sight into the recesses of human nature, proceeded not from the philosophers of Egypt or of India, of Greece or of Rome, but from the carpenter of Nazareth and his uneducated disciples.1

Such thoughts naturally rise in the mind of every reflecting man, on reading such a passage as that of which our text forms a part, and are well fitted to strengthen our conviction, that we have not followed "cunningly devised fables," when we have yielded credence to the claims and doctrines of Jesus Christ and his apostles. It is, however, full time that we set ourselves to the consideration of the words which are to form the subject of our present discourse: "Submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord's sake; whether it be to the king, as supreme; or unto governors, as unto them that are sent by him for the punishment of evil-doers, and for the praise of them that do well. For so is the will of God, that with well-doing ye may put to silence the ignorance of foolish men."

The duty here enjoined, and the motive by which it is enforced, are obviously the two topics to which our attention must be successively directed in the sequel; but to illustrate either with advantage, it will be necessary to make a few remarks, having for their object to explain something that is obscure in the phraseology, and to disentangle something that is involved in the construction of the sentence which lies before us.

I-INTRODUCTORY EXPLICATORY OBSERVATIONS.

The word rendered "ordinance," is the term which is usually and properly rendered "creature." It is the word that occurs when the gospel is commanded to be "preached to every creature," and is said to have been "preached to every creature under heaven:" when the "whole creation," or "every creature," is said to "groan and travail in pain ;" and when every one who is in Christ is said to be a new creature." The literal rendering is, "Submit yourselves to every human creature." Some interpreters, most unsuccessfully, have attempted to explain the passage on the principle that this is its meaning here.' Our translators, perceiving that the nature of things, equally with the scope of the passage, made such a version inadmissible, have given to the word a figurative signification. They consider it as equivalent to ordinance, or institution, or appointment, all of which are, as it were, the creatures of those who ordain, institute, or appoint them.5

Still, however, it seems a strange injunction, "Submit yourselves

A fuller illustration of these remarks on the bearing of christian morality on christian evidence, will be found in the author's Introductory Essay to Collins' edition of Venn's Complete Duty of Man."

Κτίσις. Mark xvi. 14. Col. i. 23. Rom. viii. 19-22. 2 Cor. v. 17. 'Sherlock. Grotius conjectures that the original reading may have been cio. The conjecture is ingenious, but entirely unsupported. It is a most instructive fact, that, so far as I know, no mere conjecture as to the original text of the New Testament has ever been confirmed by subsequent examination of Codices.

• Κτίσιν ἀνθρωπίνην τὰς ἀρχὰς λέγει τὰς χειροτονητὰς ὑπὸ τῶν βασιλέων, ἢ καὶ αὐτοὺς τοὺς βασιλεῖς καθότι καὶ αὐτοὶ ὑπὸ ἀνθρώπων ἐτάχθησαν ἤτοι ἐτέθησαν, οἶδε γαρ ἡ γραφὴ καὶ τὴν θέσιν, κτίσιν Kaλeiv. ECUMENIUS.

to every human institution." Surely there are many human institutions or ordinances to which a Christian is not bound to submit ; surely there are not a few human institutions or ordinances to which a Christian is bound not to submit. The injunction plainly requires limitation and we apprehend it receives it.

The concluding phrase of the 13th verse, "for the punishment of evil-doers, and for the praise of them who do well," is commonly connected with the words which immediately precede it, as if it were intended to express the object which the king, or supreme magistrate, has in view in appointing deputies. It appears to us far more natural to connect it with the word "ordinance;" and to view it as intended to define the particular class of human ordinances which the apostle refers to, when he commands Christians to be subject to every one of them. It is more than doubtful whether kings have always, or usually, had this as their object in appointing governors; but there can be no doubt this is the end of civil government, and is the reason why men are bound to submit to it. Submit yourselves to every human ordinance, for the punishment of evil-doers, and for the praise of them who do well." This does not require any change in the translation, it only requires you to place a comma after the words, "sent by him."

This command, "Submit yourselves to every human ordinance, for the punishment of evil-doers, and for the praise of them that do well," is, as it were, the trunk of the injunction; the phrases, "for the Lord's sake," and "whether to the king, as supreme, and to governors, as those sent by him," are, as it were, branches that spring out of it. According to the genius of the English language, the precept would run thus: Submit yourselves, for the Lord's sake, to every ordinance of man, for the punishment of evil-doers, and the praise of them who do well, whether to the king, as supreme, or to governors, as to them who are sent by him.'

This mode of construing the passage, not only gives a definite reference to the very general term "ordinance," or institution; it also enables us to account for the apostle using the somewhat strange expression in reference to civil government, "ordinance of man, or human institution for the punishment of evil-doers, and the praise of them who do well." The persons immediately addressed by the apostles were Jews, or proselytes who had imbibed Jewish modes of thought. Jews held themselves bound to be subject to the Divine ordinance of civil magistracy, as laid down in their Scriptures. That ordinance, whether embodied in Moses or in the Judges, or in the Davidical Kings, they regarded as entitled to obedience; but as to human institutions for this purpose, they seem very generally to have doubted, and many of them to have explicitly denied, that they were obligatory on the chosen people of God. If they yielded obedience, it was rather as a matter of expediency than of obligation; they submitted for wrath's sake," that is, to avoid punishment, rather than "for conscience' sake," that is, because God had so willed it. These views were very probably carried by many of the Jewish converts into their new profession; and there seems to be a peculiar propriety in the apostle, after having described their privileges and immunities

as Christians in such lofty language, borrowed from the peculiarities of the Jewish people under the former economy; after having represented them as "the chosen race, the kingdom of priests, the holy nation, the peculiar people, the people of God;" putting them in mind that those privileges were all of a spiritual nature, and that with regard to human institutions, and especially with regard to human institutions for the purposes of civil government, they were just on a level with the rest of mankind, with the rest of their fellow-citizens; possessed of the same rights, liable to the same obligations.

IL-THE DUTY ENJOINED; SUBJECTION TO THE CIVIL GOVERNMENT, IN THE PERSONS OF ALL ITS LEGAL ADMINISTRATORS.

We are now prepared to proceed to consider the duty here enjoined on Christians: Subjection to the civil government of the country where they reside, in the persons of all its legal adminis trators. "Submit yourselves to every ordinance of man, for the punishment of evil-doers, and for the praise of them who do well: whether to the king, as supreme; or to governors, as those sent by him."

The description of civil government here given, first calls for consideration. It is described as "an ordinance or institution for the punishment of all evil-doers, and the praise of them who do well." The great design of civil government is, to protect the liberties, properties, and lives of mankind, living together in society. For this purpose, laws with suitable sanctions are enacted and executed, and officers are created for the enactment, promulgation, and execution of these laws. With reference to civil government, he and he only is an evil-doer who violates the law; and it is enough to entitle a man, in the estimation of the magistrate, to the appellation of one who does well, if he but obey the law. With sin, as sin, the magistrate has nothing to do. It is only when sin becomes crime, a violation of law, and infringement of civil order, that it comes under his cognizance. The design, then, of magistracy is "for the punishment of evil-doers," who break the laws enacted for the protection of liberty, property, reputation, and life; and "for the praise," that is, for the reward of those "who do well" by keeping these laws; giving them that protection and encouragement which, as has been very justly remarked, are the only rewards which good subjects can reasonably expect from their civil governors.

Civil government is farther described as an ordinance of man," or "a human institution," for this purpose. It is, indeed, the doctrine. of the New Testament, that civil government, in one sense, and that an important one, is a Divine institution, an ordinance of God; but that doctrine, rightly understood, is in no way inconsistent with the doctrine that, in another sense, it is a human institution, the ordinance of man. Civil government is of God, so as to lay a foundation for a Divine moral obligation on those subject to it to yield obedience. Some have held that magistracy is of God merely as all things are of God, as the famine and the pestilence, as slavery and

1 "Reward cannot, properly, be the sanction of human laws.”—WARBURTON.

PART II.] DUTY OF CHRISTIANS IN REFERENCE TO IT.

247

war, are of him. Those who take this view err by defect; for this could lay no foundation for a claim on obedience. Others err by excess, who hold that magistracy is a direct, express Divine institution. It does not stand on the same foundation as the priesthood under the law, or the christian ministry under the gospel. The magistracy of the Jews under the law was the result of a direct Divine appointment; but not the magistracy of any other people. It does not stand even on the same ground as marriage, which was formally instituted. It occupies similar ground with the social state, agriculture, or commerce. It naturally rises out of the constitution of men's minds, which is God's work, and the circumstances of their situation, which are the result of his providence; and it is highly conducive to the security and well-being of mankind, which we know must be agreeable to the will of Him whose nature, as well as name, is love, and whose tender mercies are over all his works.

All this is perfectly consistent with civil government being a human ordinance or institution. It is the work of man's faculties, called forth by the circumstances in which he is placed, out of which arises the variety of form which the general institution bears in different countries and in different ages: thus far it is the work of man; and it is the work of God, just inasmuch as he endows man with these faculties, and places him in the circumstances which call them forth to exertion. To borrow the illustration of one of the greatest of our writers on the subject of government: "To say, because civil magistracy is ordained of God, therefore it cannot be the. ordinance of man, is as if you said, ' God ordained the temple, therefore it was not built by masons; he ordained the snuffers, therefore they were not made by a smith."'"

Now, the duty of Christians to this "human ordinance" of civil magistracy. is to "submit themselves" to it, practically to acknowledge its authority. It is the duty of a Christian to yield obedience to all laws of the government under which he lives, that are not inconsistent with the law of God. When the human ordinance contradicts the Divine ordinance, requiring us to do what God forbids, or forbidding us to do what God requires, the rule is plain: "We ought to obey God rather than man.'” 2

Nothing short of this, however, can warrant a Christian to withhold obedience from a law of the government under which, in the providence of God, he is placed; and even when conscience may compel him to non-obedience, he is quietly and patiently to suffer the penalty which the law imposes on his non-obedience. While obliged by the law of God in such a case not to obey the law of man, he is equally obliged, while the government continues to be acknowledged by the community of which he forms a part, not to resist it. He may, he ought to, use every means which the constitution of his country puts in his power to have the law improved ; but while it continues in force, however unwise and iniquitous, if it does not re1 1 Harrington.

2 Acts v. 29.

"A timely, steady, and mild resistance, on legal grounds, to every unlawful stretch of power (as in the well-known case of the ship-money), will prove the most effectual means, if uniformly resorted to, for preventing the occurrence of those desperate and extreme cases, which call for violent and dangerous remedies."-ARCHBISHOP WHATELY.

quire him to sin, he must obey it; and even when it does require him to sin, while he must by no means obey it, he must submit to the punishment, however unjust, which the law denounces against him.

One of the most important modes of submission to civil government is the payment of tribute; and this, like all the other duties we owe to our rulers, is to be regulated by the principle already laid down. We must not refuse, we must not seek to evade, the payment of a tax, merely because we think it unwise or unequal. It is only in the case of government requiring us to pay a tax for what we consider as a sinful object, that we are entitled to refuse compliance, and even in that case we are bound to submit to the penalty which the law appoints for our non-compliance.

Under the general name of submission are included also that respect and reverence with which the institution of civil government should be regarded by all subjects. "To despise government, and speak evil of dignities," are sins most decidedly condemned in the law of Christ; and the christian apostle has given his sanction to the command of the Jewish lawgiver: "Thou shalt not speak evil of the rulers of thy people." Words are the signs of thought: the expressions of sentiment and feeling. They are therefore far from being harmless in themselves, and they are very far from being harmless in their consequences. The man who indulges his tongue in contumelious revilings against the authorities of the land, using language fitted to bring government itself into contempt, is a dangerous enemy of his country's weal, as well as a direct and open violator of the

command of God.

express

It is highly desirable that the personal character of the magistrate should give additional lustre to his official dignity; while it is deeply to be regretted that the follies and faults of those who fill public stations have so often excited a most pernicious influence, in diminishing the authority of the laws, by making it impossible personally to respect their administrators. It is well remarked by Hooker, that "great caution must be used, that we neither be emboldened to follow them in evil, whom, for authority's sake, we must honor, nor induced in authority to dishonor them whom, as examples, we must not follow."

To prevent misapprehensions, it is needful to remark here, that particular civil governments may be so faulty in their constitution, or so corrupt in their administration, that it may not only be lawful, but obligatory, on the subjects, to seek improvement by thorough change, depriving of power those who have abused it, and organizing a new form of civil rule which will answer its objects; and that there is certainly nothing in the law of Christ which exempts his followers from an obligation to act the part of good citizens in such circumstances; but it is also of importance to add, that nothing short of the demonstrated impracticability of the improvement of a government by constitutional measures, and of the moral certainty of the great body of the citizens being really desirous of a change, can warrant individuals to refuse submission to the form of civil rule under which

2 Pet. ii. 10. Exod. xxii. 28. Acts xxiii. 5. James iii. 1-6.