ost it in the
Babylonish captivity, and never afterwards recovered it. The Asmonean
princes were of another line, and when our Lord came the sceptre was in
the hands of Herod, an Idumean Or Edomite. The promise made, to David
and his house is generally held by Christian commentators to have
received its fulfilment in the everlasting spiritual royalty of the
Messiah, sprung through Mary from David's line.

The Christian Church is supernaturally constituted and supernaturally
governed, but the persons selected to exercise powers supernaturally
defined, from the Sovereign Pontiff down to the humblest parish priest
are selected and inducted into office through human agency. The
Gentiles very generally claimed to have received their laws from the
gods, but it does not appear, save in exceptional cases, that they
claimed that their princes were designated and held their powers by the
direct and express appointment of the god. Save in the case of the
Jews, and that of the Church, there is no evidence that any particular
government exists or ever has existed by direct or express appointment,
or otherwise than by the action of the Creator through second causes,
or what is called his ordinary providence. Except David and his line,
there is no evidence of the express grant by the Divine Sovereign to
any individual or family, class or caste of the government of any
nation or country. Even those Christian princes who professed to reign
"by the grace of God," never claimed that they received their
principalities from God otherwise than through his ordinary providence,
and meant by it little more than an acknowledgment of their dependence
on him, their obligation to use their power according to his law and
their accountability to him for the use they make of it.

The doctrine is not favorable to human liberty, for it recognizes no
rights of man in face of civil society. It consecrates tyranny, and
makes God the accomplice of the tyrant, if we suppose all governments
have actually existed by his express appointment. It puts the king in
the place of God, and requires us to worship in him the immediate
representative of the Divine Being. Power is irresponsible and
inamissible, and however it may be abused, or however corrupt and
oppressive may be its exercise, there is no human redress. Resistance
to power is resistance to God. There is nothing for the people but
passive obedience and unreserved submission. The doctrine, in f