materially affect the Apostle's argument with which of these references you understand the term. Which is the more probable reference will be more easily determined after we have settled the meaning of the phrase-" of God," which is applied to every power. It may be said of every magistrate that he is of God, by the permission of his providence; but this lays no foundation for a moral obligation to obedience. ] To say of every magistrate that he is of direct divine appointment would lay a foundation for such an obligation,—but then the statement is not true. The Jewish magistrates― Moses, Joshua, the Judges, Saul, David, and Solomon, were of direct divine appointment. The family of David, though not individually, were, as a body, of direct divine appointment. So was Jeroboam and Jehu, among the Israelitish kings, and so was Zerubbabel, the prince of the captivity. But neither the Maccabees; nor the Asmonean kings, nor the Idumean dynasty among the Jews; nor the consuls or emperors among the Romans; nor the archons of Athens; nor the kings of Sparta; nor the king, lords, and commons of our own country; nor the president, senate, and house of representatives in the United States;-none of these orders of magistrates, and none of the individuals who compose them, are of direct divine appointment. They are all of them, however, of God, as they are the result of the principles of the human mind, and the circumstances of nations, which are the work of God; and so far as they answer the great end of civil government-the objects of his approbation.

It seems to me probable, that the Apostle's reference is not so much to all individual magistrates simply considered, as to all magistrates, by whatever name or modification of civil power they were characterized. This seems to meet

the state of mind to which the whole address has a reference. It was not so much with the individual magistrate, as with the kind of magistracy that the Roman Christians were in danger of being dissatisfied. They probably would at any rate have preferred a descendant of David to Claudius or

Nero; but still the chief ground of that preference would have been, that while the first belonged to an order of kings of direct divine appointment, the other did not. And the Apostle's statement is, "The imperial sovereign of Rome and his subordinate rulers are as really, though not in the same sense, of God,' as David and the elders of Israel. If you think you are warranted to disobey the Roman government because it is not of God,' you labour under a mistake, for magistrates of every name and variety of civil function are so' of God,' as to lay a foundation for a divine moral obligation to obedience. The imperial monarchy of Rome, and the democracy of Athens, and the mixed government of some tribes are but different forms of orderly civil rule, which, as resulting from divine arrangements, and conducive to divine ends, are agreeable to the divine will, as well as the theocratic government of the Jews."

The Apostle now proceeds a step farther, and as a person vested with divine authority-as one of the "princes who, sitting on their thrones, judge the twelve tribes of" the spiritual "Israel," decides, that the existing Roman government was so the ordinance of God to those whom he was addressing, as that they could not disregard its authority without violating his law and incurring his displeasure. "The powers that be are ordained of God." "The powers that be" have been interpreted by some learned and ingenious men, as equivalent to "the authorities that really are authorities "the government that deserves the name-the legitimate powers, the magistrates who possess the qualifications and prosecute the ends of their office. That the phrase may, in certain connections, bear this sense, I do not

* "All civil power is immediately from God in its root, in that (1.) God hath made man a social creature, and one who inclineth to be governed by man; (2.) God intendeth the policie and peace of mankind."-Lex Rex. The Law and the Prince, A Dispute for the just Prerogative of King and People. By Samuel Rutherford, p. 2, 4to. Lond. 1644.

deny; but that this is not its meaning here, if the greater part of what has been said above be not misinterpretation, is sufficiently obvious.

I cannot express my sentiments on this subject better than in the well-considered words of one of the soundest theologians and most accomplished preachers of our country and age, my honoured and beloved brother and friend Dr. Wardlaw: "It is, indeed, worse than absurdity to suppose the Apostle Paul not to speak of the Roman government existing at that time: it approaches at least, to impiety. Paul, let us remember, writes under the influence of the Spirit of God. There is therefore, we may be assured, no 'fleshly wisdom,' no pitiful, shifting, evasive artifices of argument. We must not suppose him to say what his words, on the supposition in question, would plainly amount to. It is your duty, my brethren, to be subject to civil government, but it is only to governments that answer in the degree in which all governments ought, to the following description. You will at once be sensible that this is far from being the case with the government under which you are now placed. It is far, then, from being my intention to inculcate subjection to it. It is rather your duty to resist a government which answers so ill the ends of its institution.' Paul meant this, he would have said it in plain terms. Nay, he who can imagine the Spirit of truth, by whose direction he wrote, to have used such duplicity and mental reservation, is much more than unworthy of being reasoned with."*

Had

Holding then, that "the powers that be" are just the existing Roman authorities, we apprehend the Apostle's assertion is,—the Roman magistrates are appointed by God to rule over you, and the other subjects of the empire.-They are ordained of God." These words are a strong translation of the original words, probably as strong a one

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* Dr. Wardlaw's "Sermon on the Christian Duty of Submission to Civil Government." Pp. 24, 25. Glasgow, 1820.

as the translators, with a due regard to their conscience and scholarship, could give. The words literally signify, "are arranged or set in order under God." They have originated in circumstances of his arranging, and as the best government which, all things considered, the inhabitants of the wide regions included in the Roman Empire can bear— are so in accordance with his will, that none of their subjects, especially of their Christian subjects, after this explicit declaration by an Apostle, can rebel against them without disobeying God.

The conclusion follows irresistibly from the premises, "Whosoever therefore resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God." There is much appropriateness and beauty in the phraseology here. The existing Roman magistrates, from the Emperor to the Edile, have been (Taggoμsvo) arranged, put into order "under God." Whosoever, then, however high be his place in the church, or however distinguished by miraculous gifts, by disobeying the commands of the magistrates (avriraccoμEvos), sets himself, in hostile array against these magistrates, marshalled as it were by God, (avern) resists,-withstands,-opposes (n Sarayn) the arrangement of God. He incurs not only the guilt of disturbing a useful human arrangement-but of opposing a divine arrangement, which has all the force of

* Vide Doddridge in loco.

To illustrate, to a mere English reader, the peculiarity of diction arising from the relation of the Greek words raccoμevos and αντιτασσομενος, I had, in the first edition, represented the words as bearing a relation to each other, similar to that of "put in order," and "put out of order"'—“arrange” and “disarrange,” in English. With that eagerness which generally characterizes second-rate scholars to find an antagonist at fault in matters of grammar, the critic already referred to,* charges me with not knowing the true meaning of the word avεσтne; and, with an excess of rashness or a defect of candour not often exemplified, represents me as applying the remark made on that word, to the interpretation of the word aveεornxev. In this edition I have so varied my illustration as to bring out my idea

* Carson's Review, pp. 66, 67.

an express statute, especially on those to whom an inspired Apostle has just declared, in the most explicit terms, that the existing Roman authorities are set in order by, or under God. This is the first and strongest enforcement of the duty of civil obedience. Disobedience is not only a civil crime, but a moral delinquency-it is not only a breach of the laws of men, but of the laws of God. It exposes not only to the displeasure of men, "who can kill the body," but can do no more; but to the displeasure of "God, who, after he has killed the body, can cast both soul and body into hell fire."

A second powerful enforcement of the duty of civil obedience is brought forward in the second clause of the second verse, and illustrated in the third and fourth verses, "And they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation." There is but one opinion among qualified judges as to the impropriety of the translation of the last word in this clause. The word (xpa) means judgment. It often signifies an unfavourable judgment, and by a common figure of speech comes to be used for punishment. Of this use of the word many instances occur in Scripture.* It is difficult to free our courtly translators from the suspicion that they used the strongest word the language contains a word which was even then, though not so exclusively as now, applied to express the final state of the hopelessly wretched in hell,— to please that weak and wicked king, to whom, under the title of "the Most High and Mighty Prince," they dedicated their labours, and who is recorded to have expressed his indignation in a very remarkable way against a famous German divine, for the freedom of speech which he had used in in

without the possiblity of seeming even to a prejudiced critic to misinterpret the first word, and by inserting the second with that connected with it in regimen, where every attentive reader must have seen that they were referred to, have exposed the utter injustice of the second charge. The word aveεoтnxey was not inserted, because the previous remark had no bearing on its exegesis.

Rom. iii. 8; 1 Cor. xi. 29; Gal. v. 10.