Hence is it that Christians rejoice in that name, as carrying the very express title of the anointed of the Lord; which most superstitiously and sacrilegiously hath been applied only unto kings.
A sacrilegious monopoly of the name Christian.
Peace. O dear Truth, how doth the great Searcher of all hearts find out the thefts of the anti-christian world! how are men carried in the dark they know not whither! How is that heavenly charge, Touch not mine anointed, &c., Ps. cv. 15, common to all Christians, or anointed [ones] with Christ their head, by way of monopoly or privilege appropriated to kings and princes!
The crown of Christ’s kingly power.
Truth. It will not be here unseasonable to call to mind that admirable prophecy, Ezek. xxi. 26, 27, Thus saith Jehovah God, remove the diadem, take away the crown; this shall not be the same; exalt him that is low, and abase him that is high; I will overturn, overturn, overturn, until he come whose right it is; and I will give it him. The matter is a crown and diadem to be taken from a usurper’s head, and set upon the head of the right owner.
Peace. Doubtless this mystically intends the spiritual crown of the Lord Jesus, for these many hundred years set upon the heads of the competitors and co-rivals of the Lord Jesus, upon whose glorious head, in his messengers and churches, the crown shall be established. The anointing, the title, and the crown and power, must return to the Lord Jesus in his saints, unto whom alone belongs his power and authority in ecclesiastical or spiritual cases.
CHAP. CXVII.
Third. The kings of Israel and Judah invested with a spiritual power.
Truth. I therefore proceed to a third difference between those kings and governors of Israel and Judah, and all other kings and rulers of the earth. Look upon the administrations of the kings of Israel and Judah, and well weigh the power and authority which those kings of Israel and Judah exercised in ecclesiastical and spiritual causes; and upon a due search we shall not find the same sceptre of spiritual power in the hand of civil authority, which was settled in the hands of the kings of Israel and Judah.