Tagdoctrine of Christ

The grand doctrine, on which the leading principles thus expounded in the standards of our church proceed, is that which is adverted to by the apostles, while vindicating their resistance to civil authority, at the 31st verse of the passage of Scripture before us—the doctrine, namely, embodied in these words, “Him hath God exalted with his right hand to be a Prince.” That Jesus of Nazareth, whom the chief priests and rulers of Judea had slain and hanged on a tree was now seated at the right hand of the Majesty in the heavens—all power, both in earth and heaven had been given to him—and having, in the exercise of that sovereign power, called the apostles and their successors in the ministry of the gospel to bear rule in his church, and to feed that flock which he had purchased with his own blood, no earthly ruler could interfere with them in the discharge of those functions which are proper and peculiar to their sacred office, without incurring the sin and danger, as Gamaliel expressed it, “of fighting against God.”