for the sins of them that should by faith submit themselves thereto; and in case the nation generally should refuse Him, to call to His obedience such as should believe in Him amongst the Gentiles. So that there are two parts of our Saviour’s office during His abode upon the earth: one to proclaim himself the Christ, and another by teaching and by working of miracles, to persuade and prepare men to live so as to be worthy of the immortality believers were to enjoy, at such time as He should come in majesty to take possession of His Father’s kingdom. And therefore it is that the time of His preaching is often by himself called the “regeneration”; which is not properly a kingdom, and thereby a warrant to deny obedience to the magistrates that then were; for He commanded to obey those that sat then in Moses’ chair, and to pay tribute to Caesar, but only an earnest of the kingdom of God that was to come, to those to whom God had given the grace to be His disciples, and to believe in Him; for which cause the godly are said to be already in the “kingdom of grace,” as naturalized in that heavenly kingdom.
Hitherto, therefore, there is nothing done or taught by Christ that tendeth to the diminution of the civil right of the Jews or of Caesar. For as touching the commonwealth which then was amongst the Jews, both they that bare rule amongst them, and they that were governed, did all expect the Messiah and kingdom of God; which they could not have done if their laws had forbidden Him, when He came, to manifest and declare himself. Seeing therefore He did nothing but by preaching and miracles go about to prove himself to be that Messiah, He did therein nothing against their laws. The kingdom He claimed was to be in another world: He taught all men to obey in the meantime them that sat in Moses’ seat: He allowed them to give Caesar his tribute, and refused to take upon himself to be a judge. How then could His words or actions be seditious, or tend to the overthrow of their then civil government? But God having determined His sacrifice for the reduction of His elect to their former covenanted obedience, for the means, whereby He would bring the same to effect, made use of their malice and ingratitude. Nor