The Kingdom of God is the Christian answer to the most vital question that man has to solve, the question of the purpose of his being. Our Saviour's teaching on the subject is closely connected with hopes and convictions in full currency at the time of his Advent on earth; but he so used these convictions and hopes as to give a new meaning to life, and to open a new direction to human aspiration and effort. The Kingdom of God in his hands is a many-sided conception; to do justice to it has been the problem set to his followers in the long and varied course of the Church's existence.... My fervent hope and prayer is that, whatever its faults, this volume of Lectures may do nothing to hinder, but by God's mercy may rather in some degree, however slight, set forward the Kingdom of Christ and of God. I would make my own the prayer of one of my predecessors: 'Domine Deus, quaecunque dixi de tuo, agnoscant et tui; si qua de meo, et Tu ignosce et tui.' from the Preface

This is volume two of a five volume effort, by one of History’s greatest commentator's on the Gospels. This work is written for one who does have a fluid knowledge of philosophy, not alone Thomas Aquinas. What this accomplishes is to provide a modern version of the Catena Aurea in today's verbiage and related issues, while in keeping with the flow and content of the original. It is not hard to admire St. Thomas Aquinas immovably caught in the splendor of a stained-glass window; it is easy to pay tribute to his Summa Theologica as long as it remains high on a bookshelf giving character to a library. Under these circumstances, we of the twenty first century can read about them both, talk about them enthusiastically, but pretty much leave them both alone. Aquinas is one who regardless of your placement on your spiritual journey. Aquinas is the basis for so much of what we have come to regard as dogma. This work is essential to not only understanding Aquinas’s other works, but also our own journey.

In the Commentatio the 22-year-old Kuyper not only describes Calvin’s and a Lasco’s concepts of the Church, but also discusses them in the light of the Gospel. The Commentatio marks the beginning of modern a Lasco studies. The work also offers the initial impetus for the idea with which Kuyper would later exert great influence on Dutch nation and society: the Church as a free, democratic society of Christians, which manifests itself as a living organism in all spheres of life. The text, which has never been published before, is accompanied by historical and philological introductions, annotations, and comprehensive registers, and throws surprising new light on the origins of Kuyper’s ideas. Moreover, this source edition is important for the study of nineteenth-century Reformation research.