upreme desire, than by
commanding an ostentatious avoidance of the enjoyments of life. But
while the Gospel thus leaves men free to follow the bent of innocent
desires,--to decide, each for himself, what is lawful and expedient,--it
lays a powerful restraint on all the passions, and curbs all
propensities which are inconsistent with its purity and spirituality.
All worldly ambition, all selfish luxury are utterly incompatible with
the faith of the Gospel, which disallows every claim founded on itself
to distinctions of rank, to abundance of wealth, to power over the
possessions of other men, to the indulgence of earthly desires. The
Gospel affords no sanction to the accumulation of wealth, or to the
assumption of authority. It affords examples, on the contrary, of
submission to temporal authority, of the endurance of voluntary poverty
in hardship, not because poverty and hardship are in themselves
spiritually desirable, but because they were necessary to the attainment
of some benevolent end. From the Gospel we learn that Jesus utterly
disclaimed all pretensions to authority, except in those matters where
his authority was supreme. 'Who made me a judge or a divider over you?'
was his remonstrance with those who referred the disposal of an
inheritance to him: and his reply respecting the lawfulness of paying
tribute was such as ought to have obviated all doubt whether temporal
and spiritual power could ever be properly united; 'Render unto Caesar
the things that are Caesar's, and unto God the things that are God's.'
What could be meant by the declaration 'My kingdom is not of this
world,' but that his authority was of a spiritual nature only? Why did
he strenuously oppose every attempt to make him a king? Why did he send
forth the seventy disciples without gold and silver and changes of
raiment? Why did he recommend to the rich man to sell his possessions,
if wealth and power can be made the means of serving the interests of
the Gospel? Why was his indignation so perpetually roused by the
spiritual assumptions of the Pharisees, but because religion was in them
disgraced by its connexion with worldly greatness? Yet not a few
Christians have loved the chief seats in public assemblies, and homage
in the streets; not a few have made proclamation when they dispensed
their alms, and prayed in the high ways; not a few have taken on
themselves to appoint places in the Messiah's kingdom which the Messiah
himself refused to promise