Our Lord was so careful to keep his kingdom and his mission distinct from civil affairs, that when he was appealed to, to arbitrate a dispute touching an inheritance, he inquired, who made him an arbiter in such matters, or where was there any authority for him to step aside from his mission, or, rather, pervert his mission and his office from their high, spiritual and divine object, to a worldly, temporal and business object. He was so careful to keep his mission distinct from the world, and worldly relations, that when engaged in the work of his mission, he refused to recognize a fleshly relation—his own mother, brother and sister. In his kingdom he recognized no fleshly relation, as a basis for any application to him, or a reason for his institution conferring any benefit on any human being, not excepting his own mother, according to the flesh. Those who _do the will of God_, regardless of all fleshly ties, political conditions, or worldly circumstances, whether male or female, bond or free, are mother, sister or brother, to the Redeemer and Savior of man. So perfectly distinct did our Lord and the apostles keep their mission from politics that there is not the remotest hint that they ever participated in civil affairs, in a single instance, in the whole of the sacred record. They either never participated in politics in any way, or else looked upon the whole matter as so distinct from their mission and work, as not to be once mentioned in the whole Christian revelation. So distinct is the New Testament from political institutions, that it contains not one word of instruction to civil officers, in regard to their duties, not one hint what kind of men we should vote for, or what form of government we should favor. It simply enjoins that Christians “obey every ordinance of man, for the Lord’s sake:” “submit to the powers that be; for the powers that be are ordained of God,” and declares that “rulers are not a terror to good works, but to the evil”; that “the ruler is the minister of God, and bears not the sword in vain.”