The Christian ministry Author:Lyman Abbott Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: in the literature of other religions. In other words, the law, or man's duty to God, is defined in analogous terms in all religious literatures; the Gospel, or G... more »od's ministry to man, is peculiar to the Hebrew and Christian religions. It is not only distinctive, it is emphatic. Throughout their history the Hebrew people were taught by their religious teachers to look to the future for their Golden Age. This Golden Age they called " the theocracy," or " the kingdom of God." Their prophets told them that the time would come when the kingdom of God should be established on the earth and the will of God done here as it is done in heaven. This kingdom was portrayed in glowing colors. Education should be universal ; law should have its support in religion; war should cease, and the warring nations should beat their swords into ploughshares and their spears into pruning-hooks; the blind should see, and the lame should leap and walk; the very wild beasts of the forest should be transformed; the wolf should dwell with the lamb, and the leopard lie down with the kid, and the .sucking child play on the hole of the asp, and the earth be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the seas; and there should be new heavens and a new earth, and righteousness and praise should spring forth before all the nations. This kingdom of God was to be initiated by a Coming One, a Messenger of the Most High, a Servant who should be the Messiah,a world Deliverer. Sometimes the Nation is indicated as this Servant of God; sometimes a single person seems to be foretold; sometimes he is portrayed as King, sometimes as Prophet, sometimes as Crowned Sufferer.1 How these various prophecies are to be reconciled, or whether they can be reconciled, I do not stop here to discuss: I think myself they ar...« less