work of thy hands: they shall perish, but thou remainest!" It seems as if the divine mind were concentrated—as if all the Deity were busied and intent-in the scene of redemption and the person of the Redeemer! It seems as if the Great Eternal could find no other medium in which he might pour out the whole treasury of his perfections, satisfy his infinite conceptions and desires, display and harmonize all his various attributes-his holiness, his justice, his mercy, and his love,-than Jesus Christ, "the power and the wisdom of God!" Here he shines in his complete and blended glory, at once the "just God," and the justifying Saviour of him that believeth in Jesus Christ. Here, doubtless, is presented an object the most glorious and delightful in the universe of God! There is reason to believe that, in a moral (that is, in the highest) point of view, the Redeemer, in the depth of his humiliation, was a greater object of attention and approbation, in the eye of his Father, than when he sat in his original glory at God's right hand; the one being his natural, the other peculiarly his moral elevation.

Encompassed by so great a cloud of witnessessummoned by so many powerful voices-let us all more earnestly than ever attend to this incomparable object so shall we be prepared for the trials of life, the agonies of death, the solemnities of the judgement, and the felicities of the eternal world; so shall we inherit the unsearchable treasures of grace and glory.

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XIV.

THE ADVANTAGES OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT, CONTRASTED WITH THE BLESSINGS OF THE SPI

RITUAL KINGDOM OF JESUS CHRIST.*

[PREACHED AT

BRIDGE-STREET MEETING, BRISTOL, SEPTEMBER, 1822, FOR THE BENEFIT OF THE LONDON MISSIONARY SOCIETY.]

2 SAM. vii. 16, 17.—Thine house and thy kingdom shall be established for ever before thee thy throne shall be established for ever. According to all these words, and according to all this vision, so did Nathan speak unto David.

THESE words, you are aware, are part of the message which the Lord addressed to David by the mouth of Nathan, at the time when David meditated the raising of a temple to the Lord. He was not indeed permitted to execute that design, but the Lord accepted him "according to all that was in his heart ;" and commissioned the prophet Nathan to assure him, that his throne and kingdom should be confirmed, without interruption or termination, to his lineal successors, without ever again suffering such an instance of the departure of divine favour as that which had occurred in the removal of the

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family of Saul from the throne: Thy throne shall be established for ever." This promise was verified to the successors of David in so extraordinary a manner, as compels us to regard their history as an

* Printed from the Notes of the Rev. Thomas Grinfield.

example of the particular intention and interposition of God's providence. The direct line of succession was preserved unbroken (with a single exception, that of Athaliah,* which was of short continuance,) in the house of David; and, while the history of the kings of Israel (after the separation of the ten tribes under Rehoboam's reign) becomes a subject of some perplexity by perpetual irregularities in the succession, it is remarkable that the kings of Judah succeed each other in perfect order, during a period of five hundred years. It is true, that during a long interval, from the captivity to the incarnation of our blessed Lord,—the throne of Judah, as well as that of Israel, fell into a state of deep decline and depression, so that the traces of its history are almost extinct: yet, still the house of David existed, it was still preserved and known;-the kingdom was in a state of abeyance-of suspended, not abolished, exercise and it was resumed and renewed, and improved into higher glories, in the person of Jesus Christ; the true, spiritual, substantial David; of whose kingdom (it cannot reasonably be doubted by any) that of David himself was at once a type and a part. The empire of Christ was the sequel and consummation of that which had originated in the son of Jesse; and hence our Saviour is so often styled the Son of David. The angel at his nativity announced him as "He who should be great, and should sit upon the throne of his father David, and of whose kingdom there should be no end;" while the evangelists, for the same reason, take pains to

2. Kings, chap. xi.

convince us that he descended from David by an exact genealogy. The perpetuity, so emphatically promised in the text and many other places, to the kingdom of David, immediately pointed to the everlasting reign of Messiah, to which alone that attribute could strictly belong.-Our Saviour inherited this empire, not in consequence of his essential divinity, but of his incarnation and his mediatorial undertaking. His divinity, of which I trust all present are deeply convinced, was a requisite indeed, but it was not (properly speaking) the cause of his receiving and exercising this spiritual dominion. Unless he had been a Person of the most Holy Trinity, it is evident he could not have sustained a sovereignty which requires universal knowledge and power but his Deity could not have been the reason of his sustaining it; or else the Father and the Holy Spirit, being each Divine, must have inherited this throne as well as the Son of God. If all power was committed to him, it was (as he declares) because he was the Son of Man.-Like the typical David, He approached and ascended to his throne, through much difficulty and suffering; he had to combat and conquer many and malicious enemies though, during his ministry on earth, he gathered about him a few friends and followers,— (as David had also done, amidst the persecutions of Saul,)—it was not until he had risen from the grave, and was ready to ascend to heaven, that he could use that triumphant language, "All power is given unto Me in heaven and in earth!" The commencement of his reign may be dated from his

resurrection, or from his session at the Father's right hand it was then the Father said, "Sit thou on my right hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool." Ever since that era, he has continued and advanced his empire; and (as the apostle observes), He must go on reigning until "he hath put all enemies under his feet."

In the following remarks, let me request your candid attention-first, to the principal advantages to be expected in a well-ordered government on earth; and, then, to the corresponding, and infinitely more important advantages, which may be enjoyed under the spiritual government of Jesus Christ.

1. The first and primary advantage expected from every well-constituted human government is security, and the sense of security. The depravity of our nature has introduced such a universal selfishness and rapacity among mankind in their natural state, that men in every age and country have been convinced of the expediency and necessity of attempting to organise some form of government for the purpose of their common security. While every individual is left to exert his own power as he chooses, none can be secure either in his property or person: it becomes absolutely indispensable, therefore, if men would escape the intolerable evils of such a state, to collect and embody this scattered and uncertain force of the many, in some public depositary of power: such a provision is necessary for the protection and preservation of every community. Hence almost all nations, even