But to thee, O Father of light, from whose bosom the light of the world descended to us, thou who in that hour of night, when the angels announced Jesus Christ to be born, madest the hour of illumination break forth for all times and nations; to thee be its dominion henceforward committed in fervent prayer! Banish with thy divine power the clouds which overshadow it, and throw down the bulwarks of darkness which tower against it, and make the bounds of the kingdom of light, which he founded with thy mighty aid, from year to year wider and more comprehensive, and lead us all hereafter from the shade and obscurity of this earth into the everlasting empire of light. Amen. SERMON XVII. THE SPIRITUAL KINGDOM OF CHRIST. JOHN Xviii. 36. Jesus answered, My kingdom is not of this world. My devout hearers! as long as Jesus, our Lord, lived on the earth, the erroneous opinion was constantly entertained by his disciples, that he would establish an earthly kingdom, and that they would rule in it together with him. This supposition, according to their Jewish prejudices, was so intimately interwoven with their hope of a deliverer of Israel, that neither the lowliness and unassuming humility of our Saviour's life, nor the nature of his doctrines and precepts, could entirely divest them of it. Jesus bore this weakness also of his chosen witnesses with patience. He knew that hereafter they would have quite different notions of the object of his mission, and that the trust they reposed in him would purify them from all hopes of an earthly sovereignty, which they still so much che rished. And especially the event, of which they were witnesses soon after his resurrection, must have this effect. By his removal from the earth their thoughts and hopes must now at once receive another direction. Other and higher expectations must arise, since he whom they honoured as their Master had quitted the earth. A similar effect must the remembrance of the ascension of our Saviour produce in us all. And since the dominion of Jesus is still in various ways assimilated to an earthly dominion, I will endeavour on this Festival to shew how little there is in common between them. The words of the text afford the best guide on this occasion. They contain the answer, which our Saviour gave to his judge Pilate, when he had questioned him, if he were the King of the Jews. Jesus replied, that he certainly was the head of a kingdom, but that this kingdom was of quite another nature and quality from that of earthly empires. "My kingdom is not of this world;" and he immediately adds a proof, which might convince the Roman governor, that he had never aimed at obtaining an earthly sovereignty: "If my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight, that I should not be delivered to the Jews, but now is my kingdom not from hence." Of what kind is it then? What power, what dominion, what government is it, which was allotted to Jesus Christ by the will of God? and which he |