Again, I would remind you that Stillwater's Revival Books website is www.swrb.com. There are classic Reformation, Puritan, Covenanter, and homeschooling resources free and at great discounts, both on that website or available through Stillwater's Revival Books. You may write us at 4710-37A Avenue, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, T6L3T5. And be sure to ask to be put on our email super special list with even more amazing discounts on Reformed materials. Another passage of scripture often quoted on this subject is 2 Corinthians 10.4. The weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds. That the weapons which belong to the church or ministers and members as such are not carnal, what Presbyterian does not allow? If we pleaded for the substitution of carnal weapons in the place of these, or for the employment of them by magistrates for the same purposes and ends, if we pleaded for their being used as a means adapted to the conversion of sinners or spiritual edification, and that the gospel ought to be propagated and religion imposed upon men by force, there would be a propriety in urging such texts. In a footnote he says, These texts, says Mr. Wilson, are grossly perverted by some beyond their scope. For seeing our Lord in other plain texts approves of the magistrates using his power for the good of the church, it was not his design to condemn it in these texts in the least. Nor can any just inference be made from them to this purpose, seeing the magistrate's acting in his sphere for the Church's good is in no way inconsistent with the spirituality of Christ's kingdom. For we do not at all plead for the magistrate's power to be employed by methods of force and violence to set up Christ's spiritual and internal kingdom in men's hearts, or to oblige men's consciences to receive his laws, as the kings of this world do force their conquered subjects to receive and obey theirs. No, this spiritual kingdom of Christ is set up in the souls and consciences of men by means and weapons of a spiritual nature, as the Apostle tells us in 2 Corinthians 10, by the preaching of the gospel and working of the Spirit of God therewith. Returning to the text. But besides those means which are properly spiritual and which conduce directly to the promotion of spiritual land, there are others of an external kind which tend to promote the more free, convenient, extensive, and permanent use of the spiritual means. Money, for example, is not adapted to convert or edify the souls of men, but it is necessary and useful for building churches and supporting religious ordinances. Civil authority belongs to this class of means. To represent it as inconsistent with those of the former kind is as great an absurdity as to confound it with them. It may be lawfully employed in defending and maintaining externally the kingdom of Christ, in securing the rights and privileges of particular churches, in removing external hindrances or molestations, and providing those things which are necessary to the use of the spiritual means. There is no more reason for saying that the Apostle condemns any of these things than there is for saying that he forbids the use of civil power for defending the church from violence, because, he has said, the weapons of our warfare are not carnal. There is one objection which we have left for consideration in a separate section, as it is generally urged as totally aversive of the magistrate's power about religion, and from the vague and ambiguous manner in which it is usually proposed requires elucidation. This is liberty of conscience, or the right which all men are said to have to act in religious matters according to the dictates of their own judgment and conscience. The Synod, in their new testimony, have often introduced this liberty. They blame the Reformers for not paying due attention to it, they disclaim all obligation from the solemn league to do anything inconsistent with it, and they teach it as a principal duty of magistrates to secure men in the full enjoyment of it. But there is only one place in which they have given a formal statement of their sentiments on the subject. Quote, a liberty of worshipping God, they say, in the way which they judge agreeable to his will is a right common to all men. They may and often do err and offend the Most High God by substituting a false worship in the place of that which he requires, but no power on earth may take their right from them. Yet this cannot be pleaded in behalf of principles or practices obviously hurtful to civil society, still less in behalf of those which are subversive of it. Therefore, the civil magistrate does not go beyond the duty of his office when he punishes such practices or restrains the propagation of such principles." As we do not propose here to enter into an argumentative discussion of this subject, we shall merely state the following propositions, which may serve to remove some of the ambiguities with which it is often involved, and set aside the force of the objection, which is urged from it against the lawful exercise of authority in such matters. First, the liberty and rights of men admit of a different consideration, according to the law or authority to which they are viewed as relating, as divine or as human. And, with reference to human authority, there is a difference, as it is political or ecclesiastical. Absolute, uncontrollable liberty is not the right of men in any of these respects. If we view men as in a state of society and as religious and rational beings, it is absurd to suppose that everyone has a right to act as he pleases or as his own mind may dictate in all matters, whether religious or moral, without being subject to restraint from the common authority. To assert the right of men to think and act as they please without respect to the moral law and without being responsible to God would be atheistical. And to suppose that men who are subject to a divine law, natural or revealed, are exempted from blame in everything which they do agreeably to their judgment and conscience would be to deny a fixed rule of good and evil superior to man, would make conscience the ultimate standard of their actions and render errors and crimes in such cases innocent. We do not suppose that this is meant in the doctrine of the synod, although the general sentiment advanced by them is couched in such loose and unguarded expressions as may lead to such an inference, and is an adoption of the language of those who, in this controversy, have vindicated that dangerous tenet. The rights of conscience in the present controversy immediately respect the avowed sentiments and practices of men in religious matters with reference to political government and external restraints. The internal or, as they are called, illicit acts of the mind, no human authority can take cognizance of or restrain. These are subject to the control of God alone. Nor can human authority certainly distinguish between what is really maintained or done from the persuasion of conscience and what is not. The plea in foro humano must be of equal force, whether it be real or pretended. 4. All rights among men imply correspondent obligations and duties. All just rights are to be respected and preserved, inviolate. In this respect, the obligations and limitations of civil and ecclesiastical authority agree, and the condemnation of unwarrantable hindrance or restraint applies to both. although they differ as to the extent of their care and authority about religious matters and restraint in different ways. Ecclesiastical authority may be, and often has been, guilty of violating and unwarrantedly restraining the rights, private judgment, and liberty of men in these matters, as well as that authority which is civil. 5. Under the expression, a liberty of worshiping God in the way in which they judge agreeable to His will, must be included both opinions and practices, and the right pleaded must apply to these and all the different modifications according to what men may account religion or which puts on that guise and pretext. It must comprehend whatever is substituted in the room of genuine religion, be it idolatry, superstition, fanaticism and corrupt Christianity on the one hand, or on the other skepticism, infidelity, indifference, contempt of all public worship, etc. It is vain to attempt to veil or deny the extent of the principle. To confine the right to the simple acts of worship is absurd as well as inconsistent with the new scheme. To limit it to those who worship according to the scriptures is ridiculous when it is declared to be a right common to all men. The principle exempts men from cognizance and restraint in all matters respecting religion. It must exempt those who choose to live in ignorance of religion, or who act from hatred or aversion to it, from a spirit of licentiousness and profanity, and against light and knowledge, as well as those who act for motives of conscience and duty. And for one of the latter sort there will be found ten of the former among mankind at large. It is thus a screen for ignorance and irreligion, as well as for conscientious errors. 6. The rights of conscience, even when the plea may be real and credible, are not the same, either in a political or ecclesiastical view, when urged on the side of truth and duty, and when employed in behalf of sentiments and conduct which are opposite to both, and injurious to social interests and rights which authority is bound chiefly to preserve. When acting in behalf of truth and in the way of duty, persons have peculiar claims which they can urge in any court and which are entitled to regard from any authority. These cannot be prejudicial to the public good, or encroach upon the just rights of either civil or ecclesiastical rulers. It is otherwise with falsehood and corruption in religion, which as they are always hurtful to the individual, so they often prove highly detrimental to society. 7. Liberty of conscience and the powers which God hath ordained do not destroy one another. See the Westminster Confession of Faith, Chapter 20, Section 4. By the law of God and of reasonable society, due regard must be paid to mutual rights. They must be balanced and adjusted so as to harmonize and conspire to the public good. In cases where they may appear jarring and incompatible, some subordination and limitation may be necessary, and the primary and superior must have the preference. Societies have rights as well as individuals. The due exercise of public authority, ecclesiastical or civil, in defending, promoting, settling and supporting religion does not imply a denial of the right of private judgment or private liberty, but only a regulation and subordination of them in society as the very nature and rules of it require. It implies no necessity of believing, no imposition upon conscience. 9. The rights of conscience, and of acting according to private judgment, and things moral and religious, with reference to political government, cannot be determined without at the same time determining the rights of government. From the knowledge of the nature, ends, extent, and rights of the latter, must the former be ascertained, in subordination to the law of God, by which both must be regulated. Opposite rights cannot exist together, but must destroy one another. To suppose that the magistrate has a right to interfere with religion, and yet that every man in society has a right to act in every respect as he judges right in this matter, is absurd. Therefore, number 10, roundly to assert that no power on earth, even understanding it of secular and coercive power, can take cognizance of, or restrain, to a certain degree, any above doctrines or practices of a religious kind which are agreeable to man's conscience, is only a begging of the question and dispute, as it denies that the care and authoritative maintenance of religion is a duty of the civil magistrate, and implies that matters of this kind fall not within his province. If they in any manner pertain to his office, or affect the objects and interests committed to his care, they must be insofar subjected to the regulations of law and the restraints of administration, without respect to the internal principle from which the external acts may proceed. The Synod are obliged to allow this, insofar as the existence or mere secular interests of society are concerned. For, after saying, no power on earth may take their right from them, they add, yet this cannot be pleaded in behalf of principles or practices obviously hurtful to society, still less in behalf of those which are subversive of it. " But these principles and practices may be such as men judge agreeable to God's will, and reckon themselves bound in conscience to publish and persist in. Yet the Senate allow that the civil magistrate justly punishes such practices or restrains the propagation of such principles. Thus they infringe upon and admit of exceptions to the uncontrollable rights of conscience, so that it is no universal rule, and by parity of reason it is of as little force to restrain lawful authority in other acts beyond these admitted, if they also are competent unto him. The objection from liberty of conscience is thus dropped, and the controversy resolves into the question whether civil authority is confined merely to the secular interests of society, or if the public maintenance and support of religion is not an important branch of the duty of magistrates. And this question we have examined in the preceding section. 11. The doctrine of the Synod does not secure persons from persecution on account of religion. They are obliged to admit that those in authority are the proper judges of what may be necessary for the welfare of society and what may injure its peace and security. A judgment about religious opinions and practices is in this way conceded to them, in the exercise of which matters of this kind may be as much brought under their power as by the common doctrine of Protestants, and by the abuse of which the rights of conscience are as fully and immediately exposed to be injured and all severities and modes of political persecution may be practiced as on the other hypothesis. Upon this principle, worshipping assemblies may be shut up or restrained, ministers silenced or ministerial liberty abridged, ecclesiastical courts dissolved or prohibited, the freedom of the press forbidden, and those who, from conscience and duty, transgress these arbitrary laws exposed to fines, imprisonment, and death. These are not mere conjectures or suppositions. Those who are acquainted with the history of persecution know that the most severe and sanguinary examples of it in our own and other countries have been vindicated upon this principle, and that those engaged in carrying them on have refused that they restrain or punish men for their religious opinions and practices as such, but because these were injurious to the peace of society and dangerous to existing governments. We know that the Presbyterian Church, with her courts and discipline, has become the object of political jealousy and been represented as dangerous to government and the peace of society. And in such representations, the warm partisans of toleration and liberty of conscience have joined with persons of a different stamp. Those rulers who consider only the secular interests of society, and to whom religion may be a matter as indifferent in their private character as we are now taught it is foreign to them in their public character, will regard infidels and persons who despise all religion, but who can comply with and forward all their measures as good and peaceable members of society, While those who fear God may become the objects of jealousy and restraint because they condemn public evils, alarm, dispirit, or distract the nation by denouncing national judgments or inculcating national reformation, particularly if they shall add to all this the dangerous heresy of teaching that it is the duty of rulers, as they would wish to escape the vengeance of heaven, to support religion and suppress reigning impieties. 12. The doctrine of the Synod on this head is chargeable with giving a license to sin. We do not found this charge on the supposition that the laws of men directly affect the conscience or constitute the formal nature of sin or duty, nor upon the supposition that the authority of rulers reaches to all external actions of men which are morally evil. But to give a liberty to men to commit things known and acknowledge to be evil, which ought to be prohibited or restrained by punishment in the state or censure in the church, and to teach or grant this under the notion of a right, is, insofar, a license to sin, a virtual dispensation with the law of God, by discarding lawful authority and loosing the obligation to just laws among men. Those who teach that men have a liberty to do anything that is sinful without being liable to be controlled by just laws are chargeable with proclaiming a liberty to sin, although they should at the same time teach that they would offend God by so doing. The exercise of authority and laws is appointed by God as a means of preventing the spread of iniquity in the world. It must therefore be criminal in any to proclaim a liberty or exemption from these in anything which falls under their cognizance. The Synod have proclaimed a liberty and right to all men to act in all matters concerning religion, in the exercise of which they may openly offend the Most High without being liable to control or punishment from any power on earth, except merely for such opinions and practices as are, quote, obviously hurtful to society and interests only secular. They have given the liberty to men to vent and propagate all blasphemies, declaring that the magistrate ought not to interpose the sword, or use the authority committed to him by God, for the suppression of these or similar evils, but is restricted to the employment of advice and example. " Is not this, upon the matter, to declare all the laws which have been made and are yet in existence for restraining such offenses, to have no moral force? and to release the consciences of men from their obligation. This is not to lift up a standard against iniquity when it has come in like a flood. It is, rather, to remove the barriers which have been already planted to impede its progress, and to open the sluices that it may overflow and deluge the earth. Although civil and ecclesiastical society do not take cognizance of religion in the same manner, to the same extent, and for the same purposes, yet the general principle respecting the liberty and rights of conscience affects both, and would vindicate a general toleration and license in the church as well as the state. We do not suppose that it was the design of the Synod to apply the principle to ecclesiastical authority and restraints, but it is the tendency of the principle and reasoning with which we have to do. And if any person seriously considers the topics of argument which are usually brought forward, and insisted upon respecting private judgment and the rights of conscience, he must perceive that they are either altogether impertinent and inapplicable to the subject, or else that they apply to all other kinds of human authority, as well as civil, that their tendency is to set aside all public judgment and restraint in such matters, and to make religion an affair entirely of personal and individual concern, in which every man does what is right in his own eyes. This has also been the gradual operation of the principle. After being urged against the exercise of civil authority in religious matters, it has been employed against church authority. It is well known that this use was made of it by the sectarians in England during the time of the Commonwealth, with whom the doctrine of liberty of conscience was the most darling tenet. It was revived by the dissenters in England and Ireland near the beginning of the late century, who employed the most favored topics of modern declamation as to dictate into consciences, depriving men of the right of private judgment, etc., and pleading exemption from human tests of orthodoxy and the restraints of church authority with respect to opinions which they judged agreeable to Scripture. In our own time, we have abundant evidence of a similar operation of the same principle. That ends the selection from Thomas McCree's book, Statement of the Difference Between the Profession of the Reformed Church of Scotland as Adopted by Seceders and Profession Contained in the New Testimony and Other Acts. We will now go on to another selection in this compilation published by Stillwater's Revival Books. Again, the name of the compilation is Church and State, the Biblical View. We will go on to a selection from Messiah the Prince by William Symington, published 1884. Welcome to a reading of selections from Messiah the Prince by William Symington, published 1884. This is part of the book, Church and State, The Biblical View, published by Stillwater's Revival Books and read by W. J. Mankaro. We begin with Chapter 8 from Messiah the Prince, The Mediatorial Dominion Over the Nations. It was before remarked that under the universal dominion of Messiah are comprehended two grand associations, the peculiar importance of which seem to render necessary a more full and separate discussion of each. These are the church and civil society. To the former, some attention has been given in the preceding chapter. We now take up the latter. The matter here is the headship of Jesus as mediator over the nations of the world or the political associations of men. Besides its own intrinsic importance, this branch of our subject demands attention from the neglect with which it has long been treated, from the opposition it has had to encounter, and from its intimate connection with questions which are fiercely agitated from time to time. Let us first of all look at the evidence in support of Christ's right of dominion as mediator over the nations of the earth. His mediatorial authority over the Church is readily conceded. Nor is there any hesitation to admit that Christ as God exercises a sovereign control over the civil affairs of men. But that he does so in his mediatorial capacity seems not to approve itself so directly to the minds of many. Yet a candid consideration of the proof which we have in our power to bring forward cannot fail, we think, to remove every shadow of doubt in this subject. Indeed, the point in question might be argued on other than direct scripture testimony. It might be argued on the ground that Christ's investiture with mediatorial dominion does not suppose the abrogation of his necessary right of dominion as God. As before remarked, in assuming the office of mediator, he did not divest himself of anything belonging to him as divine. His moral authority over all creatures being essential to his very existence and character never was and never indeed could be laid aside. His moral fitness to exercise such dominion might also be insisted on. The terms of absolute universality, as formerly shown, in which the mediatorial dominion is spoken of in the word of God, further imply what we have now in view. For if all things are delivered to him of his Father, if all power is given to him in heaven and in earth, if all things are put under his feet, it is not easy to see on what principle anything so vast and important as the civil associations of mankind could be accepted. Nay, the necessity of such an extent of mediatorial power as includes the nations of the world, to his performing with efficiency the functions which belong to him as head of the church, is enough to set this question forever at rest. Without such extent of power, he could never open up a way for the diffusion of his gospel among the nations of the earth, could never either subordinate their administration or overrule their rebellion, so as to bring about the period when the kingdoms of this world should become the kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ. But, without insisting on these points in regard to which the evidence is of an inferential nature, let us give our attention to the direct proof by which the dominion of Christ as mediator over the nations is supported. By nations, of course, we mean civil associations, men existing in civil or political institutions, including the office-bearers by whom the laws are administered, as well as the people at large for whose good they are appointed to govern. In looking into the Word of God, we find subjection to Jesus Christ as mediator directly enjoined upon civil rulers. Scripture says, Be wise now, therefore, O ye kings. Be instructed, ye judges of the earth. Serve the Lord with fear, and rejoice with trembling. Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and ye perish from the way, when his wrath is kindled but a little. The person to whom subjection is here enjoined is doubtless the Messiah. The Son is a title by which the Redeemer is often designated both in the Old and the New Testaments. If Solomon, the son of David, is referred to at all, it can only be in a very subordinate sense. We are at no loss to show that a greater than Solomon is here, even he who was at once David's son and David's Lord, the son of David according to the flesh, but the Son of God by a high, necessary, and ineffable relationship. Again and again throughout the New Testament do we find passages from this psalm referred to Christ. One may here suffice for the establishment of this point. And when they heard that, they lifted up their voice to God with one accord, and said, Lord, thou art God, which hast made heaven and earth, and the sea, and all that in them is, who by the mouth of thy servant David hast said, Why did the heathen rage, and the people imagine vain things? The kings of the earth stood up, and the rulers were gathered together against the Lord and against his Christ. For of the truth against thy holy child Jesus, whom thou hast anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles and the people of Israel, were gathered together, for to do whatsoever thy hand and thy counsel determined before to be done." Acts 4 verses 24-27. The psalm then refers to Christ. But does it refer to Him in His mediatorial capacity? There can be as little doubt, we think, on this point, if only the scope of the psalm itself and the purposes for which it is elsewhere quoted are considered. The opposition of which it speaks is opposition made to him as mediator, as the Lord's anointed, as he whom the Father has set king upon his holy hill of Zion, in the same capacity, in short, in which he is to have the heathen given him for his inheritance and the uttermost parts of the earth for his possession. And on whom is it that the psalm enjoins subjection to the mediator king? On kings and judges, that is to say, civil rulers, supreme and subordinate. But is it civil rulers in their personal or in their official capacity? There are some who evade the force of this passage by alleging that it is only in their private character that they are here addressed. But this is contrary alike to the whole scope and design of the psalm, and to the concurrent testimony of the most judicious commentators. Indeed, we have only to consider in what capacity it was that the opposition spoken of was offered to the sun by civil rulers. It was in their public character, undoubtedly, that Herod and Pontius Pilate conspired against the holy child Jesus, and we are only acting on the plain principles of fair interpretation when we conclude that it is in their public and official character also that civil rulers are here commanded to do homage to the Redeemer, that kings and judges are required as such to serve the Lord with fear and to kiss the sun lest he be angry. Nor can there be a doubt that the duties to which the terms in which these injunctions are expressed refer involve the idea of a complete moral subjection, the subjection that inferiors owe to a superior, that subjects owe to a king, such is the common meaning of the verb to serve as well as the sense in which it is often used in Scripture. And one passage will be sufficient to show that to kiss is expressive of loyal subjection to a reigning prince. 1 Samuel 10.1 Then Samuel took a vial of oil and poured it upon his head, Saul's head, and kissed him, and said, Is it not because the Lord hath anointed thee to be captain over his inheritance? Here then we have a most decided, unequivocal proof of the right of dominion over the nations of the earth which is possessed by the mediator. For, had not such been his right, it is inconceivable that the Spirit of God should have enjoined subjection to him upon all civil rulers without exception, whether supreme or subordinate, whether belonging to Old or to New Testament times. We have here a command of universal and permanent obligation. And while it retains its place in the word of God, it will be impossible to deny the dominion which Jesus as Mediator possesses over the nations of the earth and their rulers. Predictions respecting the kingdom of the mediator conduct us to the same conclusion. Predictions in general unfold the purposes and appointments of God. Whatever, therefore, we find predicted regarding Christ must be included in the grant of the Father to the Son. Now, dominion over the nations is a matter of frequent announcement in prophecy. The 47th Psalm is understood to refer to the Messiah, His exaltation to glory. The gathering of the Gentiles and the ultimate establishment of his kingdom of righteousness and peace form the subject of this beautiful ode. The ascension of the Redeemer is plainly referred to in the expression, God has gone up with a shout, the Lord with the sound of a trumpet. Nor can it be doubted from this circumstance itself that it is in his official and not his personal character that he is spoken of throughout the psalm. Now mark the expressions which are employed with regard to his dominion. He is described as a great king over all the earth, as he who shall subdue the people under us and the nations under our feet, as he who reigneth over the heathen, as he to whom the princes of the people are gathered together, even the people of the God of Abraham, as he to whom belong the shields of the earth. These are not equivocal expressions. The nations and their princes are distinctly specified as brought under his control and as doing him homage, which certainly imply a right of dominion over them, while magistrates who are set for the defense of the people are undoubtedly meant by the shields of the earth, which are said to be his property. The 72nd Psalm is, by universal consent, referred to Christ. In only a very inferior or subordinate sense can it be understood of Solomon. To whom but David's greater son can its lawfully descriptions be applicable? Of whom but the Messiah can it be affirmed that his name shall endure forever, that man shall be blessed in him, and that all nations shall call him blessed? We may rest assured that the psalm celebrates the majesty, benignity, and dominion of Jesus as mediator, with the glory, peacefulness, extent, and duration of his kingdom. Now observe how many things are contained in it bearing on our present subject. The kings of Tarshish and of the Isles shall bring presents, the kings of Sheba and Seba shall offer gifts. Yea, all kings shall fall down before him, all nations shall serve him, all nations shall call him blessed. No language can more directly assert the doctrine for which we are contending. The mediator as such is spoken of. Kings and nations are expressly introduced in their civil capacity as recognizing His dominion, and the acts of homage in which they are represented as engaging are such as necessarily involve the idea of distinct moral subjection, namely bringing presents, offering gifts, falling down before Him, serving Him, and calling Him blessed. He who is the legitimate object of such acts must possess a rightful dominion over the nations and kings of the earth. Isaiah 49 verses 22 and 23 say, Thus saith the Lord God, Behold, I will lift up mine hand to the Gentiles, and set up my standard to the people. And they shall bring thy sons in their arms, and thy daughters shall be carried upon their shoulders. And kings shall be thy nursing fathers, and their queens thy nursing mothers. They shall bow down to thee with their face toward the earth, and shall lick up the dust of thy feet. This is a very decisive passage. The prophecy refers to New Testament times, when the Gentiles are to be gathered unto the Redeemer. A prominent feature of these times shall be the subserviency of civil rulers to the Church, which surely supposes their subjection to Christ her Head. Kings shall be thy nursing fathers is a similitude which imports the most tender care, most enduring solicitude not mere protection, but active and unwearied nourishment and support. If, according to the opinions of some, the best thing the state can do for the Church is to let her alone, to leave her to herself, to take no interest in her concerns, it is difficult to see how this view can be reconciled with the figure of a nurse, the duties of whose office would certainly be ill discharged by such a treatment of her feeble charge. But to neutralize the force of this beautiful passage, it has been alleged that rulers are here spoken of not in their public or official, but in their private or personal capacity. It is supposed to mean nothing more than that persons of exalted station shall become the devoted servants of Messiah and take a deep and pious interest in the concerns of his kingdom. And this view is understood to be confirmed by the pronoun there, occurring before the word queens, denoting, as it is alleged, that they are spoken of not as Queen's regent, but as Queen's consort. It is, however, far from being self-evident that Queens are spoken of here in the latter capacity, for every candid person will admit that the very same phraseology might as naturally be employed in speaking of Queen's regent in relation to their husbands as of King's regent in relation to their wives. It is therefore not by any means clear that queens are here to be understood as consorts only. Nor, even admitting this, will the inference follow from it legitimately that the kings are to be understood merely in their private, domestic capacity as consorts of the queens, when in countries Where there is a married king, the subjects pray for the blessing of God and their king and his queen, as they are in the habit of doing. The queen is, of course, queen consort, but it certainly cannot be supposed that because her partner can only be viewed as associated with him in her private capacity, they do not refer to the monarch himself in his official capacity. Even admitting, then, for the sake of argument, the interpretation proposed with regards to queens, that they are only referred to as consorts, The inference drawn with regard to kings does not follow. It does not follow that kings are referred to only in their private capacity. The kings may still, after all, be king's regent. And the utmost that the passage can be made to bear is that both kings and queens, whether regent or consort, are bound to exert all the influence they possess in their own proper spheres to aid and foster the interests of Christ's kingdom in the world. Because Queen's concert can do this only in their own proper sphere, it surely does not follow that King's regent and their proper sphere are not also bound to do the same. On the contrary, the prediction before us leads us to conclude that in the times of the gospel, persons of the most exalted public station shall exert their influence on behalf of the Church of Christ. And this certainly supposes the subjection of such to Christ himself. The same view is strongly corroborated by another passage in this prophecy. Quoting again from Isaiah 40 verses 11, 12, and 16, Therefore thy gates shall be opened continually. They shall not be shut day nor night, that men may bring unto thee the forces of the Gentiles, and that their kings may be bought. For the nation and kingdom that will not serve thee shall perish. Yea, those nations shall be utterly wasted. Thou shalt also suck the milk of the Gentiles, and shalt suck the breast of kings." Here there cannot be the shadow of a doubt about the sense in which kings are spoken of. The pronoun there in this instance, at least, is decidedly in favor of the view that they are to be regarded in their public capacity. They are spoken of as the people's kings, or kings in the possession and exercise of official power and influence. In this capacity they are represented as ministers to the church of Christ in various ways. Nor is the passage less decisive that it comprehends a threat of awful judgment denounced on such nations and rulers as shall refuse to yield the service required. Surely, unless civil society had been placed under the dominion of the mediator, there could have been no room for supposing either that such duties are obligatory or that such consequences shall follow the neglect of them. Ezekiel, chapter 45, verse 17 says, And it shall be the Prince's part to give burnt offerings, and meat offerings, and drink offerings, in the feasts, and in the new moons, and in the Sabbaths, in all solemnities of the house of Israel." The remarkable prophetic vision with which these words are connected is, we believe, held by all judicious commentators to refer to the Church in New Testament times. Without pretending minutely to explain the import of all the figurative allusions, the words we have quoted would seem plainly enough to carry in them the idea that the civil ruler is to give public support to the institutions of the Church of Christ, which, as in the case of the passages above quoted, necessarily implies that magistrates, as such, are under the authority of the mediator. And I saw in the night visions, and behold, one like the Son of Man came with the clouds of heaven, and came to the Ancient of Days, and they brought him near before him. And there was given him dominion, and glory, and a kingdom, that all people, nations, and languages should serve him." The reference of this passage to Christ will not be doubted. The eternal Son of God, viewed with regard to His human nature and mediatorial character, is He who is called the Son of Man. The power spoken of is clearly mediatorial, as it is said to be given him. It is also universal, including all nations, of whom it is predicted that they should serve him, which certainly supposes the possession of rightful authority over them. Our website is www.swrb.com. Classic Reformation, Puritan, Covenanter, and homeschooling resources free and at great discounts. Our address is 4710 37A Avenue, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, T6L 3T5. As for our complimentary discount catalog containing Calvinist materials, if you do not already have it, and to be put on our email super special list.