The Portland daily press., 1866-06-09
Sunday Reading.
From "Ecce Homo."]
Cnrlst's Royalty.

Cnr1sts Royalty
1t was the fatal. mistake of the most infu
entail body in the nation, that mixed BODY.
which is called the Scribes aud Pharisees. to
regard the Mosaic law as final and unaltera-
bic. They fell into the besetting sin of law
yers of all ages. Assuming, therefore, that
nothing remained for the Messiah to do i'm
legislation, they were driven to suppose that
he, too, like the ancient kings, would be but
an imperfect representation of the Supreme
King And so they were driven to conceive
him as occupied with administration or con-
quest, and had their dream been realized, the
Chrlst would have appeared in history far in
ferior to Moses.
On the other hand, Christ fixed his thoughts
solely on the greater and more fundamental
works OF a heroic royalty. He respected the
Mosaic legislation not less than his contempt
raries, but he deliberately proposed to himself
10 supersede it by new one, promulgated on
lis own authority. He undertook the part
rather of a second Moses than of a second
David, and though he declined to take cog
hlzance OF special legal cases that were sub
lnltted to him, we never find him refusing to
deliver judgment upon a general point of law.
But he went still deeper, and undertook
work yet more radical than that OF Moses,
Not only did he boldly announce that the
work done on Sinai was TO be done over again
by himself; but even the earlier and prm3ry
work of the Invisible King done in Ur of the
, Chaldees, the call which had brought the ma
ton into existence, he declared himself COM
missioned to repeat. In that proclamation,
the Kingdom of heaven is at hand" we have
hitherto seen only restoration of the ancient
theocracy, but closer consideration will show
us that the restoration was no mere resump-
ton of the old system at the point at which it
had been left of, !and in the original form but
re-commencement of the whole history from
the beginning; not revival of the old cove
nant, but new covenant, new election,
new legislation, new community. The
object of both calls was tn create a new socie-
ty, which should stand in peculiar relation
to God, and which should have legislation
different from and higher than that which
springs up in secular states. And from both
such society sprang; from the first, the ain
Gent Jewish theocracy; from the second, the
Christian Church.
When Christ declined the Office of civil
judge it does not follow that he declined all
judicial functions. OF the judgments OF Jeho-
yah we see that those pronounced by the mag
lstrate formed now but a small part: and in
declining these he took all others, the diviner
judgments, into his own hand. The fact ap-
pears upon the surface of our biographies. that
Christ, however carefully abstaining from the
function OF the civil magistrate, was yet con-
tinually engaged in passing judgments on
men. Some he assured OF forgiveness of
their sins; upon others he pronounced Sc
we're sentence. But in all cases he did SO in
style which plainly showed, SO as sometimes
to startle by its holiness those who heard,
that he considered the ultimate and highest
decision upon mems deeds, that decision to
which all the unjustly condemned at human
tribunals appeal, and which weighs not the
deeds only, but the motives, and temptations,
and ignorance, and all the complex conditions
of the deed-that he considered, in short,
heaven and he'll to be in his hand