"the man of God," to show how particular parts PART 1. of inspired Scripture conduce to " doctrine, and reproof, and correction, and instruction in righteousness,"how" the things which were written aforetime" are fitted" for our learning."

doctrine.

In the discharge of this most responsible func- Reply as to tion of my office, I am now about to engage. The principles that are here laid down have the same claim on our belief, and the precepts promulgated, the same claim on our obedience, as they had on the belief and obedience of the Christian Romans, except so far as it can be made out satisfactorily that the precepts must be modified in their application to us, by a consideration of the peculiar circumstances in which they were, and we are, placed, as statements made with regard to the duty of "servants under the yoke," must be modified if applied to servants who are by civil privilege, as well as natural right, as free as their masters. It ought to be a matter of as firm faith to us as to the Roman Christians,"that there is no power but of God,"-that "the powers that were" when the apostle wrote "were ordained of God,"-that the Roman government was what it is here represented to be, and had the rights which are here ascribed to it, and that to that government Christians who lived under it were bound to be subject, both for "wrath and for conscience' sake." This is the doctrine of the passage, and we ought to hold it as one of the things "most surely believed among us."

practice.

With regard to practical instruction, it obvi- Reply as to ously teaches us, that Christians, in all countries

PART 1. and ages, should respect and obey the civil government under which they live,-that a Christian who follows a course which tends to anarchy, acts a wicked as well as an inconsistent and foolish part-that no Christian is warranted to disturb a settled civil government, because it is not, in its form and administration, so good as he could desire it-that, for example, the Briton who glories in the mixed government of his country, must not, on going to America, conspire or rebel against its republican institutions-that the American, who is at least equally proud of what he counts the pre-eminent freedom of the constitution of his country, must not, on coming to Britain, either secretly or openly, seek to subvert its government that neither of them going to Turkey or to China, should act the part of a ringleader or promoter of sedition-and that all Christians, placed in the same circumstances in reference to the government under which they live, as the primitive Christians were in reference to the Roman government, are bound to act not only on the same general principle, but in precisely the same way. A Christian individual, or a body of Christians, living under a Pagan or Mohammedan government, are bound to obey those governments as far as their enlightened consciences will permit. They are quietly to submit to such sufferings, as the government may inflict on them, for their non-compliance with what they account sin; and they are to do nothing to unsettle the government, except by the dissemination of the doctrines and laws of Christ, which sooner or later

will, by their moral power, either improve or de- PART 1. stroy all the secular governments on the face of the earth.

This, I think, is nearly the amount of the practical instruction, of a general kind, which the passage furnishes. It naturally enough indeed suggests the thought, along with an irresistible sense of its justice, if the Roman Christians were called on to yield cheerful obedience to an arbitrary government, at the head of which was a Claudius or a Nero, with what thankful readiness should we perform our duties' to a civil government, which, though not perfect, has within itself the means of indefinite improvement, and which, even in its present state, certainly answers the ends of civil government in a degree in which they have very seldom been realized!

The divine

any existing

not directly

But very readily admitting all this, we must ordination of still hold that this passage does not directly teach government the divine ordination of any particular existing taught. civil government. It teaches us, indeed, that civil government in general is of divine appointment, in the sense in which that expression has been explained; but as to any particular government being God's ordinance to any particular individual or nation, that is to be inferred from a variety of circumstances. The truth on this subject cannot be more correctly stated than in the cautious words of Dr Paley: "It is the will of God that the happiness of human life be promoted. Civil society conduces to that end. Civil societies cannot be upholden, unless in each the interest of the whole society be binding on every

PART I. part and member of it. So long as the established government cannot be resisted or changed without public inconveniency, it is the will of God that the established government be obeyed." The Roman Christians were directly informed that the Roman government was God's ordinance to them. We have not the same means of judging of any particular government, whether it is God's ordinance to us. We have sufficient means, however, of ascertaining this point; and when, by their use, we have come to the conclusion, that the government under which we live is so, the obligation to obedience rising out of the apostle's declaration, binds our consciences as fast as it did theirs.

Our obligation to obey

ment.

Happily for us, there is no difficulty in coming our govern- to a determination. Our civil constitution is based on so many just principles-is, upon the whole, so well administered-and contains such a deep-seated and powerful spring of improvement, that we can have no reasonable doubt that it is the ordinance of God to us; while, on the other hand, the ruling power in this country, supported as it is by the approbation of the principles on which it is founded by the great body of the subjects, is so powerful, that to think of resisting it, would not only be highly criminal, but folly almost amounting to madness. To this government we owe obedience; and I have no doubt that the voice of God to us, in reference to it, is, "Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers."

* Paley's Moral Philosophy, Works, vol. i. p. 318.

PART I.

tion not with

It is obvious, however, as we have already seen, that the obligation to obedience to any human This obligagovernment, even to the one expressly declared out limits. by an apostle to be ordained of God, has limits. "To pretend," says Bishop Burnet, "that we owe our princes obedience without reserve, is profane and impious. The laws of God, the King of kings, are reserves upon our obedience, to those whose highest dignity it is that they are ministers deputed by him. It is a reproach to all religion, and indeed a professed throwing it off, to any who pretend to be Christians, to contradict this so flatly as to assert an obedience to any human authority without reserve. The more solemnly and publicly this is done, the reproach is the deeper. For it is the open preferring the creature' to the Creator, God blessed for ever.' Subjects are only bound to render to princes what is theirs; that is, the rights vested in them by law, custom, and constitution, and no more. And if we are only bound to render them what is theirs, then if they should demand what is not theirs, but is by the most strict possible provision still ours, such as the liberty of our persons, the property of our estates, and the observance of our laws" (the good Bishop might have added, our conscientious convictions, and our immortal hopes), "we are certainly not bound to render them these, because, in a constitution like ours, no prince can call them his. We may preserve them as from robbers, so from all illegal and violent invasion. Warrants and commissions in such cases, are null and void of themselves."*

Burnet's Sermon on Matthew xxii. 21. pp. 5, 6.