altogether wrong in indulging such a desire after earthly distinctions; and that, if they would affect supe- riority at all, the only ambition that became them was to excel in works and labours of love. This, which we may call legitimate ambition, he illustrated in a way,
I. Of contrast —
The men of this world affect and exercise a lordly authority —
[Kings are rarely content with the measure of power with which they are invested by the laws, but are for the most part desirous of extending their prerogative ; and not uncommonly they imagine, that they themselves are exalted, in proportion to the degree of power that they are able to exert. Nor does it in general suffice them to govern their own subjects: they too often wish to interfere with other potentates, and to con- troul the acts of other sovereigns. The subjugation of other states, is in their eyes a source of enviable aggrandisement: and the greater success they have in prosecuting their ambi- tious projects, the more restless they become; till at last uni- versal empire is scarce sufficient to satiate their desires. A fear of losing their own possessions, imposes indeed on many a salutary restraint : but where no such ground of fear exists, the tyrannical dispositions of men know no bounds. What the human heart is capable of, may be seen in Nebuchadnezzar; who ordered all the wise men in his dominions to be put to death, because they could not tell him a dream of his, which he himself had forgotten ; and again commanded all who would not fall down and worship a golden image which he had set up, to be cast into a fiery furnace: in a word, " all people, nations, and languages trembled and feared before him ; whom he would, he slew ; and whom he would, be kept alive a."
The same dispositions are observable also in subordinate governors, and in all who are invested with authority : there is in every one a proneness to extend his power, and to make his own will the rule and reason of action to those around him : and the greater measure of despotism any one is able to exer- cise, the more he conceives himself to be exalted in the scale of being.]
But the very reverse of this should be the practice
of God's people —
[We say not that a Christian may not be a king : (would to God that all the kings upon earth were Christians !) nor do we think it wrong for them to maintain the power assigned them
a Dan. ii. 12, 13. and iii. 2 — 7. and v. 19.