20. The Royalty of Christ

I. Jesus Christ is not only our Pontiff in spirituals, He is King and supreme ruler of mankind in temporals; because “there is no power but from God” (Rom. xiii. 1); and secondly because He is actually our King; He is “Prince of the Kings of the earth” (Apoc. i. 5). He Himself says, “All power is given Me in heaven and on earth” (Matt. xxviii. 18), and again, “I am appointed King by Him over Sion, His holy mountain” (Ps. ii. 6). Our Lord has all the qualities which go to the making of kings. He is of noble descent, being Son of God, He is the firstborn of all mankind, He surpasses all in power and in qualities of body and soul, He has conquered His rights by delivering the world from its previous slavery and disorganization, and He is the founder of a new social order and a new civilization. He is also Son of David, the King of the chosen people, which had primacy over all nations, to be their blessing and their salvation. The Father gave Him not only the Jews but all mankind, according to His word: “I will give Thee the Gentiles for Thy inheritance, and the utmost parts of the earth for Thy possession” (Ps. ii. 8). His rights, therefore, over us are temporal as well as spiritual, even though many refuse to admit them. The two things cannot be separated; for our internal and external life, although different, constitute one human life; the prosperity of the one is interwoven with that of the other; and the influences of religion and morality penetrate all our actions—domestic, industrial, and political. Honour your King with the service both of body and soul. Let His law rule your whole life in every branch of it.

II. Our Lord’s Kingdom is not indeed of this world, but it is a real kingdom in this world. He has separated the Priestly and the Royal functions and placed them in different hands. In the spiritual order He has Himself appointed His representative, and one universal, unvarying form of administration. But not so in the civil order. Centralization and uniformity would not meet the requirements of human life. Men have to work out their worldly destinies for themselves under God’s direction and assistance, according to their different circumstances, but in accordance with revealed principles of action. They have liberty to obey or disobey these. The human apparatus of compulsion does not belong to Christ’s Kingdom—armies, police, tribunals, prisons. He appeals to the good-will of His subjects, by exhortation, by inward grace, by love, and also by threats of future consequences. His Kingdom is, in the first instance, in the souls of men, and thence it extends to their outward life. Thus He designed to establish on earth a universal kingdom, guided by faith, cemented together with love, abounding, first in spiritual, and then in temporal benediction. In spite of the extensive rejection of the Royalty of Christ, the faithful few still form a world-wide kingdom, and reap many of its benefits.

III. “The nation and the kingdom that will not serve Thee shall perish” (Isa. lx. 12). Our King, in giving His law, knew what was best adapted to human life, and necessary for its success. Under His laws the order of humanity would be as perfect and beautiful as the order of the material creation. If we disobey the instructions of the maker of powerful machinery we must expect some great catastrophe, and we deserve it. By disobeying the divine laws of human organization we lose control of the enormous destructive forces of the perverted human will, and our imperfect makeshifts cannot avert the calamitous consequences. Hence, among the highest creatures of God and the best endowed, we find so much failure, retrogression, hopeless degradation. As their capacities are increased, so do their miseries increase. There is one cause of all these evils; it is that men have thrust aside their King, His law and His grace. Your duty is to resist the rising tide of evil, to help the cause of good and happiness, by fidelity to Christ the King, and by promoting His reign.