continuance of the kingdom of Christ uninjured among us.  This is a cause worthy of your attention, worthy of your cognizance, worthy of your throne.  This consideration constitutes true royalty, to acknowledge yourself in the government of your kingdom to be the minister of God.  For where the glory of God is not made the end of the government, it is not a legitimate sovereignty, but a usurpation.  And he is deceived who expects lasting prosperity in that kingdom which is not ruled by the sceptre of God, that is, his holy word; for that heavenly oracle cannot fail, which declares that “where there is no vision, the people perish,"[1] Nor should you be seduced from this pursuit by a contempt of our meanness.  We are fully conscious to ourselves how very mean and abject we are, being miserable sinners before God, and accounted most despicable by men; being, (if you please) the refuse of the world, deserving of the vilest appellations that can be found; so that nothing remains for us to glory in before God, but his mercy alone, by which, without any merit of ours, we have been admitted to the hope of eternal salvation, and before men nothing but our weakness, the slightest confession of which is esteemed by them as the greatest disgrace.  But our doctrine must stand, exalted above all the glory, and invincible by all the power of the world; because it is not ours, but the doctrine of the living God, and of his Christ, whom the Father hath constituted King, that he may have dominion from sea to sea, and from the river even to the ends of the earth, and that he may rule in such a manner, that the whole earth, with its strength of iron and with its splendour of gold and silver, smitten by the rod of his mouth, may be broken to pieces like a potter’s vessel;[2] for thus do the prophets foretell the magnificence of his kingdom.

Our adversaries reply, that our pleading the word of God is a false pretence, and that we are nefarious corrupters of it.  But that this is not only a malicious calumny, but egregious impudence, by reading our confession, you will, in your wisdom, be able to judge.  Yet something further is necessary to be said, to excite your attention, or at least to prepare your mind for this perusal.  Paul’s direction, that every prophecy be framed “according to the analogy of faith,"[3] has fixed an invariable standard by which all interpretation of Scripture ought to be tried.  If our principles be examined by this rule of faith, the victory is ours.  For what is more consistent with faith than to acknowledge ourselves naked of all virtue, that we may be clothed by God; empty of all good, that we may be filled by him; slaves to sin, that we may be liberated by him; blind, that we may be enlightened by him; lame, that we may be guided; weak, that we may be supported by him; to divest ourselves of all ground of glorying, that he alone may be eminently glorious, and that we may glory in him?  When we advance these and similar sentiments, they interrupt us with complaints