required splendour, thy servants have such a high veneration for thee, they would expend all, they would spend and be spent in thy service! Nature and art in rich profusion, the architecture of Greece and the music of Italy, statues, vases, pictures, habits, the treasures of the East, and the refinements of the West, the spices of Arabia, the cabinets of antiquaries, the jewels of princes, the luxurious pomp of the most magnificent monarchs should adorn thy palace, and enrich thy thronebut-thy kingdom is not of this world.

Lastly, The church of Christ is not the seat of faction, it doth not resemble Cæsar's court. Faction for the universal despotism of one is conspiracy against the rights of all mankind. By such a faction Augustus had risen to empire, and had transmitted the iron rod of absolute dominion to one of his family less wary and more wicked than himself. Judea had been subdued, and was become, when Herod and Pilate ruled, a province of the empire. The riches and honours of the province were lavished on a few worthless creatures of the court, and they, amidst all their pomp and plunder, were always in fear of detection, so that when Jesus appeared surrounded with the multi tude they suspected (for they knew no higher motives than their own) they suspected, and exclaimed, sedition! He Stirreth up sedition! to quiet these imaginary fears they seized Jesus, and accused him before the governor. Art thou a king? said Pilate. I am a King, replied the prince of peace: but not such a King as you suppose. Mine

is moral dominion, which no weapons can obtain. The enemies I oppose are ignorance, pride, malice, avarice, and all other evil dispositions. My instruments of government are a few plain instructions, and my own perfect example of virtue. My end is answered, when the human soul is freed. The honours I bestow are, in this life, consciousness of rectitude, and prospect of immortal bliss, and in a future state pleasures for evermore. My kingdom is not of this world.

Were this doctrine properly understood, it would produce the most beneficial effects. You, Gentlemen, are bound to understand it in all its parts. Let us, then, distinguish the end of government from the means of governing. Every society is incorporated for some end, and every society pro poses means to obtain the end of its incorporation. In bad civil governments the end is dominion, in some over the property, in others over the liberty, in some over the consciences, in others over the lives of subjects, and in some over all these together. In such states, means are indifferent, and whatever promotes the end is proper; justice is out of the question. Learning or ignorance, virtue or vice, fraud or force, duplicity or sincerity, publick virtue or popular debauchery, christianity or paganism, each is a proper mean in different cases, and at different times, provided it obtains the end, dominion. The proper administrators of such a government ought not to be men of bad principles, for they would not use virtuous means, when virtuous means would operate, nor ought

they to be men of good principles, for they could not make use of vicious means, when vicious means would operate: but they ought to be men of no principles, prepared for every work, to swear or to violate an oath, to flatter or to frown, to form an alliance or to dissolve it, to protect or to destroy. Is the christian church, think you, a society incorporated for the end of acquiring dominion over mankind, and is the teacher sent from God the destroyer of principle? My kingdom is not a bad civil government, like some of this world.

In a commercial society, as in a trading company, the direct end of its incorporation is gain, and here again the virtues and vices of trade are only means employed to obtain the end. In a university incorporated by charter, and in an academy associated by choice, the direct end is human learning, and virtuous actions are interwoven in the constitution as just and proper means to obtain the end, literature. The christian church is not incorporated for either of these purposes; it is not a shop, in which religion is a trade; it is not a school in which men are taught to dispute and declaim. My kingdom is not to be degraded into a mere human society, constituted for the momentary purposes of this world.

The direct end of a good civil government, as the British, is civil liberty: yet even this end, noble as it is, is not the end of the constitution of the christian church. Had Jesus Christ intended to

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give us a perfect system of civil polity, he would have determined the best form of government, the rights of subjects and the prerogatives of princes, and so on but his kingdom is superior in its end and design, his views are far more extensive and noble than those of the best civil governments of this world.

What then is the direct end of the kingdom of Christ? It is, in general, moral excellence: It is, in particular, the production of the greatest truth and virtue, issuing in the utmost happiness to man, and the highest glory to God. No legislator of ancient Greece, no emperor of Rome, no republican senate, no assembly of nobles, no regal council, no magnanimous monarch ever proposed, or ever could propose the ennobling of the human mind, and the refinement of the heart as the ultimate ends of government. Thine, Lord Jesus! was the glory, the unrivalled glory of forming a kingdom not of this world, a kingdom formed to gratify the universal passion, the unquenchable thirst for immortal happiness in man!

The means instituted to obtain this end are not carnal, but mighty through God, they are the holy scriptures read and preached, the ordinaces of baptism and the Lord's supper, the interchanging of kind offices, all influenced by the blessed Spirit, in one word, copying the example of Christ, who is to his disciples both the gospel and the law.

Some of you, Young Gentlemen, will soon be called to exercise your ministry in some of our churches. Reduce, I beseech you, these peace

able principles to practice. Renounce all hidden things of dishonesty. Despise collusion and intrigue, fall into no faction under pretence of religion. Respect the man, who respects the rights of all mankind, and avoid him, who considers the images of God as beasts to be subdued and saddled, and ridden and slaughtered at pleasure. Enjoy the religious liberty allowed in this your native country, and inculcate all the social virtues, that contribute to the peace of society. Remember, you will be ministers of a religion not of this world, a religion which in this world exposes its disciples to sufferings, supportable only by a prospect of a world to come. Keep that prospect open, that world in perpetual view, and never forget, that the New Testament is not a code of human law, that, although you are Ministers of Christ, yet as ministers of Christ you are not empowered to meddle in secular affairs.

Give me leave to conclude with one caution relative to the general doctrine of the text, and one word applicable to your particular situation.

The doctrine of the text has been abused by two sorts of expositors. Your religion, say some, does not intermeddle with the affairs of this world. You, therefore, the disciples of it have nothing to do with secular matters. To you it ought to be indifferent whether your country enjoy liberty, or suffer despotism. You are subjects of a kingdom not of this world. Be content with the felicity of believing a future state, and imbibe for the present