections of the wrongs and outrages which occasioned them; and men have generally tired of them when they became corrupt and forgetful of the oppressions and crimes which forced them into being. So that the corruptions of Monarchies have given birth to Republics, and the corruptions of these have originated Monarchies again.

      In these last days of degeneracy Republics are great blessings to mankind, as good physicians are blessings in times of pestilence; but yet it must be confessed that it would be a greater blessing to be without plagues and doctors. While men are, however, so degenerate, and while selfishness and injustice are so rampant in society, republican officers are better than kings--because we can get rid of them sooner. They are, indeed, kings under another name, with a short-leased authority; and our experience fully demonstrates that in these degenerate days the reigns of our republican kings are nearly long enough. Till the King of kings comes, we Christians ought to be good republicans, under the conviction that human governments seldom [236] grow better, and that the popular doctrine of our country is truer--that political authority generally makes a man worse, and public favors almost invariably corrupt the heart. Rapid rotation in office is the practical influence of the republican theory; and the experiment proves that, brief as republican authority is, it is sometimes too long for republican virtue to sustain without deterioration. Now if this be true of republican virtue, the brightest and the best, what earthly virtue can long resist the contamination of long protracted authority?

      Monarchy is the only form of government, however, which nature recognizes. It was the first, and it will be the last. A government with three or thirty heads is a monster; and therefore the beast that represents it comes out of the sea with a plurality of horns as well as heads.

      The most approved theory of human nature and of human government now current wherever the English language is spoken, either in the Old World or in the New, is, that a monarchy would be always the best government, because the cheapest, the most efficient, and the most dignified; provided only, that the crown was always placed on the wisest head and the sceptre wielded by the purest hands. Could we always secure this we would all be monarchists; because we can not, we are all republicans.

      But after this apology for the phrase Kingdom of Heaven, we would recall the attention of the reader to the concession made by republicans themselves, that a kingdom is better adapted to a state of war, than a republic; and that this beautiful, because most appropriate figure, which occurs in the New Testament more than one hundred and fifty times, and very often in the Old, presupposes a state of war as existing in the universe. But for the reasons assigned in preference of monarchy, the natural government of the universe, always was, is, and evermore shall be monarchy. God himself is of necessity absolute monarch of the universe. Had he not essentially sustained that relation to all his creatures, there never could have been rebellion nor sin in his dominions. The systems of nature are all after this model. Every sun is a king over the system which it controls; and in every sphere there is one controlling and supreme principle. It will be the last government; for when the episode in the great drama of rational existence which sin occasioned, shall have been completed, the government of the universe will assume its ancient order, and God be supreme monarch again. But this will not be till Jesus gives up the kingdom to God, which a preternatural state of things put into his hands. This can not be till he has subdued man to his rightful allegiance, or destroyed forever every opponent to the absolute monarchy of the Eternal Supreme: "for Jesus must reign till all his enemies be put under his feet." [237]

      The kingdom which Jesus has received from his Father, however heavenly sublime, and glorious it may be regarded, is only temporal. It had a beginning, and it will have an end; for he must reign only till all enemies are put under his feet. But the transition of the sceptre into the hands of Emanuel has not changed the nature of the government. He is now the hereditary Monarch of the universe, as well as the proper King of his own kingdom. He now reigns as absolutely over all principalities, hierarchs, and powers, celestial and terrestrial, as did the great God and Father of the universe, before he was invested with the regal authority.

      We have said it was a preternatural state of things which originated the kingdom of Jesus: therefore the object of this remedial reign is to destroy that preternatural state of things, or to put down sin. Now as all human governments presuppose disorder, and as the kingdoms of this world generally have arisen out of confusion and war, this kingdom of heaven of which we are to speak owes its origin to the celestial and terrestrial apostacies--the revolt of Satan and of Adam. Were there not injustice within, or violence without, civil government would be wholly unnecessary, and its appendages an excrescence upon society. Had there not been such a revolt and rebellion as sacred history records, there would have been no such kingdom of heaven as that over which Jesus the Messiah now presides. Now as both this King and kingdom, and all that appertains to them, were occasioned by such a preternatural state of things, we must view them in all their attributes and details, with reference to those circumstances which called them into being.

[A. C.]      

Source:

Alexander Campbell. "The Kingdom of Heaven." The Millennial Harbinger Extra 5 (August 1834): 400-403.

[MHA1 236-238]