ate persuasion, faithful remonstrance-these are my only weapons in this warfare; and, believing that the cause which I defend is the cause of truth, I implore the God of truth, of reason, of holiness, of love, to render these weapons mighty, by the secret all-pervading energy of the Holy Ghost.

I am faithfully yours.

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LETTER II.

THE SCRIPTURAL AUTHORITY OF THE CIVIL

RULER.

MY DEAR

ARE we, or are we not, under a scriptural obligation to submit to the ordinances of man, for the Lord's sake?

This question includes both civil and ecclesiastical ordinances. These are in some respects distinct subjects, and I shall endeavour to mark that distinction. But the same principle applies to both, and they may with profitable clearness be considered together, as we find them in the word of God.

In the thirteenth chapter of the Epistle to the Romans, we are thus instructed by St. Paul: "Let every soul be subject to the higher powers. For there is no power but of God. The powers that be are ordained of

God.

Whosoever therefore resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God: and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation. For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to the evil. Wilt thou then not be afraid of the power? do that which is good, and thou shalt have praise of the same; for he is the minister of God to thee for good. But if thou do that which is evil, be afraid for he beareth not the sword in vain; for he is the minister of God, a revenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil. Wherefore, ye must needs be subject, not only for wrath, but also for conscience sake."

This is precise as regards the civil ruler. The power which he possesses is not arrogated of man, but ordained of God; and therefore submission is inculcated, not merely to avoid the wrath of man, but also as a matter of conscience towards God. The apostle Peter, in like manner, combines the Subject with the Christian, upon the only principle which can make loyalty a religious duty. He says, Submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord's sake: whe

ther 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. And in speaking of the unjust whom God reserves unto the day of judgment to be punished, he thus describes them, in words which maintain a closer connexion between religion and politics, than it accords with the temper of these times to admit. The Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of temptations, and to reserve the unjust unto the day of judgment to be punished, but chiefly, among the various classes of the unjust who are all put in contradistinction to the godly, them that walk after the flesh in the lust of uncleanness, and DESPISE GOVERNMENT. Presumptuous are they, self-willed, they are not afraid to speak evil of dignities.*

The apostolical description of the ruling power, as the minister of God, a terror not to good works, but to the evil, applies to the ordinance itself, and not to the personal character of the individual man or men, by whom the ordinance is administered. When

* 1 Peter ii. 13, 14, and 2 Peter ii. 9, 10.

the apostles gave these instructions to the christian church, the administration of the ordinance of government was in the hands of the Emperor Nero, who, personally considered, was a terror to the good rather than to the evil. And the simple fact of the apostles having so written, while under such a monarch, supplies of itself a very striking proof, that the distinction between an ordinance of God as such, and the character of the human instrumentality by which that ordinance is from time to time administered, is not a cunningly devised fiction, but an essential truth.

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"The sovereignty," says Bishop Horsley, 'particularly intended in the immediate application of the precept to those to whom the epistle was addressed, was the sovereign authority of the Roman emperor. Nero was at the time the possessor of that sovereignty; and the apostle, in what he immediately subjoins to enforce his precept, seems to obviate an objection, which he was well aware the example of Nero's tyranny might suggest. His reasoning is to this effect-' The sovereignty,' you will say, is often placed in unfit hands, and abused to the worst pur

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