After the scepter was departed from Judah, and the Jewish nation subjugated by Pompey, the Roman emperors governed the country by procurators.  Claudius filled the imperial throne while St. Paul was at Caesarea.  This emperor had received a servile education from his grandmother Lucia, and from his mother Antonia; and having been brought up in obsequious meanness, evinced, on his elevation to the empire, marks of the inadequate care which had been bestowed on his infancy.  He had neither courage nor dignity of mind.  He who was raised to sway the Roman scepter, and consequently to govern the civilized world, abandoned his judgment to his freedmen, and gave them a complete ascendency over his mind.  Felix was one of those freedmen.  “He exercised in Judea the imperial functions with a mercenary soul.”  Voluptuousness and avarice were the predominant vices of his heart.  We have a proof of his avarice immediately after our text, where it is said he sent for Paul,—­not to hear him concerning the truth of the gospel which this apostle had preached with so much power; not to inquire whether this religion, against which the Jews raised the standard, was contrary to the interest of the State; but because he hoped to have received money for his liberation.  Here is the effect of avarice.

Josephus recited an instance of his voluptuousness.  It is his marriage with Drusilla.  She was a Jewess, as is remarked in our text.  King Azizus, her former husband, was a heathen; and in order to gain her affections, he had conformed to the most rigorous ceremonies of Judaism.  Felix saw her, and became enamored of her beauty.  He conceived for her a violent passion; and in defiance of the sacred ties which had united her to her husband, he resolved to become master of her person.  His addresses were received.  Drusilla violated her former engagements, and chose rather to contract with Felix an illegitimate marriage than to adhere to the chaste ties which united her to Azizus.  Felix the Roman, Felix the procurator of Judea and the favorite of Caesar appeared to her a noble acquisition.  It is indeed a truth, we may here observe, that grandeur and fortune are charms which mortals find the greatest difficulty to resist, and against which the purest virtue has need to be armed with all its constancy.  Recollect these two characters of Felix and Drusilla.  St. Paul, before those two personages, treated concerning “The faith in Christ”; that is, concerning the Christian religion, of which Jesus Christ is the sum and substance, the author and the end:  and from the numerous doctrines of Christianity, he selected “righteousness, temperance, and judgment to come.”

Here is, my brethren, an admirable text; but a text selected with discretion.  Fully to comprehend it, recollect the character we have given of Felix.  He was covetous, luxurious, and governor of Judea.  St. Paul selected three subjects, correspondent to the characteristics.  Addressing an avaricious man, he treated of righteousness.  Addressing the governor of Judea, one of those persons who think themselves independent and responsible to none but themselves for their conduct, he treated of “judgment to come.”