i8 74 ] NEWMAN S THEORY OF PROPHECY 281 



His kingly word, which are strong enough and pure enough 

 to subdue all things under Him. 



(2) Now, I need not say that all these forces are summed 

 up in the one person of Christ, and that by His Spirit they 

 vivify every member of His body. Whoever has the 

 spirit of Christ is a member of the true theocracy ; for he 

 is equipped with strength from God to do a work for Him 

 in the world. That all will admit. But where, you ask, 

 is the theocracy as a whole ? To the existence of a state 

 belong not only citizens, but organisation. Now we have 

 seen that the present organisation of the theocracy is 

 not the organ of the visible Church. That is the organisa 

 tion of public worship and Christian ordinances, the 

 organisation by which a public and purely religious 

 testimony to God s grace is kept up ; but it is not the 

 organisation by which the world is subdued under Christ. 

 And the proof of it is that just in proportion as the Church 

 has striven to bring all the Christian work for Christ under 

 her outward organisation, the real work of bringing in 

 those that are without has always declined. 



Shall we then say that there are at present members 

 prepared for a future theocracy ; but that now the 

 Kingdom of God is suspended that the chosen people is, 

 as it were, in exile ? Far from it. Rather the Kingdom 

 of God, though its organism is now invisible even as the 

 King is invisible, is as truly and really existent among 

 men as Christ is truly with us always even to the end of 

 the world. Already in His sojourn among men, Christ 

 could say to the Pharisees that the Kingdom of heaven 

 was in their midst. And is not this much more true now ? 

 The Kingdom of God organised by His invisible providence, 

 preserved in oneness of plan and development by the 

 operation in all its citizens of the one Spirit of Christ, is 

 now upon earth and in our midst in a sense so far raised 

 above the highest point ever reached by the Old Testa 

 ment prophecies that even now we must acknowledge a 

 true fulfilment of the prophetic hopes. And if we will 



