The Mediatorial Kingdom and Glories of Jesus Christ

May 9, 1756 | Samuel Davies | Hanover, Virginia

This is an excerpt. What was left out, and why, is set out at the foot of the page.

Headnote, written for Huzzah

Davies preached this at Hanover, Virginia, on 9 May 1756, in the second year of the war between Britain and France for the interior of the continent. Virginia's frontier was under attack, the militia was being raised, and he says so in the first minutes: our country is invaded and ravaged, and bleeds in a thousand veins. He was thirty three, the leading Presbyterian minister in a colony with an established Anglican church, and he would later be president of the College of New Jersey.

It is not a political sermon and it should not be read as one. Davies is preaching on the kingdom of Christ, and his subject is the reign of a king who is not of this world. But the sermon is built on a comparison it holds for thirty pages, and the comparison is political all the way down. On one side are the founders of earthly kingdoms, who braved dangers, routed armies and subjected nations to their will. On the other is a king who took no such methods, whose servants did not fight for him, and who is asked in a courtroom whether he claims a crown.

What the comparison produces is a vocabulary. Davies distinguishes the subjects who are ruled without their consent from those who have become his willing subjects by their own choice, and he makes consent the thing that separates the two kingdoms. He is describing conversion, not government by compact. But he is teaching a congregation to hear the words subject, consent and choice in one breath, twenty years before they were needed for something else. That is what this movement of the library is for.

The document

Kings and kingdoms are the most majestic sounds in the language of mortals, and have filled the world with noise, confusions, and blood, since mankind first left the state of nature, and formed themselves into societies. The disputes of kingdoms for superiority have set the world in arms from age to age, and destroyed or enslaved a considerable part of the human race ; and the contest is not yet decided. Our country has been a region of peace and tranquility for a long time, but it has not been because the lust of power and riches is extinct in the world, but because we had no near neighbours whose interest might clash with ours, or who were able to disturb us. The absence of an enemy was our sole defence. But now, when the colonies of the sundry European nations on this continent begin to enlarge, and approach towards each other, the scene is changed ; now encroachments, depredations, barbarities, and all the terrors of war begin to surround and alarm us. Now our country is invaded and ravaged, and bleeds in a thousand veins. We have already, so early in the year, received alarm upon alarm : and we may expect the alarms to grow louder and louder as the season advances.

These commotions and perturbations have had one good effect upon me, and that is, they have carried away my thoughts of late into a serene and peaceful region, a region beyond the reach of confusion and violence ; I mean the kingdom of the Prince of Peace. And thither, my brethren, I would also transport your minds this day, as the best refuge from this boisterous world, and the most agreeable mansion for the lovers of peace and tranquillity.

[A passage is omitted here. See the note at the foot of this page.]

Jesus replies, My kingdom is not of this world ; as much as to say, " I do not deny that I claim a kingdom, but it is of such a nature, that it need give no alarm to the kings of the earth. Their kingdoms are of this world, but mine is spiritual and divine, and therefore cannot interfere with theirs. If my kingdom were of this world, like theirs, I would take the same methods with them to obtain and secure it ; my servants would fight for me, that I should not be delivered to the Jews ; but now, you see, I use no such means for my defence, or to raise me to my kingdom : and therefore you may be assured my kingdom is not from hence, and can give the Roman emperor no umbrage for suspicion or uneasiness."

The poor prisoner boldly replies, Thou sayest that I am a king ; that is, " Thou hast struck upon the truth : I am indeed a king, in a certain sense, and nothing shall constrain me to renounce the title."

[A passage is omitted here.]

But Jesus reigns absolute and supreme over the kings of the earth, and overrules and controls them as he thinks proper ; and he disposes all the revolutions, the rises and falls of kingdoms and empires, so as to be subservient to the great designs of his mediation ; and their united policies and powers cannot frustrate the work which he has undertaken. But besides these rebellious, involuntary subjects, he has (blessed be his name !) gained the consent of thousands, and they have become his willing subjects by their own choice. They regard his authority, they love his government, they make it their study to please him, and to do his will.

[A passage is omitted here.]

The founders of earthly kingdoms are famous for their heroic actions. They have braved the dangers of sea and land, routed powerful armies, and subjected nations to their will. They have shed rivers of blood, laid cities in ruins, and countries in desolation. These are the exploits which have rendered the Alexanders, the Caesars, and other conquerors of this world, famous through all nations and ages. Jesus had his exploits too ; but they were all of the gracious and beneficent kind. His conquests were so many deliverances, and his victories salvations. He subdued in order to set free ; and made captives to deliver them from slavery.

[The sermon closes.]

This is the last and most illustrious state of the kingdom of Christ, now so small and weak in appearance : this is the final grand result of his administration : and it will appear to admiring worlds wisely planned, gloriously executed, and perfectly finished.

What conqueror ever erected such a kingdom ? What subjects so completely, so lastingly happy, as those of the blessed Jesus ?

What was left out

The sermon runs to about eleven thousand five hundred words. Printed here are the opening, three passages from the body of the argument, and the close, together about seven hundred and fifty. What is omitted is the great bulk of it: Davies's exposition of the kingdom of Christ as prophesied in Daniel and the Psalms, its extent over angels and devils and the dead, its laws and its administration, the long comparison of Christ's conquests with those of earthly conquerors, the application to his hearers, and the closing vision of the gospel reaching the whole earth, in which he addresses the enslaved Africans in his congregation and speaks of the Indian nations then at war with Virginia. The complete text is linked in the source note below.

Source and provenance

Text set from Sermons by the Rev. Samuel Davies, A.M., President of the College of New Jersey, Sermon X, pages 285 to 317, read from the scan at https://archive.org/details/sermons_01daviuoft. Every passage printed below was then checked against the 1792 Philadelphia printing, Sermons on Important Subjects, Sermon 10, at https://archive.org/details/sermonsonimporta01davi, and the two agree throughout apart from spelling and pointing. The differences found are these. The 1792 sets tranquillity where the nineteenth century printing sets tranquility in the first sentence of the second paragraph. The 1792 sets no comma in rebellious involuntary subjects. The 1792 closes the two final sentences with exclamation points where the later printing closes them with question marks, and the question marks are followed here. In the reply to Pilate the 1792 closes the quotation after renounce the title and prints the words of the text outside it, while the later printing leaves the quotation open across them; the quotation is closed here, following the earlier printing. Both printings carry the footnote that dates the sermon, This sermon was preached in Hanover, Virginia, May 9, 1756, anchored in both to the same sentence. Neither that footnote nor the two learned footnotes that both printings carry within these pages is reproduced in the text below, and the passages were read one at a time so that none of it was carried in.

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