There is indeed a haughty objection often stated against the people’s choice:  Shall a cottager, poor and unlearned, who pays not one farthing of the stipend, and at next term will perhaps remove from the congregation, have an equal choice of a minister with his master, a gentleman, a nobleman, of liberal education, of distinguished abilities, who is head of a large family, has a fixed property and residence in the parish, and furnishes almost the whole benefice?  Will you fly in the face of our civil law?  Will you plead for the method of choosing church officers, which already has produced so much strife, bloody squabbling, or riot?  If Christ’s kingdom, as himself when dying attested, is not of this world, how can outward learning, riches, settled abode, or any worldly thing, constitute one a member thereof?  These do not make one a better Christian.  No. Not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called with a holy calling.  How ordinarily do rich men oppress the saints, draw them before judgment-seats, and blaspheme Jesus’ worthy name, by which they are called!  If worldly privileges and endowments cannot make one a subject of the Mediator’s spiritual kingdom, how can they entitle any to, or raise him above his brethren in, the privileges thereof?  If by the Son of God the poor cottager has been made free indeed; has been taught to profit; is rich in faith; is a king and priest unto God; and hath received a kingdom that cannot be moved; in the view of the Omniscient and his angels, and every man wise to salvation, how little is he inferior to his rich, perhaps his graceless, master?  Your rich man has college education, understands philosophy, history, law, agriculture; but will that infer that he understands his Bible, understands Christian principles, spiritual experiences, and what spiritual gifts best correspond therewith, better than his cottager, who daily searches the Scriptures, and has heard and learned of the Father?  How oft are the great things of God hid from the wise and prudent, and revealed unto babes!  Christ crucified was to the learned Greeks foolishness; but to the poorest believer the power of God and the wisdom of God.  “The natural man,” however learned, “receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, neither can he know them; for they are spiritually discerned,” 1 Cor. ii. 14.  How easy to find the herdman, or the silly woman, who will endure a trial on Christian principles to far better purpose than many of your rich, your great men!—­Your great man is the head of a numerous family, and has great influence in the corner.  That, no doubt, is a strong motive for him, if he is a Christian, to be exceeding wary in his choice:  if he is so, no doubt his Christian judgment, as far as is consistent with spiritual liberty, is to have its own weight.  But while Christ’s kingdom is not of this world; while in him there is neither male nor female, bond nor free; headship over a family can found no claim to a spiritual privilege.  Thousands of heads of families are plainly aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, without God, and without hope in the world.  Many are heads of families who, by neglect of the daily worship of God, of religious instruction, and by other unchristian conduct, ruin the same.