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Grom the Lifrarp of 
 (Professor Samuef Wiffer 
 in Memory of 
 Zudqe Samuel Wiffer Breckinridge 
 (Presented bp 
 Samuel Wiffer Breckinridae Long 
 fo fhe Zifrarp of 
 Princeton Theologica? Seminary 
 BV 629 .B/68 1839 
 Brown, John, 1784-1858. 
 
 The law of Christ respecting 
 civil obedience 
 
» 
 
 om a ΓᾺΡ δ 7 ὺ 
 <a, 77 π᾿, ΚΣ 
 
ἜΗΝ τ τὰς Mt et eae Sa lore , 
 
 Ait χά he zd ae Ge 
 Po ib PIS Pathos 
 
 Γ 
 
 THE LAW OF CHRIST 
 
 ~ RESPECTING 
 
 CIVIL OBEDIENCE, 
 &c. 
 
Nothing can contribute more to the stability of a state than ἃ clear and 
 comprehensive view of the relation, which subsists, between the people and 
 
 those whom they have appointed for their governors.’”—Bisnop Watson. 
 
 “ As to government, we must observe three things therein, very distin- 
 guishable : THE CONSTITUTION OF POWER IN GENERAL, must be severed from 
 THE LIMITATION OF IT TO THIS OR THAT FORM; and the form also must be se- 
 
 vered from THE DESIGNATION OF IT TO THIS OR THAT PERSON.”—J us PopuLt. 
 
 * Though I have learned to obey as far as lawfully I may, my judgment 
 is exceeding far from being enslaved ; and according to that, by God’s assist- 
 ance, shall be my practice; which, if it run counter to the prescriptions of 
 
 authority, shall cheerfully submit to the censures thereof.”—Owen. 
 
THE LAW OF CHRIST 
 RESPECTING CIVIL OBEDIENCE, 
 ESPECIALLY 
 ἽΝ THE PAYMENT OF TRIBUTE ; 
 
 WITH AN APPENDIX OF DOCUMENTS AND NOTES: 
 
 TO WHICH ARE ADDED 
 TWO ADDRESSES ON THE VOLUNTARY 
 CHURCH CONTROVERSY. 
 
 ὧδ 
 
 Vv 
 BY JOHN BROWN, D.D., 
 
 MINISTER OF THE UNITED ASSOCIATE CONGREGATION, BROUGHTON PLACE, EDINBURGH 3 
 
 AND PROFESSOR OF EXEGETICAL THEOLOGY TO THE UNITED SECESSION CHURCH, 
 
 ATIOAOTE TA ΚΑΙΣΑΡΟΣ KAIZAPI KAI TA ΤΟΥ ΘΕΟΥ͂ ΤῺ OEN.—‘O ΚΥΡΙΟΣ. 
 
 THIRD EDITION, 
 
 IMPROVED AND ENLARGED. 
 
 LONDON:—WILLIAM BALL, 
 
 ALDINE CHAMBERS, PATERNOSTER ROW. 
 MDCCCXXXIX. 
 ΙΔ 22 
 
W. OLIPHANT, JUN. & CO. PRINTERS, 23; SOUTIT BRIDGE STREET, EDINBURGH, 
 
TO THE 
 ELDERS, MANAGERS, AND MEMBERS 
 
 OF THE 
 
 UNITED ASSOCIATE CONGREGATION OF BROUGHTON PLACE, 
 ν᾿ EDINBURGH, 
 
 TO WHOSE SPIRITUAL IMPROVEMENT 
 
 THE AUTHOR FEELS IT HIS HIGH PRIVILEGE, 
 
 AS HE COUNTS IT HIS FIRST PUBLIC DUTY, 
 
 TO DEVOTE HIS TIME AND TALENTS AND ACTIVE EXERTIONS, 
 
 THE FOLLOWING EXPOSITION 
 
 OF AN IMPORTANT AND ILL UNDERSTOOD PORTION OF OUR LORD'S LAW, 
 
 IS AFFECTIONATELY AND RESPECTFULLY INSCRIBED. 
 
av πῃ Ἀγ Bs pore 4A, 85%. Sa 
 ͵ nil ΕΝ 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 THE circumstances which rendered the composition, 
 and publication, first from the pulpit, and then from 
 the press, of the following Exposition, less a matter 
 of choice than of necessity, are notorious in this city, 
 and are fully detailed in the appended documents. 
 It is enough, to say here, that an accusation of havy- 
 ing violated the law of Christ, contained in the sub- 
 ject of the Exposition, and of having endeavoured to 
 cloak that violation by a corrupt misinterpretation 
 of the law itself—an accusation publicly made, not 
 anonymously, but by an individual, who, for more 
 than forty years, has figured, more or less prominent- 
 ly, in the religious history of Scotland, who is under- 
 stood to possess considerable influence over one por- 
 tion of public opinion, and whose age and rank in 
 life seemed to forbid the supposition of hot-headed 
 rashness or vulgar exaggeration, in any charge he 
 might think it his duty to bring forward, was, with 
 unprecedented activity, circulated throughout the 
 
 city, copies of it having been handed to almost every 
 
Vlil PREFACE. 
 
 family, and even widely dispersed, over remote parts 
 of the country. 
 
 In these circumstances I felt constrained, in jus- 
 tice to the ministry with which I have been intrust- 
 ed, and to the truth which I conceived to be misre- 
 presented, to make, as public as possible, my real 
 views of an important passage of Scripture, which, 
 according to my accuser, I had not only misinterpret- 
 ed, but my misinterpretation of which, I had also em- 
 bodied in a course of conduct, equally inconsistent 
 with the honour due to the divine law, and the re- 
 gard due to the public peace. The Exposition was 
 delivered from the pulpit in two lectures, on the 
 evenings of the third Sabbaths in December, 1837, 
 and January, 1838, and immediately afterwards sent 
 from the press. 
 
 Looking back on the very remarkable manner in 
 which I have been compelled to publish my views of 
 the various topics discussed in this Exposition, I 
 cannot help perceiving that I have been “led by a 
 way that I knew not, and in a path that I had not 
 known ;” and cherishing the hope that this statement 
 of the truth, on an important, and but imperfectly 
 understood portion of the law of Christ, may, by His 
 blessing, be productive of some salutary results. 
 
 So far as I am personally concerned, I send these 
 illustrations of Scripture into the world, with the un- 
 doubted assurance that their perusal must convince 
 
 every unprejudiced judge that the calumnious charge 
 
PREFACE. ix 
 
 brought against me is unfounded. But my own vin- 
 dication is a matter of comparatively light import- 
 ance. I trust something has been done to show, that 
 neither the doctrine nor the law of Christ has any 
 
 affinity to slavish principles;* and that it is equal- 
 
 * “J shall always lament the indiscretion of ecclesiastics” (it is to 
 be regretted equally in the case of Christian laymen) “ when they 
 contend for opinions, which, in their legitimate and practical conse- 
 quences, lead to the extravagance of Rousseau, where he tells us that 
 ‘ Le Christianisme, ne préche qui servitude et dépendance. Son esprit 
 est trop favorable a la Tyrannie pour qu'elle n’en profite pas toujours. 
 Les vrais Chretiens sont faits pour etre Esclaves.—Lettre a M. de 
 Beaumont, p. 198. Anxious for the honour of my religion, for the 
 comfort and instruction of my fellow Christians, and for the happi- 
 ness of my fellow subjects, I shall always declare, in the words of an 
 eloquent prelate, ‘ That grandeur and elevation of mind, that subli- 
 mity of sentiment, that conscious dignity of our nature, redeemed at 
 so high a price, which true religion keeps alive; which Holy Scrip-_ 
 ture dictates ; and which the Spirit of the Lord inspires, will ever be 
 pushing us on to the attainment and preservation of those civil rights, 
 which we have been taught by reason to know are ours, and which 
 we have been made to feel by experience, are of all others the most 
 indispensable to human happiness. —Warburton’s Alliance, p. 258.” 
 Dr Parr. Characters of the late Charles James Fox, by Philopatris Var- 
 vicensis, vol. ii. p. 732. Lond. 1809. 
 
 It is a curious fact, that during the agitation in this city, produced 
 by the incidents which led to this publication, a vender of infidel 
 books, of the worst kind, proclaimed in a placard, that my assailant 
 was a just expositor of the Christian doctrine on Civil Obedience ; 
 that all my jesuitical attempts to give a different gloss to it were un- 
 successful ; and that Christianity being opposed to truth and liberty, 
 must be false and mischievous. It seemed strange and portentous, to 
 see one of the oldest and staunchest dissenters in the land, rushing 
 to the rescue of the compulsory system of supporting Christian insti- 
 tutions, and to hear an inveterate hater of Christianity uttering 
 screams of delight, at the unnatural act, in which, while others saw 
 only what appeared less like the display of principled zeal than of 
 personal rancour against a brother, who merely sought, in the most 
 
 b 
 
Χ PREFACE. 
 
 ly the dictate of revealed truth, sound reason, and 
 enlightened policy, that, of all things, religion should 
 be the most free—* Res,” as Lactantius has it, “ pre- 
 ter ceteras voluntaria.” “ Humani juris et naturalis 
 potestatis est unicuique quod putaverit colere: nec 
 alii obest aut prodest alterius religio. Sed nee re- 
 ligionis est, cogere religionem, que sponte suscipi 
 debeat, non vi.”* It is more than sixteen hundred 
 years since these words of truth and soberness were 
 spoken by Tertullian. Alas! that, amid all the light 
 of the nineteenth century, they should be, obviously, 
 so imperfectly understood, believed, aid exemplified ! 
 
 From the, necessarily, very limited time in which, 
 amid the numerous and laborious avocations connect- 
 ed with the pastoral care of a large congregation, 
 the following Exposition was prepared, it is far from 
 being what, for the sake of the cause, fully as much 
 as for my own sake, I should wish; but I have “ done 
 
 35 
 
 what I could,” and I rejoice to know that my Mas- 
 
 ter accepts a man, “ not according to what he hath 
 not, but according to what he hath.” 
 
 effectual way, to protest against the indignity offered to his religion, 
 by making it the subject of state support, and to keep himself free of 
 the sin and shame of participating in the insult, the shrewd Atheist 
 rejoiced to see what he accounted a deadly wound inflicted on Chris- 
 tianity, by the hand of “ an old Disciple.” 
 
 * “ Tt belongeth of right unto mankind, that every one may wor- 
 ship as he thinketh best : nor does the religion of any man harm or 
 help another. Neither indeed is it the business of religion to compel 
 religion, which ought to be taken up willingly, and not against the 
 will.”—The Address of Q. S. Tertullian to Scapula Tertullus, President 
 of Africa. Translated by Sir David Dalrymple, p. 3. Edin. 1790. 
 
PREFACE. xi 
 
 In preparing two or three of the notes, I have 
 availed myself of the kind assistance of some learned 
 and ingenious friends, to whom I feel much indebt- 
 ed; and fully persuaded that had my obligations to 
 them been more frequent and more extensive, my 
 readers would have had cause to be better pleased, 
 it would have been a relief to my mind, as well as a 
 recommendation to my work, had I been warranted 
 to make a more specific acknowledgment.* 
 
 * To enable my readers to judge how much they would have gained, 
 had the assistance referred to been more frequent and more extensive, 
 I think it right to state, that the ingenious, and learned, and conclu- 
 sive argument respecting the meaning of an important passage in Ter- 
 tullian’s “* Apologeticus,” in Note XXVIII., and the masterly histori- 
 cal statement and argument, respecting the Annuity Tax, forming the 
 
 first part of Note XXXII., are the contributions so gratefully acknow- 
 ledged. 
 
 55, AtBany Srreer, January 22, 1838. 
 
PREFACE 
 
 TO 
 
 THE THIRD) EDITION. 
 
 Ir has long been generally felt, that wide as is the 
 range, and rich as are the treasures of our expository 
 and moral literature, a satisfactory interpretation of 
 the law of Civil Obedience, as published by the Apos- 
 tle Paul in the thirteenth chapter of the Epistle to 
 the Romans, and a clear discriminative statement 
 and enforcement of the duties required by that law, 
 were still wanting. To supply in some measure these 
 desiderata in scriptural exegesis, and Christian ethies, 
 is the object of the principal treatise in the following 
 Volume. How far that object has been gained, it is 
 left with the competent tribunal to decide. 
 
 In the present Edition, that Treatise appears, it is 
 hoped, in a somewhat improved form, having been 
 enlarged by the insertion of a few paragraphs, and 
 having undergone that careful revision, which its hur- 
 ried composition and publication rendered so neces- 
 sary, but which the short space intervening between 
 the first and second edition afforded no opportunity 
 
 of giving it. Two Addresses on the Voluntary 
 
PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION. ΧΙ 
 
 Church Question, formerly published in another 
 shape, have been appended, and considerable addi- 
 tions have been made to the Notes and Illustrations. 
 
 To some, these may appear to have been sufficient- 
 ly voluminous, in the former editions; but, for the 
 number and length of the selected notes, which com- 
 pose a large proportion of the whole, I cannot bring 
 myself to offer an apology; for, without subjecting 
 myself to any hazard of the charge of affected self- 
 depreciation, I may plainly say, what I well know, 
 that they form by far the most valuable part of the 
 book. They often furnish the evidence of statements 
 made in the text, and at other times present, in ev- 
 tenso, arguments and illustrations, which are there 
 only hinted at, or given in the most condensed form. 
 Many of them will have the charm of novelty to 
 most of my readers, and I shall be glad, if they prove 
 the means of inducing any of them to cultivate a 
 more intimate acquaintance with works, lying some- 
 what out of the ordinary track of reading, from which 
 (“ Haud inexpertus loquor,”) they may derive much 
 
 pleasure, and some improvement.* 
 
 * « T have been under the necessity, at least, as I thought, of ap- 
 pealing for illustration to writers of all ages and in various languages. 
 There is an appearance of ostentation in it, to which I must submit. 
 I certainly am of opinion, with Casaubon, that it cannot be supposed 
 ‘ facere aliquid ad yeram pietatem aut doctrinam, Greca potius quam 
 alia lingua loqui.—Fwercit. xvi. ad Ann. Hee. Baronii. Certainly not. 
 But to enforce and illustrate any position, the language of pocts, and 
 the dignity and spirit of ancient eloquence and history, in the original 
 
XIV PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION. 
 
 It is satisfactory to perceive that the defenders of 
 the Voluntary principle, as the basis both of the 
 maintenance and of the extension of religion, uphold 
 no sentiment which has not been clearly stated and 
 strongly proved by some of the wisest and best men 
 of former ages, and that they are but performing their 
 part in the obsequies of martyred truth, by laying in 
 decent order some of her “ disjecta membra,” which 
 her “ sad friends” in “ the olden times” have suc- 
 ceeded in collecting. Our task is full of Hope—for 
 we know that when all the parts of the torn body of 
 truth are “ fitly joined together and compacted by 
 that which every joint supplieth,” “ the spirit of life 
 in Christ Jesus,” will soon reanimate the restored 
 frame :—The wonders of the primitive age will be re- 
 newed: MaGNA ERIT VERITAS ET PREVALEBIT.* 
 
 words, are of no mean assistance.”—Mathias’ Pursuits of Literature. 
 Introd. Letter, pp. 25, 26. Lond. 1799. 
 
 * The passage in Milton’s “ Aveopayitica,” to which there is an al- 
 lusion here, is at-once so beautiful and so instructive, that I give it at 
 length. ‘‘ Truth indeed came once into the world with her Divine 
 Masters and was a perfect shape most glorious to look on; but when 
 he ascended, and his apostles after him were laid asleep, there strait 
 arose a wicked race of deceivers, who, as the story goes of the Egyp- 
 tian Typhon, with his conspirators, how they dealt with the good 
 Osiris, took the virgin Truth, hewed her lovely form into a thousand 
 pieces, and scattered them to the four winds. From that time the 
 sad friends of Truth, such as durst appear, imitating the careful search 
 which Isis made for the mangled body of Osiris, went up and down, 
 gathering up limb by limb, still as they could find them. We have 
 not yet found them all, Lords and Commons, nor ever shall do, till 
 her Master’s second coming : He shall bring together every joint and 
 member, and shall mould them into an immortal feature of loveliness 
 
PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION. ΧΥ 
 
 It has not been deemed necessary to notice parti- 
 eularly any of the numerous replies* with which the 
 Treatise has been honoured. [f reckoned it a point 
 of duty to read and consider them all, a duty which, 
 though from the matter and manner of these replies, 
 somewhat laborious and irksome, has, I trust, been 
 not only of some use to myself, but of some advan- 
 tage to my work. The result of this consideration is 
 a conviction, that with a single exception, they do 
 not deserve, and without any exception, they do not 
 require, an answer. In none of them is the argument 
 respecting the payment of tribute fairly met—and 
 
 and perfection. Suffer not these licensing prohibitions, to stand at 
 every place of opportunity forbidding and disturbing them that con- 
 tinue to do our obsequies to the torn body of our martyred saint.’— 
 Milton's Works vol. i. p. 156. Fol. Lond. 1758. 
 
 * In the course I have pursued, I have acted according to the fol- 
 lowing most judicious advice, which is as appropriate as if it had been 
 meant for my special guidance :—“ A writer publishes his sentiments 
 on a controverted point in politics or theology, and supports them by 
 the best arguments in his power. A hot-headed champion rises on 
 the opposite side, who in print styles his notions impious or seditious, 
 his arguments trivial and absurd, insults his person, vilifies his sense 
 and learning, and imputes to him the worst motives. What matter 
 is there in all this for an answer? The writer does not mean to dis- 
 ayow his opinions, because an opponent thinks ill of them. His ar- 
 guments are not refuted by the abuse of one who, perhaps from in- 
 capacity or ignorance, is utterly unable to comprehend them. Of his 
 sense and learning he has constituted the public his judges by the 
 act of publication, and to their judgment at large he appeals. His 
 motives can only be known to his own heart ; and asserting them to 
 be good, will no more convince his enemies, than the contrary asser- 
 tion has convinced his friends. If, therefore, he has obtained from 
 nature to exercise a due command of temper, he will preserve a dig- 
 nified silence, till an attack of some other kind summons him to the 
 
ΧΥΪ PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION. 
 
 whether that argument is unanswerable or not, it 
 certainly yet remains unanswered. 
 
 The only two plausible objections which have been 
 brought against the doctrine of the Treatise are, that 
 tribute is of the nature of debt, and therefore ought 
 in all circumstances to be paid, and that the reason 
 for not paying a tax exacted avowedly, for a special 
 object, which is accounted sinful by him who is re- 
 quired to pay it, equally holds in reference to the 
 payment of taxes for the general purposes of govern- 
 ment, when it is known that a portion of the revenue 
 thus collected is appropriated to an immoral use.* 
 
 In reference to the first of these statements, it is 
 enough to remark, that, it isa mere play upon words, 
 and, essentially, a begging of the question.—Debt is 
 
 field. Now this other kind must be characterized by one of these two 
 circumstances,—the production of new and forcible arguments against 
 him, or a misrepresentation in matter of fact, of a nature materially 
 to injure his character."—Nothing bearing the first of these charac- 
 ters has appeared. I regret I cannot say so of the second class of at- 
 tacks.—“ No attack on moral character,” continues my shrewd ad- 
 viser, “is to be slighted. Though proceeding from the most infamous 
 and despicable of mankind, they are never without some power of 
 hurting ; and silence under them will pass, in the estimation of a 
 great part of the world, for an acknowledgment of guilt. If, there- 
 fore, an unprincipled antagonist attempts to render a man odious, 
 either by representing him as saying what he never said, or by invent- 
 ing personal slander and calumny against him, it will generally be 
 as prudent as it is equitable to cite him to the bar of the public, ex- 
 pose his dishonest arts and malignant intentions, and with strong 
 hand drag him forth, like Cacus from the midst of his fire and smoke, 
 to light and punishment.’—Aikin's Lellers of a Father to a Son, pp. 
 109-118. Lond. 1794.—I have taken both parts of the advice. 
 * Vide Note XLIII. 
 
PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION. XvVil 
 
 something that is due; but the question is not, Whe- 
 ther what is due ought to be paid, but whether tri- 
 bute exacted for a sinful purpose is, or can be, due. 
 Prove that it is, and the controversy is at an end: 
 But to say that tribute is called debt, proves nothing 
 to the point. Civil obedience is called debt as well 
 as tribute, but there are cases in which obedience 
 ought not to be yielded; and why may there not be 
 cases in which tribute ought not to be paid? Iam 
 not disposed to question the sincerity of those who 
 use this argument, but in doing homage to their ho- 
 nesty, I necessarily sacrifice all respect for their un- 
 derstanding. 
 
 With regard to the second of these statements, I 
 must say, that though it were fully made out that the 
 principle, on which the payment of a tax for a spe- 
 cific immoral object is condemned, is applicable in 
 some instances to taxes for general purposes, that 
 would in no degree shake my conviction, as to the 
 truth of another proposition, viz. that it is wrong to 
 pay a tax for a specific purpose which 1 account im- 
 moral, a proposition which rests immoveably on its 
 own proper foundation of rational and scriptural evi- 
 dence. There is very little danger of any man pre- 
 tending conscientious scruples in reference to the pay- 
 ment of taxes, whether for general or specific objects, 
 while he is certain that the pecuniary sacrifice will 
 be greater in the case of refusing than of complying 
 with the claim; and I do not know that governments 
 
 ς 
 
XVili PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION. 
 
 would be at all the worse, of having intimation 
 given to them, in a manner fitted to secure their at- 
 tention, previously to the season of serious hazard, of 
 conscientious dissatisfaction on the part of their sub- 
 jects, with the manner in which the public revenues 
 are expended. 
 
 But whatever there may be in this, every attempt to 
 show that the avowal, on the part of the government, 
 of what appears to me the immoral purpose of a tax, 
 does not affect the moral character of my act of pay- 
 ing it, has completely failed, and must for ever com- 
 pletely fail, while there is a difference between part- 
 ing with property for what I know to be right, and 
 parting with property for what I know to be wrong. 
 To part with property is a voluntary act, and no 
 power on earth can make it right in me voluntarily 
 to do what I believe to be wrong. If it is taken 
 from me for such a purpose, that is the exercise of 
 might not right, and in such a transaction I may in- 
 nocently be a sufferer, but I cannot innocently be 
 an actor. The distinction is to my mind so palpable, 
 that I despair of making it clearer by any illustra- 
 tion; and should any person still insist that he can- 
 not perceive it, I can only regret a deficiency, I can- 
 not supply, and wish him ra αἰσθητηρια yeyopvacpeva, δια τὴν 
 εξιν, προς διακρισιν καλου τε καὶ κακου “ faculties trained by 
 practice to discern good from evil.”* “ There is 
 more,” as Joseph Mede says, “ goes to persuasion,” 
 
 * Heb.'v. 14. 
 
~ 
 PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION. ΧΙΧ 
 
 especially oh subjects of this kind, “ than reasons and 
 demonstrations, and that is not in my power.” 
 
 The only passage in any of these replies, which 
 seems to demand animadversion from me, is the fol- 
 lowing: “If the body of the Secession approves of 
 Dr Brown’s Canons of Criticism, and remain for half 
 a century longer to be distinguished for their attach- 
 ment to ancient orthodoxy, it will be a kind of mi- 
 racle. A spurious liberality is more likely to take 
 the place of that earnest contending for the faith, 
 that was manifested by those men of God, who found- 
 ed the Secession. I think I see symptoms of a spu- 
 rious liberality in Dr Brown himself. I set no bounds 
 to the liberality that ought to exist among all the 
 friends of a pure gospel. But would an Erskine 
 have styled Mr Locke ‘an excellent divine?’ This 
 expression grated on my ear, and I bitterly lamented 
 it, as affording evidence that the Seceders of Scotland 
 are not what their fathers were. That Mr Locke 
 was an excellent philosopher, and in many respects 
 a worthy man, no man will question. But no man 
 who respects the standards of the Church of Scotland, 
 can consistently call him ‘ an excellent divine.’ His 
 system of religion, unfolded in his work on the Epis- 
 tle to the Romans, is the very core of Arminianism, 
 and affords the most plausible expedients to the op- 
 posers of the truth to evade its evidence. Let there 
 be unbounded liberality with respect to the friends 
 
 of the gospel of God. Let its very enemies get jus- 
 
ΧΧ PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION. 
 
 tice. But if an angel from heaven should dare to 
 arraign the gospel, let us not fear to say with an apos- 
 tle, ‘ Let him be accursed. To speak of Mr Locke 
 as ‘an excellent divine, is to authenticate not his 
 criticism merely, but his errors.” * 
 
 The unwarranted insinuations in these words against 
 a religious body, to which I account it an honour and 
 privilege to belong, appear to require the exposure 
 and rebuke, which the unfair personal attack in them, 
 one among many, would assuredly not have provok- 
 ed. Will the reader believe that this fabric of 
 weighty charges and dark vaticinations has no foun- 
 dation, but in the distempered imagination of its au- 
 thor? TI never said, I never thought, that Mr Locke 
 was “an excellent divine.” In a little work, pub- 
 lished more than twenty years ago, I stated the judg- 
 ment which I then had formed of him as an inter- 
 
 * Carson’s Review, pp. 117, 118.—This gentleman seems ambi- 
 tious of deserving the character, given by Camerarius, of a defamer 
 of the accomplished Melancthon, “ delicatus scurra, tanguam Ther- 
 sites, qui studio sibi habet lacessere maledictis, summos, et maximos 
 ’ yviros.”* He has done much towards gaining this unenviable distinc- 
 tion, who has attacked “ suo more,” such men as Owen, Hueues, 
 Dick, Warpiaw, Pye Suitu, Tuoivck, and Henperson, “ viros summos 
 et maximos.” After preying on such exalted quarry, it is rather ex- 
 traordinary that he should pounce on such humble game. Is this to be 
 accounted for, on the principle that the appetite for abuse once ex- 
 cited, and “ growing by what it feeds on,” loses in discrimination what 
 it gains in keenness, and becomes more ravenous than nice ; or, on 
 the more familiar principle—that the falcon flies at the nod of its 
 keeper, and the spaniel barks when his master bids him? Thersi- 
 tes’ imitators should remember Thersites’ fate—Achilles’ fist silenced 
 the railings, by demolishing the railer. 
 
 * Camerarii vita Melancthonis. Prowmium. Lipsie. 1696. 
 
PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION. Xxi 
 
 preter of Scripture, in the following terms: “ Had 
 Mr Locke’s honours no foundation, but his skill in 
 Biblical criticism, they would stand on a tottering 
 basis. It is his well-earned fame as the philosopher 
 of the mind, which preserves his Biblical labours 
 from oblivion. His commentary contains, indeed, 
 a few good remarks, but he gave, we rather think, 
 the first example, in this country, of that misinterpre- 
 tation on principle of the Apostolic Epistles, which 
 Dr John Taylor of Norwich, with such a waste of la- 
 bour, perfected into a system.”* My opinion has 
 not materially altered as to Mr Locke’s merits as an 
 interpreter ; and as to his theology, it has always ap- 
 peared to me more akin to Pelagianism than to Ar- 
 minianism. 
 
 The appellation given by me to Mr Locke, is not 
 “an excellent divine,” but “ an accomplished philo- 
 sophical jurist,” which I think few qualified judges 
 will account an unmerited or inappropriate eulogium. 
 It is Dr Watts, not Mr Locke, whom I term an ex- 
 cellent divine. Now, though from some of Dr 
 Watts’ opinions even on important subjects, I en- 
 tirely dissent, yet still I apprehend he is fairly enti- 
 tled to the appellation, “ an excellent divine” The 
 passage referred to in my assailant’s remarks, runs 
 thus: “ Dr Watts states that the design of civil go- 
 vernment is to secure the persons, properties, the 
 
 ᾿ς * Strictures on Mr Yates’ Vindication of Unitarianism, p. 26. 
 Glasg. 1816. 
 
ΧΧΙ PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION. 
 
 just liberty and peace of mankind, from the invasions 
 and injuries of their neighbours.”—“ The common- 
 wealth,” says Locke, “ seems to me a society of men 
 constituted only for the procuring, preserving, and 
 advancing their civil interests. Civil interests I call 
 life, liberty, health, and indolency of body, and the 
 possession of outward things, such as money, lands, 
 house furniture, and the like. In perfect conformity 
 with this excellent divine, and this accomplished phi- 
 losophical jurist,” &e. 
 
 How the author was led into the course of misre- 
 presentation he has followed, may be accounted for 
 on various suppositions. Stupidity, malignity, or in- 
 advertence, will solve the problem. His book abun- 
 dantly refutes the first supposition. Its author la- 
 bours under no such deficiency of understanding as 
 would at once account and apologise for such a mis- 
 take. There is much to give plausibility to the se- 
 cond supposition, but it would require to be support- 
 ed by even stronger evidence, than that book con- 
 tains, to be innocently entertained, and we therefore 
 readily give him the benefit of the third hypothesis, 
 and set it down, as one of many proofs, that he had 
 not carefully considered the book, which he had un- 
 dertaken to refute. 
 
 This exposure of his rashness may be of use to 
 him, if it lead him to attend to the counsel of the 
 wise Ben Sirach (the advice, though from the Apo- 
 erypha, is a wholesome one), “ Blame not before thou 
 
PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION. XXill 
 
 hast examined the truth: Understand first, and then 
 rebuke.”* If he does not follow this advice, he will 
 probably again verify the adage, which carries with 
 it a far higher authority, “ He that answereth a mat- 
 ter before he heareth it, it is folly and shame to 
 him.” + 
 
 To bring a serious charge against a numerous de- 
 nomination of Christians, whose reputation for sound- 
 ness in the faith has, during the whole century of its 
 existence, been untainted, on the ground of an opi- 
 nion, casually expressed, by one of their ministers, on 
 the merits of a particular writer, even if that opinion 
 had been incorrect, surely would not savour of that 
 “ charity” which “ thinketh no evil.” “The Seceders 
 are not what their fathers were—a spurious liberality 
 is likely to take the place of earnest contendings for 
 the faith. It will be a kind of miracle if they remain 
 for half a century longer to be distinguished for their 
 attachment to ancient orthodoxy—and there is evi- 
 dence afforded for all this.” And what is this evi- 
 dence? All these foul charges against, all these 
 dark forebodings about the Seceders, are founded on 
 a single short expression of one of their ministers, 
 which, on examination is found to be, “ Dr Isaac 
 Watts was an excellent divine.” The back of a tor- 
 toise is as good a foundation for the world, as such a 
 saying is for such a charge. There must be some- 
 thing wrong, when a man can on such evidence not 
 
 * Ecclesiasticus xi. 7. + Prov. xviii. 13. 
 
ΧΧΙΥ PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION. 
 
 only “ take up,” but in his closet excogitate, and 
 then proclaim, from the press, through the length 
 and breadth of the land, such “a reproach against 
 his neighbour.” 
 
 This gentleman, like his principal, seems to be of 
 a very pugnacious disposition. ‘“ Let me be met,” 
 he exclaims, “ on every point, and let my opponent 
 step by step defend what I have attacked.” This 
 challenge, so far as 1am concerned, must remain un- 
 accepted. A sufficient reason has already been given 
 for this; but there are two others in reserve. I do 
 not think it wise to fight with those who use poison- 
 ed weapons. I dare not employ such implements, so 
 that we would not be on equal terms: And, besides, 
 both the second and his principal would do well to 
 consider that those who set at defiance at once the 
 decencies of Christian debate, and the usages of 
 literary warfare, “ degrade themselves,” as Porson 
 says, “ from that rank in literature, which entitles one 
 writer to challenge another,”* and to decline in such 
 a case to take up the gauntlet, is understood as an in- 
 dication of fear, not of being foiled in, but of being 
 disgraced by the combat. 
 
 Of the remarkable individual, whose unprovoked 
 attack occasioned the preparation and publication of 
 the Treatise, and who in his letterst has afforded the 
 
 * Porson’s Letters to Travis, p. 406. Lond. 1790. 
 + Of the spirit of these extraordinary productions, the following 
 specimens will enable the reader, who may not have seen them, to 
 
PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION. XV 
 
 public ample means of forming a judgment of his 
 temper, talents, acquirements, and cause, I have only 
 to say, in the words of Casaubon about Gretzer, 
 one of his opponents, who is described as “ homo vi- 
 rulentissimus, maledicendi fere professus, et scurrili 
 dicacitate nemini secundus”—(such men have been 
 
 form a judgment. The Lectures are described as, “ revolutionary and 
 neological discourses, in almost every page” of which “ occur false 
 reasonings ;” containing “ perversions of Scripture so flagrant as to 
 be not only irreverent to God, but an insult to the understanding of 
 every reader,” one passage being “ not only absurd but blasphemous,” 
 and one sentence so “ expressive of deep malignity,” that if it may 
 be equalled it cannot be surpassed ; inculcating “‘ sentiments fraught 
 with absurdity,” “ against which common sense and common honesty 
 alike revolt,” “ false, heretical, and pernicious doctrines, which suit 
 well with the infidel supporters of the present ungodly school of politi- 
 cal philosophers ;” teaching and exemplifying a “ casuistry worthy of 
 a whole conclave of the disciples of Loyola,” ‘* dishonourable and 
 dangerous subterfuges,” “ artful evasion, sophistical criticism,” and 
 “ paltry sophistry, with which it is disgusting to deal.” Their author 
 is denounced as “a dangerous citizen,” and “ a most unsound exposi- 
 tor of the word of God,” who, though “ a theological professor of a 
 denomination long distinguished for orthodoxy,” “ tramples on the 
 law of Christ, and gives to the winds the solemn precepts of the 
 apostle,” “ makes void the word of God as grossly as was done by the 
 Pharisees through their traditions ;” makes as great “ havoc of the 
 word of God,” as'ever any neologian did, “ preaches sedition under 
 as specious a garb as the most accomplished Jesuit could employ,” 
 
 “ teaches direct rebellion against the authority of God, and places the 
 will of man above the will of God,” is “a dishonest disputant,” a 
 “most insufficient and dangerous guide,” is “self-condemned,” “ know- 
 ing that he is wrong, without having the candour to acknowledge it,” 
 “ has imbibed a spirit of political agitation,” is “ an inflamed dema- 
 gogue,” “a hot-headed agitator,” whose “ ardour after change and 
 innovation indicate a mind ill at ease with itself, resembling the trou- 
 bled sea, which casts forth_mire and dirt ; and he is counselled, “ if 
 immured in a prison, to which the violated laws of his country have 
 
 c 
 
XXVi PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION. 
 
 found in all ages),—‘ Demiror FUROREM HOMINIS, 
 SED ME ILLE NON MOVET.”* 
 
 This work, though its origin and primary refer- 
 ence may seem calculated to excite only a local and 
 temporary interest, refers to a subject of general 
 and permanent importance. It has a direct bearing 
 on the question respecting civil establishments of re- 
 ligion,—that question which yields to few in magni- 
 tude, as involving in its right resolution, the most 
 valuable interests of mankind, both as individuals and 
 
 consigned him, to remain in that confinement, till, after serious con- 
 sideration, he is convinced of the evil of trampling on the ordinance 
 of man and the ordinance of God, that experiencing the painful ef- 
 fects of the one, he may be led to ponder the more serious and aw- 
 ful consequences of the other.” 
 
 Were my accuser believed, the tendency of my doctrine and con- 
 duct could not be better described, than in the” following vigorous 
 sentence of the great Genevan Reformer :—‘ Non aliorsum spec- 
 tat nisi ut regibus sua sceptra e manibus extorqueantur, tribunalia 
 judiciaque omnia precipitentur, subvertantur ordines omnes et politi, 
 pax et quies populi perturbetur, leges omnes abrogentur, dominia et 
 possessiones dissipentur, omnia denique, sursum deorsum volvantur.” 
 —Calvini Prefat. ad Instit. Christ. p. 1. Folio. Argent. 1545. 
 Such were the calumnies uttered against the reformers of the fifteenth 
 century,—and, like them, to have “ all manner of evil spoken against 
 me” (depeay), gratuitously, when maintaining substantially the same 
 cause, I count no common honour.—Xaipw καὶ ayadAcaw-—Matth. 
 v. 125 
 
 “ T will show you, Sir, wHarT 1s rattine,” says the author of the 
 above revilings, towards the close of the large pamphlet,’a fair speci- 
 men of which has been exhibited. The promise is ill placed. To 
 show “ what railing is,” was then “ actum agere’—a complete work 
 of supererogation. The pithy sentence should be transferred in the 
 next “ THousanp” to the title-page—and would form a most appropri- 
 ate motto. 
 
 * Wolfii Casauboniana, pp. 4, 205. Hamb. 1710. 
 
PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION. XXVil 
 
 as civil and religious bodies, and which has at length 
 excited such a sense of its true character, as secures 
 that it shall never cease to agitate the public mind 
 of this country, till it is satisfactorily settled. To 
 many, as well as to the Author, it is evident that it 
 admits only of one mode of satisfactory settlement : 
 —the entire disconnexion of Church and State. 
 
 By all who are not naturally incapable of reflection, 
 or have not been disqualified for its exercise by the 
 influence of powerful prejudice or excited passion, 
 the religious establishments of this country are seen 
 to be exposed to unprecedented dangers, from the in- 
 creased intelligence, if not from the declining religion, 
 of the age, which, from their obviously diminished 
 and diminishing hold on the convictions and affec- 
 tions of the community, they are but ill prepared to 
 meet.* And it is surely desirable to all enlightened 
 lovers of their country, that the great crisis which is 
 obviously approaching—which cannot be avoided, 
 nor probably very long delayed—the most important 
 
 * Whether it was natural incapacity, or accidental disqualification 
 which was at work, certainly the following picture of the Establish- 
 ment by an evangelical clergyman, is a curious specimen of self-delu- 
 sion :—‘* Our Establishment is at this time (1834), exhibiting to 
 every beholder a model of temperate forbearance, dignified calmness, 
 and truly Christian patience of revilings. May she ever pursue this 
 exalted course, and she will sail, like the eagle in the lofty regions of 
 the skies, far above the reach of the shafts of her assailants, upon 
 whom, if she cast her penetrating glance for an instant, it will only 
 be in pity, for the wasted but not less hostile efforts of those, who have 
 not the strength to send an arrow, with sufficient force even to ruffle 
 
XXVill PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION. 
 
 crisis which has occurred in this country since the Re- 
 formation*—should pass like the revolution of 1832, 
 without disturbance of the public peace, and with the 
 least possible sacrifice of individual happiness. 
 
 It will be a fearful catastrophe, if, through obsti- 
 nacy on the part of Churchmen, and indolence on 
 the part of Dissenters, the disruption of the tie which 
 binds the Church to the State, be left to the unseru- 
 pulous hands of a justly incensed, but very imper- 
 fectly enlightened populace. Yet to this, if preven- 
 tive measures are not timely adopted, it must come, 
 and may come sooner than we think. 
 
 the radiant plumage of her wings.”* The ostrich, with her head be- 
 hind the rock, fancying herself safe, because she does not see her pur- 
 suers, would be a more appropriate emblem of their Establishment,— 
 and Gathercole and Philpots are living impersonations of her “ tem- 
 perate forbearance and dignified calmness.” 
 
 * The following eloquent warning is not the less instructive and 
 impressive, when the quarter from which it proceeds is considered :— 
 “‘ What times are coming upon the earth, we know not, but the ge- 
 neral expectation of persons of all characters, in all nations, is an in- 
 stinct implanted by God, to warn us of a coming storm. Not one na- 
 tion only, but all; not one class of thinkers, but all; they who fear 
 and they who hope, and who fear and hope things opposite; they 
 who are immersed in their worldly schemes, and they who look for 
 some ‘ coming of God’s kingdom ;’ they who watch this world’s 
 signs, and they who watch for the next, alike have their eyes intently 
 fixed on somewhat which is coming, though whether it be the vials 
 of His wrath, or the glories of His kingdom, or whether the one shall 
 be the herald to the other, none can tell. They who can calculate 
 what is likely, speak of it; they who cannot, feel its coming; the 
 spirits of the unseen world seem to be approaching to us, and ‘ awe 
 
 * The Life of the Rev. Rowland Hill, by the Rey. Edwin Sidney, A,M. 
 Pref. p. xi. Lond. 1834. 
 
PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION. XXix 
 
 In these circumstances, surely all enlightened pa- 
 triots ought to bestir themselves. What is the course 
 which Churchmen, continuing Churchmen, ought to 
 adopt with the design of preparing for the crisis, it 
 would be somewhat difficult to point out. The only 
 advice our principles permit us to give them, is, 
 “ Come out, and be separate,’—an advice which few, 
 even of those whom we believe to be the children of 
 Zion though in Babylon, seem disposed to comply 
 with. Dissenters could not wish Churchmen to adopt 
 measures better fitted for hastening the dissolution 
 of the connexion between the Church and State, than 
 
 comes on us, and trembling, which maketh all the bones to shake : ὃ 
 ‘all nations are shaken ;+—there is ‘ upon the earth distress of na- 
 tions, with perplexity, men’s hearts failing them for fear, and for 
 looking after those things, which are coming upon the earth.’ Ὁ 
 Times of trouble there have been before; but such a time, in which 
 every thing, every where, tends in one direction, to one mighty strug- 
 gle, of one sort—of faith with infidelity, lawlessness with rule, Christ 
 with Antichrist, there seems never to have been till now.” « God 
 warneth us by the very swiftness, with which all things are moving 
 around us, that it is He who is impelling them; man cannot impart 
 such speed, nor rouse the winds from the four quarters of the hea- 
 vens, nor bring men’s varying wills towards one uniform result, and 
 therewith He warns us to beware how we attempt to guide, what He 
 thus manifestly is governing.’—Patience and Confidence the Strength 
 of the Church, a Sermon preached on the 5th of November, before the 
 University of Oxford, at St Mary's, and published at the wish of many 
 of its Members, by the Rev. E. B. Pusey, D. D. Regius Professor of 
 Hebrew, &c. &c. pp. 49-52. Glasg. reprint. 1888.—Dr Pusey is 
 one of the Heads of the new Oxonian sect, of “‘ via media” men, 
 who seem disposed to pitch their tent on some very narrow slippery 
 ground, a hitherto “ terra incognita,” between the regions of Roman- 
 ism and Protestantism, but considerably nearer the former. 
 
 Se Job. Wve 14 Loe ff Hapa, ole + Luke xxi. 25, 26, 
 
XXX PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION. 
 
 those which they are pursuing at present in both ends 
 of our island, and especially in Ireland. Their only 
 regret both for their brethren in the church, and for 
 themselves, is, that these measures are not quite so 
 well fitted to secure the peaceful, as the speedy ac- 
 complishment of that object. 
 
 What is the course which principled Dissenters 
 ought to adopt in present circumstances, as it is a 
 problem of deeper interest to most of my readers, so 
 happily is it of much easier solution. At all times, 
 and in all circumstances, it was their duty—a duty, 
 alas! very imperfectly performed by them, to use 
 perseveringly all constitutional means for putting as 
 speedy and as peaceable an end as possible, to what 
 must appear to them both in a civil and in a religious 
 point of view, a system rooted in injustice, and fruit- 
 ful of mischief: And now that the termination of 
 that state of things is obviously approaching, and 
 approaching in a somewhat alarming form, it becomes 
 them to employ every method consistent with their 
 principles, that the desired good may be obtained 
 with as slight a mixture as possible of counter-balanc- 
 ing evil. 
 
 The great hazard to be anticipated and guarded 
 against, is the violent collision of the Church and her 
 powerful supporters, with the still more powerful 
 masses of the people, whose interests of every kind 
 are every day more clearly seen, to have been sacri- 
 ficed to an enormous amount in the Support of the 
 
« PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION. XXxi 
 
 ecclesiastical monopoly. This evil cannot be prevent- 
 ed, but by having the eyes of our legislators opened 
 to the true state of the case, that they may be in- 
 duced to do, constitutionally and quietly, what other- 
 wise will be done for them, amid the turbulence of 
 excited passions, endangering the existence of the 
 most stable civil institutions of the country. 
 
 By far the most effectual method of gaining this 
 object on the part of Dissenters appears to be,—the 
 acting out the principles contained in the following 
 exposition. Were all, or were even the great body 
 of the Dissenters in this country, quietly, yet reso- 
 lutely to refuse to yield support to the ecclesiastical 
 institutions, of which they conscientiously disapprove, 
 following in the peaceful and praiseworthy track of 
 the Friends, the attention of the government and the 
 legislature, would be irresistibly drawn to a subject, 
 which has been but little considered, and is not at 
 all understood by them; and the impossibility of long 
 upholding the present system, would glare on them 
 with an evidence which would persuade them, even 
 against their will, that no time was to be lost in pre- 
 paring for an approaching event, which, if met unpre- 
 pared, may have consequences from which all sound- 
 minded, right-hearted men, to whatever religious or 
 political party they belong, would start back with 
 alarm. 
 
 Were the Dissenters generally to refuse to pay 
 church taxes, no government which could exist in 
 
ΧΧΧΙΪ PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION. 
 
 this country, whether Tory, Whig, or Radical, durst 
 continue from year to year the measures which 
 would be necessary, in this case, to support the Esta- 
 blishments. They would be obliged practically to re- 
 peal the law for their maintenance, so far as Dissen- 
 ters are concerned, and this would be found equiva- 
 lent to a dissolution of the connexion of Church 
 and State. It has been justly observed, that “ no- 
 thing is so invincible as determined non-compliance. 
 He that resists by foree may be overcome by greater 
 force ; but nothing can overcome a calm and fixed 
 determination not to obey.” 
 
 To follow the course, which I recommend both by my 
 doctrine and by my practice, is to “follow the things 
 that make for peace.” Violence is equally to be de- 
 precated for the sake of Christians in the Established 
 Churches and out of them; and that Dissenter acts 
 the kindest part to his Christian brethren in the 
 church, though they may not think so, as well as the 
 most consistent part in reference to what he accounts 
 the cause of truth and righteousness, who, by peace- 
 able non-obedience to an unjust law, and patient sub- 
 mission to its consequences, adopts the course which, 
 above all others, gives the fairest promise of prevent- 
 ing that violent disruption of Church and State, which 
 otherwise, according to the ordinary laws by which 
 the affairs of men are regulated, cannot be very long 
 delayed. Could the thinking and the influential 
 portion of the community be but brought to look 
 
PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION. XXX 
 
 the present dangers of the country, as connected with 
 ecclesiastical affairs, full in the face, and act accord- 
 ing to the impression which such a view must pro- 
 duce, these dangers would be greatly diminished, if 
 not annihilated. If they obstinately refuse to follow 
 this course,—“ Down comes the thunderbolt,’—and 
 * who shall live when God does this !”* 
 
 These observations would have force, were the 
 course recommended merely consistent with the 
 higher obligations of religious and moral duty—how 
 greatly must that force be increased if it be, as I am 
 convinced it is, sanctioned and required by their ob- 
 ligations. Those concerned would do well to consi- 
 der whether in following an opposite course, they are 
 not only neglecting an innocent means of doing much 
 good, and preventing much evil, but incurring direct 
 criminality in “ building again what they have de- 
 stroyed.” It were easy to substantiate the charge of 
 
 * « These are terrible conjunctures, when the discontents of a na- 
 tion—not light and capricious discontents, but discontents which 
 have been steadily increasing during a long series of years—have at- 
 tained their full maturity. The discerning few predict the approach 
 of these conjunctures, but predict in vain. To the many, the evil 
 season comes, as a total eclipse of the sun at noon comes to a people 
 of savages. Society, which but a short time before, was in a state of 
 perfect repose, is on a sudden agitated with the most fearful convul- 
 sions, and seems to be on the verge of dissolution ; and the rulers 
 who, till the mischief was beyond the reach of all ordinary remedies, 
 had never bestowed one thought on its existence, stand bewildered 
 and panic-stricken, without hope or resource, in the midst of the con- 
 fusion. One such conjuncture this generation has seen. God grant 
 that we may never see another.’—din. Review, vol. Ixviii. p. 152. 
 
XXXIV PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION. 
 
 folly. It will be difficult to rebut the charge of 
 guilt. 
 
 Under a deep impression of the truth and import- 
 ance of these principles, I most earnestly call the at- 
 tention of Dissenters throughout the kingdom to the 
 consideration of the question discussed in these pages. 
 The more thoroughly the principles they uphold are 
 examined, the more reasonable I am persuaded will 
 they appear to be in themselves—the more abun- 
 dantly supported by appropriate evidence—the more 
 obviously calculated to promote the peace of the com- 
 monwealth, and the prosperity of religion. If they 
 are not true, let them be disproved. If they are true, 
 let Churehmen embrace them, and let Dissenters 
 
 act on them. 
 
 4, Bettevur Terrace, November 19, 1898. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 DEDICATION, 
 PREFACE, 
 
 PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION, 
 
 ON THE LAW OF CHRIST RESPECTING CIVIL OBEDIENCE, 
 
 ESPECIALLY IN THE PAYMENT OF TRIBUTE. 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 Politics not the great business of a Christian, 
 Politics not the great business of Christian ministers, 
 Christians have to do with politics, 
 And so have Christian ministers, 
 The Apostle’s example, 
 Principle of interpretation of ancient writings, 
 History of the misinterpretation of Rom. xiii. 1-7, 
 
 Principle of right interpretation of the Holy Scriptures, 
 
 PART I: 
 
 ON CIVIL OBEDIENCE. 
 
 Logical division of the passage, 
 
 Meaning of the terms “ powers, power, rulers,” 
 Reference of the terms explained, 
 
 Meaning and reference of the epithet “ higher,” 
 
 Duty enjoined—“ Subjection,” 
 
 41 
 42 
 43 
 44 
 44 
 45 
 46 
 52 
 
 53 
 56 
 57 
 58 
 60 
 
XXXVI CONTENTS. 
 
 Universality of the duty, 
 
 Reasons for compliance—First Reason. The Divine authority, 
 The Premises—First Premise “ No power but of God,” 
 Meaning of the phrase ‘‘ Of God,” 
 
 Extent of the assertion, 
 
 Second Premise. The general assertion applied to the Roman 
 Government, 
 
 Meaning of the phrase “* Ordained of God,” 
 
 The Conclusion, 
 
 Second Reason for Civil Obedience. The punishment incurred 
 by disobediertte, 
 
 True construction of this clause, 
 
 Restricted meaning of “ good works,” 
 
 Necessity of this restriction, 
 
 Roman government a protection to the Christians, 
 
 Roman government would punish them if insubordinate 
 
 In doing so would be God's minister, 
 
 Recapitulation, 
 
 Had the command of civil obedience any limits, to the Roman 
 Christians ? 
 
 Precepts unlimited in terms, often to be understood with ex- 
 ceptions, 
 
 The question answered in the affirmative, 
 
 First set of exceptions. Acts forbidden by the Divine authority, 
 
 Second set of exceptions. Illegal commands, 
 
 Third set of exceptions. Matters beyond the limits of civil au- 
 thority, 
 
 The Christian Romans bound in no case to resist the government, 
 
 What are these things tous? .. : : 
 
 Reply as to doctrine, 
 
 Reply as to practice, 
 
 The divine ordination of any existing government not directly 
 taught, 
 
 Our obligation to obey our government, 
 
 PAGE 
 
 99 
 94 
 
CONTENTS. XXXVli 
 
 PAGE 
 This obligation not without limits, : : 96 
 First Limitation—by the Divine law, : : » | 26 
 Second Limitation—by the law of the land, . of 4 ey 
 Third Limitation—by the nature and design of civil rule, τὰν 90 
 
 This principle applied to Civil Establishments of religion, «102 
 
 The judge of the cases in which these limitations hold, “ΠΟ 
 What is to be done in the excepted cases? . : . 106 
 Civil law gives the alternative of obeying the command, or pay- 
 
 ing the penalty, . Ξ - : τ LOT 
 Right of resistance, : ‘ : +, 109 
 Exercise of this right not inconsistent with Christianity, raleee ( b 
 General Reflections, : : 4 : ic dhe 
 
 PART II. 
 
 ON THE PAYMENT OF TRIBUTE. 
 
 Introductory Remarks, : : ᾿ : 119 
 The Law of Tribute, . ‘ dei : τ 0) 
 Connective particles explained, . : : - ὦ 91 
 The nature of Roman tribute, . ‘ : ames 
 The duty of the Roman Christians respecting tribute, . 124 
 Reason assigned for the law of tribute, . : - 124 
 This reason refers not to the magistrates, _ ; τ Ὁ 
 This reason refers to the tax-gatherers, . é . 126 
 Appropriate duties to the different orders of magistrates, 341268 
 Had the law of tribute any limitation in the case of the Roman 
 Christians ? 3 ‘ : : - 19] 
 This law not necessarily unlimited, é ‘ . 182 
 Only conceivable causes of its being unlimited, - . 132 
 Paying money, in itself a moral act, μι ; . 133 
 Its character not altered by civil enactment, : . 133 
 The sphere of the law of tribute to the Roman Christians, . 135 
 
 That sphere yery extensive, : : : » 135 
 
XXXViil CONTENTS. 
 
 First limitation, : : τ 
 
 The case of a tax for the support of idolatry considered, 
 Tax for the support of the Temple of Capitoline Jove, 
 If demanded from Christians, not paid by them, 
 
 Their horror of idolatry, ς- : 
 
 The command to pay tribute does not extend to a tax in sup- 
 port of idolatry, 
 
 No evidence that Christians paid a tax for the direct support 
 of idolatry, 
 
 Evidence on the other side, 
 Case of Marcus of Arethusa, 
 Recapitulation, : 5 ‘ 
 Second Limitation, 
 
 Third Limitation, : 
 What are these things to us ? 
 Our obligation to pay tribute, 
 Is that obligation unlimited ? 
 The question a fair one, 
 Opinions of Christian moralists, 
 THEODORET, 
 
 Joun Knox, 
 M‘Wanp, 
 
 Jeremy TAytor, 
 
 Brown of Haddington, 
 
 Dwieut, 
 
 First Limitation—the avowed immoral object of a tax, 
 
 Taxes for specific objects inexpedient, 
 
 The specific object of a tax may affect the morality of its payment, 
 War taxes, 
 
 Tax for the support of idolatry, 
 
 Tax for the support of a civil establishment of religion, 
 
 The religious establishments of this country, 
 
 Views of their founders, 
 
 Views and conduct of the Friends, 
 
 PAGE 
 
 136 
 137 
 138 
 139 
 142 
 
 144 
 
 145 
 146 
 146 
 147 
 149 
 149 
 152 
 153 
 1565 
 156 
 157 
 157 
 158 
 158 
 158 
 159 
 159 
 159 
 160 
 161 
 162 
 162 
 164 
 164 
 165 
 166 
 
CONTENTS. Xxxix 
 
 Progress of the Voluntary Principle, 
 
 Is the payment of church taxes consistent with that principle ? 
 The question of consistency stated, 
 
 The question of consistency resolved, . 
 
 A civil establishment of religion not a moral police, 
 Though it were, a consistent Dissenter could not support it, 
 Vested rights of the church and churchmen considered, 
 Second limitation—the illegality of a tax, 
 
 Third limitation—the object of the magistrate’s office, 
 
 May a Christian resist the payment of tribute in any case ? 
 Our Lord’s precept and example, 
 
 His precept considered, 
 
 His example considered, . 
 
 Neither, favourable to the doctrine of the indiscriminate and 
 unrestricted payment of tribute, . 
 
 The honour and fear due by Christians to the magistrate, 
 
 Conclusion, 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 PART. I. 
 
 DOCUMENTS ILLUSTRATIVE OF THE OCCASION OF THE 
 PRECEDING TREATISE. 
 
 Doc. I. Protest published in the Scotsman Newspaper, 
 II. Statement made at the Public Meeting in Rose Street 
 Church, 
 
 III. Letter from Roperr Hatpane, Esq. 
 IV. Letter to the Editor of the Epinsurcn ApvertisEr, 
 
 V. Statement made from the Pulpit in Broughton Place 
 Church, 
 
 VI. Anonymous Note on Dr Brown's Letter, . 
 
 PAGE 
 
 166 
 167 
 167 
 168 
 169 
 173 
 175 
 177 
 178 
 179 
 180 
 182 
 183 
 
 185 
 186 
 187 
 
 193 
 
 194 
 198 
 200 
 
 208 
 209 
 
x] CONTENTS. 
 
 Doc. VII. Remarks on the Anonymous Note, 
 VIII. Letter to the Editor of the Eprvsurcn Apvertiser, 
 IX. Letter from the Elders and Managers of the United 
 Associate Congregation of Broughton Place, 
 X. Addenda, 
 XI. Letter to the Editor of the Scotsman, 
 XII. Letter to the Editor of the Scorsman, 
 
 XIII. Extract from the Scorsman Newspaper, 
 
 PART II. 
 
 NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 Nore I. In what sense Christian ministers are messengers of 
 God, 
 
 IJ. Reasons why Christians should attend to politics. 
 Rosert Hatt, 
 
 III. Reasons why Christian ministers should attend to 
 politics. Ropert Hatt. Quarrerty Review, 
 
 IV. Mistaken interpretation of Rom. xiii. 1-7, by friends 
 of freedom. Bucuanan. Miron. Locke. Hoap- 
 LY. Frieerwoop. Rerormep Prespytery. M‘Muit- 
 LAN, 
 
 V. Reason why the Apostles so often inculcated the 
 duty of Civil Obedience. Baxter. SHERLOCK. 
 TERROT, ᾿ 
 
 VI. The true principle of Biblical Interpretation, 
 
 VII. Illustration of ἐξουσίαι; as significant of magistrates, 
 and of the meaning of ὑπερεχουσαι; 
 
 VUJ. Professor Sruarr’s interpretation of the expression 
 εξουσια απὸ Θεου; 
 1X. Suertock’s mothod of reconciling Paul and Peter, 
 X. On the grounds and limits of Civil Obedience. Dr 
 Tuomas Brown. GisBoRNE, 
 XI. ‘* The Powers that be,” not equivalent to the legiti- 
 mate powers, 
 
 226 
 
 227 
 
 228 
 
 231 
 
 298 
 
 235 
 
 298 
 
 240 
 240 
 
 241 
 
 244 
 
Nore XII. 
 
 XIII. 
 
 XIV. 
 XV. 
 
 XVI. 
 
 XVII. 
 XVIII. 
 
 XIX. 
 
 XX. 
 
 XXI. 
 
 XXII. 
 
 XXIII. 
 
 XXIV. 
 
 XXV. 
 
 XXVI 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 Proof of the undue influence of James VI. over 
 the Translators of the Bible, 
 
 Authorities for the mode of dividing the Apostle’s 
 reasons for Civil Obedience. ATTERBURY. SHER- 
 Lock. Koppr. Wuuirsy. WaAtLkKER. 
 
 Excellence of the Roman law, 
 
 The laws of the Roman government respecting 
 Religion not obligatory on Christians. Wextts. 
 Του 600}. : 
 
 Bishop Hoapty’s conclusions from Paul’s assertion 
 of his civil rights, 
 
 Justifiable non-compliance with military law, 
 
 A Civil Establishment of Religion a usurpation of 
 the Prerogative of Christ. Mirron. Brappury. 
 Waker. WAarRBURTON. 
 
 On the Design of Civil Government. Owrn. Wuis- 
 ton. Warburton. Smita. Wauatery. Dick. 
 Gittespre. Barne. Hurtcnison. 
 
 Mr Gie’s Commentary on the Associate Presby- 
 tery’s Statement of the Nature of Civil Govern- 
 ment, 
 
 Commands of the Magistrate beyond the limits 
 of his office, not obligatory. Baxter. 
 
 Incongruity of civil legislation in or about reli- 
 gion. Vane. Nepuam. Locke. Bruce. Bocur 
 and Bennett. Marsuatu. Price. 
 
 Nature and Extent of the Obligation of Civil 
 _ Law. Locxr. Owen. Bunyan. Norris. 
 
 Right of Resistance. Locke. Panny. Hurcueson. 
 WitHerspoon. Setpen. Napuraut. M‘Crir. 
 Dr Grorcr Campsett. Gissnorne. Lord Joun 
 RussEtu. Mackintosa. Dymonp. Jus Poputt. 
 
 Sentiments and feelings in reference to Establish- 
 ments and their supporters. Additional En- 
 dowments, 
 
 . Importance of the exposition of Scripture, and 
 our duty in reference to a divine revelation, 
 
 d 
 
 xh 
 PAGE 
 
 245 
 
 247 
 249 
 
 257 
 
 265 
 
 295 
 
 325 
 
 336 
 
xlii 
 
 Nott XXVII. Absurdity of supposing the law of tribute to have 
 
 XXVIII. 
 
 XXIX. 
 
 XXX. 
 
 XXXI. 
 
 XXXII. 
 XXXII. 
 
 XXXIV. 
 
 XXXV. 
 
 XXXVI. 
 
 XXXVII. 
 
 XXXVIII. 
 
 XXXIX. 
 
 XL. 
 
 XLI. 
 
 XLII. 
 
 XLII. 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 no limits. Hrinp ter Loose. 
 
 Mode of supporting heathen worship, and Tertut- 
 Lian’s testimony on this subject considered, 
 
 Refusal of the early Christians to pay exactions 
 for sinful purposes. Marcus or Aretnusa. Am- 
 BROSE. LAURENTIUS. 
 
 Opinions respecting the limits of the law of tri- 
 
 bute. Episcoprus. Baxter. 
 
 Difference of taxes for general and for specific pur- 
 
 poses. Anonymovs. Huinp tet Loose. 
 
 The Annuity Tax, 
 
 Remarks on the Associate Synod’s Act respecting 
 church payments, 1752, 
 
 Exposition and defence of the principles of the 
 Friends respecting church taxes. J. J. Gur- 
 ΝΕΥ. Dymonp. RvzeEs or Discipiine. 
 
 Dr Warts’ disapprobation of a civil establishment 
 of religion, and reason for paying church taxes, 
 
 Conscientious scruples in reference to the pay- 
 ment of church taxes, 
 
 List of books in which the lawfulness of civil es- 
 tablishments of religion is discussed, 
 
 Anprew Futier’s opinion of the influence of a 
 civil establishment of Christianity, 
 
 Church property. Sir James Mackintosu. ANON- 
 ymous. Dymonp. Lorp Brovenam.  Boeir. 
 Lorp Mexpourne. 
 
 Resistance to the Annuity Tax by our covenant- 
 ing ancestors. M‘Laren. . 
 
 The correlative duties of governors and subjects, 
 and the ethics of tribute, 
 
 Mr Haxpanr’s opinions respecting civil establish- 
 ments, as stated by himself and Dr Anprew 
 THOMSON. 
 
 Objections to the doctrine respecting taxes for spe- 
 cific purposes, stated and answered, 
 
 PAGE 
 
 339 
 
 340 
 
 351 
 
 357 
 
 358 
 360 
 
 372 
 
 375 
 
 383 
 
 384 
 
 388 
 
 390 
 
 391 
 
 401 
 
 406 
 
 410 
 
 419 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 Nore XLIV. Conduct of our coyenanting ancestors, in refer- 
 
 ence to taxes exacted for purposes reckoned 
 sinful by those on whom they were imposed, 
 
 xiii 
 
 PAGE 
 
 421 
 
 ADDRESSES ON THE VOLUNTARY CHURCH QUESTION. 
 
 Appress I.—on THE NATURE AND DESIGN OF VOLUNTARY CHURCH AS- 
 
 SOCIATIONS, 
 
 Appress I].—THE VOLUNTARY SUPPORT OF CHRISTIANITY A DIVINE 
 
 Nore I. 
 
 II. 
 
 Ill. 
 LY. 
 Vie 
 
 VI. 
 
 Vik 
 
 ORDINANCE ; OR, THE FINANCIAL LAW OF THE CHRISTIAN 
 
 CHURCH, 
 
 NOTES TO THE ADDRESSES. 
 
 The Establishment may be in danger, while the Church 
 is safe. Dymonp. : 
 
 Act for establishing religious freedom, passed in the 
 Assembly of Virginia, 
 
 The Established Church, not self-supported. _Dymonp. 
 
 Church property, public property. Dovetas. 
 
 Uselessness of a civil Establishment of Religion. Arcn- 
 DEACON BLAcKBURNE. 
 
 Absurdity of human attempts, to establish Christianity 
 and the Christian Church. Srvarr. 
 
 Influence of Civil Establishment, on Christianity. 
 Harpy. 
 
 . Euthanasia of Secession and Dissent, 
 
 . Advantages of the Voluntary System contrasted with 
 
 the Compulsory. Dymonp. Taytor. : 
 
 Principles of Voluntaryism stated and Wefended by Dr 
 Grorer Campprit, Dr ANnpRrew Tomson, and Dr 
 CHALMERS, 
 
 437 
 
 467 
 
 Or 
 μαὶ 
 τῷ 
 
xliv CONTENTS. 
 
 SUBJECTS OF THE MORE IMPORTANT FOOT NOTES. 
 
 - 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Bishop Warsurton and Dr Parr on the free genius of Chris- 
 tianity, : : - : οἷς 
 Μιμτον on truth, : : : : Ὁ ΣΙΝ 
 ΑἸΚΙΝ on reply in controversy, : - Pa 
 Spirit of Mr Harpane’s Letters, : 5 . xxiv 
 Picture of the English establishment, by a clergyman, XXVli 
 Pusey on “ the signs of the times,” . - XXViil 
 
 Bucuanan and Hatt on the object of the Apostle, Rom. xiii. 1-7, 51 
 
 Ruemists’ view of the object of Rom. xiii. - - 60 
 Samuet Rutuerrorp's exposition of the phrase “ of God,” - 866 
 Saxon Conression’s exposition of “ not only for wrath, but also 
 
 for conscience sake,” : : , - 9 
 Dr Owen on the limitation of general rules, : oe 
 
 Joun Hates of Eton, on the limitation of the authority of kings, 83 
 
 SrepHanus Junius Brutus on the question, “* Are subjects bound 
 to obey their rulers in opposition to the law of God ;” and 
 notice of the work, entitled, “ Vindicie contra tyrannos,” 88 
 
 First Scots Conression—Dun, superintendent of Angus, and the 
 
 Bouemian Conresston, on the limits of civil power, ν 90 
 Prick on the proper office of the civil magistrate, . « 102 
 Dr James Warr on the absurdity of the civil magistrate inter- 
 
 fering with religion, : ς 4 - 4102 
 TwerppEt on the proper office of the magistrate, and eulogium 
 
 on Locke, : 4 : ; 2 109 
 Burke on the line of demarcation where obedience ought to 
 
 end and resistance begin, : : ΡΠ 
 Cicero on the right of self-defence, ‘ ; ~ 
 Terror on the right df resistance, : : a) ade 
 
 Dr Henry More’s remarkable statement concerning the reform- 
 ed churches, - : : : Ὁ 
 
 ΒΛΙΑΝΤΥΝΕ on the importance of a speedy dissolution of the 
 connexion between Church and State, : . 110 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 Defence of the translation, “ Render to them all, their dues,” 
 Insult offered by modern Churchmen to the primitive Christians, 
 
 Refusal to pay a religious tax, the probable cause of the perse- 
 cution under Domitian, 
 
 Tuomas Scorr on the consequences of admitting that the magis- 
 trate has a right to prescribe the creed and worship of his 
 subjects, 
 
 Rosinson’s (of Cambridge) illustration of the absurdity of this 
 principle, 
 
 Description of the conduct of the primitive Christians, 
 
 Tacitus on the necessity of tribute, 
 
 Dymonp on the nature and limits of civil obedience, 
 
 Tue Ciercy of Epmysureu and an English prelate at issue, 
 
 Hossss on the best mode of raising the supplies necessary for war, 
 
 Dr Warts’ description of the dogmatist, 
 
 Wanesurton on the injustice of requiring men to support opi- 
 nions which they conscientiously disapprove, 
 
 Parliamentary sanction of the Scottish Establishment, 
 Tuomas Bosron’s opinions respecting national churches, 
 
 Origin of the phrase, “ Moral constabulary,” and Ricuarp Bax- 
 
 TER On ministers representing themselves as the servants of 
 the state, 
 
 Refusal to obey and resistance, not identical. Ewine. 
 To tax Dissenters for the support of an establishment equally 
 
 unjust, as to compel them to conform to its doctrines, wor- 
 ship and government. RussELt. 
 
 Piumer Warp’s attack on the authors of the Revolution, 
 Reason for not inserting certain papers among the Documents, 
 Notice of Parker, Bishop of Oxford, 
 
 Notice of works in opposition to the right of resistance. BErKE- 
 LEY. Swertock. Usuer. 
 
 Graunam on the true character of civil establishments of religion, 
 
 State of the Lowland parishes of Scotland, as to the means of 
 wholesome religious instruction, 
 
 Parliamentary petition against Endowments, 
 
 xlv 
 PAGE 
 128 
 138 
 
 140 
 
 150 
 
 150 
 152 
 153 
 155 
 156 
 160 
 163 
 
 170 
 171 
 172 
 
 172 
 176 
 
 178 
 179 
 199 
 205 
 
 293 
 323 
 
 327 
 330 
 
ΧΙ CONTENTS. 
 
 Dr Owen’s opinion of dogmatism in religion, 
 
 Dr Brieut on the importance of understanding a revelation, 
 Jeremy Taytor on the ὑπακοὴ πιστεως; 
 
 Burman on the “ vectigalia templorum,” 
 
 Dr Murray on the incidence of the Annuity Tax, 
 
 Dr Parr’s character of Turcor, 
 
 Sir Tuomas More on the supremacy of the people, 
 M‘Cuttocu on the incidence of tithes, 
 
 Grirritu’s true character of the Christian church, 
 
 Sir Grorcr Savitte on the absurdity of a civil establishment of 
 Christianity, viewed as a protection to that religion, 
 
 The impious absurdity of the exercise of civil power in religion 
 in its least objectionable form, toleration, 
 
 The voluntary system competent to extend as well as to main- 
 tain the cause of Christianity, 
 
 PAGE 
 
 336 
 338 
 339 
 342 
 369 
 391 
 434 
 450 
 457 
 
 461 
 
 468 
 
 495 
 
THE LAW OF CHRIST 
 
 RESPECTING 
 
 CIVIL OBEDIENCE, 
 
“We desire to give unto Christ that which is His, and unto all lawful 
 authority what is THEIR, DUE; . . . . but if any man shall impose upon 
 us any thing that we see not to be commanded by our Lord Jesus Christ, 
 we should in his strength rather embrace all reproaches and tortures of men, 
 to be stript of all outward comforts, and if it were possible die a thousand 
 deaths, rather than to do any thing against the least tittle of the truth of 
 God, or against the light of our own consciences.””—Conression OF FAITH oF 
 
 THE Baptist CuurcuHEs. 1643. 
 
 “ Government ought to be supported; no person who knows what the 
 terms mean will deny it. Government may be rightly resisted; πὸ friend 
 to the revolution, or to the title by which the House of Hanover sits on the 
 
 throne of the three kingdoms, will deny it.”—BisHop Watson. 
 
 “ Cursed for ever be that doctrine which countenances disobedience to ma- 
 gistrates : Our dispute at this time is not about obedience, but the measure 
 
 of obedience.”’— Jus Poputt. 
 
ΟΝ THE LAW OF CHRIST RESPECTING 
 CIVIL OBEDIENCE. 
 
 THE LAW. 
 
 “ LET EVERY SOUL BE SUBJECT UNTO THE HIGHER POWERS, 
 FOR THERE 1S NO POWER BUT OF GOD: THE POWERS THAT 
 BE ARE ORDAINED OF GOD. WHOSOEVER THEREFORE RESIST- 
 ETH THE POWER, RESISTETH THE ORDINANCE OF GOD; AND 
 THEY THAT RESIST SHALL RECEIVE TO THEMSELVES DAMNA- 
 TION. 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 CONSCIENCR’ SAKE. FOR, FOR THIS CAUSE PAY YE 
 TRIBUTE ALSO: FOR THEY ARE GOD'S MINISTERS, ATTENDING 
 CONTINUALLY UPON THIS VERY THING. RENDER THEREFORE 
 TO ALL THEIR DUES: TRIBUTE TO WHOM TRIBUTE IS DUE; 
 CUSTOM TO WHOM CUSTOM; FEAR TO WHOM FEAR}; HONOUR 
 TO WHOM HONOUR.’ ἢ 
 
 INTERPRETATION OF THE LAW. 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 Ir has often been said, that Christian men have tyrrop. 
 but little to do with politics, and Christian m7- poitie no. 
 nisters still less; and, within certain limits, the siness of a 
 observation is both true and important. A Chris- 
 tian, to whatever class of society he belongs, has 
 
 little to do with polities, in comparison with reli- 
 
 * Romans xiii. 1-7. 
 D 
 
42 ON THE LAW OF CHRIST 
 
 inTRop. gion. He is a citizen of heaven—he is a pilgrim 
 
 and a sojourner on the earth,—and he is charge- 
 able with inconsistency as well as folly and sin, 
 when he gives that place in his regard to “ things 
 seen and temporal,” which is due only to “ things 
 unseen and eternal.” His primary employment, to 
 which every thing else must be made subservient, 
 is to “ seek the kingdom of God and his right- 
 eousness.” A Christian in the ordinary walks of 
 life has little to do with politics, in comparison 
 with his “ own business.” To “ provide for ΠΡ. 
 own, and especially for those of his own house,”— 
 to “ work with his hands that which is good, that 
 he may have to give to him that needeth,” are 
 his indispensable duties; and such a Christian’ 
 man acts a very criminal and inconsistent part, 
 if he wastes that time and thought and active 
 energy which ought to be devoted to such pur- 
 poses, in perusing political pamphlets, attending 
 political meetings, and organizing plans for the 
 better management of the State. ~~ 
 
 nor of Chris- ΤῈ these remarks be just in reference to Chris- 
 tians in general, they apply with redoubled force 
 to Christian ministers. When the sacred na- 
 ture—the wide extent—and the transcendant im- 
 portance of a minister’s duty are taken into con- 
 sideration, it must appear in the highest degree 
 incongruous and improper in “ the soldier of 
 Christ Jesus” unnecessarily to “ entangle himself . 
 with the affairs of this life.” It is not thus that he 
 will “ please him who has chosen him to be a 
 soldier.” One of the most powerful objections 
 to the civil establishment of Christianity, arises 
 
RESPECTING CIVIL OBEDIENCE. 
 
 4 
 
 3 
 
 from its tendency, most unhappily manifested in rrrop. 
 
 its effects, to transform those who should be the 
 ministers of Christ and his gospel, into zealous 
 partizans, or factious opponents of the existing 
 administrators of civil power. It is infinitely be- 
 neath the dignity of a messenger of God* to stoop 
 to be the tool or subordinate agent of any set of 
 statesmen, whether in possession or in pursuit of 
 power—and it is, if possible, still more discordant 
 with the sacredness of his character, and the pur- 
 poses of his function, to become a political agita- 
 tor, a leader of the designing and the factious, a 
 disturber of the public tranquillity. The sphere 
 of the appropriate studies and labours of the Chris- 
 tian minister, is elevated far above that in which 
 the worldly politician pursues his busy and per- 
 plexing course,—and when he descends from the 
 former to the latter, he realizes the mystic em- 
 blem of the Apocalypse—he becomes a “ falling 
 star”—and the effect of his abandonment of scrip- 
 tural for political studies—of the labours of the 
 pastor for the labours of the partizan, is usually 
 the embittering of the waters of the sanctuary.t+ 
 
 But while the maxim, that private Christians cnristians 
 
 have to do 
 
 have little, and Christian ministers less, to do with politics, 
 
 with politics, like most proverbial sayings, is, 
 within certain boundaries, just and important, in 
 its unlimited sense it is at once false and mis- 
 chievous. When a man becomes a Christian, he 
 does not cease to be a citizen. When he is in- 
 vested with spiritual privileges, he does not for- 
 feit natural rights. His new religious relations 
 * Vide Note I. + Rey. viii. 10, 11. 
 
 - 
 
4 
 
 INTROD. 
 
 and so have 
 Christian mi- 
 nisters. 
 
 The apostle’s 
 example. 
 
 ON THE LAW OF CHRIST 
 
 do not annihilate or even derange his old civil 
 relations. A Christian is necessarily a man of 
 public spirit. He has a generous interest in the 
 welfare of all men, the fervour of which increases 
 with the closeness of the relation which he bears 
 to them. By such a person, political arrange- 
 ments, intimately connected as they are, not 
 merely with the external, present comfort, but 
 with the moral improvement and the everlasting 
 welfare of mankind, must be and ought to be 
 heedfully regarded; and it is never to be forgot- 
 ten that every Christian has a variety of duties 
 to perform to civil government, which cannot be 
 discharged in the only way in which they can be 
 acceptable to God—as a “ reasonable service,” 
 without distinct apprehensions of their nature and 
 obligation.* 
 
 These observations are as applicable to minis- 
 ters as to other Christians; and, in addition, it 
 may be remarked, that as ministers are bound 
 not only to discharge the duties of good subjects, 
 but to explain and recommend those duties to 
 their people, in the course of their public instruc- 
 tions, they must be at once well acquainted with 
 the principles of sacred Scripture on this subject, 
 and with’ the political relations of those to whom 
 they minister, to enable them to perform this 
 part of their official duty like “ workmen who 
 need not be ashamed.”+ 
 
 The Apostle Paul was certainly both a very 
 good Christian and a very good Christian minis- 
 tor, and, moreover, “ spoke” and wrote “as he 
 
 * Vide Note Il. + Vide Note ITI. 
 
RESPECTING CIVIL OBEDIENCE. 
 
 was moved by the Holy Ghost;” and though 
 equally removed from the meanness of the obse- 
 quious, time-serving political agent, and from the 
 turbulence of the self-constituted reformer and 
 factious demagogue—he yet, in the interesting 
 paragraph which lies before us for exposition, en- 
 ters briefly but comprehensively into a statement 
 of the political relations and duties of the Chris- 
 tians to whom he was writing, and in this, as in 
 every thing else, he sets before Christian minis- 
 ters in every age a fair example, after which they 
 ought to account it their honour and their duty 
 to copy. 
 
 To understand thoroughly any book, not of a 
 strictly scientific kind, it is necessary to be inti- 
 mately acquainted with the events of the age and 
 country in which it was written, and with the 
 customs and habits of thought of the people to 
 whom it was originally addressed. And there 
 have been few sources of misapprehension and 
 misinterpretation, in reference to ancient writings, 
 more copious, than the coming to their perusal, 
 with a mind unfurnished with the requisite pre- 
 vious knowledge, and entirely pre-occupied with 
 the modes of thought and feeling which are pre- 
 valent in an age and country very remote from 
 those to which the subject of study belongs, and 
 possessing comparatively little in common with 
 them, in literary, political, or religious character. 
 I do not know if it would be easy to meet with a 
 more striking illustration and confirmation of this 
 remark, than in the manner in which the passage 
 
 45 
 
 INTROD. 
 
 Principle of 
 interpretation 
 of ancient 
 writings. 
 
40 
 
 INTROD. 
 
 History of 
 the misinter- 
 pretation of 
 Romans iii. 
 
 ON THE LAW OF CHRIST 
 
 of Scripture now before us has been very gene- 
 rally misinterpreted in opposite ways, by those 
 who have forgotten or overlooked the cireum- 
 stances of the country and age in which it was 
 written, and of the persons to whom it was ad- 
 dressed, and applied it to the resolution of a ques- 
 tion highly important in itself, and closely con- 
 nected with the subject of this paragraph, yet ori- 
 ginating in a state of things totally different from 
 that which must have been present to the apos- 
 tle’s mind when he wrote it, and to meet which 
 must have been his direct and primary object in 
 writing it. 
 
 Somewhat more than a century and a half ago, 
 in consequence of the invasions made by the ill- 
 principled and ill-advised Monarchs of the house 
 of Stuart, on the civil and religious liberties of 
 their country, and the resistance which their in- 
 tolerable oppressions at last provoked from their 
 much and long-enduring subjects, the question 
 with regard to the limits of civil obedience ex- 
 cited a deep interest, and was agitated with much 
 keenness and ability on both sides. 
 
 On the one hand, it was maintained by Milton 
 and Vane, and Locke and Hoadly, with invinci- 
 ble argument and overwhelming eloquence, that, 
 civil government being an institution exclusively 
 intended for promoting the security and welfare of 
 the community at large, whenever that end is 
 obviously not obtained—when the power which 
 was created for the purpose of protecting life and 
 property, is habitually and notoriously exercis- 
 ed in endangering or destroying both—it is the 
 
RESPECTING CIVIL OBEDIENCE. 
 
 47 
 
 right and the duty of every man, by all lawful and inrrop. 
 
 constitutional means, to have the government so 
 altered as to gain its end; and if all other me- 
 thods be found ineffectual to secure the neces- 
 sary alteration, that the people have the right, as 
 well as the power, to put down so intolerable a 
 tyranny by force. 
 
 On the other hand, it was maintained by 
 Barclay, and Hobbes, and Filmer, and Parker, 
 and an almost innumerable host of expectants or 
 possessors of ecclesiastical preferment, that go- 
 vernors hold their situation by divine right, and 
 are accountable only to God for the exercise of 
 the authority with which he has invested them ; 
 that whatever they command, must be cheerfully 
 obeyed (some holding this without limitation, 
 teaching that the command of the magistrate is 
 the subject’s ultimate rule—others, admitting as 
 an exception what is directly opposed to a clearly 
 expressed divine command),—that whatever they 
 inflict must be patiently borne, however unjust, 
 and that in no case can subjects resist or oppose 
 magistrates without exposing themselves to eter- 
 nal damnation. 
 
 The courtly divines who espoused these latter 
 opinions, loudly appealed to the authority of the 
 New Testament: and the thirteenth chapter of 
 Paul’s Epistle to the Romans was counted the 
 very citadel of their cause. In the agitation of 
 passion utterly forgetting, or warped by interest, 
 studiously keeping out of view, that the circum- 
 stances of the Christians in Rome,—a small body, 
 —chiefly of the lower orders,—many of them fo- 
 
48 
 
 ΟΝ THE LAW OF CHRIST 
 
 introp. reigners,—under a Heathen government, essen- 
 
 tially absolute, over which they had and could 
 have no control, and the circumstances of the 
 British nation—with few exceptions making a 
 profession of Christianity,—under a government 
 administered by men _ professing Christianity, 
 essentially free, on whose management the con- 
 stitution gives the subjects the means of mak- 
 ing an impression by petition or representation, 
 and whose very existence depends on their will, 
 were by no means parallel—from the passage be- 
 fore us they attempted to prove that the existing 
 government was the ordinance of God, its admi- 
 nistrators his appointed ministers, and that who- 
 soever resisted them, violated the law of Christ, - 
 and drew down on himself the righteous ven- 
 geance of Heaven. 
 
 It is painful to reflect that one misinterpreta- 
 tion of Scripture ordinarily leads to another, and 
 that, not only by him who misinterprets, but often 
 also by those who oppose him. Instead of making 
 their stand on the grand leading principles of 
 sound reason and well-interpreted Scripture, and 
 asserting that the passage before us had no direct 
 bearing on the limits of civil obedience, some of 
 the able and noble-minded enemies of the doc- 
 trines of the divine right of monarchs to absolute 
 authority—of passive obedience and non-resist- 
 ance, set themselves to the vain and mischievous 
 attempt to show that the apostle does not here 
 describe the Roman government, and enjoin the 
 duties of Christians under it—that he has no re- 
 ference to any existing government, but that he 
 
RESPECTING CIVIL OBEDIENCE. 
 
 lays down the principles on which civil govern- 1yrrop. 
 
 ment should be constituted, and unfolds the du- 
 ties which subjects owe to such a government. 
 Following out these principles to their fair results, 
 some of them arrived at the conclusion, that Chris- 
 tians are not morally bound to yield obedience to 
 any government, unless it is constituted and admi- 
 nistered in accordance with what they consider, 
 the principles of Divine revelation. * 
 
 All this misinterpretation on both sides might 
 have been avoided by attending to the object 
 which the apostle had in view in these remarks, 
 and to the mode of thinking, prevalent among at 
 least the Jewish converts to Christianity, which 
 rendered the prosecution of that object neces- 
 sary. We know that among the Jews the opi- 
 nion, grounded on a mistaken apprehension as to 
 the meaning, or rather reference, of a passage in 
 the law of Moses} was prevalent, that no Gentile 
 government could have legitimate authority over 
 “the holy nation,” Jehovah’s “ peculiar people” 
 —that God was their king, that they were not 
 bound to obey any subordinate authority which 
 had not his express appointment, and that pru- 
 dence, not conscience, was the ground of their 
 submission to the Roman yoke; while some went 
 yet farther, and held that it was unlawful to give 
 any token of subjection to a heathen power. 
 
 The first Christians generally, and the members 
 of the church of Rome in particular, were many 
 of them converts from Judaism; and it was not 
 certainly a matter of course that they should lose 
 
 * Vide Note IV. + Deut. xvii. 14, 15. 
 
 49 
 
90 
 
 ON THE LAW OF CHRIST 
 
 introp. these prejudices on embracing Christianity. On 
 
 the contrary, it seems highly probable, though (as 
 Dr Paley remarks) “ neither the Scripture, nor 
 any subsequent history of the church, furnish any 
 direct attestation”* of the fact, that the notions 
 which have in after ages been repeatedly revived, 
 of the freedom of the saints from all secular au- 
 thority, and their rightful dominion over the rest 
 of mankind, like most other errors, prevailed to a 
 certain extent in the primitive times. To such 
 sentiments the apostle Peter seems to allude when 
 he exhorts Christians to conduct themselves “ as 
 free, and yet not using their liberty as a cloak of 
 maliciousness” (sedition, as Dr Paley interprets 
 it), “ but as the servants of God.” + 
 
 Admitting the supposition, certainly a highly 
 probable one, that some such sentiments were ac- 
 tually entertained, or the undoubted fact, that in 
 the former opinions of many of the Christians at 
 Rome, there was a natural source of such senti- 
 ments, nothing could be less expected, on the part 
 of the apostle, than a dissertation on the funda- 
 mental principles of civil government, or on the 
 precise limits within which obedience to a govern- 
 ment, founded on these principles, should be con- 
 fined. What we naturally look for in the cireum- 
 stances of the case is a clear statement and power- 
 ful enforcement of the duty of the Roman Chris- 
 tians to the government under which they were 
 placed, fitted to prevent or put down mistaken no- 
 
 * Paley’s Moral and Political Philosophy, Works, vol. i. p. 329. 
 Lond. 1825. 
 + 1 Peter ii. 16. 
 
RESPECTING CIVIL OBEDIENCE. 
 
 dl 
 
 tions, which, if followed out to their practical con- ivrrop. 
 
 sequences, might have led to results the most de- 
 structive to themselves, and the most disastrous 
 to the Christian cause.* The paragraph before us 
 exactly answers this expectation. It “ inculeates 
 the duty—it does not describe the eatent of it. It 
 enforces the obligation by the proper sanctions of 
 Christianity, without intending either to enlarge 
 or contract, without considering indeed the limits 
 by which it is bounden.”+ 
 
 It goes on a principle which pervades the whole 
 of the apostle’s injunctions with regard to social 
 ethics,—that Christianity does not interfere with 
 existing civil relations. To the Christian spouse 
 who might suppose cohabitation with an idolater 
 unlawful, he says, “‘ The unbelieving husband is 
 sanctified to the wife,” ὁ. 6. the believing wife ; 
 “and the unbelieving wife is sanctified to the 
 husband,” 7. e. the believing husband. And to 
 the slave who might be apt to suppose that be- 
 
 * Vide Note V. 
 
 + Paley. Buchanan in his eloquent and well-reasoned dia- 
 logue, “ De Jure Regni,” very justly remarks, “nec ei contentio 
 est cum eis qui malos magistratus coercendos putant, sed cum 
 hominibus omne magistratus imperium detrectantibus; qui liber- 
 tatem Christianam absurde interpretantes affrmabant indignum 
 esse, ut qui a Dei Filio essent emancipati, a Dei Spiritu regeren- 
 tur sub ullius hominis potestate essent.” p. 150. Glasg. 1750. 
 « The apostolic exhortation,” says Robert Hall, ““ as addressed to 
 a few individuals, and adapted to the local circumstances of 
 Christians at that period, admits an easy solution, but to imagine 
 it prescribes the duty of the Roman empire, and is intended to 
 subject millions to the capricious tyranny of one man, is a re- 
 flection as well on the character of Paul as on Christianity it- 
 self.” —Preface to Apology for the Freedom of the Press. Works 
 vol. iii. p. 72. 
 
ἐν 
 
 INTROD. 
 
 Principle of 
 right inter- 
 pretation of 
 the Holy 
 Scriptures, 
 
 ON THE LAW OF CHRIST. 
 
 cause he was the Lord’s freeman he could be no 
 man’s slave, his instructions are in effect,—Let no 
 man become a slave, if he can help it; let every 
 slave who can lawfully obtain liberty, thankfully 
 accept it: but while you are slaves, conscienti- 
 ously perform the duties of bond-servants.* 
 
 These remarks cast light on a great principle 
 of right interpretation of the Holy Scriptures. 
 Though divinely intended and fitted to form parts 
 of a permanent and universal “ rule of faith and 
 manners,” by far the greater number of the books 
 both of the Old Testament and the New were oc- 
 casional in their origin. They were intended to 
 answer an immediate as well as an ultimate pur- 
 pose. They were addressed to particular indivi- 
 duals in particular circumstances, to serve a par- 
 ticular object. With regard to any particular 
 passage, we must know what it was to them, in 
 order to our knowing what it is to ws. These two 
 questions are both important,—what was it to 
 them? what is it to us? The second is the more 
 important to us, but in few cases can it be satis- 
 factorily resolved till the first is distinctly answer- 
 ed.+ The subsequent exposition will be conduct- 
 ed on this principle. 
 
 Ὁ (δὲς γε 21.28 1. Tim, vis, + Vide Note VI. 
 
53 
 
 BAT 1. 
 
 ON CIVIL OBEDIENCE. 
 
 Few things more facilitate the labours of the in- parr t. 
 terpreter than a clear distinct view, and scarcely Logica aivi- 
 any thing is a greater stumbling-block and _ hin- passage. 
 derance to him than a misapprehension of, what 
 
 I may term, the logical construction and division 
 
 of the passage he is about to expound. To a mis- 
 
 take here, is to a considerable extent, to be traced 
 
 the obscurity which in many expositions hangs 
 
 over the paragraph before us, after all that has 
 
 been done to explain it. 
 
 Even a superficial reader cannot help seeing 
 that, while occupied by one general subject, it di- 
 vides itself into two parts,—(1) an injunction and 
 enforcement of civil obedience generally, ver. 1-5, 
 
 “ Let every soul be subject unto 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 ordi- 
 nance 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 
 
ῦ4 
 
 PART I, 
 
 ON THE LAW OF CHRIST 
 
 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 con- 
 science’ sake ;” and (2) an injunction and enforce- 
 ment of the particular duty of paying tribute, in- 
 cluded in the general duty of civil obedience, 
 ver. 6, 7, “ For; for this cause pay ye tribute also : 
 for they are God’s ministers, attending conti- 
 nually upon this very thing. Render therefore 
 to all their dues: tribute to whom tribute zs due ; 
 custom to whom custom; fear to whom fear; ho- 
 nour to whom honour.” 
 
 So far all are agreed. There is, however, a 
 difference of opinion as to the logical construc- 
 tion of the first of these divisions. The greater 
 part of interpreters, both ancient and modern, so 
 far as I know, consider the injunction as enforced’ 
 by three considerations,—(1) Civil government is 
 a divine ordinance, ver. 1, 2, “ Let every soul be 
 subject unto the higher powers; for there is no 
 power but of God; the powers that be are or- 
 dained of God. Whosoever therefore resisteth 
 the power, resisteth the ordinance of God; and 
 they that resist shall receive to themselves dam- 
 nation ;°—(2) Civil government is intended for 
 promoting human welfare, ver. 3, “ 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 
 
RESPECTING CIVIL OBEDIENCE. 
 
 same ;”—-(3) Disobedience will involve in punish- parr. 
 
 ment, ver. 4. 5, “ 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 ewecute 
 wrath upon him that doeth evil. Wherefore ye 
 must needs be subject, not only for wrath, but 
 also for conscience’ sake.” 
 
 T am fully persuaded that this view is erro- 
 neous, and that the apostle’s own division in the 
 close of the paragraph, “ Ye must needs be subject 
 not only for wrath,” ἡ. e. on account of the punish- 
 ment to which disobedience will expose you, “ but 
 also for conscience’ sake,” ὁ. 6. from a regard to 
 the will of God—is the true division, and that it 
 exhausts the whole statement. The command is 
 contained in the first clause. The first ground of 
 obedience is illustrated in the last half of the first 
 verse, and the first half of the second verse. The 
 second ground of obedience is stated in the second 
 half of the second verse, and its illustration reaches 
 to the end of the fourth verse; while the fifth 
 verse is a short recapitulation of the whole argu- 
 ment. The evidence in support of this view of 
 the logical construction of the apostle’s argumen- 
 tative exhortation, will be adduced at the proper 
 place of the exposition. 
 
 Having thus cleared the way, let us proceed to 
 inquire into the meaning of the apostle’s words,— 
 first as they refer to those to whom they were 
 originally addressed, and then as they refer to us, 
 and to Christians generally, in every country and 
 in every age. 
 
56 
 
 PART I. 
 
 Meaning of 
 the terms 
 “* powers, 
 power, rul- 
 ers.” 
 
 ON THE LAW OF CHRIST 
 
 The first question which requires to be resolved 
 is, what is the meaning and reference of the words 
 employed by the apostle ;—* the powers”—“ the 
 power”—* the rulers?’ Are they to be under- 
 stood of principles or of persons, of offices or of 
 officers; or, as it has been quaintly phrased, of 
 magistracy in the abstract or in the concrete? It 
 is not wonderful that among thinking men some 
 should have adopted the first of these views,—for 
 it rids the subject of considerable difficulty, and 
 makes the passage embody in it one of the finest 
 views of the object of civil government, that is to 
 be met with in either profane or sacred litera- 
 ture. There seems great beauty in the apostle 
 descending from “ the super-eminent powers,” — 
 the great eternal principles of truth and justice 
 and order, dwelling “in the bosom of God,” a 
 part of his nature as well as an expression of his 
 will, which are the foundation of all law and go- 
 vernment—to those principles first so far as em- 
 bodied in all regular civil government, and then 
 so far as embodied in the existing Roman govern- 
 ment; and the description contained in the third 
 verse, if understood without limits, seems far bet- 
 ter to answer to the magisterial office, as embody- 
 ing these principles, than to any actual magistracy 
 which ever yet has existed among men. 
 
 Yet I apprehend there is abundant evidence 
 that the second view of the subject is the true 
 one. The use of the plural number, “ powers,” 
 is a strong presumption that the reference is not 
 to magistracy in the abstract. It is not uncom- 
 mon in Scripture to use abstract terms, to denote 
 
RESPECTING CIVIL OBEDIENCE. 57 
 
 classes of persons. As when “ God” is said to parr. 
 have “ set some in the church, miracles,” 7. 6. 
 workers of miracles,—“ gifts of healing,” ἢ. e. per- 
 sons endowed with the power of curing diseases,— 
 “ helps,” ἢ. 6. assistants, deacons,—“ govern- 
 ments,” 2. 6. rulers,—“ diversities of tongues,” 2. 6. 
 persons capable of speaking various languages.* 
 It would be a style fitter for poetry than prose, 
 to speak of magistracy as “ bearing the sword ;” 
 and the “ powers” are represented as “ rulers;” 
 “ the power” as “a minister of God” to reward 
 and to punish. Besides, though this mode of in- 
 terpretation might get rid of some difficulties, it 
 would involve in other and greater difficulties. 
 It seems utterly unaccountable, that the apostle 
 should, on a subject on which the Christians in 
 Rome were in great danger of falling into mis- 
 take—a mistake most hazardous to themselves 
 and to their cause—enter into an abstract disqui- 
 sition on the nature and design of civil govern- 
 ment, which, so far as they could understand it, 
 however ingenious and excellent in itself, must 
 have rather increased than lessened the difficulty 
 of their discovering what was their duty in refer- 
 ence to the existing Roman authorities. 
 
 Taking for granted, then, that “ powers” and Reference of 
 “ power,” as well as “rulers,” refer to persons in- ?'"** 
 vested with civil power—the power of making 
 
 * 1 Cor. xii. 28. Vide Luke xii. 11; Eph. iii. 10. vi. 12. 
 Col. i. 16; 11.15. 1 Peter iii. 22. Titus iii. 1. 
 
 + The reader will do well to consult the able discussion of this 
 question in the Associate Presbytery’s Answers to Mr Nairn’s 
 Reasons of Dissent.—Gib’s Display of the Secession Testimony, 
 vol. i. pp. 305-308, 
 
 10] 
 
58 
 
 PART I. 
 
 Meaning and 
 reference of 
 the epithet 
 
 “* higher.”” 
 
 ON THE LAW OF CHRIST 
 
 and executing laws; that the words are used just 
 in the way in which we employ the synonymous 
 term “ authorities,” let us now inquire into their 
 reference. Do they refer to all rulers, or to a 
 certain sort of rulers? The answer to that ques- 
 tion seems very obvious. The words were ad- 
 dressed to the Roman Christians, to teach them 
 their duty; and surely the governors referred to, 
 must be the governors to whom they were sub- 
 ject. 
 
 But what are we to understand by the “ higher 
 powers?” Are these words to be understood as 
 expressive of a quality which belonged to all the 
 Roman magistrates, or of a quality which belonged 
 only to some of the Roman magistrates? Do they 
 describe the higher orders of the magistracy in 
 contradistinction to the lower? The word itself 
 does not determine this question. It is used by 
 the Apostle Peter to distinguish the king or em- 
 peror from inferior magistrates, when he contrasts 
 “the king as supreme” (the same word as is em- 
 ployed here by Paul), with “ governors as them 
 that are sent by him.”* Yet it is plain that all 
 that follows in the paragragh before us,+ is just 
 
 * 1 Pet. ii. 18, 14. 
 
 + The acutest of my reviewers,* has, by representing “ the 
 paragraph,” here as denoting the passage referred to in Ist Peter, 
 and not, asit obviously does, the passage under exposition, makes 
 me speak absolute nonsense: and then exclaims, “ This surely 
 is not a happy specimen of exegesis in so learned a professor of 
 exegetical theology.” By defining still more clearly the refer- 
 ence of the word “ paragraph,” I have removed even the shadow 
 of excuse—it never was any thing but a shadow—for misrepre- 
 
 * Carson's Review, pp, 50-52. 
 
RESPECTING CIVIL OBEDIENCE. 
 
 59 
 
 the unfolding of what is contained in the com- PART! 
 
 mencing precept; and it is equally plain, that in 
 the sequel the apostle enjoins obedience, not only 
 to the higher authorities in the empire, but to all 
 authorities, down to the despised publican or tax- 
 gatherer. The term, then, is not here distinctive 
 of a species zm the class of governors, but de- 
 scriptive of the whole class of governors. What 
 is its meaning? Some have rendered it “ super- 
 eminent,” understanding by that, eminence in the 
 qualities which should distinguish magistrates— 
 others “ protecting ;” but the facts of the case 
 forbid the adoption of the first interpretation, and 
 the usage of the language the second. The apos- 
 tle in this case, as in most others, is his own best 
 interpreter. In the beginning of the second chap- 
 ter of his first epistle to Timothy, he exhorts 
 Christians to make “ supplications, prayers, inter- 
 cessions, and giving of thanks—for kings and for 
 all that are in authority,” ἐν ὑπεροχη ovrov—a phrase 
 of similar origin and meaning with that under 
 consideration. “The higher powers” are then 
 
 sentation. I would much rather be the sufferer than the actor 
 in such feats of critical slight of hand. I greatly admire the fol- 
 lowing passage from an ancient author, with whom our critic 
 claims intimate acquaintance :—AzeimapyeOa Ta κρυπτα αἰσχυνῆς; 
 μὴ περιπατουντες ev Travoupyta, μηδε δολουντες Tov λογον Tov Θεου; 
 adda τὴ φανερώσει της αληθειας συνιστωτες ἑαυτους πρὸς πασαν 
 συνειδησιν ανθρωπων ενωπιον του Θεου. The critic is in quest of 
 faults, and his motto seems to be “ Aut inveniam, aut Fractam.” 
 He exemplifies here and elsewhere, the second part of the motto. 
 He has certainly succeeded in making faults, whatever success he 
 may have had in finding them. An ill-natured man would per- 
 haps consider his own strong phrase as the justest description of 
 this feat, “ This is forgery.”—Review, p. 13. 
 
60 
 
 PART I. 
 
 Duty enjoin- 
 
 ed “" subjec- 
 tion.” 
 
 Universality 
 of the duty. 
 
 ON THE LAW OF CHRIST 
 
 just “ the ruling authorities’—the magistrates i 
 office—all invested with civil power, from the Em- 
 peror to the Addile or Queestor—all who were em- 
 ployed in making or in executing the laws.* 
 
 The duty enjoined on the Roman Christians, in 
 reference to these ruling magistrates, is “ subjec- 
 tion.” “ Be subject to the higher powers, —that 
 is, be obedient to their commands: be submissive 
 to their appointments. 
 
 This duty, arising as it did out of a universal 
 relation,—cireumstances not peculiar to indivi- 
 duals, but common to all members of civil socie- 
 ty,—is, in very forcible language, represented as 
 equally binding on all the Roman Christians. 
 “ Let every soul be subject to the higher powers.” 
 Every soul is a Hebraism for every person, just 
 as every Jody is an Anglicism for the same thing.+ 
 It is an idiomatic, and probably here an emphatic 
 expression. It seems intended to bring the idea 
 of the universality of the obligation more strongly 
 out than the use of the ordinary term (ἕκαστος), 
 “every one,” would have done. Whatever dig- 
 nity of official character he may be clothed with 
 —whatever extent or variety of spiritual gifts he 
 may be endowed with—let every one of you be 
 subject to the ruling authorities. Chrysostom, 
 who is perhaps the best interpreter among the 
 Fathers, very well expresses the meaning: “ Al- 
 though he be an apostle, although he be an evan- 
 gelist, although he be a prophet, let every soul be . 
 subject.” t 
 
 * Vide Note VII. + Gen. xii. 5. 
 
 1 The Rhemists, though neither as translators nor interpre- 
 
RESPECTING CIVIL OBEDIENCE. 
 
 The apostle proceeds to unfold the reasons on 
 which this injunction is founded. ‘These are two: 
 The Roman Christians could not violate this law, 
 without involving themselves in guilt, and in the 
 consequences of guilt, as despisers of a divine ap- 
 pointment, violators of a divine law; nor without 
 exposing themselves to punishment by the magis- 
 trate for a crime,—an offence against the peace 
 and order of society. The first of these grounds 
 is stated in these words: “ For there is no power 
 but of God: the powers that be are ordained of 
 God. Whosoever then resisteth the power, re- 
 sisteth the ordinance of God.” 
 
 We have here something like a formal argu- 
 ment—the premises, and the conclusion. The 
 premises are, “ there is no power but of God— 
 the powers that be are ordained of God”—first, a 
 general, and then a more particular assertion. 
 If by the term “ power” we were to understand 
 magistracy, or civil government generally, then 
 
 ters high authorities, have justly expressed the Apostle’s mean- 
 ing here. “St Paul here (as St Peter doth, 1 Eph. chap. ii.), 
 expressly chargeth every man to be subject to his temporal prince 
 and superiour: not every man to all that be in office or superi- 
 ority,—but every one to him whom God hath put in authoritie 
 over him, by that he is his maister, lord or king, or such like ; 
 neither to them in matters of religion or regiment of their souls 
 (for most part were Pagans, whom the apostle could not will men 
 to obey in matters of faith), but to them in such things only as 
 concern the publike peace and politie, and what other causes so 
 ever consist with God's holy will and ordinance, for against God, 
 no power may be obeied.”—The New Testament of Jesus Christ, 
 translated faithfully into English out of the Authentical Copy, 
 &e. in the English College of Rhemes, p. 415. Rhemes, 1582. 
 Really some Protestants of the 19th century have something to 
 learn from the Roman Catholics of the end of the 16th! 
 
 61 
 
 PART I. 
 
 Reasons for 
 
 compliance. 
 
 First reason 
 
 —the Divine 
 authority. 
 
 The premises. 
 First premise 
 —‘*no power 
 but of God.” 
 
62 
 
 ON THE LAW OF CHRIST 
 
 parti. the meaning would be,—Civil government is so 
 
 of God as to lay a foundation for a divine, moral 
 obligation on those subject to it, to yield obedi- 
 ence. In this case more than a mere permission 
 must be understood. Magistracy is from God, 
 not merely as “all things are of God,’—as the 
 famine and the pestilence,—war and slavery, are 
 from Him. This could lay no foundation for obe- 
 dience. Those who take this view err by defect.* 
 They on the other hand err by excess, who insist 
 that magistracy is a direct, express divine insti- 
 tution. It does not stand on the same foundation 
 with the priesthood under the law, nor the Chris- 
 tian ministry under the gospel. The magistracy 
 of the Jews was the result of direct divine ap- 
 pointment, but not the magistracy of any other 
 people. It does not stand on the same founda- 
 tion as marriage, which was formally instituted.+ 
 It oceupies similar ground with the social state 
 and commerce. It naturally rises out of the con- 
 stitution of men’s minds, which are God’s work, 
 and the circumstances of their situation, which are 
 the result of his providence ; and it is highly con- 
 ducive to the security and well-being of mankind, 
 which we know must be agreeable to the will of 
 God. It is not like some of the things mention- 
 ed, so “ of God” as not to be of man; for the 
 apostle Peter expressly styles it,t the “ordinance 
 of man,” (ανθρωπινη «rois)— the creature of man.” § 
 The two apostles do not, however, in any degree 
 contradict each other,—Paul teaching that civil 
 
 * Vide Note VIII. + Gen. ii. 23, 24. 
 1 1 Péter 1. 19. § Vide Note IX. 
 
RESPECTING CIVIL OBEDIENCE. 
 
 6 
 
 9 
 vo 
 
 government rises out of elements formed by God, parr 1. 
 
 and is in accordance with his will,—Peter, that 
 the actual existence and the particular form of 
 civil government depend on human will and in- 
 strumentality. 
 
 I have already, however, stated the reasons M 
 which induce me to consider all the different’ 
 
 terms employed in this passage, as referring not 
 to office but to officers. ‘“ No power” is just 
 equivalent to “no civil magistrate.” The term 
 may, however, mean either—no individual magis- 
 trate, or no magistrate by whatever name he may 
 be known, or with whatever modification of civil 
 power he may be invested. It does not materi- 
 ally 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 Solo- 
 mon, 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 nei- 
 ther the Maccabees; nor the Asmonean kings, 
 
 eaning of 
 e phrase 
 
 ‘of God.” 
 
64 ON THE LAW OF CHRIST 
 
 parti. 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 indi- 
 viduals 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.* 
 
 Fatent ofthe ΠΡ seems to me probable, that the apostle’s re- 
 ference is not so much to all individual magis- 
 trates 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 indivi- 
 dual magistrate, as with the kind of magistracy 
 that the Roman Christians were in danger of be- 
 ing dissatisfied. They probably would at any rate 
 have preferred a descendant of David to Claudius 
 or Nero; but still the chief ground of that pre- 
 ference would have been, that while the first be- 
 longed to an order of kings of direct divine ap- 
 pointment, 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 
 
 * Vide Note X. 
 
RESPECTING CIVIL OBEDIENCE. 65 
 
 elders of Israel. If you think you are warranted parr 1. 
 to disobey the Roman government because 5... 
 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 im- 
 perial 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 condu- 
 cive 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 seconapre- 
 a person vested with divine authority—as one genial asser. 
 of the “ princes who, sitting on their thrones, (oiheRona 
 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 ordain- 
 ed 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 
 
 * < All civil power is immediately from God in its root, in 
 that (1.) God hath made man a social creature, and one who in- 
 clineth to be governed by man ; (2.) God intendeth the policie 
 and peace of mankind.”—Lew Rex. The Law and the Prince, A 
 Dispute for the just Prerogative of King and People. By Samuel 
 Rutherford, p. 2. 4to. Lond. 1644. 
 
οὐ 
 
 ON THE LAW OF CHRIST 
 
 parti. ends of their office.* That the phrase may, in 
 
 certain connexions, bear this sense, I do not deny ; 
 but that this is not its meaning here, if the greater 
 part of what has been said above, be not misin- 
 terpretation, 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 accomplish- 
 ed 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 govern- 
 ment 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 there- 
 fore, 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 sub- 
 ject to civil government, but it is only to govern- 
 ments that answer in the degree in which all go- 
 vernments 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 i. It is 
 rather your duty to resist a government which 
 answers so ill the ends of its institution” Had 
 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 
 
 * Vide Note XI. 
 
RESPECTING CIVIL OBEDIENCE. 67 
 
 such duplicity and mental reservation, is much Part. 
 more than unworthy of being reasoned with.”* 
 Holding then, that “ the powers that be” are The meaning 
 
 of the phrase 
 ** ordained of 
 
 just the existing Roman authorities, we appre- Goa.” 
 hend the apostle’s assertion is,—the Roman ma- 
 gistrates 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 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 in- 
 habitants of the wide regions included in the Ro- 
 man Empire can bear—are so in accordance with 
 his will, that none of their subjects, especially of 
 their Christian subjects, after this explicit decla- 
 ration by an apostle, can rebel against them with- 
 out disobeying God. 
 
 The conclusion follows irresistibly from the pre- The eoclu- 
 mises, ““ 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 Aidile, have been (τασσομενοι) ar- 
 ranged, put into order “ under God.” Whoso- 
 ever, then, however high be his place in the church, 
 or however distinguished by miraculous gifts, by 
 
 * Dr Wardlaw’s Sermon on the Christian Duty of Submission 
 to Civil Government. Pp. 24, 25. Glasgow, 1820. 
 + Vide Doddridge in loco. 
 
(δ 
 
 ON THE LAW OF CHRIST 
 
 parr. disobeying the commands of the magistrates (a- 
 
 τασσομενος), Sets himself in hostile array against these 
 magistrates, marshalled as it were by God, (ανθεσ- 
 mee) Yesists,—withstands,—opposes (τη διαταγη) the 
 urangement 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 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 ean kill the body,” but can do no 
 
 * To illustrate to a mere English reader, the peculiarity of 
 diction arising from the relation of the Greek words τασσομενος 
 and avriraccopevos, | 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 ἀντιτασσομενος 5 and, with 
 an excess of rashness or a defect of candour not often exempli- 
 fied, represents me as applying the remark made on that word, 
 to the interpretation of the word ἀνθεστηκε. In this edition I have 
 so varied my illustration as to bring out my idea without the 
 possibility 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 avOcornxey was not inserted, be- 
 cause the previous remark had no bearing on its exegesis. 
 
 * Carson's Review, pp. 66, 67. 
 
RESPECTING CIVIL OBEDIENCE. 69 
 
 more; but to the displeasure of “ God, who, after parr 1. 
 he has killed the body, can cast both soul and 
 body into hell fire.” 
 
 A second powerful enforcement of the duty of secona rea- 
 
 son for civil 
 
 civil obedience is brought forward in the second stedience. 
 
 clause of the second verse, and illustrated in the rip. 
 
 ience. 
 
 third and fourth verses, “ And they that resist" » 
 shall receive to themselves damuation.” There 
 is but one opinion among qualified judges as to 
 the impropriety of the translation of the last word 
 in this clause. The word (κρίμα) means judgment. 
 [t 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 interpreting this chapter. This is not a 
 solitary instance in which our excellent transla- 
 tion is less excellent than it might have been, than 
 it would have been, but for this cause.t The 
 version would have been objectionable in any cir- 
 cumstances, but it is much more so if, as we ap- 
 
 * Rom. iii. 8; 1 Cor. xi. 29; Gal..v. 10. + Vide Note XII. 
 
70 ON THE LAW OF CHRIST 
 
 parti. prehend to be the case, the apostle be referring to 
 the punishment inflicted by the Roman magis- 
 trate; or if to punishment inflicted by God, to 
 the punishment inflicted by the Roman magis- 
 trate as his “ minister to execute punishment on 
 
 him that doeth evil.” 
 Truecon- | have already, in my preliminary remarks, ob- 
 thiselause- served, that by many—by most interpreters, this 
 clause is connected with that immediately pre- 
 cedeing it, and the third verse is considered as the 
 statement of a new reason for obedience, derived 
 from the design and operation, either of well con- 
 stituted civil government, or of the Roman go- 
 vernment. Had the second verse not been im- 
 mediately followed by the third, this mode of di- 
 vision would probably have been the right one; 
 but when we consider that the apostle in sum- 
 ming up his argument, represents it as consisting 
 not of three, but of two parts—an appeal to con- 
 science, and an appeal to fear; when we find the 
 statement before us immediately followed by an- 
 other statement, which is just an illustration or 
 proof of this; when we find this statement intro- 
 duced by a connecting particle, yap, for, the pro- 
 per and ordinary force of which is that what fol- 
 lows is a reason for, or a proof of that which goes 
 before ; and when we find this particle repeatedly 
 in this very paragraph used in this way, I appre- 
 hend there can be no reasonable doubt, that our 
 interpretation exhibits the true logical construc- 
 
 tion of this passage.* 
 We proceed, then, to its illustration on this 
 
 * Vide Note XIII. 
 
RESPECTING CIVIL OBEDIENCE, 
 
 71 
 
 hypothesis. ‘“ And they that resist shall receive parr 1. 
 
 to themselves punishment,’—or, “ on the other 
 hand, they that resist shall receive to themselves 
 punishment.” Not only will they offend God ; 
 and draw on themselves his vengeance, but vio- 
 lating the laws, they will bring down upon them- 
 selves their penalty. The illustration or proof of 
 this follows, and is substantially, The Roman go- 
 vernment is a strong and active one—the only 
 way to avoid its vengeance, is to obey its laws. 
 “ 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 
 οὗ 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 doth 
 evil.” 
 
 These words have very commonly been inter- 
 preted of rulers generally. What they state is 
 true of all civil rulers acting in accordance with 
 their office, but it is obvious that the direct pri- 
 mary reference is to the Roman rulers, “ the 
 higher powers,” “ the powers that be.” The ap- 
 pellation 6 apxorres, occurring at the beginning of 
 a discussion, might mean, probably would mean, 
 rulers generally. In the midst of a discussion 
 about rulers, it naturally refers to the rulers spo- 
 ken of, and it would require very strong evidence 
 to make us believe that it could refer to any 
 thing else. Besides, as we have already shown, 
 the apostle is not delivering a discourse on civil 
 
72 
 
 PART 1. 
 
 Restricted 
 meaning of 
 “* good 
 works.” 
 
 ON THE LAW OF CHRIST. 
 
 government; he is stating and enforcing the du- 
 ties of those to whom he is writing, to thezr go- 
 vernors. “ He is a minister to thee for good: if 
 thou do that which is evil, be afraid. Ye must 
 needs be subject.” “ If you break the laws, you 
 may lay your account with being punished; for 
 the Roman magistrates are a terror to evil work- 
 ers, and will punish those who break the laws; 
 and in doing so, they will be but the ministers of 
 the righteous judgment of God.’ With this sen- 
 timent he mixes up another and a closely con- 
 nected one, ‘ The only way in which you can ex- 
 pect to live safely under such a government as 
 the Roman, is by quietly submitting to the laws.’ 
 “ The rulers are not a terror to good works, but 
 to the evil.” 
 
 To be “a terror not to good works but to the 
 evil,” is just to be a reasonable object of alarm, not 
 to these who practise good works, but to those 
 who practise evil works. The “ good works,” the 
 doers of which had no cause to be afraid of the 
 Roman magistrates, must obviously be confined to 
 that class of good works which, in the estimation 
 both of the apostle and of the magistrates, deserved 
 that appellation. The term is plainly not to be 
 understood in the unlimited way in which it is 
 used, when the apostle exhorts Titus to bring fre- 
 quently before the minds of his hearers the grand 
 peculiarities of Christian doctrine, (iva) “ in order 
 that they which have believed in God might be 
 careful to maintain good works;”’* or when he 
 prays that the God of peace may make the Hebrew 
 
 * Titus iii. 8. 
 
RESPECTING CIVIL OBEDIENCE. 
 
 Christians “ perfect in every good work, to do his 
 will.”* It clearly refers to the great body of those 
 actions required by the Roman laws, which, as in 
 the case of the laws of every civil government, 
 were good—actions necessary to the order and 
 peace of society. There can be no doubt, that 
 though at this period the imperial power had not 
 yet sanctioned the persecution of Christianity, the 
 great majority of the Roman magistrates were 
 hostile to that religion. Some of them were infi- 
 dels as to the popular faith, but not on that ac- 
 count more favourable to Christianity; others 
 were bigotted and superstitious polytheists and 
 idolaters ; all of them regarded with dislike and 
 contempt, those who denied and disregarded the 
 licita religio, the established religion of the em- 
 pire, and who condemned every creed and mode 
 of worship but their own as false and fatal. But 
 the laws of the empire were favourable, like the 
 laws of all civilized states, to the peaceable sub- 
 ject, and armed with penalties against the diso- 
 bedient and rebellious. 
 
 Indeed, the restriction of the meaning of the 
 phrase in the way proposed, is equally necessary 
 to make it accord with the truth of the fact, and 
 with the argument of the apostle—with the truth 
 of the fact, for already clear enough intimation 
 had been given that the Roman government was 
 likely to be a terror to Christians, in doing the 
 good works of their Christian profession, and not 
 a terror to those who were disposed to persecute 
 them for doing these good works ;—with the apos- 
 
 * Heb. xiii. 21. 
 
 73 
 
 PART I.” 
 
 Necessity of 
 this restric- 
 tion. 
 
fed 
 
 ‘ 
 
 4 
 
 ON THE LAW OF CHRIST 
 
 parti. tle’s argument, which is, “ They who resist shall 
 
 receive punishment, For the rulers are a terror 
 not to good works but to the evil,’—thus identi- 
 fying the evil works with resistance, and the good 
 works with obedience or non-resistance.* This, 
 then, is the apostle’s statement. The Roman ma- 
 gistrates, in the administration of their office, are 
 a reasonable source of alarm, not to those who 
 obey the law, which, generally speaking, is not 
 only in their estimation, but in reality, a good 
 thing,—but to those who disturb the peace by 
 resisting the law, which, generally speaking, is 
 not only in their estimation, but in reality, a bad 
 thing. 
 
 Without this limitation, it is impossible to sup- 
 pose that the apostle (who, judging from the 
 signs of the times, as well as under the guidance 
 of a prophetic spirit, well knew that Christians, 
 for rejecting idolatry and renouncing its polluted 
 feasts, and worshipping the true God according 
 to his appointment, and teaching the truth to 
 others—all good things—very good things, would 
 be punished by the Roman magistrates, while 
 they who persecuted the unoffending Christians 
 to the death with the greatest injustice and 
 cruelty—certainly a very bad thing—would be 
 applauded and rewarded by them) should have 
 made the statement that these “rulers were a 
 terror not to good works, but to the evil,” while, 
 with the limitations referred to, the statement is 
 quite accordant with fact, and just the statement 
 the apostle’s object required. Under the Roman 
 
 * Vide Note XIV. 
 
RESPECTING CIVIL OBEDIENCE. 
 
 government, as indeed under every order of thing's 
 which can be called civil government, the quiet 
 orderly citizen was safe, while the lawless and 
 disobedient was exposed to danger. 
 
 The apostle proceeds to apply this statement 
 to the object in view, the enforcing obedience to 
 the Roman government on those to whom he was 
 writing. ‘“ Wilt thou then not be afraid of the 
 power? do that which is good, and thou shalt 
 have praise of the same.” Would you wish to 
 live secure in the possession of property and life, 
 under the Roman government? “ do that which 
 is good,”’—be a peaceable subject. This is the 
 only way of escaping the danger which so for- 
 midable a power threatens to all who oppose it. 
 He intimates that by taking this course they 
 might even “ have praise” from “ the power.” 
 The meaning of the word “ praise” here, may be 
 learned from the parallel passage in the first Epis- 
 tle of Peter, where inferior magistrates are repre- 
 sented as “sent” by the king or emperor “ for 
 the punishment of evil doers, and for the praise 
 of them that do well.”* It plainly denotes that 
 protection and encouragement which, as Bishop 
 Sherlock justly remarks, “ are the only proper 
 rewards which good subjects can expect from 
 their governors.” + 
 
 This statement as to the Roman government 
 protecting Christians if they peaceably obeyed 
 
 * 1 Peter ii. 14. 
 
 + Sherlock’s Discourses, vol. iii. p. 314, 12mo. Edin. 1774. 
 Some very good remarks on the impossibility of rewards, pro- 
 perly so called, being a sanction of civil government, are to be 
 found in Warburton’s Alliance, pp. 21-26. 
 
 PART I. 
 
 Roman go- 
 vernment a 
 protection to 
 the Chris- 
 tians. 
 
76 
 
 ON THE LAW OF CHRIST 
 
 parti. the laws, is confirmed by the declaration, that the 
 
 Roman government was not only, as he had al- 
 ready stated,—the ordinance of God to them, but 
 also “a minister of God” to them “ for good.” 
 The security which they possessed as to life and 
 property under the Roman government, when 
 compared with the danger as to both which exists 
 in a state of anarchy, was a great blessing. Of 
 that, as of every blessing, God was the author, 
 and the Roman magistrate was his minister. 1 
 think it not unlikely that the apostle had a par- 
 ticular reference to the fact,—that till persecu- 
 tion commenced, the Roman magistrates, how- 
 ever they might despise and disapprove of the 
 Christians, were, in preserving the public peace, 
 their protectors against the Jewish assassin and 
 the Pagan mob. But for a regular government, 
 the primitive Christians would have been torn to 
 pieces as by wild beasts. 
 
 The apostle very probably had before his. mind 
 the instances in which “ the power,” the Roman 
 magistrate, had been the “ minister of God” to 
 himself “ for good.” It was a Roman magistrate, 
 Gallio, who refused even to enter on the conside- 
 ration of a charge against him by the Jews at 
 Corinth, when he understood that it referred not 
 to “a matter of wrong or wicked lewdness,” but 
 to what he called “ a question of words, and 
 names, and of their law.” It was an authority 
 under the Roman government which did him a 
 similar favour at Ephesus. It was a Roman mi- 
 litary magistrate who rescued him from the fury 
 of the populace, and secured him from the feller 
 
RESPECTING CIVIL OBEDIENCE. 
 
 purpose of sworn conspirators at Jerusalem. It 
 was a Roman governor who, however imperfectly 
 he performed his duty to him, preserved him from 
 the murderous designs of his countrymen, and pro- 
 tected him in the important rightof appeal.* From 
 his own experience he could say, “ The power is a 
 minister of God” to Christians “ for good;” and, fol- 
 iowing his example of peaceable submission to the 
 laws, the Christians of Rome might expect to meet 
 with similar “rewards” for their “ good work.” 
 On the other hand, if they, by conspiracy and 
 revolt, disturbed the public peace, they might lay 
 their account with punishment; and if they met 
 with it, it would be no more than they deserved. 
 “ But if thou do that which is evil, be afraid; for 
 he beareth not the sword in vain.” “ That which 
 is evil” must be understood with similar limita- 
 tions as the phrase contrasted with it. The Chris- 
 tians might do many things that were evil, with- 
 out at all exciting the displeasure of the Roman 
 magistrates; aye, to do what was in the highest 
 degree evil—to return to idolatry, was the read- 
 iest way to obtain praise of many of them. But 
 if the Roman Christians, by being disobedient 
 subjects, did that which was, in the estimation 
 of both the apostle and the Roman magistrates, 
 “evil,” they had good cause to be afraid. Pun- 
 ishment severe and certain and sudden, was likely 
 to overtake them. “ He,” the Roman magis- 
 trate, “ beareth the sword,” and “ he beareth” it 
 “not in vain.” The Roman emperor, and some 
 of the subordinate magistrates, wore a small sword 
 
 * Acts xviii. 14; xix. 35; xxi. 81; xxiii. 12-28 ; xxv. passim. 
 
 poy bey 
 (4 
 
 PART I. 
 
 Would pu- 
 nish them if 
 insubordi- 
 nate. 
 
78 
 
 PART I: 
 
 In doing so 
 would be 
 God's mini- 
 ster. 
 
 ON THE LAW OF CHRIST 
 
 or dagger, pugio, as a part of their official dress ;* 
 an emblem of their having the power of taking 
 away life. The apostle’s statement is, The Ro- 
 man magistrate has the power to take away life, 
 and is not slack to use it. The Roman govern- 
 ment is a powerful and active government. 
 
 In the following words the apostle states that, 
 in his estimation, as a divinely inspired messen- 
 ger, the exercise of the power to punish, of which 
 the Roman magistrates were possessed, in the 
 case of those Christians who should “ resist the 
 power” and do “ that which was evil,” in plotting 
 or rebelling against the government, was a worthy 
 exercise of it; and that, in thus employing it, he 
 was equally God’s minister as in protecting the 
 peaceable and orderly. “ He is the minister of 
 God, a revenger to execute wrath upon him that 
 doeth evil.” The word translated “ wrath,” (opyy;) 
 properly signifying violent commotion of mind— 
 as anger, is frequently in the New Testament, and 
 obviously here, used to signify punishment, the 
 effect of such mental excitement.| One of the 
 most judicious of the Fathers says, “ He calls pu- 
 nishment, wrath.” + The clause would more com- 
 pletely answer to that to which it is obviously 
 antithetic, by a slight transposition, and supplying 
 one word from the former clause. ‘“ He is a mi- 
 nister of God to thee for punishment, an avenger 
 of him that doeth evil.” As in the former case, 
 they would enjoy security—this would come from 
 
 * Sueton. in Vitellio-xv. Galba. xi. Tacit. Hist. iii. 68. Aurel. 
 Vict. de Cresar. xili. 
 Tamomsiy, 165. ai. 85 111... y, 9. | Theodoret. 
 
RESPECTING CIVIL OBEDIENCE. 
 
 God, and in conferring it the Roman magistrate 
 would be his minister; so in this case, they would 
 be punished—this punishment would indeed be 
 from God, and in inflicting it the Roman magis- 
 trate would be his minister. 
 
 This was stating the sentiment in the way most 
 fitted to give it weight with those to whom it was 
 addressed. Their scruples about. obedience were 
 grounded on the Roman magistrates not being 
 “ of God.” Now, says the apostle, they are “ of 
 God ;” and instead of your securing his approba- 
 tion by resisting them, it is Ze who will punish 
 you by their instrumentality. Such is the force 
 of the second argument. They who resist the 
 Roman government, shall receive to themselves 
 punishment. That government which, in pro- 
 tecting the peaceable, is a minister of God for 
 good—is armed with the power of punishing the 
 disorderly and rebellious, and is disposed to use 
 it; and should it ever, in the case of any of you, 
 be exercised on account of conspiracy or rebel- 
 lion, it will be properly exercised: you will meet 
 with but what you deserve, and the Roman ma- 
 gistrate will only inflict on you a part of that pun- 
 ishment which the Supreme Ruler accounts your 
 due. 
 
 “The conclusion of the whole matter” is to be 
 found in the sixth verse: ‘* Wherefore ye must 
 needs be subject, not only for wrath, but for con- 
 science’ sake.” * It is necessary, the apostle states, 
 
 * These words are well interpreted in the Saxon confession. 
 ** Magistratui politico subditi debent obedientiam, sicut Paulus 
 inquit, ‘non solum propter iram,’ id est, metu poene corporalis, 
 
 79 
 
 PART I, 
 
 Recapitula- 
 tion, 
 
80 
 
 ON THE LAW OF CHRIST 
 
 parti. that they should be subject—. 6. plainly to “ the 
 
 higher powers—the powers that be—the power— 
 the rulers,’—in one word, the Roman govern- 
 ment in all its functionaries; and it is necessary 
 that they be subject on two accounts,—on ac- 
 count of “ wrath’—of the punishment, the me- 
 rited punishment, which an opposite mode of con- 
 duct was sure to bring upon them; and not only 
 on this account, but for a higher reason—on ac- 
 count of conscience, from a regard to the divine 
 authority interposed in this matter, not merely in 
 the evidence that forces itself on every thinking 
 mind that civil government is in accordance with 
 the divine will, but also in the clear, and, but for 
 the glosses of interpreters of subsequent times, 
 we should have said, the unobscurable revelation 
 of his will, by an inspired apostle, in the plainest 
 and most unambiguous language, assuring them 
 that the Roman government was to them a divine 
 appointment. 
 
 Such is the meaning—such, so far as I have 
 been able to discover it, is the whole meaning of 
 this much controverted passage. It is a strong 
 assertion and enforcement of the duty of civil 
 obedience on the Christian Romans. The whole 
 passage is an answer to the question, Are Chris- 
 tians subject to the authority of a government ad- 
 ministered by heathens? And the answer is a very 
 strong affirmative. 
 
 qua adficiuntur contumaces ab ipsis magistratibus, ‘ sed etiam 
 propter conscientiam,’ id est, contumacia est peccatum offendens 
 Deum et ayellens conscientiam a Deo.”—Corpus et Syntagma 
 Confessionum, Pars ii. p. 91, 4to. Gen. 1654. 
 
RESPECTING CIVIL ΟΒΕΌΙΕΝΟΕ.. 
 
 There is another question of kindred character 
 and similar importance—W ere there any limits to 
 this obedience which was due to the Roman go- 
 vernment, and if so, what were they? to which 
 this passage is not intended to give an answer, 
 on which indeed it gives little information, ex- 
 cept that the obligation would appear to be very 
 extensive; and it seems intimated, that it was 
 only in doing what was “ good,” both in the apos- 
 tle’s estimation and that of the Roman govern- 
 ment, that they were to seek to avoid its wrath 
 and secure its praise. The question, however, 
 was obviously a very important one; and the pri- 
 mitive Christians were by no means destitute of 
 the means of satisfactorily resolving it. 
 
 It need scarcely be remarked, that the cir- 
 cumstance that a law, whether divine or human, 
 is expressed in unlimited terms, does not by 
 any means infer that it admits of no exception : 
 nor is it at all necessary that where there are ex- 
 ceptions, these exceptions should be all, or indeed 
 any of them, specifically mentioned.* In refer- 
 ence to scriptural injunctions, there are clearly 
 stated in the inspired volume general principles 
 of truth and justice, in a consistency with which 
 all particular precepts must be interpreted; so 
 that we are warranted to say of any particular 
 precept, however clearly proved to be a divine 
 
 * “ Tt is a rule owned by all that—every general rule in any 
 place, is to be limited by an exception unto it in any one [other] 
 place whatever ; and there is scarce any general rule, but ad- 
 mitteth of an exception.”—Owen on Marrying after Divorce— 
 Collection of Sermons, Sc., p. 574, folio. Lond. 1721. Vide Dr 
 Campbell's illustration of this sentiment, Note xxiy. 
 
 81 
 
 PART I. 
 
 Had thecom- 
 mand of civil 
 obedience any 
 limits to the 
 Roman 
 Christians ? 
 
 Precepts un- 
 limited in 
 terms, often _ 
 to be under- 
 stood with 
 exceptions. 
 
82 
 
 PART I. 
 
 The question 
 answered in 
 the affirma- 
 tive. 
 
 ON THE LAW OF CHRIST 
 
 one, that any meaning which can be brought out 
 of it which contradicts these principles, cannot be 
 the true meaning. For example, there is a pre- 
 cept in the Jewish law, which, at first sight, seems 
 not merely to authorize, but to require human sa- 
 crifices.* The passage admits of satisfactory ex- 
 planation; but though it did not, the great prin- 
 ciples with regard to the divine character and 
 will, so clearly stated in Scripture, would warrant 
 us to say, that any meaning which sanctions hu- 
 man sacrifice cannot be the true meaning. There 
 may be cases in Scripture where the only way of 
 fixing the limits of a precept, expressed without 
 exception, yet obviously intended not to be uni- 
 versal, is by appealing to such principles—which is 
 indeed just one way of making Seripture its own 
 interpreter; but in the great majority of cases of 
 the kind, we have either exceptions specified in 
 other parts of Scripture, or we have the example 
 of those whose conduct is either law, or the un- 
 doubted explication of law. These principles, the 
 soundness of which is universally admitted among 
 intelligent interpreters, of either divine or human 
 law, I have thought it right to state, as we shall 
 probably have occasion in the sequel more than 
 once to refer to them. 
 
 To the question, Were there limits beyond 
 which the Roman Christians were not merely not 
 bound, but not permitted to obey the Roman ma- 
 gistrates—in other words, Is this precept, though 
 unlimited in its language, to be understood with 
 exceptions, T apprehend that so far as active obe- 
 
 * Levit. xxvii. 28, 29. 
 
RESPECTING CIVIL OBEDIENCE. 
 
 dience is concerned, no man will now dare to give 
 a negative answer. Considering that question as 
 settled, I go on to inquire, What were the limits 
 of the Roman Christians’ active obedience to the 
 Roman magistrates? What are the exceptions 
 with which the unlimited precept must have been 
 understood by them ? 
 
 The first set of exceptions is marked by a clear 
 and broad line. It includes all acts required, or 
 which might be required, by the Roman govern- 
 ment, inconsistent with the divine law. In this 
 case, the primitive Christians were not only not 
 bound to obey, but they were bound not to obey. 
 It has been justly remarked, that “ whether we 
 should obey God rather than man, can never be 
 seriously made a question by common sense, any 
 more than by piety.”* The relation which sub- 
 sists between man and God is earlier and closer 
 and more permanent than that which can exist 
 between subjects and magistrates. When the 
 claims of the latter clash with those of the former, 
 there can be no doubt which must give way. As 
 Hall has finely expressed it, “ The two obligations 
 are not equipollent—the former is essential, in- 
 variable, and paramount to every other.”+ 
 
 * Dwight.—“ The authority of kings over our outward man, 
 is not so absolute but that it suffers a great restraint. It must 
 stretch no farther than the prince of our inward man pleases ; 
 for if secular princes stretch out the skirts of their authority to 
 command ought by which our souls are prejudiced” (a plain al- 
 lusion to Polycarp’s expression quoted in Note. xv.), “ the King 
 of souls hath in this case given us a higher command, that we 
 rather obey God than men.’—Hales’ (of Eton) Works, vol. ii. 
 Ρ- 302. Glasgow, 1765. 
 
 + The truth on this subject has seldom been more clearly and 
 
 85 
 
 PARE I: 
 
 First set of 
 exceptions— 
 acts forbidden 
 by the divine 
 law. 
 
84 
 
 PARQ 1: 
 
 ON THE LAW OF CHRIST 
 
 On this principle the apostles themselves act- 
 ed. When the Jewish magistrates “commanded” 
 Peter and John “ not to speak at all, nor teach in 
 
 forcibly spoken than in a little book, entitled “ Vindicie contra 
 Tyrannos: sive de principis in populum, populique in principem, 
 legitima potestate,” published in 1579, under the assumed name 
 of Stephanus Junius Brutus Celta, purporting to be printed at 
 Edinburgh, but bearing strong internal marks of having proceed- 
 ed from some French or Swiss press. The first question dis- 
 cussed is, “¢ An subditi teneantur aut debeant principibus obe- 
 dire, si quid contra legem Dei imperent?’ The opening of the 
 reply is very admirable, “ Videbitur fortasse prima fronte hice 
 questio plane otiosa et inutilis, qua nempe Christianorum axio- 
 ma certissimum, tot scripture sacre testimoniis, tot seculorum 
 exemplis, tot piorum Martyrum rogis comprebatum, quasi etiam 
 nune controversum in dubium vocari videatur. Unde etenim, 
 dices, tot tanteque piorum exrumne, nisi ex una hac causa, quod 
 Deo simpliciter et absolute, regibus quatenus adversus legem Dei 
 nil imperent, obtemperandum esse perpetuo judicarint ὁ Quor- 
 sum vero alioqui apostolorum responsum, ‘ Deo magis, quam ho- 
 minibus parendum esse?’ Deinde, cum sola unius Dei voluntas 
 perpetuo justa sit, ceterorum injusta subinde esse possit; quis 
 ambigat, quin illi uni absque ulla exceptione, his cum aliqua 
 semper exceptione parendum sit « *« # « Docent sacre 
 litere, Deum suapte auctoritate regnare, reges quasi precaria : 
 Deum per se, Reges per Deum: Deum jurisdictione sua uti, 
 Reges delegata tantum. Sequitur itaque, Dei immensam esse 
 jurisdictionem, Regum dimensam : Dei infinitam potentiam, Re- 
 gum prefinitam: Dei regnum nullis limitibus circumscriptum 
 esse, Regum contra certis regionibus regi certis cancellis termi- 
 nari,” pp. 1, 2, 5,6. The remarkable little book, from which 
 this citation is made, and which has much in common with our 
 countryman Buchanan’s admirable “ Opusculum,” “ De Jure 
 Regni apud Scotos,” has been ascribed to a great variety of au- 
 thors, some of them of very great name, and it would not dis- 
 honour the greatest of these names. It has been ascribed to 
 Philip de Mornay, the Knight of Plessais—to Francis Hottoman, 
 whom Milton styles “ et Gallus, et jurisconsultus, et vir doctis- 
 simus”—to Hubert Languet, Sir Philip Sidney’s correspondent— 
 to Theodore Beza—to Isaac Casaubon, τὸν ravv—and, in fine, to 
 John Crell, one of the most learned of the early Socinians.— Vide 
 Thome Ruddimanni prafat, ad Buchanani Opera. Folio Fd.1715. 
 
RESPECTING CIVIL OBEDIENCE. 
 
 δῦ 
 
 the name of Jesus,” their unhesitating answer parr 1. 
 
 was, “ Whether it be right in the sight of God to 
 hearken unto you more than unto God, judge ye.” 
 And accordingly they took the first opportunity 
 of doing what the magistrate had prohibited them 
 from doing.* On an after occasion, when called 
 to account by the Sanhedrim for their disobedi- 
 ence, “ Peter and the rest of the apostles answer- 
 ed and said, We ought to obey God rather than 
 men.” 
 
 The primitive Christians trod in the steps of 
 their inspired leaders. When they were com- 
 manded to enter heathen temples—to burn in- 
 cense on heathen altars—they respectfully, but 
 obstinately refused. They had not learned to 
 make the nice distinctions which, on an analo- 
 gous subject, some have made, and acted on, in 
 later times. They did not say, there is nothing 
 either moral or immoral in walking in a particu- 
 lar direction—in going into any house—in taking 
 in the hand a portion of any substance, and cast- 
 ing it into a fire kindled on any place. These 
 are indifferent actions; the civil authority com- 
 mands them,—why should I not obey it? But 
 like single-minded, simple-hearted men as they 
 were, they said—That house is a temple dedicated 
 to the honour of a usurper of Jehovah’s preroga- 
 tive—that fire burns on the altar of a demon— 
 and to east incense on it, is understood to be wor- 
 
 The ascription of this book to these distinguished men shows, 
 that in the judgment of their cotemporaries, they were consider- 
 ed as holding substantially the opinions maintained in it. 
 
 * Acts iv. 18, 19. + Acts ν. 29. 
 
0 ΟΝ THE LAW OF CHRIST 
 
 parti. ship, and it is only because it is understood to be 
 
 worship that it is required of us: we will die 
 sooner than comply with the imperial mandate. 
 And in thousands, and in tens of thousands, they 
 did die.* 
 
 second setot Another class of exceptions from the apparent- 
 egal com ly unlimited command of obedience to the Roman 
 magistrate, here imposed on the Roman Chris- 
 tians, includes in it illegal commands and exac- 
 tions. When compliance with these did not im- 
 ply sin on the part of him who yielded it, he was 
 not morally bound not to obey or submit, but nei- 
 ther was he morally bound to obey or submit. It 
 became a question, not directly of conscience, but 
 of expediency,—though ¢ndirectly, like almost all 
 questions of expediency, it might become a ques- 
 tion of conscience. The principle is a general 
 one, and as applicable to the primitive Christians 
 as to any other class of persons. “ Subjects are 
 not bound to obey the commands of magistrates 
 when they are not warranted by law. The law 
 creates magistrates, and defines all their powers 
 and rights: whenever they require that which is 
 not warranted by law, they cease to act as magis- 
 trates, and return to the character of mere citi- 
 zens. In this character they plainly have no au- 
 thority over their fellow-citizens. It is not the 
 man, but the magistrate, whom God commands 
 to obey.” t 
 When illegal demands were made on the Apos- 
 tle Paul himself, he did not tamely submit to 
 
 * Vide Note XV. 
 + Dwight’s Theology, vol. iy. p. 147. Lond. 1822. 
 
RESPECTING CIVIL OBEDIENCE. 
 
 them. When the chief captain, a Roman mili- 
 tary authority, had given orders to have Paul 
 scourged, instead of immediately baring his back, 
 he, with the dignity of a free man, pleaded his 
 rights: “Isit lawful for you,” he said, “ to scourge 
 a man that is a Roman, and uncondemned ?”* 
 When Ananias, the high-priest, commanded him 
 to be smitten on the mouth, did he silently en- 
 dure the opprobrious and illegal injury? “ God 
 shall smite thee,” said he, “ thou whited wall; 
 for sittest thou there to judge according to the 
 law, and commandest me to be smitten contrary 
 to the law?”+ When the magistrates of Philippi 
 had commanded Paul and Silas to “ be beaten 
 with many stripes, and cast into prison,” and, sa- 
 tisfied with their illegal infliction, sent next day 
 to the jailor to set them at liberty, instead of 
 thankfully receiving his liberation as a boon, or 
 even quietly complying with a request of his su- 
 periors, he showed his abhorrence of illegal vio- 
 lence, by nobly exclaiming, “ They have beaten 
 us openly uncondemned, being Romans, and have 
 cast us into prison, and now do they thrust us out 
 privily? nay verily; but let them come them- 
 selves and fetch us out.” 1 
 
 There is yet a third class of exceptions from 
 the general law of obedience to the Roman go- 
 vernment, imposed on the primitive Christians. 
 It ineludes all cases in which the magistrates, 
 though not acting illegally, ὁ. 6. in direct opposi- 
 tion to the law, went beyond the limits of civil 
 
 * Acts xxii. 25. + Acts xxiii. 3. 
 ¢ Acts xvi. 35. Vide Note XVI. 
 
 87 
 
 PART SE. 
 
 Third set of 
 exceptions— 
 matters be- 
 
 yond the li- 
 
 mits of civil 
 
 authority. 
 
δ ON THE LAW OF CHRIST 
 
 parr. authority, and interfered in matters that no way 
 
 ~ pertained to them. The most remarkable in- 
 
 stance of this is to be found in their interfer- 
 
 ence with religious concerns. Few will deny that 
 
 the heathen Roman government had nothing to do 
 
 with the religious opinions and usages of the 
 
 Christians, except so far as these might interfere 
 
 with the peace or good order of civil society. On 
 
 this ground, as well as on the higher ground that 
 
 all compliance with such interference was inconsist- 
 
 ent with their duty to their Divine Master, they 
 
 were warranted to disregard all the religious le- 
 
 gislation of their Roman rulers, and all the sen- 
 
 tences founded on that legislation. The Govern- 
 
 ment of Rome, like all civil governments, had for 
 
 its province the administration of men’s civil af- 
 
 fairs—the advancement of their civil interests. 
 
 That was its appropriate province, and beyond that 
 
 it had no legitimate power. If the inquiry be 
 
 made, who was’ to judge respecting these limita- 
 
 tions? the answer is a very obvious one—every 
 
 Christian for himself; and he must take the con- 
 
 sequences which flow from his decision. Such, I 
 
 apprehend, are the limits within which the com- 
 
 mand, which is the subject of consideration, was 
 
 obligatory on those to whom it was originally ad- 
 dressed. 
 
 the Chris- There is but one question more that must be 
 
 tian Romans 
 
 bound, inno put and answered, in order to a full view of the 
 
 case to resist 
 the govern- 
 
 ment. duty of the Roman Christians in reference to the 
 Roman government. When duty, or when expe- 
 diency dictated to Christians not to comply with 
 the commands of magistrates, what were they to 
 
RESPECTING CIVIL OBEDIENCE. 
 
 89 
 
 do then? Were they quietly to submit to the pun- parr 1. 
 
 ishment the magistrate chose to inflict, or were 
 they authorized to combine together, and endea- 
 vour to subvert the government? To this ques- 
 tion there can, | apprehend, be but one answer 
 given. They were bound to submit, allowing no 
 proper opportunity to pass, however, of showing 
 that they considered themselves illegally treated, 
 if they were illegally treated—that they consi- 
 dered themselves unjustly treated, when they were 
 unjustly treated. 
 
 The uniform conduct of the primitive Chris- 
 tians makes it evident that they thus understood 
 the apostolic injunction. Their obligation to act 
 in this manner, however, seems to me not to have 
 originated in the general command to be subject 
 to civil government; but conjointly, in the ex- 
 press declaration made to them by an inspired 
 apostle, that the Roman government, whatever 
 were its defects and faults, was yet God’s ordi- 
 nance to them, and that they could not resist— 
 could not take any measures to disarrange that 
 system, without violating his law and incurring 
 his displeasure ; and in the circumstances in which 
 they were placed, as a small body, many of them 
 foreigners, possessed of no constitutional influence 
 in the government, which was administered by 
 heathens. Hither of these would have made it 
 their duty to submit to whatever the government 
 might inflict, rather than to do any thing tending 
 to conspiracy or rebellion. The law to them was 
 clear and explicit; and had it not been so, it is 
 
 plain that any attempt to act otherwise than it 
 G 
 
90 
 
 PART I. 
 
 What are 
 these things 
 to us? 
 
 ON THE LAW OF CHRIST 
 
 dictated, would have brought sudden destruction 
 on themselves and their brethren, and placed 
 most powerful barriers in the way of the propa- 
 gation of their most holy faith. It must not, 
 however, be supposed that Jesus Christ, by his 
 apostle, deprived those Christian Romans of pri- 
 vileges which belonged to them as members of 
 civil society. He only, in the express command 
 of his inspired messenger, pointed out to them 
 the precise path which, in their circumstances, 
 an enlightened regard to their rights and duties, 
 as members of civil society, would have urged 
 them to pursue.—I have thus finished the answer 
 to the question, What were these things to them 
 to whom they were originally delivered ? 
 
 Our attention must now be turned to a ques- 
 tion, if possible, of deeper interest and import- 
 ance: ‘ What are these things to us and to Chris- 
 tians generally, in every country and in every 
 age? 'That we have a concern in them there can 
 be no doubt, “ All Scripture zs given by inspi- 
 ration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for 
 reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteous- 
 ness.”* What the apostle says of the Old Tes- 
 tament Scriptures, in reference to the primitive 
 Christians, is equally applicable to the whole con- 
 tents of the completed book of God, to us and to 
 all who shall come after us: “ Whatsoever things 
 were written aforetime, were written for our learn- 
 ing.” + It is an important part of the duty of 
 
 ReDim. ἀπ 16. + Rom. xv. 4. 
 
RESPECTING CIVIL OBEDIENCE. 
 
 “the man of God,” to show how particular parts 
 of inspired Scripture conduce to “ doctrine, and 
 reproof, and correction, and instruction in right- 
 eousness,’—/ow “ the things which were written 
 aforetime” are fitted “ for our learning.” 
 
 In the discharge of this most responsible func- 
 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 pro- 
 mulgated, the same claim on our obedience, as 
 they had on the belief and obedience of the Chris- 
 tian 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 re- 
 gard 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.” 
 
 With regard to practical instruction, it obvi- 
 ously teaches us, that Christians, in all countries 
 
 91 
 
 PART I. 
 
 Reply as to 
 doctrine. 
 
 Reply as to 
 practice. 
 
92 
 
 ON THE LAW OF CHRIST 
 
 parti. and ages, should respect and obey the civil go- 
 
 vernment under which they live,—that a Chris- 
 tian who follows a course which tends to anarchy, 
 acts a wicked as well as an inconsistent and fool- 
 ish part—that no Christian is warranted to dis- 
 turb 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 glo- 
 ries 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 govern- 
 ment—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 pri- 
 mitive 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 Chris- 
 tians, living under a Pagan or Mohammedan go- 
 vernment, are bound to obey those governments 
 as far as their enlightened consciences will per- 
 mit. They are quietly to submit to such suffer- 
 ings, 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 govern- 
 ment, except by the dissemination of the doc- 
 trines and laws of Christ, which sooner or later 
 
RESPECTING CIVIL OBEDIENCE. 
 
 will, by their moral power, either improve or de- 
 stroy all the secular governments on the face of 
 the earth. 
 
 This, I think, is nearly the amount of the prac- 
 tical instruction, of a general kind, which the pas- 
 sage furnishes. It naturally enough indeed sug- 
 gests the thought, along with an irresistible sense 
 of its justice,—if the Roman Christians were 
 called on to yield cheerful obedience to an arbi- 
 trary government, at the head of which was a 
 Claudius or a Nero, with what thankful readiness 
 should we perform our duties to a civil govern- 
 ment, which, though not perfect, has within it- 
 self the means of indefinite improvement, and 
 which, even in its present state, certainly an- 
 swers the ends of civil government in a degree 
 in which they have very seldom been realized ! 
 
 But very readily admitting all this, we must 
 still hold that this passage does not directly teach 
 the divine ordination of any particular existing 
 civil government. It teaches us, indeed, that 
 civil government in general is of divine appoint- 
 ment, in the sense in which that expression has 
 been explained; but as to any particular govern- 
 ment being God’s ordinance to any particular in- 
 dividual or nation, that is to be inferred from a 
 variety of circumstances. The truth on this sub- 
 ject cannot be more correctly stated than in the 
 cautious words of Dr Paley: “ [t is the will of 
 God that the happiness of human life be pre- 
 moted. Civil society conduces to that end. Civil 
 societies cannot be upholden, unless in each the 
 interest of the whole society be binding on every 
 
 99 
 
 PART iI. 
 
 The divine 
 ordination of 
 any existing 
 government 
 not directly 
 taught. 
 
94 
 
 PART I. 
 
 Our obliga- 
 tion to obey 
 our govern- 
 ment. 
 
 ON THE LAW OF CHRIST 
 
 part and member of it. So long as the established 
 government cannot be resisted or changed with- 
 out 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 judg- 
 ing 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. 
 
 Happily for us, there is no difficulty in coming 
 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 improve- 
 ment, 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, sup- 
 ported as it is by the approbation of the princi- 
 ples on which it is founded by the great body of 
 the subjects, is so powerful, that to think of 7e- 
 sisting it, would not only be highly criminal, but 
 folly almost amounting to madness. To this go- 
 vernment we owe obedience ; and 1 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. 
 
RESPECTING CIVIL OBEDIENCE. 
 
 It is obvious, however, as we have already seen, 
 that the obligation to obedience to any human 
 government, even to the one expressly declared 
 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 crea- 
 ture’ to ‘ the Creator, God blessed for ever.’ Sub- 
 jects 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 noé theirs, 
 but is by the most strict possible provision still 
 ours, such as the liberty of our persons, the pro- 
 perty 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 vio- 
 lent invasion. Warrants and commissions in such 
 eases, are null and void of themselves.” * 
 
 * Burnet’s Sermon on Matthew xxii. 21. pp. 5, 6. 
 
 995 
 
 PART Ti 
 
 This obliga- 
 tion not with- 
 out limits. 
 
90 
 
 PART I. 
 
 First limita- 
 tion—by the 
 divine law. 
 
 ON THE LAW OF CHRIST 
 
 But let us examine a little more closely the 
 extent of the limits within which submission to 
 our government or to any government is obliga- 
 tory. The evzstence of such limits will scarcely 
 be denied in so many words in our times. And 
 first, then, it is obvious that no civil enactment 
 can ever make void the laws of God—can ever 
 make that sin which He makes duty, or that duty 
 which He makes sin. “ No human sovereign,” 
 Richard Baxter says, “ hath authority to forbid 
 what God commands, nor to command what God 
 forbids; but their laws that are notoriously con- 
 trary to the laws of God, are nullities, and can- 
 not oblige to obedience or punishment. A con- 
 stable may a thousand times more excusably pre- 
 tend authority against the king, or independent 
 of him, than a king can claim authority against 
 God, or independent on him. There is no power 
 but from God; God giveth none against himself. 
 All laws or commands of men are null and void 
 of true obliging authority, which are against his 
 laws. They are not words of authority but of re- 
 bellion or usurpation, that command us to dis- 
 obey the God of heaven. To resist such a com- 
 mand is not to resist an act of power, but of usur-_ 
 pation. For there can be no power without, 
 much less against the fountain of all power, the 
 universal Sovereign. It may be, this is the mean- 
 ing of the schoolmen and _ politicians, that say, 
 ‘ It is no law that is unjust, and of Augustine who 
 makes justice essential to the commonwealth.” * 
 
 To illustrate this by example :—If the go- 
 vernment were requiring its subjects (as some 
 
 * Baxter's Holy Commonwealth, pp. 379, 380. ᾿ 
 
RESPECTING CIVIL OBEDIENCE. 
 
 97 
 
 of its subordinate agents, not long ago, did in panr 1. 
 
 a foreign country, and unhappily had their con- 
 duct sanctioned by the commander-in-chief and 
 
 a majority in the House of Commons*), to take 
 
 a part in idolatrous worship, they not only are 
 not bound to obey, but they are bound to dis- 
 obey such a command. Should the government 
 engage in the prosecution of enterprizes opposed 
 to the law of God, and require me directly to 
 support them, I am bound to refuse. Should 
 they engage directly in a trade, which they too 
 long sanctioned, and send our ships of war as 
 slavers, to the coast of Africa, would it be con- 
 sistent with my duty to serve as a sailor aboard 
 one of these ships, or, which as we will by and 
 by see comes to the same thing, pay a tax, levied 
 avowedly for the purpose of supporting this ser- 
 vice? If government, in making and executing 
 laws in reference to the church of which Jesus 
 Christ is sole Lord and King, usurp his place, can 
 any Christian taking this view of the govern- 
 ment’s conduct, actively support such an usurpa- 
 tion?+ And what other view can an enlightened 
 Christian take of it? Is not Jesus Christ the sole 
 King and Head of his Church? Who has right 
 to legislate in her, or about her, but himself? To 
 whom has he delegated the power given to him 
 by the Father? Can a Christian safely, in any 
 way, show his approbation of a principle, which 
 is indeed the soul of “ the Man of Sin”—of a 
 system the very foundation of which, is permitting 
 human authority to take the place of the autho- 
 
 * Vide Note XVII. + Vide Note XVIII. 
 
98 
 PART I. 
 
 Second limi- 
 tation—by 
 the law of 
 the land. 
 
 ON THE LAW OF CHRIST 
 
 rity of Christ—by adding to, and taking from his 
 institutions ? 
 The second class of limitations to the obliga- 
 tion of civil obedience, refers to cases in which 
 the magistrates, of whatever grade, act illegally. 
 Where the illegality is clear and obvious, it is 
 plain that the subject is not bound to obey. In 
 some cases, though not bound to obey, he may 
 find, on the principle that it is our duty in mat- 
 ters not of absolute obligation, to do what is upon 
 the whole for the best, that he may obey—that 
 he ought to obey—though scarcely in any case, 
 without distinctly showing that he is aware of the 
 illegality, and protesting against it. The man who 
 tamely and silently submits to injustice from an in- 
 ferior magistrate, betrays the general cause of good 
 order. He isa bad citizen, and not even a good sub- 
 ject. He obeys or submits to an inferior power, 
 acting in an unauthorized manner, in preference to 
 “ the higher powers” of the law. If even the first 
 magistrate of this kingdom—God bless and protect 
 the Royal Maiden, and shed on her abundantly 
 the healthful influence of his Spirit and the saving 
 blessings of his grace, as “the dew of her youth”— 
 if even she were doing what some of her prede- 
 cessors have done to their cost, but which neither 
 her character nor her principles give us any 
 reason to fear she will ever attempt—should 
 (ueen Victoria attempt to do that by proclama- 
 tion, or direct warrants, which the constitution 
 says ought to be done only by the legislature, her 
 subjects would not in such a case be bound to 
 obey her, and her best friends, with all their af- 
 
RESPECTING CIVIL OBEDIENCE. 99 
 
 fection for her person, and reverence for her of- parr. 
 fice, would be the first to declare that they would 
 not. 
 
 The third class of limitations of the obligation Thirs timita- 
 tion—by the 
 
 of civil obedience, embraces all cases in which the Rory avi 
 . : . . rule. 
 
 magistrate leaves his proper province, and inter- 
 
 feres in matters with which, as a magistrate, he 
 
 has nothing to do.* The object and design of 
 
 * The original Scottish reformers state the truth on this sub- 
 ject very accurately, in “ the Confession of Faith,” drawn up and 
 laid before Parliament in 1560. “ Sik as resist the supreme 
 power, doing that thing quhilk apperteinis to his charge, do resist 
 Goddis ordinance,”—though they show how sadly they misap- 
 prehended what appertained to the magistrate’s charge—by the 
 following statement in the same document,—“ mairover to kings, 
 princes, rulers, and magistrates, wee affirm that chieflie and most 
 principallie the conservation and purgation of the religion apper- 
 teine ; so that not onlie are they appointed for civil policie, but 
 also for maintenance of the trew religion, and for suppressing 
 idolatrie and superstitioun whatsoever.”—The Confession of the 
 Faith and Doctrine, belevit and professit be the Protestants of 
 Scotland, chap. xxiv. Dunlop's Collection of Confessions, vol. ii. 
 pp- 92, 93. There is a curious mistake in the Latin version of 
 the Scots Confession of Faith, which appears in the “ Corpus et 
 Syntagma Confessionum,” in 4to, printed at Geneva, 1654, the 
 words, “ doing that thing quhilk apperteinis to his charge,” be- 
 ing referred not to the magistrate, but to those who resist him, 
 and rendered “ usurpantes quod ad illius munus pertinet,” in- 
 stead of “‘ suum exercentem munus.” The version in Dunlop’s 
 Collection of Confessions, though not literal, gives the meaning, 
 “ Quicunque magistratui in mora est qui minus suum exerceat 
 munus.” 
 
 In perfect conformity with the doctrine of the Confession, 
 that in resisting the magistrate we resist God’s ordinance only 
 when “he is doing that thing whilk perteinis to his charge,” we 
 find Erskine of Dun, in a letter to the Earl of Marr, asserting, 
 that “ when the magistrate passes the bounds of his office, and 
 enters within the sanctuary of the Lord, meddling with such 
 things as appertain to the ministers of religion, the servants of 
 God should withstand and resist, and would be unworthy of 
 
100 
 
 ON THE LAW OF CHRIST 
 
 parti Civil magistracy must be understood, to perceive 
 
 -.--------.--- - -ς - 
 
 the force and bearing of this remark. Dr Watts 
 states, that “the design of civil government is to 
 
 their character if they sacrificed this duty to the wish of conci- 
 liating the favour of pringes by flattery or acquiescence.”—Ban- 
 natyne’s Journal, pp. 278-293. Such passages as we have just 
 cited from the Scots’ Confession and from the good superintend- 
 ent of Angus’ letter, are striking illustrations of a fact which 
 must have struck every enlightened student of history, especi- 
 ally ecclesiastical history—that men sometimes strongly and 
 conscientiously hold a general principle, which, if understood in 
 the full extent of its legitimate application, would lead them to 
 abandon other principles, really, though not to them apparently 
 inconsistent with it, and give a decidedly different direction to 
 their practical plans and operations. It would be an interesting 
 and not unfruitful theme of speculation—what would have been 
 the probable consequences, if the reformers had entertained in 
 their full extent, those just views of the spirituality of Christ's 
 kingdom, and the complete distinctness of civil and religious au- 
 thority, of which glimpses are occasionally exhibited in their 
 works ? 
 
 It would be difficult to discover in the writings of deep think- 
 ing and high-principled men, so many self-contradictory passages 
 as are to be found in the symbolical books of the Reformed 
 Churches, under the head, ‘ De Magistratu;” and in none of 
 them do these self-contradictions stand out in more grotesquely 
 prominent relief than in the standards of our national church. 
 We have looked through the most of those most interesting do- 
 cuments, the confessions of the Reformed Churches, and the view 
 of magistracy in its design and functions most consistent with 
 Scripture reason and itself, that we have met with, occurs in the 
 Bohemian confession, to which our attention was particularly 
 called by observing it referred to by Rutherford in his Lex Rex, 
 in support of some of the liberal principles asserted in that sin- 
 gular work,—‘ Docetur apud nos, juxta scripturas, quod subli- 
 mior potestas seu Magistratus secularis, Dei ordinatio sit, ut in 
 iis que politica et temporaria sunt, populus regatur—Sunt autem 
 magistratuum partes ac munus, omnibus ex equo jus dicere, in 
 communem omnium usum, sine personarum acceptione, pacem 
 et tranquillitatem publicam tueri et procurare. De malis et 
 facinorosis hance interturbantibus, penas sumere, aliosque omnes 
 ab eorum vi et injuria vindicare.—Quod autem attinet ad eas 
 res que animarum fideique et salutis sunt,docent, Tantum Dei 
 
RESPECTING CIVIL OBEDIENCE. 
 
 101 
 
 secure the persons, properties—the just liberty, parr 1. 
 
 and peace of mankind, from the invasions and 
 injuries of their neigNhbours.”* “ The common- 
 wealth,” says Locke, “ seems to me to be a soci- 
 ety of men constituted only for the procuring, 
 preserving, and advancing their civil interests. 
 Civil interests I call life, liberty, health and indo- 
 lency of body, and the possession of outward 
 things, such as money, lands, house-furniture, and 
 the like.”+ In perfect conformity with this ex- 
 cellent divine, and this accomplished philosophi- 
 eal jurist, Mr Gib, who so long stood at the head 
 of one of the great divisions of the Secession 
 Church, states in a very able public document of 
 his composition, that “ the public good of outward 
 and common order, in all reasonable society, unto 
 the glory of God, is the great and only end which 
 
 verbo ejusque ministris audiendum esse ut Christus ipse ait 
 ‘ Reddite que sunt Cesaris Cesari, et que sunt Dei Deo.’—Si quis 
 autem ipsos, ad ea que in Deum sunt, cum verbo ejus quod in 
 zeternum manet, pugnant et reluctantur, cogere velit, apostolo- 
 rum exemplo, qui sic Hierosolymis Magistratui responderunt 
 utendum docent, ‘ Obedire oportet,’ inquiunt illi ‘ Magis Deo 
 quam hominibus.’’ ’— Confessio fidei ac religionis Baronum et 
 Nobilium Regni Bohemia, 1535. Art. xvi. De Potestate Se- 
 culari. Corpus et Syntagma Confessionum, &c., pars ii. pp. 199, 
 200, 4to. Geneve, 1654. The views of these Bohemian barons, 
 so much more just than those of almost all the reformed divines, 
 were perhaps influenced by the circumstance that their supreme 
 magistrate was a bigotted Roman Catholic. The Confession was 
 presented at Vienna to Ferdinand, King of Bohemia and of the 
 Romans, brother of the Emperor Charles V. A right view of 
 an object depends very much on what the Germans call the 
 stand-point of the mental beholder. 
 
 * Watts’ Essay on Civil Power, in Things Sacred. Works, 
 vol. vi. p. 584. Lond. 1811. 
 
 + Locke’s Letter concerning Toleration. Works, vol. ii. p. 244, 
 fol. Lond. 1751. Vide Note XIX. 
 
102 
 
 PART I. 
 
 This princi- 
 ple applied to 
 civil esta- 
 blishments of 
 religion. 
 
 ON THE LAW OF CHRIST 
 
 those invested with magistracy can propose, in a 
 sole respect to that office.” ἢ 
 
 When the magistrate Prosecutes objects not 
 included in the great end of his office, his com- 
 mands cease to be obligatory. Were our govern- 
 ment to undertake to provide the entire inhabit- 
 ants of their territories with the necessaries of 
 life—were they to insist on regulating the mea- 
 sure in which each individual was to be furnished 
 with them—were they to do universally what they 
 have sometimes done in particular cases, take 
 charge of marriage alliances, and insist on having 
 the management of all our domestic concerns,— 
 I believe the most loyal among us would soon 
 discover that the magistrate had got out of his 
 sphere, and that in this new region he had no 
 right to reign over us.t 
 
 Few things seem to me to have been more 
 completely and satisfactorily proved, than that 
 RELIGION, in all the extent of that word, is beyond 
 the sphere of the magistrate’s rule. If there be 
 things at all that are entirely God’s, and not in 
 any sense Cesar’s, they are the things of religion.{ 
 
 * Gib’s Display, vol. i. p. 9511. “ The proper office of the 
 civil magistrate is to maintain peace, not to support truth; to 
 defend the properties of men, not to take care of their souls ; to 
 protect equally all honest citizens of all persuasions, not to set 
 up one religious sect above another.”—Price’s Evidences for a 
 
 Future Period of Improvement in the State of Mankind, p. 23. 
 
 Lond. 1787. Vide Note XX. 
 
 + Vide Note XXI. 
 
 1 The utter incongruity of a civil magistrate, dictating in any 
 matter that is religious, is very strikingly exhibited in the fol- 
 lowing extract, from a paper, in The New Theological Repository, 
 with the signature Laco, written, I believe, by the late James 
 
RESPECTING CIVIL OBEDIENCE. 
 
 Overt actions inconsistent with the order of so- 
 ciety, though attempted to be justified by consci- 
 entious convictions, the magistrate has a right— 
 
 Watt, M.D., Glasgow,—a man of great natural shrewdness and 
 Christian worth. ‘“ Should the Dey of Algiers dictate the dress, 
 diet, or manners of the subjects of the United States of America, 
 his mandates would be treated with deserved contempt. When 
 a potentate of the earth dictates the religious conduct of such 
 members of ‘ the general assembly of the first-born’ as sojourn 
 in his territory, his mandates are equally extraneous, and liable 
 to similar contempt. In such cases the Christian ought practi- 
 cally to say, ‘ I am not careful to obey in this matter, I dare not 
 be a servant of men.’? Though such mandates should be pro- 
 mulgated by the highest earthly authority, and sanctioned on 
 the one side with rewards, and on the other with the severest 
 penalties, the Christian ought to act as if no such promulgations 
 had been made. Religious obedience is the exercise of allegiance 
 to the Majesty of Heaven ; it is the church’s chaste duty to her 
 own husband. The Christian who admits human authority in 
 these matters, is in danger of committing treason against the 
 King of kings; the church which does so, of committing forni- 
 cation with the kings of the earth. 
 
 “ The propriety of disregarding such injunctions, appears most 
 obvious when the Christian is considered as a member of the 
 church of God. In this view he stands connected with ‘ the ge- 
 neral assembly of the first-born’ in heaven. His standing before 
 God is on the same footing with that of that society ; and in 
 worship both have the same objects in view. The church above 
 and the church below constitute but one communion. Every 
 particular church below ought to be the figure of that above. 
 The exercise and worship of that above is pure, without spot ; 
 the exercise and worship of that below ought to resemble it. At 
 least as the will of God is done in heaven, it ought to be done on 
 earth. This will ought to be not the rule only, but the reason 
 also of every part of worship. In religious conduct, both the 
 church above and the church below are as far above human au- 
 thority and cognizance as heayen is above the earth. Thechurch 
 above completely disregards the mandates and appointments of 
 men. The church below ought to do likewise. 
 
 “ The Cham of Tartary issues a proclamation that a certain 
 day of his calendar be employed by the church above in thank- 
 ing the Majesty of Heaven, for the enlargement and peace of his 
 
 105 
 
 PART, I. 
 
104 
 
 ON THE LAW OF CHRIST 
 
 parti. it is his duty to deal with. But with religious 
 
 opinions and worship, with the interior principle 
 and the external expressions of it, under the limi- 
 tation just announced, he has nothing to do.* 
 The principle that a civil government should in- 
 terfere with religion, is surely a general one if it be 
 true ; and it seems to lead to this conclusion, that, 
 “ if civil government did properly extend its au- 
 thority to religion, and the things of future hap- 
 piness, no government or governors could be said 
 to be appointed of God who are of a false reli- 
 gion, and those only who know and teach the true 
 religion, and lead people in a right way to this 
 future happiness, could be of God’s appointment : 
 
 empire. As the order of that day, however, that general assem- 
 bly had it fixed to sing in joyous concert, the song of Moses and 
 the Lamb, and to perform the celestial anthem, ‘ Unto Him 
 that loved us and washed us from our sins in his own blood,’ &e. 
 Not a note can be dispensed with. The Cham’s order stands un- 
 heeded, as if it had never been ; unless the Mediator say, “ Fa- 
 ther, forgive him ; he knows not what he does.’”—New Theolo- 
 gical Repository, vol. iv. pp. 146-148. Liverpool, 1802. 
 
 * « The civil ruler cannot command with respect to religious 
 worship, without leaving his sphere both as a man and as a ma- 
 gistrate. Worship is a matter between every man and his Ma- 
 ker, and with respect to it, all men seem on equal footing. He 
 therefore who presumes to dictate in this matter, arrogates 
 a kind of worship to himself, and acts unsuitably to that 
 natural equality of human nature, which respects religion. He 
 would leave his sphere also as a magistrate, and frustrate the 
 very end of civil rule. The end of civil government is, that men 
 may enjoy without molestation those rights to which all are 
 equally entitled. Religion is surely one of these.”—Dr James 
 Walt’s Plain Proof and Candid Enquiry, Se. Glasgow, 1796. 
 According to this clear statement of obvious truth—the magis- 
 trate, when he commands in religion, is not only the betrayer, 
 but the invader of the most sacred of all the rights which he is 
 ereated to protect. 
 
RESPECTING CIVIL OBEDIENCE. 
 
 105 
 
 even as no government extending to civil things parr. 
 
 ean be said to be of God, any farther than it 
 tends to promote the civil peace and welfare.”* 
 
 No proof of any such legitimate power in any 
 magistrate but the Jewish, can be brought from 
 Scripture, and in his case the limits of his power 
 were strictly defined by divine law. The experi- 
 
 ence of every age has proved the unsoundness of 
 
 the principle, that the magistrate has power in 
 religion, by the mischievousness of its effects. No 
 human civil establishment of religion ever has ex- 
 isted—or ever can exist—without the perpetra- 
 tion of varied and great injustice, and where such 
 an establishment has existed, it has been the prin- 
 cipal cause, as injustice ever must be, of the inse- 
 curity of the government with which it was con- 
 nected. Of such an establishment, the compul- 
 sory support of its institutions is all but a neces- 
 sary part—but even the civil enactment of a creed 
 and form of worship, by the magistrate, dese- 
 crates religion, and goes far to unsettle and con- 
 found the deepest-seated and most πους mo- 
 ral distinctions. + 
 
 If these things are so, does it not follow that if 
 
 a government choose to act so unscripturally and 
 unwisely, as to form and uphold an Ecclesiastical 
 Establishment, its subjects are not bound to con- 
 nect themselves with it—they are not bound in 
 any way to support it? Indeed, if their views on 
 the subject be sufficiently enlightened and ex- 
 tended, they will perceive with equal clearness, 
 that the direct support of an Establishment can- 
 * Watts’ Works, vol. vi. p. 7. + Vide Note XXII. 
 H 
 
106 ON THE LAW OF CHRIST 
 
 parti. not be obligatory, for the magistrate has no right 
 to form it, and that it is sinful, inasmuch as it not 
 only is a sanction of that which is wrong in the 
 
 magistrate, but a participation in his guilt. 
 Such are the limitations under which the obli- 
 gation of civil obedience must be viewed as lying. 
 The judge of ΠΡῸ the question, But who is to judge on these 
 Timitatons matters? I reply in the words of Dr Paley, in a 
 similar case, “ Every man for himself.”* Who 
 can judge for him? Few will now contend for 
 Bishop Parker’s “ Public Conscience,” and nobody 
 will become surety for the consequences at the 
 last day, of my doing what I thought wrong, be- 
 cause another with great confidence, but, as ap- 
 peared to me, little argument, pronounced it to 
 be right. Here, as everywhere else, we find the 
 great principle of the Bible operating. Man is a 
 responsible being. His creed, his religion, his 
 actions, are his own: he must answer for them, 
 and therefore it is right he should look after them. 
 He ought to be the judge, for he must take the 
 consequences of the decision both here and here-— 
 
 after. 
 
 Whatistobe Another important question now naturally pre- 
 excepted —_ gents itself:—And what are subjects to do when 
 their governors either lay on them commands 
 which cannot be complied with without sin, or 
 commands which they have no right to lay on 
 them? To the first question the answer plainly 
 is, they must not obey them. To the second, 
 they may or may not, according as they are per- 
 
 * Paley’s Moral and Polit. Philos. Works, vol. i. p. 318. 
 
RESPECTING CIVIL OBEDIENCE. 
 
 107 
 
 suaded that greater good would result from their parr τ. 
 
 compliance or non-compliance. 
 
 But civil laws, as is quite right, have penal- 
 ties ;—what is to be done with regard to them? 
 While the civil government continues upon the 
 whole to serve its purposes, and when more mis- 
 chief both to the individual and to the society 
 would result from resistance than from submis- 
 sion to the penalty, it is to be submitted to,—cheer- 
 fully submitted to, both as a sacrifice to con- 
 science, and an acknowledgment of the general 
 principle, that, in civil societies, laws must be 
 obeyed either actively or passively. With all 
 this, however, in a free country like ours, there 
 ought to be constitutional means employed, to 
 have the false legislation and the erring adminis- 
 tration corrected. 
 
 On this subject there appears to prevail a very 
 general mistake. Many seem to think a mana 
 violator of the law, a rebel, an enemy of good 
 order,—one whose principles and conduct lead to 
 anarchy and bloodshed, if from conscientious con- 
 viction he decline active obedience to the magis- 
 trate, and will not obey the law merely because 
 it is the law, though at the same time he be per- 
 fectly willing, if “ the ruling powers” see meet, 
 to bear whatever penalty the law allows them to 
 inflict. No well-informed man, to whatever re- 
 ligious sect or political party he may belong, if 
 he is not in a passion, can talk or write such ab- 
 surdity. A high church writer, in the leading 
 Tory literary journal of the present day, has dis- 
 tinctly stated the principle that the law gives the 
 
 Civil law 
 
 gives the al- 
 
 ternative of 
 
 ο 
 
 c 
 Pp 
 
 beying the 
 ommand or 
 aying the 
 
 penalty. 
 
108 
 
 ΟΝ THE LAW OF CHRIST 
 
 parr τ. alternative,—to do the act, or to suffer the pe- 
 
 nalty. “ They,” speaking of the members of the 
 English universities, “they owe, indeed, obedience 
 to the legislature of this country. No one for 
 one moment would urge them to resist its laws, 
 but obedience has always an alternative,—Let them 
 submit to the penalty, not be parties to the act.”* 
 On the supposition of their conscientiously disap- 
 proving, not factiously opposing the law,—this is a 
 wholesome advice. Chillingworth says, “ In civil 
 controversies,’—he is speaking of the judgments 
 of civil tribunals, and the remark is equally ap- 
 plicable to civil laws,—“ we are obliged only to 
 external passive obedience, and not to an inter- 
 nal and active.”+ “ Men have thought,” says 
 Locke, “ that civil laws oblige their conscience to 
 entire obedience, whereas in things in their own 
 nature indifferent, the conscience is obliged only 
 to active or passive obedience, and that not by 
 virtue of that human law which the man either 
 practises or is punished by, but by that law of 
 God which forbids disturbance and dissolution of 
 governments.” { He who, when he cannot con- 
 scientiously actively obey a command of a govern- 
 ment, which he yet in his judgment approves of, 
 as, upon the whole, a good civil government, 
 quietly and patiently takes what he cannot help 
 thinking a wrong, is certainly not a bad subject. 
 He honours the government by submitting to it, 
 
 * Quarterly Review, vol. lix. p. 481. 
 
 + Chillingworth’s Works, vol. i. p. 213. 8vo. Lond. 1820. 
 
 + Locke's Life by Lord King, vol. i. p. 114. 8yo. Lond. 1880. 
 Vide Note XXIII. 
 
RESPECTING CIVIL OBEDIENCE. 109 
 
 when he cannot obey it. Because it is, in his es- parr tr, 
 timation, God’s ordinance, he honours it,—be- 
 cause, in a particular case, it requires him to do 
 what he believes God forbids, he refuses to com- 
 ply with such a requisition. The inconvenience 
 and suffering. connected with declining to com- 
 ply with the law, are very properly so great as 
 to secure that, in ordinary cases, a man will not 
 unnecessarily expose himself to them. 
 There is still another question that must be Right οὗτος 
 attended to, before we bring these illustrations of 
 the duty of civil obedience to a close. Are there 
 any circumstances in which Christian subjects may 
 not only decline actively to obey the law, while ‘ 
 they passively submit to it, but may and ought to 
 resist the authorities?* I have no hesitation in 
 
 * “ Hee questio prima fronte difficilis et ardua videtur, eo qui- 
 dem magis, quod cum sub piis principibus supervacna, sub im- 
 piis periculosa videretur, vix quisquam eam nisi leviuscule atti- 
 gerit."—Vind. Cont. Tyrann. p. 32. Thingsare in a better state 
 now. Milton and Locke, Paley and Mackintosh—have done 
 something more than touched this delicate question “ leviuscule.” 
 They have fairly grappled with all its difficulties—and satisfac- 
 torily and for ever settled it. It is finely said of the second of 
 these great men by an accomplished scholar—(Cambridge I am 
 afraid owns now few such ardent lovers of liberty among her 
 fellows)—“ Quicquid alii de iis existement, ego quidem, si liberta- 
 tem amem, uti ex animo me amare fateor, si oderim tyrannidem, 
 ut impensissime odi, id omne me Joanni Lockro debere grato ani- 
 mo recordor. Ille scilicet me primus docuit, nihil aliud velle 
 nomen regis, quam superiorem ministrum populi, non ut vulgus 
 damno credunt suo, sacro-sanctam aliquam personam majestate 
 mystica septam, sed a populo gubernatorem institutum et sti- 
 pendio dignatum, quo leges a populo latas exequeretur, quas 
 tamen si vel violare, vel etiam non exequi auderet, suo statim 
 imperio, populique obsequio finem esse.”"—Prolusiones Juveniles 
 
 pramtis"A cademicis Dignata. Auctore Jo. Tweddell, No. V. p. 34, 
 8vo. Lond. 1793. 
 
110 
 
 ON THE LAW OF CHRIST 
 
 parti. replying in the affirmative. Such cases have oc- 
 
 curred in our own country, and there are many 
 countries in which, I am afraid, they must occur 
 before any thing like good government, and its 
 attendant blessings, be enjoyed by their inhabit- 
 ants. The truth is very clearly stated, and the 
 grounds of it unfolded by Paley: “So long as 
 the interest of the whole society requires it; that 
 is, so long as the established government cannot 
 be resisted or changed without public inconve- 
 niency, it is the will of God (which wl] univer- 
 sally determines our duty) that the established 
 government be obeyed, and no longer. This prin- 
 ciple being admitted, the justice of every particu- 
 lar case of resistance is reduced to a computation 
 of the quantity of the danger and grievance on 
 the one side, and of the probability and expense 
 of redress on the other.”* Our venerable Fathers 
 of the Associate Presbytery distinctly state, 
 in their judicial document already referred to, 
 “ that upon the king not fulfilling his obligations, 
 and refusing to be reformed, the people collect- 
 ively, considered as a politic body, are warranted 
 to lay him aside,—is a principle inseparable from 
 the true doctrine of liberty. The Presbytery’s 
 principle of subjection and obedience doth only 
 respect things that are lawful. Nor is it at all 
 inconsistent with any self-defence that is neces- 
 sary, lawful and expedient, according to the word 
 of God, and right reason, such as our worthy an- 
 cestors endeavoured at Pentland or Bothwell.” + 
 
 * Paley’s Works, vol. i. p. 318. Vide Note XXIV. 
 + Answers to Mr Nairn’s Reasons of Dissent.—Gib’s Display, 
 vol. i. pp. 276, 290. 
 
RESPECTING CIVIL OBEDIENCE. 
 
 111 
 
 “ He that thinks a Parliament or a nation should p,py ι. 
 
 lay their necks upon the block, or quietly perish 
 whenever a king would have it so, hath lost so 
 much of his humanity, that he is unfit to be czvis, 
 a member of a commonwealth.”* The present 
 government of this country have no right to their 
 places, if these principles are not true. Some ac- 
 count them dangerous principles, but they are in 
 truth the best safeguard of a government. The 
 hazards connected with resistance, while a go- 
 vernment is in any measure what it should be, 
 are, and ought to be so great that no sane man 
 is likely to make the attempt: and when there is 
 a general disposition to resistance, the crisis is 
 come; it is time that that government should 
 govern no more.t 
 
 * Richard Baxter. Holy Commonwealth, p. 417. 
 
 + “ The speculative line of demarcation, where obedience 
 ought to end and resistance must begin, is faint, obscure, and not 
 easily definable. It is not a single act or a single event that de- 
 termines it. Governments must be abused and deranged indeed 
 before it can be thought of, and the prospect of the future must 
 be as bad as the experience of the past. When things are in that 
 lamentable condition, the nature of the disease is to indicate the 
 remedy to those whom nature has qualified to administer in ex- 
 tremities, this critical, ambiguous, bitter potion to a distempered 
 state. Times, and occasions, and provocations, will teach their 
 own lessons. The wise will determine from the gravity of the 
 case ; the irritable from sensibility to oppression; the high- 
 minded from disdain and indignation at abusive power in un- 
 worthy hands; the brave and bold from the love of honourable 
 danger in a generous cause ; but with or without right, a revo- 
 lution will be the very last resource of the thinking and the 
 good.”—Burke’s Reflections on the Revolution in France, pp. 48, 
 44. Lond. 1790. The language of the Roman philosopher and 
 orator, in reference to the life of the individual, is equally appli- 
 cable to those interests of the community whieh are more valu- 
 able than life. ““ Est enim hee non scripta sed nata lex; quam 
 
112 
 
 PART I. 
 
 Exercise of 
 this right not 
 inconsistent 
 with Christ- 
 ianity. 
 
 ON THE LAW OF CHRIST 
 
 It has been urged by some who are not dispos- 
 ed to call in question the justness of the princi- 
 ples now stated, that while this may be the rule 
 for subjects generally—the majority of whom 
 have ever hitherto been, not Christian men— 
 Christians being possessed of a peculiar character, 
 and placed in peculiar circumstances, which un- 
 fit them for taking a part in such enterprises as 
 are necessary to the change or dissolution of a 
 government, are to be considered as excused, if 
 not prohibited, from engaging in them. It is 
 readily admitted that Christians, like the convert- 
 ed Romans, residing in a heathen country, and 
 under an arbitrary government, for reasons al- 
 ready stated, are certainly not called on—are not 
 even permitted, to intermeddle with State affairs. 
 But T know no express statute of our Lord, I 
 know no principle implied in any of his doctrines 
 or laws, which at all affects the civil condition of 
 his followers generally. Christianity gives them 
 no new civil privileges, and it takes from them 
 no old ones. It prescribes no new civil duties, 
 and it gives a release from no old ones. It is the 
 duty of every Christian, in every relation, to “do 
 
 non didicimus sed accepimus ; etiam ex nature penu hausimus, 
 arripuimus ; ad quam non pacti sed facti, non instituti sed im- 
 buti sumus ; ut si vita nostra in tela, in latrones, in enses inci- 
 deret, omnis honesta ratio erit expediendi salutis."—Cicero Or. 
 pro Milone. The line of demarcation referred to by Burke is 
 accurately drawn by a very acute interpreter and accomplished 
 scholar in these words, “ If a government be so bad as not to 
 possess the character of ‘ being a terror not to good works but 
 to evil,’ it is not to be considered as an ordinance of God, nor 
 would a prudent and well-caleulated resistance to it be criminal.” 
 Terrot on the Epistle to the Romans, p. 292. 
 
RESPECTING CIVIL OBEDIENCE. 
 
 ? 
 
 good to all as he has opportunity ; 
 in an age calling for vigorous exertion to secure and 
 extend civil and religious liberty, keeps ever in the 
 back-ground, and excuses his want of enlightened 
 patriotism and philanthropy—or of hatred of ty- 
 ranny and wrong—or of mental fortitude to avow 
 these sentiments, and follow them out to their fair 
 practical consequences, under pretensions to supe- 
 rior sanctity, which cast a reflection on the conduct 
 of his more consistent brethren, may likely find, at 
 the close of the day, that He who “set his own face 
 as a flint” in the cause of God’s glory and man’s 
 salvation, and “ hid it not from shame and spit- 
 ting,”’—“ the Captain of the Lord’s host,” in ap- 
 portioning the rewards of his chosen tribes, will 
 show that he regards with more complacency Ze- 
 bulon and Naphtali, who “ jeoparded their lives 
 in the high places of the fields,” than Reuben, 
 who “ abode among the sheep to hear the bleat- 
 ing of the flocks,” or Dan, who “ remained in 
 ships,” or Asher, who continued “ on the sea- 
 shore, and abode in his breaches.”* 
 
 I have now finished my remarks on the gene- 
 ral duty of obedience to civil rulers.—Before pass- 
 ing onward to the interpretation of our Lord’s 
 law respecting the particular duty of paying. tri- 
 bute, I must be permitted to congratulate you 
 and myself, my brethren, on the happy cireum- 
 stances in which we are placed, and the security 
 and ease in which we can yield obedience at once 
 to the law of the land, and to the law of the 
 Lord. Comparatively very few are the cases in 
 
 * Judges v. 16,-18. 
 
 113 
 
 and he who, parr 1. 
 
 General re- 
 flections. 
 
114 
 
 ON THE LAW OF CHRIST 
 
 parti. Which, under our civil constitution, the laws of 
 
 our Master in heaven, and the laws of our Sove- 
 reign on earth, are likely to come into collision— 
 and he is ill able to estimate the advantages we 
 enjoy, under such an administration of law, who 
 would grudge exceedingly because every thing is 
 not yet in entire accordance with the ideal model 
 of a free state, or refuse to take his share in the 
 sufferings and exertions which may still be neces- 
 sary, to bring a system already so excellent, nearer 
 to perfection. 
 
 It is the excellence of that order of civil rule, 
 established among us, that it not only admits of, 
 but provides for, continual improvement. It is 
 possessed of what has been happily termed “ sus- 
 ceptibility of peaceable change.” We have lately 
 witnessed its working in this way, in the great 
 extension which has been given, especially in this 
 part of the empire, to the elective franchise—and 
 the security thus gained, that the right of the 
 many shall not be sacrificed to the interests of 
 the few, is likely soon to be increased by the 
 electors being protected from intimidation in the 
 exercise of their important and responsible civil 
 right. 
 
 Many things, no doubt, remain yet to be im- 
 proved, but the tendency is decidedly toward im- 
 provement. Indeed there is but one great sys- 
 tem of misrule, originating in the unnatural, 
 unscriptural, revolutionary, and every way mis- 
 chievous connexion between Church and State, 
 which, scarcely yet touched by the hand of re- 
 form, strangely contrasts with the general good 
 
RESPECTING CIVIL OBEDIENCE. 
 
 115 
 
 government of the country, and above all other parr. 
 
 things interrupts and disorders, impedes and re- 
 tards, the onward movement of that moral ma- 
 chinery consisting not only in our laws, but in 
 the whole body of our religious, literary, commer- 
 cial and philanthropic institutions—most of which 
 are,—all of which ought to be,—voluntary,— 
 which is carrying this nation, long peculiarly 
 blessed by God, towards a height of prosperity 
 and greatness, seldom if ever attained by any 
 people. 
 
 That system must fall. God has doomed it.* 
 It may fall soon :—It may not fall till long after 
 we are gathered to our fathers. In either case, 
 happy is he who, in his own place, and by peace- 
 ful moral means, shall have a share in producing 
 its overthrow: Doubly honoured he “ to whom 
 it is given, on Christ’s behalf,” to suffer in the 
 cause. It is a delightful thought that every day 
 makes it more probable that this glorious change, 
 which is as certain as the change of the darkness 
 of this night into the light of to-morrow, will be 
 
 * Babylon must fall. ‘ We would have healed Babylon :” 
 But Babylon cannot be healed. The system of civil establish- 
 ment cannot be so modified as to unite with Christianity in the 
 completeness, simplicity, and purity of its primitive doctrine, 
 worship, and discipline. The religion of Jesus Christ in its pu- 
 rity and entireness, does not admit of establishment. It must be 
 corrupted or mutilated to make it capable of an alliance with 
 the state. These are striking words of Dr Henry More. “ The 
 reformed churches separated from the great Babylon to build 
 those which were lesser, and more tolerable ; but yet not to be 
 tolerated for ever.”—Mystery of Iniquity, p. 553, fol. Lond. 1660. 
 « The cities of the nations,” as well as their metropolis, “ Baby- 
 lon the great,” must be overthrown. 
 
110 
 
 ON THE LAW OF CHRIST 
 
 part 1. accomplished in this country with as little vio- 
 
 lence.* 
 
 It is the system that is to perish. Those 
 churches which, though unhappily connected with 
 this system, do not rest upon it, but on which it 
 rests with the weight and benumbing influence 
 of an incubus, will, I trust, on its removal, start 
 up into new life and activity,—*“ awake, put on 
 strength, array themselves in their beautiful gar- 
 ments, and shake themselves from the dust,” and, 
 freed from the dishonours of their long captivity, 
 move on in holy alliance with their sister churches 
 which have suffered from their thraldom, and will 
 rejoice in their deliverance—to the fulfilment of 
 the high vocation of all the churches of the saints, 
 —the spiritual emancipation of the world.t+ 
 
 * « The peace of the empire will never be secure, till an im- 
 partial policy in regard to religion be adopted. The subject in- 
 volves such high and numerous interests; it deeply concerns 
 such numbers of the people ; it is calculated to excite such pow- 
 erful feelings, and prompt to such persevering and determined 
 conduct, that all hope of lasting tranquillity must be visionary 
 until it is equitably settled. It is mere madness to suppose that 
 the majority of the people, a majority which is every day in- 
 creasing in numbers, in wealth, and influence, will permanently 
 continue to yield to the treatment they are receiving. The isles 
 of Britain have passed through many a struggle, and seen many 
 a change. A change of paramount importance is yet before 
 them, a change from the bondage of ecclesiastical corruption to 
 the enjoyment of ‘ the liberty wherewith Christ makes his peo- 
 ple free.’ If conducted with prudence, it will end in permanent 
 prosperity and quietness; but if obstinately resisted or thought- 
 lessly managed, it will infallibly, in its course, tear in pieces 
 every secular as well as sacred institution, and reduce society to 
 its very elements.”—Ballantyne’s Comparison of Established and 
 Dissenting Churches, p. 82. Edin. 1890. 
 
 + Vide Note XXV. 
 
RESPECTING CIVIL OBEDIENCE. 117 
 
 If any thing approximating to resistance to the parry. 
 “higher powers” take place in this country, it 
 seems certain that it will come not from the 
 friends but from the enemies of civil and religious 
 freedom. Let these men beware. If, in oppos- 
 ing those who, as to civil privilege, are demand- 
 ing justice not favour, and as to religion, are 
 seeking only to be let alone, they do break the 
 publie peace,—heavy will be their responsibility, 
 signal their defeat, and final their overthrow. 
 
PART II. 
 
 ON THE PAYMENT OF TRIBUTE. 
 
 parti. THE apostle having clearly enjoined and pow- 
 Introauetory €Yfully enforced the general duty of civil obe- 
 dience on Christians, even when the administra- 
 tors of government were heathens, proceeds to 
 enjoin, with equal clearness and power, the par- 
 ticular duty of Payment of Tribute. It might be 
 supposed that this was unnecessary, as the latter 
 was obviously implied in the former. But it is 
 not difficult to account for the specification of 
 this particular form of civil obedience. There 
 was no part of the Roman yoke more galling to 
 the Jews, than the tribute imposed on them. 
 When the census ordered by Augustus at the 
 time of our Lord’s birth, was followed up under 
 Cyrenius, the Roman governor of Syria, by actual 
 taxation, Josephus informs us (I quote the words 
 of Whiston’s translation), that “at the beginning 
 they took the report of a taxation heinously,” and 
 “there was one Judas, a Gaulonite, of a city 
 whose name was Gamala” (the same Judas men- 
 tioned in Acts v. 37), “ who, taking with him 
 Saddouk a Pharisee, became zealous to draw them 
 to a revolt, who both said that this taxation was 
 
RESPECTING PAYMENT OF TRIBUTE. 
 
 119 
 
 no better than an introduction to slavery, and parr ut. 
 
 exhorted the nation to assert their liberty.”* This 
 is quite in accordance with the doctrine held by 
 many of the Jews, and avowed by Eleazar, the 
 Zealot chief, in his eloquent speech to his follow- 
 ers, exhorting them to kill their wives, their child- 
 ren and themselves, rather than surrender to 
 the Romans. “ We long ago,” said he, “ resolved 
 never to be servants to the Romans, nor to any 
 other than to God himself, who alone is the true 
 and just Lord of mankind.” + 
 
 It was the prevalence of these views among 
 the Jews that suggested to our Lord’s enemies, 
 the plan of endeavouring to get him to give a de- 
 cided opinion on the question of the lawfulness of 
 giving tribute to the Roman Emperor,—in the 
 hope, that whatever that opinion might be, it 
 would afford them the means of effecting his ruin, 
 —by holding him up to popular indignation as an 
 enemy of the liberties of his country, if the an- 
 swer was decidedly favourable; and if the re- 
 verse,—by accusing him to the Roman authorities 
 as “a mover of sedition.” Jerome, in a note to 
 his Exposition of Paul’s Epistle to Titus, says, 
 that “ the doctrine of Judas of Galilee yet pre- 
 vailed at that time, and had many followers.” It 
 is not at all improbable that some of the Roman 
 Christians might have held these opinions: and 
 it seems all but certain, that prejudices existed 
 against the Christians,—who being sometimes 
 
 * FI. Jos. Antiq. L. xviii. Chap. i. 1.—Opera, vol. iv. p. 122. 
 12mo. Lips. 1826. 
 + Fl. Jos. Bell. Jud. L. vii. Chap. viii. 6.—Opera, vol. v. p. 154. 
 
190 ON THE LAW OF CHRIST 
 
 partu. called Galileans,* were not unnaturally confound- 
 
 ~~ ed with the followers of Judas, who also received 
 that name,—as if they were seditious and turbu- 
 lent innovators. In these circumstances, we see 
 an obvious reason why tribute-paying should be 
 singled out, from the other duties to civil govern- 
 ment, as the subject of specific injunction and en- 
 forcement. 
 
 In conducting this part of the exposition, I shall 
 adopt materially the same plan as that followed 
 in the illustration of that portion of the law of 
 Christ already expounded. After an inquiry into 
 the meaning of the apostle’s words, I shall endea- 
 vour to show, first, what these things were to them 
 to whom they were originally addressed —and 
 then, what they are to us, and to Christians ge- 
 nerally in all countries and in all ages.t 
 
 Tretaw of The sixth verse, “ For, for this cause pay ye 
 tribute also ; for they are God’s ministers, attend- 
 ing continually upon this very thing,” resolves it- 
 self into two parts—a statement or command, in 
 reference to the payment of tribute, and a reason 
 for its payment. The first clause of the verse, 
 viewed by itself, may be considered as either a 
 statement or command. The word rendered 
 “pay ye” may, with equal propriety, grammati- 
 cally, be translated “ ye pay.” The clause has 
 been rendered in this way by some translators and 
 commentators, who consider this verse as a fur- 
 ther enforcement of the general duty of civil obe- 
 
 * Suidas in Ναζαραιοι et Χριστιανοι. Arrian. in Epictet. lib. iv. 
 6. 7. Malela, p. 356. Fabricii. Bib. Gree. T, 5. p. 285. 
 + Vide Note XXVI. 
 
RESPECTING PAYMENT OF TRIBUTE. 121 
 
 dience, drawn from the fact that the Roman parr τι. 
 Christians paid tribute. They view it as an ap- 
 peal to consistency: “ Ye pay tribute—and if 
 ye pay tribute, why should ye refuse any other 
 act of civil obedience?” We cannot help think- 
 ing this an unnatural exposition. Standing in 
 the midst of injunctions, it seems much more like- 
 ly that the words are to be understood impera- 
 tively than indicatively. An argument drawn 
 merely from personal consistency, is a feeble one 
 compared with the two already urged,—from con- 
 science towards God, and the fear of punishment ; 
 and from any thing we know of the case, it seems 
 probable, that ofall the acts of civil obedience, pay- 
 ing tribute was likely to be the least conscien- 
 tiously performed by those whose mistaken opi- 
 nions it was the apostle’s object to correct in this 
 passage. We therefore cordially agree with the 
 view our translators have given of the meaning, 
 and consider the words as an apostolic command 
 to pay tribute. 
 
 The connective particles, of which there are connective 
 three—yap for, δια τουτο for this cause, και also—re- plained. σον 
 quire to be noticed. The first of these is the 
 same word which, in the preceding and subse- 
 quent context, is so often employed to denote that 
 what follows is a reason for what goes before. 
 This cannot be its meaning here, if the clause be 
 considered as a command and not a statement. 
 It is used here, as it often is, just as a particle of 
 transition, and might be rendered then, as it is in 
 some other passages.* 
 
 * John vii. 41 ; Acts viii. 31; xix. 85; Rom. iii. 3; Philip. i. 18. 
 IE 
 
122 ON THE LAW OF CHRIST 
 
 partu. The second of these particles, rendered where- 
 es fore, usually signifies, that what follows it, is 
 something for which a reason has just been as- 
 sizned—something that flows from what has been 
 stated, though sometimes, like words of similar 
 meaning, it looks forward instead of backward, 
 and intimates—that something is true or right, 
 for a reason which is just about to be stated. 
 Attention to this last remark enables us to ex- 
 plain some passages that otherwise would be dif- 
 ficult.* Understanding the particle in its most 
 ordinary sense, the reference would seem to be 
 to the concluding clause of the former verse, “ not 
 only for wrath but for conscience’ sake.” “ Where- 
 fore,” or for which cause, “ pay ye tribute.” There 
 are, however, two objections to this mode of in- 
 terpretation, first, that we should have expected 
 in this case, that the plural would have been used 
 rather than the singular, ravra instead of rovro— for 
 these things,” rather than “for this thing”—for 
 both wrath and conscience’ sake—and, secondly, 
 that the reason for paying tribute is stated in the 
 words that follow. It is right to remark that the 
 words may and probably do signify, “ In reference 
 to this thing”—~. 6. subjection to civil authority. 
 This use of the phrase, which seems established 
 on sufficient authority, gives light to some rather 
 obseure passages of Scripture.t 
 The third particle rendered a/so, is intended to 
 signify that this is an appendix to the general 
 command of civil obedience ; or it may be ren- 
 
 * Rom. ii. 1; Heb. ix. 15. 
 + Matthew xiii. 52; Mark xii. 24; John xix. 11. 
 
RESPECTING PAYMENT OF TRIBUTE. 
 
 dered even, in which case it suggests the idea, 
 that civil obedience, even in the form least agree- 
 able to the individual, is to be performed. The 
 meaning of the whole clause therefore is either,— 
 “ In reference then to this matter, obedience to 
 the civil magistrate, I command you even to pay 
 tribute ;” or, “ For wrath and conscience’ sake 
 then, [ command you also or even to pay tri- 
 bute.” 
 
 The word ¢opos, rendered tribute, is employed 
 in the seventh verse to designate a particular spe- 
 cies of impost—as distinguished from another 
 species termed τελος, custom. Here it is obviously 
 used as a general name for the civil taxes, exact- 
 ed by the Roman magistrates. Among the Ro- 
 mans there were two classes of imposts, the one 
 called Tribute, 7’ridautum—the other called Taxes, 
 Vectigalia. Tribute seems to have been at first 
 a capitation tax,—a fixed sum which every indi- 
 vidual was required to pay. It ultimately ap- 
 pears to have become a kind of property-tax—a 
 sum which every individual paid according to the 
 valuation of his estate by the Censor—the most 
 unexceptionable of all taxes, if the means of hay- 
 ing it fairly apportioned could be obtained. Un- 
 der the same name were ranked also voluntary 
 contributions, of which an account was kept, and 
 which, when the public treasury could afford it, 
 were sometimes repaid, as Livy tells us was done, 
 after the second Punic war.* The other taxes, 
 vectigalia, were of three kinds—money paid on 
 goods imported and exported, this seems to be 
 
 * Livy, xxvi. 36. 
 
 128 
 
 PART II. 
 
 The nature 
 of Roman 
 tribute. 
 
124 
 
 PART II. 
 
 The duty of 
 the Roman 
 Christians re- 
 specting tri- 
 bute. 
 
 Reason as- 
 signed for the 
 law of tribute. 
 
 ON THE LAW OF CHRIST 
 
 the custom ; tithes, or the tenth part of the pro- 
 duce of the public lands, paid by those who oceu- 
 pied them; and arent for the privilege of pas- 
 turage on the public lands.* 
 
 The duty enjoined in reference to these taxes 
 is that the Christians liable to them should pay 
 them—. 6. they should not refuse to pay them,— 
 they should not seek to evade them,—they should 
 not attempt to escape by underpaying them. 
 Their duty was conscientiously to give whatever 
 in the name of tribute was required of them by 
 their governors, and to perform this, like every 
 other act of civil obedience, not as a matter mere- 
 ly of external necessity, but as a matter of moral 
 obligation. 
 
 The words which follow assign a reason for this 
 command to pay tribute: “ For they are God’s 
 ministers, attending continually on this very 
 thing.” These words may be considered as re- 
 ferring either to the magistrates who imposed the 
 taxes, or to the officers who collected the taxes. 
 If they are considered as referring to the magis- 
 trates, which is the more common mode of inter- 
 preting the clause—“ this very thing” expresses 
 the great end of the magistrate’s office—the being 
 “a minister of God for good to them who do 
 good, and a minister of God for punishment to 
 them who do evil,”—the security and peace of 
 the community, which is maintained by protect- 
 ing the peaceable and punishing the turbulent. 
 In prosecuting this object magistrates are to be 
 considered as the. servants—“ the ministers of 
 
 * Adam’s Roman Antiquities, pp. 59,60. 8yvo, Lond. 1819. 
 
RESPECTING PAYMENT OF TRIBUTE. 
 
 God,” i. e. they are the subordinate agents of his 
 providence, in accomplishing his will,—in pro- 
 moting the social security, peace and prosperity 
 of mankind; and in order to their gaining this 
 object, it is necessary that they should devote 
 their time and talents to it, that they should “ at- 
 tend continually on this very thing.” 
 
 If they are employed for the public good, they 
 have an undoubted claim to be supported at the 
 public expense. In every department of society, 
 “the labourer is worthy of his hire ;” and when 
 we consider the dreadful consequences of anarchy, 
 no expenditure should be less grudged than what 
 is necessary to the maintenance of an effective 
 civil government. As “he who serves at the 
 altar, should live by the altar ;” so he who devotes 
 his time and talents to the public service, whether 
 on the throne as a king, or in the deliberative as- 
 sembly as a senator, or on the bench of justice as 
 a judge, or in any subordinate station in adminis- 
 tering the laws, should be supported in a manner 
 adequate to the fair compensation of his labour, 
 and the attainment of the great ends for which 
 he occupies his place. It is obvious that no civil 
 government can be carried on without expense ; 
 and by whom should that expense be borne, but 
 by those who reap its advantages ? 
 
 All this is truth, and important truth, and truth 
 which, without using any violence, may be brought 
 out of the apostle’s words, viewed by themselves. 
 Yet we more than doubt, if the above statement, 
 true and important as it is, exactly expresses the 
 apostle’s meaning. It seems quite plain that it 
 
 125 
 
 PART II. 
 
 This reason 
 refers not to 
 the magis- 
 trates, 
 
126 
 
 PART II. 
 
 but to the 
 tax-gather- 
 ers. 
 
 ON THE LAW OF CHRIST 
 
 was the apostle’s object to place the payment of 
 tribute in particular, as well as civil obedience to 
 the Roman magistrates generally, on the founda- 
 tion of obedience to the divine will, clearly ex- 
 pressed by him, a divinely inspired messenger. 
 Now, this were to place it on the foundation of 
 the obvious reasonableness of the thing. Besides, 
 this argument of the apostle would go no farther 
 than to show the propriety and obligation, in com- 
 mon equity, of paying such a measure of tribute 
 as was necessary and sufficient for the purposes 
 of good government—a principle, which should re- 
 gulate the conduct of those who impose taxes, but 
 which is by no means so well fitted to guide the 
 conduct of individuals in paying taxes, were it for 
 nothing but this, that the great majority of those 
 who pay tribute are incapable, in ordinary cases, 
 of forming a just judgment on such a subject. It 
 certainly was not the apostle’s object to call on 
 the Roman Christians to form an estimate of 
 what sum of money was necessary to sustain the 
 operations of civil rule throughout the Roman 
 empire, and of the proportion of that sum which 
 they could justly be called to pay; and to act ac- 
 cordingly. He meant to say, whatever tribute is 
 legally demanded of you, if its payment does not 
 involve you in guilt, you are, for conscience’ sake, 
 as well as for wrath’ sake, readily to pay. 
 
 I am therefore disposed to go along with those 
 expositors, who consider the apostle, in the ex- 
 pression, “ Ministers of God attending continually 
 on this very thing,” as referring not to the magis- 
 trates generally, or to the supreme magistrate, but 
 
RESPECTING PAYMENT OF TRIBUTE. 
 
 127 
 
 to that body of the magistracy, who, under the parr um. 
 
 Censor and Questor, were employed in assessing 
 and levying the taxes. “ This very thing,” was 
 the collection of tribute; and “ God’s ministers 
 attending on this very thing,” were the officers 
 employed in this collection. This interpretation 
 is supported by the fact, that in the following 
 verse the different orders of magistrates are spe- 
 cified; and the Christians are required to give 
 what, by the arrangements of the constitution, 
 was due to each of them. 
 
 The Jews had, in general, a very low opinion 
 of the reAwva, the publicans or tax-collectors. They 
 were, it is to be feared, with too good reason, ge- 
 nerally considered as guilty of peculation. The 
 general sentiment, in reference to them, is very 
 strongly marked in the proverbial expression— 
 “ publicans and sinners”—tax-gatherers and scoun- 
 drels. Owing to this feeling, which was not pe- 
 culiar to the Jews, though, from particular cir- 
 cumstances, remarkably strong among them, the 
 crime of embezzling the tribute and taxes pre- 
 vailed over the whole empire.* In opposition to 
 this general sentiment, the apostle’s injunction is, 
 ‘ Pay tribute, as well as yield obedience, from a 
 regard to the divine authority; for not only are 
 the higher officers of the imperial government to 
 be considered by you as God’s ministers to pro- 
 tect the peaceable and to punish the lawless, but 
 those very contemned and hated publicans are 
 God’s ministers also, and the collection of tribute 
 is the work which he, in his providential arrange- 
 
 * Tertul. Apol. ὁ. 42, in fine. 
 
128 
 
 PART II. 
 
 Appropriate 
 duties to the 
 different or- 
 ders of magis- 
 tracy. 
 
 ON THE LAW OF CHRIST 
 
 ments, has assigned them. You cannot refuse 
 compliance with their lawful demands, without 
 disobeying God: you cannot cheat them, without 
 robbing him.’ 
 
 The apostle then goes onward to enjoin the 
 Christian Romans cheerfully to render to the dif- 
 ferent orders of the Roman magistracy that kind 
 and degree of duty, which, according to the con- 
 stitution of the government, they had a right to 
 demand,—*“ their due.” “ Render therefore to all 
 their due: tribute to whom tribute is due, cus- 
 tom to whom custom, honour to whom honour, 
 fear to whom fear.” 
 
 The term all, in this verse, is to be understood as 
 expressive of a limited universality—of the whole 
 of a class—the class referred to. It is unques- 
 tionably true that we ought to render to every 
 human being—to every sentient being—that which 
 is due to it. But it is plain, the apostle here is 
 speaking of duties to magistrates; and that he 
 refers to all magistrates, of whatever order, and 
 whatever rights they possessed. In perfect con- 
 formity with the idiom of the original, the clause 
 might be translated—‘ Render to them all their 
 dues.’ Indeed, had it been the apostle’s object 
 to have expressed the more general sentiment, 
 it is likely he would have employed another ex- 
 pression (τοις πασι, instead of πασι). ἢ His argument 
 
 * This has been called in question—yet we apprehend with- 
 out sufficient reason. Certainly the assertion—that the reverse 
 is the rule, isa mistake. Middleton says, “ When πὰς or ‘amas, in 
 the singular number, is used to signify that the whole of the thing 
 implied by the substantive” (expressed or understood) “ with 
 
RESPECTING PAYMENT OF TRIBUTE. 
 
 129 
 
 is this: The Roman government is God’s ordi- parr ΤΙ. 
 
 nance to you. According to its constitution, its 
 different officers are invested with different rights. 
 
 which it is joined is intended—the substantive has the article, 
 but when it is employed to denote every individual of that species 
 that is spoken of, then the substantive is anarthrous ;” and while 
 he states, that “it is not so easy to settle the usage with respect 
 to mas in the plural,” he says, “ it often happens that where there 
 is no reference, the article will be used hypothetically,” and that 
 in such cases it would always be inserted, were it not that 
 mavres, πασαι; &c., do of themselves, when joined to a substantive, 
 indicate that the whole class is meant.” The word παντες is 
 used in Rom. iii. 23, in the same way as we apprehend πασι is 
 here ; for though the proposition laid down there is universally 
 true, just as the precept contained in the words before us is 
 binding, if understood as referring to all men, yet it is evident 
 from verse 24, where “ they who have sinned and come short of 
 the glory of God,” are represented as “ justified freely by God’s 
 grace,” &c., that the reference is not to all men, but to παντας 
 Tous msevovtas, v. 22. There is no difference as to justification 
 among them that believe, for “ they all have sinned,” &c., and 
 they all are “ justified freely by God’s grace through the re- 
 demption that is in Christ Jesus.” There can be no doubt— 
 there is reference here—yet the article is not used. Had it been 
 used—had it been οἱ wavres, I apprehend the probability would 
 have been—that the term was employed not in reference to a 
 class, but in its most extensive sense when used respecting hu- 
 man beings. In the same way I must still think that πασι here 
 refers to the whole of the c£ovova—apyoytes, διάκονοι Θεου; 
 λειτουργοι Gcov—spoken of in the preceding context.—On the 
 principle which has been so oracularly delivered, that “ a// here 
 must be all men’—all who have sinned and come short of the 
 glory of God must be admitted to be also justified freely by God's 
 grace “ through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.” With 
 Melancthon and Grotius to support me, I cannot hesitate to as- 
 sert, that “ in perfect conformity with the idiom of the original, 
 the clause—a7odore ovy πασι tas οφειίλας, may be translated— 
 ‘ Render then to them all their dues.’ That so far as mere 
 phraseology is concerned, it must be so rendered—is an assertion 
 I could never think of making. Such sweeping assertions are, 
 as we have just seen, rather dangerous. The judicious Gisborne 
 considers 7ract here as referring to a// the magistrates.” St Paul, 
 
190 
 
 ON THE LAW OF CHRIST 
 
 rant. You owe them something corresponding to the 
 
 situations they occupy. Render to them, then, 
 from a regard to divine authority, that which is 
 thus their due. Render ¢trzbute—the property- 
 tax—to him who is empowered to exact it from 
 you: it is hisdue. Render custom,—imposts on 
 goods which you buy or sell, to him who is au- 
 thorized to collect them: it is his due. 
 
 “ Fear” is reverence,—a very high degree of 
 respect—the feeling with which subjects should 
 regard the heads of government, those who are 
 invested with the supreme legislative and execu- 
 tive functions of the State; and “ honour” is an 
 inferior degree of the same sentiment, to be che- 
 rished to all inferior magistrates, in the degree in 
 which they possess civil power. You see the 
 comparative force of the two words in the com- 
 mand, “ Fear God—honour the king.” Where 
 God is considered as the proper object of fear; 
 then honour is the highest sentiment due even 
 to the chief magistrate. But when we look only 
 on human authorities, fear belongs to the king as 
 supreme magistrate ; honour, to those who are his 
 subordinates. ‘The general principle is, Civil au- 
 thority is a sacred thing: reverence it wherever 
 you meet it, and let your reverence correspond 
 with the degree in which it is possessed by the 
 object of your respect. It is as if the apostle had 
 
 after various pertinent instructions, concludes with this general 
 admonition :—‘ Render therefore to all” (to each magistrate in 
 his proper department), ‘ their dues,” &¢c.—Enquiry into the 
 Duties of Men, chap. iy. vol. i. p. 83. Lond. 1795. 
 
RESPECTING PAYMENT OF TRIBUTE. 
 
 said, Reverence the Emperor—fear the Praetor— 
 respect the Questor—and beware of treating with 
 contempt even the despised publican: just as we 
 would say, Reverence the Sovereign—fear the 
 Judges—respect the High Court of Parliament— 
 honour the municipal or local authorities—and 
 beware of treating with contempt even the bai- 
 liff or the constable. 
 
 Such appears to me the meaning of these words 
 of the apostle. They are an assertion and en- 
 forcement of the duty of payment of tribute on 
 the Christian Romans: they are a reply to the 
 question, Are Christians bound to pay tribute to 
 a government administered by heathens? And 
 that reply is a very strong affirmative. 
 
 The questions— Whether this precept to pay 
 tribute, as addressed to the Roman Christians, 
 had any limits; and if it had, what were they, 
 come now to be considered. The thought that 
 first suggests itself to the mind reflecting on this 
 subject is, that payment of tribute being just one 
 of the innumerable forms of civil obedience, par- 
 ticularized in the passage before us, for reasons 
 which have been already assigned, must share in 
 the limitations which, as we have shown, in a 
 former part of this discourse, characterize the 
 whole class of duties to which it belongs; and 
 this conclusion is strengthened, by perceiving that 
 the other particular precepts specified along with 
 it, all of them require limitation. It is only 
 within certain limits that we are to “ fear” or 
 “ honour”? any human being, however dignified 
 
 131 
 
 PART II. 
 
 Had the law 
 of tribute any 
 limitation in 
 the case of 
 the Roman 
 Christians ? 
 
132 ON THE LAW OF CHRIST 
 
 part u. and powerful. These considerations will go far, 
 I think, to settle the question with every unpre- 
 judiced inquirer, and induce him to proceed im- 
 mediately to endeavour to ascertain what are the 
 limitations, about the existence of which we can 
 have no doubt. 
 
 Not nececz~ It seems, however, to be held as something , 
 
 ω like an ethical axiom with many, that this pre- 
 cept about tribute-paying has no limits; and it 
 has been gravely argued, that the circumstance 
 of its being singled out from among the endlessly 
 diversified forms of civil obedience, and made the 
 subject of an express statute, proves this. The 
 reason why such prominence is given by the apos- 
 tle to tribute-paying has already been stated. It 
 must strike every person, that if the apostle, in 
 specifying tribute-paying, had intended to teach 
 that the limitations which attach to other forms 
 of civil obedience were inapplicable to it, he would 
 have distinctly said so, and not have left the pre- 
 cept in reference to expression, exactly on a level 
 with a precept, which, as all now admit, requires to 
 be understood with exceptions. Besides, tribute- 
 paying does not stand out quite so singly as has 
 been supposed. There are honour and fear spe- 
 cified along with it; and surely these sentiments,. 
 without limit, are not due to any created being. 
 
 Only conceiv- Still, however, we do not deny, that the pre- 
 
 ia §«6cept as to tribute-paying may be without limit. 
 All we say here is, this does not prove it to be 
 so; and if it be unlimited, which certainly is a 
 very improbable hypothesis, this must arise not 
 out of its general nature, as civil obedience, but 
 
RESPECTING PAYMENT OF TRIBUTE. 199 
 
 out of something which is peculiar to it, as tri- part τι. 
 bute-paying. Now there are only two conceiv- 
 able causes, in the absence of a distinct declara- 
 ration of the lawgiver, which could give this idio- 
 syncrasy to this particular form of civil obedience : 
 either that the parting with money is not in it- 
 self, properly speaking, a moral act—or, that sup- 
 posing it to be in itself a moral act, if performed 
 voluntarily, the compulsory character of the exac- 
 tion strips it of its morality. Neither of these 
 views of the case, and I ean conceive of no third, 
 is at all tenable. 
 
 Parting with money stands, with regard to mo- Paying mo- | 
 rality, on a level, neither higher nor lower, with 7s 
 all other external acts. Viewed apart from the 
 principles of the intelligent moral agent who per- 
 forms them, they have no morality. To walk to 
 the heathen temple—to lay incense on the hea- 
 then altar, viewed as mere external acts, are just 
 as little moral or immoral as the parting with 
 money. To walk to a heathen temple and burn 
 incense on an idol’s altar, is disobedience just from 
 the state of the mind of him who does it—from 
 what must be the state of mind in any sane man 
 who does it; and exactly in the same way, part- 
 ing with money voluntarily for what I know or 
 believe to be wrong, is just as obviously immo- 
 ral,—immoral for the same reason, as employing 
 any other set of means, over which I have the 
 control, in the same way. 
 
 But admitting all this, it has been said that Not changes 
 
 charac- 
 
 the compulsory character of tribute strips it of its τὸν να 
 
 enactment, 
 
 moral character in one way, and invests it with a 
 
194 ON THE LAW OF CHRIST 
 
 part. moral character in another. Here is an object to 
 ~ which T could not voluntarily contribute without 
 sin; but God has given another party authority 
 to impose tribute on me, and he has power to 
 compel me to make payment: so that whatever 
 be the object, I have no concern with it, while, 
 from the divine command, it is my duty to make 
 the required payment. Now, in the first place, 
 we have to remark here, that in taking for granted 
 that God gives to the magistrate the right to im- 
 pose tribute for whatever purpose he pleases, the 
 premise is made identical with the conclusion to 
 be drawn from it—a convenient, but not a very 
 reputable mode of arguing; and, in the seeond 
 place, that compulsoriness is not a quality pecu- 
 liar to tribute-paying—it belongs to all acts of 
 civil obedience; the very principle of civil go- 
 vernment being force. If a Christian was com- 
 manded to pay a tax for the support of idol wor- 
 ship, the very same power that was ready to pun- 
 ish him if he did not do it, was equally ready to 
 be put forth against him for refusing to go to the 
 temple and worship; and if the compulsory na- 
 ture of the requisition is a good reason for com- 
 plying with the first, it would be difficult to see 
 why it should not be a good excuse for comply- 
 ing with the second. Τῇ actual absolute force 
 were employed in either case, then indeed the 
 moral character of the acts would be lost, obli- 
 terated, destroyed; for in that case the man would 
 cease to be an actor and become a sufferer. 10 
 appears, then, that there is nothing in the nature 
 of tribute, to take it out of the general category 
 
RESPECTING PAYMENT OF TRIBUTE. 135 
 
 of forms of civil obedience ;—there is nothing to parr u. 
 make the limitation of the precept an impossible 
 thing. 
 Presuming, then, that there might be limits The sphere of 
 beyond which the law of tribute was not obliga- yibuts'ett 
 tory on the Roman Christians—let us now pro- 0” 
 ceed to inquire if there really were such limits, 
 and if so, attempt to define them.- Before enter- 
 ing on this subject, I beg to premise, that the 
 sphere within which the duty of payment of ‘tri- 
 bute was obligatory, was obviously a wide one. 
 Not merely were all wise and just taxes, all im- 
 posts necessary for the right and efficient admi- 
 nistration of government, to be paid—but all im- 
 posts of the ruling authority, for the purposes of 
 civil rule, though unwise, unequal, and oppressive, 
 were to be paid without murmuring and com- 
 plaint ; though, if the Roman Christians had any 
 constitutional means of representing their griev- 
 ances to the government and seeking their re- 
 dress, they certainly were not, by any principle 
 or statute in the law of Christ, prohibited from 
 availing themselves of them. 
 
 I most cordially agree with the remark of a very exten- 
 venerable servant of Jesus Christ—that “ the pre- 
 cept to pay taxes should be considered by Chris- 
 tians” (I have no doubt the primitive believers 
 did so consider it) “as a blessing. Had not the 
 precept been given expressly, conscientious men 
 might have thought it necessary to know first 
 how the money was to be applied, and to refuse 
 whenever they disapproved of the expenditure. 
 This would have given occasion to endless trouble 
 
136 ON THE LAW OF CHRIST 
 
 part. and contention. But now, in consequence of the 
 
 ~~ express precept, all occasion of seruple or uneasi- 
 ness” (with regard to taxes exacted for the ge- 
 neral purposes of government, for the remark 
 plainly does not apply to taxes demanded for ¢ 
 specific immoral purpose) “is removed. And as 
 of old Christians were permitted to buy whatever 
 was sold in the shambles, asking no questions for 
 conscience’ sake ; so now, whatever is imposed as 
 a tax” (for the general purposes of government) 
 “it is our duty simply to pay, and owe no man 
 any thing, but to love one another.” * 
 
 not unbound- Wide, however, as was the sphere of the obli- 
 gation of tribute-paying, we apprehend that it was 
 by no means unbounded ; and its limits were, and 
 indeed must have been, materially the same as 
 the limits of the other forms of civil obedience. 
 There is nothing arbitrary in the divine constitu- 
 tions. They all proceed on great general princi- 
 ples, and any thing that claims to be an excep- 
 tion, requires to produce very satisfactory evidence 
 before its pretensions can be admitted. That tri- 
 bute-paying has no sound claims to the distine- 
 tion of being the only duty of civil obedience 
 which has no limits, will appear, we apprehend, 
 very distinctly as we proceed. 
 
 First imita- Tf this law have limits at all, there can be but 
 little doubt, that the payment of a tribute, exact- 
 ed specifically for an immoral or impious purpose, 
 
 * The Duty of Christians to Civil Government, a Sermon 
 preached in Lady Glenorchy’s Chapel, Edinburgh, on the 29th 
 November, 1798. By Greville Ewing. Pp. 25, 26. Edin. 
 1799. 
 
RESPECTING PAYMENT OF TRIBUTE. 
 
 or generally for a purpose conscientiously disap- 
 proved of by him from whom it is exacted, falls 
 beyond these limits. There is something abso- 
 lutely revolting to those moral perceptions and 
 feelings, which lie at the very bottom, which form 
 the ima fundamina, of our spiritual nature, in 
 maintaining the opposite opinion. It is mon- 
 strous to suppose that, by any mere human ar- 
 rangement, not only may what was not duty be- 
 come duty, and what was not sin become sin ; 
 but what was sin become duty, and what was 
 duty become sin. The principle would need to 
 have strong support that warrants such a conclu- 
 sion as the following :—voluntarily to have con- 
 tributed money for defraying the expenses of the 
 crucifixion of Jesus Christ, on the part of his dis- 
 ciples, would have been guilt, if possible, fouler 
 than that which makes the name Iscariot the 
 type of all that is base and impious; yet had the 
 Roman authorities imposed a tax on them for this 
 most immoral of all purposes, it would have im- 
 mediately become their duty cheerfully to pay it. 
 This is the fair result of the principle. I have 
 heard of men who, on being made to see this, still 
 held by it. But such men are beyond the reach 
 of argument.* 
 
 On this principle, we hold, that had the Roman 
 Christians been required directly to contribute to 
 the support of heathen idolatry, it would have 
 been their duty to refuse compliance. It has 
 been asserted, on the part of some defenders of 
 
 * Vide Note XXVII. 
 
 137 
 
 PART II. 
 
 The case ofa 
 tax for the 
 support of 
 idolatry con- 
 sidered, 
 
138 ON THE LAW OF CHRIST 
 
 part i. the right of a civil government to exact a tribute 
 
 ~~ from its subjects generally, for the support of a 
 particular modification of religious worship,— 
 that the Primitive Christians were subjected to 
 such a tax, and that they cheerfully paid it.* 
 The evidence in support of the first of these state- 
 ‘ments is far from being abundant: with regard 
 to the second, the evidence is decidedly on the 
 other side. 
 
 Tax forsup- [he nearest approximation to proof, that the 
 
 port of the . 
 ee Te primitive Christians were liable to a specific tax 
 
 pitoline Joye, 
 for the support of heathen idolatry, furnished by 
 ecclesiastical history, so far as we know, is to be 
 found in the undoubted fact, that after the de- 
 struction of Jerusalem, a date considerably later 
 than that of the writing of this Epistle, the Jews, 
 wherever they might dwell, were required by im- 
 perial authority to pay for the use of the Capitol 
 —a temple of Jupiter, in Rome—the tax of half 
 a shekel—or the didrachma, which they had been 
 wont to pay for the use of the Temple of Jerusa- 
 lem; and the not improbable supposition, that 
 this tax might be exacted not only from Jews 
 converted to Christianity, but also from Gentiles 
 who had become Christians, as it seems likely 
 that the Christians were considered by many as a 
 Jewish sect. Suetonius, the Roman _ historian, 
 
 * “ We can conceive no fouler insult to the memory of the 
 martyrs and confessors of the early times, than what is thrown 
 upon it by the churchmen of the present day. It is almost 
 enough to rouse their very souls under the altar, and to put ad- 
 ditional vehemence into their cry for vengeance :—‘ How long, 
 O Lord, how long!’”—Voluntary Church Magazine, vol. vi. 
 p. 182. 
 
RESPECTING PAYMENT OF TRIBUTE. 
 
 states, that in the reign of Domitian, “ the Jewish 
 tax,” plainly referring to the imposition just men- 
 tioned, “ was exacted with the greatest severity, 
 and was demanded of those who lived according 
 to the Jewish customs, without entering them- 
 selves as Jews, or who dissembling their original, 
 had omitted to pay the tax laid upon that na- 
 tion,’—words which plainly intimate that the tax 
 was not cheerfully paid. The learned, candid, 
 and sagacious Lardner, says, that “ it cannot be 
 doubted that some Christians met with sufferings 
 upon this account, under the name and character 
 of Jews, from whom they received their religion, 
 and perhaps this story of Suetonius has a refer- 
 ence to Domitian’s persecution of the Christians, 
 commonly called the second persecution.” Gib- 
 bon speaks of the refusal of the Christians to pay 
 this tax, as an undoubted fact,—“ It was impos- 
 sible that the Christians who had so often shel- 
 tered themselves under the shade of the syna- 
 gogue, should now escape this rapacious persecu- 
 tion. Anxious as they were to avoid the slight- 
 est infection of idolatry, their conscience forbade 
 them to contribute to the honour of that demon, 
 who had assumed the character of the Capitoline 
 Jupiter.” If Lardner’s and Gibbon’s conclusions 
 be admitted to be just, then so far from it being 
 true that Christians cheerfully paid a tax for the 
 support of the heathen idolatry,—their refusal to 
 pay such a tax was the immediate cause of a 
 bloody persecution. It deserves notice, also, that 
 Lardner distinctly enough states, that in his esti- 
 mation these scruples to contribute to a heathen 
 
 139 
 
 PART IT. 
 
 If demanded 
 from Chris- 
 tians, not 
 paid by them. 
 
140 
 
 ON THE LAW OF CHRIST 
 
 parr αι. temple, were sufficient reasons for declining to 
 
 pay this impost.* 
 If such a tax had been imposed on the primi- 
 
 * « Judaicus fiscus acerbissime actus est ; ad quem defereban- 
 tur, qui vel improfessi Judaicam viverent vitam, vel dissimul-- 
 tata origine, imposita genti, tributa, non pependissent.”"—Sueton. 
 Domit. cap. xii. ‘* Popov de rots ὅπου δηποτ᾽ ουσιν Ἰουδαιος επε- 
 βαλε, δυο Spaxpas ἕκαστον κελευσας ava παν eros εἰς TO Καπετώλιον 
 φερειν ὥσπερ προτερον εἰς Tov εν ἹΙεροσολυμοις νεῶν συνετέλουν."--- 
 Fl. Jos. Bell. Jud. L. vi. C. vi. vol. ν. p. 143.—Lardner’s Testi- 
 monies of Ancient Heathens, Chap. viii. Sect. iv—Works, vol. 
 iii. p. 620.—The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, vol. i. 
 Ch. xvi. p. 588. 4to. Lond. 1776. It appears then probable, 
 that one of the principal causes of the persecution under Domi- 
 tian, and likely of other persecutions also, was the refusal on the 
 part of the Christians to pay “ the vectigalia templorum,” and 
 otherwise to support the heathen superstitions. That there was a 
 great falling off, appears not only from the oft-quoted passage 
 from Tertullian, but also from the following citation from 
 Pliny: “ Satis constat prope jam desolata templa czepisse cele- 
 brari = *  passimque venire victimas quarum adhuc rarissimus 
 emptor inveniebatur.’—Epistole, Lib. x. 97. The diminution 
 of the gains of the priesthood—augurs “ et hoc genus omne,” is 
 assigned by the judicious Mosheim as a leading cause of the 
 early persecutions. “‘ Publicus tot numinum cultus, stolideque 
 populorum de illis opiniones infinitam sacerdotum augurum ha- 
 ruspicum, et aliorum hominum turbam commode et copiose ale- 
 bant. Mercatores pariter haud pauci, qui bestias, thura, resque 
 alias vendebant, magno religionem habebant questui, ne quid 
 uune de opificibus dicam, quibus ea fructuosissima erat.”—Acta 
 xix. 25. Proceres et magistratus ipsi, amplissimis, lautissi- 
 misque fungebantur sacerdotiis. Qui quum omnes animis pros- 
 picerent, aut esmiendum, aut multis sibi commodis et ornamen- 
 tis carendum esse si hee sacra funderentur per populos, initiis 
 existimabant resistendum, et Christianos extirpandos esse.”"— 
 Mosheimii Institutiones Historie Christiane Majores, Sec.i. Pars. 
 i. Cap. y. Sec. x. p. 120. 4to. Helmstad. 1789. It is mortify- 
 ing to think that there has been so little honest, though mistaken, 
 religious principle in the upholding of ancient religious institu- 
 tions; and that by far the greater part of what professed to be 
 religious zeal, was indeed one of the lowest varieties of selfish- 
 ness. Thus was it in the primitive age—thus was it at the era 
 
RESPECTING PAYMENT OF TRIBUTE. 
 
 141 
 
 tive Christians, their conduct in the somewhat parr πὶ. 
 
 analogous case of military service makes it evi- 
 dent, that they would not have paid it. Celsus 
 directly charges the Christians of his time with 
 disobedience to the civil power, in refusing to 
 bear arms. Origen not only readily admits the 
 fact, but defends it. It has been made a ques- 
 tion whether the primitive Christians did not 
 consider war in all its modifications as unlawful ; 
 and to say the least of it, very strong presumptions 
 that they did, have been brought forward; but 
 it is quite undeniable, that their refusal to bear 
 arms is by themselves grounded on the impossi- 
 bility of their doing so, without, in conforming to 
 certain military practices, giving countenance to 
 idolatry. The men who scrupled to follow a 
 standard that bore an idolatrous emblem, and 
 submitted to death rather than violate their con- 
 science in such a matter, were not very likely to 
 part with their substance for the direct support of 
 an idol’s temple. It might be taken from them— 
 but they certainly would not give it * 
 
 of the Reformation—and thus too is it in our own times. The 
 Jeweller of Ephesus places the causes of the determined support 
 of the established religion by himself and his fellow artificers in 
 their true order; first, “ By this craft we have our wealth ;” 
 secondly, “ The temple of the great goddess Diana is in danger 
 of being despised, and her magnificence of being destroyed.”— 
 Acts xix. 25-27. Jn. Britain, as in Ephesus, I have no doubt 
 there are not a few really devoted idolaters of Civil Establish- 
 ment as a religious. institution ; but the great majority who cla- 
 mour most loudly against those who, like Paul, are “ persuad- 
 ing and turning away mueh people” from the worship of the 
 image which the secular power has set up, belong to the class of 
 the craftsmen. 
 
 * Origen contra Celsum, Lib. viii. pp. 426,427. 4to. Cantab. 
 
142 
 
 PART II. 
 
 ON THE LAW OF CHRIST 
 
 Indeed, every person at all conversant with 
 
 Their horror the history of the earlier ages of Christianity, 
 
 of idolatry. 
 
 knows that solicitude “ to keep themselves from 
 idols,” was one of the most characteristic features 
 of its votaries; and that, in consequence of the 
 established religion having, according to the na- 
 ture of such institutions, as illustrated by their 
 history in all ages, so interwoven itself with the 
 whole organization of civil society, even in its 
 minutest details, they had innumerable and dai- 
 ly recurring opportunities of manifesting their 
 horror of idolatry. “ While,” to use the lan- 
 guage of the pious Neander, the most learned 
 writer on the ancient history of the church in 
 the present age, “ they showed most conscien- 
 tious obedience to the government, in every thing 
 which was not against the law of God, they could 
 not be induced by any persuasion, any fear, or 
 any violence, to participate in the ‘ Ceremoniz 
 Romane, enjoined by law,”*—showing what 
 their enemies termed “ inflexibilis obstinatio.” 
 The “ scrupulous delicacy,” as Gibbon phrases it, 
 1658. Tertullian de Corona, Ch. xi. et de Idol. ο. 19, 20, 21.— 
 Moyle’s Letters concerning the Thundering Legion. Post. Works, 
 vol. ii. pp. 86, 148, 176, &c. Lond. 1726. Lactantius’ words 
 are very affecting: “* Docui ut opinor, cur populus noster apud 
 stultos, stultus habeatur. Nam cruciari atque interficit malle 
 quam thura tribus digitis comprehensa, in focum jactare tam in- 
 eptum videtur quam in periculo vite, alterius animam magis cu- 
 rare quam suam. Nesciunt enim quantum sit nefas, adorare 
 aliud preterquam Deum qui condidit c&lum et terram, qui hu- 
 manum genus finxit, inspiravit, luce donavit.”—Lactant. Insti- 
 tutiones, Lib. v. c. exix. Venet. Aldus, 1515. 
 
 * The History of the Christian Church, during the three first 
 
 centuries, by Dr Augustus Neander. Translated by H. J. Rose, 
 B. Ὁ. ὃ i. Introd. vol. i. p. 85. Lond. 1831. 
 
RESPECTING PAYMENT OF TRIBUTE. 
 
 143 
 
 which the Christians displayed in declining to parr u. 
 
 take a part in the marriage and funeral ceremo- 
 nies, even of near relations, because polluted by 
 idolatrous rites—and in refusing to comply with 
 the commands of the magistrate, to observe public 
 festivities for the same reason, would have stood 
 out in strange contrast with “ the cheerful pay- 
 ment” of a tax for the express purpose of uphold- 
 ing the temple of an idol, or of purchasing victims 
 for its altars, or of supporting the priests who sa- 
 erificed them. So obvious an incongruity—so 
 striking an example of “ building again what they 
 had destroyed,” would have presented Celsus or 
 Gibbon with an occasion, which their malignant 
 ingenuity would have eagerly embraced, of repre- 
 senting the objects of their hatred, as a set of 
 self-convicted hypocrites—but among the many 
 charges brought against the primitive Christians, 
 I am not aware that that of inconsistency in their 
 opposition to idolatry, has ever been seriously 
 made.* 
 
 * Tertullian di Idololatria, passim.—How intimately idolatry 
 had blended itself with the usages of society, is known to all fa- 
 miliar with the Roman historians and poets. Suetonius, in Aug. 
 ὁ. 35, tells us, that before the business of the senate commenced, 
 every senator dropt some wine and frankincense on the altar. 
 The Fasti of Ovid show how thoroughly imbued the offices of 
 private life were with the influences of Paganism, and how diff- 
 cult it must have been for Christians to “ keep their garments 
 clean” amid such surrounding defilement. When one thinks of 
 this, the origin of monasticism seems easily accounted for, and 
 to admit of plausible apology, though incapable of satisfac- 
 tory defence. Gibbon does taunt the Christians for using the 
 coin of the empire, which, in the titles of the emperor on the 
 obverse—and the emblems on the reverse, gave abundant evi- 
 dences of the character of the established religion. The sense- 
 
144 
 
 PART II. 
 
 The com- 
 mand to pay 
 tribute does 
 not extend to 
 a tax in sup- 
 port of idola- 
 try. 
 
 ON THE LAW OF CHRIST 
 
 - Let us suppose, for the sake of argument, that, 
 at the time this epistle was written, there existed 
 no direct tax for the support of idolatry. In this 
 case it is obvious, that the law before us cannot 
 contain in it any precept to pay such a tax, for 
 the command refers to the existing tributes of 
 the Roman empire, and a religious tax is a thing 
 so very different in its nature from civil tribute, 
 that a command to pay the latter cannot be con- 
 sidered as in any way implying an obligation to 
 pay the former. They have indeed little in com- 
 mon but the name; and he who argues that a 
 Christian is obliged to pay a religious tax, because 
 the apostle commands him to pay civil tribute, ar- 
 gues just as conclusively, as he would do, who, be- 
 cause the legislature had set apart a sum of money 
 for building school-houses, meaning by that, houses 
 in which the elements of ordinary education were 
 to be taught—should insist that every man who 
 built a house, which was to be used as a school, 
 in any sense in which that word may be employ- 
 ed—as a school of gymnastics, or of art, or of me- 
 dicine, or of atheism,—had a just claim on assist- 
 ance from this fund. 
 
 It must be proved first, then, that the Chris- 
 tian Romans were liable to a religious tax, before 
 
 lessness of these taunts is well exposed by Lord Hailes, in his 
 Enquiry ; but could that Karnyopos Αδελῴων, who knew all that 
 could be known on such a subject, have neglected to record 
 what would have told so much more powerfully, in branding 
 them as Fools or Hypocrites, as their cheerfully paying the 
 “ἐ vectigalia templorum,” had he not been aware, that to have 
 stated it as a fact, would have been a falsehood sure to be ex- 
 posed—and to have thrown it out as a conjecture, an absurdity 
 sure to be ridiculed. 
 
RESPECTING PAYMENT OF TRIBUTE. 
 
 the words in question can be considered as even 
 capable of bearing the sense which has been im- 
 posed on them. But though it could be proved 
 that from the previous existence of a tax specifi- 
 cally levied for the support of idolatry, the words 
 might possibly include this, it does not at all fol- 
 low that the precept was meant to be understood 
 in this extent. The general law, ““ We must obey 
 God rather than man,” which limited the precept, 
 “ Be subject,” when the imperial power command- 
 ed to sacrifice, interposed and limited the precept, 
 “pay tribute,” when the imperial power com- 
 manded to contribute to the support of false 
 dogmas and impious rites. 
 
 Any thing approaching to evidence, that the 
 primitive Christians directly supported heathen 
 idolatry, has never been produced, and, when we 
 consider how eagerly it has been sought for, we 
 may safely add, never can be produced. Tatian, 
 and Justin Martyr, and Tertullian, all agree, in- 
 deed, that they were exemplary for their consci- 
 entious payment of civil tribute. “ If the Empe- 
 ror command me to pay tribute,” says Tatian, “ I 
 am ready to do it.”* ““ For your taxes and tri- 
 butes,” says Justin Martyr, “ we are above all 
 men, everywhere, ready to bring them in to your 
 collectors and officers, being taught so by our 
 great Master.”+ Tertullian represents the hea- 
 then magistrates as saying, “ The rates for the 
 temple now come to nothing;” and he replies, 
 “ If your temple-wardens have reason to complain 
 
 * Tatian, Orat. contra Grecos. 
 + Just. Mart. Apolog. cap. xxiii. 
 
 145 
 
 PART II. 
 
 No evidence 
 that the 
 Christians 
 paid such a 
 tax. 
 
140 
 
 PART II. 
 
 Evidence on 
 the other 
 side. 
 
 Case of Mar- 
 cus of Are- 
 thusa, 
 
 ON THE LAW OF CHRIST 
 
 against Christians, the public, Iam sure, has not ; 
 but, on the contrary, very great reason to thank 
 us for the custom we pay, with the same consci- 
 ence we abstain from stealing.’* It is impos- 
 sible, however, fairly to deduce from these state- 
 ments any thing more than this, that the Chris- 
 tians conscientiously paid civil tribute ; and it 
 would be quite as good reasoning to conclude, that 
 the Christians worshipped idols when the magis- 
 trates required them, because their apologists say, 
 that they scrupulously obeyed the laws,—as to 
 conclude, that the Christians contributed to the 
 support of idolatry, if required by the magistrate, 
 because their apologists say, that they cheerfully 
 paid tribute. | 
 While there is no evidence on the one side, there 
 is evidence on the other, part of which has already 
 been adduced. While Tertullian’s words may 
 admit a question, as to the degree and extent in 
 which the religious rates, to which he refers, were 
 compulsory, however that question may be settled, 
 they show that the Christians did not,—would 
 not, directly contribute to the support of what 
 they knew to be wrong. There is a remarkable 
 incident, recorded by more than one of the early 
 ecclesiastical historians, which is calculated to 
 throw light on a subject so interesting as the con- 
 duct of the early Christians, in reference to direct 
 contribution to the support of heathen idolatry. 
 Marcus, the bishop of Arethusa, a city in Syria, 
 having, during the reign of Constantius, been ac- 
 
 * Tertull. Apolog. cap. xliii. Reeves’ translation, vol. i. pp. 
 328, 324. 8vo. Lond. 1716.—Vide Note XXVIII. 
 
RESPECTING PAYMENT OF TRIBUTE. 
 
 tive in destroying a heathen temple in that city, 
 and remarkably zealous in promoting the interests 
 of Christianity, had brought upon himself the ex- 
 treme dislike of the Pagan citizens. On Julian’s 
 assuming the purple, he was subjected to severe 
 persecution, to avoid which he fled, in accordance 
 with the command of our Lord.* On finding, 
 however, that his flock were exposed to great 
 hardships on his account, he returned, and was 
 commanded to rebuild the temple, or pay the ex- 
 pense of having it rebuilt. He obstinately re- 
 fused to do either; and submitted to the most 
 excruciating tortures even to death, rather than 
 contribute one obolus to such a purpose, “ thus 
 resisting unto blood, striving against sin.” + 
 
 Of our information, then, on the interesting 
 subject of the conduct of the primitive Christians, 
 in reference to the payment of tribute for the di- 
 rect support of idolatry, which was the established 
 religion of the empire,—* this is the sum.” The 
 only tax avowedly imposed for the support of ido- 
 latry, to which we have reason to believe any 
 of the primitive Christians were liable, we have 
 equal reason to believe they refused to pay, though 
 by doing so, they exposed themselves to severe 
 persecution. To have acted in any other way 
 would have been utterly incongruous with their 
 behaviour as to military service, and their scru- 
 pulous care to avoid every thing which could be 
 
 * Matt. x. 23. 
 
 + Sozomen, Hist. Lib. ν, c. x. p. 194, Folio. Cantab. 1720. 
 Theodorit. Ecc. Hist. Lib. iii. ¢. vii. pp. 128, 129, Fol. Cantab. 
 1720.—Vide Note XXIX. 
 
 147 
 
 PART II. 
 
 Recapitula- 
 tion. 
 
148 
 
 ON THE LAW OF CHRIST 
 
 parr τι. construed into a sanction of idolatry in any of its 
 
 innumerable forms. On the supposition, which 
 is in the highest degree probable, that when the 
 apostle wrote, the Christians were not subject to 
 any tax levied avowedly for the support of idola- 
 try, it is obvious that the apostolic command to 
 pay all civil tributes, could not contain in it an 
 injunction to pay such a religious tax, should it 
 afterwards be imposed ; and even on the suppo- 
 sition, which is in the highest degree improbable, 
 that the Christians were at that time liable to such 
 an impost, the general command to pay civil tri- 
 bute, no more bound them to pay such a tax, 
 when demanded by the magistrate, than the ge- 
 neral command to yield civil obedience, bound 
 them, when ordered by the magistrate, to burn 
 incense on an idol’s altar; both commands being 
 limited by the great fundamental principle of hu- 
 man duty. In fine, while there is no evidence— 
 nor the shadow of it, that the primitive Christians 
 paid tribute for the specific purpose of supporting 
 idolatry, there is evidence both direct and collate- 
 ral on the opposite side; the direct evidence prov- 
 ing that, in the only case in which we have reason 
 to think that such tribute was demanded, it was 
 refused at the expense not only of property but 
 of life—torture and death being submitted to 
 in preference to the violation of conscience, felt 
 to be involved in paying it ;—the collateral evi- 
 dence proving that the payment of such a tribute 
 had it in other cases been demanded of them, would 
 have been utterly incompatible with their princi- 
 ples and feelings, strongly and habitually express- 
 
RESPECTING PAYMENT OF TRIBUTE. 149 
 
 ed in their self-denying abstinence, at whatever parr τι. 
 expense, from every practice which had the slight- 
 est idolatrous taint, however innocent in itself, and 
 however conducive to their temporal interests. 
 A second limitation under which the law of Seconatimi. 
 tribute was binding on the Roman Christians, was 
 the legality of the imposition and collection of 
 the tribute. They were not morally bound to 
 pay any taxes not imposed by the authority, to 
 whose province, according to the constitution of 
 the Roman imperial government, this department 
 of administration belonged, nor to pay taxes to 
 any, but to those appointed for this purpose. 
 Without sin they might submit to what they 
 knew to be oppression ; but if they paid in these 
 circumstances, it was rather “ for wrath” than for 
 “ conscience’ sake,” not from any direct obliga- 
 tion, but from the general obligation that, in 
 morally indifferent actions, we are bound to do 
 what upon the whole is likely to be followed by 
 the best consequences. 
 The only other set of limitations with respect Thira timita. 
 to the payment of tribute, rises out of the magis- 
 trate’s transgressing the proper limits of his pro- 
 vince, and interfering in matters not belonging to 
 him. Under this head, as well as the first, come 
 all taxes for the support of religion,—that being 
 an affair with which the civil magistrate, in his 
 public character, has no concern.* 
 
 * “ Tf it be a right of kings and rulers to prescribe the creed 
 and manner of worship, with its appendages, to their subjects, 
 and to enforce their concurrence, it must be equally the right of 
 all kings; for they all think, or profess to think, their own re- 
 
150 
 
 PART II. 
 
 ON THE LAW OF CHRIST 
 
 On the supposition that the Roman Christians 
 were called on by the Roman government to pay 
 taxes specifically for an immoral purpose, or ille- 
 
 ligion to be the true religion. Again, if it be the duty of Chris- 
 tian kings and rulers to prescribe these things to their subjects, 
 it is equally the duty of all kings, and for the same reason. 
 This is the palladium of those who oppose establishments, and 
 how shall we deprive them of it?” These are the words of a 
 candid and liberal churchman—the Rev. Thomas Scott the com- 
 mentator, in a treatise “On the Evil of Separation,”—quoted by 
 Conder, in his judicious work on non-conformity. The follow- 
 ing illustration of the principles, by the witty Robinson of Cam- 
 bridge, is an amusing example of the “ reductio ad absurdum :” 
 
 Suppose a modern clergyman, animated with the spirit of 
 Paul, should go on a mission to the savages of Canada; what 
 method would he use to establish the faith? Whether he 
 went to the Algonquins, whose kingdom is elective; or to 
 the Hurons, whose kingdom is hereditary, it would be imma- 
 terial; in both he would find a chief magistrate, who has 
 nothing to do to cure a refractory subject, but to say to one of 
 his guards, “ Go and rid me of that dog.” Considering what in- 
 fluence the tyrant’s rank naturally gives him, he would endea- 
 your to conciliate himself to him first, and to obtain, if possible, 
 his good graces. He would for the present content himself with 
 secretly abhorring a savage despotism, which he could not con- 
 trol, and probably would avail himself of Hobbes’ maxim, who 
 used to say, that ““ if he was in a deep pit, and the devil should 
 put down his cloven foot, he would take hold of it, to be drawn 
 out by it.” Suppose his majesty should indulge him with an au- 
 dience, would he dare say to him, “ Sire, Iam an ambassador of the 
 Great Spirit who made, who preserves, and who after death will 
 judge and reward or punish all mankind. The obedience which 
 he requires is partly dictated by men’s consciences, and fully ex- 
 plained in this book in my hand; a book which the Great Spirit 
 commanded to be written for our instruction, and received under 
 pain of his displeasure. Your majesty, however, has the same 
 authority in this nation as other kings have in their dominions, 
 and it remains with you to determine whether these things be 
 true or false. Not only have none of your subjects a right of 
 examining and determining for himself, but I myself, consistent 
 with my notion of your majesty’s supremacy, am ready to re- 
 nounce all, but what your majesty believes, as long as I am in 
 
RESPECTING PAYMENT OF TRIBUTE. 
 
 151 
 
 gal taxes, or taxes for a purpose which does not parr τι. 
 
 lie within the sphere of the legitimate objects of 
 civil rule,—what was the line of conduct which 
 duty pointed out to them? In reference to the 
 first case, there was no alternative—they must 
 not obey—they must die rather than sin: with 
 regard to the other cases, they might pay or not 
 pay as they were of opinion that greater advan- 
 tage to Christianity and the interests of society 
 would flow from payment or non-payment. In 
 every case, however, I apprehend they were bound 
 not to resist the Roman government, which, with 
 all its defects and faults, had been declared by 
 an inspired apostle, to be God’s ordinance to 
 them. 
 
 Such was their duty; and we have reason to 
 
 your dominions?” Oh, say you, all this is nothing to the pur- 
 pose: A king has no right over conscience quatenus king—but 
 quatenus Christian king : without this just distinction you will be 
 able to prove, that if a Canadian king be wrong, his subjects, how- 
 ever, are right, for they do what God requires, that is, they submit 
 their faith and conscience to the king as supreme. Very well. See 
 now what all your fine theory comes to. Suppose a Jesuit 
 should convert the king, has he a right to establish Christianity 
 as the Papists profess it? No, say all the reformed churches. 
 The right belongs to him quatenus Protestant Christian king. 
 Quatenus Episcopalian, says one—quatenus Presbyterian, says 
 another. Not at all, says a third, whose voice ought to silence 
 all, ““ Render unto Cesar the things that are Cesar’s, and unto 
 God the things that are God’s.”—Robinson’s Arcana, Letter IV. 
 On Civil Magistracy, pp. 50-52. Lond. 1782. 
 
 « The just pretensions of magistrates,” to use the language of 
 Robinson's great successor, “in this respect surely are equal ; 
 nor can any reason be assigned for denying that authority to 
 heathen or popish princes, within their dominions, which will 
 not equally apply to Protestant princes.”’—Hall on the Right of 
 Worship. Works, vol. iil. p. 386. 
 
152 
 
 eA ae Ds 
 
 What are 
 these things 
 to us ? 
 
 ON THE LAW OF CHRIST 
 
 believe, that they most conscientiously perform- 
 ed it,—they cheerfully paid all civil imposts ; 
 and if a regard to the divine law forbade them to 
 give their substance, equally as their bodily exer- 
 tions, to the support and service of idols, they 
 calmly took the consequences, and were spoiled 
 of their goods, or “ tortured not accepting deli- 
 verance,” “ knowing in themselves that they had 
 a more enduring substance,”’—preferring poverty 
 and death, with a good conscience, to wealth and 
 life without it.* 
 
 We turn now to the examination of a question, 
 at all times of importance, and in the cireum- 
 stances in which we at present stand, of peculiar 
 interest. What are these things to us? Hold- 
 ing, as we well may do, that the government un- 
 der which we live, is the ordinance of God to us, 
 we can have no difficulty in saying that we are 
 equally bound as the Roman Christians,—in one 
 point of view, we are more strongly bound than 
 they, inasmuch as we derive incomparably great- 
 er advantages from the government we live under, 
 than they did from that under which they lived,— 
 to be cheerful and conscientious in the payment 
 of civil tribute. 
 
 * The conduct of the primitive Christians cannot be better de- 
 scribed than in the words of the anonymous tract formerly quo- 
 ted (pp. 83, 84). “ Tributa, vectigalia, munera, oneraque consueta 
 non detrectant, modo id tributi, quod Deo debent, non interver- 
 tatur. Cxsari Cesarem agenti parent. Czsari fines suos exce- 
 denti, alienum imperium affectanti, Dei solium invadenti, supe- 
 riorem amborum Dominum bello petenti, parere injustum, pu- 
 tant.”—Vindicie Contra Tyrannos, pp. 59, 60. 
 
RESPECTING PAYMENT OF TRIBUTE. 
 
 Tribute is necessary to the permanent exist- 
 ence of civil government, and the attainment of 
 its ends. “There can be no peace,” says Jeremy 
 Taylor, paraphrasing a sentence of Tacitus, “ with- 
 out laws, no laws without a coercitive power, no 
 power without guards and soldiers, no guards 
 without pay; and that the soldiery may be paid, 
 and the laws reverenced, and the power feared, 
 and every man’s right secured, it is necessary that 
 there be tribute.”* We are bound then to pay 
 civil taxes,—all civil taxes ;—-we must not refuse 
 to pay them,—we must not attempt to evade 
 them. They are due to the government, and the 
 debt must be honestly paid. Weare to exercise 
 the same conscientiousness, in making such pay- 
 ments, as in discharging our private debts.+ 
 
 * Taylor's Ductor Dubitantium, Book iii. Chap. 2. Rule 8. 
 p- 517. Fol. Lond. 1676.—Tacitus’ words are: “‘ Nec quies 
 gentium sine armis, nec arma sine stipendiis, nec stipendia sine 
 tributis habere possent.” 
 
 + The truth on this subject is stated with remarkable preci- 
 sion by Dymond, whose valuable Essays are much less exten- 
 sively known, at least in this end of the island, than they de- 
 serve to be. “ The authority of civil government, as a director 
 of individual conduct, is explicitly asserted in the Christian 
 Seriptures. By this general sanction of civil government, a mul- 
 titude of questions respecting human duty are at once decided. 
 In ordinary cases, he upon whom the magistrate imposes a law, 
 needs not to seek for knowledge of his duty upon the subject 
 from a higher source. The divine will is sufficiently indicated 
 by the fact, that the magistrate commands. Obedience to the 
 law is obedience to the expressed will of God. He who, in the 
 payment of a tax to support the just exercise of government, 
 conforms to the law of the land, as truly obeys the divine will as 
 if the Deity had regulated questions of taxation by express rules. 
 But the authority of civil government is a subordinate autho- 
 rity. If from any cause, the magistrate enjoins that which is 
 
 L 
 
 153 
 
 PART Ik 
 
 Our obliga- 
 tion to pay 
 tribute. 
 
154 
 
 PART II. 
 
 ON THE LAW OF CHRIST 
 
 It is deeply to be regretted, that this view of 
 the matter, though theoretically admitted by al- 
 most all, is by no means so extensively acted on. 
 “ον many are there, and professing Christians 
 too, who would be exceedingly shocked with any 
 thing approaching to dishonesty or fraud in their 
 mercantile transactions, who would spurn from 
 them the slightest imputation against the honour 
 of their dealings, with a frown of indignant scorn, 
 —whose consciences are wonderfully easy, and 
 unembarrassed with scruples, in all that relates to 
 the pecuniary claims of government,—who with 
 little, if any hesitation, dispense with the fulfil- 
 ment of these, on grounds which would not stand 
 for a single instant before any other description of 
 obligation; nay, who even study the arts of eva- 
 sion, give scope to their inventive ingenuity, and 
 smile with conscious self-complacency at the pru- 
 dence and cleverness of its devices; and reckon 
 any thing fair, when the object is merely to de- 
 
 prohibited by the moral law, the duty of obedience is with- 
 drawn. ‘ All human authority ceases at the point where obe- 
 dience becomes criminal.’ The reason is simple; that when 
 the magistrate enjoins what is criminal, he has exceeded his 
 power: ‘ the minister of God’ has gone beyond his commission. 
 There is in our day no such thing as a moral plenipotentiary.— 
 To disobey the civil magistrate is, however, not a light thing. 
 When the Christian, conceives that the requisitions of govern- 
 ment and of a higher law are conflicting, it is needful that he 
 exercise a strict scrutiny into the principles of his conduct. 
 But if upon such scrutiny, the contrariety of requisitions ap- 
 pears real, no room is left for doubt respecting his duty, or for 
 hesitation in performing it. With the consideration of conse- 
 quences, he has then no concern: whatever they may be his 
 path is plain before him.”—Essays on the Principles of Morality, 
 Essay I. P. i. Ch. 1. Vol. i. pp. 115-119. Lond. 1880. 
 
RESPECTING PAYMENT OF TRIBUTE. 155 
 
 fraud government, to gull a revenue officer, or, a8 part ΤΙ. 
 it is vulgarly termed, to cheat the king.”* 
 
 It has been most justly said, that “ to defraud 
 our governors, in the discharge of taxes, is to rob 
 the public,—it is to rob all the inhabitants of the 
 land,—it is to rob our honest neighbour, who 
 must discharge his portion of new taxes, rendered 
 necessary by the dishonesty of those men who do 
 not sustain their full share of the existing bur- 
 dens. Indeed, to purchase smuggled or contra- 
 band goods, is not only to rob the public, but it 
 is to commit a sin resembling that of buying ar- 
 ticles that are stolen. It is to purchase that 
 which does not legally belong to the seller. It is 
 to encourage him to persevere in his habits of ini- 
 quity.”+ If, as may not unfrequently be the case, 
 particular taxes are unequal and oppressive, it 
 cannot be wrong—in many cases it is an impor- 
 tant public duty—to employ all constitutional 
 means, to have the tax modified or repealed; but 
 while it is the law of the land, the law of the 
 Lord requires us to obey it. 
 
 But while all sound-minded men hold these }s that obi- 
 views, and all right-hearted men act under their "™"**’ 
 influence, it does not at all follow that even un- 
 der a government which, from its well answering, 
 upon the whole, the ends of civil rule, is undoubt- 
 edly God’s ordinance to us, pecuniary requisitions 
 cannot be made, which it may be our duty not to 
 comply with. We have indeed been lately told, 
 
 * Wardlaw’s Sermon, p. 9. 
 + Gisborne’s Sermons on Christian Morality, Ser. xiii. p. 246. 
 Lond. 1809. 
 
156 
 
 RARDIN: 
 
 The question 
 a fair one. 
 
 ON THE LAW OF CHRIST 
 
 from an authority which should be a very high 
 one, that this is a principle which we cannot be 
 permitted even to discuss—“ a question not ad- 
 mitting, on Christian principles, of argument or 
 debate.”* The time is gone by, we rather think, 
 for prescribing with effect such limits to the range 
 of free inquiry, on any question of this kind. 
 Men are not now in the habit of requesting per- 
 mission on these occasions, either from their civil 
 or ecclesiastical superiors; and any attempt to 
 give advice on such a subject, where it is not 
 asked, especially when there may be some ground 
 for suspecting that the advice is not altogether 
 disinterested, will rather quicken than slake the 
 appetite for full information. 
 
 In truth, why should we be backward to make 
 any principle the subject of fair and full investi- 
 gation? The burning words of Milton are equal- 
 ly applicable to our times, as to those in which 
 they were spoken. ‘“ The temple of Janus, with 
 his two controversal faces, might now not insig- 
 nificantly be set open. And though all the winds 
 of doctrine were let loose to play upon the earth, 
 
 * Memorial of the Clergy of Edinburgh.—All clergymen are 
 not of their mind. An English prelate writes thus: “ It is 
 a question which might admit of serious discussion, whether the 
 majority of the members of any civil community have a right to 
 compel all the members of it, to pay towards the maintenance of 
 a set of teachers appointed by the majority to preach a particu- 
 lar system of doctrine.”"—Quarterly Review, Vol. xxix. p. 525. 
 The English prelate seems much less High Church in his views 
 than the Scottish Presbyters. He had Ireland, however, in his 
 view, where the “ majority” principle (however well it may 
 suit the church’s interests for England), if followed out, would 
 lead to rather alarming results. 
 
RESPECTING PAYMENT OF TRIBUTE. 
 
 so Truth be in the field, we do injuriously to mis- 
 doubt her strength. Let her and falsehood grap- 
 ple: who ever knew Truth put to the worse in a 
 free and open encounter? Her confuting is the 
 best and surest suppressing. Who knows not 
 that Truth is strong, next to the Almighty? She 
 needs no policies nor stratagems to make her vic- 
 torious; those are the shifts and the defences 
 error uses against her power. Give her but room, 
 and do not bind her when she sleeps; for then 
 she speaks not true, as the old Proteus did, who 
 spake oracles only when he was caught and bound, 
 but then rather she turns herself into all shapes 
 except her own, and perhaps tunes her voice ac- 
 cording to the time, as Micaiah did before Ahab, 
 until she be adjured into her own likeness.” * 
 
 The attempt to put down the doctrine that the 
 law of tribute has limits, by representing it as op- 
 posed to a principle so settled that it must never 
 again be touched, will not only, I believe, prove 
 a fruitless one, or rather produce fruits of an op- 
 posite kind to those sought for, but it is in direct 
 opposition to the great body of Christian moral- 
 ists, with whose works I am acquainted, who ge- 
 nerally hold that paying tribute, with other forms 
 of civil obedience, is not of unlimited obligation, 
 and seem to fear no immediate disorganization of 
 civil order, either from the promulgation of the 
 doctrine, or from its being acted upon. 
 
 157 
 
 PART II. 
 
 Opinions of 
 Christian mo- 
 ralists, 
 
 “ Tt is not our duty (ουδε de),” says Theodoret, rheodoret: 
 
 “to obey the magistrate in every thing; but 
 
 * Areopagitica, a Speech of Mr John Milton, pp. 35, 86, 4to. 
 Lond. 1644. 
 
158 
 
 PART II. 
 
 John Knox. 
 
 M‘Ward. 
 
 Jeremy Tay- 
 lor 
 
 ON THE LAW OF CHRIST 
 
 while we are bound to pay tax and tribute, and to 
 render honour to them who deserve it, should 
 they enjoin any thing sinful, we must determinedly 
 gainsay them.” ἢ 
 
 John Knox, addressing the nobility of Scotland 
 in the name of the “ congregation of Christ Jesus 
 within the same,” says, in reference to the Popish 
 established clergy, “If they be ‘ evil trees,’ as 
 ye yourselves must be compelled to say they are, 
 advise prudently with what consciences ye can 
 maintain them. The name and cloak of authority 
 which ye pretend, will nothing excuse you in 
 God’s presence, but rather shall ye bear double 
 condemnation, for that ye burden God, as that 
 his good ordinances were the cause of your ini- 
 quity.” + 
 
 In the pithy language of our persecuted ances- 
 tors, “ Tyrant’s exactions, enacted and exacted 
 for promoting their wicked designs against reli- 
 gion and liberty: hireling’s salaries, for encourag- 
 ing them in their intrusion upon the church of 
 God: arbitrary impositions of pecuniary punish- 
 ments for clear duties,—are nowise due, and can- 
 not be debt, and therefore it is no equity to pay 
 them.” 1} 
 
 Bishop Jeremy Taylor, who will scarcely be 
 accused of being too lax a casuist on questions of 
 this kind, expressly states, that “ the laws of tri- 
 bute have the same conditions, causes, powers, 
 
 * Theodoret in Tit. iii. 1. 
 
 + History of the Reformation in Scotland, by John Knox, 
 p- 118. M‘Gavin’s edit. 8vo. Glasgow, 1831. 
 
 t M‘Ward and Brown in the Hind let Loose, p. 703. 
 
RESPECTING PAYMENT OF TRIBUTE. 159 
 
 and measures, with other laws of government. parr n. 
 This rule requires that the authority be supreme,” 
 —that the cause be just,—that the end be public, 
 —that the good be general,—that the people re- 
 ceive advantage.” * 
 In his “ Compendious View of Natural and Bromnet 
 Revealed Religion,” a respected ancestor of my 
 own, whose views with regard to the powers of 
 the magistrate went a good deal farther than mine 
 go, in his enumeration of the duties of subjects to 
 their magistrates, mentions, “ (3.) Subjection to 
 their just laws,—(4). Cheerful payment of their 
 just taxes:” thus obviously placing tribute on the 
 same level as other forms of civil duty ; and inti- 
 mating that, in his opinion, it might be made a 
 question, whether unjust laws should be obeyed, 
 and unjust taxes paid.” + 
 “ God,” says President Dwight, “ has wisely Dwient. 
 and benevolently required mankind to render tri- 
 bute and custom, when lawfully demanded.” 1 
 Unterrified, then, by the attempt to warn Us Fist limita- 
 off this field of discussion, as too sacred to be oxrdin. 
 made debatable, we proceed to inquire, whéther “*"™ 
 the laws of tribute have any limits to us, and if 
 so, what they are? And first, then, I apprehend, 
 that on the clearest principles of moral obligation, 
 we are not—we cannot be bound to pay a tax 
 levied for a specific purpose, if that purpose is 
 immoral or impious; and every thing must be 
 
 * Taylor's Duct. Dubit. p. 519. 
 
 + Brown’s Compendious View of Natural and Revealed Reli- 
 gion, p. 542. Glasgow, 1782. 
 
 Τ Dwight’s Theology, vol. iv. p. 153. Vide Note XXX. 
 
100 
 
 PART I, 
 
 Taxes for 
 specific ob- 
 jects inexpe- 
 dient 
 
 ON THE LAW OF CHRIST 
 
 regarded as such by us, which, according to our 
 honest convictions, possesses these qualities. 
 
 The imposition of taxes, for specific purposes, 
 is a mode of administering government which 
 suits only a very imperfect or a very advanced 
 state of civil society. Where the great body of 
 the people are ignorant, and have been accustom- 
 ed to take the mere will of the rulers as a suffi- 
 cient reason for yielding obedience, it may be safe 
 enough ; or, where both the magistrates and the 
 subjects are so enlightened, as that the former are 
 not likely to enter on any unjust or unwise en- 
 terprise, and the latter are sure not to be disposed 
 to withhold the due support to every enterprise 
 that is wise and just—it may not only be safe, but 
 advantageous. 
 
 But in such a state of things as prevails in the 
 best constituted communities the world has ever 
 yet seen, when governors will occasionally, either 
 intentionally or unintentionally, seek not the best 
 ends by not the best means, and when subjects 
 are often ill qualified to judge on such points, and 
 too much under the influence of selfishness to let 
 even such judgment as they possess fairly exert 
 itself, there can be no doubt that by far the best 
 arrangement is to raise the necessary revenue un- 
 der the general name of tribute, for the support 
 of all the functionaries, and gaining all the ends 
 of government.* Had this been the case in this 
 
 * Hoppers seems to have seen this distinctly, so far as war-taxes 
 are concerned. ‘* Pecunia, belli causa, si civitatem salvam esse 
 volumus, tempore pacis congerenda est.”—Elementa Philosophica 
 de cive, C.xiii. S. viii. p. 220. Amst. 1647. 
 
RESPECTING PAYMENT OF TRIBUTE. 161 
 
 country, much uneasiness and much debauching Parr τι. 
 of conscience would have been saved, and the ge- 
 neral machine of government would have pro- 
 ceeded more smoothly on its way. There is One, 
 however, who brings good out of evil; and it 
 seems not impossible that the very objectionable- 
 ness of the arrangement, will prove the means of 
 soon putting an end to an improper expenditure, 
 which, had the funds been raised in a less excep- 
 tionable way, might have been protracted to an 
 indefinite period. | 
 
 Among the many extraordinary attempts which he speciac 
 
 object ofa tax 
 
 have been made in this controversy, one of the may affect 
 
 the morality 
 
 strangest has been the endeavour to show that ofits py-. 
 the circumstance of the tax being avowedly levied 
 for a specific purpose, admitted to be sinful, makes 
 no alteration in the moral character of paying the 
 impost. Is there no difference in my giving my 
 property for what I consider one of the most im- 
 portant of sublunary good things—the mainte- 
 nance of regular civil government, and my giving 
 my property for one of the worst of sublunary 
 evil things—the desecration of religion, and the 
 perdition of souls? One would think every per- 
 son who venerates apostolic authority must con- 
 sider the question as settled. Eating flesh, even 
 though offered in sacrifice, if the individual was 
 unaware of this, was quite lawful. “ What is sold 
 in the shambles that eat, asking no questions for 
 conscience’ sake. But if any man say unto you, 
 This is offered in sacrifice to idols, eat not for his 
 sake that showed it and for conscience’ sake.”* 
 
 * 1 Cor. x. 28. 
 
102 
 
 ON THE LAW OF CHRIST 
 
 part τ. On the same principle, let the magistrate de- 
 
 War taxes. 
 
 Tax for the 
 support of 
 idolatry. 
 
 mand money of me for the general purposes of 
 government, and I will conscientiously give it 
 him; but if he say, Give me money to do what 
 is impious and immoral, I cannot, without sin, 
 give it, though, without sin, I may suffer it to be 
 taken from me.* 
 
 On this ground all war taxes, 7. 6. all taxes for 
 the support of a particular war, are objectionable. 
 In many cases, wars have been obviously unjust. 
 In the estimation of some of the best and wisest 
 men the world has ever seen, all wars are neces- 
 sarily unjust. I cannot see how any man can 
 consistently pay taxes levied avowedly for the 
 support of an unjust war; and I am sure, a very 
 great part of the subjects of any government are 
 ill fitted to form a true judgment with respect to 
 the character of a particular war. It is far wiser 
 to impose general taxes: for in proportion as men 
 become more intelligent and more conscientious, 
 the difficulty in obtaining payment for such taxes, 
 as are levied for objects respecting the lawfulness 
 of which doubts are entertained, except by means 
 calculated to make a government odious, will in- 
 crease. Perhaps, however, the present system of 
 providing for the expense of belligerent opera- 
 tions, by specific taxes, may be permitted to con- 
 tinue, and the growing difficulty of collecting 
 such taxes may be one of the means to be em- 
 ployed by the Prince of Peace, to put an end to 
 war among mankind. 
 
 A tax for the support of idolatry, is another in- 
 
 * Vide Note XXXII. 
 
RESPECTING PAYMENT OF TRIBUTE. 
 
 16 
 
 9 
 v 
 
 stance in point. This is the case put by. Dr parr τι. 
 
 Watts in his excellent “ Essay on Civil Power 
 in Things Sacred :” “ If a heathen prince impose 
 a tenth penny on all his subjects, as a tax to main- 
 tain heathen worship, would a Christian willingly 
 pay it, and think himself bound in conscience to 
 do it?”* The good Doctor puts it in the inter- 
 rogative form, under the impression that the ques- 
 tion could be answered only in one way. Well 
 acquainted as he was with the strange tortuosities 
 of the human mind under the power of prejudice, 
 he little dreamed that just about a hundred years 
 after the publication of his valuable tract, a Chris- 
 tian man, denying like him the lawfulness of Ci- 
 
 * A New Essay on Civil Power in Things Sacred, or an En- 
 quiry after an Established Religion consistent with the Just Li- 
 berties of Mankind, and practicable under every form of Civil 
 Government. Works, vol. vi. p. 24. 
 
 + “ The doctrine of Prejudices” is discussed with great judg- 
 ment in the third chapter of the Second Part of Dr Watts’ Treatise 
 on Logic. The following picture is very forcibly sketched. 
 Every body, but the original (who lives in our age as well as in Dr 
 Watts’) will recognise it. ‘“ By what means soever the dogma- 
 tist came by his opinions, whether by his senses or his fancy, his 
 education or his own reading, he believes them all with the same 
 assurance that he does a mathematical truth; he has scarcely 
 any mere probabilities that belong to him ; every thing with him 
 is certain and infallible: every punctilio in religion is an article 
 of his faith, and he answers all manner of objections by a so- 
 vereign contempt. Persons of this kind are seldom convinced of 
 any mistake. A full assurance of their own notions makes all 
 the difficulties on their side vanish so entirely, that they think 
 every point of their belief is written with sunbeams, and wonder 
 how any one should find a difficulty in it. They are amazed 
 that learned men should make a controversy of what is to them 
 so perspicuous, and indubitable. The lowest rank of people, 
 both in learned and in vulgar life, is very subject to this ob- 
 stinacy.”"—Logic, P. ii. C. 3. ὃ 6.1. Works, vol. vy. p. 105: 
 
104 
 
 PART II. 
 
 Tax for the 
 support of a 
 eivil estab- 
 lishment of 
 religion. 
 
 The religious 
 establish- 
 ments of this 
 country. 
 
 ON THE LAW OF CHRIST 
 
 vil Establishments of religion, should publicly 
 declare that were the self-called Christian govern- 
 ment of Britain to impose a tax for the mainte- 
 nance of the most impure and cruel of all heathen 
 idolatries, he would consider it his duty to pay it, 
 and would cheerfully do so as a piece of obedi- 
 ence to Jesus Christ. Most men would consider 
 this as rather an extraordinary way of “ honour- 
 ing the Lord with his substance.” An opinion like 
 this is in no danger of making converts, except 
 among those who have a very strong predisposi- 
 tion to receive it; and on such persons experi- 
 ence seems to teach that any thing like reason- 
 ing is thrown away. 
 
 The limitation of the obligation of the law of 
 tribute, however, which at this time has the strong- 
 est claims on our attention, is that which, in the 
 estimation of many, exists, in the case of taxes 
 imposed for the support of a civil establishment 
 of a particular modification of religion. This 
 question, in its own nature highly interesting, in- 
 volving in it many most important fundamental 
 principles of religion, psychology, morals, govern- 
 ment, and political economy, is peculiarly interest- 
 ing at present, as its right settlement is necessary 
 to the safe quiet of many consciences, and may 
 have a most powerful influence on the ultimate 
 arrangement of the great practical measures, 
 which, sooner or later, must be taken in this 
 country and throughout Europe, in reference to 
 the complete disseveration of Church and State. 
 
 Every body knows that in this country two 
 forms of Christianity—that embodied in the 
 
RESPECTING PAYMENT OF TRIBUTE. 
 
 Articles and Liturgy of the Church of England, 
 and that embodied in the Westminster Confession, 
 Catechisms, and Presbyterial form of Church go- 
 vernment—have received the formal sanction of 
 the civil authorities of the empire,—the first in 
 England and Ireland, and the second in Scotland, 
 —and public provision has been made for the 
 support of the religious buildings, and ministers, 
 necessary for the performance of public worship 
 according to these forms. That provision chiefly 
 arises from a tax on land, under the name of tithe 
 or teind, and in some places, as in this city, from 
 a tax on a certain class of the inhabitants—rated 
 according as they reside within certain limits, and 
 occupy houses paying a certain rent.* 
 
 The great body of those who were most actively 
 engaged in settling the two Protestant Establish- 
 ments, were, as every one knows who has studied 
 the history of this country, not chiefly actuated 
 by religious principles—they sought secular ends 
 in a secular spirit. Even the truly religious men, 
 who took part in these transactions, had their 
 minds very imperfectly, if at all, enlightened in 
 the spiritual nature of Christ’s kingdom, and in 
 the proper limits of civil dominion. Glad to be 
 delivered from a spiritual tyranny which had con- 
 verted the secular power into its slave, they too 
 readily gave that power an authority, in reference 
 to the church, to which it had no just claim, and 
 thankfully received as favours what, if they had 
 been better informed, they would have resisted as 
 usurpations of Christ’s authority. When dissent 
 
 * Vide Note XXXII. 
 
 165 
 
 PARE it: 
 
 Views of their 
 founders. 
 
166 
 
 PART II. 
 
 Views and 
 conduct of 
 
 the Friends. 
 
 Progress of 
 the Volun- 
 tary princi- 
 ple. 
 
 ON THE LAW OF CHRIST 
 
 made its appearance, the ground on which it rest- 
 ed was rather dissatisfaction with the corruptions 
 of the Establishment, than disapprobation of the 
 Establishment itself; and in consequence of this, 
 there was little conscientious scruple as to the 
 support of that which, though seen to be at pre- 
 sent corrupt, was considered as capable of being 
 converted into an important instrument of good.* 
 
 The Friends, commonly. called the Quakers, 
 from the commencement of their existence as a 
 separate religious body, have held the principle of 
 the inconsistency of a civil Establishment of reli- 
 gion with the essential principles of Christianity, 
 and with beautiful straight-forwardness, have fol- 
 lowed out their conviction to its fair practical con- 
 sequences, by refusing, at all hazards, every thing 
 like positive support to a system, which they con- 
 scientiously condemned.+ 
 
 The true fundamental principle of dissent—the 
 voluntary principle—steadily but gradually made 
 its way among the denominations of Christians, 
 whom the corruptions of the Establishments had 
 driven from their communion, till it has become 
 almost a universal characteristic. Notwithstand- 
 ing this, with the exception of a very few indivi- 
 duals, the great body of these denominations con- 
 tinued to pay the religious taxes; and the de- 
 fences, or rather apologies, to be met with for 
 their conduct in their writings, show how very 
 willingly they clung to any thing which wore the 
 appearance of a reason, which could excuse them 
 from taking a course, which must have exposed 
 
 * Vide Note XXXIII. + Vide Note XXXIV. 
 
RESPECTING PAYMENT OF TRIBUTE. 
 
 them not only to obloquy and spoiling of their 
 goods, but which must have broken up many 
 pleasant and useful connexions which they had 
 formed with Churchmen. Few things have amaz- 
 ed me more than the flimsiness of the pretexts 
 under which Dissenters have attempted to escape 
 from the charge of inconsistency, and “ building 
 again the things which they had destroyed,” in 
 contributing to the support of a system which 
 they both implicitly and explicitly, condemned as 
 unscriptural, unjust, and impolitic.* 
 
 Of late the attention of the Christian public, in 
 both ends of the island, has been strongly turne 
 to this subject; and 1 am sure 1 do not over- 
 state the truth when I say, that in few questions 
 are the minds of conscientious men at present 
 more painfully interested, than how far they are 
 warranted, by the voluntary payment of church 
 taxes, to contribute to the permanence of an or- 
 der of things, which they are fully persuaded is 
 inconsistent with the mind of God and the law 
 of Christ Jesus.| That the civil Establishment 
 of religion in any form is so, is my firm convic- 
 tion; and though it is no object of this lecture to 
 discuss that point,—already in my estimation 
 enough has been said to show, that this convic- 
 tion rests on immoveable foundations.{ 
 
 The question which is now before us, is not 
 whether civil Establishments are in accordance 
 with or in opposition to the will of God; but 
 whether a person, who is conscientiously con- 
 
 * Vide Note XXXV. + Vide Note XXXVI. 
 + Vide Note XXXVII. 
 
 167 
 
 PART II. 
 
 Is the pay- 
 ment of 
 church taxes 
 consistent 
 with that 
 principle? 
 
 The question 
 stated 
 
168 
 
 PART II. 
 
 —and resoly- 
 ed, 
 
 ON THE LAW OF CHRIST 
 
 vinced that they are not accordant with,—that 
 they are opposed to that will,—is morally bound, 
 or can even safely consent, to pay a tax specifi- 
 cally imposed for their maintenance. The deter- 
 mination of this question depends on the cireum- 
 stance, whether in the estimation of the indivi- 
 dual, and in truth, the voluntary payment of a 
 tax for that specific purpose, is, on his part, to 
 sanction and support that which he accounts to be 
 sinful. 
 
 I most cordially agree in the sentiment ex- 
 pressed with his usual terseness and force, by my 
 much esteemed friend and brother, Mr Marshall, 
 to whom so prominent a place has been assigned 
 in this holy warfare, and who has so worthily ful- 
 filled its difficult duties; that to make it the ob- 
 vious duty of a man to refuse payment of a tax 
 levied for ecclesiastical purposes by the civil power, 
 a conviction both that its object is sinful, and that 
 its payment is an implied approbation of that ob- 
 ject, is necessary: “Though we be convinced that 
 ecclesiastical demands are unjust, and impolitie, 
 and oppressive, we are not warranted on Christian 
 principles,” I would rather say, not bound by Chris- 
 tian principles, “ to refuse compliance with them, 
 so long as they are the law of the land. We are 
 warranted, indeed, in such a case, and not only 
 warranted but required, to use every exertion to 
 have the law repealed ; yet the method of passive 
 resistance, as it is called, seems not a constitu- 
 tional but vexatious method, calculated to em- 
 barrass the civil government, and therefore not to 
 be resorted to” except where duty compels, “ by 
 
RESPECTING PAYMENT OF TRIBUTE. 169 
 
 those who wish to lead quiet and peaceable lives, parr τι. 
 in godliness and honesty. On the other hand, if 
 the law which sanctions the ecclesiastical demands 
 be regarded as a sinful law; if it be considered 
 as invading the prerogatives of God and of his 
 Son Jesus Christ ; if the government which makes 
 and enforces it, appears to step beyond its proper 
 sphere, and to legislate where no earthly autho- 
 rity should dare to intermeddle—in that case, it 
 would seem that to yield active compliance would 
 be to violate every principle of duty, and to obey 
 men rather than God.”* 
 
 The only two principles on which the conduct 
 of a person who conscientiously disapproves of 
 civil Establishments, can be defended in paying a 
 tax for their support, are, either that the payment 
 of a tax is not a moral act, or that though it is, 
 it does not imply in it any sanction to an undue 
 interference with the prerogatives of God or of his 
 Son Jesus Christ. The first of these principles 
 has already been fully discussed, and, I apprehend, 
 satisfactorily disposed of.+ 
 
 The most plausible form which the second of ΑΝ δ 
 
 tablishment 
 of religion 
 
 these principles assumes, is this ;—that the civil nota morat 
 government, in establishing a particular form of ΗΝ 
 religion, does not interfere with the prerogatives 
 
 of God, or the laws of Christ, or the rights of con- 
 science at all, but merely employs a certain class 
 
 of religious teachers, as a species of moral police, 
 
 for the prevention of crime and the promoting of 
 good order. This seems to be Warburton’s argu- 
 ment, who says, “ that it is unjust in any who are 
 
 * Marshall’s Reply to Inglis, p. 282. + Pp. 132-134 supra. 
 M 
 
170 
 
 ON THE LAW OF CHRIST 
 
 parti. not of the Established Church to refuse payment 
 
 of tithes, as they contribute to the maintenance 
 of opinions different from their own, because this 
 maintenance is not assigned by the public for the 
 support of opinions, but for the use and necessities 
 of the state: With as good reason, therefore, 
 might they refuse to pay other taxes which, in 
 their several applications, are for the same civil 
 purpose. The difference is only accidental : church ἡ 
 officers happen to have religious opinions, and 
 civil officers sometimes none.” * 
 
 This statement, though it is in some degree 
 specious, is not at all satisfactory. For, in the 
 first place, the assertion is not true. What is 
 established, or pretended to be established, by 
 publie civil authority in both countries, is not a 
 moral police; but the Christian religion, and the 
 Christian church. The doctrines of the one, and 
 the ordinances of the other, are sanctioned and 
 
 * Warburton’s Alliance, Book ii. Chap. iii. pp. 124, 125.— 
 Warburton saw clearly that on no other principle could the 
 
 justice of requiring Dissenters to contribute to the support of an 
 
 establishment be maintained. He distinctly states, “ that no 
 contribution to a public maintenance, could be lawfully de- 
 manded of those who are not members, of an wnestablished church ; 
 for in this case it would be indeed for maintenance of opinions 
 which they think erroneous: to which no one can be obliged to 
 contribute: as they justly may to what by covenant and com- 
 pact is expressly directed to promote the good of that civil po- 
 licy of which they are members.”—P. 126. According to the 
 Bishop, if a tax is exacted for the maintenance of certain reli- 
 gious opinions solely, then no one who disapproves of these, can 
 be obliged to contribute. On this principle he would have de- 
 cidedly condemned regium donum, and parliamentary grants to 
 dissenting bodies. It is only as civil functionaries that clergy 
 can have any claim on public support—and to make them civil 
 functionaries, they must be allied to the State. 
 
RESPECTING PAYMENT OF TRIBUTE. 
 
 171 
 
 enacted by the powers that were. It was the parr τι. 
 
 avowed declaration of the legislatures when the 
 Establishments were formed, that they were to be 
 exclusive ; and it was their will that God should 
 not be worshipped in these realms, except in the 
 manner which they had sanctioned.* Even on the 
 supposition which the progress of knowledge and 
 liberty has happily converted into fact, that I am 
 not compelled to listen to and profess their doc- 
 trines, nor to engage in their ordinances; can 1 
 shut my eyes on the foul dishonour thus done to 
 the Head of the church, and the deep injury in- 
 flicted on that portion of my Christian brethren 
 (for I am not ready to unchristianize all members 
 of Established churches), who may be connected 
 with such institutions? In every Established 
 church, where compulsory provision prevails, the 
 financial law of Christ’s church is repealed. In 
 every Established church, where a civil sanction 
 is given to religious truth, the rights of consci- 
 ence and of God are insulted and invaded. In all 
 Established churches, the laws of Christ in refer- 
 ence to the admission and exclusion of members, 
 are in a great measure put in abeyance, and the 
 
 * The following quotation from Act 69, Parliam. 6. Jam. VI. 
 sufficiently proves these assertions in reference to the Scottish 
 Establishment :—“ There is no other face of kirk, nor other face 
 of religion, than is presently at this time, by the favour of God, 
 established within this realm, which therefore is ever styled 
 God’s true religion, the true and Christian religion, and a per- 
 fect religion, which, by manifold acts of Parliament, all within 
 this realm are bound to profess and subscribe, recanting all doc- 
 trines and errors repugnant thereto ;” and “ all magistrates, she- 
 riffs, &c.” are ordained to “ search, apprehend, and punish all 
 contraveners.” 
 
7 ON THE LAW OF CHRIST 
 
 parti. Whole order of the institution, as essentially a vo- 
 
 ~_ luntary society, subverted.* To an enlightened 
 Christian, a civil Establishment of Christianity 
 must seem of all devices the best calculated, 
 while retaining the name of that religion, to neu- 
 tralize and counteract its effects, both in convert- 
 ing the world and edifying the church. 
 
 It manifests a great deal of “ voluntary humi- 
 lity,” on the part of the Established ministers of 
 religion, to be content to be considered as “a 
 moral constabulary,” hired by the civil govern- 
 ment to keep the lieges in order; but we cannot 
 shut our eyes to the fact, that this is not the place 
 which, in the system they are desirous to uphold, 
 they are intended to occupy.+ According to that 
 
 * This conviction seems to have forced itself on the mind of 
 some good men, who yet never left the Established Church. 
 The following notice in Boston’s Memoirs, is interesting :— 
 ‘‘ Having purposely studied the question, Who have right to 
 baptism and are to be baptized, I wrote my thoughts thereon 
 also. And being one day in conversation on that head with Mr 
 William Bird, dissenting minister at Barmoor, in England, he 
 presented to me Fulwood’s Discourse of the Visible Church, for 
 clearing me. Bringing home the said book with me, I consi- 
 dered it, and wrote also some animadversions on a part of it. 
 From that time I had little fondness for national churches, 
 strictly and properly so called, as of equal latitude with the na- 
 tions; and wished for an amendment of the constitution of our 
 own church, as to the membership thereof.”—Memoirs of the Life 
 and Writings of Thomas Boston, Per. viii. p. 141. Edin. 1813. 
 
 + The phrase “ moral constabulary” is of clerical coinage. 
 The late Dr Inglis has the credit of giving it currency. It calls 
 up Richard Baxter’s cutting remark: “ I thought it once a 
 scornful indignity, that some fellows attempted to put upon the 
 ministry, that denied them to be ministers of Christ, and would 
 have had them called the ministers of the state, and dealt with 
 accordingly. But it seems they did not much cross the judg- 
 ments of some of the ministers themselves, who are ready to 
 
RESPECTING PAYMENT OF TRIBUTE. 173 
 
 system, they are the sole legitimate ministers of parr τι. 
 religion in the land where they dwell; the doc- 
 
 trines they preach, or ought to preach, the only 
 
 true doctrines; the ordinances they administer, 
 
 the only genuine ordinances: and till 1 can bring 
 
 myself to believe all this, I cannot conscientiously 
 support either them or their system. 
 
 But supposing that the statement were true, Thovgh it 
 
 were, ἃ con- 
 
 that a civil establishment of Christianity were just Sot cu 
 
 senter could 
 not support 
 
 a system of moral police, I could not conscien- it. 
 tiously support it. I believe that Christianity can 
 do more than all the institutions of civil govern- 
 ment to promote the security and happiness of 
 mankind ; but it must be Christianity in her true 
 character, like her Author, “ not of this world,” 
 come from heaven, going to heaven, and, during 
 her sojourn on earth, by her truth, understood 
 and believed, enlightening the mind, transforming 
 the character, guiding the conduct of its inhabit- 
 ants. ‘“ Christianity,” to borrow the profound 
 thoughts and beautiful words of Robert Hall, 
 “ Christianity will civilize, it is true; but it is 
 only when it is allowed to develope the energies 
 by which it sanctifies. Christianity will incon- 
 ceivably ameliorate the present condition of being 
 —who doubts it? Its universal prevalence, not 
 in the name, but in reality, will convert this world 
 into a semi-paradisaical state ; but it is only while 
 it is permitted to prepare its inhabitants for a 
 better. Let her be urged to forget her celestial 
 origin and destiny—to forget that she came from 
 
 put the same scorn upon their own calling.”—Bavter’s Gildas Sal- 
 rianus, p. 222. Lond. 1656. 
 
174 
 
 ON THE LAW OF CHRIST 
 
 part u. God, and returns to God; and whether she be 
 
 employed by the artful and enterprising as the 
 instrument of establishing a spiritual empire and 
 dominion over mankind, or by the philanthropist 
 as the means of promoting their civilization and 
 improvement—she resents the foul indignity, 
 claps her wings, and takes her flight, leaving no- 
 thing but a base and sanctimonious hypocrisy in 
 her room.”* In transforming what should be a 
 Christian church into a system of moral police, 
 there is involved, on the part of the church, un- 
 faithfulness in submitting, for “ filthy lucre,” to a 
 degradation her Lord has not warranted ; and, on 
 the part of the State, folly in weakening the civi- 
 lizing influence of the church by the very means 
 professedly employed to increaseand perpetuate it.t+ 
 
 Even on the principle held by some good men, 
 that an ecclesiastical civil Establishment, is a mere 
 creature of man—a thing with which religion, at 
 least the religion of Christ, has nothing to do—that 
 her clergyare not, andcannot be hisministers,—and 
 her members are not, and cannot be his people: 
 even on this principle, I do not see how an en- 
 lighted Christian could be vindicated in volunta- 
 rily supporting the civil government, in setting 
 up such a caricature of the Christian religion and 
 the Christian church. Could he ever bring him- 
 self to support the State, if it should conceive 
 that a scenic representation on our theatres of 
 the facts of the gospel history, and among the rest 
 
 * Hall’s Address to Eustace Carey. Works, vol. i. pp. 312, 
 
 + Vide Note XXXVIII. 
 
RESPECTING PAYMENT OF TRIBUTE. 
 
 the crucifixion, and the divinely appointed com- 
 memoration of it, was well fitted to serve the pur- 
 pose of general civilization? This would be but 
 a somewhat exaggerated form of the profanation, 
 that, to a fearful extent, does prevail, and must 
 prevail, in all civil Establishments. To me it 
 appears as clear as any such point of practical 
 truth can be expected to be, that to men consci- 
 entiously persuaded that a civil Establishment of 
 religion necessarily implies usurpation of Christ’s 
 authority, on the part of the government who 
 forms it, and neglect and disobedience of his laws 
 on the part of those who avail themselves of it,— 
 when called on to pay a tax for its support, there 
 remains but one choice—“ not to be parties to 
 the act, but to submit to the penalty.” 
 
 This plain affair has been involved in perplex- 
 ity by statements about the vested rights of the 
 church and churchmen—and the hazards in which 
 property in all its forms would be involved, were 
 church taxes generally refused to be paid.* There 
 is really no mystery in the matter. The tithe or 
 teind, is a tax on land of very ancient date. The 
 man who buys land, buys it with this burden, and 
 with whatever prospect there may be of its being 
 lightened or removed :—while it continues he 
 must pay it, or he must take the consequences of 
 not paying it,—and this is the whole of it. If 
 the requisition is not only essentially unjust, but 
 involves him who pays it in guilt, length of time 
 cannot change its nature, and the law can scarcely 
 hold him to be a bad subject who says,—though 
 
 * Vide Note XXXIX. 
 
 175 
 
 PART II. 
 
 Vested rights 
 of the church 
 and church- 
 men consi- 
 dered. 
 
176 
 
 ON THE LAW OF CHRIST 
 
 part u. 1 cannot conscientiously pay this tax, you have 
 
 the power of taking it from me; and whatever I 
 may think of the exertion of such a power, I will 
 use no unconstitutional means to escape from its 
 consequences. With regard to the annuity-tax 
 in this city, it is obviously merely a tax on a cer- 
 tain portion of the inhabitants, rated on them ac- 
 cording as they live within certain limits, and oc- 
 cupy houses of a particular rental. The man who 
 conscientiously refuses to pay it, does not resist 
 the law ;* he merely says, [ cannot without sin 
 voluntarily pay this tax: if any of my property 
 goes for such a purpose, it must be taken from 
 me. And no man who chooses to buy property 
 burdened with tithe, or to occupy a house, the 
 rent of which subjects him to the Annuity, in the 
 slightest degree violates his duty as a peaceable 
 subject, when he refuses, voluntarily to pay either, 
 leaving it to the law, or those interested in the 
 execution of it, to see to what they may account 
 their own rights and interests.t+ 
 
 Indeed, this attempt to mystify a plain ques- 
 tion, is but a particular exemplification of one 
 leading character of the system,—its tendency to 
 entwist itself with all the arrangements of civil 
 society, so as to make it all but impossible to live 
 in a country where it prevails, without getting 
 entangled and polluted by it. Its prophetic sym- 
 bol is represented as commanding, that “no man 
 
 * “« There may be a refusal to obey, where there is no resist- 
 ance. —Ewing on the Duty of Christians to Civil Government, 
 p- 15. 
 
 + Vide Note XL. 
 
RESPECTING PAYMENT OF TRIBUTE. iW 
 
 might buy or sell, save he that had its mark,” parr ΤΙ. 
 either in his hand or in his forehead.* The image 
 of buying and selling naturally describes the en- 
 joyment of civil rights in the affairs of this world, 
 and the enjoyment of these, every Establishment 
 seeks more or less to appropriate exclusively to 
 those who receive its mark. It is surely quite 
 enough, while such a system continues, if those 
 who disapprove of it, patiently bear the inconve- 
 niences and injustice done them, in their persons 
 and properties. It is rather hard, to be told, that 
 they have no right to hold certain properties or 
 to occupy certain houses; and that they cannot 
 submit peaceably to the penalty of what they ac- 
 count an unjust law, without being calumniated 
 as movers of sedition, and enemies of the public 
 peace. 
 
 A second limitation under which the law of secona timi- 
 tribute must be understood is, that we are not illegality of 
 morally bound to pay an illegal tax. There are 
 few men now who regard the conduct of Hamp- 
 den, in refusing to pay ship-money, when illegally 
 demanded by Charles the First, with any other 
 sentiments than those of admiration and grati- 
 tude—or who contemplate with other feelings 
 than contempt and disapprobation, the faithless 
 monarch, and his still more unprincipled minister, 
 the apostate Strafford, who wished “ Mr Hamp- 
 den well whipped into his right senses ;” and “ if 
 the rod,” says he, “ be so used, that it smart not, 
 I shall be the more sorry.”+ The necessity of 
 
 * Rev. ἘΠῚ} ΤΩ: 
 
 + Lord Nugent’s Memorials of Hampden, Edin, Rey. vol. liv. 
 p- 526. 
 
178 
 
 PART II. 
 
 Third limita- 
 tion—the ob- 
 ject of the 
 magistrate’s 
 office. 
 
 ON THE LAW OF CHRIST 
 
 such an interference, we trust, will not soon re- 
 turn; but if it should, Hampden is not likely to 
 want followers. Submission to an illegal tax, as 
 to any other act of oppression, is not necessarily 
 wrong; in particular cases, it may be undoubtedly 
 right, though in no case, where the government 
 is essentially free, should the injustice be sub- 
 mitted to, without protest against it, and the em- 
 ployment of constitutional means for redress. 
 
 The only other limitation is that, which origin- 
 ates in the magistrate going entirely out of his: 
 sphere, and imposing taxes for purposes with 
 which he, as a magistrate, has nothing to do. All 
 taxes for the support of religion come under this 
 head as well as the first.*—Because they are 
 taxes for a purpose with which the magistrate, in 
 his official character, has nothing to do, we are 
 not morally bound to pay them, as because they 
 are taxes for a purpose we account sinful, we are 
 bound not to pay them.t+ 
 
 * “Tt is not a whit more equitable, though it may be less 
 cruel and absurd, to compel Dissenters to contribute to the re- 
 venues of the Established Church, than it would be to compel 
 them to conform to its doctrines, its worship, and its govern- 
 ment. The latter is only a greater stretch of usurped autho- 
 rity. The civil power has just as much right to compel the one 
 as to compel the other. If it has no right to coerce a man’s re- 
 ligious profession, it has none to tax him for the support of its 
 own. Once admit the right of private judgment; and then the 
 right to choose, and to give effect to that choice, by exclusively 
 voluntary means, follows as a matter of course. Now, as civil go- 
 vernment is necessarily distinguished by compulsory authority, 
 and is ordained for civil society only, if it shall presume to em- 
 ploy its coercive powers in religious matters, it transgresses its 
 proper bounds, and becomes unjust and oppressive.”—Dr Rus- 
 sell’s Speech at a Meeting in Dundee, p. 10. 
 
 + Vide Note XLI. 
 
RESPECTING PAYMENT OF TRIBUTE. 
 
 To the question, can it ever be the duty of 
 Christians to resist the payment of tribute, it is 
 
 179 
 
 PART II. 
 
 May a Chris- 
 tian resist the 
 
 enough to reply—that it does not appear at all py: 
 
 an impossible thing, that a government, by its 
 extravagant and wicked expenditure, and unjust 
 and burdensome impositions, may become an in- 
 tolerable nuisance ; and that even a single very 
 unreasonable and oppressive tax, may bring the 
 State into imminent hazard, and make it a ques- 
 tion with the wisest and best of the citizens,— 
 what is the course which, in such circumstances, 
 they ought to adopt? The tax for the support 
 of the Episcopal Establishment in Scotland, was 
 one cause of the overthrow of the government 
 which enacted it; and I am not prepared to 
 condemn the conduct of our forefathers, at the 
 revolution of 1688, nor, though decidedly dis- 
 approving of fighting for religion, even of those of 
 them who fell in the noble attempt to free their 
 enslaved country, at a previous period. The names 
 of Russell, and Sidney, and Argyle, are not less 
 honourable and honoured, than those of their more 
 fortunate successors.* 
 
 * The elaborate yet feeble attempt of Mr Plumer Ward, in 
 his ““ Historical Essay on the Real Character and Amount of the 
 Precedent of the Revolution of 1688,” to tarnish the fair fame of 
 these worthies, can produce but little effect ; but the mere fact 
 of such a thing having been produced and published, at this time 
 of day, proves the importance of reiterated statements of the 
 principles and their grounds, on which these noble-minded men 
 counted not their lives dear to them. We trust that the Queen’s 
 Historiographer for Scotland, in the continuation of his great 
 work, will take an opportunity of exposing the inaccuracies of 
 this calumniator of these martyrs of patriotism,—as well as the 
 still grosser misrepresentations by the author of “* Montrose and 
 
 tribute in any 
 
 case 
 
180 
 
 PART II. 
 
 Our Lord's 
 precept and 
 example. 
 
 ON THE LAW OF CHRIST 
 
 I am sure the attempt to uphold such an Esta- 
 blishment, as that which is the shame of Ireland’s 
 government, and the curse of her inhabitants—an 
 Kstablishment condemned and hated by a prodi- 
 gious majority of those for whose benefit it ought 
 to exist, if it exist at all,—by the means through 
 which that Establishment has long been upheld, 
 would, if persisted in but for a few years, in either 
 of the other two departments of the empire, pro- 
 duce revolution. Any attempt to compel a people 
 to support an institution, especially an ecclesiastical 
 institution, which calls into operation the deepest 
 and most powerful springs of human action, con- 
 science and religion, to which even a large pro- 
 portion of the people, though not a majority, is 
 decidedly opposed, is so obviously hazardous, that 
 we cannot doubt that the growing light, as to the 
 principles of government, will prevent our rulers 
 from carrying such an experiment to the point of 
 danger. The sooner they give up the experiment 
 altogether, they will find it the better for the 
 peace and prosperity of the country. 
 
 Our Lord’s precept and example have been ap- 
 pealed to as authorizing, and even requiring the 
 unrestricted payment of tribute ; and it has been 
 asserted, that no Christian can refuse to pay a 
 tax, even for what he accounts a sinful purpose, 
 
 the Covenanters,” of the martyrs of religion in that dark period 
 of our history. It is a work for which the historic research— 
 acuteness—and love of liberty, manifested in his writings, pre- 
 eminently qualify him,—a work worthy of his talents and ac- 
 quirements, congenial with his principles, and appropriate to 
 his office. 
 
RESPECTING PAYMENT OF TRIBUTE. 
 
 181 
 
 without “ violating a positive precept of his Di- parr i. 
 
 vine Master, and turning his back on his exam- 
 ple.”* These are strong words; let us see if they 
 are supported by correspondingly strong argu- 
 ments. Our Lord’s precept is recorded in Mat- 
 thew xxii. 16-22; and his practice is described in 
 Matthew xvii. 24-27. 
 
 “ And they sent out unto him their disciples 
 with the Herodians, saying, Master, we know that 
 thou art true, and teachest the way of God in 
 truth, neither carest thou for any man: for thou 
 regardest not the person of men. Tell us there- 
 fore, What thinkest thou? Is it lawful to give 
 tribute unto Cesar, or not? But Jesus perceived 
 their wickedness, and said, Why tempt ye me, ye 
 hypocrites? Show me the tribute-money. And 
 they brought unto him a penny. And he saith 
 unto them, Whose is this image and superscrip- 
 tion? They say unto him, Cesar’s. Then saith 
 he unto them, Render therefore unto Cesar the 
 things which are Cesar’s; and unto God the 
 things that are God’s. When they had heard 
 these words, they marvelled, and left him, and 
 went their way.” 
 
 “ And when they were come to Capernaum, 
 they that received tribute-money came to Peter, 
 and said, Doth not your master pay tribute? He 
 saith, Yes. And when he was come into the 
 house, Jesus prevented him, saying, What think- 
 est thou, Simon? of whom do the kings of the 
 earth take custom or tribute ? of their own child- 
 
 * Note, Edin. Advertiser, Nov. 24, 1837. Vide Documents, 
 No. VI. 
 
182 
 
 ON THE LAW OF CHRIST 
 
 parT i. ren, or of strangers? Peter saith unto him, of 
 
 Precept. 
 
 strangers. Jesus saith unto him, Then are the 
 children free. Notwithstanding, lest we should 
 offend them, go thou to the sea, and cast an hook, 
 and take up the fish that first cometh up; and 
 when thou hast opened his mouth, thou shalt find 
 a piece of money: that take, and give unto them 
 for me and thee.” 
 
 With regard to the first of these passages, the 
 inquiry proposed to our Lord, which was obviously 
 intended to entrap him, referred to the κηνσος, an 
 annual capitation tax, imposed by the Roman go- 
 vernment. They who proposed the question hoped 
 that, however he might reply to it, they would 
 find occasion either to denounce him to the mul- 
 titude, or accuse him to the Roman government. 
 Instead of directly answering the question, he re- 
 quested them to show him a Roman denarius, a 
 coin in common use among the Jews at that time. 
 On its being produced, he asked whose image and 
 name and titles it bore, and on being told that 
 they were Cesar’s, he uttered these words, so full 
 of truth and wisdom, “ Render to Cesar the things 
 that are Ceesar’s, and to God the things that are 
 God's.” 
 
 Some interpreters have supposed that these 
 words of our Lord were not intended to be a re- 
 ply to the question at all, and that they are in- 
 deed, what is ordinarily called, a dexterous go-by 
 —an evasion of a question which it is felt not to 
 be wise or safe to answer. I concur with those 
 expositors who consider our Lord as really reply- 
 ing to the question, but giving the reply in the 
 
RESPECTING PAYMENT OF TRIBUTE. 
 
 form of a general precept, including the particu- 
 lar case referred to, and couched in such terms as 
 there was no possibility of objecting to, with any 
 appearance of plausibility. It is as if our Lord 
 had said, ‘The common circulation of Czesar’s coin 
 among you, shows that you stand in a certain re- 
 lation to him as your ruler. Perform all the du- 
 ties which are due to him in that relation ;’ but, 
 at the same time, glancing at the Herodians, who 
 carried their compliance with the will of their 
 Roman governors to an undue length, in follow- 
 ing some of their heathen customs, he adds, “ Ren- 
 der to God the things that are God’s.”  ‘ Do not 
 let your obedience to Cxsar interfere with your 
 obedience to God.’ We have no reason to be- 
 lieve that, at this time, any tax specifically for 
 the support of idolatry, was exacted from the 
 Jews. Certainly the κηνσος was not a tax of this 
 kind—and the second part of our Lord’s precept, 
 in our apprehension, is equivalent to a distinct 
 prohibition to pay any such tax; for that would 
 have been to have rendered to Cesar the things 
 which are God’s. 
 
 The tribute, the payment of which by our Lord 
 is the subject of the second paragraph of the Gos- 
 pel history above cited, was not this census. The 
 great body of learned expositors* are of opinion, 
 that it was the half shekel, which, by an exposi- 
 tion of Exodus xxx. 12, scarcely defensible on 
 sound hermeneutical principles, the later Jewish 
 doctors held every adult Jew bound to pay annu- 
 
 * Lipsius, Beza, Casaubon, Grotius, Simon, Hammond, Le 
 Clerc, Kuinoel. 
 
 185 
 
 PART ILI. 
 
 Example. 
 
184 
 
 ON THE LAW OF CHRIST 
 
 vart iu. ally to the temple. The διδραχμα, was a coin of the 
 
 value of halfashekel. The collectors of this tax, 
 who, according to a Talmudic tract, ‘on the 15th 
 ef the month Adar, sat without Jerusalem, and 
 quietly asked half a shekel from every person, not 
 using violence to any who did not give it; but, 
 from the 25th day, sat in the Holy City, and 
 urged every one to give till he complied, or if he 
 made excuses, did not grant him his request, but 
 took even his garment to pledge ;”*—these col- 
 lectors came to Peter, and asked him if his Mas- 
 ter paid the Temple tax. Peter, without consult- 
 ing his Lord, answered in the affirmative. On 
 entering the house where Jesus was, Peter was 
 made to understand that his Master was aware of 
 all that had happened, by an intimation from him 
 that the demand which had been made on Him 
 was a very unreasonable one. “ΟΥ̓ whom do the 
 kings of the earth take custom or tribute? Of 
 their own children”—~. e. of their own families— 
 “or of strangers ¢” 7. 6. of those who do not belong 
 to their families,—the great body of the subjects ? 
 Peter gave the natural reply—‘“ of strangers.” 
 “ Then,” said our Lord, “ are the children free.” 
 The application was obvious. ‘ It is very incon- 
 gruous to apply to me for a tax, to uphold my 
 Father’s palace!’ “ Notwithstanding, lest we 
 should offend,” stumble “ them” who do not know 
 who I am,—go, cast a hook into the sea, and in 
 the fish you bring up you will find enough to 
 discharge their demands, both for me and for 
 yourself ! 
 
 * Tract. Talmud. Schekalim. ap. Wetstein et Kuinoel in loc. 
 
RESPECTING PAYMENT OF TRIBUTE. 
 
 It must seem strange that either of these pas- 
 sages should have been referred to, as supporting 
 the doctrine that men are to pay tribute, even 
 when it is exacted for a specific object, of which 
 they conscientiously disapprove. In the first case, 
 our Lord, in answer to an ensnaring question, 
 merely says,—‘ You ought to render to the Roman 
 government all its rights,—a precept which, if it 
 include civil tribute, as I believe it does, places 
 it on the same footing as all other acts of civil 
 obedience ; and adds what is just equivalent to 
 a declarationn—‘ whenever obedience to Czsar 
 comes into collision with obedience to God, there 
 can be no question which is to be preferred.’ There 
 is no direct reference to a tax for supporting ido- 
 latry, but there is what is equal to a declaration, 
 —‘ if such a tax should be imposed, you are not 
 to pay it.’ 
 
 In the second case, we have our Lord paying a 
 religious tax, a tax for the support of the tem- 
 ple, not because he was bound to pay it, for he 
 distinctly says he was not, but because, in the 
 whole circumstances of the case, it was better for 
 him to pay it, than not to pay it, there being no- 
 thing sinful in the object for which the tax was 
 levied ; though he was not within its legitimate 
 sphere. It was indeed a contribution, for the sup- 
 port of an ecclesiastical Establishment, which was 
 then in a very corrupted state—but that ecclesi- 
 astical Establishment had a divine sanction, which 
 no other national church can plead, and notwith- 
 standing all its corruptions, was the only church 
 God had at that time on the earth. When such 
 
 N 
 
 185 
 
 PART II. 
 
 Neither, fa- 
 vourable to 
 the doctrine 
 of the indis- 
 criminate 
 and unre- 
 stricted pay- 
 pa at tri- 
 
180 
 
 PART II. 
 
 The honour 
 and fear due 
 by Christians 
 to the magis- 
 trate. 
 
 ON THE LAW OF CHRIST 
 
 an establishment is pointed out, we will not hesi- 
 tate to support it. It is surely impossible, fairly 
 to deduce, from this fact, the conclusion, that 
 Christians are bound or even warranted to pay 
 taxes for what they account a sinful object; but 
 it is quite a legitimate inference, that in many 
 cases it is their duty to submit to be defrauded, 
 rather than throw obstacles in the way of the spi- 
 ritual advantage of mankind. 
 
 Thus have I attempted, with all the clearness in 
 my power, and all the brevity which the subject 
 admitted, to expound to you the law of Christ re- 
 specting the payment of tribute, as stated by his 
 inspired apostle; in its bearing, first, on the cir- 
 cumstances of those to whom it was originally 
 addressed, and then, on the circumstances of our- 
 selves and others, in all countries, and in all ages. 
 
 Before closing the discourse, it may be proper 
 to make a few observations on the bearing of that 
 part of the Christian law, “ Render honour to 
 whom honour is due—fear to whom fear is due,” 
 on the duty of persons placed in our circumstances. 
 Respect for civil magistrates for “ their works’ 
 sake” is due, as well as high esteem to Christian 
 ministers for the same reason. Such is the re- 
 verence due to the authority of the laws, that 
 every individual to whom a portion, though it be 
 a small portion, of that authority is delegated, 
 has a claim on respect. To “ despise govern- 
 ment” and to “ speak evil of dignities,” are sins 
 most decidedly condemned in the law of Christ ; 
 and the Christian apostle has given his sanction 
 
RESPECTING PAYMENT OF TRIBUTE. 
 
 to the command of the Jewish lawgiver, “ Thou 
 shalt not speak evil of the rulers of thy people.”* 
 It is always desirable, that the personal character 
 of the magistrate should give additional lustre to 
 his official dignity, while it is deeply to be regret- 
 ted that the follies and faults of those who fill 
 public stations have so often exerted a most per- 
 nicious influence, in diminishing the authority of 
 the laws by making it impossible, personally to 
 respect their administrators; and it is difficult to 
 say, whether Christianity has suffered most from 
 her professors and ministers basely flattering bad 
 men because they held influential stations, or, 
 from them breaking forth into unseemly vitupera- 
 tion, and ribald abuse, when the possessors of 
 power have not adopted the course of conduct 
 which appeared to them most fitted to support 
 their opinions, to promote their designs, and to ad- 
 vance their interests. It is a curious fact, that 
 the same individuals have generally been ready to 
 commit these faults in their turn. 
 
 “ Thus,” to borrow the words of an illustrious 
 defender of civil and religious liberty about a 
 century ago, “ have I endeavoured to give a just 
 account, of what the Apostle Paul hath in this 
 chapter delivered concerning ‘ the duty of civil 
 obedience, especially in the payment of tribute ;’ 
 and though some may perhaps be apt to call this 
 by the name of politics, and to censure it as fo- 
 reign to our office, and this place (which they are 
 sure to do then only, when their own notions are 
 
 * Exod. xxii. 28 ; Acts xxiii. 5. 
 
 187 
 
 PART II. 
 
 Conclusion. 
 
188 
 
 ON THE LAW OF CHRIST 
 
 partir. contradicted) yet I must declare, that I cannot 
 
 think it an unbecoming, or even an unnecessary 
 part of our care, to settle the measures of Christian 
 duty in all cases, or to endeavour to give a true ex- 
 plication of what so great an Apostle has delivered 
 with some vehemence, and as a matter of great 
 importance. All that I have now attempted is, 
 to explain what an inspired person wrote: and if 
 this explication be just, the censure must light at 
 last on the Apostle himself; who, 1 cannot but 
 think, knew very well what became his office, and 
 what belonged to his province.”* 
 
 In taking leave of this subject, I, in the name 
 of my Master, our common Lord, charge all, un- 
 der my pastoral care, “ that they be subject to 
 principalities and powers; that they obey magis- 
 trates; that they make supplications, prayers, in- 
 tercessions, and giving of thanks, for kings, and 
 all in authority; that they submit themselves to 
 every ordinance of man, for the Lord’s sake, whe- 
 ther it be to the King as supreme, or unto go- 
 vernors, as those sent by him for the punishment 
 of evil doers, and the praise of them that do well; 
 for so is the will of God, that with well-doing 
 they put to silence the ignorance of foolish men. 
 As free, and not using their liberty as a cloak of 
 maliciousness, but as the servants of God. Hon- 
 our all men. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. 
 Honour the king.” + 
 
 The Seceders of Scotland, like the Dissenters 
 of England, have often been calumniated as dis- 
 
 * Hoadly’s Measures of Submission, p. 11. 
 + Tit. iii. 1; 1 Tim. ii. 1; 1 Pet. ii. 13-18 
 
RESPECTING PAYMENT OF TRIBUTE. 
 
 189 
 
 affected to government, by men who, conscious parr ΤΙ. 
 
 that their own loyalty was the offspring of selfish- 
 ness, were indisposed and perhaps incapacitated 
 to give others credit, for principles less mercenary, 
 or more generous than those which they knew to 
 actuate themselves. The conduct of these two 
 sister bodies is the best answer to such calumnies ; 
 and ought to put these calumniators to silence, if 
 it cannot put them to shame; and I trust, that long 
 after the names Churchmen and Dissenters are 
 known only as the record of an unjustifiable dis- 
 tinction, which, originating in ignorance and sel- 
 fishness, and producing impious assumption and 
 cruel oppression, on the one side, and degrading 
 submission, or unmerited suffering, on the other, 
 ought never to have existed, and has been for 
 ever destroyed,—our descendants will continue to 
 make it evident that they are loyal subjects, be- 
 cause they are Christian men—that they “ honour 
 the king,” because they “ fear God”—that their 
 loyalty is fully as much a principle as a feeling, not 
 a childish admiration of pomp and splendour, nor 
 a weak attachment to a particular individual or 
 family, nor a sordid calculating regard to self-in- 
 terest; but an enlightened reverence for civil go- 
 vernment, as a wise and benignant ordinance of 
 God, and a manly respect for those who in his 
 providence are appointed to discharge its func- 
 tions ; and that while they “ render to Cesar the 
 things that are Czesar’s, they will” never “ render 
 to” any but “ God the things that are God’s.” 
 
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APPENDIX 
 
 OF 
 
 DOCUMENTS AND NOTES. 
 
ἀπ 
 ἢ 
 ΠΝ 
 
 τὴ me mye 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 PART FIRST. 
 
 DOCUMENTS ILLUSTRATIVE OF THE OCCASION 
 OF THE PRECEDING TREATISE. 
 
 DOCUMENT I. 
 
 PROTEST PUBLISHED IN THE SCOTSMAN NEWSPAPER, JAN. 2, 1836. 
 
 Tue subscriber, minister of the United Associate Congregation, Brough- 
 ton Place, having paid the sum of £3: 0:6, with which he was charg- 
 ed by the Chamberlain of the city, under the name of Annuity, for 
 payment of the stipends of the Established Clergy,—to prevent mis- 
 conception and to exonerate himself, thinks it necessary to make the 
 following statement :— 
 
 Holding that, on the principles of general equity, as well as of 
 Christian law, it is the duty of subjects to pay without grudging the 
 taxes imposed by their governors for general purposes, even although 
 the public revenues may not, in every case, be wisely and righteously 
 administered—he equally holds, that, on the principle, ““ We ought to 
 obey God rather than man,’—when a tax is imposed for a specific pur- 
 pose, which in the estimation of him from whom it is demanded, is sin- 
 ful, it becomes his duty, not indeed to resist the Government, but to take 
 such measures as shall make it evident to all, that if his property be 
 employed in promoting such a purpose, it is so, only in consequence 
 of “ the spoiling of his goods.” 
 
 Without reference to the subscriber's objections to that particular 
 Keclesiastical Establishment which prevails in this country, it is his 
 conscientious belief, that “‘a compulsory support of religious institu- 
 tions is inconsistent with the rights of men, the nature of religion, the 
 
194 DOCUMENTS. 
 
 spirit of the Gospel, and the express law of Jesus Christ.” For him 
 voluntarily to do any thing which would virtually deny or compro- 
 mise this principle, would be a violation of his convictions of duty ; 
 and could this have been avoided in no other way, he would have 
 considered it imperative on him to submit to the distraint of his pro- 
 perty, or the imprisonment of his person,—should those who unfortu- 
 nately are interested in the execution of what he accounts an unjust 
 law, have thought fit, in his case as in others, to carry matters to such 
 extremes. 
 
 Convinced, however, that all the desirable ends of such a passive 
 resistance, may be answered by a public protest, he takes this method 
 of declaring, that he has not voluntarily paid the tax, which he con- 
 siders as a most unwise and oppressive means of gaining an unautho- 
 rized and unrighteous end; and that he regards the exaction of it 
 from himself, as a wresting from him his property, to serve an unjust 
 purpose,—a punishment inflicted for the factitious crime of dissent— 
 a fine extorted for holding certain religious principles, and, to make 
 the injustice and insult more intolerable, that fine appropriated to the _ 
 support of a system—that of the compulsory maintenance of religious 
 institutions—which he conscientiously condemns,—in one word, “ Prr- 
 
 SECUTION FOR CONSCIENCE SAKE.” 
 JOHN BROWN. 
 
 Edinburgh, 53, Albany Street, Dec. 30, 1835. 
 
 DOCUMENT II. 
 
 STATEMENT MADE AT THE PUBLIC MEETING IN ROSE STREET 
 CHURCH, ocT. 19, 1837. 
 
 I am the only minister of the United Secession Church in this city, 
 liable to be assessed for the annuity tax. I have not paid it, and 
 while I retain my present convictions, I never will pay it. 
 
 My non-payment of this tax, and my determination not to pay it, 
 do not originate in any doubt as to the obligation of paying the taxes 
 imposed by the Government of the country where we reside ; or as 
 to the immorality of attempting to evade such payment. I consider 
 it my duty, and I have always readily performed it, to pay whatever 
 taxes the legislature impose for the general purposes of Government. 
 I should think it my duty to do so, even though I thought a particu- 
 lar tax unwise and unequal, and though I were much dissatisfied with 
 many of the measures, in the prosecution of which the revenue of the 
 
STATEMENT AT PUBLIC MEETING. 195 
 
 country was expended. In this case, I might think it right to em- 
 ploy such means as the constitution afforded me for getting rid of the 
 unwise and unjust tax, and putting an end to the improper expendi- 
 ture ; but while the tax continued to be legally exigible, I would pay 
 it “ not only for wrath, but for conscience sake,”—not only because 
 I wish to avoid punishment from men, but because I am afraid of con- 
 tracting guilt before God. 
 
 Nor do my non-payment of the annuity tax, and my determina- 
 tion not to pay it, arise from any hostility to the Established Church 
 of this country, as a religious body. Approving, with comparatively 
 slight exceptions, of her avowed creed, worship, and government, so 
 far as she conforms to these, I cordially wish her success, in her 
 strictly religious objects; and were my aid necessary, I should will- 
 ingly give her more, than she employs the hard hand of the law to wrest 
 from me, to assist her in purely voluntary exertions to promote reli- 
 gion either at home or abroad. 
 
 Still less, if possible, do my non-payment of the annuity tax, and 
 my determination not to pay it, spring from any personal unkindly 
 feeling towards the ministers of the Establishment of this city. From 
 my heart I pity them, in having those incomes, so well earned by 
 some of them, raised in a way which must be as painful to their feel- 
 ings as honourable men, as it is calculated to frustrate the great ob- 
 ject of their spiritual labours; and most sincerely do I wish that, 
 in this respect, they were as happily situated as myself,—that their 
 livings were derived from the influence of Christian truth on the 
 minds and hearts of their hearers,—a mode of support, the quality of 
 which, like that of mercy, “ is not strained, but droppeth as the gen- 
 tle rain from heaven,—being twice blessed, blessing both him who 
 gives and him who takes.” I have had but little opportunity of 
 forming an estimate of the value of the services of these ministers ; 
 but of those of them with whom I am best acquainted, I so highly 
 rate both the talents and the worth, that were there any hazard of 
 these being lost to the public, I should account it an honour to take 
 part in endeavouring, by voluntary exertion, to avert the evil. 
 
 The reason, the sole reason, why I have not paid, and, with my 
 present convictions, never will, never can, pay it, is simply that I can- 
 not do so without offering violence to a conscientious conviction, not 
 rashly nor hastily arrived at. I might hesitate about paying this tax, 
 on a ground, on which many, who do not hold my views with regard 
 to compulsory churches, do hesitate,—the ground of its very ques- 
 tionable legality,—but I readily acknowledge, that were that my only 
 
190 DOCUMENTS. 
 
 difficulty, I should pay the tax rather than expose myself to the va- 
 vied unpleasant consequences which are likely to result from my re- 
 fusal to pay it, though I would still consider it my duty, to assist 
 in having the question respecting its legality, tried before the proper 
 tribunal. 
 
 But I conscientiously disapprove of civil establishments of religion 
 in every form. This tax is avowedly imposed for the support of an 
 Established Church,—a Church from which, though she were, in 
 every other respect, all that I could wish, which is far from being the 
 case, I should find myself bound to secede, merely because she is esta- 
 blished. I cannot then voluntarily pay this tax, without appearing 
 to sanction what I really condemn. Were the tax exacted for gene- 
 ral purposes, and then appropriated by the Government to this spe- 
 cific object, though I could not but disapprove of such an arrange- 
 ment, and would consider it as my duty to endeavour constitutionally 
 to have it altered, I could pay the tax without interfering with my 
 conscientious conviction. In that case 1 would part with my money 
 not to do what I think wrong,—support an Established Church,— 
 but to do what I think right,—support the Divine ordinance of civil 
 government. If they to whom the management of the public funds 
 is, by the constitution of the Government committed, misemploy them, 
 that, so far as it is a question of moral responsibility, is more their 
 concern than mine. But it is obviously otherwise with a tax profess- 
 edly levied for an object, which I consider as not only impolitic, but 
 unjust,—not only unjust but unscriptural. For me voluntarily to 
 pay such a tax would be to assist in doing what I believe God disap- 
 proves,—it would be in inversion of the inspired maxim, “ to obey” 
 man “ rather than” God. 
 
 It is the reverse of wisdom in a Government to bring itself into col- 
 lision with the conscientious convictions of its subjects ; and if, either 
 through ignorance or disregard of the inalienable rights of conscience, 
 it does so, the dissatisfaction thus necessarily produced, is, under the 
 superintendence of that wise and benignant Providence which is still 
 educing good from evil, at once an intimation to the rulers that they are 
 wrong, and ought without delay to retrace their steps,—an intimation 
 which, if they are not very foolish, they will not disregard,—and a 
 call to the subjects to employ the constitutional means to have the 
 oppression removed,—the abuse corrected,—a call which, if they are 
 not very stupid and slavish, they will not be slow to obey. In the 
 meantime, however, while the tax continues to be exacted, profess- 
 edly for what I consider an unjust and unscriptural purpose, it is my 
 
STATEMENT AT PUBLIC MEETING. 197 
 
 duty, not indeed to resist the Government, but “ to take such mea- 
 sures as shall make it evident to all, that if any portion of my pro- 
 perty be employed in promoting an object of which I conscientiously 
 disapprove,—it is only because | have been ‘ spoiled of my goods.’” 
 
 But it may be said, you have paid this tax,—and why not pay it 
 again? It is true, that I did pay it, but not voluntarily. I accom- 
 panied my payment of it with a public declaration that I considered 
 it as an “ unwise and oppressive means of gaining an unauthorised 
 and unrighteous end,—that I regarded the exaction of it as a punish- 
 ment inflicted for the factitious crime of dissent—a fine for holding 
 certain religious principles, and, to make the injustice and the insult 
 more intolerable, this fine appropriated to the support of a system,— 
 that of the compulsory maintenance of religious institutions,—which I 
 conscientionsly condemned,—in one word, ‘ persecution for conscience 
 sake.” I did this under the conviction, whether well or ill founded, 
 that all the desirable ends of what is termed passive resistance might 
 be answered by such a public protest. That appeared to me then, 
 and it appears to me still, to be as ead a manifestation of my disap- 
 probation of the object, and of my submission to my property being 
 taken from me for that object, merely because I could not retain it, 
 as the distraint of my goods or the incarceration of my person could 
 have been. 
 
 It may be asked why, then, do you not pay the tax again under a 
 similar protest? For this plain reason, that I am convinced from ex- 
 perience that all the desirable ends of passive resistance have not been 
 gained in this way, and that a stronger manifestation, both of the ini- 
 quity of the system, and of my abhorrence of it, is likely to be made, 
 by permitting those who are unhappily interested in the execution of 
 what I account an unjust law, to avail themselves, if they so please, 
 of whatever powers the law may give them to punish me for my con- 
 scientious conviction. I consider it my duty not only to keep my 
 conscience “ void of offence,” which my public protest did ; but to do 
 this in the way most calculated to produce the greatest degree of 
 good as well as the least degree of accompanying evil. On these 
 principles I have not paid, and while they continue unaltered, I never 
 will pay the annuity tax. Such is the path which my conscientious 
 convictions have chalked out for me. I call on no man to follow me 
 farther than he is a participant with me of these convictions. “ Let 
 every man be fully persuaded in hisown mind.” “ Happy is he who 
 condemneth not himself in that thing which he alloweth.”* 
 
 * Rom. xiv. 22. 
 
108 DOCUMENTS. 
 
 DOCUMENT IIL. 
 
 LETTER ADDRESSED TO THE REV. DR JOHN BROWN, IN THE 
 EDINBURGH ADVERTISER OF ΝΟΥ͂. 14, 1837. 
 
 Sir,—In the account of the late meeting in Edinburgh to oppose 
 the annuity tax, it is stated that you expressed a determination never 
 to pay it again, as you “ could not do so without offering violence to 
 your conscientious conviction,” and that you “ resisted the tax from 
 the fear of contracting guilt before God.” This resolution is directly 
 contrary to Scripture, and tramples under foot one of the great laws 
 of the kingdom of Christ. That a Christian, with the injunctions of 
 the Apostles on this subject before his eyes, should fear to contract 
 guilt by paying tribute, is truly astonishing. I shall refer only to 
 Romans xiii. 1-7, and shall merely quote the passage. The meaning 
 is so clear, that any attempt to evade it must be utterly forced and 
 unnatural. The conscience that can resist it, must be either not in 
 subjection to the Word of God, or greatly in ignorance of that Word. 
 
 “ Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers; for there is 
 no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God. Who- 
 soever therefore resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God : 
 and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation. For ru- 
 lers 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 
 ewecute wrath upon him that doeth evil. Wherefore ye must needs 
 be subject, not only for wrath, but also for conscience’ sake. For, 
 for this cause pay ye tribute also: for they are God’s ministers, at- 
 tending continually upon this very thing. Render, therefore, to all 
 their dues ; tribute to whom tribute is due ; custom to whom custom ; 
 fear to whom fear ; honour to whom honour.” 
 
 I am aware that many expedients have been resorted to, to limit 
 the application of this apostolic rule; but it is a law of Christ, ex- 
 pressed with a fulness and precision beyond that which is to be found 
 on almost any other subject ; and it is at his peril if any man rebel 
 against it. 
 
 You, Sir, hold a very responsible situation as a minister of a nume- 
 rous congregation,—as an influential member of a large denomina- 
 tion, and as one who is employed officially in training young men 
 
LETTER FROM ROBERT HALDANE, ESQ. 199 
 
 for the ministry ; and if on so momentous a question your conscience 
 is misinformed, how mischievous must be the influence of your doc- 
 trine and conduct. I am shocked with your determination of going 
 to prison, rather than pay a tax of which you disapprove. What an 
 example is this to your congregation! What an extensive and per- 
 nicious effect must it have, not only on your own denomination, but 
 on Christians in general! What mischief is it caleulated to excite in 
 social life? To what violence and bloodshed may it not lead? Is this 
 like the doctrine and conduct of the Apostles and first Christians ? Can 
 any thing be conceived more opposite? Your views of the Scriptural 
 way in which the religion of Christ ought to be maintained, you have 
 a right to promulgate and defend by argument. But to resist a tax 
 imposed by the government under which you live, is to rebel against 
 Christ,* and in the end may kindle the flames of civil war. You 
 may attempt to excuse yourself as you will, but it must be evident 
 to those who tremble at the Word of God, and understand the im- 
 port of the passage above quoted, that a more flagrant violation of the 
 divine law has seldom been exemplified than in the line of conduct 
 which you have adopted, and the deliberate purpose which you have 
 avowed.—I am, Sir, your most obedient Servant, 
 
 ROBERT HALDANE.t+ 
 Randolph Crescent, Nov. 13, 1837. 
 
 * Vide Note XLII. 
 
 + I have been publicly aceused of want of fairness in not inserting among 
 these documents the other letters addressed to me by this gentleman ; but 
 these letters are in no proper sense documents respecting my refusal to pay 
 the annuity tax. The above letter, and the anonymous Note, No. VI. were 
 inserted, not because their authors had any right to expect their insertion, 
 but merely, because their insertion was necessary to enable the reader to un- 
 derstand some of the subsequent documents. The conceit of authorship is 
 proverbial—but a more amusing instance of it has seldom occured, than in 
 the broad hint, that the non-insertion of these letters arose from a fear 
 lest the contrast between the strength of their author’s arguments, and 
 the weakness of mine, should produce its appropriate effect on the minds of 
 my readers. My cause can searcely be more effectually served than by 
 giving publicity to his statements, as containing the pith of all that can be 
 said against it,—and, on this account, I cannot help considering those, who, 
 by their subscriptions and personal exertions, have secured not only the 
 printing but the circulation of so many of his letters, as efficient, though un- 
 intentional assistants in the attainment of the great object I have in view. 
 These letters can convince none but those who had no doubts before they 
 commenced their perusal,—and they are well fitted to excite doubt where 
 it did not previously exist, and where it did, to ripen it into disbelief. Such 
 an adversary is a powerful auxiliary. My assailant complains, too, that I 
 
200 - DOCUMENTS. 
 
 DOCUMENT IV. 
 
 LETTER TO THE EDITOR OF THE EDINBURGH ADVERTISER. 
 
 53, Albany Street, Nov. 16, 1837. 
 
 Sir,—As a correspondent in your paper of Tuesday last has made 
 very serious charges against me, both as a Christian minister and a 
 member of civil society, justice requires that I should have an oppor- 
 tunity of defending myself where I have been arraigned. I should 
 not likely otherwise have obtruded myself on your notice; but, in 
 these circumstances, I make no apology for asking, as a matter of 
 right, that you will publish, with as little delay as possible, the sub- 
 sequent observations. 
 
 In the communication referred to, I am charged by your corres- 
 pondent with having expressed “ a resolution which is directly con- 
 trary to Scripture, and tramples under foot one of the great laws of 
 the kingdom of Christ,—a law, the meaning of which is so clear, that 
 any attempt to evade it, must be utterly forced and unnatural ;” with: 
 “ having a conscience either not in subjection to the Word of God, or 
 greatly in ignorance of that Word ;” with “ setting an example which 
 must have an extensive and pernicious effect, not only in my own 
 denomination, but on Christians in general,—to excite mischief in 
 social life,—to lead to violence and bloodshed ;” with teaching “ doc- 
 trine” and “ adopting a line of conduct,” than which “ nothing can 
 be more opposite to the doctrine and conduct of the Apostles and first 
 Christians ; with “rebelling against Christ ;” with doing what “ in 
 the end may kindle the flames of civil war ;” with, in fine, “ a more 
 flagrant violation of the Divine law” than has been often exemplified ; 
 and all this aggravated by my “ responsible situation as a minister of 
 a large congregation, an influential member of a large denomination, 
 and one who is employed officially in training young men for the 
 ministry.” 
 
 The man of whom all this is true, is not only unfit for office, but 
 
 have not kept faith with him in allowing him “ uninterrupted by me to rail on.” 
 The complaintis unfounded—I never engaged to permit a mis-statement to pass 
 uncorrected—but I have kept my promise, and will keep it. The King’s com- 
 mand seemed to be, “answer him not.”* ΤῸ him Ihave, therefore, never 
 answered a word—and till he manifest a very different spirit never will. 
 Why should I? He has not convinced me—and, I have not, I never had, 
 the slightest hope of convineing him. “ He is,” as Mr Locke says of Sir 
 Robert Filmer, “ a gentleman past answering.” 
 
 * 2 Kings xviii. 36. 
 
LETTER TO THE EDITOR OF THE EDIN. ADVERTISER. 201 
 
 is unworthy of membership in a Christian church. He is a proper 
 object of the jealous surveillance of the civil authorities ; and it must 
 be from some defect in the laws, or in their execution, if his perso- 
 nal liberty be not the just forfeit of his unprincipled attempt to dis- 
 turb social order. But on what grounds are these “ many and grie- 
 vous complaints” laid against me, and how are they proved? They 
 rest entirely on the fact, that I have publicly avowed my conviction 
 that a Christian ought rather to submit to the spoiling of his goods, 
 to the incarceration of his person, and even to the loss of his life,— 
 than voluntarily pay a tax, by whatever authority imposed, for a 
 specific purpose, which he believes to be sinful, and declared my de- 
 termination to act on that conviction in reference to the annuity tax ; 
 and on the assertion of your correspondent that this avowal and de- 
 termination is inconsistent with the law of Christ respecting subjec- 
 tion to civil government, and the payment of tribute, as laid down by 
 the Apostle Paul in the first seven verses of the thirteenth chapter 
 of his Epistle to the Romans. The fact is admitted, the assertion is 
 denied. 
 
 Were the precept in question, unlimited, or were what I count an 
 exception not included in its legitimate limitations, I must plead 
 guilty, not indeed to the whole indictment, but still to an important, 
 though unintentional violation of Christian law. But the law re- 
 specting obedience and tribute is not an unlimited one, and the course 
 of conduct which my conscientious convictions have prescribed to me, 
 is included among the exceptions. The law indeed, so fur as expres- 
 sion is concerned, is unlimited. No exception is specified. But there 
 are many divine laws expressed without limitation, that yet admit of 
 exceptions. If this be not allowed, then works of necessity and 
 mercy, contrary to our Lord’s express statement, are unlawful on the 
 Sabbath day ; and human life, in no circumstances, ought to be taken 
 away, for the fourth and sixth commandments of the decalogue are 
 as unlimited in their expression as the law of Christ now in question. 
 Christian wives are required by the Apostle, to be “ subject to their 
 own husbands in every thing, even as the Church is to Christ,” and 
 Christian servants are commanded to “ obey in all things their mas- 
 ters according to the flesh.” Yet, surely, to say that these precepts, 
 though unlimited in their expression, are yet to be understood with 
 many exceptions in particular cases,—that no command either of a 
 husband or a master can make it the duty of a wife or a servant to 
 do what is sinful,—and that all such precepts must be understood 
 with the limitation implied in the principle “ we ought to obey God 
 
 O 
 
202 DOCUMENTS. 
 rather than man,” could not be justly represented as “ an utterly 
 forced and unnatural attempt to evade the meaning” of the word of 
 God. 
 
 The general command, “ Let every soul be subject to the higher 
 powers,” like the parallel precepts, ““ Be subject to principalities and 
 powers,—obey magistrates,—submit yourselves to every ordinance of 
 man for the Lord’s sake,” &c. is, so far as 1 know, now (for it was 
 once otherwise) universally admitted to have its limits, and to have 
 these limits distinctly defined by the principle just referred to. No 
 human authority can make it safe or innocent to violate the divine 
 laws of religion, justice, truth, purity, temperance, and charity. 
 
 The particular command, “ Pay tribute also,—render tribute to 
 whom tribute is due,” must be understood with the same limitation 
 as the general command of obedience to magistrates, of which pay- 
 ment of tribute is a constituent part, unless it can be made out, that, 
 from some peculiarity in the case, paying tribute never can be, in 
 any circumstances, inconsistent with the divine law,—never can in- 
 volve in it a violation of any of its precepts. Your correspondent 
 seems to hold this principle. He seems to suppose that magistrates 
 cannot possibly impose any kind of tribute which it would be sinful 
 to pay; for he expresses astonishment “ that any Christian should 
 fear to contract guilt by paying tribute.” To assert this, and he has 
 not proved it, is just to take the very point in question for granted— 
 an easy, but not a very satisfactory way of settling a dispute. Were 
 this but proved, then, indeed, every person who, for whatever cause, 
 or on whatever pretence, should refuse to pay tribute, would be a 
 violator of the law of Christ. But he who makes such an assertion 
 without proving it, is obviously guilty of the paralogism commonly 
 called begging the question. It will not do to say the command has 
 no express limitation,—for the general command which includes this 
 particular one, is equally unlimited in its terms, and yet is allowed 
 to admit of exceptions ; so that, unless it can be proved that there is 
 something in payment of tribute which distinguishes it from other 
 acts of obedience to the magistrate, it must still be held that, like other 
 forms of civil obedience, it may, in certain circumstances, become in- 
 consistent with the higher obligations of religion, or truth, or justice. 
 That no such peculiarity exists, seems abundantly obvious. To com- 
 mand a person to employ his property in doing that which, in his 
 estimation, is sinful (and this is just the case of a tax for a specific 
 purpose, which, in the opinion of him from whom it is required, is a 
 violation of the law of God), to a man of plain common sense seems 
 
LETTER TO THE EDITOR OF THE EDIN. ADVERTISER. 203 
 
 an act of the same kind as to command him to employ his hands in 
 doing that which, in his estimation, is sinful, and I really think “ ex- 
 pedients must be resorted to” in order to persuade him that to com- 
 ply with the first command is right, while to comply with the last 
 command is wrong. - 
 
 The primitive Christians, who were very single-minded, simple- 
 hearted men, seem to have recognised no such subtle distinction. 
 “ Tertullian tells them” (i. e. the Gentile magistrates), I use the 
 words of Doctor Cave in his primitive Christianity, “ that though they 
 (i. e. the Christians) refused to pay the taxes rated upon them for the 
 maintenance of the heathen temples, yet for all other tributes they 
 had cause to give the Christians thanks for so faithfully paying what 
 was due; it being their principle to abstain from defrauding others, 
 in so much, that should they examine their accounts, how much of 
 the assessments were lost by the fraud and cozenage of them of their 
 own party, they would easily find that the Christians’ denial to pay 
 that one tax was abundantly compensated, and made up by the ho- 
 nest payment of all the rest.”* Thus it was in primitive times ; 
 Christians readily paid the taxes for general purposes, but a tax for a 
 specific purpose, which they accounted sinful, they did not, they 
 would not pay. And I cannot doubt that the principles of genuine 
 Christianity in many who at present are dissatisfied with my conduct, 
 would manifest themselves in the same way, if a tax for a specific 
 purpose, universally admitted to be sinful by Christians, were at- 
 tempted to be imposed on them. Were the Government of Britain 
 to lay an impost on the inhabitants of this country, for the avowed 
 and sole purpose of supporting those impieties and impurities, and 
 cruelties which form the worship of Juggernaut, would British Chris- 
 tians have no scruple in paying it, and would they be easily per- 
 suaded that the preferring being spoiled of their goods to paying it, 
 was indeed “ a trampling under foot one of the great laws of Christ’s 
 kingdom?” In sucha case there might be the payment of the money 
 required ; but the Christian duty of paying tribute becomes morally 
 impossible. Nothing is Christian duty which is not cheerfully per- 
 formed. But surely a Christian must do violence to every principle 
 of his new nature ; he must exercise a kind of self-denial very dif- 
 ferent from that which his Lord enjoined, before he could cheerfully 
 part with his money to uphold what is equally insult to Jehovah, 
 and perdition to the souls of men, Can absurdity go beyond this ? 
 
 * Caye’s Primitive Christianity, Part iii, Chap. 4. Tertullian Apol. 
 Cap. 42. 
 
204 DOCUMENTS. 
 
 According to your correspondent’s principles, the Christian would be 
 in a cruel dilemma. He must crucify every holy affection on the 
 one side, or on the other “ trample under foot one of the great laws 
 of the kingdom of God.”* 
 
 It appears, then, that the doctrine of your correspondent, that a 
 Christian need not be afraid of contracting guilt in paying tribute in 
 any circumstances, is not the doctrine of the Apostles,—at any rate, 
 the primitive Christians did not thus interpret their doctrine. The 
 doctrine, however, though not so old as the Apostles, is not new. I 
 believe the New Testament, if rightly interpreted, will be searched 
 in vain for it, but it is to be found most explicitly stated in the works 
 of the Philosopher of Malmesbury,t and of the High Church defend- 
 ers of passive obedience. Could such a passage as the following be 
 found in the Bible, I should be obliged to acknowledge the justice of 
 your correspondent’s condemnatory sentence, severe as it is, though I 
 should even then think it might have been less sternly and magiste- 
 rially promulgated. ‘ Mankind have the same natural liberty of 
 conscience in matters of religious worship as in affairs of justice and 
 honesty, that is to say, a liberty of judgment but not of practice. In 
 cases and disputes of public concernment private men are not pro- 
 perly sui juris. They have no power over their own actions, they 
 are not to be directed by their own judgments or determined by their 
 own wills, but by the commands and determinations of the public 
 conscience ; and if there be any sin in the command, he that imposed 
 it shall answer for it, and not I whose duty it is to obey. The com- 
 
 * In such a predicament, were I persuaded of my assailant’s doctrine, 
 would I find myself placed. It is scarcely necessary to reiterate, that I con- 
 scientiously disapprove of all Civil Establishments of religion. I believe that 
 the Government has no right to legislate about the mode of supporting either 
 Christianity or Hindooism, and that in doing both, as they seem to do (for 
 what they do by their creature, the East India Company, they are to be 
 held as doing themselves), they do wrong,—and I equally believe that I 
 would as really do wrong, though not in the same degree, in supporting the 
 first as the second of these establishments. Let no one suppose that I for a 
 moment place on a level—Christianity civilly endowed, and Hindooism civilly 
 endowed. ‘The difference is immeasurable. Yet two things may be equally 
 certainly wrong ; while the mind may searcely be able to conceive of the 
 degree in which the one of these things, both certainly wrong, exceeds 
 the otherin enormity. With my views, it must be apparent to every candid 
 mind, that I could not voluntarily pay the Annuity Tax, without losing the 
 happiness of the man, “ who condemneth not himself in that thing which he 
 alloweth.” 
 
 + Hobbes de Cive, C. vi. §§. xiii-xv. 
 
LETTER TO THE EDITOR OF THE EDIN. ADVERTISER. 205 
 
 mands of authority will warrant my obedience ; my obedience will 
 hallow or at least excuse my action, and so secure me from sin if not 
 from error ; and in all doubtful and disputable cases it is better to err 
 with authority than to be in the right against it.” No such—no si- 
 milar passage is to be found in the Bible,—But these ipsissima verba 
 are to be found in Bishop Parker’s “* Ecclesiastical Polity.” ἢ 
 
 Though unwilling to occupy more of your columns and of my own 
 time with this matter than is absolutely necessary, I must be permit- 
 ted to state in a few words what is the doctrine which I hold and 
 teach with regard to the payment of taxes, as, from your correspond- 
 ent’s representation, your readers, who do not know me, may be apt 
 to suppose that I make conscience of not paying taxes at all, except 
 so far as suits my humour or convenience. My doctrine on this sub- 
 ject is the doctrine of the Apostles, as my conduct is, as I have just 
 showed, that of the primitive Christians. I consider Christians as 
 bound to pay conscientiously and cheerfully all taxes imposed for 
 
 * “ A Discourse of Ecclesiastical Polity, wherein the Authority of the 
 Civil Magistrate over the Consciences of Subjects, in matters of External 
 Religion, is asserted,” p. 308. 8vo. 1669. It is justly remarked by Dean 
 Swift, that Parker’s work is remembered merely because Andrew Marvell’s 
 witty exposure of it in his “ Rehearsal Transprosed,” will not suffer it to be 
 forgotten. The vilest and most putrescent of substances imbedded in am- 
 ber become imperishable. Parker, Bishop of Oxford, was one of the most 
 unprincipled men in an age remarkably fertile in such productions. “ Par- 
 ker,” says Sir James Mackintosh, “ originally a fanatical puritan, became a 
 bigotted churchman at the Restoration, and disgraced abilities not incon- 
 siderable, by the zeal with which he defended the persecution of his late 
 brethren, and by the unbridled ribaldry, with which he reviled the most vir- 
 tuous men among them. His labours for the Church of England were no 
 sooner rewarded with the bishopric of Oxford, than he transferred his ser- 
 vices, if not his faith, to the Church of Rome, which then began to be openly 
 patronised by the court, and seems to have retained his station in the Pro- 
 testant hierarchy, in order to contribute more effectually to its destruction. 
 The zeal of those who are more anxious to recommend themselves than to 
 promote their cause, is often too eager, and the convivial enjoyments of Parker 
 often betrayed him into very imprudent and unseemly language.”— View of 
 the Reign of James 11. pp. 140, 141. Evelyn, in his Memoirs, vol. i. 
 p- 605, expresses his astonishment, that on his deathbed he refused to de- 
 clare himself a Roman Catholic. Bishop Burnet says of him, “ He was co- 
 vetous and ambitious, and seemed to have no other sense of religion but as 
 a political interest, and a subject of party and faction. He seldom came to 
 prayers, or to any exercises of devotion, and was so lifted up with pride, 
 that he was become insufferable to all that came near him.’—History of 
 his Own Times, vol. i. p. 696. Folio. Lond. 1724, 
 
206 DOCUMENTS. 
 
 general purposes by the Government under which they live. If the 
 Government misapply the revenue thus raised,—for that misapplica- 
 tion they, not their subjects, are responsible, though it is the right of 
 subjects under our free Government, and would be their duty in such 
 a case, to employ the means which the constitution sanctions for se- 
 curing a better administration of the public funds. Even where the 
 imposts themselves are in their estimation unwise, exorbitant, or un- 
 just, it is their duty to pay them. Every attempt to evade them is 
 inconsistent with the law as well as the spirit of Christianity, and 
 though, in our circumstances, we may and ought, by constitutional 
 means, to seek the repeal of the objectionable statutes, yet, while 
 they continue the law of the land, the law of Christ obliges us to 
 obey them. Even the iélegality of a tax (and the annuity tax is 
 strongly suspected of illegality) does not appear to me necessarily to 
 oblige a Christian to decline paying it. If the illegality is clear,—he 
 certainly is not bound to pay it,—but neither is he, as a matter of 
 course, bound not to pay it. In the case of the annuity tax, had I 
 no objection to it but that it is probably illegal, nay, were I certain 
 that it is illegal, I would pay it, though I might be disposed to go 
 along with my fellow-citizens liable to the burden, in having the 
 question of its legality determined by the proper tribunal. 
 
 Such is the doctrine which I believe and teach respecting the pay- 
 ment of taxes,—and in this point, at least, my conduct corresponds 
 to my creed and teaching. It is only in the case of a tax avowedly 
 imposed for a specific purpose which, in the conscientious conviction 
 of the individual, is sinful, that I hold the doctrine that the general 
 supreme law,—“ We ought to obey God rather than man,”—which 
 controls and regulates all our obligations to our fellow-men, comes in 
 to limit the obligation of the particular law respecting tribute, and 
 even then I do not hold that a Christian individual is warranted to 
 employ force in resisting what he must consider as an unjust aggres- 
 sion on his property, but that he is bound to suffer every thing man 
 can inflict rather than be the voluntary agent of any thing he be- 
 lieves God disapproves. And it is for holding, and avowing, and ex- 
 emplifying, this doctrine, that your correspondent has heaped on me 
 such unmeasured abuse, and thundered out against me such tremen- 
 dous denunciations.* 
 
 It is notorious that our covenanting ancestors, who have of late be- 
 come wonderfully popular among those who not long ago were shy of 
 
 * Vide Note XLITI. 
 
LETTER TO THE EDITOR OF THE EDIN. ADVERTISER. 207 
 
 owning any connexion with them, refused to pay taxes levied for what 
 they esteemed sinful purposes, and defended themselves not only on 
 the principle above stated, but on some other principles in which | 
 cannot by any means agree with them. Their new admirers will find 
 an able abstract of their case in the supplementary chapter of “ The 
 Hind let Loose.”* It will have the recommendation of novelty to 
 the most of them; and I rather think your correspondent would do 
 well to consider their arguments before he again so decidedly con- 
 demn their conduct. 
 
 On the principles I have stated, that exemplary body of Christian 
 professors, the Friends, have acted, ever since their origin, as a dis- 
 tinct denomination ; and, had all Christians opposed to a compulsory 
 support of religious ordinances followed their example, the Christian 
 world would by this time have worn a different and a more agreeable 
 aspect. I am not aware of these sons of peace,—these friends of or- 
 der,—having been accused of “ adopting a line of conduct calculated 
 to disturb the peace of society,—kindle the flames of civil war, and 
 lead to bloodshed ;” I am sure if they have, they have been accused 
 falsely. 
 
 My own purpose and conduct have assuredly originated in no wish 
 to disturb the peace of society. In themselves they have no tendency 
 to do so. What their consequences may be either to myself, or to 
 others, I am not particularly solicitous to know. Being fully per- 
 suaded in my own mind that I have done nothing but my duty, and 
 that I have done it in as inoffensive a manner as possible, I can in- 
 trust the consequences of that step, as of more important ones which 
 I have been called to take, to Him, “ of whom, and through whom, 
 and to whom are all things,” and who will make “ all things work 
 together for good” to his own cause,—the cause of truth and righte- 
 ousness, liberty and peace. 
 
 I have only farther to say, in conclusion, that to make scruples of 
 conscience a pretext for either evading the payment of a tax, or ex- 
 citing civil dissension, is such a depth of moral baseness, as that respect 
 for our common nature, which an Apostle seems to enjoin when he 
 bids us “ honour all men,” as well as “ the charity which thinketh 
 no evil,” would prevent me from ascribing to any man, without the 
 most satisfactory proof; and he who, without evidence, insinuates 
 that another is capable of such vile hypocrisy, only betrays the 
 meanness of his own character, as, in giving judgment on the motives 
 of another, he unintentionally makes a disclosure of his own. 
 
 * Vide Note XLIV. 
 
208 DOCUMENTS. 
 
 The oracular solemnity and overbearing arrogance of your corres- 
 pondent’s denunciations are entirely lost on me. I stand in no awe 
 of urs words, though I trust I do tremble at Gon’s. I have learned to 
 make a distinction between “ replying against God,” and “ replying 
 against an erring fellow-mortal,” who rashly puts himself in the place 
 of God, and speaks as if he was commissioned to be at once the accuser 
 and the judge of his brethren. Neither he nor I can be the worse of 
 being again reminded, that “ Every one of us shall give account of 
 HIMSELF to God.” Information, argument, advice, reproof, when de- 
 served, I would readily receive and gratefully acknowledge, especially 
 from an “ old disciple,” from whose chastened and mellowed character 
 we naturally look for the ‘“ meekness of wisdom ;” but for such rail- 
 ing accusations, from whatever quarter they may come, I feel no gra- 
 titude, and can return no thanks. 
 
 As your correspondent has barred the door on all direct communi- 
 cation, will you have the goodness to inform him that he has got his 
 answer, and if not satisfied, he may, uninterrupted and unreproved 
 by me, rail on.—I am, &e. 
 
 JOHN BROWN. 
 
 DOCUMENT V. 
 
 STATEMENT MADE FROM THE PULPIT IN BROUGHTON PLACE 
 CHURCH, ON SABBATH THE 19TH OF ΝΟΥ. 1837. 
 
 It was my intention to conclude on the evening of the third Sab- 
 bath of December, my illustrations of that series of connected prophe- 
 cies, in the exposition of which I have been for some months en= 
 gaged. An unlooked for circumstance has induced me to alter my 
 purpose. A calumnious charge against me has been publicly made, 
 and extensively circulated, of having committed “a most flagrant 
 violation of the Divine law,—rebelled against Christ,—and trampled 
 under foot one of the great laws of his kingdom, by teaching doctrine 
 on the subject of the Christian duty of paying tribute, directly oppo- 
 site to the doctrine of Christ and his apostles.” Such are the terms 
 in which the charge is laid. This is a charge which, if believed, must 
 deeply affect both my reputation asa private individual and my use- 
 fulness as a public functionary, and, in times not distant, might even 
 have exposed to hazard my personal freedom. 1 pity, and forgive, 
 
ANONYMOUS NOTE ON DR BROWN’S LETTER. 209 
 
 and pray, for the author and the propagators of this calumny. It is 
 not the first time they have afforded me an opportunity of performing 
 these offices of Christian love to them, and, I trust, I shall not become 
 “‘ weary in well-doing.” At the same time a regard to the honour of 
 my Master,—a wish to preserve from unmerited blame the ministry 
 I have received from him,—and a respect for my congregation (for if 
 the above charge is true, it would be a disgrace to them to continue 
 under my pastoral care), requires me to do what lies in my power to 
 wipe off the foul reproach. I have therefore come to the resolution 
 to devote the two next Monthly Lectures to an Exposition of the Ge- 
 neral Duty of Subjection to Civil Government, and of the particular 
 duty of payment of tribute, as these duties are enjoined and enforced 
 in the first seven verses of the thirteenth chapter of the Epistle to the 
 Romans. The subject of the next Monthly Lecture then, which is 
 intended to be delivered on the evening of the third Sabbath of De- 
 
 cember, shall be—the Christian Duty of Subjection to Civil Govern- 
 ment. 
 
 DOCUMENT VI. 
 
 ANONYMOUS NOTE ON DR BROWN’S LETTER. EDINBURGH ADVER- 
 TISER, NOVEMBER 24, 1837. 
 
 Dr Brown refers to the practice of the primitive Christians in sup- 
 port of his position. His statements upon this subject are grossly 
 inaccurate, and the manner in which he conducts this part of his ar- 
 gument is equally discreditable to him as a man and ascholar. He 
 justly characterises the early Christians as “ very single-minded, sim- 
 ple-hearted men,’—a temper of mind which their panegyrists would 
 do well to imitate. 
 
 His statement is, that “ in primitive times, Christians readily paid 
 the taxes for general purposes, but a tax for a specific purpose, which 
 they accounted sinful, they did not, they would not pay.” All that 
 he offers in support of this bold averment is a quotation from Dr 
 Cave (or as he is pleased to call him Archbishop Cave), in which that 
 author gives an outline of a passage in Tertullian. Now, it is not 
 very scholar-like to take evidence of this description at second-hand. 
 And it is especially unworthy in an individual who is engaged in the 
 work of theological tuition to hold out to the public Dr Cave as an 
 authority—a writer notoriously inaccurate in many of his statements, 
 
10 DOCUMENTS. 
 
 and who, in his own lifetime was more than once chastised into a re- 
 tractation of his mistakes. Besides, Dr Brown must have seen in the 
 very paragraph from which he quotes, two other ancient writers— 
 Justin Martyr and Tatian—brought forward as stating the readiness 
 of the early Christians freely to pay all tawes and tributes, without 
 any qualification or exception whatever. A difference so remarkable 
 in the witnesses, as reported by Dr Cave, would have impressed any 
 man of ordinary candour with the necessity of having recourse to the 
 originals. One of the writers, no doubt, viz. Tatian, is chiefly known 
 as a heretic. But in regard to a matter of fact, his evidence is on a 
 level with that of Tertullian, who himself fell into error. And, be- 
 side, the work from which the abstract is given, was written while he 
 was in connexion with the true Church, as Dr Brown may see in ano- 
 ther of Cave’s works—the Historia Literaria—and, indeed, the fact is 
 notorious. At all events, whether he had recourse to the originals or 
 not, Dr Brown was bound to give the evidence as he found it—to 
 make the public aware of the discrepancy—and not to mislead by a 
 partial extract. 
 
 An undue advantage is obtained by this mode of quotation in ano- 
 ther respect. Dr Brown commences his quotation thus—* Tertullian 
 tells them” (i. e. the Gentile Magistrates), I quote the words of 
 Archbishop Cave in his Primitive Christianity, “ that though they” 
 (i. e. the Christians) “‘ refused to pay the taxes rated upon them for the 
 maintenance of the heathen temples, yet for all other tributes,” &ec. 
 Now the impression that this extract is calculated to convey is, that 
 Tertullian’s main object was to justify the Christians for refusing to 
 pay certain taxes, and that he was addressing himself to the Gentile 
 Magistrates upon this special topic. A different impression would 
 have been conveyed by a more complete quotation. Dr Cave, in the 
 chapter referred to, undertakes to illustrate the obedience and subjec- 
 tion of the early Christians to civil government, and for this purpose 
 introduces a passage from Tertullian that he conceived to bear upon 
 the subject. To give more effect to the quotation, Cave alludes to 
 the form in which the whole work of Tertullian is written—a form 
 common to most of the early apologies of Christianity—viz. as ad- 
 dressed to the civil rulers. This, however, in many instances, was 
 little more than a form—and at all events this account takes away all 
 the effect that may arise from a direct appeal to civil magistrates 
 upon the subject of taxation. 
 
 It is time, however, to proceed to more important matter, and we 
 shall now endeavour to prove that Dr Cave, in this passage, has wholly 
 
ANONYMOUS NOTE ON DR BROWN’S LETTER. 211 
 
 misapprehended Tertullian, and that in the original there is nothing 
 at all about “taxes rated for religious purposes” in the sense in which 
 Dr Brown employs the words. 
 
 The object of Tertullian in his Apology is to expose the injustice 
 of the heathen in their conduct towards the Christians, and to show 
 the groundlessness of many of the charges made against the Chris- 
 tians. Among the calumnies circulated against the Christians, one of 
 the most frequent was that they were morose and unsociable, that 
 their principles unfitted them for many important duties, and ren- 
 dered them useless or dangerous members of society. Tertullian takes 
 up this objection in the 42d chapter of his work, and endeavours to 
 remove the false impression in his own rhetorical way. He shows that 
 the Christians were not Gymnosophists or Brachmans—that they 
 lived in the world—engaged in its business—enjoyed its pleasures— 
 performed its duties. They avoided, indeed, all excess, and also every 
 scene in which they might be involved in idolatrous practices. But 
 he argues, that even in a political point of view, this did not render 
 them less useful as individuals, or even as citizens of the world. This 
 he illustrates in various particulars. At last he comes to the objec- 
 tion that the revenues of the Temples continually decreased, and that 
 scarcely any threw in their mite to the gods. The words in the ori- 
 ginal are certe inquitis templorum vectigalia quotidie decoquunt ; stipes 
 quotusquisque jam jactat ? Tertullian allows that this is the fact, but 
 argues that the Christians were not to be found fault with for this,— 
 and he goes on to state that it was too much to expect that they were 
 to give money to the beggar gods, and relieve their suffering fellow- 
 men—that their charities were upon an extensive scale—so extensive 
 that they would not even refuse to give something to Jupiter if he 
 would hold out his hand for charity in the street, though they could 
 not go to his Temple—that they were strictly honest in all their deal- 
 ing, and that in this way the commonwealth received more from them 
 than from any other class of subjects. 
 
 Now, in all this there is not a single word about the Christians re- 
 fusing to pay the taxes rated upon them for the maintenance of the 
 Heathen Temples. We confidently refer to the original passage, 
 and appeal to any “‘ simple-hearted” man, capable of understanding 
 the words, whether there is any approach to such an idea. Indeed, 
 every one acquainted with the subject must be aware that the in- 
 stances were inconceivably rare of special taxes being appointed for 
 religious purposes. The heathen worship was supported partly by 
 consecrated lands, partly by grants of princes from the public purse, 
 
9212 DOCUMENTS. 
 
 and chiefly by bequests from individuals, and by contributions at the 
 Temple, which were either wholly voluntary or obligatory only upon 
 those who engaged in the worship. 
 
 And, besides, can a single example be produced in which any of 
 the first Christians acted upon the principles ascribed to them? We 
 defy Dr Brown to produce an instance. The degrading means re- 
 sorted to in order to enforce the capitation tax on the Jews for re- 
 pairing the Temple of Jupiter Capitolinus are well known. But can 
 any tax of the same kind be mentioned in regard to the early Chris- 
 tians? Or, if there was such a tax, did they ever attempt to resist it ? 
 
 The matter, however, need not be left to a mere challenge. We 
 have the most irresistible evidence that it was not their practice to 
 resist any tax. Among all the charges brought against them by their 
 enemies, they are never accused of disobedience in this respect. Now 
 this could not have been the case had they acted upon Dr Brown’s 
 principle. The priests had a direct interest in the treasury of their 
 Temples being well furnished. We learn from another passage in 
 Tertullian, that the revenues of the Temple were frequently exposed ἡ 
 to sale, and the farmers of these revenues must have carefully watch- 
 ed over them. The Roman tax-gatherers were proverbially rigorous. 
 But from neither priests, nor farmers, nor publicans, do we find any 
 complaint against the Christians for refusing to pay what the law en- 
 joined. In the well-known letter from Pliny to. Trajan, there is a 
 complaint that the Temples were deserted, and that the victims re- 
 mained unsold—but there is no notice of any direct impost being re- 
 sisted. Had such a spirit been manifested, Pliny would have had 
 less occasion to consult his master. The complaints of the priests, 
 throughout all the carly ages, were—that the gods were neglected 
 and despised, and the temples deserted—but never that their legal 
 claims were contumaciously withheld. 
 
 With these facts before us, even if the gloss taken by Dr Brown 
 upon the passage in Tertullian had been correct, we would have con- 
 cluded that Tertullian himself was mistaken 
 
 as he often was in 
 matters of fact—or that he was speaking merely of his own practice, 
 or of that of a few fanatics like himself. It is well known that he 
 held peculiar notions upon many subjects. He imagined that soldiers 
 should not receive crowns of laurel from their commanders—though 
 this was by no means the general opinion—and though, as Mr Milner 
 remarks, it might, in fact, be worn as innocently as St Paul commit- 
 ted himself to a ship whose sign was Castor and Pollux. The opinion 
 held of Tertullian by Dr Brown’s grandfather may be seen in his 
 
ANONYMOUS NOTE ON DR BROWN’S LETTER. 219 
 
 Dictionary. ‘ Whatever,” says he, “ Tertullian, and some others, 
 equally giddy in their notions, pretend,” &c. 
 
 It is not necessary, however, to have recourse to this line of argu- 
 ment. And we return to the position that there is not a word about 
 refusing to pay taxes in Tertullian. The word vectigalia is indeed 
 used. But every school-boy knows that this word is by no means 
 confined to revenues arising from public imposts. It may apply to 
 revenues of any description. In the present instance, it refers not to 
 what the public generally “ were rated with,” but to the contribu- 
 tions of the actual worshippers. Such contributions might be per- 
 mitted, or, perhaps, in some instances enjoined by law, which allowed 
 the privilege of begging to the priests when they had not sufficient 
 endowments. But they were not rendered obligatory except in the 
 case of those who actually entered the temples. This is sufficiently 
 obvious from another passage from Tertullian :— Religion goes round 
 the taverns begging. Ye demand payment for entering the Temple, and 
 for a place at festivals. No one can become acquainted with the gods 
 for nothing : access to them is purchased.”—C. 19. 
 
 This view is confirmed by another clause already quoted. ‘“‘ Stipes 
 quotusquisque jam jactat ?” It is not who paysa tax ? but who throws 
 analms? We are aware that some critics have explained stipes here 
 by tributum. But this is obviously erroneous, or, if it was a tribute, 
 still it was exacted only from the worshippers. We have not room 
 to follow out this minute criticism. But in proof of this interpreta- 
 tion of the word we refer to Arnobius ady. Gentes. I. p. 16. Ovid I. 
 Ex Pont. I. 35. Varro, sub fine. 4 and many others might be men- 
 tioned. 
 
 We hold it then demonstrated that it is a libel against the Chris- 
 tians to represent them as refusing to pay any tax they were rated 
 with. Dr Brown’s gloss, or rather his friend, the Archbishop's gloss 
 of an isolated passage will stand him in no stead. We have the di- 
 rect testimony of the Fathers that they readily paid all taxes without 
 any exception, and their worst enemies never charged them with any- 
 thing so extravagant and ridiculous as might be construed into a pre- 
 cedent for the Edinburgh Voluntaries. Ambitious as the primitive 
 Christians were for the crown of martyrdom, it did not occur to these 
 *¢ single-minded men” to seek for that crown by the violation of a 
 positive precept of their Divine Master, or by turning their back upon 
 his example. Dr Brown and his followers may seek in vain among 
 the Fathers for any warrant for their proceedings. These proceed- 
 ings, indeed, are not without precedent. It is, however, not among 
 
 ΄ 
 
214 DOCUMENTS. 
 
 the simple-hearted Christians, but among the turbulent Herodians— 
 and Judas the Gaulonite is their true prototype (Acts ν. 37). 
 
 These learned remarks are fully considered in Note XXVIII., af- 
 ter perusing which, the reader may possibly be disposed to pro- 
 nounce on their Author, the somewhat severe sentence which, with 
 what justice is there shown, he has thought fit to pass on one, who, 
 though he would have been little elated by his praise, and feels no- 
 way depressed by his censure, could not on such grounds, even for 
 his own sake, have dealt out such measure to his ultroneous adver- 
 sary. “* His statements upon this subject are grossly inaccurate, and 
 the manner in which he conducts this part of his argument, is equally 
 discreditable to him as a man and a scholar.” He has proved that 
 inaccuracy of statement is not a peculiarity of the learned, and that 
 aman may deserve that notoriety, which he imputes to Dr Cave, and 
 which he would fain secure for the object of his attack, without 
 any thing like that extent of erudition which the former certainly 
 possessed, and to which the latter never made any claim; and his . 
 ** confident references” and bold “ defiances” put us in mind of the 
 remark of an ancient Greek comic poet, who has the honour of being 
 quoted by the Apostle Paul (1 Cor. xv. 33). 
 
 Οὐκ es ἀνοίας οὐδεν “ws ἐμοι δόκει 
 ΜΈΕΝΑΝΡΕᾺ. 
 
 Τολμηροτερον. 
 
 DOCUMENT VII. 
 
 ALL THAT IS COUNTED NECESSARY IN THE WAY OF REMARK, ON 
 MR HALDANE'S LETTER IN THE ADVERTISER OF 24TH NOVEM - 
 BER, 1837, AND ITS LEARNED APPENDIX. 
 
 (FROM THE EDINBURGH ADVERTISER OF 28TH NOVEMBER, 1837.) 
 
 Dr Brown has seen Mr Haldane’s letter in the Advertiser of to-day, 
 and does not find in it any thing calculated to make him regret his 
 resolution to have no direct correspondence with that gentleman. It 
 is as he anticipated. Mr Haldane “ rails on.” While he continues to 
 calumniate, Dr Brown hopes he will be enabled to continue to for- 
 give. His assailant seems determined that he shall not soon want op- 
 
REMARKS ON THE ANONYMOUS NOTE. 215 
 
 portunity for the performance of that Christian duty. Mr Haldane 
 would fain convince the public that Dr Brown is not only a heretic 
 but a liar; but as “ the curse causeless shall not come,” so the charge 
 unsupported will not be believed. Dr Brown is quite ready to stand 
 by the award of any unprejudiced judge who may think it worth his 
 while to read the documents Mr Haldane has referred to. 
 
 Who, ‘O ravv, the Paragon of Patristic learning may be, who has 
 come forward to Mr Haldane’s help, to torture Tertullian and vapu- 
 late Dr Cave, Dr Brown has no knowledge, but he obviously is not 
 without a due sense of his own literary attainments, and has raised a 
 good deal of dust, which may help to blind the eyes of those who are 
 not very much disposed to see.—Dr Brown might have given Tertul- 
 lian’s words (for they were before him), and his own translation of 
 them (for he really can “ do into English” a passage of not very dif- 
 ficult Latin), but as comparatively few of his readers could readily 
 understand the original, he preferred giving it in “ the vulgar 
 tongue,” and though he did not greatly admire Cave’s translation, 
 yet being that of a true Churchman, he thought it would be less 
 liable to suspicion than one made for the occasion by a voluntary.— 
 The fact, after all the learning wasted on its obscuration, stands as it 
 did.—The Christians of the earlier ages refused to contribute of their 
 substance to the support of a mode of worship of which they conscien- 
 tiously disapproved—by whatever authority exacted. Let this be 
 granted, and Dr Brown does not much concern himself, how his 
 learned antagonist dispose of Tertullian, as he is no particular favour- 
 ite with him, any more than with “ his grandfather.” 
 
 Dr Brown acknowledges, with befitting humility, that in one thing 
 he has erred, in raising Cave to the dignity of the Archi-episcopate,* 
 whereas, good Churchman as he was, he never attained even to Epis- 
 copal honours. Dr Brown can only account for the mistake, by hay- 
 ing momentarily confounded in his mind, Cave, the biographer of the 
 Apostolic Fathers, and Wake, the translator of their Epistles. It was, 
 
 no doubt, asad blunder to mistake the Canon of Windsor for the Arch- - 
 
 bishop of Canterbury, yet a weightier error would scarcely be unpar- 
 donable in one who makes no pretensions to be deep read, either in the 
 ancient Fathers, or in their modern admirers. It is obviously the wish 
 of the learned man to prove, that his antagonist is very weak, in the 
 point in which he feels or fancies himself very strong.—With regard 
 
 * It was not thought necessary to continue the blunder in the letter, as 
 reprinted above. It is right to acknowledge and to correct mistakes when 
 pointed out. Many polemies are too proud to do so. 
 
 * 
 
210 DOCUMENTS. 
 
 to the proofs—this among the rest,—Dr Brown is quite willing to 
 say—valeant quantum valere possint. 
 53, Albany Street, 24th November, 1837. 
 
 Dr Brown takes the opportunity of this reprint, of adding the fol- 
 lowing remarks:—He did not think in his Letter to the Editor of 
 the Advertiser, of quoting either Justin Martyr, or Tatian, for a very 
 plain reason :—They proved, what he as little doubted as any of his 
 antagonists, that the primitive Christians conscientiously paid civil 
 taxes. What he wished to prove, and what the quotation from Ter- 
 tullian, translate it and annotate on it as you will, clearly proves was, 
 that Christians would not pay religious taxes. We have the autho- 
 rity of Ὃ wavu himself (and from what has transpired, Dr Brown is 
 disposed to think that on such a point his authority is a very good 
 one), that the “ contributions at the temple, were either wholly vo- 
 luntary, or obligatory only upon those who engaged in the worship.” 
 Now surely if the Christians, at the hazard of their lives, were com- 
 manded by imperial authority to enter the temple and burn incense,—. 
 the obligatory contributions were not likely to be remitted. They 
 refused to worship, and in doing so they refused, of course, to pay 
 * the obligatory” contributions. 
 
 As to the communication in the Edinburgh Advertiser of to-day, 
 from the Minister of the College Church—when Dr Brown recollects 
 the relation which once subsisted between the grateful pupil and his 
 self-chosen instructor, all the feelings of a severe kind, which it is 
 fitted to excite, are lost in prry.—‘ Er ru Brute !” —prx1. 
 
 53, Albany Street, 28th November, 1837. 
 
 DOCUMENT VIII. 
 
 LETTER TO THE EDITOR OF THE EDINBURGH ADVERTISER, 
 
 53, Albany Street, Dec. 13, 1837. 
 Sirn,—My assailants in your pages have for some time had it all 
 their own way. My hands have been full of other, and to me, more 
 agreeable work than replying to their attacks. I was told that they 
 were injuring nobody but themselves, and nothing but their own cause. 
 I wish them all very well—but I knew that my saying to them, how- 
 ever civilly,—‘* Do yourselves no harm,” would only have given new 
 
LETTER TO THE EDITOR OF THE EDIN. ADVERTISER. 21] v6 
 
 impetus to their exertions; and as to injuring their cause—that was 
 rather their affair than mine. In their letters I did not find much 
 that required answer—and if there were something that deserved re- 
 buke, I was not inclined, and did not feel called to administer it. 
 
 The only point mooted in your first correspondent’s lucubrations 
 that seems to demand remark, is the supposed detection of dangerous 
 heresy in the apparently innocent statement, that “ nothing is Chris- 
 tian duty which is not cheerfully performed.” If your correspond- 
 ent hold, that God requires of Christians, and of all men, the cheerful 
 performance of duty—and that nothing will be recognised by Him as 
 the performance of duty, where the heart is not engaged—he and 1 
 are, at least, on one subject, of one mind. He may be able to express 
 the sentiment more happily than I have done—but I confess I have 
 not yet seen any thing dangerously ambiguous in the terms I have 
 employed, nor peculiarly felicitous, in the phraseology he would dic- 
 tate, as their substitute. 
 
 With respect to your other correspondent, he seems displeased that 
 I should have described him as “ the grateful pupil of his self-chosen 
 instructor.” And he has endeavoured, not without success, to con= 
 vince the public that any reproach which may be couched under 
 these words, can not now be justly attached to him. Some men have 
 odd tastes. But “ de gustibus non est disputandum.” He has also 
 satisfied his readers, that when “ the grateful” (or ingrateful, if that 
 will please him better) “ pupil,” by something more than implication, 
 called his “ self-chosen instructor,” ‘a perjured apostate,” the exter- 
 nal marks of cordial acquaintanceship could scarcely continue to be 
 interchanged, without a sacrifice of integrity on the side of at least 
 one of the parties. 
 
 To the charge of corrupting the faith of history, and calumniating 
 the character of good men, I have only to say, that the body of men, 
 neither a very small, nor by any means a contemptible one, of whose 
 opinions, “ The Hind let Loose,” is the record, were “ Covenanters ;” 
 and, as they lived about a century and a half ago, I thought myself 
 safe in calling them “ our ancestors.” I did not calculate on such 
 ignorance in my readers, as he, from bringing forward information 
 with which I thought every person at all acquainted with these sub- 
 jects was familiar, seems to have counted on inhis. It never occurred 
 to me that any such person could suppose, referring as I did, to 
 “* The Hind let Loose,” that I was speaking of the whole of the Co- 
 venanters. The body referred to, though I do not approve of all 
 their sentiments and doings, appear to me to have been the only 
 
 Ῥ 
 
218 DOCUMENTS. 
 
 thoroughly consistent Covenanters, and, therefore, to have a pre- 
 eminent title to that name. They-were rather favourites, too, with 
 *“ my Grandfather,” and I do not like them the less on that ac- 
 count. Of their more numerous, and less consistent,—I do not say 
 less conscientious,—brethren, I did not say one word.* My opponent, 
 or, at any rate, some of his friends, habitually speak of a party of Se- 
 ceders, which in no view, bear so respectable a proportion to the 
 whole body known by that title, as the high anti-indulgence party 
 did to the body of Covenanters—as the only Seceders who deserve 
 the name. 
 
 I do not think my assailants could have made such charges on such 
 grounds, but in the excitement of controversy. 1 do not estimate 
 their intellects so meanly as to suppose this possible ; and I am quite 
 sure, none can harmonize with them in sentiment as to these charges, 
 except those who sympathise with them in feeling, as to their object. 
 
 With regard to my anonymous learned opponent—I have only to 
 recommend to his consideration a remark of Bishop Hoadly—(to 
 prevent his having the trouble of exposing my ignorance, I must tell. 
 him I am aware he was only Mr, not Bishop Hoadly when he made 
 the remark ),—“ that they ought to be severely censured, who take 
 advantage from their working in the dark, to attack the reputation 
 of others without hazarding their own.” 
 
 The temptation is strong, or at any rate the provocation is great, 
 but I must not “ render railing for railing’—if it were for no other 
 reason than that which has been assigned for Michael the Archangel 
 not bringing a railing accusation “ against the Devil” when he dis- 
 puted about the body of Moses—that in such a combat I would be 
 sure to come off at the worse. But there is a better reason.—The 
 Master has forbidden it. 
 
 Tam, Sir, your obedient Servant, 
 JOHN BROWN. 
 
 P. S.—Since writing the above, 1 have seen Mr Haldane’s letter of 
 yesterday. Into the general argument with respect to the limita- 
 
 * I might, however, have said, that in refusing to pay the Annuity Tax 
 as some of them undoubtedly did (Vide Note XL.), they acted on the 
 same principle with their brethren who refused to pay cess ; and I should 
 be sorry to be shut up to the conclusion—that the resistance referred to 
 on the part of the adherents to Presbytery, to the being taxed for the sup- 
 port of a religious establishment, of which they disapproved, was generally 
 the result of avarice or rancour, rather than of conscience. Hither they held 
 my principle, or they acted inconsistently with their own.—Vide Note XLIV. 
 
LETTER FROM ELDERS AND MANAGERS TO DR BROWN. 219 
 
 tions of civil obedience, and of their legitimate application to the pay- 
 ment of tribute as a particular species of civil obedience, I intend to 
 go fully in the lectures which I have announced. Nothing stated by 
 my opponents seems to me in the slightest degree to shake the doc- 
 trine contained in my first letter. I am much pleased, however, 
 with the prospect of seeing all that my antagonist has to say, before 
 I print the lecture on tribute-paying. My object is to know and 
 make known the truth. Could your correspondent furnish me with 
 the means of altering my views conscientiously, I should feel much 
 indebted to him. My position is not in itself an enviable one. Could 
 I have escaped it with a good conscience, I should never have occupied 
 it—and could I abandon it without conscious rebellion against truth, 
 and the God of truth, I should immediately do so. 
 J5, Be 
 
 DOCUMENT IX. 
 
 LETTER FROM THE ELDERS AND MANAGERS OF THE UNITED ASSO- 
 CIATE CONGREGATION OF BROUGHTON PLACE. 
 
 Broughton Place Session-House, Edinburgh, Dec. 13, 1837. 
 To tHe Rev. Dr Joun Brown. 
 
 Rey. anp Dear Sir,—We, the Elders and Managers of the United 
 Associate Congregation, Broughton Place, feel constrained from the 
 peculiar circumstances in which you are at present placed, in refer- 
 ence to the controversy on the subject of the lawfulness of your pay- 
 ing the Annuity Tax, to give expression to those sentiments of una- 
 bated respect and affection which we entertain towards you, as our 
 Pastor. While by all classes of the community this controversy is 
 regarded with deep interest, you may be assured that we, who stand to 
 you in such an intimate spiritual relationship, must feel a special con- 
 cern in whatever affects your usefulness as a Christian minister, and 
 your character as a citizen. Knowing, as we do, your earnest desire 
 to “ follow the things which make for peace,” we feel assured that 
 nothing but a conscientious conviction of the necessity “ which is 
 laid upon you” by the raw or Gop, could induce you in any way to 
 oppose the Law or man ; and that your desire is to maintain “ a con- 
 science void of offence toward God and toward men,” at whatever 
 sacrifice of personal feeling or comfort. It would be obviously out of 
 place, and beside our purpose in now addressing you, to enter upon ant 
 
920 DOCUMENTS. 
 
 examination of the various statements put forth by your assailants, 
 our chief purpose being, at a time when it has been attempted to cast 
 upon you obloquy and calumnies of diverse kinds, to express our 
 sympathy, and the unaffected sentiments which we entertain of your 
 upright and single character, as well as the gratitude which, in com- 
 mon we believe with all the Members of the Congregation, we feel to 
 the Great Head of the Church, for having bestowed on us a Pastor, 
 who is at once a faithful and accomplished expositor of the Scriptures, 
 and a devoted and kind superintendent of “ the flock over which the 
 Holy Ghost has made you overseer.’—We remain, 
 Rey. and dear Sir, yours very respectfully. 
 
 The above letter was signed by all the Members of the Session, and 
 all the Managers of the Congregation, and a similar expression of sen- 
 timent and feeling, numerously subscribed by the Members of the 
 Congregation, was also presented to their Minister. 
 
 DOCUMENT X. 
 
 ADDENDA. 
 
 Dr Brown hesitates as to the propriety of noticing a circumstance 
 which has had great prominence given to it in some of the numerous 
 attacks which have been made on him :—the having voluntarily placed 
 himself in a situation where he became liable to the Annuity Tax. 
 And is it indeed come to this? After the repeal of the Test and Cor- 
 poration acts, is a Dissenter, in consequence of holding a conscientious 
 opinion, to be obliged, if he choose the metropolis of Scotland for a 
 residence, to dwell in the suburbs? It would not be discreditable 
 for any man to take up his residence within the royalty of Edinburgh, 
 with the direct intention of yielding a passive and peaceable resistance 
 to an unjust and injurious impost, if he had the hope, in this way, 
 of doing any thing effectual towards its removal,—and if, in order to 
 his discharge of this public duty, he made up his mind to the disrup- 
 tion of many endearing connexions with Christian Churchmen, who 
 could not estimate the reasons of his conduct,—and to meet all the low 
 abuse with which he was sure to be assailed by those who, from secular 
 motives, support a secular system, for secular ends, there would be 
 something like moral heroism in the determination. To this honour 
 
LETTER TO THE EDITOR OF THE SCOTSMAN. 221 
 
 Dr Brown laysno claim. He removed from the suburbsinto the royalty, 
 principally to afford opportunity for a member of his family to enter, in 
 the most favourable circumstances, on the duties of an honourable pro- 
 fession—and he did so with a full understanding that the result of that 
 step would be, either paying the Annuity Tax, or taking the conse- 
 quences of not paying it. He is not conscious of having done any thing 
 wrong in all this. But if he be an offender, and have “ committed ought 
 worthy” of distraint of goods, or imprisonment of person, he refuses 
 not to submit to the laws of his country. Whatever his opinion of 
 these laws may be, he will not attempt to oppose them. To the 
 claimants of the Annuity Tax, and to those who are appointed to up- 
 hold their claims—He says, “ As for me, behold I am in your hand ; 
 do with me as seemeth good and meet unto you ;” Jer. xxvi. 14. He 
 is quite ready to suffer—for that he can do without sinning—but no 
 power on earth will compel him to do what he sereves to be wrong. 
 
 DOCUMENT XI. 
 LETTER TO THE EDITOR OF THE SCOTSMAN NEWSPAPER. 
 
 Edinburgh, 53, Albany Street, Feb. 8, 1838. 
 
 Sir,—As I was going out this morning, I met, in the lobby, three 
 persons, one of whom informed me, that they were come, to distrain, 
 for the Annuity Tax, civilly apologising for coming on so disagreeable 
 an errand, and assigning as the reason, that the Magistrates had in- 
 formed them, that if they did not do their work, they must leave 
 their service. He then asked me if there were any articles which I 
 would prefer being taken rather than others. I declined availing my- 
 self of the choice offered to me; and was about to show them into 
 the dining-room, when he said, looking towards a clock standing in 
 the lobby, “ This will serve the purpose.” On this I left them ; but 
 found afterwards, that doubting, I suppose, whether an article, the 
 price of which, a few years ago, was £10, would suffice to pay a charge 
 of £3: 3:6, they went into a bed-room and poinded a mirror, valued 
 at about £4, leaving an intimation, that if the tax was not paid within 
 eight days, the articles would be removed and sold. 
 
 For various reasons, I am desirous that these facts should be re- 
 corded in your columns “ in perpetuam memoriam rei,’—as an illus- 
 tration of the true character of the Annuity Tax, and of the modera- 
 
Ὁ DOCUMENTS. 
 
 tion and wisdom of its exactors. While I take joyfully this “ spoil- 
 ing of my goods,” I abhor the injustice and despise the meanness of 
 the system, by one of “ the beggarly elements” of which, I am legally 
 robbed of my property ; and cannot help thinking, that every unpre- 
 judiced and reflecting mind must perceive that there is something 
 very far wrong with that system, which can render it necessary and 
 proper, in the estimation of a number of most respectable and amiable 
 Christian ministers, to employ or (which in a moral point of view is 
 the same thing) to sanction the employment of such measures in 
 reference to another Christian minister, who has no ecclesiastical con- 
 nexion with them—who never received from them any favour, and 
 never did them any injury,—in order to obtain that maintenance to 
 which, according to the laws of Christ, they are entitled from those 
 who choose to avail themselves of their valuable labours—a body so 
 numerous and wealthy, that I do not see how, without disgrace as 
 well as criminality, they can allow their respected pastors to suffer 
 even temporary inconvenience, from any difficulty, originating in the 
 unequal, illegal, persecuting, and odious character of the impost from’ 
 which, unhappily for all parties, their income at present is chiefly 
 derived.—I am, Sir, your obedient servant, 
 JOHN BROWN. 
 
 DOCUMENT XII. 
 
 LETTER TO THE EDITOR OF THE SCOTSMAN NEWSPAPER. 
 
 53, Albany Street, May 23, 1838. 
 
 Smr,—Those citizens who do not feel themselves at liberty to pay 
 the Annuity Tax, as being exacted for what appears to them a sinful 
 purpose,—the support of a compulsory system of religious institutions, 
 —owe thanks to the members of the Town Council, who have secured 
 the employment of sworn appraisers in the forcible collection of that 
 obnoxious impost. They must still indeed be spoiled of their goods, but 
 the spoliation is now confined within comparatively moderate limits. 
 
 I had a second visit from the executioners of the law on the 10th 
 instant, and, in consequence of the arrangement referred to, they at- 
 tached, for the payment of two years’ annuity, property of a value 
 considerably less than what on a former occasion was distrained for 
 the annuity of a single year. A number of my brethren from differ- 
 ent quarters of the country happened to be with me when the dis- 
 
LETTER TO THE EDITOR OF THE SCOTSMAN. 223 
 
 traint took place, and witnessed the scene. They seemed struck at 
 the manner in which one class of Christian ministers in Edinburgh, 
 are by a corrupt system brought to believe that it is their duty (for 
 surely nothing short of such a conviction could produce the effect) 
 to take by force the property of one whom some of them were once 
 very ready to acknowledge as a brother,—and I do not think their 
 respect for the Law Church has been at all increased by what they 
 have seen. 
 
 The deed has now been completed. Being about to remove from 
 my present house, I thought it right, on Monday evening, to address 
 a note to the Chamberlain of the city, informing him of iy intention, 
 that he might take what measures he saw proper respecting the goods 
 poinded at his instance, as collector of the stipends of the Established 
 clergy. Though he did not think fit to acknowledge this commu- 
 nication, the articles were by his order this morning removed to the 
 City Weigh House. 
 
 The circumstances connected with the consummation of this act of 
 spoliation, are somewhat remarkable. The last notice was given in 
 the close of the week, a little before the general administration of the 
 Lord’s Supper in the city ;—the distraint took place immediately 
 after it; and the goods were carried off during the meeting of the 
 General Assembly. It seems the wish of those who have the ma- 
 nagement of this business, that the taking by force the property of 
 one minister of religion to support other ministers of religion with 
 whom he has no connexion,—an incident in itself, and from its being, 
 I believe, the first occurrence of the kind in this city, rather fitted to 
 excite public attention,—should have all the advantage of befitting 
 accompaniments. They seem anxious to proclaim that they are not 
 ashamed of what they are doing ; and I am desirous that it should be 
 publicly known that I am not ashamed of what 1 am suffering. 
 
 It is but justice to state that the officers of the law, while they seem- 
 ed rather ashamed of their work, behaved with the utmost civility. 
 
 I have only farther to say, in conclusion, that I feel honoured in 
 having been allowed to bear testimony in this way, to the great truth 
 witnessed to by my Master, before Pontius Pilate, when he said, “* My 
 kingdom is not of this world;” and should the law give those inte- 
 rested, authority to take farther measures against me,—and they be 
 disposed to avail themselves of it,—they will find me quite as ready 
 to allow my person to be conveyed to the City Jail, as my goods to 
 the City Weigh House.—I am, Sir, &c. 
 
 JOHN BROWN. 
 
224 DOCUMENTS. 
 
 DOCUMENT XIIT. 
 EXTRACT FROM THE SCOTSMAN NEWSPAPER, JUNE 30, 1838. 
 
 The goods distrained were sold in the City Weigh House, on the 
 27th June, in the presence of a great crowd, who gave very unequi- _ 
 vocal proof of the public feeling respecting such a transaction, as ap- 
 pears from the following extract from the Scotsman of June 30, 1858. 
 
 “On Wednesday forenoon, a great excitement was occasioned in 
 the city by placards being carried through the streets upon poles, in- 
 timating that a sale of goods, poinded from individuals who had re- 
 refused to pay the Annuity Tax, was to take place at the Weigh 
 House. Some years having elapsed since any sale of the kind had 
 been attempted, considerable curiosity was evinced to see who, or if 
 any one, would have the hardibood to purchase the goods of their 
 fellow-citizens under such peculiar circumstances. Purchasers, how- 
 ever, were found. We need hardly state, that the crowd expressed - 
 their feelings pretty audibly both in reference to the general nature 
 of the transaction itself,—the rouping of one minister's goods for the 
 support of other ministers to whom he was under no obligation, and 
 in reference to the unenviable position in which the purchasers chose 
 to place themselves.” 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 PART SECOND. 
 
 NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 NOTE. fF. 
 
 IN WHAT SENSE CHRISTIAN MINISTERS ARE MESSENGERS OF GOD. 
 
 Tue expression Messengers of God applied in the text to Christian 
 Ministers, is used only figuratively or analogically, and in a second- 
 ary and much lower sense than that in which in the New Testament 
 similar appellations are applied to the apostles. It is meant to denote 
 merely that they are men whose office is to declare divine truth—to 
 which office, if they regularly fill it, they have been called by their 
 brethren,—and in most cases, the call of the brethren has been sanc- 
 tioned, by solemn commendation of them to the care of the Chief 
 Shepherd, by those already in office. 
 
 Perhaps an apology is necessary, for applying, to any ordinary offi- 
 cer in the Christian Church, an appellation appropriated in the New 
 Testament to inspired teachers. Undoubtedly the rash assumption, 
 that the terms employed in reference to the apostles may, with few 
 exceptions, be, as a matter of course, applied to ordinary ministers, 
 has not only led to much misinterpretation of Scripture, but to tyran- 
 nical assumption on one side, and slavish subjection on the other. It 
 has often made ministers think less of the duties than the dignities of 
 their office—more of its honours than its responsibilities ;—and it has 
 cherished a superstitious veneration for the clergy (by the way, the 
 New Testament clergy ὅς κλῆροι are not the ministers but the people, 
 1 Pet. v. 3), which has perpetuated abuses and greatly impeded the 
 progress of truth and godliness. 
 
226 NOTES. 
 
 If the subject was not so closely connected with the highest inte- 
 rests of all concerned, it would really be amusing to listen to the 
 high-sounding words of vanity—in which the clergy, par excellence, 
 speak of their mysterious dignity. ‘ The Evangelical priesthood,” 
 says one of them, “ translates us out of darkness into God's marvel- 
 lous light, raises men from the earth, and virtually brings God him-: 
 self down from the regions of heaven. By blessing visible elements, 
 it makes them the happy instruments of invisible grace. It symbo- 
 lically disposes of that body which was given for the life of the world, 
 and that blood which was poured out to redeem men’s precious and 
 immortal souls. Oh, miracle of goodness! Oh, adorable bounty of 
 God! that such transcendent power should be given to the sons of 
 sinful men. What amazing dulness, then, is it not to admire! what 
 shocking profaneness not to revere, so great an authority! To you, 
 my brethren, are committed the keys of heaven, of hell, and of death ; 
 all the means, the ministrations, the persons, the instruments, the 
 energies of grace. By you men put on Christ,—by you they are 
 united to the Son of God,” &e.—“ With regard to those presump- © 
 tuous arrogant teachers (the Dissenting ministers), and their obsti- 
 nately blind followers, Charity itself, that heaven-born virgin, which 
 kindly draws a veil over every human ill, stands startled and amaz- 
 ed: in vain she strives, in vain she labours to excuse them, though 
 she still hopeth and believeth all things, yet still she repines, and it 
 is not in her power to think so favourably of them as Origen did of 
 their father the devil, who falsely imagined he might be saved.”— 
 “‘ In case of a real and absolute necessity,” of men’s teaching Christi- 
 anity and administering its ordinances without regular Episcopal or- 
 dination “ (not a false and pretended necessity, not the daring and 
 presumptuous plea of the kirk,—that man must be a perfect stranger 
 to modern history, who is ignorant that the kirk very rebelliously 
 and impiously rejected Episcopacy,—not the feigned but more plau- 
 sible excuse of Geneva; not the boasted moderation of those who 
 falsely call themselves churches reformed), we would not willingly 
 think those men, who, though unauthorized, piously preach the reli- 
 gion of Jesus, to be guilty of sacrilege, or to incur the dreadful penalty 
 of damnation. No, in pity to their unavoidable misfortune, in com- 
 passion to their inconquerable necessity, we consign them not to the 
 indolent state of a gloomy deprivation, nor shall we commit them to 
 the merciless and irreversible fate of eternal misery. They are in the 
 hands of a merciful Creator ; we leave them to their guardian angels, 
 and to that Providence which continually preserveth all things.” 
 
THE DUTY OF CHRISTIANS AS TO POLITICS. 227 
 
 Who can but laugh to think that such things have been said,—who 
 would not weep to know that they have been said by a Protestant 
 Christian minister ? Yet are they verbatim extracted from “ The Di- 
 vine Institution of the Ministry, and the absolute Necessity of Christ's 
 Government : a Sermon preached before the University of Oxford, on 
 Sunday the 21st of September, 1722. By Joseph Betty, M.A. Fellow of 
 Exeter College in Oxford.” It was in reference to this asserter of cle- 
 ricul dignity, that a wag of those times, with a freedom with Scrip- 
 tural phraseology, of which we cannot approve, makes Arma Mater 
 Oxonia exclaim, “‘ Many of my daughters have done virtuously, but 
 Berry excelleth them all.” 
 
 Oxford seems much the same kind of place still. It would not be 
 difficult to find passages in the “ Oxford Tracts,” in the course of 
 publication, as extravagant in sentiment if not in expression as the 
 above. Yet these are the persons with whom the Presbyterian up- 
 holders of Establishments at all hazards, seem to delight in fraterniz- 
 ing. These form part and parcel of the venerable Hierarchy and 
 Establishment of England. The Covenanters were much more nearly 
 right than those who boast of being their descendants, in their judg- 
 ments on these subjects, whatever we may think of some of their say- 
 ings and doings. 
 
 NOTE II. 
 
 REASONS WHY CHRISTIANS SHOULD ATTEND TO POLITICS. 
 
 ROBERT HALL. 
 
 « The principles of freedom ought, in a more peculiar manner, to 
 be cherished by Christians, for they alone can secure that liberty of 
 conscience and freedom of inquiry, which is essential to the proper 
 discharge of the duties of their profession. A full toleration of reli- 
 gious opinions, and the protection of all parties in their respective 
 modes of worship, are the natural operations of a free government ; 
 and every thing that tends to check or restrain them, materially affects 
 the interests of religion. Aware of the force of religious belief over 
 the mind of man, of the generous independence it inspires, and of the 
 eagerness with which it is cherished and maintained, it is towards 
 this quarter the arm of despotism still directs its first attacks, while 
 through every period, the imaginary right of ruling the conscience has 
 
228 NOTES. 
 
 been the earliest assumed and the latest relinquished. Under this 
 conviction, an enlightened Christian, when he turns his attention to 
 political occurrences, will rejoice in beholding every advance towards 
 freedom in the government of nations, as it forms not only a barrier 
 to the encroachments of tyranny, but a security to the diffusion and 
 establishment of truth.” 
 
 “ Christianity, instead of weakening our attachment to the princi- 
 ples of freedom, or withdrawing them from our attention, renders 
 them doubly dear to us, by giving us an interest in them, proportioned 
 to the value of those religious principles they secure and protect.”— 
 Robert Hall, Works, vol. iii. pp. 12, 13, 15. 
 
 I can never forget the emphasis with which the great man whose 
 words have been just quoted, said to me in conversation in one of the 
 few interviews I was favoured to have with him, “ To die in the 
 cause of Christianity is the highest honour that can befal any man. 
 To die in the cause of civil liberty is the next.” 
 
 NOTE ΠῚ. 
 
 REASONS WHY CHRISTIAN MINISTERS SHOULD ATTEND TO POLITICS. 
 
 ROBERT HALL. 
 
 “‘ There is no class of men to whom this species of knowledge,”— 
 that of the principles of government,—“ is so requisite, on several 
 accounts, as Dissenting ministers. 
 
 “ The jealous policy of the Establishment forbids our youth admis- 
 sion into the celebrated seats of learning ; our own seminaries, at 
 least, till lately, were almost entirely confined to candidates for the 
 ministry ; and as on both these accounts, amongst us, the intellectual 
 improvement of our religious instructors, rises superior to that of pri- 
 vate Christians, in a greater degree than in the national church, the 
 influence of their opinions is wider in proportion. Disclaiming, as 
 they do, all pretensions to dominion, their public character, their pro- 
 fessional leisure, the habits of study and composition which they ac- 
 quire, concur to point them out as the natural guardians, in some 
 measure, of our liberties and rights. Besides, as they are appointed 
 to teach the whole compass of social duty, the mutual obligations of 
 rulers and subjects will, of necessity, fall under their notice, and they 
 -cannot explain or enforce the reasons of submission without display- 
 
THE DUTY OF MINISTERS AS TO POLITICS. 229 
 
 ing the proper end of government, and the expectations we may na- 
 turally form from it; which, when accurately done, will lead into 
 the very depths of political science. 
 
 “ There is another reason, however, distinct from any I have yet 
 mentioned, flowing from the nature of an Established religion, why 
 Dissenting ministers, above all men, should be well skilled in the 
 principles of freedom. Wherever, as in England, religion is esta- 
 blished by law with splendid emoluments and dignities annexed to 
 its profession, the clergy who are candidates for these distinctions 
 will ever be prone to exalt the prerogative, not only in order to 
 strengthen the arm on which they lean, but that they may the more 
 successfully ingratiate themselves in the favour of the prince, by 
 flattering those ambitious views and passions, which are so readily 
 entertained by persons possessed of supreme powers. 
 
 “ΤῊ boasted alliance between Church and State, on which so 
 many encomiums have been lavished, seems to be little more than a 
 compact between the priest and magistrate, to betray the liberties of 
 mankind, both civil and religious. To this the clergy, on their part 
 at least, have continued steady, shunning inquiry, fearful of change, 
 blind to the corruptions of government, skilful to discern the signs of 
 the times, and eager to improve every opportunity, and to employ 
 all their art and eloquence to extend the prerogative, and smooth the 
 approaches of arbitrary power. Individuals are illustrious exceptions 
 to this censure ; it however applies to the body, to none more than 
 to those whose exalted rank and extensive influence determine its 
 complexion and spirit. In this situation, the leaders of that church, 
 in their fatal attempt to recommend and embellish a slavish system 
 of principles, will, I trust, be very carefully watched and opposed by 
 those who hold a similar station amongst the Dissenters; that, at all 
 events, there may remain an asylum to which insulted freedom may 
 retire unmolested.”—Robert Hall, Works, vol. iii. pp, 23-25. 
 
 QUARTERLY REVIEW. 
 
 It is always satisfactory, on a point of importance like that under 
 consideration, when we find a uniformity of opinion among able men, 
 whose general views in religion and politics are diametrically opposed 
 to each other. That satisfaction I enjoyed in no ordinary degree, in 
 reading the following striking passage from a powerful article on “ the 
 Universities,” in the last number of the Quarterly Review. In the 
 greater part of that article I decidedly differ from its able writer, but 
 in the remarks which follow, T most cordially concur :— 
 
230 NOTES. 
 
 “ No maxim is more false and destructive to the true interests of 
 states, than one which has been hypocritically asserted of late, and 
 succumbed to without dispute, that men devoted to religion and edu- 
 cation are not fit to take part in politics; that their great duty is se- 
 clusion, and their great use inaction. The very contrary of this is 
 the truth. Men, indeed, of peace and piety ‘and study, naturally 
 shrink from the rough battles of the world; they have with it few 
 interests in common, they neither understand its language, nor are 
 capable of regulating its movements—but, when and where? only in 
 the petty squabbles for place and power—in the drudgery of covet- 
 ousness—in conflicts where no great or holy end is to be gained. In 
 all such deeds and struggles, men of religion and learning must stand 
 apart, and must be useless. They can only disgrace and render im- 
 potent their own power, by attempting to interfere. But, when the 
 great interests of mankind are at stake, and a nation is to be rescued 
 from the ruin ofits liberties and religion—then, when no good or great 
 mind can remain unmoved, it is their first duty to come forward. 
 They have no right, in the indulgence of indolence or timidity, to - 
 give up the control of things to hands less capable of controlling 
 them fitly. They are bound to save society from corruption, by 
 leavening it with their own high spirit; and they have in all such 
 cases a power which they have not in any other, and which few men 
 possess but themselves. They then possess the command over all the 
 better portion of the community ; they can unite men to themselves 
 in the strongest faith by honesty of purpose and singleness of mind ; 
 and they have the only lever by which, with the exception of blind 
 passion, mankind can be gathered together, and propelled with force 
 against an enemy.”—Quarterly Review, vol. lix. pp. 442, 443. 
 
 As to the reference of these remarks, the author and myself, pro- 
 bably, have a very different view—as to their truth and importance 
 we are completely at one. There are two men especially, towards 
 whom the eyes of the lovers of freedom are directed at this crisis, 
 with anxious, hopeful desire. What a beneficent power might the 
 authors of the “ Essay on Decision of Character,” and of the “ Ad- 
 vancement of Society,” and the “ Prospects of Europe,” put forth, 
 were they but communicating to the world their “ deep and retired 
 thoughts” on the mighty questions which are now agitating the pub- 
 lic mind. 
 
 It is matter of great congratulation to all lovers of truth and free- 
 dom, that the general prejudice against ministers intermeddling in any 
 thing approximating to political discussion, has not prevented such 
 
MISTAKEN INTERPRETATION OF ROM. ΧΙΠ.1-. 231 
 
 men as Battanryne, and Marsnart, and Warptaw, and Pye Sirs, 
 and Heveu, and James, and Tuomson, and Binney, and Youne, and 
 many more whom space prevents us from naming, from performing 
 the invaluable service to the Church and society at large which they 
 have done, by their literary labours on the Voluntary Church ques- 
 tion. 
 
 The charge of an over-fondness for political studies and pursuits 
 against the Dissenters generally, and Dissenting ministers particu- 
 larly, comes with a very bad grace from those who usually bring it— 
 for two reasons; first, the clergy of the Establishment are generally 
 politicians, in the worst sense of the word, keen partizans—and, se- 
 condly, by refusing Dissenters equal civil rights, by obstinately shut- 
 ting the ear to their very reasonable request, to be let alone with re- 
 gard to their religion, they compel the Dissenters to become politi- 
 cians in their own defence. In the United States of America, where 
 there is no Establishment, a political partizan is scarcely to be found 
 among the ministers of any religious denomination. Let those who 
 dislike political parsons employ the means which have produced the 
 desired effect on the other side of the Atlantic, and I rather think 
 they will find them equally efficacious on this. 
 
 _—_— 
 
 NOTE IV. 
 
 MISTAKEN INTERPRETATION OF ROM. XIII. 1-7, BY THE FRIENDS 
 OF FREEDOM, 
 
 A very considerable portion of the misinterpretation of Scripture 
 has proceeded from the friends of truth. Not satisfied with showing 
 that a passage of Scripture, which has been claimed by the enemies 
 of truth, does not really serve their purpose—they have often at- 
 tempted to compel it, unwillingly, to say what is directly opposite to 
 their adversaries’ views. Not content to snatch the weapon out of 
 their antagonist’s hand, they have endeavoured to turn it, even when 
 not fitted for such a purpose, into an instrument of vengeance. This 
 has been remarkably the case with regard to the passage now before 
 us. Almost all the defenders of freedom have, more or less, misap- 
 prehended or misrepresented the meaning of the apostle ; and it is 
 curious, that perhaps the least exceptionable interpretation of it, upon 
 the whole, in the compass of our theological literature, is that by the 
 able and accomplished high Churchman, Bishop Sherlock. 
 
232 NOTES. 
 
 Bucuanan, speaking of this passage, says, ‘“ Non igitur hic Paulus 
 de iis, qui magistratum gerunt, agit, sed de ipso magistratu, hoe est, 
 de functione et officio eorum, qui aliis presunt ; nec de uno aut altero 
 genere magistratus, sed de omni legitimi magistratus forma.”—De 
 Jure Regni apud Scotos, p. 149. Glasg. 1750. 
 
 Mitton, by “ the higher powers,” seems to understand the laws, 
 and by “ the powers that be,” authorities which deserve the name. 
 In his ““ Defence of the People of England,” he remarks, ‘“‘ The words 
 immediately after, make it as clear as the sun, that the apostle speaks 
 only of a lawful power; for he gives us in them a definition of ma- 
 gistrates, and thereby explains to us who are the persons thus autho- 
 rized, and upon what account we are to yield obedience, lest we 
 should be apt to mistake, and ground extravagant notions upon his 
 discourse. ‘ The magistrates,’ says he, ‘ are not a terror to good 
 works, but to 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. He beareth not the sword in 
 vain: for he is the minister of God, a revenger to execute wrath upon 
 him that doeth evil.’ What honest man would not willingly submit 
 to such a magistracy as is here described ? And that not only to avoid 
 wrath, and for fear of punishment, but for conscience’ sake.”—Mil- 
 ton’s Works, vol. i. p. 478. Fol. - Lond. 1738. 
 
 Locke says, “ That St Paul, in his direction to the Romans, does 
 not so much describe the magistrates that then were in Rome, as tells 
 whence they, and all magistrates every where, have their authority, 
 and for what end they have it and should use it.”—‘* From what is 
 said, ver. 3, it seems that Paul meant here magistrates having and ex- 
 ercising a lawful power.”—Paraph. and Notes on the Epistles of Paul. 
 Works, vol. iii. pp. 826, 927. Fol. Lond. 1740. 
 
 Hoapty also considers the description in ver. 3, as a description, 
 “ not so much of what the Roman magistrates were, but of what they 
 and all magistrates ought to be; and on the being which, depends 
 their claim to subjection.’—Measures of Submission to the Civil Ma- 
 gistrate considered, Pp. 41-43. 8vo. London, 1718. 
 
 Bisnor Fieetwoon’s “ Thirteenth Chapter of the Romans vindicated 
 from the abusive sense put upon it,” is much more remarkable for its 
 witty exposure of the absurdity of the misinterpretations of the ad- 
 yocates of the divine right of kings to rule wrong, than for accurate 
 exposition of the sacred text. It is, however, well worth reading. 
 
 Following out this mode of interpretation, the Rerormep Pres- 
 nyTery declare, that neither this, nor any other passage of Scripture, 
 
REASONS FOR INCULCATING CIVIL OBEDIENCE. 299 
 
 proves “ that it is the duty of the people of God, blessed with the 
 knowledge of his revealed will, to submit to, or obey, for conscience’ 
 sake, an authority that is sinful, and opposite to the revealed will of 
 God, both in its constitution and general course of administration ;”— 
 “ that the being of God, or the ordination of God here spoken of, is 
 not a being of God providentially only, but such a being of God as con- 
 tains in it his institution and appointment, by the warrant of his law 
 and precept ; so that the magistrates, to whom the apostle enjoins obe- 
 dience, are such as are set up according to the preceptive ordination 
 and will of God.”—Act, Declaration, and Testimony, by the Reformed 
 Presbytery. Edinburgh, 1777. Pp. 145-151. 
 
 “When the apostle says, ‘ There is no power but of God: the 
 powers that be are ordained of God, he certainly means either the 
 office of magistracy in all its different branches in the abstract, or else 
 the office filled with virtuous rulers only.”—M‘Millan’s Letter to 
 Messrs Belfrage, &c. Pp. 58, 59. 
 
 NOTE V. 
 
 REASON WHY THE APOSTLES SO OFTEN INCULCATED THE DUTY OF 
 CIVIL OBEDIENCE, 
 
 BAXTER. 
 
 “* Many occasions concurred to make this document of the apostle 
 necessary to the Romans. 1. There were heretics crept in among 
 them that abused the doctrine of Christian liberty, and persuaded 
 them that subjection to the rule of magistrates was against their li- 
 berty ; 2. And the weaker Christians were the easier induced to en- 
 tertain this doctrine in part, because they were heathen magistrates 
 that they were under. And the Christians being (justly) prohibited 
 by the apostles to go to law about personal injuries before heathen 
 judges, but to agree among themselves, they were the readier to have 
 low thoughts of judges as useless or burdensome, or not fit to be go- 
 vernors of Christians. 9. And especially because many of the Chris- 
 tians had been Jews that were hardly brought to any but a forced 
 submission unto Gentile rulers, and were ever prone to rebel against 
 them, thinking it an honourable vindication of their holy state and 
 church, which they thought no heathen had right to rule over. The 
 first heretics rising from the Jewish Christians, and Judaizing so pal- 
 
 Q 
 
234 NOTES. 
 
 pably in this as in other things, and the weaker sort of the Jewish 
 Christians being so prone to hearken to them, gave great occasion to 
 the apostle thus to press the doctrine of subjection. Note, that 
 the main question here resolved is, ‘ Whether magistracy and heathen 
 magistrates should be submitted to as God’s ordinance for conscience’ 
 sake? And so it was about the very state of subjection: which 
 among us Christians is a matter past doubt ; though we are not all 
 agreed about obedience in some particular cases.”—Buaater’s Holy 
 Commonwealth, Pp. 346, 347. 
 
 SHERLOCK. 
 
 “ Sr Jerome, in his comment upon the Epistle to Titus, at these 
 words, ‘ Put them in mind to be obedient to principalities and powers, 
 gives this reason why the apostle there, and elsewhere, insists on the 
 obligations which Christians were under to obey their rulers; ‘ Quia 
 Jude Galilei per illud tempus dogma adhue vigebat et habebat plu- 
 rimos sectatores.’—St Chrysostom, in his comment on the thirteenth 
 of the Romans, teaches us the same thing: Kau yap modus περιεῴερετο 
 λογος τοτε; emt στασει και καινοτομία διαβαλλων τους Ἀποστόλους, και 
 ὡς er avaTpoT7y τῶν κοινῶν νόμων») ἅπαντα Kat ποιουνται Kat Aeyovrat, 
 ‘ For there was at that time a strong report that the apostles were se- 
 ditious and innovators, and that their principles and practices tended 
 to the subversion of the common laws.’”—Sherlock’s Discourses, 
 vol. iii. p. 306. 
 
 TERROT. 
 
 ‘“* How necessary the admonition contained in Rom. xiii. 1, was, we 
 may learn from history. The empire was about this time full of se- 
 dition and assassinations, and the three emperors, Caligula, Claudius, 
 and Nero, were all taken off by violent deaths. The Jews also but a 
 little before had been banished from Rome by Claudius, on account of 
 their turbulence.—<Acts xviii. 2; Suet. in Claud. 25. The doctrine 
 of resistance had been inculcated by the Pharisees. Joseph. Antiq. 
 xviii. 2."—The Epistle of Paul the Apostle to the Romans, with an In- 
 troduction, Paraphrase, and Notes, by C. H. Terrot, A. M., p. 292. 
 Lond. 1828. 
 
TRUE PRINCIPLE OF BIBLICAL INTERPRETATION. 235 
 
 NOTE VI. 
 
 THE TRUE PRINCIPLE OF BIBLICAL INTERPRETATION. 
 
 The extent to which the sentiments in this paragraph,—sentiments 
 in themselves perfectly harmless, and long universally admitted and 
 acted on among intelligent expositors,—have been misrepresented as 
 if they contained in them the concentrated essence of Neologism, 
 may excuse, if it do not.seem to require the endeavour to give a some- 
 what fuller statement and illustration of them, which is all, I believe, 
 that is necessary to their vindication, with candid minds. In one 
 point of view, the Holy Scriptures are precisely the same thing to us, 
 as they were to those to whom they were originally addressed. To 
 us as well as to them, they are the authoritative utterance of the 
 Divine mind and will, the supreme rule of faith and duty both reli- 
 gious and moral. In another point of view they may not be,—in many 
 particular instances they are not, the same thing to us that they were 
 to them. The law of Moses, which forms an important part of the 
 inspired volume, was a very different thing to the Jew, who lived be- 
 fore the law was “ done away in Christ,” from what it has been ever 
 since, or, whatever some Millennarians may dream of, ever again will 
 be to either Jew or Gentile. Some commands of our Lord, couched 
 in general terms, such as, “ sell that ye have and give alms,” were 
 intended, in the full extent of their literal meaning, to be a rule of 
 conduct to those to whom they were addressed, while on us they are 
 obligatory, merely as containing a general principle, which may be 
 applied to our circumstances as well as to theirs. With regard to 
 very many particular passages of Scripture, the answer to the two 
 questions—what was it to them ? what is it to us ? will be found iden- 
 tical. But the cautious interpreter will always put them, in his own 
 mind, though he will by no means find it necessary in a majority of 
 cases, to bring forward more than the general result in his exposition. 
 The manner in which I apprehend the principle stated in the text 
 should be applied to the interpretation of the apostolical epistles, will 
 appear from the following remarks, written many years ago, and cer- 
 tainly with no suspicion on my mind, that I was likely at any future 
 period to be called to defend myself from the charge of Neological 
 perversion of the Holy Seriptures. To protect them so far as in my 
 power from both Pal@ological and Neological perversion, has been the 
 leading aim of my ministerial labours. 
 
236 NOTES. 
 
 The Apostolical Epistles form a very important part of the Christian 
 Scriptures, and are admirably adapted, as they were certainly design- 
 ed, for promoting the spiritual improvement of Christians in every 
 country and age. To serve this purpose, however, they must be 
 rightly interpreted. By the application of false principles of exposi- 
 tion, it is quite possible entirely to neutralize those qualities in the 
 Apostolic Epistles, which give them their interest and utility, to con- 
 vert the pure nectar of divine truth into vapid common-place, or de- 
 leterious error. It is lamentable to think, that there is more than a 
 possibility of such a transmutation, and I know no system of inter- 
 pretation, which, in the hands of some learned and ingenious men, 
 has been more fatally efficient in this way, than the scheme which is 
 based on the principle, that the Epistles are to be considered as occu- 
 pied with subjects chiefly, if not solely, interesting to those to whom 
 they were originally addressed, and bearing but indirectly and ocea- 
 sionally on the faith and duty of Christians in after ages—that they 
 relate mainly to circumstances, tenets, doubts, and controversies, of 
 a local and temporary character, and that however interesting they 
 may be to the ecclesiastical archeologist, as containing the most au- 
 thentic and particular information respecting the peculiarities of opi- 
 nion and usage which distinguished the infant church, they afford but 
 little that can contribute to the improvement of the unlearned Chris- 
 tian, in an era so remote as ours from the apostolic age, and in circum- 
 stances so different from those in which the primitive churches were 
 placed. 
 
 This is a principle which, however disguised, bears on it very strong 
 presumptive marks of unsoundness. The fundamental truths and 
 duties of Christianity are the same in every country and age, and 
 however the artificial manners of mankind may vary, the essential 
 principles of human nature remain unaltered. It appears next to an 
 impossibility that a Christian apostle should write a letter to a primi- 
 tive church, in which by far the greater part of the discussions should 
 not be of a nature calculated permanently to interest and instruct 
 Christians; and notwithstanding all the learning, ingenuity, and 
 labour, which have been devoted to the establishment of this theory, 
 we find, when applied to the Apostolic Epistles, that it entirely fails ; 
 for when we have withdrawn from these Epistles, every thing that can 
 with any shadow of probability be supposed to refer to the peculiari- 
 ties of the primitive age, or of the particular church addressed,—every 
 thing that has the slightest tincture of the topical and temporary, a 
 vast mass both of doctrinal and practical matter remains, which is 
 
TRUE PRINCIPLE OF BIBLICAL INTERPRETATION. 237 
 
 equally applicable to all times and places under the Gospel economy ; 
 and eyen in the discussion of local and obsolete controversies, such as 
 that concerning the continued obligation of Mosaic rites, there are 
 frequent references to the grand fundamental principles of Christian 
 faith and duty—principles which are applicable to a countless variety 
 of important purposes, besides that, to serve which they are there in- 
 troduced. If we would read the Apostolic Epistles with advantage, 
 we must consider them as a part of the permanent and universal re- 
 velation of God’s will, and hear the Spirit, speaking to the churches 
 in all ages, while directly addressing the churches in Palestine, Greece, 
 or Italy, in Jerusalem, Corinth, or Rome.* 
 
 This is the worst and most dangerous error in interpreting the 
 Apostolical Epistles, on which I have just been animadverting ; but 
 there is more than a possibility of running into the opposite extreme. 
 The meaning of many passages in this most valuable department of 
 inspired Scripture, has been misapprehended, and of course misrepre- 
 sented, by men coming to their consideration with their minds full 
 of ideas borrowed from comparatively modern artificial modifications 
 of the Christian Theology, which, though substantially accurate, have 
 lost the beautiful simplicity of apostolic doctrine—and forgetting the 
 very striking peculiarities of the primitive age, and of the different 
 religious societies to whom these Epistles were originally written. 
 The greater part of the Epistles is as applicable to us as to them, to 
 whom they were primarily addressed—and there is no part of them, 
 which, when rightly understood, will not be found profitable to us as 
 well as to them, “ for doctrine and for reproof, for correction and in- 
 struction in righteousness:” But there are passages—and not a few 
 of ‘them, where the instruction given has a reference to something 
 peculiar either to the primitive age, or to the particular church, 
 and which is not directly applicable to those who are placed in very 
 different circumstances, though in almost every such instance convey- 
 ing indirectly important instruction of a permanent and universal 
 character. Such passages, too, not unfrequently occur in the bosom 
 of discussions on subjects of unchanging interest—so that the attention 
 of the expositor requires to be constantly awake—if he would acquit 
 himself as “* a workman that needs not to be ashamed,” and “ rightly 
 divide the word of truth.” 
 
 The occurrence of such passages in the Apostolical Epistles, is a 
 very striking confirmation of the authenticity and genuineness of 
 these sacred writings. Without that particularity of allusion by 
 
 * Gisborne on Colossians, § 1. 
 
298 NOTES. 
 
 which they are so remarkably characterised, the internal evidence 
 that they are what they profess to be, would not have been nearly so 
 strong as it 15. And on the supposition that they are what they pro- 
 fess to be, it is quite obvious that they could not be without such dif- 
 ficulties as we meet with, unless they had been accompanied by his- 
 torical notices, more voluminous than the letters they were meant to 
 illustrate. A careful study of the Epistles, and of the history of the 
 age in which they were written, will frequently suggest important 
 hints for the elucidation of passages that would otherwise be very ob- 
 scure, if not unintelligible. And in the absence of all direct informa- 
 tion, it not unfrequently happens that a reference to opinions and cus- 
 toms, modes of thought, and modes of expression, known to have ex- 
 isted at the period when they were written, and among the people to 
 whom they were addressed, enables us more distinctly to apprehend 
 the meaning of a statement, the appropriateness of an illustration, and 
 the force of an argument. 
 
 If we would interpret the Scriptures satisfactorily, we must follow 
 the course so distinctly pointed out, and forcibly recommended in the 
 following extract from a late publication of a divine of the English 
 Establishment. “It is not to the Bible without note and comment, 
 that Protestants,” he should have said well-informed Protestants, 
 “‘ appeal as the ultimate standard of religious truth, but (as their 
 constant practice of interpretation shows) to the Bible with every 
 note and comment from every quarter, not from any limited set of so 
 called Fathers, or rather from certain digests of opinion from them, 
 which pass over their manifold contradictions of each other and of 
 themselves, but from all those legitimate and necessary helps which 
 are supplied by grammatical, critical, historical, moral, and spiritual 
 considerations, and which regulate our interpretation of every other 
 book.” —Griffith’s Christian Church as it stands distinguished from Po- 
 pery and Puritanism, Ὁ. 147. 8vo. Lond. 1837. 
 
 * NOTE VIE 
 
 ILLUSTRATION OF εξουσίιαι, AS SIGNIFICANT OF MAGISTRATES, AND 
 OF THE MEANING OF υὑπερεχουσαι. 
 
 Egovown is obviously used as equivalent to efovavagovres, or ἐξουσίαν 
 exovress It is an example of what grammarians call the use of the 
 
ILLUSTRATIONS OF EZOYSIAI AND ὙΠΕΡΕΧΟΥ͂ΣΑΙ. 239 
 
 abstract for the concrete. Kinoel (in Com. in Tit.) says, that this 
 is “ ex Hebreorum consuetudine loquendi,”—but the practice pre- 
 vails in all languages. It is curious to observe, how very generally 
 words properly significant of political power and‘authority have been 
 employed to denote those invested with them. The Talmudists are 
 accustomed to call magistrates myws powers. Thus, in the Talmu- 
 dical tract, Prexe Anoru, c.i. 10, Be not familiar MW with the 
 powers; and c. ii. 3, Beware Mw 2 ‘of the power.—Schetgenii 
 Hore Hebraice et Talmudica, vol. i. p. 568. Dresde, 1733. 
 
 In the letter of the Christians of Lyons and Vienne, in Evsrnius’ 
 Ecclesiastical History, Lib. v. 1, 4, the municipal magistrates who are 
 called duuwmviri, are spoken of as εξουσιαι. Dronysius Haricarnasstus 
 (Lib. ii.) employs ἐξουσία in the singular for the magistrate, 6. μεν 
 ραβδουχοι κελευσθεντες ὑπὸ ths εξουσιας avetpyov αὐτοὺς amo του βη- 
 patos. Josrruus (De Bell. Jud. Lib. ii. 6. 7.) calls the same class of 
 rulers the Apostle speaks of, xparouvvras—and quotes a maxim of the 
 Essenes, which closely resembles the statement of the Apostle in the 
 second verse, in which they teach—ro πιστὸν παρεξειν πασι; μαλιστα 
 de τοις κρατουσί; ου γαρ διχα Θεου περιγενεσθαι TLL TO Κρατειν- 
 
 In the Roman writers, the higher magistrates, such as the Consuls 
 and Pretors, were termed Jmperia, or Potestates cum imperio. Ma- 
 gistrates of an inferior grade, such as Tribunes, Questors, Aidiles, 
 were simply styled potestates. 
 
 Hujus qui trahitur preetextam sumere mavis 
 An Fidenarum Gabiorumque esse potestas.—Jvv. x. 
 
 They, however, sometimes used the word Potestas as descriptive of 
 the highest order of Magistracy, as 
 
 Nihil est quod eredere de se 
 Non possit, cum laudatur diis zequa potestas.—Jvv. iv. 
 
 Pury Pangyr. 59, calls the consulate and the empire swmmas po- 
 testates—Ammuianus Marcetiinus terms the higher authorities potes- 
 tates excelse, Lib. xxv. 4. 
 
 The Italians use the word Podesta in a similar way, and we speak 
 of the Power's of Europe. 
 
240 NOTES. 
 
 “NOTE VIII. 
 
 PROFESSOR STUA RT's INTERPRETATION OF THE EXPRESSION εξουσια 
 
 απο Θεου- 
 
 The interpretation of the clause, “ There is no power but of God,” 
 by this very learned, acute, and often judicious expositor, exceedingly 
 surprised me. He would seem to look on magistracy as fully as much 
 an infliction to be borne with patience as a benefit to be received with 
 gratitude.—“ All magistrates are by God’s permission ; and even when 
 they are oppressive, the Christian is bound to regard them (so he should 
 regard other evils) as existing by divine permission, and to bow submis- 
 sive in all cases where direct disobedience to God is not demanded by 
 them. Such a view of the subject is greatly adapted to satisfy the mind 
 of a Christian, when he feels galled with the yoke of oppression. ‘ The 
 powers that be are ordained of God,’ and they should be submitted to, 
 therefore, on the same ground that we take when we urge acquies- 
 cence in other afflicting dispensations of an over-ruling power.”— 
 Stuart's Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans, pp. 515, 516. 8vo. 
 London, 1836.—This is a just idea in itself, but it does not seem to 
 be the apostle’s. He turns the attention of the Romans to the advan- 
 tage of civil government, as calling for grateful acknowledgment ; not 
 to the accompanying disadvantages, as calling for ready submission. 
 He represents the Roman government as a direct good—not a direct 
 evil, and only an occasional good.—Loean, in his “* Treatise on Go- 
 vernment,” more exactly brings out the apostle’s idea. ‘* Whatever 
 the form of government is, that men have established agreeably to 
 the dictates of right reason, so as to answer the valuable ends of it ; 
 it draws after it the Divine approbation, and it is ‘of God.’”—A Trea- 
 tise on Government, showing that the Right of the Kings of Scotland to 
 the Crown was not strictly and absolutely hereditary, p. vi. 8yo. Edin. 
 1746. 
 
 NOTE IX. 
 SHERLOCK'S METHOD OF RECONCILING PAUL AND PETER. 
 
 The following passage is a striking illustration of the strange shifts 
 to which even learned and ingenious men sometimes have recourse, 
 to avoid coming at a conclusion to which they are strongly disin- 
 
GROUNDS AND LIMITS OF CIVIL OBEDIENCE. 241 
 
 clined. Bishop Sarrtock’s high church notions naturally indisposed 
 him to look on civil magistracy as a human institution. But how 
 was he to get rid of Peter's assertion that it is ανθρωπινὴ κτισις ? 
 Let the Bishop himself answer the question. After saying that “ if 
 St Peter has taught us that kings are the ordinance of man—made by 
 the people, he has contradicted St Paul,’—he goes on to remark, “‘ How 
 κτισις ανθρωπινη should signify a creature or any thing else made by 
 man, I know not. Ανθρωπινὴ codua is not wisdom made by man, but 
 wisdom which man has given him by God” (a very questionable 
 statement). “ So κτισὲς ανθρωπινὴ is not a creature made by man, but 
 a human creature. And that this is St Peter’s true meaning, will ap- 
 pear from the whole tenor of his discourse.’—Sherlock’s Discourses, 
 vol. iii. p. 319. Thus, in order to uphold the slavish dogma that a 
 king is so divini juris as not to be humani juris, an inspired Apostle 
 must be made to write such nonsense as “ Submit yourselves to every 
 human creature for the Lord’s sake, whether to the king as supreme,” 
 &c. How carefully should we guard against party spirit in inter- 
 preting the word of God, when we see to what an absolutely ridicu- 
 lous length it carried so able a man as Sherlock ! 
 
 NOTE X. 
 ON THE GROUNDS AND LIMITS OF CIVIL OBEDIENCE. 
 
 DR THOMAS BROWN. 
 
 «ΟἿ first patriotic duty is the duty of obedience. Why is it 
 that we term obedience a duty? What circumstances are there in 
 the nature of a system of government, by which, under certain 
 limitations, it has a claim on our submission, merely because it al- 
 ready exists, and has long existed ? 
 
 “ΤῊ answer to this question was for a long time, even in our own 
 land, a very simple one—that power established was established by 
 God, and that disobedience to the individual whom he had established 
 to exercise this power would be a rebellion against right divine. 
 
 ‘ Who first taught souls enslaved, and realms undone 
 The enormous faith of many made for one ; 
 That proud exception to all nature’s laws, 
 To invert the world and counteract its cause ! 
 
919 NOTES. 
 
 Force first made conquest, and that conquest law, 
 Till superstition taught the tyrant awe, 
 
 Then shared the tyranny, then lent its aid, 
 
 And gods of conquerors, slaves of subjects made.’ * 
 
 “ The argument for the right divine of established power, which 
 is in logic little better than any other argument for the right divine 
 of any thing that exists, good or evil, merely as existing—for 
 the prevalent system of manners, virtuous or vicious, or even, as 
 has been truly said for the right divine, of a wide spread fever or 
 any other pestilence, is as wretched in its moral consequences as 
 it is ridiculous in logic—and it is painful to peruse the writings on 
 the subject, which at one period, and that not a very distant one, 
 were so prevalent, and in some cases, were the works of authors whom 
 we are accustomed to venerate, not merely as philosophers, but as 
 men who have given undoubted proofs of the most benevolent inte- 
 rest in the human race. Berkely, the Author of the Theory of Vi- 
 sion,—Berkely, the generous possessor of ‘ every virtue under hea- 
 ven, is the same Berkely who endeavours to demonstrate to us, that . 
 it is as much our duty to submit to the most ferocious tyrant, as to 
 submit to the supreme benevolence of God ; or rather that to obey 
 such a tyrant is to obey Supreme Benevolence. 
 
 “ That God, the equal God of all mankind, has not formed us to 
 be the slaves of any one individual, and in furnishing our minds with 
 so many principles, that ensure our progress in less important sciences, 
 has not abandoned us in the most important of all, to the selfishness 
 of a power which may prefer the present misery of its own despotic 
 sway to all that can be offered for its reformation ; because the re- 
 formation would abridge an authority, which it is more convenient 
 for the possessor of it to exercise with no limit but that of will,—I 
 surely need not now attempt to prove to you. On the right divine 
 of authority, whatever vague allusion to it we may sometimes find in 
 the courtly flatterers of the day, we have no writers now who require 
 to be confuted. 
 
 “« There is indeed one species of right divine which established au- 
 thority does possess, its tendency to the peace of those who submit to 
 it, and consequently in that respect to their happiness, which as the 
 object of our Creator has the sanction of the divine will. But it pos- 
 sesses this right divine only as tending to public happiness. It is se- 
 condary only, not primary ; and when the public happiness, instead 
 of being upon the whole promoted hy obedience, would, upon the 
 
 * Pope’s Essay of Man, Ep. iii. v. 241-248, 
 
«- 
 
 GROUNDS AND LIMITS OF CIVIL OBEDIENCE. 243 
 
 whole, when every consequence, indirect as well as direct, is taken 
 into account, be promoted by shaking off that power which is incon- 
 sistent with its great object, remonstrance, even rebellion itself, if 
 that name can justly be given, in such circumstances of dreadful ne- 
 cessity, to the expression of the public will,—has as truly its right 
 divine as established authority, even in its best state, could be said to 
 have it, when as exercised with happier tendencies, it was productive 
 of that good in which alone the divinity of its right isto be found.”— 
 Brown’s Lectures on the Philosophy of the Human Mind, Lecture xe. 
 vol. iv. pp. 336-538. ϑνο. Edin. 1824. 
 
 GISBORNE. 
 
 «ς The obedience of the subject is immediately due to the existing 
 government, in consequence of its possessing the delegated authority 
 of the state. It is not however an obedience without limit : it is not 
 due in any case in which it would be a breach of duty to God; and 
 in addition to that restriction, it is not due in any instance or degree 
 in which the governors do not possess authority from the state to re- 
 quire it. The propriety of these exceptions is sufficiently apparent. 
 No one would undertake to vindicate, by an appeal to human juris- 
 diction, what would be rebellion against the Sovereign of the Uni- 
 verse ; nor would any one conceive himself bound to support his law- 
 ful rulers in acts of usurpation.” —“ It is almost as improbable, it may 
 be said, that the persecution and injustice of the days of Henry VIII. 
 and Charles I. should revive, as it is impossible for the days them- 
 selves to return. The establishment of the principles of the Refor- 
 mation and of the Revolution undoubtedly promises a great degree of 
 security against similar dangers. But it is not possible to affirm, 
 that in the fluctuation of human events and human interests, some- 
 thing similar to what has happened heretofore can never take place 
 again. The evil may not recur in its ancient form, and diffuse it- 
 self to its ancient extent—yet however varied in appearance, it may 
 be essentially the same. And on whatever principle it was the duty 
 of a subject, in former times, to withstand at all hazards the com- 
 mands of his governors, when they enjoined flagrant acts of impiety 
 and injustice; on the very same principles would it be the duty of 
 an Englishman steadily to decline obeying any orders of his supe- 
 riors, which his conscience should tell him were in any degree im- 
 pious or unjust.”—Duties of Men, Chap. iv. vol. i. pp. 77-80. 
 
244 NOTES. 
 ROBERT HALL. 
 
 The manner in which the supreme law of obedience to God con- 
 trols, modifies, limits, and, in certain cases, supersedes the subordi- 
 nate laws of obedience to men, is finely illustrated in the following 
 passage from the writings of Robert Hall. The truth and its grounds 
 could not be more clearly and satisfactorily stated‘ The relation 
 which subsists between man and his Maker is prior to the civil rela- 
 tion between magistrates and subjects. It is a more important rela- 
 tion, since all the good a creature can enjoy is derived from it. It 
 differs too from every other, in that it is immutable, perpetual, eter- 
 nal. Aman may or may not be the member of a civil community, 
 but he is always the creature of God. For these reasons, political 
 duties, or those which result from the relation of the subject to the 
 prince, must, in their nature, be subordinate to the religious. When 
 the commands of a civil superior interfere with those which we con- 
 scientiously believe to be the laws of God, submission to the former 
 must be criminal: for the two obligations are not equipollent, but 
 the former is essential, invariable, and paramount to every other.—_ 
 ‘ Whether it be right,’ said the Apostles, ‘to obey God or man, judge 
 ye. ”—Hall’s Works, vol. iii. pp. 864, 365. 
 
 NOTE XI. 
 
 “¢ THE POWERS THAT BE” NOT EQUIVALENT TO THE LEGITIMATE 
 POWERS. 
 
 Erasmus Scunipt, the compiler vf that most useful work, ‘‘ Tapetov 
 Novi Testamenti,’—a man of whom the celebrated Heyné speaks as 
 endowed with “ preclara doctrina,” and says that every learned and 
 candid judge will acknowledge “ in iis in quibus hallucinatur, inge- 
 niose tamen et sagaciter hariolari virum doctissimum”—this learned 
 and ingenious man was, so far as I know, the first to broach the opi- 
 nion referred to in the text. In a note in his posthumous work, 
 “ Note et Animadversiones in Novum Testamentum, cum versione 
 nova ;” Norimberge 1658, he remarks on his version—“ Que enim 
 sunt legitime potestates ee sunt a Deo,’ ‘ the powers which are legi- 
 timate are from God’—that it is a convertible proposition—all legiti- 
 mate power is from God—and all power from God is legitimate. The 
 apostle adds this, to mark the difference of the power he speaks of 
 
JAMES VI. AND THE TRANSLATORS OF THE BIBLE. 245 
 
 from the power, or rather the violence of robbers, depredators, an- 
 tichrist, &c.; all whose ἐξουσίαι are not ovea—all whose powers are 
 not legitimate and true, and consequently not from God. Such 
 powers Sophocles calls apyas οὐκ oveas.”—He then refers to anote on 
 John x. 12, where he quotes a number of passages from the classics, 
 besides Acts v. 17, and Rom. ix. 5. None of these passages support 
 Schmidt’s opinion, and here the learned man seems “ hallucinari”— 
 though, as is his wont, “ ingeniose et sagaciter.” 
 
 Rarnetivs’ note is distinguished by his usual accurate learning and 
 sound judgment. He admits that the participle of the verb of exist- 
 ence may be used in this way—but observes, ‘“‘ Hic quidem non video 
 qui aliter possit accipi quam in proximo superiori membro verbum 
 ἐστι." 1 do not see how the participle can be otherwise understood 
 than the verb εστι is in the previous clause.’ He also quotes a pas- 
 sage from Herodotus, where the phrase twas tas εουσας obviously 
 signifies—‘ the existing magistrates.’ 
 
 NOTE XII. 
 
 PROOFS OF THE UNDUE INFLUENCE OF JAMES VI. OVER THE 
 TRANSLATORS OF THE BIBLE. 
 
 That the charge in the text isnot an unfounded one, is well known 
 to every person acquainted with the history of our translation. King 
 James, “* the meanest prince,” as Bishop Burnet says, “ that ever sat 
 on a throne,” gave the translators a set of instructions, among which 
 is to be found the following :—That ‘ the Bishops’ Bible be followed, 
 and as little altered as the original will permit.” In consequence of this, 
 in many instances, an inferior rendering was retained in the text, and 
 the better translation given in the margin. ‘“ The old ecclesiastical 
 words’ are ordered “ to be kept, as the word church, not to be trans- 
 lated congregation.” ‘* Something is here supposed,” as Robinson re- 
 marks, “* either that an unbiassed translator would endanger the hie- 
 rarchy, or that the oracles of God were given to serve the purposes 
 of a party. Regal influence is too plain to be denied.”—Robinson’s 
 Claude's Essay on the Composition of a Sermon, vol. ii. p. 101. 8vo. 
 Lond. 1788. 
 
 On this principle, I suppose, we have the strange heathenish word 
 
240 NOTES. 
 
 ἐς Raster,” in Acts xii. 4, instead of the Passover. Ἐπίσκοπος is always 
 rendered bishop, except where such a rendering would have showed 
 that the primitive bishop and elder was the same office-bearer as in 
 Acts xx. 28. It has been supposed that it was because their king, 
 whom they flattered in language fit only for the divinity, had the 
 name of God as well as the devil too often in his mouth—that they 
 translated μὴ yevovro, which signifies “* let it not be’—‘* by no 
 means’—by the phrase “ God forbid.” Though such a charge has 
 been brought against them, it seems disproved by the facts that Wic- 
 lif has “ God forbede,” and Tindal, and the Genevan translation, as 
 well as the Bishop’s Bible, have “ God forbid.”—Many of the suc- 
 ceeding translators have followed the authorized version in this “ vain” 
 use of the divine name. The rendering of Purver the Quaker, “ Far 
 be it,” or of Mace, Wakefield, Macknight, and the Improved (Unita- 
 rian) Version, “ by no means’—or of Harwood “ far from it,” would 
 obviously be preferable. These remarks are not intended to cast 
 any doubt on the general accuracy, and, indeed, high-rate excellence 
 of our authorized version. Though not faultless, (as what human - 
 work is?) it ismost highly estimated by those who are best acquainted 
 both with the languages from which, and with the language into 
 which, the version was made. 
 
 The story about the would-be despot’s wrath against the free- 
 spoken German divine, is curious. Davin Parevus, an eminent Ger- 
 man Calvinist, who was also professor at Heidelberg, published in 
 Frankfort, in 1608, a Latin commentary on the Epistle to the Ro- 
 mans, in which he held “ that those subjects who are not entirely 
 private persons, but occupy inferior magistracies, may defend them- 
 selves, and the state, and the church, or even the true religion, with 
 arms against the sovereign magistracy, on certain conditions.” The 
 king could not overlook this political heterodoxy, even in a foreign 
 divine, but caused the work of Pareus, which is a very judicious ex- 
 position, to be burnt at London by the common hangman, and to be 
 condemned in the most opprobrious terms by the university of Ox- 
 ford. Dr David Owen was engaged to answer the book, which he 
 did in a publication, entitled, “5 Anti Pareus seu Determinatio de jure 
 regio.” Philip Pareus defended his father, in a work in which he 
 maintained, “ that there is not at present in Christendom a king or 
 sovereign prince who is really king, that is entirely absolute, and 
 having none but God above him ; but that they are only conventional 
 kings, against whom the inferior magistrates may revolt, if they do 
 not keep the convention to which they are bound.” James needed 
 
MODE OF DIVIDING THE APOSTLE’S REASONS. 247 
 
 not have been so angry. He might have found much less digestible 
 doctrine than this, in the work of his illustrious preceptor, ‘“‘ De Jure 
 Regni inter Scotos.’—Vide Aikin’s Life of Selden and Usher, p. 422. 
 
 NOTE XIII. 
 
 AUTHORITIES FOR THE MODE OF DIVIDING THE APOSTLE’S REASONS 
 FOR CIVIL OBEDIENCE, 
 
 Arrersury, in his celebrated “ Concio ad Clerum,” after quoting the 
 Greek words, adds, ‘ Qui restiterint 5101 ipsis perniciem accersent, 
 commissi facinoris penas luent. Κριματος nomine non eterne tantum 
 pene significantur a Deo aliquando exigende ; sed et illa etiam sup- 
 plicia quibus in hac vita coercentur improbi. Eo sensu in sacris 
 scriptoribus usitata frequentius et trita vox. Luc xxiii. 40; xxiy. 
 20; 1 Uor. xi. 29, 34; 1 Pet. iv. 17; Apoc. xviii. 20, ut hic loci etiam 
 accipiatur suadet certe apostolici et argumenti et orationis nexus. 
 ‘ Qui resistunt ipsi 5101 damnationem acquirunt: Nam principes non 
 sunt timori boni operis sed mali, ” &c.—Concio ad Clerum Londinen- 
 sem, a Francisco Atterbury, S.T.P. Lond. 1709. ‘ They that resist 
 shall bring destruction upon themselves, shall suffer the punishment 
 of their crime. By the word κρίματος are signified not only eternal 
 punishments to be one day inflicted by God, but likewise those penal 
 sanctions whereby wicked persons are awed and restrained in this life. 
 In that sense the word is very often and commonly used by the sa- 
 cred writers, and certainly the connexion both of the apostle’s argu- 
 ment and discourse, direct us to understand it so here also. “They 
 who resist shall receive to themselves damnation, ror rulers are not a 
 terror to good works, but to the evil.”’ 
 
 «ς The apostle,” says Bishop Suertock, “ uses a second argument to 
 enforce his doctrine laid down at first in the words of the text, “ Let 
 every soul be subject to the higher powers. And here the first doubt 
 is where the argument begins ; for the words immediately following 
 those last treated of, may either be taken as the first of the second 
 argument, or as a farther conclusion drawn from the first :-‘ And they 
 that resist shall receive to themselves damnation.’ If they who resist 
 the powers do resist the ordinance of God, it may certainly be affirm- 
 ed, by evident consequence, that they who resist shall receive to 
 
248 NOTES. 
 
 themselves damnation : so evident a consequence, that it can lose no- 
 thing of its force, though these words should not be understood to 
 contain it, but should be taken as introducing a new argument, as, 
 upon the whole, I incline to think, they ought to be taken. For the 
 words immediately following contain a reason of something going be- 
 fore : ‘ For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to the evil; but 
 this will not prove that all who resist shall be damned, for rulers are 
 not the judges or the cause of damnation: but if we understand the 
 apostle in these words, ‘ all who resist shall receive to themselves 
 damnation, as entering on a new topic, and setting forth the certain 
 evil consequences which, even in this life, should attend the seditious, 
 who would render themselves justly obnoxious to the powers of the 
 world, and be liable to their censure, it then very properly follows, 
 ‘ for rulers are not a terror to good works, but to the evil.’ To show 
 that the language in the original admits of this sense, or that the pre- 
 sent division of verses is no authority on one side or the other, isa 
 labour I may well save myself in this audience.” (The Benchers of 
 the Temple. )—Sherlock’s Discourses, vol. iii. pp. 310, 311. 
 
 Korrr’s note is short, but good: ““Κριμα AapBavew, i. gq. κρινεσθαι, 
 Jac. iii. 1; Matth. xxiii. 14:—éavrois, sua culpa ; xpysa, poene tum 
 a magistratibus tum alia ratione, Deo ipso infligende : unde etiam ver- 
 sus Stius his arcte jungendus: punientur, nam ad id constituti sunt 
 magistratus, ut penis coerceant malos.”—Koppe, Nov. Test. vol. iv. 
 pp- 181, 182.—‘ Κριμα λαμβανειν is the same as kpweoOa, James iii. 1. 
 ἑαυτοῖς by their own fault.—xpiza, punishments inflicted by the magi- 
 strates—and in another point of view by God himself—whence also 
 the 3d verse is to be closely joined to this, “* They shall be punished, 
 for for this purpose are magistrates appointed, that they should 
 punish the wicked.”’ 
 
 Wnirsy takes the same view of the connexion :—Eavrous κριμα 
 ληψονται; “ They shall be sentenced, punished, and condemned for it 
 by the magistrates.” To this sense the connexion inclines, “ They 
 shall receive sentence or punishment” (from the rulers), “ for rulers 
 are a terror to evil doers.” Whitby in loc.—Bucrr, in his excellent 
 “ Metaphrasis et Knnaratio, in Epis. ad Rom.” gives the same exposi- 
 tion.—P. 561. Fol. Bas. 1562. 
 
 Joun Waker of Dublin, a ripe scholar, and an acute critic, in his 
 “ Remarks corrective of occasional mistranslation of the English ver- 
 sion of the sacred Scripture,” observes, “* In Rom. xiii. 2,” where we 
 read, “ they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation,” we 
 ought to read, “ shall receive to themselves judgment ; and the judg- 
 
EXCELLENCE OF THE ROMAN LAW. 249 
 
 ment immediately intended is that ‘ wrath’ spoken of in the 4th and 
 5th verses, which earthly rulers are designed to execute upon him 
 that doeth evil.” Walker's Essays and Correspondence, vol. ii. p. 61. 
 Lond. 1838. 
 
 NOTE XIV. 
 EXCELLENCE OF THE ROMAN LAW. 
 
 It deserves to be remarked, that the body of the civil law, which 
 the Roman magistrates administered, still forms the substance of the 
 laws of all modern civilized nations, and that generally the Roman 
 rule was the chief extender of civilization in the ancient world. Sir 
 James Mackintosh terms it “ that grand monument of human wisdom,” 
 and it has been justly observed, that “ this jurisprudence preserved 
 personal liberty at Rome, when political liberty was wholly gone— 
 always mitigating, often controlling the imperial despotism. There 
 are fewer instances of oppressive proceeding by law (and nothing was 
 done there but by law, where it was not military execution), in the 
 despotism of imperial Rome, than in any nation enslaved or free that 
 has been known in the world.”—“ The system of Grotius is in a very 
 great degree generally, and in its parts also, founded on the civil law. 
 of Rome.”— Wilde's Preliminary Lecture. Edin. 1791. 
 
 “ The laws of all nations,” says Lord Holt, “ are doubtless raised 
 out of the ruins of the civil law, as all governments are sprung out of 
 the ruins of the Roman empire.”—“ Notwithstanding the different 
 forms of the governments of Europe, and the great variety of their 
 political and judicial systems, the civil law has obtained either a ge- 
 neral or a partial admittance into the jurisprudence of almost all of 
 them ; and where it has been least favourably received, it has been 
 pronounced a collection of written wisdom. This could not have 
 happened, if it had not been deeply and extensively grounded on 
 principles of justice and equity, applicable to the public and private 
 concerns of mankind, at all times, and in every situation.”—“ The 
 short but very learned treatise of Arthur Duck, De usu et auctoritate 
 juris Civilis in Dominiis principum Christianorum, conveys in elegant 
 language and a pleasing manner, complete information on the nature 
 and extent of the influence of the civil law on the jurisprudence of 
 the modern state of Europe.”——Butler’s Hora Juridica, Philological 
 and Biographical Works, vol. ii. pp. 64-77. 8yo. Lond. 1817. 
 
 R 
 
250 NOTES. 
 
 “ The system of Roman jurisprudence has for many centuries been 
 regarded as one of the most conspicuous monuments of human wis- 
 dom and genius ; and its powerful influence on modern legislation, has 
 been felt and acknowledged by every civilized nation of Europe. 
 Although it has long ceased to retain the full authority of written 
 law, it can never cease to attract the notice, and to excite the admi- 
 ration of lawyers who are capable of ascending to this clear and copi- 
 ous fountain of juridical knowledge.”—Jntroduction to the Study of 
 Civil Law, by David Irving, LL.D., p.1. Lond. 1837.—A work full 
 of curious and accurate information. The general reader will find an 
 interesting view of the Roman jurisprudence, in the 44th chapter of 
 Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. It is a subject of 
 regret that the study of civil, i. 6. the Roman law, has in a great mea- 
 sure ceased to be a part of a liberal education in this country, as it 
 once was, and as it still is, as Dr Irving remarks, “ in those countries 
 most remarkable for the extent and solidity of their erudition.”— 
 “ Nothing,” says a French writer, quoted by Dr Jortin, “is more 
 proper to form the mind and manners than the study of the Roman 
 law. Every one who is of any considerable rank in life, ought (ο΄ 
 have perused once at least the institutions and the code of Justinian.” 
 «1 am of the same opinion,” adds the doctor, “ and I add to these the 
 Theodosian code, for the light which it gives to ecclesiastical history.” 
 —Jortin’s Tracts, vol. i. p. 487. Lond. 1790. 
 
 NOTE XV. 
 
 THE LAWS OF THE ROMAN GOVERNMENT RESPECTING RELIGION 
 NOT OBLIGATORY ON CHRISTIANS. 
 
 The two extracts which follow, the first from a Church of England 
 divine—and the second from a dissenting minister, both of them able 
 and zealous advocates for their respective peculiarities of creed and 
 usage, confirm and illustrate the doctrine taught in the exposition, as 
 to the first of the limits, within which the law of civil obedience was 
 obligatory on the Roman Christians. 
 
 WELLS. 
 
 «1 think we cannot have a better comment, and one of more au- 
 thority on St Paul’s doctrine of non-resistance, in this place, than that 
 
NON-OBLIGATION OF THE ROMAN RELIGIOUS LAWS. 95] 
 
 we have given us by S. Polycarp (who conversed with the apostles), 
 and which is set down in the account of S. Polycarp’s martyrdom, 
 num. 10. His words are these: Δεδιδαγμεθα yap apxyas και εξουσιαις 
 ὕπο του Qeou TeTaypevats τιμὴν κατα TO προσηκον; THN MH BAATITOY- 
 ΣᾺΝ ἩΜΑ͂Σ, azopevew. It is not to be doubted but S. Polycarp 
 had here respect particularly to this place of the Epistle to the Ro- 
 mans, taking from it these words, ἐξουσίαις ὑπὸ του Θεου TeTaypevats. 
 Whence it follows, that S. Polycarp understood St Paul to teach in 
 this place, that we should render to the powers and authorities or- 
 dained of God τιμὴν κατα τὸ κροσῆκον; due honour, namely, τὴν μὴ 
 βλαπτουσαν npas, such as is not hurtful to us. For our R. R. and 
 learned Diocesan has given us the true meaning of 5. Polycarp, in ad- 
 joining this last clause, by way of explication, by rendering this pas- 
 sage thus, ‘ att due honour such onty excepted as would be hurtful 
 to ourselves’: i. e. hurtful (not to our temporal or bodily state, for 
 8. Polycarp was then going to pay passive obedience even to death, 
 but) to our spiritual and eternal welfare, viz. by denying Christ (or 
 the like) which was what the proconsul demanded of 8. Polycarp. 
 Accordingly the learned Dr Cave well renders the forecited passage 
 thus: All that due honour and reverence, that is not prejudicial and 
 contrary to the precepts of religion.”— Wells’ Help for the More Easy 
 Understanding of St Paul’s Epistle to the Romans, p. 103. 4to. Lond. 
 1711. 
 MICAIAH TOWGOOD. 
 
 “ The subjection to higher powers and obedience to magistrates, 
 which the Scriptures enjoin upon Christians, relates only to civil, not 
 at all to religious matters ; for this obvious reason that the magis- 
 trate at that time was every where Pagan. The apostles, therefore, 
 instead of paying or exhorting Christians to pay any subjection to 
 him in religious affairs, strenuously exhorted them to renounce and 
 disavow it, to ‘ come out from among them and be separate.’ They 
 were every where dissenters from the Established Church. 
 
 “ Christianity is so far from enjoining, that it actually forbids obe- 
 dience to civil governors in all things of a religious nature. It com- 
 mands us to ‘ call no man upon earth father or master,’ i. 6. to ac- 
 knowledge no authority or jurisdiction of any in matters of religion ; 
 but to remember that Ong, one only is our master and lawgiver, even 
 Curist. 
 
 ‘** All the powers or authority which the Scriptures give the ma- 
 gistrate, relates only, and can relate only, to things of a civil na- 
 ture, but cannot at all relate to things of worship and religion. 
 
252 NOTES. 
 
 This can never be contested, because the magistrate at the time 
 when the Scriptures were written, and for near three hundred 
 years after, was Infidel or Pagan. St Paul, therefore, by commanding 
 us ‘ to be subject to the higher powers, and ‘ to obey magistrates for 
 conscience’ sake, because they are the ministers of God for good, 
 does not in the least require our obedience to their decrees as to cere- 
 monies or forms of worship, or our conformity to their establish- 
 ments in things of a religious nature. No: St Paul himself was a 
 zealous non-conformist. He was accused of the heinous sin of schism, 
 by that great champion of the Pagan Ephesian church Demetrius, 
 the shrine-maker to the goddess Diana; and so far was this great 
 apostle from ‘submitting himself to every ordinance of man,’ that he 
 was publicly charged with having ‘ not only at Ephesus, but almost 
 throughout all Asia, persuaded and turned away much people’ from 
 the then established religion, ‘ saying that they be no gods which 
 are made with hands.’ And when certain of the philosophers of the 
 Epicureans and of the Stoics encountered him at Athens, and brought 
 him to Areopagus, that they might know what that new doctrine 
 was whereof he spoke, he entered on his subject with a spirited, un- 
 qualified protest against the established religion of the state. ‘ Ye 
 men of Athens, I perceive that in all things ye are too superstitious.’ 
 So that, though St Paul knew that the powers that be are ordained 
 of God, he also knew that these powers were confined to those civil 
 purposes, for which society was instituted, that the magistrate was 
 to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil; and therefore, so far was 
 St Paul from extending this authority of the powers that be over the 
 rights of conscience or private judgment, that he made it the grand 
 scope of his labours, as did all the other apostles by their preaching 
 and their lives, to persuade and draw off from the established forms 
 of worship, and to convince them that in these affairs there was one 
 King only and one Lord, to whom their homage alone was due, even 
 Jesus, who by his sufferings had merited this high honour, and to 
 whom alone God had commanded that in things of religion ‘ every 
 knee shall bow.’ ”—Towgood’s Dissent from the Church of England fully 
 Justified, Pp. 11 and 241, 242. Lond. 1811. 
 
PAUL'S ASSERTION OF HIS CIVIL RIGHTS. 253 
 
 NOTE XVI. 
 
 BISHOP HOADLY’S CONCLUSIONS FROM PAUL'S ASSERTION OF HIS 
 CIVIL RIGHTS. 
 
 “Can any one think that these passages were recorded for nothing, 
 but to serve for an embellishment of St Paul’s story? Or can any 
 one think that St Paul had a regard to his own particular worldly in- 
 terest in these parts of his conduct ; he that had suffered, and knew 
 that he was to suffer, much greater hardships? He that was ready 
 to give up his life for the sake of Christianity, and to follow his Mas- 
 ter through all indignities, and all persecutions, when the glory of 
 God should call him to it? No, it was something more than his own 
 part in this world which engaged him to show himself after this man- 
 ner ; for this he could with the greatest ease have neglected. But 
 the happiness of humane society, and the good estate of the inferior 
 part of mankind, moved his soul to a generous indignation against 
 every thing in government which savoured of tyranny ; and kindled 
 in his breast a zeal for every thing which it was fit for subjects to 
 enjoy. Let us therefore sce if his behaviour will not lead us to some 
 useful and important thoughts, relating to Christians incorporated in 
 civil societies. 
 
 “1. I need not take particular notice that St Paul thought it not 
 beneath a Christian, and an apostle, to concern himself with his rights 
 and privileges, as he was a subject of the Roman state. He knew as 
 well as any since his time, that he belonged to a city above, whose 
 builder is God ; he knew that his chief concern was eternity and hea- 
 ven ; he knew that no tyrannical magistrate could rob him of his in- 
 nocence, or of his salvation : and yet, he considered himself likewise as 
 a member of humane society, and acted the part of one who had a just 
 sense of the privileges of his citizenship here on earth, as well as of that 
 citizenship in heaven, which he speaks of to the Philippians and Ephe- 
 sians. And why should it be thought unworthy of any other preach- 
 ers of the gospel, to imitate so great an example, in the same great 
 concern for the good of humane society? To proceed, 
 
 “© 2. Let St Paul himself answer all those who have on his autho- 
 rity pretended to exalt the executive power above all laws; and 
 above the very ends of that office for which they were instituted. He, 
 it is plain, knew nothing of this: nor did he carry the obligation of 
 a quiet submission to any such instances as were contrary to the de- 
 
254 NOTES. 
 
 sign of that office. Let them learn from himself, that when he speaks 
 highly of the magistrates, it is of such who are gods indeed, in hu- 
 mane society ; such as maintain the character and dignity of their 
 station by answering the ends of it ; and that when they descend te 
 invade the privileges they were ordained to guard, he knew no such 
 profound respect to be due to them. Let them learn from him, that 
 the laws of the Roman State were above the executive power; and 
 that mere authority of the magistrate could not make that law, which 
 was against the written laws; or oblige him to comply with what was 
 injurious to his civil privileges. Let them learn from him, that he 
 understood not his Master’s doctrine concerning the governors of this 
 world, to extend beyond the privileges and happiness of the governed 
 society ; and that he himself, in his own doctrine delivered in other 
 places, meant nothing contrary to these. Let them learn from his 
 practice, which is certainly the best interpreter of his own doctrine, 
 and that of his Master and fellow-apostles, that when he saith ‘ there 
 is no power but of God, the powers that be are ordained of God ;’ and 
 that when his great Master acknowledges the power of Pilate to be | 
 from above, no more could be meant, than that it was agreeable to 
 God’s will that some persons should be invested with power for the 
 good of humane society ; not that God had made them uncontrollable 
 in acting against his commission, and to the ruin of their fellow-crea- 
 tures. Let them learn that when St Paul commanded respect, and 
 forbid opposition to the higher powers; and that when St Peter com- 
 manded the same subjection both to the supreme and deputed magis- 
 trates, they were considered as acting the best part in the world ; and 
 nothing intended by this, to oblige subjects to a quiet submission to 
 such illegal and unjust conduct, as affects and shakes the universal 
 happiness. And, 
 
 “ 3. If they still repeat the old question, who shall judge of the 
 invasion of privileges? Let the same St Paul answer them, who in 
 the capacity of a subject more than once is recorded (in the short 
 history we have of his actions) to have presumed to judge concerning 
 his own privileges, against the invasion of the magistrate ; and to 
 have done this as by a right belonging to every member of the same 
 society. His Christianity did not make him forget that he was a Ro- 
 man: and, asa Roman, he judged that he had the privileges of a Ro- . 
 man : and these his Christianity did not oblige him to give up to any 
 mortal, as long as he could with honour keep them. The possibility 
 of his mistaking in this, in which he acted not as an apostle, was no 
 argument to him against this right; nor did the weakness of other 
 
PAUL'S ASSERTION OF HIS CIVIL RIGHTS. 255 
 
 men’s judgments prevail with him, not to set them an example of judg- 
 ing in the like circumstances. 
 
 “ What confusion, what disorder, say some, must ensue, if subjects 
 be allowed to judge concerning the invasion of their rights and privi- 
 leges? But let them believe St Paul for once, that much more mi- 
 sery must ensue upon humane society, if it be a settled point that the 
 executive powers may absolutely, and without control, determine 
 what they please concerning the inferior part of the world. If any 
 one ask where he saith this, I answer, his behaviour speaks it aloud ; 
 for he never would have acted the part which he did, could he have 
 thought it more for the public good that subjects should give up all 
 their judgments to the determination of their magistrates, than that 
 they should judge concerning the violation of their common rights 
 after the best manner they could. Let not men, therefore, forget 
 modesty so much as to laugh out of countenance this right of judg- 
 ing in subjects, which St Paul himself claimed merely as he was a 
 subject. 
 
 “4, Let those learn it from St Paul, who will not learn it from 
 others, that rights and privileges, liberty and property, and the like, 
 are not words fitted only to raise the spirits of the people, and to fo- 
 ment disturbances in society ; but that they are things worth contending 
 for. Some may think (unless respect to an apostle a little divert them 
 from it) what great matter if St Paul had borne a little scourging ? 
 Or why could not he pass over the injuries offered him by his gover- 
 nors? To which I know no better answer than this, that his beha- 
 viour was what it was, merely because they were magistrates, 7. 6. 
 because it was a case not of concern to himself only, but to humane 
 society. For he could bear, and pass by injuries as well as any man ; 
 and had they been private persons who had offered him the same in- 
 dignities, I doubt not he had borne them without any return but that 
 of forgiveness. 
 
 “But when the civil privileges of that society to which he belonged 
 were invaded by those whose duty and profession it was to maintain 
 them, he thought it a just occasion to show his sense of so great an 
 evil, though it immediately touched only himself. The consideration 
 of the character and office of those who offered the injuries, was so 
 far from determining him to pass them over with silence (according 
 to some men’s way of arguing) that it was the very thing that made 
 him look upon them not as private injuries, but with a resentment 
 due to injuries of a public and universal concern. And however some 
 may ridicule the liberties of subjects, St Paul, it is plain, was for 
 
256 NOTES. 
 
 standing fast, not only in the liberty with which Christ had made 
 him free from the Jewish law of ceremonies, Ga]. v. 2; but also in 
 that liberty with which the laws of nature and of the Roman state, 
 had made him free from oppression and tyranny. For, 
 
 “δι It is another observation which we may make from his exam- 
 ple, that he thought the end of written laws to be the security of the 
 subject, against any arbitrary proceedings of the executive power ; 
 and that this could not be, unless the executive were governed by 
 these laws as well as the subject. If this had not been his opinion, 
 it had been frivolous for him to have urged his privileges founded 
 upon the laws; by urging of which he plainly implies, that they 
 were the measure of the magistrate’s behaviour towards the subject. 
 And I hope it is the same in all the like establishments. But how 
 contrary is this to the maxims of some who make the laws insignificant 
 trifles, and place the will of the executive power above them ; de- 
 claring that otherwise there can be no such thing as government ? 
 By which word they generally seem to understand something beyond 
 such a government as is for the good of the governed society. How. 
 contrary is this to such as make written laws only an encroachment 
 upon the absolute power instituted by God ; and study to make their 
 power as contemptible as they can, that the necessity of absolute 
 monarchy may the better appear; and boast of their services this 
 way, as if they were of the greatest importance ? 
 
 If these notions be embraced, what must be thought of St Paul un- 
 der the Roman state, who thought it his happiness to have rights and 
 privileges settled by written laws? What must we think of the 
 wisest nations in former times, who could devise no greater security 
 against oppression and unhappiness in societies, than laws? And if 
 we come home to ourselves, what must we think of the envied con- 
 stitution under which we live, and by the virtue and power of laws, 
 all enjoy the chief happiness that human life can wish for? What 
 must we think of that revolution in which high and low so unani- 
 mously joined, chiefly to rescue our laws from a dispensing power ; 
 and to divest the executive from all pretences to a superiority over 
 the legislature ? And what must we think of those magistrates, whom 
 the present age beholds with veneration, and ages to come will remem- 
 ber with eternal honour ; who, though commissioned by the supreme 
 executive power, yet acknowledge no rule of their conduct but what 
 is prescribed to them by the legislative ; and account it their chiefest 
 glory to be the guardians of the laws, as they are of the liberties of 
 the people ?”—Hoadly's Sermon on Acts xxii. 25. Measures of Sub- 
 
JUSTIFIABLE NON-COMPLIANCE WITH MILITARY LAW. 257 
 
 mission to the Civil Magistrate considered, pp. 214-220. 8vo. Lond. 
 1718. 
 
 NOTE XVII. 
 
 JUSTIFIABLE NON-COMPLIANCE WITH MILITARY LAW. 
 
 I refer to the trial of Captain Tuomas Arrcuison and Lieutenant 
 Dawson, of the Royal Artillery, who were tried by a general court- 
 martial at Malta, in consequence of having requested to be exonerated 
 from firing Patteraro salutes, and tolling a Roman Catholic bell for 
 the church and image-rites of Roman Catholic priests. For this of- 
 fence they were sentenced to be cashiered ; and the sentence was con- 
 firmed at the Horse Guards. The matter was brought before the 
 House of Commons, but a majority of that House gave their sanction 
 to the sentence, as necessary to the preservation of military discipline. 
 It was introduced into the General Assembly of the Church of Scot- 
 land by one, who, notwithstanding the dissevering influence of late 
 events, will not be dissatisfied that I still call him my esteemed friend 
 —Joun Campsett, Esq. of Carbrook ; and made the basis of a motion, 
 “« That the Venerable Assembly ought to address his Majesty, as the 
 father of all his people, praying him to take measures for securing to 
 Protestant officers and soldiers the same protection which is afforded 
 to their fellow-soldiers in communion with the Church of Rome.” 
 This seems moderate enough. But the motion was lost—a majority 
 of “the Venerable Assembly” judging it unfit for them to interfere 
 in such a matter. Such a motion would have a better chance of suc- 
 cess if made now. How this happens, we do not inquire.—Trial of 
 Captain Thomas Aitchison. Lond. 1825.—Substance of a Speech by 
 John Campbell, Esq. of Carbrook, in the General Assembly. Edin. 1827. 
 
 NOTE XVIII. 
 
 A CIVIL ESTABLISHMENT OF RELIGION, A USURPATION OF THE 
 PREROGATIVE OF CHRIST. 
 
 MILTON. 
 
 “ Christ hath a government of his own, sufficient of itself to all 
 his ends and purposes in governing his church, but much different 
 
258 NOTES. 
 
 from that of the civil magistrate: and the difference principally 
 consists in this very thing, that it governs not by outward force, and 
 that for two reasons :—F'rst, Because it deals only with the inward 
 man and his actions, which are all spiritual, and to outward force not 
 liable. Secondly, To show us the divine excellence of his spiritual 
 kingdom, able, without worldly force, to subdue all the powers and 
 kingdoms of this world, which are upheld by outward force only. 
 
 « That the inward man is nothing else but the inward part of man, 
 his understanding and his will; and that his actions thence proceed- 
 ing, yet not simply thence, but from the work of divine grace upon 
 them, are the whole matter of religion under the gospel, will appear 
 plainly by considering what that religion is,—whence we shall per- 
 ceive, yet more plainly, that it cannot be forced. What evangelical 
 religion is, is told in two words—faith and charity, or belief and prac- 
 tice. That both these flow, either, the one from the understanding, 
 the other from the will, or both jointly from both, once indeed natu- 
 rally free, but now only as they are regenerate, and wrought on by 
 divine grace, is in part evident to common sense and principles un- 
 questioned, the rest by Scripture. Concerning our belief, Matt. xvi. 
 17, ‘ Flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father 
 which is in heaven.’ Concerning our practice, as it is religious, and 
 not merely civil, Gal. v. 22, 28, and other places, declare it to be ‘ the 
 fruit of the Spirit’ only. Nay, our whole practical duty in religion 
 is contained in charity, or the love of God and our neighbour, no way 
 to be forced, yet the fulfilling of the whole law; that is to say, our 
 whole practice in religion. If, then, both our belief and practice, 
 which comprehend our whole religion, flow from faculties of the in- 
 ward man, free and unconstrained of themselves by nature, and our 
 practice not only from faculties endued with freedom, but from love 
 and charity besides, incapable of force, and all these things by trans- 
 gression lost, but renewed and regenerated in us by the power and 
 gift of God alone: how can such religion as this admit of force from 
 man, or force be any way applied to such religion, especially under 
 the free offer of grace in the gospel, but it must forthwith frustrate, 
 and make of no effect, both the religion and the gospel? And that 
 to compel outward profession, which they will say, perhaps, ought to 
 be compelled, though inward religion cannot, is to compel hypocrisy, 
 not to advance religion, shall yet, though of itself clear enough, be 
 ere the conclusion further manifest. 
 
 “ The other reason why Christ rejects outward force in the govern- 
 ment of his church, is, as I said before, to show us the divine ex- 
 
A CIVIL ESTABLISHMENT OF RELIGION. 259 
 
 cellence of his spiritual kingdom, able, without worldly force, to 
 subdue all the powers and kingdoms of this world, which are upheld 
 by outward force only, by which to uphold religion, otherwise than 
 to defend the religious from outward violence, is no service to Christ 
 or his kingdom, but.rather a disparagement, and degrades it from a 
 divine and spiritual kingdom to a kingdom of this world, which he 
 denies it to be, because it needs not force to confirm it, John xvii. 36. 
 ‘If my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight, 
 that I should not be delivered to the Jews.’ This proves the king- 
 dom of Christ not governed by outward force, as being none of this 
 world, whose kingdoms are maintained all by force only ; and yet 
 disproves not that a Christian commonwealth may defend itself against 
 outward force, in the cause of religion as well as in any other, though 
 Christ himself coming purposely to die for us would not be so de- 
 fended; 1 Cor. i. 27. ‘ God hath chosen the weak things of the 
 world to confound the things which are mighty.’ Then, surely, he 
 hath not chosen the force of this world to subdue conscience and con- 
 scientious men, who, in this world, are counted weakest: but rather 
 conscience as being weakest, to subdue and regulate force, his adver- 
 sary, not his aid or instrument, in governing the church: 2 Cor. x. 
 3-6. ‘ For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war after the 
 flesh: for the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty, 
 through God, to the pulling down of strong-holds, and casting down 
 imaginations, and every high thing that exalts itself against the know- 
 ledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obe- 
 dience of Christ ; and having ina readiness to avenge all disobedience.’ 
 It is evident by the first and second verses of this chapter—and the 
 apostle here speaks of that spiritual power by which Christ governs 
 his church—how all-sufficient it is, how powerful to reach the con- 
 science and the inward man, with whom it chiefly deals, and whom 
 no power else can deal with. In comparison of which, as it is here 
 thus magnificently described, how ineffectual and weak is outward 
 force, with all her boisterous tools, to the shame of those Christians, 
 and especially those Churchmen, who, to the exercising of church 
 discipline, never cease calling on the civil magistrate to interpose his 
 fleshly force.”—WMilton’s Works, vol. i. pp. 552, 553. 
 
 BRADBURY. 
 These stately elaborate periods contrast somewhat oddly, but not 
 
 unpleasantly, with the short, pointed, and almost epigrammatic sen- 
 tences of Tuomas Brapsury, a zealous non-conformist, and consistent 
 
900 NOTES. 
 
 Whig in the palmy days of High Churchism and Jacobitism. “ Christ 
 has not subjected his empire to any authority but his own. It isa 
 scandal and a blemish to talk of a gospel church, as by law esta- 
 blished. ‘ Call no man master on earth,’ said he to his disciples: 
 nay, ‘ be not ye called masters, for one is your master, even Christ.’ 
 Christianity should neither invade earthly powers and governments, 
 nor suffer itself to be overruled by them. Kings and princes are 
 called to let the work of God alone, and be far from thence. Their 
 statutes and edicts about religion do but mix iron with miry clay. 
 Christianity gives no laws to governments, and was designed to take 
 none from them. Our Lord leaves ‘ to Cesar the things that are Ce- 
 sar’s, and he has made a claim for God of ‘ the things that are God’s.’ 
 He will not have his doctrines taught, or his worship guided by the 
 commandments of men. As he does not interfere with Cesar, Casar 
 must not with him. « « *« * #* Those kings do not reign for 
 him but against him, who presume to meddle with the ordinances 
 which he has left. These are his glory, the monuments of his em- 
 pire among men, and a pledge of his returning ‘ a second time with-. 
 out sin unto salvation.” He gave them after ‘ he had ascended on 
 high, and had received all power in heaven and on earth.’ He de- 
 livered them by the Holy Ghost to the apostles whom he had cho- 
 sen; and to suppose that these are imperfect, that they want mend- 
 ing by the learning of priests, and want helping by the power of 
 kings, is the worst way of denying his divinity. Never say that he 
 is a God in heaven, whose religion must be in danger without the as- 
 sistance of those that are called gods upon earth. But when men 
 have reproached the wisdom of the Saviour, by improving upon his 
 appointments, they can have no confidence in his power to defend 
 them. What is his own he will take care of, and has done so in all 
 ages, through penal laws and fiery trials; but what is the device of 
 priests, they are to make the best shift for, they can.”’—Bradbury’s 
 Fifty-Four Sermons, vol. iii. pp. 125, 126; vol. ii. p. 218. Lond. 
 1762. 
 JOHN WALKER. 
 
 The following interesting passage is extracted from the writings of 
 Joun Watken, late fellow of Trinity College, Dublin—a man who de- 
 serves to be held in reputation, notwithstanding those infirmities of 
 temper which produced to himself much inconvenience, and to the 
 great cause some damage,—for the noble sacrifices he made of interest 
 to conscience, in giving up his fellowship in the College, and his 
 hope of preferment in the Established Church,—and for the many 
 
A CIVIL ESTABLISHMENT OF RELIGION. 261 
 
 luminous and impressive representations of the grand peculiarities of 
 the method of salvation that are to be found in his works, especially 
 in his Address to the Methodists, and his Letters to Alexander Knox, 
 Esq. :— 
 
 “It is contrary to the nature and laws of Christ’s kingdom, that 
 his disciples should acknowledge the State religion as theirs, or hold 
 any connexion with the religious Establishment of the country. If, 
 as in this highly favoured land, they are allowed the undisturbed 
 practice of their religion, according to the laws of Christ, abundant 
 thankfulness becomes them. If they should not—patient suffering. 
 But according to his laws alone, whose kingdom is not of this world, 
 are they called to regulate their religious walk, and to stand uncon- 
 nected with any religious bodies, under whatever name, who walk 
 not by that rule, but by regulations that rest on the wisdom or au- 
 thority of men. If this were the duty of Christians in the days 
 of the apostles, it is their duty now. I know that many profes- 
 sors think it a wild idea, that Christians should now’ walk as they 
 did then; and certainly it cannot be expected of persons who 
 have believed something under the name of a gospel, different from 
 that which the apostles preached. But why those who believe the 
 apostolic gospel should not still walk according to the apostolic rule, 
 these professors will find it hard to assign any reason, unless their 
 indisposition to such a walk be reckoned one. 
 
 “« Now, let us suppose that an imperial edict had been sent to ‘ the 
 saints in Christ Jesus who were at Philippi, with the bishops and 
 deacons’ (the overseers and servants) of that Christian church. Let 
 us suppose this imperial edict announcing to them that the Roman 
 emperor and the great officers of his court had become Christians, 
 and that, in his zeal for the gospel, he was resolved to take the reli- 
 gion of Christ under his patronage ; and that he would give a poli- 
 tical sanction to the Christians at Philippi, and would recognize some 
 of them as public teachers of Christianity, under the warrant of the 
 State,—provided they would adopt a certain mode of regulations in 
 their religious exercises and conduct, which he annexed to the edict. 
 Upon such a supposition, let me ask what would have been the an- 
 swer of the church at Philippi? Christian reader! Are you at any 
 loss to conjecture? What ought it to have been but this: We have 
 received from the apostles of the Lord Jesus, how we ought to wall 
 and to please God. We are bound by our allegiance to our Divine 
 Master, to hold fast the precepts which have been delivered to us by 
 his inspired servants. We are taught by them, indeed, to submit our- 
 
202 NOTES. - 
 
 selves to every ordinance of man, for the Lord’s sake; but, at the same 
 time, to know that the ordinance of human rulers extends only to 
 matters of this world,—that Christ’s kingdom is not of this world, and 
 that by his Jaws alone we are to be regulated in our Christian walk. 
 If the Emperor and the officers of his court have been given to be- 
 lieve his gospel, we rejoice in the grace that has been imparted to 
 them, although not more than we would rejoice if we heard the same 
 thing of his meanest subjects—inasmuch as the glory of Christ’s 
 church consists not in the human greatness of those who are added 
 to it. We desire that he and his believing courtiers may walk ac- 
 cording to the same apostolic rule by which we desire to abide ; and 
 in the place of which, or in addition to which, we dare not to receive 
 any other rule. We hear without any emotion, but that of surprise, 
 that the Emperor is resolved to patronize the religion of Christ in his 
 imperial capacity. Witnesses of Christ, we think it needful to re- 
 mind him as a professing brother, that all the wealth of his treasury, 
 or the power of his kingdom, cannot make one Christian, no more 
 than, employed in opposition to our Lord, they could defeat his coun- 
 sels or overturn his government. 
 
 “« That such as this would have been, or that such as this ought to 
 have been, the reply of the Philippian church to such a proposal as I 
 have supposed, I am in my judgment and conscience persuaded: and 
 I believe others will feel the same persuasion, just in proportion to 
 the clearness with which they discern what kind of body an aposto- 
 lic church was. 
 
 « Again, let us suppose that there had been no such thing as a po- 
 litico-religious Establishment to the present day: and that, amidst 
 ever so great corruptions of faith and practice in other professors of 
 Christianity, there were in this country some churches of Christ, in 
 which the purity of the apostolic faith was preserved, and who conti- 
 nued to walk according to the simplicity of the apostolic rule—‘ fol- 
 lowers of the churches of God which in Judea were in Christ Jesus ;’ 
 1 Thess. ii. 14. Let us suppose that a similar proposal were now 
 made for the first time, by the government of this country, to such 
 churches: and let those who are spiritual say, would they, ought 
 they to accede to it? Ought they either to give up their existing 
 order, for the purpose of coalescing with the religion of the state ; or 
 attempt (as I vainly did for some time) to combine the observance 
 of their existing order with a conformity to the code of human regu- 
 lations, which we suppose offered to their acceptance ? would they 
 not say, if they replied aright, ‘ We are walking according to the best 
 
A CIVIL ESTABLISHMENT OF RELIGION. 263 
 
 of our judgment by the rules which the apostles delivered to the first 
 churches of Christ, and which stand on record in their writings: we 
 shall be thankful to you or any who may help us into a clearer in- 
 sight into those rules: but we dare not renounce submission to their 
 authority, or countenance the idea of their insufficiency, by adopt- 
 ing regulations which are not even professedly derived from that 
 source ?’ 
 
 “‘ Other professors, we may suppose, would readily accede to the 
 proposals of our government. But who? Those who had never im- 
 bibed the apostolic spirit, or walked by the apostolic precepts ; or 
 else had awfully departed from both. And if there must have been 
 such a departure in the professors of Christianity, before any of them 
 could have become connected with a religious Establishment, does it 
 not clearly follow that the few who now believe the gospel which the 
 apostles preached, and desire to come back to the rule by which they 
 directed the first churches to walk, are called at once to withdraw 
 themselves from all such connexion ? 
 
 «1 am aware that the whole of this argument must appear very 
 uninteresting and foolish, to the great mass of professors in Christen- 
 dom. They think that matters go on very well, under that easy pro- 
 fession of worldly religion, which goes by the name of Christianity ; 
 and which they find not only consistent with their worldly interests, 
 but in many instances subservient to them. They will think the ar- 
 gument abundantly answered, by observing, ‘ We are very well; 
 what occasion for any change from the course in which the Christian 
 world has been walking for ages?’ And to such persons, I repeat it, 
 my argument is not addressed. It is little matter whether they be 
 connected with the religious Establishment or not. They are carnal 
 Churchmen ; and, in their present state, they would be just as carnal 
 Dissenters. To many of them also no force of argument upon the 
 subject could carry conviction, because they are determined not to 
 be convinced. Conviction would call them to sacrifice either worldly 
 interests, or fleshly lusts; the one promoted by the connexion with 
 that against which I argue; the other attacked by those laws of 
 Christ’s kingdom, which I mentioned as the only rule of his followers. 
 With the children of the world, conviction would be as hopeless in 
 this matter, as it would be unprofitable. It is only to the disciples of 
 Christ, that I desire to address myself on the subject. And in pro- 
 portion as their attention is directed to it, and in proportion as they 
 walk in the spirit of disciples, I do expect that they will discern the 
 
264 NOTES. 
 
 force of the argument.’— Walker’s Reasons for leaving the Establish- 
 ment.—Edin. Evan. Mag. vol. iii. p. 250, το. 
 
 WARBURTON. 
 
 The working of a civil Establishment is just what might be expect- 
 ed from its nature. The following graphic sketches are from the 
 powerful hand of Warsurrton. I have no doubt of the likeness then— 
 the reader will judge of the likeness now :— 
 
 “ The Church, like the ark of Noah, is worth saving ; not for the 
 sake of the unclean beasts and vermin that almost filled it, and pro- 
 bably made most noise and clamour in it, but for the little corner of 
 rationality, that was as much distressed by the stink within, as by the 
 tempest without. 
 
 “ Our Grandees have at last found their way back into the church. 
 I only wonder they have been so long about it. But be assured that 
 nothing but a new religious revolution, to sweep away the fragments 
 that Harry the Eighth left, after banqueting his courtiers, will drive 
 them out again. The Church has been of old the cradle and the 
 throne of the younger nobility. And this nursing mother will, I hope, 
 once more vie with old imperious Berecynthia— 
 
 ‘ Leta Deum partu, centum complexa Nepotes, 
 Omnes Ceelicolas, omnes swpera alia tenentes.’ 
 
 “ You mention Noah’s ark. 1 have really forgot what 1 said of it. 
 But I suppose I compared the Church to it, as many a grave divine 
 has done before me.—The Rabbins make the giant Gog or Magog con- 
 temporary with Noah, and convinced by his preaching. So that he 
 was disposed to take the benefit of the ark. But here lay the dis- 
 tress ; it by no means suited his dimensions. Therefore as he could 
 not enter in, he contented himself to ride upon it astride. And though 
 you must suppose that, in that stormy weather, he was more than 
 half-boots over, he kept his seat, and dismounted safely when the ark 
 landed on Mount Ararat. Imagine now to yourself this illustrious 
 cavalier, mounted on his hackney: and sce if it does not bring before 
 you the Church, bestrid by some lumpish minister of state, who turns 
 and winds it at his pleasure. The only difference is, that Gog be- 
 lieved the preacher of righteousness and religion.”—Letters from a late 
 eminent Prelate to one of his Friends, pp. 114, 118,119. ϑνο. Lond. 
 1809. 
 
ON THE DESIGN OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 265 
 
 NOTE XIX. 
 ON THE DESIGN OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 
 
 In addition to the authorities on the design of civil government, 
 mentioned in the text, the reader may not be displeased to see the 
 opinions of such men as Dr Joun Owen, Wuiston, Bisnop Warsurton, 
 Apam Situ, ArcusisHop Wuarery, and Coventry Dick,—men very 
 unlike each other in almost every trait of intellectual and spiritual 
 eharacter, but all belonging to a high order of minds. 
 
 OWEN. 
 
 “| doubt not but that the magistrate hath all that power, which is ab- 
 solutely necessary for the preservation of public peace and tranquillity 
 in the world. But if men may be allowed to fancy what they please 
 to be necessary unto that end, and thence to make their own mea- 
 sures to that power, which is to be ascribed unto him, no man knows 
 what bounds will be fixed unto that ocean wherein the Leviathans, 
 they have framed in their imagination, may sport themselves. Some 
 will perhaps think it necessary for this purpose, that the magistrate 
 shall have power to declare and determine whether there be a God or 
 no: whether, if there be, it be necessary he be worshipped or no: 
 whether any religion be useful in, or to the world: and if there be, 
 then to determine what all subjects shall believe and practise, from 
 first to last, in the whole of it. Others may confine it to lesser things, 
 according as their own interest doth call upon them so to do, though 
 they are not able to assign a clear distinction between what is sub- 
 jected unto him, and. what may plead an exemption from his au- 
 thority. 
 
 “« He, indeed, who is the fountain and original of all power, hath both 
 assigned its proper end, and fully suited it to the attainment thereof. 
 And if the noise of men’s lusts, passions, and interests, were but a little 
 silenced, we should quickly hear the consenting voice of humane na- 
 ture itself, declaring the just proportion that is between the grant of 
 power and its end, and undeniably expressing it, in all the instances of 
 it. For as the principle of rule and subjection is natural to us, con- 
 created with us, and indispensably necessary to humane society, in 
 all the distinctions it is capable of, and relations, whence those dis- 
 tinctions rise ; so Nature itself, duly attended unto, will.not fail by 
 the reason of things to direct us unto all that is essential unto it, and 
 
 5 
 
266 NOTES. 
 
 necessary unto its end. Arbitrary fictions of ends of government, 
 and what is necessary thereunto, influenced by present interest, and 
 arising from circumstances confined to one place, time, or nation, are 
 not to be imposed upon the nature of government itself, which hath 
 nothing belonging unto it, but inseparably accompanieth mankind as 
 sociable.”—TZruth and Innocence Vindicated, ce. Owen's Answer to 
 Parker, pp. 92, 93. Lond. 1699. 
 
 WHISTON. 
 
 “ As the civil government is intended for the public peace and 
 welfare of all communities, and of all men in general; and must 
 therefore extend itself over those communities and over all men ; so 
 does the New Testament suppose that ‘ every soul,’ man and woman, 
 great and small, believer and unbeliever, clergy and laity, is to be 
 subject to ‘ the higher powers, or to their civil governors, without 
 any exception. But then as to the ecclesiastical authority ordained 
 by Christ for the salvation of men in his church, it is most obvious 
 that it can belong to none, but to those that believe in Christ; that 
 own his authority, and are become members of his church: which 
 can alone be done by persons voluntarily entering themselves into it.” 
 —‘“¢ Hence national churches, established by bare human laws, and 
 reaching all the subjects of the civil government, are no proper in- 
 stitution of Christ ; nor can be otherwise considered than as civil or 
 secular institutions; they having no farther relation to Christianity, 
 than as any of these ecclesiastical laws or rules happen to agree with 
 those Christ originally appointed for his church. Nor does there 
 seem to be any other obligation arising from those laws upon the con- 
 sciences of Christians, even where they do not interfere with the laws 
 of Christ, than what a regard to public peace in the church or state 
 may require from them. I mean this, because Christ never gave 
 such secular governors any proper authority in the affairs of his 
 church ; nor does the mixture of ecclesiastical persons with the secu- 
 lar, in making such ecclesiastical laws, at all induce such an obliga- 
 tion ; for those very ecclesiastical governors have no authority them- 
 selves to make such laws; that any mixture itself is not only unsup- 
 ported, but forbidden by the genuine laws of Christianity ; and that 
 legislative capacity, by which such ecclesiastical persons act in their 
 consent to these laws, is known not to be that of Christian clergy- 
 
 men, but of temporal lords only.”— Whiston’s Scripture Politicks, pp. 
 110-112. Lond. 1717. 
 
ON THE DESIGN OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 267 
 
 WARBURTON. 
 
 “ Civil society was instituted either with the purpose, of attaining all 
 the good of every kind, it was even accidentally capable of producing, 
 or only some certain good which the institution had in view, un- 
 connected with, and unattentive to any other. To suppose its end 
 the vague purpose of acquiring all possible accidental good, is in po- 
 lities a mere solecism, as hath been sufficiently shown by the writers 
 on this question. And how untrue it is in fact, may be gathered 
 from what we have said above of the origin of society. 
 
 “ Civil government then, I suppose, will be allowed to have been 
 invented for the attainment of some certain end or ends, exclusive of 
 others ; and this implies the necessity of distinguishing this end from 
 others, which distinction arises from the different properties of the 
 things pretending. But, again, amongst all these things which are apt 
 to intrude, or have in fact been obtruded, upon men, as the ends of 
 civil government, there is but one difference in their properties, as 
 ends, which is this,—that one of these is attainable by civil society 
 only, and all the rest are easily attained without it. 
 
 “ The thing, then, with the first mentioned property, must needs 
 be that genuine end of civil society, and this is no other than security 
 to the temporal liberty and property of man. For this end, as we 
 have shown, civil society was invented ; and this, civil society alone 
 is able to procure. 
 
 “ΤῊ great, but spurious rival of this end, the salvation of souls, 
 or the security of man’s future happiness, belongs, therefore, to the 
 other division. For this not depending on outward accidents, or on 
 the will or power of another, as the body and goods do, may be as 
 well attained in a state of nature as in civil society ; and, therefore, 
 on the principles here delivered, cannot be one of the causes of the 
 institution of civil government, nor consequently one of the ends 
 thereof. But if so, the promotion of it comes not within the peculiar 
 province of the magistrate. For he who has nothing to do with the 
 end, can have no concern with the means.’—Warburton’s Alliance 
 between Church and State, pp..82-34. Lond. 1748. 
 
 ADAM SMITH. 
 
 “ Articles of faith, as well as all other spiritual matters, it is evi- 
 dent enough are not within the proper department of a temporal so- 
 vereign.’—The Wealth of Nations, Book V. Chap. I. vol. iii. p. 209. 
 8vo. Lond. 1793. 
 
208 NOTES. 
 
 ARCHBISHOP WHATELY. 
 
 I may add the opinion of Dr Waatety, the present Archbishop of 
 Dublin, perhaps the ablest occupant of the Episcopal Bench on either 
 side of St George’s Channel, as stated by him in his place in the House 
 of Lords: ““ Parliament should have none other than civil functions, 
 and the church should not be legislated for, by any, not its members.” 
 —Christian Advocate Newspaper, August 5, 1899. 
 
 COVENTRY DICK. 
 
 I shall conclude these testimonies respecting the design of civil go- 
 vernment, as exclusive of the establishment of religion in any form, 
 by a masterly argument, showing, that whatever be its design, it is 
 not the propagation of divine truth, borrowed from the most philoso- 
 phical view of the civil establishment of religion, considered as a ques- 
 tion in the science of government, that is to be found in any lan- 
 guage: the dissertation on Church Polity, by Anprew Coventry 
 Dick, Esq. ‘“ magni parentis, filius haud degener,” who has fairly 
 earned the no vulgar praise bestowed by Milton on the younger Vane— 
 
 “ Young in years, but in sage counsel old, 
 - - - - to know 
 
 Both spiritual power and civil, what each means, 
 What severs each, thou hast learn’d, which few have done.” 
 
 “ It is suggested by the master of political science just mentioned 
 (Locke), that, in order to fix the bounds of the magistrate’s authority, 
 we should ascertain those of the subject’s obedience, for these must in 
 all points coincide : where the citizen owes obedience, the magistrate 
 has authority ; and where obedience ends, there ends also the autho- 
 rity of the ruler.’—“ In all matters truly secular and civil, the will 
 of the ruler is, and necessarily must be the standard of duty ; society 
 could not exist for a moment but upon that condition. Where that 
 condition does not apply, human rule does not extend. We shall not 
 be put to prove that it has no place in matters of religion, and that in 
 respect to them every man is independent. Here his natural, con- 
 stant, and supreme director, is conscience, the principle of religious 
 loyalty which owns God only for its Lord.”—* In discharging the 
 function of propagating divine truth, the first act of government is to 
 define officially what truth is—to fix upon a creed, and by the autho- 
 rity of the whole nation, which it represents, to declare it to be true. 
 But we have seen that it is an infallible test of the lawfulness of 
 every act of government, that its subjects are bound to obey it, either 
 
ΟΝ THE DESIGN OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 269 
 
 actively or passively, according to its nature. If, then, it were a legi- 
 timate act to pronounce respecting truth and falsehood, we should be 
 bound to bring our minds into accordance with the judgment of our 
 rulers, and believe that to be truth which they had decreed to be 
 such, conforming our thoughts as rigidly to their intellectual stand- 
 ard, as we do our external conduct to the laws of their police. But 
 this is impossible. No man can by any exertion of his powers adopt 
 a doctrine in theology, or in any other department of intellectual in- 
 quiry, simply because the law has assured him that it is true. Such 
 assurance or testimony, with a threat of punishment if we reject it as 
 insufficient, is the only reason for our belief, which rulers have to 
 present. But testimony, except it be divine, being in such matters 
 no ground of persuasion, and penalties rather repelling than inviting 
 it, we are unable to comply even if we would. Thus, in the office of 
 pronouncing upon truth and falsehood, nature herself has denied to 
 governors every requisite for governing, and she has equally disabled 
 every man within their territories, from becoming their subjects. 
 ‘Obedience,’ says Milton, ‘ is the true essence of a subject, and 
 where it is not possible that any man can render it, the relation of 
 subject and master can have no existence. 
 
 ‘“* Here is an obstacle which, at the very outset, arrests the career 
 of the legislator, and marks the boundary beyond which his autho- 
 rity has no footing. But observing narrowly, we shall perceive far- 
 ther, that to the religious tenets in which our intellect detects error, 
 conscience inspires us with aversion, and stirs us up to oppose all who 
 spread them abroad. These are involuntary and irrepressible work- 
 ings of our nature. They are no less reasonable than natural, for 
 truth being one, and all acceptable worship founded on it alone, a re- 
 gard to the honour of the Deity, and the welfare of man, demands of 
 us uncompromising hostility to error.”—‘* When government sanc- 
 tions a creed disbelieved by any part of its subjects, a breach ensues 
 between them. To the latter it appears no act of piety, it is not even 
 an idle display of power, in which they have no concern. [ᾧ is an 
 insult to the Deity, offered by their representative in the name of the 
 nation of which they are members. Instantly they are sensible that 
 their rights are infringed, that their ruler is lording it over them in 
 a sphere where they owe him no allegiance, and that he is acting no 
 longer as their guardian, but as their personal enemy, or rather as 
 a rebel to that great Being, who is the Lord of religion, and in 
 whose service they are bound to repudiate all human rule, and to 
 counterwork every adverse institution. These are feelings which it 
 
270 NOTES. 
 
 were vain to deprecate. They spring from laws deeply rooted in our 
 nature, which we can no more disobey than we can change the colour 
 of our skin. 
 
 “ Nor is this all. Not content with disavowing and opposing the 
 worship which the judgment pronounces false, conscience approves 
 and embraces that on which it perceives the signature of truth. In 
 religion our conclusions do not respect merely abstract truth and 
 error ; nor do they terminate in the intellect ; they speak of right 
 and wrong, and act upon the will. Here conscience demands that our 
 profession and our practice should faithfully reflect our opinions. It 
 calls upon us to worship God with our bodies, as well as in our minds ; 
 to erect an altar, and to perform upon it rites according to the pattern 
 which we believe to be divine. For this duty it arms the weakest 
 and most fearful of mankind with ἃ supernatural courage ; which has 
 once and again conquered the most virulent persecutors, simply by 
 presenting to them an interminable line of willing victims, and no 
 prospect of an end to the inhuman labour of torture and death. 
 
 “‘ If we have reported correctly what appears on a view of our na-_ 
 tural constitution, we have already sufficient materials to decide this 
 controversy. If men are unable to believe at the word of command, 
 if they cannot suppress aversion to religious errors, if they will perish 
 rather than refrain from worshipping as their conscience prompts, 
 what possible right can their fellow-men have to decree for them a 
 creed, and to subject them to institutions, which those who disbelieve 
 it must, if they would be honest and virtuous, be ever plotting to 
 overthrow and to erect others on their ruins? Where is the founda- 
 tion, in reason or in common sense, for a right in rulers, which to 
 the full extent can never be enforced, and which, so far as it is pos- 
 sible to execute it, results inevitably in an overturn of all order: the 
 state legislating while the subject is refusing to obey ; the state erect- 
 ing establishments while the subject is disowning, reviling, and 
 counterworking them ?”—Dick’s Dissertation on Church Polity, Sec- 
 tion I. pp. 8-16. 
 
 As an appendix to this long but not tedious note, we add the opi- 
 nions of the venerable father of the Relief Church, one of the holiest 
 men, and most exemplary ministers of his age, and two of his early 
 and distinguished followers. 
 
 GILLESPIE. 
 
 “Satan tempts legislators to invade the prerogative of the Lord 
 Jesus, by claiming a power in matters religious, with which he has 
 
ON THE DESIGN OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 271 
 
 not entrusted them, or seeking to make themselves the last resort in 
 all causes of such kind, in direct opposition to the authority of Christ, 
 who alone is Lord of the conscience, has erected his tribunal in it, 
 has declared his kingdom is not of this world, at the same time, that 
 he does not permit the concerns of his kingdom to interfere in any 
 respect or degree with those of the kingdoms of this world, having in-, 
 dispensably bound his people to be subject to the authority and law- 
 ful commands of magistrates in all civil matters.”’—Gillespie’s Treatise 
 on Temptation, p. 202. 12mo. Edin. 1774. 
 
 BAINE. 
 
 “ Magistracy no doubt is the ordinance of God; and the person 
 clothed with that office is his minister for good: But his jurisdiction 
 and province is wholly distinct from the other—(the ecclesiastical), 
 agreeably to which our Saviour tells us that his kingdom is not of 
 this world. The object of civil goverment is the secular interest 
 alone, the preservation of the original rights of mankind, which makes 
 society prosperous and peaceful. Its power is coercive ; it compels to 
 obedience, or rather punishes the disobedient with fines, prison, banish- 
 ment, and death. To these powers, which are of God, all of what- 
 ever denomination are bound to be subject not for wrath, but for con- 
 science sake. On the other hand, whilst the magistrate preserves 
 religion, the dispensers and votaries of it from abuse and insult, it is not 
 within his sphere to enact articles of faith, to appoint ordinances of 
 worship, to dispense these, or the censures of the church. Far less has 
 he authority by pains and penalties to force a profession of faith from 
 any, or conformity to this or the other mode of worship. Such car- 
 nal weapons wound the conscience, by extorting a hypocritical con. 
 fession, but cannot convince the judgment.’— Baine’s Discourses, 
 Dise. xvii. p. 237. Edin. 1778. 
 
 4 HUTCHISON. 
 
 “ By being placed at the head of the civil state, to give law to the 
 subjects of the state, the magistrate is not therefore placed at the head 
 of the church to give law to the body of Christ. If ever he assumes 
 this character and power, he transgresses the just limits of his autho- 
 rity, which is civil not religious ; invades the dominions of another 
 prince, and arrogantly claims the power of giving laws to a commu- 
 nity that knows and ought to know no king but Jesus. This is a 
 stretch of prerogative, as unreasonable and absurd as it would be for 
 the French king to pretend to give law to British subjects, or for the 
 
972 NOTES. 
 
 king of Britain to assume the power of prescribing laws to the sub- 
 jects of a foreign prince.’—Hutchison’s Dissertation on the Nature and 
 Genius of the Kingdom of Christ, Part 11. Sect.11. p.179. Edin. 1779: 
 
 NOTE XX. 
 
 MR GIBS COMMENTARY ON THE ASSOCIATE PRESBYTERY'S STATE- 
 MENT OF THE NATURE OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 
 
 “1, The great end of magistracy is the public good of society, dis- 
 tinguished from all interfering private interests. The public good of 
 outward order, as not versant, like the gospel-ministry, about the 
 disorders of men’s hearts ; and the public good of common order in all 
 reasonable society, not only in the general society of the nation, or 
 commonwealth, but also in all the particular societies comprehended 
 within the same, civil or religious,—so far as these do not strike, ac- 
 cording to the principles of right reason, against the peace and wel- 
 fare of the general society, that each may enjoy the benefit of the 
 magistrate’s office, for preserving such order as is common to all, ac- 
 cording as each partakes of the common nature of society. And this 
 great end of the magistrate’s office is the only end that he can pro- 
 pose ;—that he can equitably and justly propose, in a sole respect unto 
 that office ; whatever other good ends he may propose to himself, in 
 respect to any other character which he bears. ΑἸ] which public 
 good is ultimately unto the glory of God, as the universal Sovereign 
 of the world, an acknowledgment of whose being and government 
 lies at the root of all confidence and duty in human society ; while 
 this acknowledgment is also made, at least materially, in all that 
 maintenance of good order. 
 
 « 9, Those invested with magistracy, are to prosecute the above- 
 mentioned end of their office, according to the nature of it, civilly, in 
 such ways as agree to the nature of civil society, without subordinat- 
 ing any religious institutions or ordinances to that end; in doing 
 which, it is on/y over men’s good and evil works (comprehending 
 works of the tongue as well as hand), that they can have any in- 
 spection, without pretending to any control of men’s judgments, 
 hearts, or thoughts. And this inspection is on/y over these good and 
 evil works of men, which they must take cognizance of, for the said 
 public good ; so that they are not to interfere with any of men’s 
 
NATURE OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 273 
 
 works in which the public good of society is not properly concerned. 
 At the same time, their jurisdiction about men’s works must be in 
 such a manner, and proceed so far only, as is requisite for the said pub- 
 lic good, only in a civil manner as above expressed, and without pro- 
 ceeding so far as to serve the purposes of resentment or private inte- 
 rests, beside or beyond the public good. Thus, the magistrate must 
 not assume any lordship immediately over men’s consciences, in offer- 
 ing to make himself a judge of men’s religious principles ; nor must 
 he encroach upon the official privileges and business of the church, by 
 assuming a cognizance of men’s religious conduct or behaviour, far- 
 ther than the public good of society is concerned, while all other 
 cognizance thereof belongs particularly to the church-state. 
 
 ‘“* 3. It is to be considered that the whole institution of the magis- 
 trate’s office lies in natural principles, being no way founded on the 
 revelation of grace, nor at all peculiar to such as enjoy the benefit of 
 that revelation. And, accordingly, the whole end of his office must 
 be understood as cut out by the same natural principles, so that it 
 cannot, in any part or degree, extend beyond the compass thereof. 
 It were therefore absurd to suppose, that any ewxercise of that office 
 were competent unto, or incumbent upon the civil magistrate, pre- 
 cisely as such,—other than what can be argued for and defended from 
 natural principles, without having recourse to any principles of re- 
 vealed religion, for the rule or measure of his magistratical administra- 
 tion.” — Gib’s Display, vol. i. pp. 312, 313. 
 
 It will appear from the above that the germ of Voluntary princi- 
 ples early appeared in the Secession—what has followed has been 
 merely the somewhat slow but sure development of it. That the pro- 
 cess of germination was going forward in the mind of the commenta- 
 tor, is evident from the following extract froma pamphlet, published 
 a few years subsequent to the writing of the above commentary. 
 
 “It is granted that in the period referred to (1638-1648), the na- 
 tural rights of mankind, about matters of conscience and religion, 
 were not properly understood and acknowledged. It is competent for, 
 and incumbent upon the church, to take cognizance of the religious 
 principles and practices of her members ; and to proceed against them 
 as erroneous or undutiful in these matters, by the exercise of her 
 discipline. But no religious duties can be warrantably enforced by 
 civil penalties: No man can be justly subjected to any penalties of 
 that sort, for any error of principle or iniquity of practice, in reli- 
 gious matters as such. It is competent for, and incumbent upon the 
 Christian magistrate to countenance true religion, and discountenance 
 
974 NOTES. 
 
 false religion ; to encourage the professors of the one, and discourage 
 the professors of the other ; to do so by all means which may consist 
 with men’s natural rights, so as not to touch any one’s person or pro- 
 perty, life or liberty, on a religious account. But it is grossly incon- 
 sistent with the sovereignty of the Lord Christ, the spirituality of 
 religion, and the unalienable rights of conscience, for the civil ma- 
 gistrate to make himself an authoritative judge of true and false reli- 
 gion, of religious principles and professions, for dealing with his peo- 
 ple compulsively in such matters ; or that they should be accountable 
 to him in the matters of their faith and worship, as such. A main- 
 taining and promoting the public good of outward and common or- 
 der, in all reasonable society through his dominions, is the proper 
 work of his office. If men are truly chargeable with principles or 
 practices under the name of religion, which manifestly strike against 
 the welfare of civil society, or are, according to the common prin- 
 ciples of reason, subversive of the public peace, the pretence of reli- 
 gion ought not to be any safeguard unto them in such a ease ; but it 
 is the magistrate’s business to restrain or punish them as troublers of . 
 the civil state, or under the character of bad subjects, yet still with- 
 out assuming any cognizance of them as bad Christians, or using them 
 with any compulsions in that respect, as it is by a quite other sort of 
 means that men are to be reclaimed from religious errors or enormi- 
 ties. 
 
 “Tt is too true, however, that considerably different views of this 
 matter were entertained in the said reforming period ; that our re- 
 formers had not then got their minds sufficiently extricated from the 
 bondage of those compulsory principles in matters merely of con- 
 science and religion, which had so long domineered in tlie Popish and 
 Episcopal Churches. A sad evidence of this lies in an act of Assem- 
 bly 1647, in which the following doctrine is taught: ‘ that the civil 
 magistrate may and ought to suppress, by corporal and civil punish- 
 ments, such as, by spreading error or heresy, or by fomenting 
 schism, greatly dishonour God, dangerously hurt religion, and disturb 
 the peace of the Kirk.’ Here, indeed, the affair of civil penalties is 
 doctrinally applied to matters of religion as such, yea to matters of 
 revealed religion as such,—whatever might be judged error or he- 
 yesy or schism, though merely on principles of revelation. And if 
 the magistrate was not to be degraded into a mere blind tool of the 
 church, he was to assume an authoritative judgment in these mat- 
 ters! and whatever he should judge to be error or heresy or schism, 
 he was to suppress by corporal and civil punishments. And whether 
 
NATURE OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 275 
 
 his judgment be right or wrong in this case, the consequence must 
 be all the same: Because what really is error or heresy or schism, 
 and what he judges to be so, must be all one to him,—he must pro- 
 ceed alike upon what is so, and whatever he takes to be so as accord- 
 ing to the proverb, ‘ what is sauce for a goose will be sauce for a gan- 
 der.’ The persecuting and bloody tendency of this scheme, in itself 
 considered, may be obvious enough without further enlargement. 
 But it is to be remarked with great thankfulness, that the Lord did 
 not suffer it to take effect, so as the Presbyterian church should have 
 come to be stained with blood. 
 
 “ Principles and propositions of this sort, in which the minds of 
 men through some train of confused speculations may be entangled— 
 will not always be a sufficient ground for charging them with a per- 
 secuting or bloody disposition. We need go no farther for an evi- 
 dence of this than a late publication from London, upon a most com-: 
 mendable design, entitled, ‘ An Appeal from the Protestant Associa- 
 tion to the People of Great Britain, concerning the probable tendency 
 of the late Act of Parliament in favour of the Papists.’ It may well 
 be presumed, that the gentlemen of this Association are as little 
 chargeable with such a disposition as any other persons in our island. 
 Yet they have rashly injured the good cause which they plead, by 
 the following passages in their definitions of persecution and tolera- 
 tion. ‘ Persecution consists in hurting a man in any of his natural 
 or civil rights, on account of the principles he holds or the worship 
 he performs ; when these principles and that worship have nothing 
 in them incompatible with the Scriptures: Toleration consists in al- 
 lowing every man to profess his own faith, if not evidently repugnant 
 to the Holy Scriptures.’ Now, it was very right to define toleration 
 as consisting in a practical allowing, a not molesting, instead of con- 
 sisting in an act giving positive countenance and encouragement. 
 But with regard to a man’s religious principles and worship, or the 
 faith which he professes, who are in this case to be the judges, as to 
 whether or not these have in them any thing ‘ incompatible with’ or 
 ‘ evidently’ repugnant to the Holy Scriptures? Certainly the civil 
 powers to whom persecuting and tolerating belong. “Yet if they be 
 allowed to assume such a judgment, they may persecute as much as 
 ever papist did, and yet never be chargeable according to the above 
 definitions, with any persecution at all; having no more ado for 
 this but first to judge against the person in the things mentioned, 
 and his plea for toleration will be good for nothing. The mistake lies 
 in allowing the civil judgment concerning such persons to turn upon 
 
276 NOTES. 
 
 any other question, than that of their being good or bad subjects and 
 members of the civil state ; troublers or not of the common peace.”— 
 Account of the Burgher Re-exhibition of the Testimony, pp. 33-36. 
 Edin. 1780. 
 
 NOTE XXI- 
 
 COMMANDS OF THE MAGISTRATE BEYOND THE LIMITS OF HIS 
 OFFICE NOT OBLIGATORY. 
 
 BAXTER. 
 
 “ If a lawful king be limited, if he command the subject beyond his 
 limits, in matters exempted from his power, or else in matters that 
 the nature of his office extendeth not unto, that command is not an 
 act of power, and therefore it is not a resistance of power to disobey 
 it. The resistance of a person in power, in a point wherein he hath 
 no power, is not to resist power (i. 6. jus regendi), but the will of a 
 private man: for he is a private man in all things exempted from his 
 power. 1. A schoolmaster has nothing to do to command his schol- 
 ars in matters about their trades and callings in the world, but only 
 in matters of learning and manners, because it belongeth not to his 
 office. A captain hath no power as such about men’s estates, but only 
 about the manners and military actions of his soldiers, in order to his 
 mnilitary ends. If a judge of one court step into another without com- 
 mission in alieno foro, his seitence is null, and no man bound to obey 
 it. So if the minister presume to command in things belonging to 
 the magistrate, and not to him, his act is private, vain, and null. So 
 if a sovereign will turn physician, and command all men to take this 
 or that physic only, not in order to public good but private health, 
 or if he will turn pastor, and do things proper to the pastor of the 
 church, his acts are private and null, as being without the verge of 
 his vocation. 2. And where his covenants with his people limit him, 
 he hath no power in the excepted points, e. ψ. if he be restrained from 
 raising taxes without the people’s consent, if he yet command the 
 payment of taxes, he doth it not by authority ; for neither God nor 
 man did ever give him authority thereto. If the constitution restrain 
 him from raising war without the consent of the senate, and yet he 
 undertake to do it, it is not an act of authority, fur he never had au- 
 thority thereto.”—Bavter's Holy Commonwealth, pp. 875, 876. 
 
INCONGRUITY OF CIVIL-RELIGIOUS LEGISLATION. 277 
 
 NOTE XXII. 
 
 INCONGRUITY OF CIVIL LEGISLATION IN OR ABOUT RELIGION, 
 
 ᾿ 
 
 SIR HENRY VANE. 
 
 Sir Henry Vane, to whom, according to a very competent judge, 
 belongs the honour of being “ the first who laid down with perfect 
 precision, the inviolable rights of conscience, and the exemption of 
 religion from all civil authority,”* in his “ Healing question pro- 
 pounded and resolved,” after having stated that the great design of 
 “ the honest party” was “ to restore to the whole body their just na- 
 tural rights in civil things, and true freedom in matters of conscience,” 
 and shortly illustrated the first of these objects, proceeds to make the 
 following striking observations on the second of them :— 
 
 ** The second branch which remains briefly to be handled, is that 
 which also upon the grounds of naturall right is to be laid claime 
 unto ; but distinguishes itself from the former, as it respects a more 
 heavenly and excellent object, wherein the freedom is to be exer- 
 cised and enjoyed, that is to say, matters of religion, or that concern 
 the service and worship of God. 
 
 “ Unto this freedom the nations of the world have right and title, 
 by the purchase of Christ’s blood, who, by virtue of his death and re- 
 surrection, is become the sole Lord and Ruler in and over the con- 
 science ; for to this end Christ died, rose, and revived, that he might 
 be Lord both of the dead and of the living, and that every one 
 might give an account of himself, in all matters of God’s worship, 
 unto God and Christ alone, as their own Master, unto whom they 
 stand or fallin judgment, and are not in these things to be oppressed, 
 or brought before the judgment-seat of men. For why shouldest 
 thou set at nought thy brother in matters of his faith and conscience, 
 and herein intrude into the proper office of Christ, since we are all " 
 to stand at the judgment seat of Christ, whether governours or go- 
 verned, and by his decision only are capable of being declared with 
 certainty, to be in the right or in the wrong ? 
 
 “ By vertue, then, of this supream law, sealed and confirmed in 
 the blood of Christ unto all men (whose souls he challenges a pro- 
 priety in, to bring under his inward rule in the service and worship 
 of God), it is that all magistrates are to fear and forbear intermeddling 
 
 * Sir James Mackintosh’s View of the Reign of James II. p. 166. 
 
278 NOTES. 
 
 with giving rule or imposing in those matters. They are to content 
 themselves with what is plain in their commission, as ordained of 
 God to be his ministers unto men for good, whilest they approve them- 
 selves the doers of that which is good in the sight of men, and whereof 
 earthly and worldly judicatures are capable to make a clear and per- 
 fect judgment: in which case the magistrate is to be for praise and 
 protection to them. In like manner he is to be a minister of terrour 
 and revenge to those that doe evil in matters of outward practice, 
 converse, and dealings in the things of this life between man and 
 man, for the cause whereof, the judicatures of men are appointed and 
 set up. But to exceed these limits, as it is not safe nor warrantable 
 for the magistrate (in that he who is higher than the highest regards, 
 and will show himself displeased at it), so neither is it good for the 
 people, who hereby are nourished up in a biting, devouring, wrath- 
 ful spirit one against another, and are found transgressors of that 
 royal law which forbids us to doe that unto another, which we would 
 not have them doe unto us were we in their condition. 
 
 “ΤῊ 5 freedome, then, is of high concern to be had and enjoyed, 
 as well for the magistrate’s sake, as for the people’s common good ; 
 and it consists, as hath been said, in the magistrate’s forbearing to 
 put forth the power of rule and coercion in things that God hath 
 exempted out of his commission. So that all care requisite for the 
 people’s obtaining this, may be exercised with great ease, if it be taken 
 in its proper season ; and that this restraint be laid upon the supreme 
 power before it be erected, as a fundamental constitution among 
 others, upon which the free consent of the people is given, to have 
 the persons brought into the exercise of supreme authority over 
 them, and on their behalf; and if besides, as a further confirmation 
 hereunto, it be acknowledged the voluntary act of the ruling power, 
 when once brought into a capacity of acting legislatively, that herein 
 they are bound up, and judge it their duty so to be (both in refer- 
 ence to God, the institutor of magistracy, and in reference to the 
 whole body by whom they are entrusted), this great blessing will 
 hereby be so well provided for, that we shall have no cause to fear, 
 as it may be ordered. 
 
 ‘“* By this means a great part of the outward exercise of antichris- 
 tian tyranny and bondage will be plucked up by the very roots, 
 which, till some such course be held in it, will be alwayes apt to re- 
 new and sprout out afresh, under some new forme or refined appear- 
 ances, as by late years’ experience we have been taught. For, since 
 the fall of the bishops and persecuting presbyteries, the same spirit is 
 
INCONGRUITY OF CIVIL-RELIGIOUS LEGISLATION. 279 
 
 apt to arise in the next sort of clergy that can get the ear of the ma- 
 gistrate, and pretend to the keeping and ruling the conscience of the 
 governours. Although this spirit and practice hath been all along 
 decried by the faithful adherents to this cause, as a most sore oppres- 
 sion, and insufferable yoke of bondage, most unrighteously kept up 
 over the consciences of the people, and therefore judged by them 
 most needful to be taken out of the way.”—A Healing Question pro- 
 pounded and resolved, upon occasion of the late public and seasonable 
 call to Humiliation, in order to love and union amongst the honest party, 
 and with desire to apply balsam to the wound before it becomes inewr- 
 able. By Henry Vane, Knight. Pp. 5-8. 4to. Lond. 1656. 
 
 MARCHAMONT NEDHAM. 
 
 The following remarks of Nepsam contain much important truth 
 on the subject of this note :— 
 
 “ The first error that we shall observe in antient Christian policy, 
 and which indeed hath been a main foundation of tyranny, is that 
 corrupt division of a state into ecclesiastical and civil ; a fault where- 
 of our latest refiners of political discourse are as guilty in their writ- 
 ings as any others; but that there is the least footstep, in the Scrip- 
 ture, for Christians to follow such a division of state, or to allow of a 
 national way of churching, which is the root of that division, could 
 never yet be proved by any; and the contrary is very clear from the 
 drift and scope of the gospel. We read, indeed, of the common- 
 wealth of Israel being thus divided, and that it was done according 
 to rules and constitutions of God’s own appointment ; it being God’s 
 way then, when he was pleased to make choice of that people only, 
 out of all the world, to be his own peculiar, and so fixed his Church 
 there in a national form: Then it was confined and restrained to that 
 particular nation, excluding all others. But if any man will argue 
 from hence, that it is lawful for any nation now under the gospel to 
 follow this pattern ; then it behoves him, 1st, To prove, that God in- 
 tended the Jewish government as a pattern for us to follow under 
 the Gospel. And if any man will pretend to this, then, in the second 
 place, it will concern him to prove, that we are to follow it in every 
 particular, or only in some particulars. That we are to follow it in 
 every one, no sober man did yet affirm: and if they will have us to 
 follow it in some particulars, relinquishing the rest, then it concerns 
 him to produce some rule or command out of Scripture plainly point- 
 ing out what parts of it we are to embrace, and what not; or else he 
 will never be able to make it appear, that the form of the common- 
 
280 NOTES. 
 
 wealth of Israel was ever intended, either in the whole, or in part, 
 asa pattern for Christians to follow under the Gospel. But never was 
 any such rule alleged yet out of Scripture by those that pretend to 
 a national Church. 
 
 « And therefore, if we seriously reflect upon the design of God, in 
 sending Christ into the world, we shall find it was to put an end to 
 that pompous administration of the Jewish form ; that as his church 
 and people were formerly confined within the narrow pale of a par- 
 ticular nation, so now the pale should be broken down, and all na- 
 tions taken into the church: not all nations in a lump; nor any 
 whole nations, or national bodies to be formed into churches ; for his 
 church or people, now under the Gospel, are not to be a body politi- 
 cal, but spiritual and mystical : Not a promiscuous confusion of per- 
 sons, taken in at adventure; but an orderly collection, a picking and 
 chusing of such as are called and sanctified ; and not a company of 
 men forced in, by commands and constitutions of worldly powers and 
 prudence ; but of such as are brought in by the power and efficacy 
 of Christ’s word and Spirit; for he himself hath said, ‘ My kingdom 
 is not of this world; it is not from hence,’ &c. and therefore, that 
 hand which hitherto hath presumed, in most nations, to erect a power, 
 called ecclesiastic, in equipage with the civil, to bear sway, and bind 
 men’s consciences to retain notions, ordained for orthodox, upon civil 
 penalties, under colour of prudence, good order, discipline, preyent- 
 ing of heresy, advancing of Christ’s kingdom ; and to this end, hath 
 twisted the spiritual power (as they call it) with the worldly and 
 secular interest of state; this (I say) hath been the very right hand 
 of Antichrist opposing Christ, in his way: whose kingdom, govern- 
 ment, governors, officers, and rulers, laws, ordinances, and statutes, 
 being not of this world (I mean, jure humano), depend not upon the 
 helps and devices of worldly wisdom. 
 
 “ Upon this score and pretence, the infant mystery of iniquity be- 
 gan to work in the very cradle of Christianity. 
 
 “ Afterwards it grew up by the indulgence of Constantine, and 
 other Christian emperors, whom though God used in many good 
 things for the suppression of gross heathen idolatry, yet (by God’s 
 permission) they were carried away, and their eyes so far dazzled, 
 through the glorious pretences of the prelates and bishops, that they 
 could not see the old serpent in a new form wrapt up in a mystery ; 
 for Satan had a new game to play, which he managed thus: First, 
 he led a great part of the world away with dangerous errors, thereby 
 to find an occasion for the prelates, to carry on the mystery of their 
 
INCONGRUITY OF CIVIL-RELIGIOUS LEGISLATION. 281 
 
 profession ; and so, under pretence of suppressing those dangerous 
 errors, they easily screwed themselves into the civil power: and for 
 continuing of it the surer in their own hands, they made bold to bap- 
 tize whole nations with the name of Christian, that they might (un- 
 der the same pretence) gain a share of power and authority with the 
 magistrate in every nation ; which they soon effected. 
 
 _“ The infant being thus nursed, grew up in a short time to a per- 
 fect man, THE MAN oF 81Ν (if the Pope be the man, which is yet con- 
 troverted by some): for, the prelates having gotten the power in their 
 hands, began then to quarrel, who should be the greatest among 
 them. At length he of Rome bore away the bell; and so the next 
 step was, that, from national churches, they proceed to have a mo- 
 ther-church of all nations. A fair progress and pitch, indeed, from a 
 small beginning: And now being up, they defied all with bell, book, 
 and candle, excommunicating and deposing kings and emperors, and 
 binding men’s consciences (still under the first specious pretence of 
 suppressing heresy), to believe only in their arbitrary dictates, tradi- 
 tions, and errors, which are the greatest blasphemies, errors, and he- 
 resies, that ever were in the world. Now they were up, see what 
 ado there was to get any part of them down again. What a quarrel 
 and commotion there was in Germany, when Luther first brake the 
 ice! and the like here in England, when our first reformers began 
 their work! These men, in part, did well, but having banished the 
 Pope’s actual tyranny, they left the seed and principle of it still be- 
 hind, which was, a state ecclesiastical united with the civil; for the 
 bishops twisted their own interest again with that of the crown, upon 
 a Protestant account ; and by virtue of that, persecuted those they 
 called Puritans, for not being as orthodox (they said) as themselves. 
 
 “ To conclude, if it be considered, that most of the civil wars and 
 broils, throughout Europe, have been occasioned, by permitting the 
 settlement of clergy interest, with the secular, in national forms and 
 churches, it will doubtless be understood, that a division of a state 
 into ecclesiastical and civil, must needs be one of their main errors in 
 Christian policy.”——The Excellencie of a Free State; or, the Right Con- 
 stitution of a Commonwealth, wherein all objections are answered, and 
 the best way to secure the people’s liberties discovered, with some errors 
 of government and rules of policie. Published by a Well-wisher to Pos- 
 teritie. London, 1656.—This admirable tract was republished at the 
 expence of Hollis, in 1768. Copies of either edition are now rare. 
 
282 NOTES. 
 
 LOCKE. 
 
 “It is the duty of the civil magistrate, by the impartial execution 
 of equal laws, to secure unto all the people in general, and to every 
 one of his subjects in particular, the just possession of those things 
 belonging to this life. If any one presume to violate the laws of 
 publick justice and equity, established for the preservation of those 
 things, his presumption is to be checked by the fear of punishment, 
 consisting of the deprivation or diminution, of those civil interests, 
 or goods, which otherwise he might and ought to enjoy. But seeing 
 no man does willingly suffer himself to be punished by the depriva- 
 tion of any part of his goods, and much less of his liberty or life, 
 therefore is the magistrate armed with the force and strength of all 
 his subjects, in order to the punishment of those that violate any 
 other man’s rights. 
 
 “ Now, that the whole jurisdiction of the magistrate reaches only 
 to those civil concernments ; and that all civil power, right, and do- 
 minion, is bounded and confined to the only care of promoting these 
 things ; and that it neither can, nor ought, in any manner, to be ex- 
 tended to the salvation of souls, these following considerations seem 
 unto me abundantly to demonstrate. 
 
 “ First, Because the care of souls is not committed to the civil ma- 
 gistrate, any more than to other men. It is not committed unto him, 
 I say, by God; because it appears not, that God has ever given any 
 such authority to one man over another, as to compel any one to his 
 religion. Nor can any such power be vested in the magistrate, by 
 the consent of the people; because no man can so far abandon the 
 care of his own salvation, as blindly to leave it to the choice of any 
 other, whether prince or subject, to prescribe to him what faith or 
 worship he shall embrace. For no man can, if he would, conform 
 his faith to the dictates of another. 
 
 “ All the life and power of true religion consist in the inward and 
 full persuasion of the mind ; and faith is not faith without believing. 
 Whatever profession we make, to whatever worship we conform, if 
 we are not fully satisfied in our own mind that the one is true, and 
 the other well-pleasing unto God, such profession and such practice, 
 far from being any furtherance, are indeed great obstacles to our sal- 
 vation. For in this manner, instead of expiating other sins, by the 
 exercise of religion, I say, in offering thus unto God Almighty such 
 a worship, as we esteem to be displeasing unto him, we add unto the 
 number of our other sins, those also of hypocrisy, and contempt of 
 his Divine Majesty. 
 
INCONGRUITY OF CIVIL-RELIGIOUS LEGISLATION. 283 
 
 “In the second place, The care of souls cannot belong to the civil 
 magistrate, because his power consists only in outward force ; but 
 true and saving religion consists in the inward persuasion of the 
 mind, without which nothing can be acceptable to God. And such 
 is the nature of the understanding, that it cannot be compelled to the 
 belief of any thing by outward force. Confiscation of estate, impri- 
 sonment, torments, nothing of that nature can have any such efficacy 
 as to make men change the inward judgment, that they have framed 
 of things. 
 
 “Τὸ may indeed be alleged, that the magistrate may make use of 
 arguments, and thereby draw the heterodox into the way of truth, 
 and procure their salvation. I grant it; but this is common to him 
 with other men. In teaching, instructing, and redressing the erro- 
 neous by reason, he may certainly do what becomes any good man 
 to do. Magistracy does not oblige him to put off, either humanity or 
 Christianity. But it is one thing to persuade, and another to com- 
 mand ; one thing to press with arguments, another with penalties. 
 This the civil power alone has a right to do; to the other, good-will 
 is authority enough. Every man has a commission to admonish, ex- 
 hort, convince another of error, and by reasoning to draw him into 
 truth; but to give laws, receive obedience, and compel with the 
 sword, belongs to none but the magistrate. And upon this ground I 
 affirm, that the magistrate’s power extends not to the establishing of 
 any articles of faith, or forms of worship, by the force of his laws. 
 For laws are of no force at all without penalties, and penalties in this 
 case are absolutely impertinent ; because they are not proper to con- 
 vince the mind. Neither the profession of any articles of faith, nor 
 the conformity to any outward form of worship (as has been already 
 said), can be available to the salvation of souls, unless the truth of 
 the one, and the acceptableness of the other unto God, be thoroughly 
 believed by those that so profess and practise. But penalties are no- 
 ways capable to produce such a belief. It is only light, and evi- 
 dence, that can work a change in men’s opinions ; which light can in 
 no manner proceed from corporal sufferings, or any outward penalties. 
 
 “In the third place, The care of the salvation of men’s souls can- 
 not belong to the magistrate ; because, though the rigour of laws, and 
 the force of penalties, were capable to convince and change men’s 
 minds, yet would not that help at all to the salvation of their souls. 
 For there being but one truth, one way to heaven; what hope is 
 there that more men would be led into it, if they had no rule but 
 the religion of the court, and were put under a necessity to quit the 
 
284 NOTES. 
 
 light of their own reason, and oppose the dictates of their own con- 
 sciences, and blindly to resign up themselves to the will of their go- 
 vernors, and to the religion, which either ignorance, ambition, or su- 
 perstition, had chanced to establish in the countries where they were 
 born? In the variety and contradiction of opinions in religion, 
 wherein the princes of the world are as much divided as in their se- 
 cular interests, the narrow way would be much straitened ; one 
 country alone would be in the right, and all the rest of the world 
 put under an obligation of following their princes, in the ways that 
 lead to destruction; and that which heightens the absurdity, and 
 very ill suits the notion of a Deity, men would owe their eternal hap- 
 piness, or misery, to the places of their nativity. 
 
 “« These considerations, to omit many others that might have been 
 urged to the same purpose, seem unto me sufficient to conclude, that 
 all the power of civil government relates only to men’s civil interests, 
 is confined to the care of the things of this world, and hath nothing 
 to do with the world to come.’—Locke’s Letter concerning Toleration, 
 Works, vol. ii. pp. 244-247, 
 
 PROFESSOR BRUCE. 
 
 «ς The undue confounding of matters of civil polity and religion to- 
 gether, and the introducing, by a forced and unnatural coalition, the 
 peculiarities and controversies of religious parties, in the political con- 
 stitution and laws of kingdoms, though they had no direct or neces- 
 sary connexion therewith, and the misapplication of compulsive 
 power in reference to them, they consider as one principal source of 
 all these disorders and convulsions, which religion is said to have 
 caused in the world; as that which let in persecution with a full 
 tide, and is the fair but false pretence, by which it ever hath been 
 and still is vindicated. The constitution of that government must. be 
 very impolitic and very unhappy, its authority and peace, as well as 
 the liberties of its subjects, exceedingly precarious, wherein innume- 
 rable things are thus arbitrarily connected with its existence, its se- 
 curity, or its honour, that have in fact no natural or necessary con- 
 nexion therewith at all. When this is the case, the proper notions 
 of loyalty and disobedience are also confounded, and affection and dis- 
 affection, faction and peace, come to lose their proper distinction. 
 Those who are the most hearty friends to just authority, exercised 
 about its proper objects, and within its due limits, and most dutiful 
 in respect, to government and public order, merely as civil, may 
 in consequence be proscribed, and the laws will become traps to take 
 
INCONGRUITY OF CIVIL-RELIGIOUS LEGISLATION. 285 
 
 and destroy the most innocent or deserving, while every one who 
 takes upon him to legislate, though perhaps ignorant, unjust, super- 
 stitious, or cruel, is allowed to have a right to decree them, by no 
 other rule than his own opinion or humour: whereby he may have 
 it in his power to create a thousand factitious crimes, and after he 
 has done so, to annex to them whatever pains, incapacities, and per- 
 secution he pleases. 
 
 « If it once be supposed that the joint conduct of the public affairs 
 of a nation, which are of common and indispensable necessity, must 
 be suspended on the unusual and impracticable agreement of man- 
 kind in religious opinions or rites, that government, if it be not soon 
 unhinged, must be greatly embarrassed in its movements, weakened 
 in its powers, limited and partial in its favours, and cannot fail to ex- 
 cite constant disquiet and factions, converting, through its own error, 
 subjects heartily disposed to be dutiful, into enemies. It must be 
 often obliged to divert from its proper work, and find itself entan- 
 gled in multifarious and intricate business, not its own,* and precipi- 
 tated into acts impertinent or highly mischievous. 
 
 «ς If a prince should be so unwise as to conjoin the pontifical tiara 
 or an episcopal mitre, with his regal crown, and reckon himself equally 
 obliged to be the defender and avenger of the honour of both, or if a 
 government should adopt the voluminous canon law into its civil 
 code, or make the several articles of a long breviary or liturgy, with 
 all the whims and indescribable ceremonies of a ceremonious church, 
 not so much as excepting the gestures and postures of freakish eccle- 
 siastics, or the very colour and fashion of their garments, so many ne- 
 cessary conditions of the social compact between rulers and subjects, 
 without the exact observance of all and every one of which, the lat- 
 ter shall be liable to be deprived of liberty, property, or life, or at 
 least branded with some mark of distinguishing infamy, who will say 
 that this would be a method dictated by reason or Christianity, either 
 for maintaining uniformity in a church, or to secure peace in the 
 state? It must necessarily tend, on the contrary, to keep both church 
 and state in jeopardy every hour. The monstrous constitution, 
 through such a junction, will be made to feel and suffer in a thousand 
 new different ways. The most trifling and indifferent acts, will hurt 
 it as much as the most capital crimes. Nor do they surely consult 
 either the repose or dignity of kings, who insinuate that this is the 
 true way to preserve them. Nothing is so ready to expose them to 
 
 * What a commentary on this sentence do the transactions of the United 
 Parliament of Great Britain and Ireland for the last ten years exhibit.— Ep, 
 
286 NOTES. 
 
 contempt and danger. The head of such a constitution, would re- 
 quire the whole strength of one half of his subjects to defend him 
 against the supposed disaffection or insults of the other. Nay, he 
 will need more guards and armies than his dominions can furnish him 
 with, to maintain the force of his laws, and to secure the fictitious 
 rights of his crown from violation. So many ecclesiastical baubles 
 will be appended to it, and so many fools’ feathers stuck into it, that 
 it must flutter and tremble with every gale that blows, and all that 
 behold it must pluck at it, or hold it in derision.”—An Overture of an 
 Act of the General Associate Synod in Scotland, concerning the Sacra- 
 mental Test, and the duty and interests of Presbyterians in Scotland in 
 reference to its repeal, pp. 4-6. Edin. 1790.—The above remarks 
 lose none of their justice or force by coming from the pen of one 
 who, sixteen years after, left the communion of the body, of which, 
 by his learning and worth, he was a distinguished ornament, alleging 
 as one of his reasons, that the principle of civil establishments of re- 
 ligion was substantially condemned in one of their judicial deeds. One 
 can scarce help wondering, however, that the style of thought disco- 
 vered in this admirable passage, did not lead to a somewhat different 
 result. Bishop Warburton has the credit of giving a turn to the Pro- 
 fessor’s opinions on this subject ; whether he is entitled to it we have 
 no means of ascertaining. 
 
 BOGUE AND BENNETT. 
 
 “« The studies and pursuits of the rulers of the nations, have seldom 
 been peculiarly directed to theology, and a critical investigation of 
 the doctrines of religion ; and, on this account, they are certainly not 
 likely to be very competent judges in spiritual casuistry. Ifa man’s 
 conscience is not to be in the priest’s keeping, it appears still more 
 unsuitable that it should be in the king’s keeping. If it be asserted 
 that it is one of the prerogatives of his office, then it must belong to 
 every ruler in every land. The French Emperor (1808), and his le- 
 gislative body, have a right to guide the consciences of all the inha- 
 bitants of France. The same authority appertains to the King of 
 Spain and his courtiers ; to the Grand Seignior and his divan; to the 
 Emperor of China and his mandarins of state. The reader must not be 
 alarmed nor indignant at the comparison ; for however much these 
 may differ from each other, they agree in this, that every one of these 
 rulers conceives his religion to be true, and every one has equal au- 
 thority to enforce or propagate his religion. On this statement it is 
 presumed, that few will be found to maintain the argument. 
 
INCONGRUITY OF CIVIL-RELIGIOUS LEGISLATION. 287 
 
 “ But there is something to be adduced which is still more deci- 
 sive against the claim, namely the authority of Holy Scripture. Nero 
 reigned at Rome when Paul preached the gospel, and was a prisoner 
 there. But did he give up his religious opinions to Nero’s judgment, 
 or the judgment of the Senate? No, he maintained them in direct 
 opposition to both, and suffered death for disobedience to the empe- 
 ror’s edicts, and because he would not acknowledge his authority in 
 matters of religion. Or does he give the slightest hint that others 
 should bow in submission to the ruler’s faith? No: when he enjoins 
 obedience to magistrates in civil affairs, religion is evidently an ex- 
 cepted thing; and the disciples of Christ are commanded to yield 
 subjection to him alone, and to suffer the loss of goods, of liberty, 
 nay, and of life itself, rather than submit to be of the established re- 
 ligion of the Roman empire. These, it may be said, were not Chris- 
 tian magistrates: but in what part of the sacred code will it be found 
 that Christian magistrates have this peculiar privilege conferred on 
 them? Should it, for the sake of argument, be allowed that it belongs 
 to Christian magistrates, then it is the prerogative of the King of 
 Spain. But if I dwelt in Spain, am I to receive my creed from him ? 
 Am I, at his command, to swallow the dregs of Popery? No. ‘ It 
 is the magistrate who professes the reformed religion in its purity, to 
 whom this authority belongs.’ But if the magistrate is himself to 
 to be judge (and judge in this case he must undoubtedly be), the 
 King of Spain glories in being a member of the Holy Apostolical Ro- 
 man Catholic Church ; and he considers the King of England as a 
 heretic, whose soul is defiled with the most dangerous opinions, and 
 whose condemnation is certain. If they are both to be judges in 
 their respective countries, each thinks his own faith the best, and 
 there is no end to the labyrinth.”—History of Dissenters, Per. i. 
 Chap. iii. Sec. i. Vol. i. pp. 8300-3802. Lond. 1808. 
 
 MARSHALL. 
 
 “ We deny, previous to all inquiry into their competency, that any 
 civil government on earth can, on any pretence, intermeddle with our 
 faith. We hold our faith on the authority of God himself, and no 
 authority less than his may alter or control it. If any man, or class 
 of men, call them by what name you please, shall presume to dictate 
 to us directly or indirectly in matters of religion, we conceive they 
 invade the prerogative of the Deity, and become participators of the 
 guilt of that ‘ wicked one,’ who, ‘ as God sitteth in the temple of 
 God, showing himself that he is God; 2 Thess. ii. 4. We conceive 
 
288 NOTES. 
 
 they invade also the special prerogatives of Jesus our Saviour, the 
 King whom God has set on his holy hill, who requires the supreme 
 and undivided homage of his disciples, where he says, ‘ Call no man 
 on earth master, one is your Master, even Christ.’ And lastly, we 
 conceive they are chargeable with insufferable arrogance, in assuming 
 a superiority to which they have no title, and attempting to dictate 
 to us, when we have quite as good a right to dictate to them. We 
 repel such arrogance with indignant scorn. We are prepared to re- 
 mind those who are guilty of it, that they and we stand on equal 
 ground ; that in matters of opinion all earthly authority is out of the 
 question, and that if we do not believe as they believe, it only 
 amounts to a proof of the fact, that they do not believe as we believe. 
 
 “ Such is a brief summary of our views on this interesting to- 
 pic; and holding these views, we are at no loss to dispose of the 
 hackneyed common-places, with which the writers on your side are 
 accustomed to puzzle the weaker part of their readers. ‘For instance, 
 when we are told that civil magistrates are ordained by God, and that 
 they are the ministers of God for good; we reply, they are ordained. 
 for a totally different purpose ; that they do good in a different way ; 
 and that, if they go out of their sphere, and presume to intermeddle 
 with the concerns of religion, they immediately pervert their office, 
 and become the ministers, not of good but of evil. Or when we are 
 told, that every man in every situation is bound to do all he can for 
 the interests of religion, and that this obligation extends to the ma- 
 gistrate as well as to others, we reply, The statement is most true, 
 and not to be denied, only it must be admitted with this simple ex- 
 planation, that in the case of the magistrate, his taking cognizance of 
 men’s faith is more than he can. Or, lastly, when we are told that 
 the rule and the measure of the magistrate’s authority is the moral 
 law, and that the moral law requires him to exert himself for God, 
 we reply, without questioning the major part of the proposition, 
 which yet is very questionable, and not to be admitted but with 
 great modifications ; and also without questioning the other proposi- 
 tion, which yet is expressed so vaguely, as to mean almost anything, 
 and therefore to mean nothing,—without entering into a discussion, 
 which would be very needless; we reply, first, that no man, be he 
 magistrate or not, can exert himself for God, who interferes with 
 God’s prerogatives, and claims the honour which is due to God, as if 
 it were due to himself; and, secondly, that no man, be he magistrate 
 or not, can act in obedience to the moral law, who takes the most 
 effectual of all methods to subvert the first precept of that law; the 
 
INCONGRUITY OF CIVIL-RELIGIOUS LEGISLATION. 289 
 
 precept which says, ‘ Thou shalt have no other gods before me.’”— 
 Marshall’s Reply to Dr Inglis’ Vindication of Establishments, pp. 
 172-175. 
 
 DR THOMAS PRICE. 
 
 ** When the religion of a people is made to depend on the pleasure 
 of their rulers, it is necessarily subjected to a thousand infusions fo- 
 reign from its nature and destructive of the reverence it should in- 
 spire. Alienated from its legitimate purpose, it is employed by the 
 ambitious and crafty in promoting their nefarious schemes; and be- 
 comes, in consequence, connected in the public judgment with what- 
 ever is criminal and oppressive in the political institutions of the 
 land. The kingly, or magisterial office, is essentially political. Its 
 power may be wielded by an irreligious, immoral, or profane man ; a 
 despiser of Christianity, or a blasphemer of God. There is nothing 
 to prevent this, or to afford even a presumption that it shall be 
 otherwise. What, therefore, can be more monstrous than to attach 
 to such an office a controlling power over the faith and worship of the 
 church ; to constitute its occupant the supreme head of that body 
 which is represented as a congregation of faithful men? Among the 
 many fantasies of the mind of man, none is more singularly absurd 
 than this. It is in striking opposition to the nature of Christianity, 
 and inconsistent with the obligations it imposes on its disciples. The 
 Christian faith addresses men individually, soliciting an examination 
 of its character, and demanding an intelligent and hearty obedience. 
 But when the pleasure of a king is permitted to regulate the faith of 
 a nation, authority is substituted for reason, and the promptings of 
 fear supplant the perception of evidence, and the confiding attach- 
 ment of an enlightened piety."—The History of Protestant Non-Con- 
 Sormity in England, Chap. 111. vol. i. pp. 69, 64. Lond. 1836. 
 
 The following passage occurs in a rare and valuable little book, on 
 the policy and legislation of the Romans, published originally in Ita- 
 lian, under the title of “‘ Saggio sopra la politica e la legislazione Ro- 
 mana,” 1772. It has been attributed to various authors, and among 
 the rest to the Marquis Beccaria, whose work on “ Crimes and Ριι- 
 nishments,” produced so important and beneficial a change in the 
 public mind of Europe on these subjects. The quotation is made 
 from a French translation, printed at Paris. “ L’An 3 de la repub- 
 lique, un et indivisible.”—* Sous les empereurs Chrétiens les loix 
 relatives a la religion, et qu'on peut lire dans le code, nous répresen- 
 tent quel étoit, en ce tems la l’etrange désordre du gouvernement. 
 Quand un souyerain ἃ clairement prescrit 165 devoirs de chaque citoy- 
 
290 NOTES. 
 
 en, il n’en doit pas dire davantage, et ce n'est pas a lui a sériger en 
 juge pour ce qui concerne autre vie. C'est couvrir de ridicule la 
 majesté du trone, que de la jetter ἃ travers les argumentations dog- 
 matiques, et parmi syllogismes ténébreux de la scholastiques.—ll y 
 a des usages qui paroissent consacrés par une sorte de prescription 
 mais la vérité doit étre constamment inaltérable et imprescriptible.”— 
 Essai sur la Politique et la Legislation des Romains, Chap. 111. pp. 145 
 146. 
 
 NOTE, S304, 
 NATURE AND EXTENT OF THE OBLIGATION OF CIVIL LAW. 
 
 LOCKE. 
 
 The whole passage from Lockr’s Diary, entitled “* Obligation of 
 Penal Laws,” is interesting, and so little known, that I give the whole 
 of it, for which I am sure of the thanks of the reader. 
 
 ‘** There are virtues and vices antecedent to, and abstract from so- 
 ciety, as love of God, unnatural lust ; other virtues and vices there 
 are which suppose society and laws, as obedience to magistrates, or 
 dispossessing a man of his heritage ; in both of these the rule and obli- 
 gation 15 antecedent to human laws, though the matter about which 
 that rule is, may be consequent to them, as property in land, distine- 
 tion and power of persons. All things not commanded, or forbidden 
 by the law of God, are indifferent ; nor is it in the power of man to 
 alter their nature ; and so no humane law can lay any obligation on 
 the conscience, and therefore all humane laws are purely penal, i. e. 
 have no other obligation, but to make the transgressors liable to pun- 
 ishment in this life. All divine laws oblige the conscience, i. e. ren- 
 der the transgressors liable to answer at God’s tribunal, and receive 
 punishment at his hands; but because very frequently both these 
 obligations concur, the same action comes to be commanded or for- 
 bidden by both laws together, and so in these cases men’s consciences 
 are obliged. Men have thought that civil laws oblige their con- 
 sciences to entire obedience ; whereas, in things in their own nature 
 indifferent, the conscience is obliged only to active or passive obe- 
 dience, and that not by virtue of that humane law which the man 
 either practises or is punished by, but by that law of God which for- 
 bids disturbance or dissolution of governments. 
 
OBLIGATION OF CIVIL LAW. 291 
 
 ‘“‘ The gospel alters not in the least civil affairs, but leaves husband 
 and wife, master and servant, magistrate and subject, every one of 
 them, with the same power and privileges that it found them, neither 
 more nor less; and therefore when the New Testament says, ‘ Obey 
 your superiors in all things,’ it cannot be thought that it laid any new 
 obligation upon the Christians after their conversion, other than what 
 they were under before: nor that the magistrate has not the same 
 power still over his Christian, as he had over his heathen subjects ; 
 so that, where he had power to command, they had still, notwith- 
 standing the liberty and privileges of the gospel, obligations to obey. 
 Now, amongst heathen polities (which cannot be supposed to be in- 
 stituted by God for the preservation and propagation of true religion), 
 there can be no other end assigned, but the preservation of the mem-. 
 bers of that society in peace and safety together. This being found to 
 be the end, will give us the rule of civil obedience: for if the end 
 of civil society be civil peace, the immediate obligation of every sub- 
 ject must be to preserve that society or government which was or- 
 dained to produce it ; and no member of any society can possibly have 
 any obligation of conscience beyond this. So that he who obeys the 
 magistrate to the degree, as not to endanger or disturb the govern- 
 ment, under what form of government soever he live, fulfils all the 
 law of God concerning government, i. 6. obeys to the utmest, that 
 the magistrate or society can oblige his conscience, which can be sup- 
 posed to have no other rule set it by God but this. 
 
 “ The end of the institution being always the measure of the obli- 
 gations of conscience then upon every subject, [and that end] being 
 to preserve the government, ‘tis plain, that where any law made with 
 a penalty, is submitted to, ἡ. 6. the penalty is quietly undergone, the 
 government cannot be disturbed or endangered ; for whilst the ma- 
 gistrate has power to increase the penalty, even to the loss of life, and 
 the subject submits patiently to the penalty, which he is in consci- 
 ence obliged to do, the government can never be in danger, nor can 
 the public want active obedience in any case where it hath power to 
 require it under pain of death ; for no man can be supposed to refuse 
 his active obedience in a lawful and indifferent thing, when the re- 
 fusal will cost him his life, and lose all his civil rights at once, for 
 want of performing one civil action ; for civil laws have only to do 
 with civil actions. 
 
 “* This, thus stated, clears a man from that infinite number of sins 
 that otherwise he must unavoidably be guilty of, if all penal laws ob- 
 lige the conscience farther than this. One thing farther is to be con- 
 
209 NOTES. 
 
 sidered, that all human laws are penal ; for where the penalty is not 
 expressed, it is by the judge to be proportioned to the consequence 
 and circumstance of the fault. See the practice of the King’s Bench. 
 Penalties are so necessary to civil laws, that God found it necessary 
 to annex them even to the civil laws he gave the Jews.”—Life of 
 John Locke, by Lord King, vol. i. pp. 114-117. 
 
 OWEN. 
 
 The following remarks on the danger of misapprehending the true 
 source of all moral obligation, by Dr Owen, in his answer to Parker, 
 are worthy to stand along with the above. I believe their proper 
 place would be considerably above it. 
 
 “Τὸ hath hitherto been the judgment of all who have inquired into 
 these things, that the great concern of the glory of God in the world, 
 the interest of kings and rulers, of all governments whatever, the 
 good and welfare of private persons, lies in nothing more than in 
 preserving conscience from being debauched, in the conducting prin- 
 ciples of it ; and a keeping up its due respect to the immediate sove- 
 reignty of God over it in all things. Neither ever was there a more 
 horrid attempt upon the truth of the gospel, all common morality and 
 the good of mankind, than that which some of late years, or ages have 
 been enbaged in, by suggesting in their casuistical writings, such prin- 
 ciples for the guidance of the consciences of men, as in sundry parti- 
 cular instances might set them free as to practice, from the direct and 
 immediately influencing authority of God in his word. 
 
 “ And yet 1 doubt not, but it may be made evident, that all their 
 principles in conjunction, are scarce of so pernicious a tendency as 
 this one general theorem, that men may lawfully act in the worship 
 of God or otherwise, against the light, dictates, or convictions of their 
 own consciences. Exempt conscience from an absolute, immediate, 
 entire, universal dependance on the authority, will, and judgment of 
 God, according to what conceptions it hath of them, and you disturb 
 the whole harmony of Divine Providence, in the government of the 
 world, and break the first link of that great chain whereon all reli- 
 gion and government in the world do depend. Teach men to be like 
 Naaman the Syrian, to believe only in the God of Israel, and to wor- 
 ship him according to his appointment, by his own choice, and from 
 a sense of duty, yet also to bow in the house of Rimmon, contrary 
 to his light and conviction, out of compliance with his master ; or, 
 with the men of Samaria, to fear the Lord, but to worship their idols, 
 —and they will not fail at one time or other rather to seek after rest 
 
RIGHT OF RESISTANCE. 293 
 
 in restless atheism, than to live in a perpetual conflict with them- 
 selves, or to cherish an everlasting sedition in their own bosoms.”— 
 Pp. 69, 70. 
 
 BUNYAN. 
 
 “ Well, then,” said he, (Cobb, the clerk of the peace, to John Bun- 
 yan), “ the king commands you that you should not have any pri- 
 vate meetings : because it is against his law, and he is ordained of 
 God, therefore you should not have any.’—“ I told him,” says Bun- 
 yan, “ the law has provided two ways of obeying. The one to do 
 that which I on my conscience do believe that I am bound to, ac- 
 tively, and when I cannot obey actively, then I am willing to lie down 
 and to suffer what they shall do to me.”—Ivimey’s Life of Bunyan, 
 p- 287. 12mo. Lond. 1809. 
 
 NORRIS. 
 
 Norris of Bemerton, the Platonic philosopher, mystic divine, and 
 sacred poet, an ingenious writer, and a decided high churchman, in 
 his “* Charge of Schism against the Separatists,” p. 58, teaches, that 
 “ Civil penal laws have only a disjunctive obligation, and when they 
 are in full force, leave us at liberty whether we will do what is re- 
 quired, or omit it and suffer, and are equally satisfied either way.’ — 
 The Charge of Schism against the Dissenters, discharged by Simon 
 Browne, p. 11. Lond. 1710. 
 
 NOTE XXIV. 
 RIGHT OF RESISTANCE. * 
 
 LOCKE. 
 
 «ς There is another way in which governments are dissolved, and 
 that is, when the legislative, or the prince, either of them, act con- 
 trary to their trust. 
 
 * The reader who wishes to see what can be said against a principle, which 
 is so powerfully supported in the following extracts, and in favour of its op- 
 posite, will do well to consult a small, but most elaborate dissertation, in the 
 form of a sermon, entitled, “ Passive Obedience, or the Christian Doctrine of 
 not resisting the Supreme Power, proved and vindicated upon the Principles of 
 the Law of Nature, in a discourse preached at the College Chapel, by George 
 Berkeley, M.A., Fellow of Trinity College, Dublin (afterwards Bishop of 
 
294 NOTES. 
 
 « First, The reason why men enter into society, is the preservation 
 of their property ; and the end why they choose and authorize a le- 
 gislative is, that there may be laws made, and rules set, as guards and 
 fences to the properties of all the members of the society, to limit the 
 power and moderate the dominion of every part and member of the 
 society. For since it can never be supposed to be the will of the so- 
 ciety that the legislative should have a power to destroy that, which 
 every one designs to secure, by entering into society, and for which 
 the people submitted themselves to legislators of their own making, 
 whenever the legislators endeavour to take away and destroy the 
 property of the people, or to reduce them to slavery under arbitrary 
 power, they put themselves into a state of war with the people, who 
 are therefore absolved from any farther obedience, and are left to the 
 common refuge which God hath provided for all men against force 
 and violence. Whensoever, therefore, the legislative shall transgress 
 
 Cloyne). ‘ Nec vero aut per senatum aut per populum solvi hac lege possi- 
 mus.’—Cic. frag. de rep. Lond. 1713.”.—This, without doubt, and be- 
 yond comparison, the ablest defence of Passive Obedience and Non-resist- 
 ance on philosophical principles consistent with revelation, is a curious dis- 
 play of the characteristic extreme acuteness, yet unsoundness of the mind of 
 its singularly gifted and most estimable author—“ ingeniosa et sagax hario- 
 latio viri disertissimi.”’ The scriptural argument in favour of these doctrines, 
 is fully stated in Dean Sherlock’s “ Case of Resistance to the Supreme Powers, 
 stated and resolved according to the Doctrine of the Holy Scriptures.”— 
 Lond. 1684. And the argument from the doctrine and practice of the pri- 
 mitive Christians, may be found in Archbishop Usher’s tract, entitled, “ The 
 Power communicated by God to the Prince, and the Obedience required of the 
 Subject, briefly laid down and confirmed out of the Holy Scriptures, the Testi- 
 mony of the Primitive Church, the Dictates of Right Reason, and the Opinion of 
 the Wisest among Heathen Writers.” Lond. 1688. Few questions have 
 been more thoroughly discussed. A specimen of the advocacy of what we re- 
 gard as the right side, is presented to the reader, and it is but justice to say, 
 that if that side of it which we consider as untenable, has been disgraced by the 
 impiety of Hoses and the unprincipled meanness of ParkER—the learn- 
 ing of Usner, the judgment of Sanperson, the wit of Sourn, the subtilty 
 and candour of BerKELEy, and the sanctity of Ken, are more than enough 
 to entitle to careful consideration any principle which they entertained. It ~ 
 is wonderful, however, that such men should have maintained such princi- 
 ples—and it is not less so, that men so distinguished for learning and worth, 
 as Newman, and Kester, and Pusey, should seek to revive them. One must 
 regret the misdirection of so much learning and talent—but this is about the 
 amount of the evil. These principles will not now “ grow and multiply.” 
 The soil of the public mind in this country is too well cultivated to admit of 
 such © briars and thorns,” spreading to any dangerous extent. 
 
RIGHT OF RESISTANCE. 295 
 
 this fundamental rule of society, and either by ambition, fear, folly, 
 or corruption, endeavour to grasp themselves, or put into the hands 
 of any other, an absolute power over the lives, liberties, and estates of 
 the people ; by this breach of trust they forfeit the power the people 
 had put into their hands for quite contrary ends, and it devolves to 
 the people, who have a right to resume their original liberty, and, by 
 the establishment of a new legislative (such as they shall think fit), to 
 provide for their own safety and security, which is the end for which 
 they are in society. 
 
 “ What I have said here concerning the legislative in general, holds 
 true also concerning the supreme executor, who, having a double 
 trust put in him, both to have a part in the legislative, and the su- 
 preme execution of the law, acts against both, when he goes about to 
 set up his own arbitrary will, as the law of the society. He acts also 
 contrary to his trust, where he either employs the force, treasures, 
 and offices of the society, to corrupt the representatives, and gain 
 them to his purposes ; or openly pre-engages the electors, and pre- 
 scribes to their choice, such whom he has by solicitations, threats, 
 promises, or otherwise, won to his designs ; and employs them to bring 
 in such who have promised before-hand what to vote and what to 
 enact. Thus to regulate candidates and electors, and new-model the 
 way of election, what is it but to cut up the government by the roots, 
 and poison the very fountain of public security? For the people 
 having reserved to themselves the choice of their representatives, as a 
 fence of their properties, could do it for no other end but that they 
 might always be freely chosen, and so chosen, freely act and advise, 
 as the necessity of the commonwealth, and the common good should, 
 upon examination, and mature debate, be judged to require. This, 
 those who give their votes before they hear the debate, and have 
 weighed the reasons on all sides, are not capable of doing. To pre- 
 pare such an assembly as this, and endeavour to set up the declared 
 abettors of his own will, for the true representatives of the people, 
 and the law-makers of the society, is certainly as great a breach of 
 trust, and as perfect a declaration of a design to subvert the govern- 
 ment, as is possible to be met with. To which, if one shall add re- 
 wards and punishments, visibly employed to the same end, and all 
 the arts of perverted law made use of to take off and destroy all that 
 stand in the way of such a design, and will not comply and consent 
 to betray the liberties of their country, ‘twill be past doubt what is 
 doing. What power they ought to have in society, who thus employ 
 it, contrary to the trust which went along with it, in its first institu- 
 
 » 
 
200 NOTES. 
 
 tion, is easy to determine ; and one cannot but see, that he who 
 has once attempted any such thing as this, cannot any longer be 
 trusted. 
 
 “ To this perhaps it will be said, that the people being ignorant, 
 and always discontented, to lay the foundation of government in the 
 unsteady opinion and uncertain humour of the people, is to expose it 
 to certain ruin ; and no government will be able long to subsist, if 
 the people may set up a new legislature, whenever they take offence 
 at the old one. To this I answer, quite the contrary. People are 
 not got so easy out of their old forms as some are apt to suggest. 
 They are hardly to be prevailed with, to amend the acknowledged 
 faults, in the frame they have been accustomed to. And, if there be 
 any original defects, or adventitious ones, introduced by time or cor- 
 ruption, it is not an easy thing to get them changed, even when all 
 the world sees there is an opportunity for it. The slowness and aver- 
 sion in the people to quit their old constitutions, has, in the many 
 revolutions which have been seen in this kingdom, in this and former 
 ages, still kept us to, or after some interval of fruitless attempts, still 
 brought us back again to our old legislative, of king, lords, and com- 
 mons: and whatever provocations have made the crown to be taken 
 from some of our princes’ heads, they never carried the people so far 
 as to place it in another line. 
 
 “ But it will be said, this hypothesis lays a ferment for frequent 
 rebellion. To which 1 answer, 
 
 “ First, No more than any other hypothesis. For when the people 
 are made miserable, and find themselves exposed to the ill usage of 
 arbitrary power, cry up their governors as much as you will, for sons 
 of Jupiter,—let them be sacred and divine, descended or authorized 
 from heaven,—give them out for whom or what you please, the same 
 will happen. The people, generally ill-treated, and contrary to right, 
 will be ready, upon any occasion, to ease themselves of a burden that 
 sits heavy upon them. They will wish and seek for the opportunity, 
 which in the change, weakness, and accidents in human affairs, sel- 
 dom delays long to offer itself. He must have lived but a little while 
 in the world, who has not seen examples of this in his time; and he 
 must have read very little, who cannot produce examples of it in all 
 sorts of governments in the world. 
 
 * Secondly, | answer, such revolutions happen not upon every little 
 mismanagement in public affairs. Great mistakes in the ruling part, 
 many wrong and inconvenient laws, and all the slips of human frail- 
 ty, will be borne by the people without mutiny or murmur. But, if 
 
RIGHT OF RESISTANCE. 297 
 a long train of abuses, prevarications, and artifices, all tending the 
 same way, make the design visible to the people, and they cannot 
 but feel what they lie under, and see whether they are going, ’tis not 
 to be wondered, that they should then rouse themselves, and endeavour 
 to put the rule into such hands, which may secure to them the ends for 
 which government was at first erected ; and without which, ancient 
 names and specious forms are so far from being better, that they are 
 much worse than the state of nature or pure anarchy—the inconve- 
 niences being all as great and as near, but the remedy farther off and 
 more difficult. 
 
 “ Thirdly, 1 answer, that this doctrine, of a power in the people of 
 providing for their safety anew, by a new legislative, when their le- 
 gislators have acted contrary to their trust, by invading their pro- 
 perty, is the best fence against rebellion, and the probablest means to 
 hinder it. For rebellion being an opposition, not to persons but au- 
 thority, which is founded only in the constitutions and laws of the 
 government, those, whoever they be, who by force break through, 
 and by force justify their violation of them, are truly and properly 
 rebels. For when men, by entering into society and civil govern- 
 ment, have excluded force, and introduced laws, for the preservation 
 of property, peace, and unity among themselves, those who set up 
 force again, in opposition to the laws, do vebellare—that is, bring back 
 again the state of war, and are properly rebels, which they, who are 
 in power (by the pretence they have to authority, the temptation of 
 force they have in their hands, and the flattery of those about them) 
 being likeliest to do; the properest way to prevent the evil, is to show 
 them, the danger and injustice of it, who are under the greatest temp- 
 tation to run into it. 
 
 “Τὴ both the fore-mentioned cases, when either the legislative is 
 changed, or the legislators act contrary to the end for which they 
 were constituted, those who are guilty, are guilty of rebellion. For 
 if any one by force takes away the established legislative of any so- 
 ciety, and the laws by them made pursuant to their trust, he thereby 
 takes away the umpirage, which every one has consented to, for a 
 peaceable decision of all their controversies, and a bar to the state of 
 war among them. They who remove, or change the legislative, take 
 away this decisive power, which nobody can have, but by the ap- 
 pointment and consent of the people: and so destroying the autho- 
 rities which the people did, and nobody else can set up, and introduc- 
 ing a power which the people hath not authorized, they actually in- 
 troduce a state of war, which is that of force without authority : and 
 
 U 
 
298 NOTES. 
 
 thus, by removing the legislative established by the society (in whose 
 decision the people acquiesced and united, as in that of their own 
 will) they untie the knot, and expose the people anew to the state of 
 war. And if those, who by force take away the legislative, are rebels, 
 the legislators themselves, as has been shown, can be no less esteemed 
 so, when they who were set up for the protection and preservation 
 of the people, their liberties and properties, shall, by force, invade 
 and endeavour to take them away ; and so they putting themselves 
 into a state of war with those who made them the protectors and 
 guardians of their peace, are properly, and with the greatest aggrava- 
 tions, vebellantes, rebels. 
 
 “ But if they who say, ‘ it lays a foundation for rebellion,’ mean 
 that it may occasion civil wars or intestine broils, to tell the people 
 they are absolved from obedience, when illegal attempts are made on 
 their liberties or properties, and may oppose the unlawful violence of 
 those who were their magistrates, when they invade their properties, 
 contrary to the trust put in them ; and that therefore this doctrine is 
 not to be allowed, being so destructive to the peace of the world ; 
 they may as well say, upon the same ground, that honest men may 
 not oppose robbers, because this may occasion disorder or bloodshed. 
 If any mischief come in such cases, it is not to be charged upon him 
 who defends his own right, but on him that invades his neighbour's. 
 If the innocent, honest man, must quietly quit all he has for peace’ 
 sake, to him who will lay violent hands upon it, I desire it may be 
 considered, what a kind of peace there will be in the world, which 
 consists only in violence and rapine, and which is to be maintained, 
 only for the benefit of robbers and oppressors! Who would not think 
 it an admirable peace, betwixt the mighty and the mean, when the 
 lamb, without resistance, yielded his throat to be torn by the impe- 
 rious wolf? Polyphemus’ den gives us a perfect pattern of such a 
 peace, and such a government, wherein Ulysses and his companions 
 had nothing to do, but quietly to suffer themselves to be devoured. 
 And no doubt, Ulysses, who was a prudent man, preached up passive 
 obedience, and exhorted them to a quiet submission, by representing 
 to them of what concernment peace was to mankind ; and by showing 
 that inconveniences might happen if they should offer to resist Poly- 
 phemus, who had now the power over them ! 
 
 “ The end of government is the good of mankind ; and which is 
 best for mankind, that the people should be always exposed to the 
 boundless will of tyranny, or that the rulers should be sometimes lia- 
 ble to be opposed, when they grow exorbitant in the use of the power, 
 
RIGHT OF RESISTANCE. 299 
 
 and employ it for the destruction, and not the preservation of the 
 properties of their people ? 
 
 “ Nor let any one say, that mischief can arise from hence, as often 
 as it shall please a busy head, or turbulent spirit, to desire the alter- 
 ation of the government. “Tis true such men may stir, whenever 
 they please, but it will be only to their own just ruin and perdition. 
 For till the mischief be grown general, and the ill designs of the 
 rulers become visible, or their attempts sensible to the greater part, 
 the people, who are more disposed to suffer, than right themselves by 
 resistance, are not apt to stir. The examples of particular injustice, 
 or oppression, of here and there an unfortunate man, move them not. 
 But, if they universally have a persuasion, grounded on manifest evi- 
 dence, that designs are carrying on against their liberties, and the 
 general course and tendency of things cannot but give them strong 
 suspicions of the evil intention of their governors, who is to be blamed 
 for it ? who can help it, if they, who might avoid it, bring themselves 
 into this suspicion? Are the people to be blamed, if they have the 
 sense of rational creatures, and can think of things no otherwise, than 
 as they find and feel them? And is it not rather their fault, who 
 put things into such a posture, that they would not have them thought 
 to be, as they are? I grant, that the pride, ambition, and turbulency 
 of private men, have sometimes caused great disorders in common- 
 wealths, and factions have been fatal to states and kingdoms. But 
 whether the mischief hath oftener begun in the people’s wantonness, 
 and a desire to cast off the lawful authority of their rulers, or in the 
 rulers’ insolence, and endeavours to get and exercise an arbitrary 
 power over their people ; whether oppression or disobedience gave 
 the first rise to the disorder, I leave it to impartial history to deter- 
 mine. This I am sure, whoever, either ruler or subject, by force 
 goes about to invade the rights of either prince or people, and lays 
 the foundation for overturning the constitution and frame of any just 
 government, is highly guilty of the greatest crime, I think, a man is 
 capable of, being to answer for all those mischiefs of blood, rapine, 
 and desolation, which the breaking to pieces of governments bring on 
 a country. And he who does it, is justly to be esteemed the common 
 enemy and pest of mankind; and is to be treated accordingly.”— 
 Locke on Civil Government, Ohap. xix. Works, vol. ii. pp. 230-238. 
 
 “When the body of the people (or any single man), are deprived of 
 their right, or are under the exercise of a power without right, and 
 have no appeal on earth, then they have a liberty to appeal to Heaven 
 wheneyer they judge the cause of sufficient moment. And, therefore, 
 
300 NOTES. 
 
 though the people cannot judge, so as to have by the constitution of 
 that society any superior power to determine and give effective sen- 
 tence in the case, yet they have by a law antecedent and paramount 
 to all positive laws of men, reserved that ultimate determination to 
 themselves, which belongs to all mankind, where there lies no appeal 
 on earth, viz. to judge whether they have just cause to make their 
 appeal to Heaven. And this judgment they cannot part with, it being 
 out of a man’s power so to submit himself to another as to give to him 
 a liberty to destroy him ; God and nature never allowing a man so 
 to abandon himself as to neglect his own preservation ; and since he 
 cannot take away his own life, neither can he give another power to 
 take it. Nor let any one think this lays a perpetual foundation for 
 disorder ; for this operates not, till the inconveniency is so great that 
 the majority feel it, and are weary of it, and find a necessity to have 
 it amended.” —Ibid. Chap xix. pp. 215, 216. 
 
 PALEY. 
 
 Let us hear now what the cautious Patey says about the right of re- 
 sistance.—“ But who shall judge this ¢”—7. ὁ. whether greater evil will 
 result from submitting to or opposing injustice,—“ we answer, ‘ every 
 man for himself’ In contentions between the sovereign and the sub- 
 ject, the parties acknowledge no common arbitration ; and it would 
 be absurd to refer the decision to those whose conduct has provoked 
 the question, and whose own interest, authority, and fate are imme- 
 diately concerned in it. The danger of error and abuse is no objec- 
 tion to the rule of expediency, because every other rule is liable to 
 the same or greater: and every rule that can be propounded upon 
 the subject (like all rules indeed which appeal to, or bind the con- 
 science), must in the application depend upon private judgment. It 
 may be observed, however, that it ought equally to be accounted the 
 exercise of a man’s own private judgment, whether he be determined 
 by reasonings and conclusions of his own, or submit to be directed by 
 the advice of others, provided he be free to choose his guide. 
 
 “We proceed to point out some easy but important inferences, 
 which result from the substitution of public expediency into the place 
 of all implied compacts, promises, or conventions, whatsoever. 
 
 “J. It may be as much a duty, at one time, to resist government, 
 as it is, at another, to obey it; to wit, whenever more advantage, 
 will, in our opinion, accrue to the community from resistance, than 
 mischief. 
 
 “JI. The lawfulness of resistance, or the lawfulness of a revolt, 
 
RIGHT OF RESISTANCE. 301 
 
 does not depend alone upon the grievance which is sustained or fear- 
 ed, but also upon the probable expense and event of the contest. 
 They who concerted the Revolution in England, were justifiable in 
 their counsels, because, from the apparent disposition of the nation, 
 and the strength and character of the parties engaged, the measure 
 was likely to be brought about with little mischief or bloodshed : 
 whereas it might have been a question with many friends of their 
 country, whether the injuries, then endured and threatened, would 
 have authorized the renewal of a doubtful civil war. 
 
 “III. Irregularity in the first foundations of a state, or subsequent 
 violence, fraud, or injustice, in getting possession of the supreme power, 
 are not sufficient reasons for resistance, after the government is once 
 peaceably settled. No subject of the British empire conceives him- 
 self engaged to vindicate the justice of the Norman claim or conquest, 
 or apprehends that his duty in any manner depends upon that con- 
 troversy. So likewise, if the house of Lancaster, or even the posterity 
 of Cromwell, had been at this day seated on the throne of England, 
 we should have been as little concerned to inquire how the family 
 came there. No civil contests are so futile, although none have 
 been so furious and so sanguinary, as those which are excited by 
 a disputed succession. 
 
 “1V. Not every invasion of the subject’s rights, or liberty, or of the 
 constitution ; not every breach of promise, or of oath; not every 
 stretch of prerogative, abuse of power, or neglect of duty by the chief 
 magistrate, or by the whole or any branch of the legislative body, 
 justifies resistance, unless these crimes draw after them public conse- 
 quences of sufficient magnitude to outweigh the evils of civil disturb- 
 ance ; nevertheless every violation of the constitution ought to be 
 watched with jealousy, and resented as such, beyond what the quan- 
 tity of estimable damage would require or warrant ; because a known 
 and settled usage of governing, affords the only security against the 
 enormities of uncontrolled dominion, and because this security is 
 weakened by every encroachment which is made without opposition, 
 or opposed without effect. 
 
 “ V. No usage, law, or authority, whatsoever, is so binding, that 
 it need or ought to be continued when it may be changed with ad- 
 vantage to the community. The family of the prince, the order of 
 succession, the prerogative of the crown, the form and parts of the 
 legislature, together with the respective powers, office, duration, and 
 mutual dependency of the several parts, are all only so many laws, 
 mutable like other laws, whenever expediency requires, either by the 
 
902 NOTES. 
 
 ordinary act of the legislature, or, if the occasion deserve it, by the 
 interposition of the people. These points are wont to be approached 
 with a kind of awe; they are represented to the mind as principles 
 of the constitution, settled by our ancestors, and being settled, are to 
 be no more committed to innovation or debate ; as foundations never 
 to be stirred; as the terms and conditions of the social compact, to 
 which every citizen of the state has engaged his fidelity, by virtue 
 of a promise which he cannot now recall. Such reasons have no 
 place in our system: to us, if there be any good reason for treating 
 these with more deference and respect than other laws, it is either 
 the advantage of the present constitution of government (which rea- 
 son must be of different force in different countries), or because in 
 all countries it is of importance that the form and usage of governing 
 be acknowledged and understood, as well by the governors as by the 
 governed, and because the seldomer it is changed, the more perfectly 
 it will be known by both sides.”—-Paley's Mor. and Pol. Phil., Works, 
 vol. i. pp. 318-521. 
 
 HUTCHESON. 
 
 «ς The persons vested with the supreme power have it with that 
 extent which the constitution or fundamental laws have given them. 
 The sum of civil power in all states is the same; the same quantity 
 of it in every state resides somewhere or other, at least with the body 
 of the people. But the powers vested in the king, or in any coun- 
 cils, in one state, may be very different from what is vested in like 
 persons or councils in others. For in some, certain rights of the peo- 
 ple are expressly exempted from the power of any prince or political 
 council; but in others, there are no such exemptions. But as the end 
 of all civil power is acknowledged by all to be the safety and happi- 
 ness of the whole body, any power not naturally conducive to this 
 end is unjust, which the people, who rashly granted it under an error, 
 may justly abolish again, when they find it necessary to their safety 
 to do so. Nor can any thing be conceived more insolent or perfi- 
 dious, than that persons entrusted with power solely for the good of 
 a people, should strive to retain it by force, for their own grandeur 
 when it is found destructive to the people. 
 
 “ It were to be wished, that in these cases such powers should be 
 abolished in a peaceable manner, by mutual consent rather than by 
 force. Nor isit justifiable in a people to have recourse for any lighter 
 causes to violence and civil wars against their rulers, while the pub- 
 lic interests are tolerably secured and consulted. But when it is evi- 
 
RIGHT OF RESISTANCE. 303 
 
 dent, that the public liberty and safety is not tolerably secured, and 
 that more mischiefs, and these of a more lasting kind, are like to 
 arise from the continuance of any plan of civil power, than are to be 
 feared from the violent efforts for an alteration of it, then it betomes 
 lawful, nay honourable, to make such efforts, and change the plan of 
 government. 
 
 “ What is alleged about some peculiarly divine right and inviolable 
 sanctity of governors, especially monarchs, is a mere dream of court 
 flatterers. In one sense, every right is divine which is constituted by 
 the law of God and nature. The rights of the people are then divine, 
 as well as those of princes ; nay, since the latter were constituted for 
 the defence and protection of the former, the former should be deemed 
 the more divine and sacred. The rights of the governor, as they are 
 more important than those of any one private man, may be deemed 
 more sacred than his private rights; but can never be deemed more 
 sacred than the rights of the whole body. A good subject ought to 
 bear patiently many injuries done only to himself, rather than take 
 arms against a prince, in the main good and useful to the state, pro- 
 vided the danger only extends to himself. But when the common 
 rights of the community are trampled upon, and what at first is at- 
 tempted against one, is to be made a precedent against all the rest, 
 then, as the governor is plainly perfidious to his trust, he has for- 
 feited all the power committed to him. 
 
 “In every sort of government the people have this right of defend- 
 ing themselves against the abuse of power. If the prince’s power be 
 limited, and yet he breaks over the bounds, invading such rights as 
 the people had reserved in the very constitution of the power, the 
 people's right of resistance is unquestionable. But even in absolute 
 governments they have the same right, if their governor, ceasing to 
 use his power as if he owned it destined for the good of the body, 
 should govern the whole state as his own property, and neglecting 
 the common safety of all, turn every thing to the gratification of his 
 own lust or avarice ; or if he plainly declares such a hatred of his peo- 
 ple, or conducts all affairs in such a wretched manner, that not even 
 the most sacred rights of the people, such as are necessary to any to- 
 lerable life, remain secure to them. Nor does this doctrine of resist- 
 ance, give to the people a civil superiority over their governors; for 
 even slaves, adjudged to the most miserable subjection for their crimes, 
 may have a right to defend themselves against certain injuries their 
 masters may attempt against them. 
 
 ** As to that question, who shall be judge in this disputed point, 
 
304 “ ᾿ NOTES. 
 
 whether the governors, by their perfidy and maladministration, have 
 forfeited their right ? if it is alleged the people cannot judge, as they 
 are parties, for the same reason the governors cannot judge. The 
 only recourse then should be to impartial arbiters, either within the 
 state or in some other nation, if this could be safe; but, if not, surely 
 the people have a better claim to judge on this point, since they at 
 first entrusted their governors with such powers, and the powers 
 were designed for the management of the people’s interests, and were 
 constituted for their behoof. It is true there are great dangers of mis- 
 take on this head: but the governors are not exempted from errors 
 more than the people. Men have often erred both about their pub- 
 lic rights and their private ones, too, of self-defence ; but we must 
 not, for that reason, deny that they have such rights. 
 
 “‘ In this most important matter, no doubt, persons concerned are 
 bound to use the utmost caution, and weigh all things on both 
 sides. Nor ought we to involve our fellow-citizens in civil wars, the 
 most miserable of all wars, for any such lighter injuries, or wrong 
 conduct of our governors, as may be incident sometimes to persons, in 
 the main good, and of upright intentions. But when there is no 
 other way of preserving a people, and when their governors, by their 
 perfidious frauds, have plainly forfeited their rights, they may justly 
 be divested of their power, and others put into their places, or a new 
 plan of power established. 
 
 “ Nor does this doctrine of the right of resistance, in defence of the 
 rights of a people, naturally tend to excite seditions and civil wars. 
 Nay, they have been more frequently occasioned by the contrary te- 
 nets. In all ages there has been too much patience in the body of 
 the people, and too stupid a veneration for their princes and rulers, 
 which for each one free kingdom or state, has produced many mons- 
 trous herds of miserable abject slaves, or beasts of burden, rather 
 than civil polities of rational creatures, under the most inhuman and 
 worthless masters, trampling upon all things human and divine with 
 the utmost effrontery."—Hutcheson’s Elements of Ethics, Book iii. 
 δὲ i. and ii. vol. ii. pp. 325-9. 12mo. Glasgow, 1772. 
 
 WITHERSPOON. 
 
 “Tt is frequently observed, that in every governs there is a 
 supreme irresistible power lodged somewhere in king, senate, or peo- 
 ple. To this power is the final appeal in all questions. Beyond this 
 we cannot go. How far does this authority extend? We answer, as 
 far as authority in a social state can extend: it is not accountable to 
 
3 
 
 RIGHT OF RESISTANCE. 9 305 
 
 any other tribunal, and it is supposed in the social compact, that we 
 have agreed to submit to its decision. There is, however, an excep- 
 tion, if the supreme power, wherever lodged, come to be exercised in 
 a manifestly tyrannical manner, the subjects may certainly, if it is 
 in their power, resist and overthrow it. But this is only when it be- 
 comes manifestly more advantageous to unsettle the government alto- 
 gether, than to submit to tyranny. This resistance to the supreme 
 power, however, is subverting the society altogether, and is not to be 
 attempted till the government is so corrupt, as that anarchy and the 
 uncertainty of a new settlement is preferable to the continuance of it 
 as it is. — Ἂν 
 
 “ This doctrine of resistance, even to the supreme power, is essen- 
 tially connected with what has been said of the social contract, and 
 the consent necessary to political union. If it be asked, who must 
 judge when the government may be resisted? 1 answer, the subjects 
 in general,—every one for himself. This may seem to be making them 
 both judge and party, but there is no remedy. It would be denying 
 the privilege altogether, to make the oppressive ruler the judge. 
 
 “ It is easy to see that the meaning of this is, not that any little 
 mistake of the rulers of any society will justify resistance. We 
 must obey and submit to them always, till the corruption becomes 
 intolerable ; for to say that we might resist legal authority, every 
 time we judged it to be wrong, would be inconsistent with a state of 
 society, and to the very first idea of subjection. 
 
 “ The once famous controversy on passive obedience and non-re- 
 sistance seems now in our country to be pretty much over. What 
 the advocates of submission used to say was, that to teach the lawful- 
 ness of resisting a government in any instance, and to make the rebel 
 the judge, is subversive of all order, and must subject a state to per- 
 petual sedition. To this I answer, To refuse this inherent right in 
 every man, is to establish injustice and tyranny, and leave every 
 good subject without help, as a tame prey to the ambition and rapa- 
 city of others. No doubt men may abuse the privilege, yet this does 
 not make it void. Besides, it is not till a whole people rise, that re- 
 sistance has any effect; and it is not easy to suppose that a whole 
 people would rise against their governors, unless when they have 
 really received very great provocations. Whereas, on the other hand, 
 nothing is more natural than for rulers to grasp at power, and their 
 situation enables them to do it successfully by slow and insensible 
 encroachments. In experience there are many instances of rulers 
 becoming tyrants, but comparatively very few of causeless and pre- 
 
900 NOTES. 
 
 mature rebellions. There are occasional insurrections in every go- 
 vernment. These are easily raised by interested persons, but the 
 great majority continues to support order.”— Witherspoon's Lectures 
 on Moral Philosophy, Lect. xii. ὃ v. Works, vol. vii. pp. 102-104. 
 12mo. Edin. 1805. 
 
 SELDEN. 
 
 SELDEN’s opinion is worth listening to.—“ ΤῸ know what obedience 
 is due to the prince, you must look into the contract betwixt him and 
 his people ; as if you would know what rent is due from the tenant 
 to the landlord, you must look into the lease. When the contract is 
 broken, and there is no third person to judge, then the decision is by 
 arms.” His notions of the office of a king, all turn upon the degree 
 of power delegated. “ A king is a thing men have made for their 
 own benefit for quietness’ sake.” ‘“ The text, ‘ Render unto Cesar 
 the things that are Cesar’s, makes as much against kings as for them, 
 for it says plainly, that some things are not Cesar’s. But divines 
 make choice of it, first in flattery, and then because of the other part 
 adjoined to it, ‘ Render unto God the things that are God’s,’ where 
 they bring in the church.”’—Aikin’s Life of Selden and Usher, pp. 
 179, 180. 
 
 NAPHTALI. 
 
 The following quotation from “ Naphtali” is characterised by an 
 impassioned, yet chastened eloquence, which puts us in mind of some 
 of Milton’s finest passages. Naphtali is generally understood to have 
 been written by the Rev. James Sriruine, minister of Paisley ; but the 
 introduction is so very far superior, both in thought and composition, 
 that it is difficult to suppose it the work of the same person who compil- 
 ed the body of the book. The reference is to the rising at Bothwell : 
 
 “ It is true, also, that the action is condemned by some as rebel- 
 lious, and the endeavour as indeliberate, irrational, and presumptu- 
 ous; but referring the reader to the following discourse for full sa- 
 tisfaction thereanent, I shall only here hint, that being altogether ac- 
 cidentally occasioned by an unforseen emergent difference betwixt 
 three or four soldiers and as many countrymen, arising from horrid 
 oppression, through unjust laws and cruel military execution thereof, 
 without premeditated counsel or contrivance, it cannot be imagined 
 that all the formalities which may be judged necessary in a matter 
 of that nature and importance could have been in it; and yet it is 
 presumed that it wanted nothing but success to have made many, 
 the same persons, account the action just and necessary, and the en- 
 
RIGHT OF RESISTANCE. 307 
 
 terprise laudable and valorous. And as for the persons themselves, 
 it may be truly, and without vanity, affirmed, that these many years 
 past, there hath not been in Britain such another company of men 
 joyned in armes for the Covenant and cause of God; for though 
 when armies were more numerous, there might be or was the like, or 
 greater number of persons truly godly, yet when the whole number 
 was so small, it will be very hard to parallel so many together, of 
 sound judgment, true piety, integrity of heart, fervent zeal, and un- 
 daunted resolution and courage, and with so small a mixture of per- 
 sons of corrupt mindes, profane conversations, and sinistrous ends. 
 And although we would not be prodigal of men’s lives, especially of 
 saints, at this time, when there is so great need and scarcity of inter- 
 cessors to stand between the dead and the living, yet that simple act 
 of renewing the Covenant is more glory to God, and a greater testi- 
 mony and advantage to that buried Covenant and cause, than (we 
 hope) the loss of so many men as are faln, shall import of damage 
 thereunto. But, above all, take notice of the many sufferings and 
 sufferers hereafter mentioned, whose blood under the altar, and some 
 of whose heads and hands standing betwixt heaven and earth, do not 
 only ery for vengeance, but night and day bear open witness against 
 this adulterous generation. These men’s testimony should have the 
 more weight and credite with all, because of the persons, the nature, 
 and manner thereof, which was not by wishing, word-speaking, or 
 doing without danger, which is the height of too many men’s atchieyv- 
 ment in these days, but by blood, whereunto “ they resisted, striving 
 against sin ;” and thereby being neither afraid to act, nor ashamed to 
 suffer for their Lord and Master, have left behind them a fair exam- 
 ple of both to all, and a reproof to many, whose greater prudence 
 than zeal hath taught them to save themselves by couching betwixt 
 the burdens. 
 
 “ That a great Prince, and yet not so great as good,—an eminent 
 and more than ordinarily useful, and never-to-be-forgotten instru- 
 ment of the work of reformation and patron of the church,—and a 
 true and seeing prophet, did fall in Scotland, when Argile, Warriston, 
 and Mr Guthrey, for no other cause but their good deeds, and particu- 
 larly for loving of our nation and building of our synagogue, were led 
 like innocent sheep to the slaughter, nothing but wickedness, malice, 
 or partiality can deny ; for they wanted nothing to make them belov- 
 ed, as they were esteemed and feared by their enemies, but that they 
 neither did nor would, because for love and awe of God they durst 
 not, with others, make shipwreck of faith and a good conscience. Of 
 
308 NOTES. 
 
 these three mighty men and others, who, by suffering, have obtained 
 the crown (though some of them being but country yeomen, had 
 mean education and little other learning, than what they learned in 
 the gospel of Him who is meek and lowly, and whom the zeal of his 
 Father's house did eat up), it is below their due commendation when 
 it is affirmed, that never any men of the greatest spirits, piety, and 
 learning, did suffer and die with more meekness and patience toward 
 their enemies,—with more humility and confidence toward their 
 God,—with more faithfulness and stedfastness in the truth, without 
 the least injurious reflection thereupon, or their own adherence there - 
 unto,—with more equability and composure of spirit, sweetly tem-- 
 pered with the sorrows of sin and joys of the Holy Ghost, in assur- 
 ance of pardon and life everlasting,—and with less perturbation of 
 mind, and alteration of the carriage or countenance, than these wor- 
 thies did. Here, indeed, was the faith and patience of the saints: 
 here did the Lord stand by and strengthen them, when others for- 
 sook. Yea, the Lord, to the admiration of all, the conviction of many 
 of their adversaries, the confirmation and establishment of the cause, 
 the encouragement of many thousands, his own eternal glory and 
 their immortal commendation, did work in the hearts of all behold- 
 ers, more ample and enduring epistles of commendation than the most 
 eloquent and pathetic rhetorician can write in their favours.”— 
 Napthtali, or the Wrestlings of the Church of Scotland—1667. Pre- 
 Jace, p. 12, &c. 
 M‘CRIE. 
 
 The following additional observations on “ the right of resistance,” 
 exercised by the Covenanters at Pentland and Bothwell, are from the 
 pen of the ablest of their modern defenders, the lamented and revered 
 Author of the Lives of Knox and Melville,—a man who, for his mas- 
 culine understanding, enlightened and fervent piety, accurate and ex- 
 tensive professional learning, generous love of freedom, and amiable 
 and unassuming manners, lives, and will long live, in the memories 
 and hearts of those who knew him ; while his works have taken their 
 permanent place among the richest treasures of the historical litera- 
 ture of our country. We are wearying for his Life, with its pro- 
 mised accompaniments. 
 
 “ Their defence rests on more substantial grounds. It rests on the 
 same grounds as that of the resistance made by the Protestants in 
 Germany, the Netherlands, and France, who were publicly aided by 
 Elizabeth, James, and Charles!I. If the Covenanters were chargeable 
 with rebellion, it is impossible to vindicate these princes and their 
 
RIGHT OF RESISTANCE. 309 
 
 parliaments from the charge of fostering rebellion. We appeal not 
 only to their practice, but also to their public declarations, in which 
 they avowed the right of subjects to defend themselves against the 
 oppression and tyranny of their native sovereigns. 
 
 “ We appeal to the language held by James, whose ideas of royal 
 prerogative were sufficiently high. ‘ My reason of calling you toge- 
 ther (says his majesty, in a letter to Dr Abbot), was to give your 
 judgment, how far a Christian and a Protestant king may concur to 
 assist his neighbours, to shake off their obedience to their own sove- 
 reigns, upon the account of oppression, tyranny, or what else you like 
 to name it. In the late queen’s time, this kingdom was free in assist- 
 ing the Hollanders both with arms and advice, and none of your coat 
 ever told me that any scrupled about it in herreign. Upon my com- 
 ing to England you may know, it came from some of yourselves to 
 raise scruples about this matter; yet I never took any notice of 
 these scruples, till the affairs of Spain and Holland forced me to it. 
 I called my clergy together to satisfy, not so much me, as the world 
 about us, of the justness of my owning the Hollanders at this time. 
 This I needed not to have done, and you have forced me to say, I 
 wish I had not.’ In his speech to the parliament that year, he had 
 these words: ‘ A king ceases to be a king, and degenerates into a 
 tyrant, as soon as he leaves off to govern by law ; in which the king’s 
 conscience may speak to him as the poor woman to Philip of Mace- 
 don, Either govern by law, or cease to be a king.’ And again, in his 
 speech, anno 1609, ‘ A king governing in a settled kingdome, ceaseth 
 to be a king, and degenerateth into a tyrant, so soon as he leaveth to 
 rule by his lawes, much more when he beginneth to invade his sub- 
 jects’ persones, rights, and liberties, to set up an arbitrary power, im- 
 pose unlawfull taxes, raise forces, and make warre upon his subjects, 
 whom he should protect and rule in peace: to pillage, plunder, 
 waste, and spoile his kingdom ; imprison, murder, and destroy his 
 people in a hostile manner, to captivat them to his pleasure.’ 
 
 “ We can appeal to divines and dignitaries of the church of Eng- 
 land, who have sanctioned the principles of resistance on which our 
 ancestors acted—to Jewel, Hooker, Bilson, Bedel, Burnet, Hoadly, 
 and King. But this is unnecessary, as the whole convocation, the 
 Church of England representative, in Elizabeth’s reign, publicly ac- 
 knowledged it ‘ glorious to assist subjects in their resistance to their 
 sovereigns, and their endeavours to rid themselves of their tyranny 
 and oppressions. And in 1628, when Charles I. resolved to assist 
 the French Protestants, both Houses of Parliament petitioned his ma- 
 
310 NOTES. 
 
 jesty to appoint a fast; and in the office of devotion composed for 
 the occasion, the nation was directed to pray for all those ‘ who, 
 here or elsewhere, were fighting God’s battles, and defending his 
 altars.’ 
 
 “In fine, their conduct was vindicated at the Revolution, when 
 the parliament of Scotland, in prosecution of ‘ the claim of right,’ re- 
 scinded.all forfeitures and fines passed against those who had been in 
 arms at Pentland and Bothwell, and pronounced them ‘ void and null 
 From the beginning. After mentioning a vast number of names, the 
 act proceeds: ‘ Likeas, their majesties, and three estates, rehabilitate, 
 redintigrate, and restore so many of the said persons as are living, and 
 the memory of them that are deceast, their heirs, successors, and poste- 
 rity, to their goods, fame, and worldly honour.’—Review of the First 
 Series of the Tales of My Landlord. Edinburgh Christian Instructor 
 for 1817. 
 
 DR GEORGE CAMPBELL. 
 
 The remarks which follow, on the limits of civil obedience and the 
 right of resistance, deserve particular regard, not only from their in- 
 trinsic good sense, and the characteristic sagacity and caution of 
 their author—Principal Campseti of Aberdeen—but also from the cir- 
 cumstance that they occur in a tract, the avowed object of which is 
 to prove the criminality of the conduct of the American colonies, in 
 resisting what they considered the unjust impositions of the govern- 
 ment of this country. 
 
 ““ The general precept to be observed by the people in regard to 
 their rulers, is to obey them, Rom. xiii. 1,2, 5 ; 1 Pet. ii. 18-15. Are 
 we then to conclude that resistance to governors is in all cases unlaw- 
 ful, and that whatever part they act, however oppressive and tyran- 
 nical, the governed have no choice but obedience and submission? I 
 by no means affirm this. There are few general rules that admit of 
 no exception. Consider the commandment, ‘ Thou shalt not kill,’ 
 Exod. xx. 13. Does it import, that in no possible circumstances, 
 one man is permitted to take away the life of another? No, cer- 
 tainly. Notwithstanding this unlimited prohibition, we all allow, and 
 have sufficient warrant from scripture for allowing, that in several 
 cases, as in the judicial punishment of crimes, in self-defence, and in 
 lawful war, it not only may be vindicated, but is even a duty, to de- 
 prive another of life. Nor, let it be urged, that the term rendered 
 kill, ought to have been translated commit murder ; for it is certain, 
 that the Hebrew word is of as extensive signification as the English, 
 and applied indifferently to lawful as to unlawful killing. ¢ Children, 
 
RIGHT OF RESISTANCE. 911 
 
 obey your parents, says the apostle Paul, “αν δι, THINes. The same 
 injunction is also given to servants in regard to their masters, Col. 
 iii. 20, 22. This, one would think, excludes all exception, if words 
 can exclude it. Yet, I believe, no Christian will urge that there 
 would be an obligation to obedience from this precept, should a pa- 
 rent command his child, or a master command his servant to steal. 
 I shall offer but one other instance, an instance which nearly resem- 
 bles the point in hand. Our Lord has given us this express prohibi- 
 tion, ‘ Resist not evil, Matt. v. 39; and that without any restriction 
 whatever. Yet, if this was to be understood by Christians as admit- 
 ting no exception, it would among them abolish magistracy itself. 
 For what is magistracy, but, if I may be allowed the expression, a 
 bulwark erected for the defence of the society, and consequently, for 
 the very purpose of ‘ resisting evil,’ for repelling injuries offered or 
 committed, either by foreign enemies from without, or by its own 
 corrupted members from within? Therefore, unless the nature of 
 the thing require it, we cannot conclude so much from a general pro- 
 position. 
 
 « And that the nature of the thing does not in this case require it, 
 is manifest from this consideration, that government obliges us in 
 conscience to obedience and submission, only because it is the means 
 appointed by Providence for promoting one of the most important 
 ends, the good of society. If this institution, therefore, should in any 
 instance so far degenerate into tyranny, that all the miseries of a 
 civil war, consequent on resistance, would be less terrible than the 
 slavery and oppression suffered under the government, then, and 
 only then, could resistance be said to be either incumbent as a duty, 
 or even lawful. It cannot reasonably be denied, that the principle 
 of self-defence is as natural and justifiable in communities as indivi- 
 duals. 
 
 “ This much 1 thought it necessary to premise, for the sake of 
 truth ; and that it might not be imagined I mean to argue on the 
 slavish, unnatural, and justly exploded principles of passive obedience 
 and non-resistance ; principles whose manifest tendency is the estab- 
 lishment and support of despotism.”—The Nature, Extent, and Im- 
 portance of the Duty of Allegiance—Dissertation on Miracles, with Ser- 
 mons and Tracts, pp. 259-261. 8yvo. Lond. 1884. 
 
 GISBORNE. 
 
 “ The first of the two fundamental rights which the people of 
 Great Britain haye retained, notwithstanding their engagements to 
 
ΠΩ NOTES. 
 
 their governors, for the defence of national freedom, and the augmen- 
 tation of national happiness, is the right of resuming the delegated 
 authority of the state, from the hands of the governors, who delibe- 
 rately and flagrantly violate the conditions, on which it was commit- 
 ted to them. 
 
 « The precedent of the Revolution of 1688, is still so fresh in the 
 minds of Englishmen, that a simple reference to that happy event 
 will sufficiently prove the truth of this position. But let it be re- 
 membered, with respect to the right in question, if any crisis now 
 unforeseen and unexpected, should oblige posterity to have recourse 
 to it; that, in such a conjuncture, the breach of contract on the part 
 of the sovereign would not justify a subject in co-operating forcibly 
 to expel him from his throne, unless, on mature reflection, he should 
 believe in his conscience that the nation was desirous that the for- 
 feiture should be exacted.”—“ If either House of Parliament were re- 
 solutely to overleap the constitutional limits of its functions, and to 
 persist in its usurpation, in defiance of the other branches of the le- 
 gislature, and of the nation; the principles which gave birth to the 
 Revolution would in that case equally vindicate resistance on the 
 part of those branches and of the people; and the private subject 
 ought to be governed as to the exercise of the right, by the considera- 
 tions recently stated.”"—Enquiry into the Duties of Men, Chap. iv. 
 vol. i. pp. 97-99. 
 
 LORD JOHN RUSSELL. 
 
 (1 apprehend few men will now deny, that resistance to a govern- 
 ment may sometimes be an act not only justifiable as an enterprize, 
 but imperative as a duty.’—Life of Lord Russell. 
 
 SIR JAMES MACKINTOSH. 
 
 Admirable as the foregoing extracts are, they must, in our opinion, 
 all yield the palm to the following observations, which present the 
 most philosophical and satisfactory view of the whole subject, which 
 is to be found in our own, or perhaps any other language :-— 
 
 “ The time (1688) was now come, when the people of England 
 were called upon to determine, whether they should by longer sub- 
 mission sanction the usurpations, and encourage the farther encroach- 
 ments of the crown, or take up arms against the established autho- 
 rity of their sovereign, for the defence of their legal rights, as well 
 as of those safeguards which the constitution had placed around them. 
 Though the solution of this tremendous problem requires the calmest 
 
RIGHT OF RESISTANCE. 9.1. 
 
 exercise of reason, the circumstances which bring it forward com- 
 monly call forth mightier agents, which disturb and overpower the 
 action of the understanding. In conjunctures so awful, where men 
 feel, more than they reason, their conduct is chiefly governed by the 
 boldness or the wariness of their nature, by their love of liberty, or 
 their attachment to quiet, by their proneness or slowness to fellow- 
 feeling with their countrymen. The generous-virtues and turbulent 
 passions rouse the brave and aspiring to resistance ; some gentle vir- 
 tues and useful principles second the qualities of human nature, in 
 disposing many to submission. The duty of legal obedience seems to 
 forbid that appeal to arms, which the necessity of preserving law and 
 liberty allows, or rather demands. In such a conflict, there is little 
 quiet left for moral deliberation. Yet by the immutable principles 
 of morality, and by them alone, must the historian try the conduct of 
 all men, before he allows himself to consider all the circumstances of 
 time, place, opinion, example, temptation, and obstacle, which, though 
 they never authorise the removal of the everlasting landmarks of 
 right and wrong, ought to be well weighed, in allotting a due degree 
 of commendation or censure to human actions. 
 
 “ΤῊ English law, like that of most other countries, lays down no 
 limits of obedience. The clergy of the Established Church, the au- 
 thorised teachers of public morality, carried their principles much 
 farther than was required by a mere concurrence with this cautious 
 silence of the law. Not content with inculcating, in common with all 
 other moralists religious or philosophical, obedience to civil govern- 
 ment, as one of the most essential duties of human life, the English 
 church perhaps alone had solemnly pronounced, that in the conflict 
 of obligations, no other rule of duty could, under any circumstances, 
 become more binding than that of allegiance. Even the duty which 
 seems paramount to every other, that which requires every citizen 
 to contribute to the preservation of the community, ceased, according 
 to their moral system, to have any binding force, whenever it could 
 not be performed without resistance to established government. Re- 
 ‘garding the power of a monarch as more sacred than the paternal au- 
 thority, from which they vainly laboured to derive it, they refused. 
 to nations oppressed by the most cruel tyrants,* those rights of self- 
 defence, which no moralist or lawgiver had even denied to children 
 against unnatural parents. To palliate the extravagance of thus re- 
 presenting obedience as the only duty without an exception, an ap- 
 peal was made to the divine origin of government, as if every other 
 
 * Interpretation of Rom. xiii. 1-7 ; South’s Sermon, Nov. 5, 1663. 
 x 
 
914 NOTES. 
 
 moral rule were not, in the opinion of all theists, equally enjoined 
 and sanctioned by the Deity. To denote these singular doctrines, it 
 was thought necessary to devise the terms of passive obedience and 
 non-resistance ; uncouth and jarring forms of speech, not unfitly re- 
 presenting a violent departure from the general judgment of man- 
 kind.* 
 
 ᾿ξ oe 2 
 
 « That no man can lawfully promise what he cannot lawfully do, 
 is a self-evident proposition. That there are some duties superior to 
 others will be denied by no one; and that when a contest arises, the 
 superior ought to prevail, is implied in the terms by which the duties 
 are described. It can hardly be doubted, that the highest obligation 
 of a citizen is that of contributing to preserve the community ; and 
 that every other political duty, even that of obedience to the magis- 
 trates, is derived from, and must be subordinate to it. It is a neces- 
 sary consequence of these simple truths, that no man who deems self- 
 defence lawful in his own case, can by any engagement bind himself 
 not to defend his country against foreign or domestic enemies. — 
 Though the opposite propositions really involve a contradiction in 
 terms, yet declarations of their truth were imposed by law, and oaths 
 to renounce the defence of our country were considered as binding, 
 till the violent collision of such pretended obligations, with the secu- 
 rity of all rights and institutions, awakened the national mind to a 
 sense of their repugnance to the first principles of morality. Maxims _ 
 so artificial and overstrained, which have no more root in nature than 
 they have warrant from reason, must always fail in a contest against 
 the affections, sentiments, habits, and interests, which are the mo- 
 tives of human conduct, leaving little more than compassionate in- 
 dulgence to the small number who conscientiously cling to them, and 
 fixing the injurious imputation of inconsistency on the great body 
 who forsake them for better guides. 
 
 “ΤῊ war of a people against a tyrannical government may be 
 tried by the same tests which ascertain the morality of a war between 
 independent nations. The employment of force in the intercourse of 
 reasonable beings, is never lawful, but for the purpose of repelling or 
 averting wrongful force. Human life cannot lawfully be destroyed, 
 or assailed and endangered for any other object than that of just de- 
 fence. Such is the nature and such the boundary of legitimate self- 
 defence in the case of individuals. Hence the right of the lawgiver 
 
 * Homilies of Edw. VI. and Eliz. ; Parl. Hist. July 20, 1683 ; Act of 
 Uniformity, 14. ο. 1]. 6. 3,4 ; 13. ch, II. st. ii,e. 1. 
 
RIGHT OF RESISTANCE. 315 
 
 to protect unoffending citizens, by the adequate punishment of crimes : 
 hence also the right of an independent state to take all measures ne- 
 cessary to her safety, if it be attacked or threatened from without ; 
 provided always that reparation cannot otherwise be obtained, that 
 there is a reasonable prospect of gaining it by arms, and that the 
 evils of the contest are not probably greater than the mischiefs of ac- 
 quiescence in the wrong; including, on both sides of the delibera- 
 tion, the ordinary consequences of the example, as well as the imme- 
 diate effects of the act. If reparation can otherwise be obtained, a 
 nation has no necessary, and therefore no just cause of war; if there 
 be no probability of obtaining it by arms, a government cannot, with 
 justice to their own nation, embark in war; and if the evils of resist- 
 ance should appear on the whole greater than those of submission, 
 wise rulers will consider an abstinence from a pernicious exercise of 
 right as a sacred duty to their own subjects, and a debt which every 
 people owes to the great commonwealth of mankind, of which they 
 and their enemies are equally members. A war is just against the 
 wrong-doer, when reparation for wrong cannot otherwise be obtained ; 
 but it is then only conformable to all the principles of morality, when 
 it is not likely to expose the nation by whom it is levied to greater 
 evils than it professes to avert, and when it does not inflict on the 
 nation, which has done the wrong, sufferings altogether dispropor- 
 tioned to the extent of the injury. When the rulers of a nation are 
 required to determine a question of peace or war, the bare justice of 
 their case against the wrong-doer, never can be the sole, and is not 
 always the chief, matter on which they are morally bound to exer- 
 cise a conscientious deliberation. Prudence in conducting the affairs 
 of their subjects is, to them, a part of justice. 
 
 “ΟἹ the same principles, the justice of a war made by a people 
 against their own government must be examined. A government is 
 entitled to obedience from the people, because, without obedience, it 
 eannot perform the duty, for which alone it exists, of protecting them 
 from each other's injustice. But when a government is engaged in 
 systematically oppressing a people, or in destroying their securities 
 against future oppression, it commits the same species of wrong to- 
 wards them, which warrants an appeal to arms against a foreign 
 enemy. A magistrate who degenerates into a systematic oppressor, 
 shuts the gates of justice on the people, and thereby restores them to 
 their original right of defending themselves by force. As he with- 
 holds the protection of law from them, he forfeits his moral claim to 
 enforce their obedience by the authority of law. Thus far civil and 
 
910 NOTES. 
 
 foreign war stand on the same moral foundation. The principles 
 which determine the justice of both against the wrong-doer, are in- 
 deed throughout the same. But there are certain peculiarities of 
 great importance in point of fact, which in other respects perma- 
 nently distinguish them from each other. The evils of failure are 
 greater in civil than in foreign war. A state generally incurs no 
 more than loss in war. A body of insurgents is exposed to ruin. 
 The probabilities of success are more difficult to calculate in cases of 
 internal contest, than in a war between states, when it is easy to com- 
 pare those merely material means of attack and defence, which may 
 be measured or numbered. An unsuccessful revolt strengthens the 
 power and sharpens the cruelty of the tyrannical ruler, while an un- 
 fortunate war may produce little of the former evil, and of the latter 
 nothing. It is almost peculiar to intestine war, that success may be 
 as mischievous as defeat. The victorious leaders may be borne along 
 by the current of events, far beyond their destination ; a government 
 may be overthrown which ought to have been repaired ; and a new, 
 perhaps a more formidable tyranny may spring out of victory. A 
 regular government may stop before its fall become precipitate, or 
 check a career of conquest, when it threatens destruction to itself. 
 But the feeble authority of the chiefs of insurgents is rarely able in 
 the one case to maintain the courage, in the other to repress the im- 
 petuosity, of their voluntary adherents. Finally, the cruelty and 
 misery incident to all warfare are greater in domestic dissension than 
 in contests with foreign enemies. Foreign wars have little effect on 
 the feelings, habits, or condition of the majority of a great nation, to 
 most of whom the worst particulars of them are unknown. But civil 
 war brings the same or worse evils into the heart of a country, and 
 into the bosom of many families: it eradicates all habits of recourse 
 to justice and reverence for law ; its hostilities are not mitigated by 
 the usages which soften war among nations ; it is carried on with the 
 ferocity of parties, who apprehend destruction from cach other ; and 
 it may leave behind it feuds still more deadly, which may render a 
 country depraved and wretched through a long succession of ages. 
 As it involves a wider waste of virtue and happiness, than any other 
 species of war, it can only be warranted by the sternest and most dire 
 necessity. The chiefs of a justly disaffected party are unjust to their 
 fellows and their followers, as well as to all the rest of their country- 
 men, if they take up arms in a case, where the evils of submission are 
 not more intolerable, the impossibility of reparation by pacific means 
 more apparent, and the chances of obtaining it by arms greater than 
 
RIGHT OF RESISTANCE. 317 
 
 are necessary to justify the rulers of a nation towards their own sub- 
 jects, for undertaking a foreign war. A wanton rebellion, when con- 
 sidered with the aggravation of its ordinary consequences, is one of the 
 greatest of crimes. The chiefs of an inconsiderable and ill concerted 
 revolt, however provoked, incur the most formidable responsibility to 
 their followers and their country. An insurrection rendered necessary 
 by oppression, and warranted by a reasonable probability of a happy 
 termination, is an act of public virtue, always environed with so much 
 peril as to merit admiration. 
 
 “ In proportion to the degree in which a revolt spreads over a large 
 body, till it approaches unanimity, the fatal peculiarities of civil war 
 are lessened. In the insurrection of provinces, either distant or se- 
 parated by natural boundaries, more especially if the inhabitants, 
 differing in religion and language, are rather subjects of the same 
 government, than portions of the same people, hostilities, which are 
 waged only to sever a legal tie, may assume the regularity, and in 
 some measure, the mildness of foreign war. Free men carrying into 
 insurrection those habits of voluntary obedience to which they have 
 been trained, are more easily restrained from excess by the leaders, 
 in whom they have placed their confidence. Thus far it may be af- 
 firmed, that insurgents are most humane where they are likely to be 
 most successful. But it is one of the most deplorable circumstances 
 in the lot of man, that the subjects of despotic governments, and still 
 more those who are doomed to personal slavery, though their condi- 
 tion be the worst, and their revolt the most just against their tyrants, 
 are disabled to conduct it to a result beneficial to themselves, by the 
 very magnitude of the evils under which they groan; for the most 
 fatal effect of the yoke is, that it darkens the understanding and de- 
 bases the soul, and that the victims of long oppression, who have 
 never imbibed any noble principle of obedience, throw off every curb 
 when they are released from the chain and the lash. In such wretch- 
 ed cogditions of society, the rulers may indeed retain unlimited power, 
 as tle moral guardians of the community, while they are conducting 
 the arduous process of gradually transforming slaves into men ; they 
 cannot justly retain it without that purpose, or longer than its accom- 
 plishment requires ; and the extreme difficulty of such a reformation, 
 as well as the dire effects of any other emancipation, ought to be 
 deeply considered, as proofs of the enormous guilt of those who intro- 
 duce any kind or degree of unlimited power, as well as of those who 
 increase by their obstinate resistance the natural obstacles to the pa- 
 cific amendment of evils so tremendous. 
 
918 NOTES. 
 
 “ The frame of the human mind, and the structure of civil society, 
 have adapted themselves to the important differences between civil 
 and foreign war. Such is the force of the considerations, which have 
 been before enumerated ; so tender is the regard of good men for the 
 peace of their native country, so numerous are the links of interest 
 and habit which bind those of a more common sort to an establish- 
 ment, so difficult is it for the bad and bold to conspire against a to- 
 lerably vigilant administration; the evils which exist in moderate 
 governments appear so tolerable, and those of absolute despotism so 
 incorrigible, that the number of unjust wars among states, unspeak- 
 ably surpasses those of wanton rebellions against the just exercise of 
 authority. Though the maxim, that there are no unprovoked re- 
 volts, ascribed to the Due de Sully, and adopted by Mr Burke,* can- 
 not be received without exceptions, it must be owned, that in civil- 
 ized times mankind have suffered less from a mutinous spirit, than 
 from a patient endurance of bad government. 
 
 “‘ Neither can it be denied, that the objects for which revolted sub- 
 jects take up arms, do in most cases concern their safety and well- 
 being more deeply than the interests of states are in general affected 
 by the legitimate causes of regular war. A nation may justly make 
 war for the honour of her flag, or for dominion over a rock, if the one 
 be insulted, and the other be unjustly invaded, because acquiescence 
 in the outrage or the wrong may lower her reputation, and thereby 
 lessen her safety.” (This appears to me, to say the least, a very 
 doubtful position—but it does not at all interfere with the justness 
 and force of the illustration.) ““ But if these sometimes faint and re- 
 mote dangers justify an appeal to arms, shall it be blamed in a people, 
 who have no other chance of vindicating the right to worship God 
 according to their consciences, to be exempt from imprisonment and 
 exaction at the mere will and pleasure of one or a few, to enjoy as 
 perfect a security for their persons, for the free exercise of their in- 
 dustry, and for the undisturbed enjoyment of its fruits, as can be de- 
 sired by human wisdom under equal laws and a pure administration 
 of justice ? What foreign enemy could do a greater wrong to a com- 
 munity, than the ruler who would reduce them to hold these inter- 
 ests by no higher tenure than the duration of his pleasure? What 
 war can be more necessary than that which is waged in defence of 
 ancient laws and venerable institutions, which, as far as they were 
 suffered to act, had for ages approved themselves to be the guard of 
 
 * Le Ecluse Mem. de Sully. Burke’s Thoughts on the present Diseon- 
 tents. 
 
RIGHT OF RESISTANCE. 319 
 
 all these sacred privileges, the shield which protects reason in her fear- 
 less search of truth, and conscience in the performance of her humble 
 duty to God ; the spur which rouses to the utmost every faculty of 
 man ; the nursery of genius and valour ; the spur (stay 7) of probity, 
 humanity, and generosity. 
 
 * It is needless on this occasion to moot the question, whether arms 
 may be as justly wielded to obtain as to defend liberty. It may, how- 
 ever, be observed, that the rulers who obstinately persist in with- 
 holding from their subjects securities for good government, obviously 
 necessary for the permanence of that blessing, generally desired by 
 competently informed men, and capable of being introduced without 
 danger to public tranquillity, appear thereby to place themselves in 
 a state of hostility against the nation whom they govern. Wantonly 
 to prolong a state of insecurity, seems to be as much an act of ag- 
 gression as to plunge a nation into that state ; when a pecple discover 
 their danger, they have a moral claim on their governors for security 
 against it. As soon as a distemper is discovered to be dangerous, and 
 a safe and effectual remedy has been found, those who withhold the 
 remedy are as much morally answerable for the death which may 
 ensue, as if they had administered poison."—A View of the Reign of 
 James IT. from his Accession, to the Enterprize of the Prince of Orange, 
 Chap. X. pp. 293-802. 4to. Lond. 1835. 
 
 JONATHAN DYM@ND. 
 
 After perusing these able and eloquent defences of the Right of Re- 
 sistance, it may be interesting to the reader to consider the views of 
 an enlightened member of the Society of Friends, who conscientiously 
 disapproves of such resistance, not in so much as it is directed against 
 the civil power, but in as much as, in his opinion, violence, in opposi- 
 tion to any power, is incompatible with the strictness of the Christian 
 law, and the purity of the Christian character. 
 
 «ὁ Submission to government is involved in the very idea of the in- 
 stitution. None can govetn if none submit: and hence is derived 
 the duty of submission, so far as it is independent of Christianity. 
 Government being necessary to the good of society, submission is ne- 
 eessary also, and therefore it is right. This duty is enforced with 
 great distinctness by Christianity. The great question therefore is, 
 whether the duty be absolute and unconditional ; and if not, what 
 are its limits, and how are they to be ascertained. 
 
 “ Specific rules respecting the extent of civil obedience not being 
 found in Scripture, we must ascertain this extent by the general du- 
 
920 NOTES. 
 
 ties which Christianity imposes on mankind, and by the general prin- 
 ciples of political truth. Referring then to political truth, it is to be 
 remembered that governors are established not for their own advan- 
 tage, but for the people's. If they so far disregard this object-of their 
 establishment, as greatly to sacrifice the public welfare, the people 
 (and consequently individuals) may rightly consider, whether a change 
 of governors is not dictated by utility ; and if it is, they may rightly 
 endeavour to effect such a change by recommending it to the public, 
 and by transferring their obedience to those who, there is reason to 
 believe, will better execute the offices for which government is insti- 
 tuted. I perceive nothing un-christian in this. 
 
 “ The lawful means of discouraging or promoting an alteration of 
 a government, must be determined by the general duties of Christian 
 morality. There is nothing in political affairs, which conveys a pri- 
 vilege to throw off the Christian character : and whatever species of 
 opposition or support involves a sacrifice, or suspension of this cha- 
 racter, is for that reason wrong. Clamorous and vehement debatings 
 and harangues—vituperation and calumny—acts of bloodshed and 
 violence—or instigations to such acts, are, I think, measures in which 
 the first teachers of Christianity would not have participated ; mea- 
 sures whicl*would have violated their own precepts ; and measures, 
 therefore, which a Christian is not at liberty to pursue. 
 
 It is by no means certain, that Christian opposition to misgovern- 
 ment would be so ineffectual as is supposed. Nothing is so invin- 
 cible as determined non-compliance. He that resists force, may be 
 overcome by greater force ; but nothing can overcome a calm and 
 fixed determination not to obey. Violence might no doubt slaughter 
 those who practised it, but it were an unusual ferocity to destroy 
 such persons in cool malignity. Courage is not indicated most une- 
 quivocally by wearing swords, or wielding them. Many who have 
 courage enough to take up arms against a bad government, have not 
 courage enough to resist it by the unbending firmness of the mind, 
 to maintain a tranquil fidelity to virtue in opposition to power, or to 
 endure with serenity the consequences which may follow. The most 
 severely persecuted body of Christians which this country has in 
 later ages seen, was a body who never raised the arm of resistance. 
 They wore out that iron rod of oppression, which the attrition of 
 violence might have whetted into a weapon that might have cut them 
 off from the earth ; and they now reap the fair fruit of their princi- 
 ples, in the enjoyment of privileges from which others are still de- 
 barred.”—Dymond’s Essays, Essay Π1. Chap. 5. vol. 11. pp. 61-63. 
 
RIGHT OF RESISTANCE. Son 
 
 JUS POPULI. 
 
 Resistance to Tyranny not inconsistent in Christians. 
 
 “ Conceive that the major part of the patricians and plebeians, all 
 over the Roman empire, are converted to the faith of Christ ; con- 
 ceive that Domitian (whose claime is by the law past to his father), 
 hates Christianity, and being incited by his soothsaying priests, his 
 concubines, and parasitical libertines, to eradicate true religion, and 
 enrich himselfe by the great spoyle of the professors thereof, sets 
 up such an idol, and makes such an edict for the general adoration 
 thereof, as the Persian monarch once did. Conceive that the Chris- 
 tians, both senators and plebcians, petition for their lives, but are re- 
 jected, and seeing a number of assassins armed ready to rush upon 
 them, betake themselves to their defence, and rely upon forcible re- 
 sistance. Conceive, further, that they first acquaint Domitian with 
 their resolutions, and thus publish the justice thereof. 
 
 “¢ ¢ May it please your sacred Imperiall Majesty, the peaceable and 
 gentle principles of our pure religion teach us rather to suffer mode- 
 rate wrongs from private hands, than to offer the least injurious vio- 
 lence to princes. Neverthelesse since (after all our vain supplications) 
 we see ourselves remorselessly designed to a general massacre, for 
 not obeying you against God: and since you expect that we should 
 tamely surrender not only our estates, and such other rights as are in 
 our arbitrary disposition, but our lives also, and the gospel itself (of 
 neither whereof wee are masters at discretion), forasmuch also as we 
 being the major part of the state, and virtually that whole commu- 
 nity from which you derive your commission, and for whose behoof 
 alone, you are bound to pursue that commission, and not to decline 
 from the main intendment of it: and whereas farther, wee have not 
 so totally divested ourselves by intrusting you with power, but that 
 we are to give some account to God, and the law, if wee oppose not 
 general subversion when wee may, especially we being now farther 
 intituled to defence by the extraordinary law of general necessity (of 
 the benefit of which iron law particular men are not wholly abridged), 
 we are compelled hereby to protest and remonstrate to all the world, 
 that we take now up these our just arms only for defence to secure 
 our lives, liberties, and religion, against the bloody emissaries which, 
 indeed, from your undue warrant, can derive no authority ; and not 
 to bridle any just authority of yours, or to attempt any thing against 
 that idolatrous devotion which hath hitherto been established by law. 
 
322 NOTES. 
 
 And because we impute it to the wretched falsities and artifices of 
 calumniators, that your Majesty is incensed against us and our reli- 
 gion, and misinformed of our intentions: we crave leave further to 
 declare, that though we are free men, and not slaves, and have some 
 share in empire itselfe, and are not mere subjects, will yet continue 
 in the same obedience as our ancestors payd you for peace sake, if 
 we be not driven to extreamities. And as to our religion, it is no 
 other than a holy blessed law revealed from heaven, presented for the 
 good of all immortall rationall creatures, more beneficial to princes 
 than paganisme, and such as without diminution of power you may 
 submit to, and cast down your crowne before. In the like manner, 
 also, it will concern your imperiall office rather to protect us, than 
 those who seek our subversion, as being the greater and nobler part of 
 the empire, and better devoted to your person and crowne than they 
 are. Neither is it distrust in our own numbers, forces, or advantages, 
 that draws these lowly, loyal expressions from us, nor is it any doubt 
 in our cause: for Christianity does as much lift up the heart in a just 
 war, as it does weaken the hands in unjust enterprize ; and the world 
 shall see it is as far from transforming us into asses as into woolves. 
 Prefer your sacred eares, therefore, we pray you, from the sugges- 
 tions of our enemies, and the abusers who may render us in your 
 thoughts either absolutely disloyal, or bestially servile, and do usu- 
 ally traduce our religion as being utterly inconsistent either with 
 duty or magnanimity. Let it be a confutation to them at this pre- 
 sent, that we doe neither derogate in this case from your majestie’s 
 prerogative, nor utterly renounce our own interests: and yet that we 
 doe rather fore-judge ourselves, inasmuch as though we do not dis- 
 claim, yet we forbeare to claime a right of establishing true religion 
 and abolishing idolatry ; as also, of bringing your seducers to condigne 
 punishment. And thus far we condescend in all humility for our 
 blessed religion’s sake, that that may be liable to no aspersions, as if it 
 had any causality in this war, and that you may receive the better 
 apprehension and relish of the profession, from the humble comport- 
 ment of the professors. It is not in us to set an end to these broyles, 
 because we have no prevalence with you to gain just satisfaction from 
 you, but it isin you to quiet our party in regard that we fight not 
 now for a well-being, but a meer being: not that paganisme may be 
 subverted, but that Christianity may subsist: all our conditions are 
 entirely in your owne hands, and they speak no more but this—let 
 us have hopes to remaine safe, and you shall have assurance to re- 
 maine Cesar.’ 
 
ESTABLISHMENTS AND THEIR SUPPORTERS. 323 
 
 “ If his Grace of Armagh like not this remonstrance, let him frame 
 an answer to it, and in so doing, he shall appear a profounder scholar, 
 a more judicious statesman, a more peaceable patriot, a more godly 
 preacher, than his last sermon upon the thirteenth chapter of the 
 Epistle to the Romans did show him.”—Jus Poputt ; 07, a Discourse 
 wherein clear satisfaction is given as well concerning the Right of Sub- 
 jects, as the Right of Princes: showing how both are consistent, and 
 where they border one upon the other ; as also what there is divine and 
 what there is humane in both ; and whether is of more value and extent. 
 —pp- 68-65. 4to. Lond. 1664. 
 
 The author of these spirit-stirring paragraphs was obviously not so 
 thoroughly indoctrinated as Milton, Vane, and Nedham, in the en- 
 tire distinctness of things sacred and civil—but his tractate, which 
 created a great sensation at the time of its publication, and I rather 
 think had the honour at the Restoration of being burned by the 
 hands of the common executioner, is richly deserving of a careful pe- 
 rusal. It has been ascribed, obviously in mistake, to Mizton. 
 
 NOTE XXV. 
 
 SENTIMENTS AND FEELINGS IN REFERENCE TO ESTABLISHMENTS, Ι 
 AND THEIR SUPPORTERS. 
 
 i am pleased with this opportunity of making another attempt, 
 clearly to state the views and feelings entertained by me, in common 
 with the great body of my “ brethren and fellow-soldiers,” the Vo- 
 luntary-churchmen, respecting Established churches and their com- 
 ponent parts, /ay and clerical, as they like to phrase it ;—views and 
 feelings which 1 believe are sometimes misapprehended—which I 
 know are often misrepresented. We make a distinction between a civil 
 Establishment, and the church, which is the subject of it. The 
 first we unreservedly condemn as unscriptural, unjust, and impo- 
 litic, in all its forms. In the second, we see much, which com- 
 mands our respect and fixes our affection. Into the question, how 
 far any Established church corresponds, even in essentials, to the 
 churches of Christ, as described in the New Testament—it is not 
 my intention at present to enter.* It is certain that in both the 
 
 * The following remarks of Grauam, one of the ablest writers on the subjeet 
 of civil establishments of religion, who had “ the hononr of making the first 
 
924 NOTES. 
 
 . 
 
 Established churches of this country are to be found many indivi- 
 duals—God increase their number a thousand-fold—who are the very 
 materials of which Christian churches should be formed. At the 
 same time we cannot shut our eyes to the fact, that the immense ma- 
 
 grand systematic attack on the principle on which these monopolies are found- 
 ed,” and whose work deserves a much wider circulation than it has ever yet 
 met with, are worthy of attention, especially from those pious persons who 
 have become connected with these institutions, and continue connected with 
 them, without having ever carefully considered their true character. 
 
 “ Though it be admitted, that the true church of Christ may subsist in 
 national churches, this does not prove that these, as such, are true churches. 
 If a nation or an empire forms itself into a peculiar mixed species of society ; 
 governs itself by a peculiar body of laws, adapted to the peculiarity of its 
 constitution, and pursues designs quite foreign, or sometimes opposite to the 
 noble purposes for which the kingdom of Christ was erected ; it cannot be 
 called, without a gross abuse of language, the ‘ kingdom which is not of this 
 world.’ If the designs of its erection, the manner of its administration, and 
 the purposes which it pursues—be political, it is so far a civil society to all 
 intents and purposes. And such is every national church. The incorporat- 
 ing charter on which she stands supposes it. And the penal laws annexed 
 to it are directly aimed at the ¢rwe and genuine church of Christ, lurking in 
 the nation, or perhaps in her communion. Yes: they mean nothing, unless 
 they import that no other church of Christ subsists, or ought to subsist in 
 . the nation, besides that society which is established by law for attaining the 
 political ends of civil government ; and that no authority, human or divine, 
 is or ought to be acknowledged, as obligatory on the conscience, besides that 
 which has bestowed the incorporated charter. 
 
 “ Thus are men cheated out of their religion. Religion consisteth not so 
 much in paying a regard to the doctrines and laws of Christianity, as in pay- 
 ing that respect formadly on account of the authority of Christ alone, enjoin- 
 ing that respect as a proof of cordial subjection to him as the only King of 
 Zion, who hath or ought to have authority in his own kingdom. But in all 
 national churehes, political authority walks forth with solemn awful pace, 
 and demands faith in Christ, and obedienee to him, as a debt due to it, as a 
 proof of the subjection of the conscience to its commands, and as a legal con- 
 dition of enjoying the common rights of men and citizens. Its language is, 
 ‘ To you it is commanded, O nations, people, and languages, that at what 
 time ye hear the sound of the state music, and the thunder of the executive 
 powers, ye fall down and worship the golden image which legislation hath 
 set up.’ Meanwhile, what the Christian church gains of worldly grandeur 
 by incorporations, she loseth of spiritual glory. Though the most exaet 
 uniformity should prevail ; though the most punctual obedience should be 
 yielded to the established system ; yea, though i were altogether unadul- 
 terated ; yet there is no visible dest by which it can be known to men, 
 whether the authority of Christ or of the legislature contributes most to this 
 uniformity ; whether such an ecclesiastical nation is a society of idolaters 
 
ESTABLISHMENTS AND THEIR SUPPORTERS. 325 
 
 jority of those connected with them, are attached to them from 
 worldly motives—are supporting ‘a secular institution from secular 
 principles, for secular ends.’ With these last, in their alarms about 
 the danger of their idol, we cannot sympathize. For the former, 
 many of whom, in consequence of mistaken ideas respecting the na- 
 ture of Christ’s kingdom, are honestly trembling for the ark of God, 
 and consider, however unreasonably, the dissolution of Establishments 
 and the destruction of Christianity as, if not identified, at least closely 
 connected, we entertain very different feelings. For these men we 
 cherish a Christian affection, and would gladly disabuse them of their 
 unfounded fears. 
 
 It is our full persuasion, that as churches, both the Scottish and the 
 English Establishments would be prodigiously improved in purity, 
 activity, and usefulness, by being disjoined from the state ; and in en- 
 deavouring to obtain that disjunction, we seek not their ruin but 
 their prosperity. While we cannot help being of opinion that the 
 ministers who are chosen by the flocks they feed—solemnly set apart 
 by the eldership of the churches to which they belong, and main- 
 tained by the voluntary contributions of the people they instruct, 
 come nearest to the primitive bishops; yet we rejoice to sce so large, 
 and as we are willing to believe, so rapidly increasing a body of able 
 and faithful preachers of the gospel in these churches, though we have 
 no faith in the powers, which the one of these establishments seems to 
 ascribe to the hands of a prelate, nor in the virtue which both sup- 
 pose to reside in state sanction and support—and think the want of 
 regular choice by the people to whom they minister, must go much 
 farther to invalidate the pastoral character, than the want of Episco- 
 pal ordination ; and to impede ministerial usefulness, than the want 
 of civil endowment. 
 
 We regret, though we do not much wonder at, the breaking up of 
 almost every thing like friendly co-operation, even in common causes, 
 which has taken place on the part of our brethren in the Establish- 
 ments. We are determined, so long as they do not make it impos- 
 sible, to cherish towards them the feelings of brethren, and to look 
 
 and hypocrites, or of Christians and saints. True Christians in such a so- 
 ciety are like the seven thousand in the days of Elijah. They pay an in- 
 visible, though sincere regard to the authority of Christ, amid a countless 
 crowd of idolaters, who, while professing the same faith, and practising the 
 same modes of worship, are visibly bowing the knee to civil authority alone.” 
 Graham’s Review of Ecclesiastical Establishments in Europe, Chap. LV. Sect. 
 I. pp. 89-91. Glasgow, 1792. 
 
 7 
 
326 NOTES. 
 
 forward to a period when, even here, we may yet meet still more 
 agreeably, and co-operate still more cordially, than we were accus- 
 tomed to do in days that we will ever look back to with pleasure ; 
 and should this expectation not be realized, we have a yet more “ glo- 
 rious hope,” which we know will not make us ashamed, if on solid 
 grounds we really cherish it, of meeting those brethren in Christ 
 from whom, through imperfection cleaving to both sides, we have been 
 separated for a season—in the world of perfect light, and love, purity 
 and peace,—where, if there is regret or shame at all, it will be, if 
 when the Great Master inquires, “* what was it ye disputed about by 
 the way ?”’—we be obliged to reply, that it was “‘ which of us should 
 be the greatest.” 
 
 Meanwhile, to borrow the words of two of the ablest advocates of 
 our cause, “ we will acknowledge with cordial delight every excel- 
 lence that appears in the Established churches,—hail with joy every 
 symptom of improvement which they exhibit, and pray for their 
 prosperity, as we pray for our own. Doing homage to this divine 
 appointment, ‘ whereunto we have already attained let us walk by 
 the same rule, let us mind the same thing, we will co-operate with 
 them, if they will co-operate with us in every good undertaking, 
 which regard to consistency of principle will allow. And ‘ we will 
 not suffer ourselves’ to doubt that, although in the progress of the 
 discussions that have begun, there will be, to a considerable extent, a 
 collision of feeling, as well as of opinion ; the Redeemer’s prayer shall 
 prove more powerful than the passions of his weak and imperfect fol- 
 lowers, and the delightful consummation for which he makes inter- 
 cession shall be accomplished, that they all may be one, as thou, Fa- 
 ther, art in me, and 1 in thee, that they also may be one in us, that 
 the world may believe that thou hast sent me.”*—“ For a time it is 
 to be feared there must be conflict and confusion, but from disorder, 
 order will arise. The stream of public opinion, so tranquil in its on- 
 ward progress, is originally formed of many opposing currents : But, as 
 at the junction of two mighty rivers, though all for a time, amid the 
 conflicting and intermingling waters, be uproar and confusion, at last 
 they find a common issue, determined by the proportion of their 
 respective forces, and with calm and unresisted majesty, form a pas- 
 sage to the sea.” + 
 
 * Heugh’s Considerations on Civil Establishments of Religion, p. 96, 
 Glasgow, 1833. " 
 + Douglas’ Address at the Jedburgh Voluntary Church Meeting. 
 
PROPOSED ADDITIONAL ENDOWMENTS. 337 
 
 I am loath to turn away from such a delightful anticipation ; but it 
 seems desirable, before closing, to say a word or two about the En- 
 dowment question, which is now exciting so much interest,—respect- 
 ing which 
 
 * Tliacos intra muros pugnatur et extra.” 
 
 which is summoning the host of voluntaries to ward off the blow 
 which, with heartier purpose than good aim, is directed against them, 
 and which is likely, however settled, to try the stability of the exist- 
 ing Administration. 
 
 There is, there long has been, much spiritual destitution in this 
 country. How did it originate—how has it been perpetuated? Prin- 
 cipally by the unfaithfulness or moral inadequacy of the Established 
 Church. Originally it was not the want of instructors, but of instruc- 
 tion,—in some cases of instruction altogether, in many more of whole- 
 some instruction, that occasioned the evil, and this is substantially 
 the true state of the case still.* It is not long ago when the evange- 
 
 * A picture of the state of the Lowland country parishes of Scotland, as 
 to their supply of the means of wholesome religious instruction, taken nearly 
 twenty years ago, may be interesting to the reader. It will be found a like- 
 ness still. 
 
 “ὁ Tt is stated with perfect confidence, and with sincere satisfaction, that 
 a considerable number of this class of parishes, are in a most enviable situ- 
 ation, as to the means of religious instruction. There are parishes, not a 
 few, where the parochial clergyman is just what a minister of Jesus Christ 
 ought to be, ‘an example of the believer in word, in conversation, in cha- 
 rity, in spirit, in faith, and purity ; watching over the souls of his flock as 
 one who knows that he must give an account, preaching the word, instant 
 in season and out of season, reproving, rebuking, and exhorting, with all 
 long-suffering and doetrine.’? There are such men in the Established Church, 
 —we know them ; and though we follow not with them, we bid them God 
 speed, and ‘ esteem them very highly in love, for their work's sake.’ 
 
 « ¢ But, are all such pastors? would to heaven all were!’ The truth is, 
 however, far otherwise. I say nothing but what every serious, well-informed 
 member and minister of the Scottish Church must admit, with whatever re- 
 gret, when I state, that the majority of the parochial clergy, even in the 
 Lowland districts, come far short of what might be justly expected of them, 
 as religious instructors and Christian pastors. 
 
 ** At no period, perhaps, in the history of the Scottish Church, was gross 
 error generally taught from her pulpits ; and certainly, in this point of view, 
 things are in a state of improvement rather than of deterioration. The in- 
 stances are comparatively rare, in which the doctrines of Socinus, Arius, or 
 Pelagius, are distinctly inculeated by any of the established clergy. But 
 that, in some instances, these dangerous heresies are covertly taught, and 
 
328 NOTES. 
 
 lical party of the Establishment would have very readily acknow- 
 ledged that much more than a moiety of their clergy were not, 
 either in doctrine or in pastoral labours, what Christian ministers 
 ought to be. 
 
 What would have been the amount of this destitution but for the 
 Dissenters ? In many adark district of our land, a few poor Christian 
 men, finding that they could not comfortably exist without the bread 
 and water of life, combined their scanty resources, built a humble 
 place of worship, and a corresponding mansion for a pastor, and se- 
 cured for themselves a regular administration of Christian ordinances. 
 To their néighbours they said, You are welcome to enjoy the same 
 advantages as we do, if you are disposed to cast in your lot with us ;— 
 and if not, you are welcome to occupy seats in our place of worship, 
 as long as there are any to occupy. 
 
 These places multiplied and filled the land,j—and what was the 
 Established Church doing all the while? Frequently opposing such 
 attempts, which their neglect had made necessary, but, as a church, 
 doing absolutely nothing to meet the evil which, from the grow- 
 ing population of the country, was every year becoming greater. A 
 few Chapels of Ease were indeed established, but these were not 
 the work of the Church—they were the work of individuals who had 
 much difficulty, in many cases, to obtain permission from the Church 
 to form communities so closely resembling Dissenting congregations. 
 
 At last, however, when the Dissenting places of worship had, during 
 a century, grown to nearly eight hundred, and the Established 
 Churches during that period had, in certain districts, if not over the 
 country generally, rather diminished than increased in number,— 
 some wise men of the Established Church made the discovery, that, 
 
 ~ 
 
 that, in many others, an extremely extenuated system of doctrine and mo- 
 rals, takes the place of ‘ the whole counsel of God,’ there is no room to doubt. 
 There are not only many parishes, but there are large districts of country, 
 where a full, and pure dispensation of divine truth, from the pulpits of the 
 establishment, is unknown ; and when to this is added, as it must be, that 
 the duties of pastoral inspection, visitation, and catechising, are either en- 
 tirely neglected, or very perfunctorily performed ; while the minister, exhi- 
 biting few evidences of personal piety, if not marked by positive immoralities, 
 is entirely occupied by secular pursuits, it is easy to perceive that if this 
 state of things prevail in many of the Lowland parishes of Scotland (and 
 whether it does or not, we are willing to refer to the decision of any well- 
 informed and candid man, of whatever persuasion), a large portion of their 
 inhabitants must, so far as the established system of religious instruetion is 
 concerned, be ina very destitute condition indeed.” 
 
PROPOSED ADDITIONAL ENDOWMENTS. 329 
 
 if government would but furnish them with funds, they could soon so 
 multiply ministers as that, without any assistance from the Dissenters, 
 the population should at least not want a sufficient number of in- 
 structors, forgetful apparently, that unless means could be found for 
 permanently improving the quality of these instructors, the increase of 
 their number would be but a very questionable benefit. That their 
 design is rather to multiply instructors—than to increase instruction, 
 is obvious ; for instead of confining themselves to those portions of our 
 land which, from a variety of circumstances, are still but imperfectly 
 supplied with the means of religious instruction, they have turned 
 their attention first, to those places where dissent chiefly flourishes ; 
 and have, in many situations, fixed on a site for a new church, where 
 no probable reason for the choice could be assigned but that it was 
 in the neighbourhood of a Dissenting place of worship. 
 
 The scarcely concealed object of the plan is to put down dissent,— 
 that is, to supplant a system of religious instruction which their own 
 criminal neglect made necessary, and which, without burden on the 
 public, is answering in a degree fully equal to every reasonable ex- 
 pectation, its great ends,—by a system which, judging from the past, 
 cannot be relied on—a system which, while it involves the country 
 in a permanent heavy expense, cannot be established without injur- 
 ing the property of those who, to promote the spiritual benefit of 
 themselves and their brethren, have expended large sums in buildings 
 and otherwise, and cannot be established in the desired extent with- 
 out materially trenching on the comforts of ministers who have de- 
 voted themselves to the service of Christ in the Dissenting churches. 
 
 A plan more replete with injury and insult to a set of men who, by 
 their assiduous labours, have deserved well of their country, and who 
 are guilty of no crime but that they are not of the Established Church, 
 was never formed. Some who assisted in the formation of this scheme, 
 and many who have taken a part in forwarding its execution, looking so 
 entirely at “ their own things,” as completely to overlook “the things 
 of others,” have been, I am persuaded, but partially, if at all aware 
 of some of its tendencies ; but with regard to others, we do them no 
 wrong when, believing their own avowal, we assert, that the annihila- 
 tion of dissent is their object,—an object which cannot be extensively 
 prosecuted, much less gained, without an amount of unprovoked per- 
 sonal injury, and irreparable public disadvantage, which it is impos- 
 sible to caleulate. The Voluntaries never dreamed of doing any 
 thing like this. Though persuaded, on the testimony of their own 
 brethren, that more than a half of the clergy of the Establishment 
 
 ¥ 
 
990 NOTES. , 
 
 were not efficient Christian pastors, they never thought, even had 
 they the power, of depriving one of these clergy during his life of the 
 emoluments of the office, whose duties he had never performed ; but 
 only proposed that as they dropped, another system, less expensive 
 to the country, and more effective for the purposes of general Chris- 
 tian instruction, should gradually take place. 
 
 ‘ But a great reformation has taken place in the Church.’ We are 
 glad to hear it: we trust that, to a certain extent, it isso. But fear 
 and anger are suspicious principles of reform, and cannot at once 
 transmute a careless ministry into exemplary Christian pastors. Even 
 though we had no conscientious objections to the extension of the 
 Establishment, we would be disposed to try this new-born zeal for a 
 few years, before we reposed additional confidence in those who have 
 already so strangely disappointed reasonable expectation. 
 
 The power of the Voluntary principle within the Established 
 Churches, is a most cheering consideration. Let it become some- 
 what more energetic, and let it prove itself steady, and additional en- 
 dowments will soon be seen to be utterly unnecessary. This is one 
 of the pleasing symptoms that Providence is ripening the Churches — 
 burdened with Establishment, for emancipation; and that a crisis, 
 which every one who is not blind, sees fast approaching, may likely 
 pass without even temporary injury, while it must be followed by 
 great permanent advantage to both these religious bodies. 
 
 In the mean time, we feel not only warranted but bound to oppose 
 by all constitutional methods,* the measure which the mistaken 
 
 * Among these constitutional means, petitioning the legislature is one, 
 and I think it right to insert here a petition presented by the congregation of 
 Broughton Place, in the year 1835, as containing within narrow limits a view 
 of the whole case of Endowments. 
 
 “To the Honourable the Commons or GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND, 
 in Parliament assembled, the Preririon of the Subscribers, the 
 Minister, Elders, Members, and Hearers, of the United Asso- 
 ciate Congregation, Broughton Place, Edinburgh ; 
 
 “« Humbly Showeth, 
 
 “ That your petitioners having heard that application has been made to 
 your Honourable House for a grant of money from the public revenue to 
 build and endow New Churches in connexion with the Establishment in this 
 country, beg leave respectfully to express their strong conviction that the 
 proposed measure is unnecessary, unjust, and impolitic—and their earnest 
 request and confident hope, that your Honourable House, by refusing to sane- 
 tion it, will prevent the evils which must result from its adoption. 
 
PROPOSED ADDITIONAL ENDOWMENTS. 331 
 
 friends of the Established church are endeavouring, by the unscrupu- 
 lous use of very questionable means, at present to carry. As Cirt- 
 zENs who wish the good of the commonwealth, we are decidedly hos- 
 
 “ἐ That your petitioners most cordially approve of the avowed object of this 
 measure,—which is to supply with the means of religious instruction those of 
 our countrymen who are destitute of them, and beg leave to state what, un- 
 der the influence of this sentiment, they have done and are doing towards 
 the gaining of so desirable an end. In the year 1820, they, without any as- 
 sistance, built the place of worship where they observe the ordinances of re- 
 ligion, in a district of the city at that time entirely destitute, so far as the 
 Establishment was concerned, of adjacent church accommodation, at an ex- 
 pense of more than £7000; and besides the support they individually give 
 to Bible, Missionary, and other Religious Societies, which is not less than 
 that of their brethren in the Establishment, they, as a congregation, are an- 
 nually expending, on the maintenance of the ministry and ordinances of the 
 Gospel, the support of their poor, and the extension of Christianity at home 
 and abroad, about £1400.* Your petitioners advert to these facts for the 
 purpose of showing that their opposition to this measure does not originate in 
 hostility to, or carelessness about, its avowed object. 
 
 “ That your petitioners most decidedly disapprove of the real object of the 
 measure—which is to extend the Established Church of Scotland, so as to 
 afford accommodation in connexion with it, for the whole population of the 
 country, by a grant of public money,—for the following, among other rea- 
 sons :— 
 
 “(1.) Because, they consider it equally unjust and impolitic, to devote 
 public funds to the maintenance of any one religious denomination. 
 
 “ (2.) Because, being conscientiously dissatisfied with the Establishment, 
 and being already heavily taxed for its support,—many of them being com- 
 pelled to pay for that purpose a sum larger than that which they voluntarily 
 contribute to the maintenance of their own religious institutions—they must 
 count it hard, if, instead of being delivered, as they conceive they ought to 
 be, from an unjust exaction, they should have more money extorted from 
 them to extend a system (viz. the compulsory support of religion), of which 
 they disapprove as unscriptural, unwise, and iniquitous. 
 
 * (3.) Because, with some local exceptions, accommodation for that por- 
 tion of the population who can be expected to attend public worship, is al- 
 ready abundantly provided in this country, though the applicants, most dis- 
 ingenuously in reference to the legislature, and most insolently in reference 
 to the Dissenters, have endeavoured to keep this out of view, by merely 
 stating the accommodation afforded by the churches connected with the 
 Establishment. 
 
 “ἐ (4.) Because the Members of the Established Church, being confessedly 
 the most wealthy portion of the community are able—and being, according 
 to their own account, the most religious portion of the community, must 
 surely be willing—to provide church accommodation for themselves, and for 
 such as choose to worship along with them. 
 
 * During last year the sum raised and expended exceeded £1700. 
 
332 NOTES. 
 
 tile to additional endowments. Convinced that that portion of the 
 public funds by which an Established Church is supported is misap- 
 propriated, in being devoted not to civil objects of common interest 
 to all the citizens, but to a purpose not merely professedly religious, 
 
 **(5.) Because the scarcely disguised design of this measure, the annihi- 
 lation of Dissent, is not only impracticable by such means, (inasmuch as the 
 cause of Dissent is not the difficulty of finding accommodation in the Esta- 
 blished Churches—no such difficulty existing, as in comparatively very few 
 cases are these churches filled,and in many cases they are half empty—but con- 
 scientious dissatisfaction, either with the constitution or administration of the 
 Establishment),—but could not be realized by any means, without destroying 
 property to a very large amount, which has been fixed in buildings erected 
 by Dissenters for public worship,—the necessity of the erection of which, in 
 most cases, has originated in the Establishment either having neglected to 
 furnish the means of instruction to a growing population, or failed to afford 
 such instruction as the people could conscientiously receive,—nor without re- 
 ducing to destitution the ministers of the Dissenting Congregations, who have 
 devoted themselves to the supply of wants principally occasioned, even ac- 
 cording to their own statements, by the criminal negligence of the Established 
 Clergy. 
 
 “(6.) Because the eight hundred dissenting places of worship, which it is 
 the ultimate object of this measure to shut up, are, with fewer exceptions 
 than could have been anticipated, serving the purpose of giving a wholesome 
 and acceptable religious instruction to that portion of the population who 
 attend them—without any expense to the public funds; while the Esta- 
 blished Churches with which it is proposed to replace them, though entailing 
 a heavy burden on the nation, would not, judging from the experience of the 
 last century, be equally efficient for the great object which it is proposed to 
 gain—the bringing the whole people under the influence of Christian truth. 
 The result would be the giving a less satisfactory religious instruction to a 
 smaller number ; a worse state of things being thus produced, at a great ex- 
 pense to the country, than that which now exists. 
 
 “(7.) Because, in fine, it is in the highest degree iniquitous and cruel, not 
 merely to impose on the Dissenters an additional fine for holding their con- 
 scientious opinions, but to extort that fine from them for the express pur- 
 pose of being employed in the establishment of a system, which, should the 
 sanguine expectations of its authors be realized, will render the property they 
 have laid out on their places of public worship valueless, and destroy a cause 
 which they regard as the cause of truth and of God. 
 
 “ May it therefore please your Honourable House to withhold 
 additional Endowments from the Church of Scotland, and thus 
 avert the imposition of a tax insulting, as well as injurious, to 
 Dissenters, and hazardous to the peace and comfort, of both 
 religious and civil society in this country. 
 
 “ And your Petitioners will ever pray.” 
 
PROPOSED ADDITIONAL ENDOWMENTS. 333 
 
 and with which, for that very reason, the civil power has nothing to 
 to do, but obviously sectarian—the aggrandisement of one class of 
 religionists, at the expense and to the degradation of all other deno- 
 minations of Christians, though equally good subjects,—we must con- 
 sider the continued existence of the Establishment as a great national 
 grievance ; every new appropriation of the funds legally attachable 
 for such purposes—in the augmentation of ministers’ stipends, or the 
 endowment of new churches from the unexhausted tiends—we must 
 consider as an additional grievance, and of course we must consider any 
 successful attempt to lay hold on public funds, which, without a new 
 enactment of the Legislature, cannot be employed for such a purpose, 
 as a more intolerable grievance still. Objecting, on the principles of 
 an enlightened political economy, to the Establishment, as a mono- 
 poly which never ought to have existed, and which ought to be put 
 down with the least possible delay, consistent with public peace and 
 private rights, we must protest against every attempt—equally opposed 
 as it must be to reason, justice, and the spirit of the age—to extend 
 and perpetuate its evils. 
 
 As Curistrans, we feel ourselves not less strongly bound to oppose 
 the extension of a system which is based on the usurpation of the in- 
 alienable rights of God, and the blood-bought prerogatives of his Son, 
 directly repeals one of the leading ordinances of his kingdom,* renders 
 impracticable the execution of many of his laws, and is almost equally 
 hostile to the purity and to the diffusion of his religion—to the peace 
 and to the enlargement of his Church. If, with these views, we are 
 bound to seek the destruction of such a system, how much more must 
 we be bound to resist its extension ? 
 
 As DissEnTERS, we cannot shut our eyes to the fact, that the scheme 
 is intended and calculated to injure, and if realized in the degree an- 
 ticipated by its more sanguine supporters, to destroy the Voluntary 
 churches, which, in our apprehension, are the only churches harmon- 
 izing in their constitution, with the will of the Great Head of the 
 Church. The spirit which the scheme breathes is that distinctly ex- 
 pressed by an English advocate of Church extension—* As a system, 
 Dissent is an evil greater than we can express, and if carried to the 
 extent of the subversion of the national churches of England and 
 Scotland, to say nothing of other Protestant churches, nothing but a 
 direct special miracle, which we have no right to look for, more es- 
 pecially when we set aside the obvious means of grace, could pre- 
 vent the ultimate extirpation of Christianity from the earth.”t 1 
 
 * 1 Cor. ix. 14; Gal. vi. 6. + Christian Observer. 
 
994 NOTES. 
 
 cannot wonder at Churchmen, with these views, seeking the exten- 
 sion of the Establishment: And as our views are directly opposite— 
 as we firmly believe that Establishment is an evil greater than we can 
 express—and if carried on to the extent of the subversion of the Vo-~ 
 luntary churches of England and Scotland, to say nothing of America, 
 and other Protestant churches, nothing but a direct special miracle, 
 which we have no right to look for, more especially when we set 
 aside the obvious means of grace, could prevent the ultimate extir- 
 pation of Christianity from the earth ;—they should not wonder if, 
 with these views, we oppose them. There is an important difference, 
 however, between the objects we are respectively seeking. They 
 seek the annihilation of our churches—we only seek the freedom and 
 purity of theirs. We seek their prosperity—they seek our destruc- 
 tion. In defence of the great principles of truth, righteousness, 11- 
 berty, and peace, embodied in the constitution of our Voluntary 
 churches, we feel ourselves strongly bound, irresistibly impelled, to 
 oppose every attempt to bring interests so precious into peril. 
 
 But it is not only as Citizens, as Christians, and as Dissenters, but also - 
 aS WELL-WISHERS OF OUR CHRISTIAN BRETHREN CONNECTED WITH THE Esta- 
 BLISHED Cuurcu—as friends to the true interests of that church, though 
 just on that account inveterate foes to her establishment—that we feel 
 bound to oppose additional endowments. We bear no ill will to the 
 Church of Scotland—we have a cordial affection for many of her mem- 
 bers and ministers; and it is because we wish them both well, that we 
 would, if we could, relieve them of their chains altogether, and, at 
 any rate, do what we can to prevent them from being more exten- 
 sively entrammelled. The freedom they possess, we wish to secure 
 to them, in the hope that the little leaven will ere long leaven the 
 whole lump. Our Christian friends in the Establishment were in the 
 habit of telling us that their church needed reformation, and we be- 
 lieved them. They said that they were earnestly desirous of her re- 
 formation, and we did not call that in question either. But we have 
 to tell them, that in seeking endowments, they are seeking,—and that 
 in resisting endowments, we are resisting,—that which, instead of con- 
 ducing to their church’s reformation, would certainly produce her 
 further deformation: and the evidence of this is at once so abundant 
 and so accessible, that we wonder they do not perceive it, and for 
 their own sakes go along with us in opposing these endowments. 
 
 The prosperity of a church must be in proportion to the efficiency 
 of her ministers. It might be invidious to compare the endowed mi- 
 nisters of the Establishment with the unendowed ministers of the 
 
PROPOSED ADDITIONAL ENDOWMENTS. 335 
 
 Dissent, as to efficiency ; but surely there can be nothing invidious in 
 such a comparison of the endowed clergy in the church, with the un- 
 endowed clergy in the church. Now, what is the proportion of the 
 endowed clergy, who are, as to doctrine and pastoral superintendence, 
 and general conduct, what Christian ministers ought to be? If we 
 may believe the evangelical party in the church, they, till very lately 
 at any rate, constituted a very decided minority of that body. And 
 what is the proportion of really efficient ministers among the unen- 
 dowed clergy of the Establishment ?—I mean the ministers of what 
 used to be called Chapels of Ease. With a very rare exception 
 here and there, now and then, the great body of them deserve that 
 character. The remark here made in reference to the Church of 
 Scotland, is at least as applicable to the Church of England. 
 
 Here is a fact, then, which seems to settle the whole question, Whe- 
 ther additional endowments are calculated to promote the interests of 
 the Established Church? Are there so many very active ministers in 
 the Church of Scotland, that it is desirable to reduce their number 
 or diminish their diligence? If there be, the getting endowments is 
 the shortest and most effectual method of gaining this end. Our 
 friends in the Establishment are indebted to Dissenters in many 
 ways, and among the rest they are indebted to us for our attempt to 
 prevent them getting the endowments—they will be still more in- 
 debted to us if we succeed in our attempt—and they will be most of 
 all indebted to us when we gain the object we are labouring for, and 
 are quite sure of ultimately gaining—their deliverance, entirely and 
 for ever, from the burden of State endowment. That will do incom- 
 parably more for the purification of the church, stigmatized by the 
 appellation, civilly established, than a hundred veto acts, though they 
 were secured from being neutralized by the decision of a civil court, 
 or even the abolition of patronage, if unaccompanied, which it is not 
 likely to be, with the complete disseveration of the connexion be- 
 tween Church and State. There is no immediate prospect of our 
 being able to do our friends in the Church so much good as we wish ; 
 but that is no reason why we should not do what is in our power— 
 show good-will, by endeavouring to prevent a measure which, while 
 it would no doubt impose an additional burden on our shoulders, and 
 throw additional obstacles in our way in doing good, would be per:: 
 manent injury and increased degradation to them—blasting all the 
 hopes of reformation which the late display of energy and zeal in 
 
 voluntary exertions, has led the charitable of other denominations 
 to indulge. 
 
336 NOTES. 
 
 NOTE XXVI. 
 
 IMPORTANCE OF THE EXPOSITION OF SCRIPTURE, AND OUR DUTY 
 IN REFERENCE TO A DIVINE REVELATION. 
 
 I never enter on the exposition of a portion of inspired Scripture, 
 without a conviction that in doing so I am performing one of the most 
 important and responsible duties of my office as a public Christian 
 teacher. I feel as if the ground on which I stood were peculiarly 
 holy. It has always appeared to me, that it was comparatively a 
 light matter to state generally my own views respecting any particu- 
 lar point of Christian doctrine or duty. If I have fixed opinions 
 on any subject, 1 must know them and can readily express them. 
 But in expounding Scripture I am declaring what, after using the best 
 means in my power for ascertaining it, appears to me the mind of the 
 Divine Spirit in a particular part of that word, all of which was given 
 by his inspiration. My object is to bring the mind of man into direct 
 contact with the mind of God ; not merely to state truth—nothing but 
 truth—but to state the truth in the defined form which it wears in 
 that particular passage. 
 
 It cannot be wondered at if this feeling was peculiarly strong, when 
 called in the providence of God to expound a portion of Scripture, 
 which I have been publicly accused of grossly misinterpreting, and 
 of giving substantial form to my misinterpretation in “‘ a more fla- 
 grant violation of the Divine law than has often been exemplified.” 
 I did not form my opinion of the meaning of this passage without se- 
 rious inquiry—nor did 1 act on that opinion till I was fully satisfied 
 of the soundness of the ground on which I stood. My honest wish 
 was to know the meaning of this part of Christ’s law—and should 
 I have misapprehended it, I shall account it no common favour if any 
 man will put me right. But 1 must be convinced into a change of 
 mind and alteration of conduct. I cannot be scolded into them.* 
 
 * “ Nothing, I confess, is more nauseous to me, than magisterial dic- 
 tates in sacred things, without an evident deduction and confirmation of 
 assertions from Scripture testimonies. Some men write as if they were in- 
 spired, or dreamed that they had obtained for themselves a Pythagorean 
 reverence. Their writings are full of strong authoritative assertions, arguing 
 the good opinion they have of themselves, which I wish did not include an 
 equal contempt of others. But any thing may be easily affirmed and as 
 easily rejected.’’—Owen on the Sabbath. Evercit. 1. § 8. 
 
IMPORTANCE OF THE EXPOSITION OF SCRIPTURE. 337 
 
 Nothing is more obviously irrational and impious than to refuse to 
 acquiesce in the declarations, whether doctrinal or practical, of a 
 plain, well-accredited divine revelation, on the ground that they do 
 not accord with our previously formed notions of what is possible or 
 what is proper; and nothing is more plainly right and reasonable 
 than, with childlike simplicity, to receive the dictates of that all-per- 
 fect Mind; who is equally incapable of being deceived and of deceiving 
 —who is the fountain of truth, and the source of knowledge. Chil- 
 lingworth spoke the words of common sense as well as of piety when 
 he said, ‘ Propose me any thing out of this book, and require whe- 
 ther 1 believe it or no, and seem it never so incomprehensible by hu- 
 man reason, I will subscribe it with hand and heart, as knowing that 
 no demonstration can be stronger than this, God hath said so, there- 
 fore it is true.” Ido not knowif there is any act of religious homage 
 more becoming in man and more honourable to God, than thus 
 humbling ourselves in the inmost sanctuary of our rational nature, 
 and laying on His altar there, that “ high thing,” of which the no- 
 blest spirits find it most difficult to make a sacrifice—intellectual in- 
 dependence. 
 
 Yet to render such an oblation, either becoming in man or accept- 
 able to God, it must, like every other act of devotion, be “ a reason- 
 able service.” Before I bow to a principle, whether doctrinal or prac- 
 tical, as of divine revelation, I must be persuaded that it is a principle 
 of divine revelation ;—I must, in other words, apprehend its evidence 
 and its meaning. 
 
 I must apprehend its evidence, otherwise my profession of belief 
 in the Bible is no more homage to the divine authority, than the Mo- 
 hammedan’s profession of belief in the Koran—or the Hindoo’s pro- 
 fessed belief in the Shasters. In their case they take for granted the 
 divine authority of works of imposture, and in my case I take for 
 granted the divine authority of a genuine revelation, entirely on the 
 unsupported testimony of man, and, of course, we are all equally in 
 reality subjecting our minds, not to the rightful sovereignty of God, 
 but to the usurped dominion of man. It may be the word of God 
 which I am receiving, but to me, continuing ignorant of its evidence, 
 it is but the word of man. A large proportion of professed faith in 
 the Christian revelation, it is to be feared, is thus so far from subjec- 
 tion to the divine authority, that it is implied rebellion against it. 
 
 But before I can reasonably and acceptably yield the homage of 
 implicit subjection to a principle or precept of divine revelation, 1 
 must not merely apprehend its evidence, but also its meaning. When 
 
338 NOTES. 
 
 I meet with a passage in a well-accredited revelation which I do not 
 understand, the farthest I can go reasonably—the farthest 1 ought to 
 attempt to go—while things continue in this state, is a firm convic- 
 tion that whatever it means is true and right—something which, if I 
 understood, I ought to believe or do—a persuasion which, if sincere, 
 will urge me to employ all the means in my power to discover its 
 meaning. But I must not in these circumstances do what is often 
 done—surrender my understanding into another man’s hands, and re- 
 ceive his explanation of the passage as the true one, unless he is able 
 to make it distinctly out to my mind that it isso. It is to the word 
 of God, and not to man’s explications of the word of God, that I am 
 bound to do homage. Human explications are, in their own place, 
 useful and excellent things, but out of their own place they are most 
 mischievous things. Their use is not to furnish us with what we are 
 to believe—but to place in a clear and satisfactory light the meaning 
 and evidence of that divine word which should at once be the rule 
 and the reason of our faith and duty. The man who takes for grant- 
 ed, without examination, human explications of a revelation, which 
 on satisfactory evidence he has received as divine, is in effect as much 
 an idolater of human authority, as if he had embraced the revelation 
 without any inquiry into its evidence at all.* 
 
 There has been, and still is, on the part of some human expositors, 
 an assumption of an authority which does not belong to them, and on 
 the part of many professors of Christianity too easy a submission to 
 these unauthorized claims. Never can the divine injunction be too 
 frequently repeated—too strongly urged—too deeply pondered : “ Call 
 no nan on earth master.” It is of high importance to carry these 
 truths about with us in all our investigations into the meaning of the 
 inspired volume—but never is it of more importance than in our in- 
 quiries as to the meaning of passages of Scripture, which, though it 
 may be not particularly difficult in themselves, have been, from va- 
 rious causes, differently interpreted. Amid the tumultuous noise of 
 hostile disputants, it is not at all times easy to hear the still small 
 voice of inspired truth—and yet if this is not distinguished and lis- 
 tened to, and understood, and believed, and obeyed, what are we the 
 better? By attending to the former we may become accomplished 
 
 * “Inspired writings are an inestimable treasure to mankind ; for so many 
 sentences, so many truths. But then the true sense of them must be known : 
 otherwise so many sentiments, so many τ \authorized falschoods,”’—Dr George 
 Bright— Preface to Lightfoot’s Works, vol.i. Fol. Lond. 1684, 
 
THE LAW OF TRIBUTE NOT UNLIMITED. 339 
 
 sophisters—able disputers of this world; but it is only by attending 
 to the latter, that we become possessors of “ the seeret of the Lord,” 
 and are made “ wise to salvation.” * 
 
 NOTE XXVII. 
 
 ABSURDITY OF SUPPOSING THE LAW OF TRIBUTE TO HAVE NO 
 LIMITS. 
 
 ** Let it be supposed that after Nebuchadnezzar had made the de- 
 cree for all to fall down and worship his image, and the three children 
 were apprehended for refusing it, he had made another, that all, the 
 Jews especially, should contribute every one a faggot, or money to 
 buy it, to heat the furnace, or a rope to lead them to it ; camany man 
 suppose that Daniel, or the rest of the faithful, would have paid it? 
 Even so, let it be supposed that one of these faithful ambassadors of 
 Christ, or all these zealous workers together with God, who have la- 
 
 * © There is no Christian man, but will submit his understanding to God, 
 and believe whatever he hath said; but always provided he knows that God 
 hath said so, else he must do his duty by a readiness to obey when he shall 
 know it. But for cbedience or humility of the understanding towards men, 
 that is a thing of another consideration ; and it must first be made evident 
 that his understanding must be submitted to men; and who these men are 
 must also be certain, before it be adjudged a sin, not to submit. But if I 
 mistake not, Christ’s saying, ‘ Call no man master on earth,’ is so great a 
 prejudice against this pretence, as I doubt not will go near wholly to make 
 it invalid. So that as the worshipping of angels is a humility indeed, but it 
 is voluntary, and a will-worship to an ill sense, not to be excused by the ex- 
 cellency of humility, nor the virtue of religion : so is the relying upon the 
 judgment of man a humility, too, but such as comes not under that 
 ὑπακοη πίστεως, that obedience of faith, which is the duty of every Chris- 
 tian ; but entrenches on that duty which we owe to Christ as an acknow- 
 ledgment that he is our great Master, and the Prince of the Catholic Church. 
 ΡΥ ae oe In the meantime, he that submits his understanding to all that 
 he knows God hath said, and is ready to submit to all that he hath said, if 
 he but know it, denying his own affections, and interest, and human persua- 
 sions, laying them all down at the feet of his great Master, Jesus Christ, 
 that man hath brought his understanding into subjection, and every proud 
 thought into the obedience of Christ, and this is ὑπακοὴ πίστεως; the obe- 
 dience of faith, which is the duty of a Christian.”—Jeremy Taylor’s Liberty 
 of Prophesying, Sect. 2, pp. 28-31. 4dto. Lond. 1647. 
 
340 NOTES. 
 
 boured among the people in the preached Gospel, should fall into the 
 hands of these hunters, and then they should make a law, and ap- 
 point every man in the nation to send but one thread to make a towe 
 to hang that minister, or to hang the whole company of Christ’s am- 
 bassadors, and a farthing to pay the executioner, can any man with- 
 out horror think of complying so far as to contribute what is com- 
 manded ?”—.A Hind let Loose, pp. 718, 714. 
 
 NOTE XXVIII. 
 
 MODE OF SUPPORTING HEATHEN WORSHIP, AND TERTULLIAN’S TES- 
 TIMONY ON THIS SUBJECT CONSIDERED. 
 
 « Certe, inquitis, templorum vectigalia quotidie decoquunt. Stipes 
 quotusquisque jam jactat ? Non enim sufficimus et hominibus et diis 
 vestris mendicantibus opem ferre, nec putamus aliis quam petentibus 
 impertiendum: denique porrigat manum Jupiter, et accipiat ; cum 
 interim plus nostra misericordia insumit vicatim, quam vestra religio 
 templatim. Sed cetera vectigalia gratias Christianis agent, ex fide de- 
 pendentibus debitum, qua alieno fraudando abstinemus ; ut si ineatur 
 quantum vectigalibus pereat fraude et mendacio vestrarum profes- 
 sionum, facile ratio haberi possit, unius speciei querela cumpensata 
 pro commodo ceterarum rationum.”—Tertull. Apologet. cap. 42. 
 
 This paragraph may be rendered thus :—“ But you say the revenues 
 of the temples—vectigalia templorum—daily decrease; who now 
 throws pieces of money (to the gods)? for we are not able to give as- 
 sistance both to your begging men and deities ; nor do we think that 
 any thing should be given to any but such as crave it: then let Ju- 
 piter stretch out his hand and take it ; for our compassion is bestow- 
 ing more money in the streets than your religion does in the temples. 
 But the other revenues—cetera vectigalia—have cause to give the 
 Christians thanks who discharge what is due, with the same fidelity 
 with which we abstain from defrauding others; so that, if it were 
 computed how much is lost to the revenues—vectigalibus—by the 
 fraud and cozenage of those of your persuasion, it would readily 
 be seen, that the complaint (against the Christians) as to one spe- 
 cies (of revenue) is compensated by the benefit done by them to the 
 rest.” 
 
 Dr Cave, in his Primitive Christianity, Part III. chap. 4, states his 
 
MODE OF SUPPORTING HEATHEN IDOLATRY. 341 
 
 understanding of the meaning of this passage,—thus, “ Tertullian 
 tells them, that, although they refused to pay the tawes rated on them 
 Jor the maintenance of the heathen temples, yet for all other tributes 
 they had cause to give the Christians thanks, for so faithfully paying 
 what was due ; it being their principle to abstain from defrauding of 
 others, inasmuch, that should they examine their accounts, how much 
 of the assessments were lost by the fraud and cozenage of them of 
 their own party, they would easily find that the Christians’ denial to 
 pay that one tax was abundantly compensated, and made up in their 
 honest payment of all the rest.”—Cave's Primitive Christianity, Part 
 III. chap. 4. 
 
 Reeves, in his translation, thus renders it: “‘ Certainly, say you, 
 the rates for the temple now come to nothing, and who can brag of 
 any collections for the gods? and really we cannot help it; for, in 
 good truth, we are not able to relieve such a parcel of beggars both of 
 gods and men; we think it very well if we can give to them that 
 ask ; and I will pass my word, that if Jupiter will but hold out his 
 hand, he shall fare as well as any other beggar. For we bestow more 
 in the streets than you, with all your religion, do in your temples. 
 However, if your temple-wardens have reason to complain against 
 the Christians, the public, I am sure, has not ; but, on the contrary, 
 very great reason to thank us for the customs we pay with the same 
 conscience as we abstain from stealing. So that was the account 
 fairly stated, how much the public is cheated in its revenues by the 
 tricks and lies of those of your religion who bring in an inventory of 
 their goods to be taxed accordingly, you would soon find, I say, at 
 the foot of the account, that what the temple may lose in her offer- 
 ings by the Christian religion, the state sufficiently gets in her taxes 
 by the Christian’s fidelity in their public payments.”—Reeves’ Apolo- 
 gies of Justin Martyr, Tertullian, and Minutius Felix, vol. i. pp. 323, 
 324. Lond. 1716. 
 
 An anonymous translator gives a looser version of the passage :— 
 “ But say you the revenues of our temples lessen every day, and no- 
 body gives any thing to them who minister in the holy offices? We 
 own the charge ; for we are not able to relieve both your priests and 
 your gods. However, if Jupiter will come in person and ask our 
 alms, he shall see how generous we will be. But, in truth, we give 
 more charity in one street than you spend in all the sacrifices offered 
 to your gods. Now, though you can find time to complain how the 
 revenues of your temples lessen, yet you take no notice how your 
 other taxes increase upon our account. For many who, before they 
 
342 NOTES. 
 
 became Christians, cheated and cozened you, now pay their respec- 
 tive sums with great care and fidelity ; so that, if you consider the 
 loss the public sustained by those acts and evasions by which many 
 of us before cheated you, it will be found far to outbalance all the 
 disadvantages you receive by our religion.”—These two excellent mo- 
 numents of ancient learning and piety—Minutius Felix’s Octavius, 
 and Tertullian’s Apology rendered into English, pp. 240, 241. Lond. 
 1708. 
 
 Dr Cave has been censured by a note-writer in the Edinburgh Ad- 
 vertiser, of 24th November, 1837, for having “ wholly misapprehend- 
 ed” the meaning of the passage. But although there are no words in the 
 original answering exactly to the phrase, “ refused to pay the taxes 
 rated upon them for maintenance of the heathen temples,” which Dr 
 Cave uses, there are not a few reasons which controvert so strong a 
 censure, and seem to prove that the Doctor—perhaps, from knowing 
 more than his censurer—retained the sentiment, while departing 
 somewhat from the strict letter of his author. 
 
 1. Observe that the term vectigalia is employed twice by Tertullian 
 in the paragraph , and as it is plain that, on the second occasion, it 
 denotes properly taxes, or, at least, revenues derived from taxes or 
 imposts, it is but reasonable to give it the same meaning on its first 
 occurrence, and not to impute to Tertullian the blunder (with which 
 otherwise we should charge him) of employing a word in two differ- 
 ent senses in the same sentence, to the disguise of his own meaning 
 and the embarrassment of his reader.* 
 
 * It also deserves notice, that Reeves renders “ vectigalia templorum”’ 
 rates for the temple; and the anonymous translator contrasts the “ vectigalia 
 templorum,” which he renders REVENUES, with the other TaxEs. It seems 
 a strong presumption, that there is a reference to dues rated and exigible by 
 law, that these different translators have, with great variety of expression, 
 kept to this general idea ; and it may be doubted, if any thing but a very 
 strong bias could have induced any scholar to interpret “ vectigalia templo- 
 rum” in the manner the learned note-writer has done. “ Any version of 
 the passage,” as Mr Marshall remarks, “ if just, must contain enough for 
 our purpose.” The following passages from the work of one of the soundest 
 of scholars, Peter Burmann, “ De vectigalibus Populi Romani,” cast some 
 light on the nature of the “ vectigalia templorum.”— Vectica dictum est a 
 vehendo : quia proprie illud vectigalis genus notat, quod pro vectura mercium 
 exigitur, quod postea sub portorii nomine explicabitur; latius vero postea 
 hujus vocis significatio prolata est, ut omnes omnino reditus et emolumenta 
 eomprehendat, quae ex re aliqua, publico obligata ad serarium perveniunt, et 
 sie ad Decumas,” ἅς. Cap. I. p. 3.— Ut civitatibus, sic etiam vestalibus virgi- 
 
MODE OF SUPPORTING HEATHEN IDOLATRY. 948 
 
 2. Such a change in the import of the term is improbable, for this 
 farther reason, that it evidently divests his argument of relevancy 
 and force. After enumerating and refuting various charges which 
 were then made against the Christians, of being, by their principles 
 and their peculiar manners, useless and even hurtful as citizens, he in- 
 troduces the magistrate, to whom his Apology was addressed, and who 
 had the guardianship of the public religion, as complaining that “ the 
 revenues of the temples were daily falling off,’—meaning thereby 
 that the Christians were withholding their contributions, and so in- 
 juring the public interest : to which complaint, Tertullian’s answer 
 is in substance—That it was “ true the Christians did not pay to such 
 revenues, but to all other revenues they paid so honestly, that the 
 gain on these compensated the loss on those.” 
 
 When the term vectigalia is held to mean revenues derived from 
 taxes, or otherwise ewigible by law, in both branches of the sentence, in 
 the accusation as well asin the defence, Tertullian’s vindication of his 
 fellow-Christians is consistent, pointed, and vigorous. But these qua- 
 lities disappear, and are succeeded by extreme flatness and inconclu- 
 siveness, when, with the note-writer, we hold vectigalia, on its first 
 occurrence, to be equivalent to “ voluntary contributions,” or to 
 “ alms” (as he renders stipes) ; for in that case we make Tertullian 
 to speak as stupidly as a man of these times would do, who, when 
 blamed for not renting a pew in church, or not subscribing to the 
 Bible Society, should plead that ““ he compensated for that defect, by 
 faithfully paying his assessed taxes.” 
 
 3. If the payments to the temples, which the Christians are, by im- 
 plication, blamed for withholding, were not exigible from them by 
 law, but were mere gifts thrown to the gods by those who frequented 
 
 nibus vectigalia queedam data sunt ; preecipue agri vectigales ; unde ab Hygin. 
 et aliis rerum agrariarum auctoribus, virginum vestalium agri vectigales me- 
 morantur. Hzee beneficia liberalitate Principum postea aucta fuere: de 
 Augusto prodit Sueton. cap. 31, eum commoda sacerdotum, sed preecipue ves- 
 talium auxisse ; quo respexit Ovid. 
 
 ‘ Nunc bene lucetis sacre sub Cesare flamme.’—F ast. vi. 455. 
 
 Templa etiam Romanorum opimis reditibus et vectigalibus erant instructa, 
 quibus sacrificia et sacerdotes tuebantur ; aperte de templorum vectigalibus,”’ 
 Tertullian, Apolog. c. 42. “ Certe templorum vectigalia ........ jac- 
 tat,’ &e.—Burmanni Vectigalia. Cap. VII. p.100. 4to. Leide, 1734. 
 
 The most satisfactory account we have met with of the revenues of the 
 Pagan Roman priesthood, is that by the acute and learned Moyle, “ Impri- 
 mis acutus et eruditus,” as Mosheim justly terms him, in his essay on the Ro- 
 man Government.—Posthumous Works, vol. i. pp. 37-50. 
 
944 NOTES. 
 
 the temples, to object against the Christians that they withheld them, 
 was plainly absurd; and the natural answer of Tertullian to the 
 charge would have been, that the payments being either quite volun- 
 tary, or at least required from those alone who used the temples, 
 which the Christians had ceased to do, no reasonable man could ex- 
 pect that they would continue them. 
 
 This answer could not have escaped one, who is styled by Eusebius, 
 Tous Ῥωμαίων νομοὺς ἠκριβωκοτα avdpa,* a man accurately learned in 
 the laws of the Romans ;—of whom Heineccius declares, ‘* Quo nul- 
 lus ecclesia doctorum divini humanique juris peritior fuit,” Ὁ than 
 whom no doctor of the church was more skilled in divine and human 
 laws, and who, by many jurists, has been identified with an eminent 
 Roman jurisconsult of the same name and age, who wrote several 
 treatises on legal topics ; while by those who doubt the identity of the 
 lawyer and the presbyter, it is confessed, that in legal learning the 
 latter was as accomplished as his namesake. 
 
 Instead, however, of giving this most natural and most conclusive 
 answer, our author introduces the mention of other revenues which, 
 confessedly, were the produce of taxes and imposts, and by marking ~ 
 no distinction, except that of application, between the two sorts thus 
 brought into comparison, leaves it to be inferred that they were like, 
 in all other respects, and consequently that those of the temples were 
 also the produce of legal exactions. 
 
 4. It may be said, however, that if by vectigalia templorum, Ter- 
 tullian intended any tax or tribute whatever, it was a tribute paid by 
 those who used the temples ; for he iinmediately subjoins the words, 
 “ Stipes quotusquisque jam jactat? Who now throws tribute” into 
 the treasury of the gods ?—in allusion, probably, to the act or gesture 
 by which it was done ; that, if this tribute was not voluntary, but 
 legally due, it was happily described by the term vectigal, which, ac- 
 cording to etymology, means a tax levied on things carried into, or 
 out from any place ;{ and that taking it therefore in this sense, the 
 sentence intimates, not that the Christians refused to pay a tax due by 
 them, but merely that they refrained from coming within the opera-~ 
 tion of one. 
 
 If this interpretation were proposed, it might be urged against it, 
 in the first place, that inasmuch as the other expression, cetera vecti- 
 
 * Hist. Ecel. lib. ii. 6. 2. + Hein. Opera, tom. vi. 34. Edit. 1772. 
 
 + Vectigalia, according to the learned Petit, were collected by publicans, 
 while the tributum was not ; and he quotes a passage from Tacitus, Annal. 
 xiii. 50, which seems clearly to prove this. Crit. Sac. tom. ix. col, 1166. 
 
MODE OF SUPPORT OF HEATHEN IDOLATRY. 345 
 
 galia, clearly means taxes of a very different kind from a mere op- 
 tional tribute, there would still be a want of congruity between the 
 first and the second use of the term, and consequently a want of rele. 
 vancy and force in the sentiment: In the second place, that no infe- 
 rence in favour of this limited sense of vectigalia can justly be drawn 
 from the subsequent specification of stipes ; for the reference to that 
 particular species of tribute appears plainly to have been made, not 
 with the view of explaining what the vectigalia were, but by way of 
 example of the fact, that the vectigalia were decaying,—which ex- 
 ample, Tertullian was evidently led to select, chiefly by the opportu- 
 nity which it gave him of flinging out a taunt about Jupiter’s impo- 
 tency as a beggar—as appears from this, among other considerations, 
 that the sober import of the passage remains whole and entire, and 
 even improved by condensation, when the gibe, thus rhetorically in- 
 terjected between the beginning and the end of it, is altogether left 
 out: In the last place, that so restricted a meaning of vectigalia is 
 contrary to that which, when not qualified by accompanying words— 
 as when it is opposed to tributwm—or by the nature of the subject 
 spoken of, it commonly bears, namely, tawes generally, whether on 
 persons, on lands (whence agri vectigales and aedes vectigales), or on 
 any other thing.* 
 
 5. Claiming, therefore, for vectigalia as broad a sense in the begin- 
 ning as it bears in the latter part of the sentence, we come to inquire, 
 whether there were, in point of fact, any taxes or revenues for the 
 use of the temples, over which the Christians could exercise such a 
 control as to diminish their amount? And here it is granted to the 
 note-writer, that the heathen worship of the empire does not appear 
 to have been maintained “ by a direct impost upon individuals,”—that 
 infamy having been reserved for a purer faith. Neither does it ap- 
 pear that any of the common taxes upon lands, &c., were imposed 
 expressly for its support. 
 
 It seems certain, at the same time, that it was not upheld by vo- 
 juntary contribution, but at the public expense. The temples, &c., 
 had legal revenues, which were derived from possessions in the city 
 and in the country (loca, praedia, possessiones, fundi, edificia, juga seu 
 capita), which were said to be in jure TemrLorum, and from the pos- 
 sessors of which were levied certain annual payments or prestations. 
 These, along perhaps with the stipes, seem to have constituted the 
 vectigalia templorum. From one passage in Tertullian, which will be 
 subsequently quoted, it may be inferred that they were under the 
 
 * Voet ad Pandectas, lib. xxxix, tit. 4, §§ ll and 12. 
 
 Z 
 
346 NOTES. 
 
 management of the magistrate ; and most probably they mainly form- 
 ed the subjects which he tells us, in other passages, were farmed out 
 to the publicans or tax-gatherers, and on account of which he re- 
 proaches the heathens with having vectigales dei, which may be freely 
 rendered tax-yielding deities, and gods who were sub hastario vectigales, 
 that is, sources of revenue set up to public auction.* Under the Chris- 
 tian princes, these revenues of the temples were diverted from their 
 Pagan destination, some of them having been incorporated with the 
 patrimony of the prince, some applied to defray the expenses of the 
 military, some given to churches, some sold to, and some apparently 
 usurped by, private parties. 
 
 Now it would be a singular construction of this passage of Tertul- 
 lian, which should exclude from vectigalia templorum that which seems 
 to have been the only proper and stable revenue of the Pagan esta- 
 blishment, and the fund from which the gorgeous feasts and games 
 of idolatry were furnished. It would be against reason and against 
 authority also: for we find the great commentator on the Theodosian 
 Code, Gothofredus, in his annotations upon a law of the Emperor 
 Honorius (a. p. 408), by which certain of the annonae templorum, 7. 6. 
 the yearly income of the temples, were transferred to the service of 
 the military, affirming that those Annonae were what Tertullian had 
 designated “ vectigalia templorum.” Annonae templorum, seu, ut a 
 Tertulliano vocantur, templorum vectigalia.t But if it be true that 
 such was the nature of the “ vectigalia ;” if they were not voluntary 
 payments, but rents or taxes exigible by force of law, and if they were 
 falling off in consequence of the defection of the Christians, what can 
 we conclude, but that the Christian occupiers or proprietors of the 
 various possessions from which they were drawn, were not continuing 
 to make a cheerful payment of the dues ? 
 
 6. Certainly, if they had positively declined to pay, they would 
 only have obeyed a principle which seems to be recognized and en- 
 forced by Tertullian in his treatise de Jdololatria, c. 17, where, discuss- 
 ing the question whether a Christian might, like Joseph and Daniel 
 of old, accept of the office of magistrate, he determines it in the affir- 
 mative, provided it be found possible for a Christian in the magistracy 
 
 * Ad. Nationes, lib. i. ec, 10.—Apologeticus, ο. 13. 
 
 + Codex Theodos. tom. vi. 289.—Gothofredus refers to the Apology, ec. 2. 
 and the Treatise de Idololatria, ¢. 7 ; but it would seem that the chapters 
 should be respectively 42 and 17, where the words vectigalia templorum oc- 
 cur, while they are not to be found either in cap. 2, Apologet., or in eap. 7. 
 de Idolol. 
 
MODE OF SUPPORT OF HEATHEN IDOLATRY. 947 
 
 to abstain from all concern in acts tending to uphold or countenance 
 idolatry : provided, for example, that he shall not sacrifice, nor pro- 
 cure the victims, nor take charge of the temples, nor MANAGE THEIR 
 REVENUES—“ non vectigalia eorum (i. e. templorum) procuret.” From 
 which words we may not merely learn that the vectigalia templorum 
 were, as formerly hinted, under the charge of the Roman magistrate, 
 but may fairly conclude, that since the Christians in Tertullian’s time 
 believed that a Christian could not act as a magistrate in collecting 
 revenues destined to an idolatrous purpose, they could scarcely have 
 held that he was bound asa subject to pay them. Although there are 
 doubts as to the time when this treatise was composed, and it is un- 
 certain whether it was written before or after Tertullian had seceded 
 from the Church, yet as it is confessed to exhibit no decisive marks 
 of the ascetic heresy of Montanus, into which he lapsed, it may be 
 taken to be a faithful index to the prevailing sentiments of the Chris- 
 tians.—Indications equally plain that a keen, perhaps, in some de- 
 gree, a morbid sensibility to the pollution of idolatry, in the early 
 Christians, was ever on the watch to keep them out of its way, abound 
 in the writings of Tertullian. 
 
 But, perhaps, we have already said enough for our own immediate 
 purpose, which was to show, that if, with Dr Cave, we choose to dis- 
 cover in the sentence under discussion, a declaration that the early 
 Christians refused to pay dues for the maintenance of the heathen 
 worship, we shall run no great risk of misrepresenting either their 
 principles or their behaviour. 
 
 Bishop Kaye, in the abstract of the “ Apologeticus,” given by him 
 in “ The Ecclesiastical History of the Second and Third Centuries, 
 illustrated from the writings of Tertullian,” states, that in defending 
 the Christians against the charge of being rendered by their religion 
 unfit for the duties of citizenship, the African Father remarks, that 
 the charge when examined, amounts only to this, that “ they brought 
 no offerings to the temples, and contributed nothing towards defray- 
 ing the expenses of the public games, or the support of these trades 
 which were more immediately connected with the pomp and ceremo- 
 nies of idolaters.”* The natural conclusion from this representation 
 is, that the contributions referred to were all optional ; but we believe 
 such a conclusion would at any rate be an unsafe one. Gibbon, who is 
 a very good authority on such a subject, represents Christians who 
 refused to take a part in the public festivals, as disregarding “ the 
 
 " Eccles. Hist. of the Second and Third Century, p. 130. Camb, 1836, 
 
948 NOTES. 
 
 commands of the magistrate,” as well as “ the fashion of their coun- 
 try.” * 
 
 The reader is now able to judge whether the assertion of the learn- 
 ed note-writer already referred to, be as much distinguished by ac- 
 curacy as confidence,—whether his appeal be as safe as it is unhesi- 
 tating, when he says, “ In all this (statement of Tertullian) there is 
 not a single word about the Christians refusing to pay the taxes levied 
 upon them for the maintenance of the heathen temples. We confi- 
 dently refer to the original passage, and appeal to any ‘ simple-heart- 
 ed’ man capable of understanding the words, whether there is an ap- 
 proach to such an idea.” Τὰ will probably be thought by some who 
 are quite as capable of understanding the words, and analyzing the 
 thoughts of Tertullian, as the learned inconnu, that in his eagerness 
 to prove what he wished to be true, he arrived rather too soon at his 
 conclusion, when ‘ he held it demonstrated that it is a libel against 
 the Christians, to represent them as refusing to pay any tax they 
 were rated with ;”+ and that the whole of his statements on this sub- 
 ject have been fully as much marked by “ hardihood of asseveration” 
 as by force of argument. The somewhat caustic remark of ScanicErR- 
 to the learned Jesuit Szrartus, seems not inapplicable here :—‘* Hoc 
 excusandum non erat. Incerra pro certis affirmare TuRPE est.” 
 
 General and uncontradicted report has identified the note-writer 
 
 * Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Ch. XV. vol. i. p. 466. 
 
 + “ We hold it then demonstrated, that it is a libel against the Christians 
 to represent them as refusing to pay any taxes they were rated with. Dr 
 Brown’s glosses, or, rather his friend, the Archbishop’s gloss”—(vide Doeu- 
 ments, No. VI.)—* of an isolated passage, will stand him in no stead. We 
 have the direct testimony of the Fathers that they readily paid all taxes” 
 (of a civil kind), “ without any exception, and their worst enemies never 
 charged them with any thing so extravagant and ridiculous, as might be con- 
 strued into a precedent for the Edinburgh Voluntaries. Ambitious as the 
 primitive Christians were for” (of) “ the crown of martyrdom, it did not oc- 
 cur to these “ single-minded men’ to seek for that crown by the violation of 
 a positive precept of their Divine Master, or by turning their back on his 
 example.” (Yet we will find Mark, bishop of Arethusa, seeking and find- 
 ing the crown of martyrdom, by refusing to pay money exacted from him 
 by public authority, to support what he counted a false religion. — Vide 
 Note XXIX.) “ Dr Brown and his followers may seek in vain among the 
 Fathers for any warrant for their proceedings. These proceedings are, in- 
 deed, not without a precedent. It is, however, not among the simple-heart- 
 ed Christians, but among the TURBULENT Hrropians; and Judas, the Gaul- 
 onite, is their” (his) “ true prototype.’ (Acts v. 37.)—Ldinburgh Adver- 
 tiser, Nov. 24, 1837. 
 
MODE OF SUPPORT OF HEATHEN IDOLATRY. 949 
 
 with an individual occupying an important public station, who has 
 peculiar professional motives and facilities for prosecuting researches 
 in ecclesiastical history. It may be worth his while to push his in- 
 quiries somewhat farther into a subject, which he has given satisfac- 
 tory evidence of having, as yet, but very imperfectly investigated ; 
 and when he has done so, he will, we trust, in his own name, favour 
 the public with the result of his labours. ‘“ Nec enim quenquam 
 virum honestum et doctum ita meticulosum esse arbitror, ut cum op- 
 probrio latere cupiat, aut ita humilem et abjectum, ut nomen sibi 
 suum dedecori esse credat.” * 
 
 Worse things may happen to a man, than to be, like Dr Cave, 
 *¢ chastised into a retractation of his mistakes.” There are some men 
 professedly learned, too, like the Doctor, in ecclesiastical history, who 
 cannot be chastised into a retractation of their mistakes ; but the 
 silence of conscious defeat, the ‘‘ speechlessness” of self-condemnation, 
 while it cannot be less painful, is certainly far more disgraceful. 
 
 We may perhaps also, be at the same time, furnished with some 
 information on another subject, which has excited no ordinary degree 
 of curiosity in the minds of some students of ecclesiastical antiquity. 
 I refer'to the history of “ the turbulent Herodians.” We have long 
 been familiar with the courtly, compliant Herodians, who, if they did 
 not impiously compliment the infamous prince from whom they de- 
 rived their name, with the honours of Messiahship, as Tertullian and 
 Epiphanius write, at least concurred with him, in readily owning the 
 authority of the Romans over the holy people, and in following many 
 of the heathen usages of their conquerors ;+ and who, if they fore- 
 
 * Mattheei prefat. in Apocal. 
 
 + Comparatively little is known about the Herodians. The opinions held 
 on this subject, and the grounds on which they rest, may be learned from 
 the passages referred to :—Prideaux’s Connexion of the Old and New Testa- 
 ments, vol. ii. p.286. Fol. Lond. 1718.—Serarii Herodes, Ch. xxii. p, 279. 
 Moguntize, 1607.—Casauboni Exercitationes de rebus sac. et eccles. ad Ba- 
 ronii Annales, Exercit. I. Num. V. pp. 34, 35. Francof. 1615.—Ellisii For- 
 tuita Saera, pp. 31-53. Rot. 1727.—Noldii Historia Idumea, p. 266. Franeq. 
 1660.—Schulteti Exercitationes Evangelicee, Ch. Ixxxvii. in Criticis Sacris, 
 tom. vii.—Wetstenius in Matth. xxii. 17. Nov. Test. vol. i. p. 473.—Sea- 
 ligeri Eusebianee Animad. p. 150. Petiti Varice Lectiones in Crit. Sac. tom. 
 ix. coll. 1168, 1169.—Saurin Discours. Histor. Crit. &c. Dis. xxxix. vol. x. pp. 
 158,159. 8vo. A la Haye, 1739.—Mosheim de reb, Christ. Ant. Const. 
 p- 42. 4to. Helmst. 1753.—Lardner's Credib. of the Gosp. Hist. P. 1. B. 
 1. Ch. iii. Works, vol. i. p. 70. 4to. Lond. 1815.—Harwood’s Introduc- 
 tion to the New Test. Ch. vi. sect. v. vol. i. pp. 234-236. Lond. 1773.— 
 Brown’s Antiquities of the Jews, Part viii. Sect. 4. vol. ii. p. 74. 
 
350 NOTES. 
 
 showed any particular class in our country and age, were certainly not 
 the ““ prototypes” of those who conscientiously refuse to pay taxes 
 avowedly exacted for what they account a sinful purpose. With 
 the turbulent Herodians, who, it seems, on professedly conscientious 
 grounds, refused to pay religious taxes, we are not so well acquainted, 
 and we feel no shame in acknowledging our ignorance ; as we are not 
 aware that—with the exception of the learned note-writer—any ec- 
 clesiastical historian is better informed than ourselves. 
 
 We are aware indeed that, at a period subsequent to that of the 
 mention of the Herodians in the gospel history, Herod, the Tetrarch, 
 was suspected of conspiracy against Tiberius, and exiled to Lyons, 
 where he died ; but we never heard of any risings among his adhe- 
 rents, which could entitle them to the appellation, turbulent Herodi- 
 ans. We also recollect a certain note in Beza, which may have mis- 
 led the learned note-writer, but any thing like evidence of the twr- 
 bulence of the Herodians in the matter of tax-paying, we have never 
 seen. 
 
 The hypothesis of Catmet, for it deserves no better name, is dis- 
 owned by his learned editor, who holds Prideaux’s opinion. The as- 
 sertion that some called Judas’ followers Herodians, seems a mere on 
 dit. Who are these some? And the reason, he says, they gave, is in- 
 deed an odd one—because Gaulon, Judas’ city, was in Upper Galilee, 
 which belonged to the tetrarchy. In the Dictionary of the Bible, 
 best known in this country (Brown's Dictionary, article Sect), Cal- 
 met’s conjecture is summarily dismissed with the conclusive query, 
 “‘ Why should persons of this stamp be denominated from any of 
 the Herods, who are known to have been pliant cringers to the Ro- 
 mans?” Had the note-writer looked into the “ Table of Offices and 
 Conditions of Men,” appended to the authorized translation of the 
 Bible, which contains much important information (though the state- 
 ments are not always quite accurate), condensed in few words, he 
 would have found the two following sentences in immediate succes- 
 sion,—‘ Gaulonites, or Galileans, who pretended it unlawful to obey 
 an heathen magistrate. Herodians, who shaped their religion to the 
 times, and particularly flattered Herod.” We rather think Sealiger 
 would have used even a stronger word than incerta, had he uttered 
 his adage in reference to an expression which represents as notoriously 
 true, what is so entirely destitute of proof, or even probability, as the 
 identity of the Gaulonites and the Herodians. 
 
MARCUS BISHOP OF ARETHUSA. 901 
 
 NOTE XXIX. 
 
 REFUSAL OF THE EARLY CHRISTIANS TO PAY EXACTIONS, FOR 
 SINFUL PURPOSES.—MARCUS OF ARETHUSA.—AMBROSE OF MI- 
 
 LAN.—LAURENTIUS. 
 
 The details respecting Marcus of Aneruusa, as given by Turoporet 
 and Sozomen, are interesting :— 
 
 “To deye Μαρκου tov Ἀρεθουσίων επισκοπου δρᾶμα; τὴς Αισχυλου 
 και Σοφοκλεοὺυς μεγαληγορίας δειται, ty” ἀξιως τα εκεινου τραγῳδησωσι 
 παθη. Ἐπειδὴ yap éutos εν τοις Κωνσταντίου καιροις ειδωλικον τινα κατα- 
 λυσας σηκον, ἐκκλησίαν εδειματο; του Ἰουλίανου μεμαθηκοτες Ἀρεθουσιοι 
 σκοπον; εγυμνωσαν τὴν δυσμενειαν. Ὃ δὲ mpwroy μεν ἀποδραναι κατα Tov 
 εὐαγγελικον επειραθηὴ νομον᾽ επειδὴ δὲ eyyw των ὑπ᾽ αὑτὸν avt αὐτου 
 συνειληῴθαι τινας; emavijke τε και ἕαυτον τοις μιαιφονοις εξεδωκεν. οι δὲ 
 λαβοντες, οὐτε φκτειραν ὡς πρεσβυτην, οὐτε ἠδεσθησαν ὡς apeTns φρον- 
 τιστην᾽ αλλα καὶ βιῳ καὶ λογῳ τον ανδρα κοσμουμενον; πρῶτον πεν ἠκισ- 
 αντο; TO σῶμα γυμνωσαντες; καὶ τοις μελεσιν ἄπασιν επιθεντες τας μασ- 
 τίγας. Eita εἰς ὑπονομους δυσωδεις ἐμβαλοντες; κακεῖθεν avayayovtes, τῳ 
 πληθει των μειρακιων παρεδοσαν᾽ αφειδως αὐτὸν κατακεντειν ταῖς γραφισι 
 kehevoavtes. Mera δε ταῦτα εἰς γυργαθον εμβαλοντες, καὶ γαρῳ καὶ μελιτι 
 χρισαντες; ὑπαιθριον ἠηωρησαν εν θερους ἀακμῃ; σῴφηκας ὅμου καὶ μελιττας 
 εἰς Gownv προκαλουμενοι. Ταυτα δὲ εδρων; δυοῖν θατερον ἀναγκαζοντες; ἢ 
 τον onkoy Tov καταλυθεντα δομησασθαι, ἢ τὴν της οἰκοδομιας εκτισαι δα- 
 πανὴν. Ὃ δε; των μεν χαλεπωὼν εκεινων ἠνείχετο παθηματων, δρασειν de 
 των προτεινομενων ovdev επηγγελλετο. Ἑκεινοι δὲ Sia πενίαν avtov μὴ 
 παρεχειν ὑπειληῴοτες Ta χρήματα; Ta μεν ἡμιση τῶν προταθεντων npiecar, 
 τα αλλα δὲ εκτινειν ἐκέλευον. Ὃὧ de εξηρτημενος; και ὕπο τε των γραφιδων 
 κεντουμενος; ὕπο τε τῶν σῴηκων καὶ τῶν μελιττῶν εσθιομενος; OV μονον 
 οὐκ εδηλου τας adyndovas, adda καὶ ἐπετωθαζε τοις ανοσιοις; καὶ ελεγεν 
 avTous μεν εἰναι χαμαιξηλους καὶ επιγειους᾽ ἑαυτον δὲ ὕψηλον καὶ μετεω- 
 pov. Tedos de, βραχυ τι μοριον χρήηματων εξητησαν᾽ 6 δε; wwov εἰς ασε- 
 βειαν εφη; το οβολον γουν ἑνα δουναι, τῷ παντα δουναι. δυτως ἧττηθεντες 
 ἀπελυσαν; ὑπεραγασθεντες τὴν καρτεριαν, καὶ Sia των ἐναντίων εἰς τάναν- 
 Tia μετατεθεντες" δια yap της εκεινου γλωττὴς μετεμαθὸον τὴν ευσεβειαν."---- 
 Theodoriti Episcopi Cyri Ecelesiastice Historie, Lib. iii. Caput vii. 
 p- 129. Folio. Cantab. 1720. 
 
 “ The tragical story of Marcus, bishop of the Arethusians, would 
 require the majestic style of Aischylus or of Sophocles, worthily to 
 
DV NOTES. 
 
 describe the sufferings which he endured. In consequence of his 
 haying, in the time of Constantius, destroyed a certain idolatrous tem- 
 ple, and built a church in its place, the heathen Arethusians, as soon 
 as they became acquainted with the intention of Julian, no longer 
 concealed their hatred. At first he attempted, in accordance with 
 the evangelical precept, to escape by flight. But when he understood 
 that some of his charge had, in consequence of his absconding, been 
 apprehended, he returned, and gave himself up to his blood-thirsty 
 persecutors. They having laid hands on him, neither pitied his age, 
 nor respected his virtue ; but, eminent as he was in character and in 
 doctrine, they, in the first place, did him the indignity of stripping 
 his person, and exposing his naked body to the lash. Then, when 
 they had plunged him into fetid sewers, and had again brought him 
 up, they put him at the disposal of a crowd of boys, and encouraged 
 them to prick him unmercifully with their writing instruments. 
 After those indignities, they put him into a basket, and having smear- 
 ed him over with sauce and with honey, they suspended him in the 
 open air during the intensity of the mid-day heat, and enticed to the 
 feast wasps as well as bees. They did all this that they might force Ὁ 
 him to one of two alternatives—either to rebuild the temple which he 
 had destroyed, or to pay the expenses of its erection. But he conti- 
 nued to bear with patience his excruciating sufferings, and would 
 not consent to do either of the things which they proposed. They, 
 conceiving that it was on account of his poverty that he did not offer 
 them the money, remitted half the proposed sum, and ordered him to 
 pay the remainder. But he, though suspended in the open air, though 
 punctured by their writing instruments, and tormented by the wasps 
 and the bees, not only refrained from giving outward expression to 
 his pains, but even taunted his unholy persecutors, and told them 
 that they were grovelling and terrestrial, whilst he was elevated and 
 aloft. At length they asked of him only a small portion of the mo- 
 ney ; but he replied, that it would be equally impious to give even 
 one obolus, as it would be to pay the whole. Being thus compelled 
 to yield their point with him, they set him free, being greatly asto- 
 nished at his magnanimity ; and they were converted to the oppo- 
 site faith by means of the very opposition which they had made to 
 it, for they afterwards became Christians in consequence of his in- 
 structions.” 
 
 ** Αρεθουσιοι Se Μαρκον τὸν γενόμενον avtwy ἐπίσκοπον; γηραλεον 
 ovTa, πολιᾷ τε καὶ βιῳ αιδεσιμον; ελεείνως διεχρησαντο τοῦτον τε καὶ 
 
 προτερὸν εν opyn εἰχον᾽ προθυμοτερον yap ἢ κατα πειθω, Κωνσταντίου 
 
MARCUS BISHOP OF ARETHUSA. 353 
 
 βασιλευοντος, τους Ἕλληνιστας εἰς Χριστιανισμὸν ἐπανῆγε; καὶ Tov παρ᾽ 
 αὐτοῖς σεμνοτατον καὶ πολυτελεστατον ναον καθεῖλεν. ἔπει δὲ μετεπεσεν 
 εἰς Ἰουλίανον 7) apxn, κεκινήμενον em avtov τὸν δημον ὁρῶν ἅμα Se καὶ 
 Kata προσταγμα βασίιλεως καταδικασθεις; ἢ τὴν αποτιμησιν του ναου εκτι- 
 σαι, ἢ τουτον ανοικοδομῆσαι. Λογισαμενος ὡς advvaroy ἕκατερον;, Χρισ- 
 τιανῷ δὲ ἀλλως αθεμιτον το δευτερον, μητι γε δὴ ἱερει; εφυγε τα πρωτα" 
 μαθων δε δὲ avroy κινδυνευειν πολλους; ἕλκυσματων τε καὶ δικαστηριων καὶ 
 των εν τουτοις πειρᾶσθαι δεινων, ἐπανηλθεν απὸ της φυγης; καὶ εθελοντης 
 6 τι βουλοιντο avrov δρᾷν τῷ πληθει προσηγαγεν. ‘Oi δε; εξ ὧν εδει πλεον 
 ἐπαινεῖν δυτον ὡς φιλοσοφῳ πρεπουσαν πραξιν επιδειξαμενον; ὑπερῴρον- 
 ἡσθαι νομίσαντες; tas ὃ δημος ew αὑτον εχωρησε" καὶ δια των αγυίων 
 ἑίλκον, ὠθουντες καὶ τίλλοντες, καὶ ἡ ετυχε των μέλων; εκαστος παιοντες" 
 εσπουδαζετο δὲ το δραμα ανδρασι καὶ γυναιξι; καὶ πασῃ ἡλικίᾳ; μετα προ- 
 θυμιας καὶ opyns, ὡς καὶ σπαρτιοις λεπτοῖς τα ὠτα ἀνυτου διατεμειν. Tlaides 
 δὲ εἰς διδασκαλους φοιτῶντες; παίγνιον ἐποιουντο To Tpaypa’ καὶ μετεω- 
 ριίζοντες αὑτον; καὶ προς ἕαυτον κυλιοντες», αντεπέεμπον τε καὶ ἀνεδέχοντο 
 ταις γραφισι; καὶ αφειδως κατεκεντουν. Ener δὲ ἅπαν το σωμα τραυματιας 
 eyevero, ett δε ὅμως ενεπνεε pehite καὶ γαρῳ αλειίψαντες avToy, καὶ σαρ- 
 γανῃ εμβαλοντες, πλεγμα Se TovTo ὁλοόχοινον; εἰς ὕψος ῃραν. “Hyixa be 
 λεγεται σῴφηκων καὶ μελισσων εφιπταμενων αὐτῳ καὶ Tas σάρκας κατεσ- 
 θιουσων; προς τους Ἀρεθουσιους εἰπεῖν; ὡς αὐτος ὕψηλος en, Tous Se 
 Tamewvous ὁρᾷ καὶ χαμαι ερχομενους; καὶ κατα τοῦτο ἑαυτῳ τε KaKELVOLS 
 συμβαλλειν ἐσεσθαι τα peta ταυτα. Λογος δὲ τον tore ὕπαρχον, “EX- 
 ληνιστὴν μεν ες Ta μαλιστα οντα; γενναίον δὲ τὸ ηθος, ὡς καὶ εἰσετι νυν 
 τὴν περι αὐτου δοξαν κρατειν; θαυμασαντα Μαρκον της εγκρατειας; παρ- 
 ρησιασασθαι προς τον βασίλεα, καὶ μεμψασθαι, ὡς ειἰκοτως αἰσχυνὴν 
 οᾧλισκανουσι; κεκρατήμενοι παρ ἕνος γεροντος; προς τοσαυτας βασανους 
 ανδρειως αντιταξαμενου, καὶ κινδυνευειν αὐτοὺς γελοιους εἰναι; ενδοξοτε- 
 ρους δε ὄυς ταυτα δρῶσιν. Ὃ μεν ovy pakaptos, emt τοσουτον γενναίως 
 προς τὸν Ἀρεθουσίων θυμὸν καὶ τας πολλας βασανους ἀντεσχεν; ‘ws καὶ 
 προς αὐτῶν επαινεθηναι των “EMAnuotav.”—Sozomeni Historie Ecclesi- 
 astica, lib. v. cap. x. pp. 194, 195, folio. Cantab. 1720. 
 
 “ Marcus, the Bishop of the Arethusians, a very old man, venerable 
 at once for his hoary hairs and his blameless life, was by them (his 
 heathen fellow-citizens) cruelly put to death. They had for some 
 time borne him a grudge ; because, under the reign of Constantius, 
 he had been more than ordinarily zealous in employing means to 
 convert heathens to Christianity—going somewhat beyond mere per- 
 suasion—and had even destroyed their temple, which was an exceed- 
 ingly splendid and costly edifice. But when the government fell 
 into the hands of Julian, Marcus, seeing the people rising against him} 
 
904 NOTES. 
 
 and, at the same time, being condemned, according to royal edict, 
 either to pay the estimated expense of the temple, or to rebuild it ; 
 and considering both of those alternatives to be impossible, and the 
 latter, even although it were possible, to be unlawful to a Christian, 
 and much more so to a Christian minister, he took himself at first to 
 flight. But when he learned that, on his account, many were endan- 
 gered, and exposed to violent apprehension and to judicial trials, and 
 their accompanying terrors, he returned from flight, and, of his own 
 accord, placed himself at the disposal of the multitude to do to him 
 whatsoever they chose. They, instead of yielding him that admira- 
 tion which his conduct, so becoming a philosopher, deserved, think- 
 ing themselves scornfully used, rushed in one mass upon him, and 
 dragging him through the streets, they pushed him, and plucked out 
 his hairs, and each one struck him at his will. This cruel work was 
 eagerly and relentlessly engaged in by men and women, and by per- 
 sons of every age; and to such an extent did they carry it, that they 
 even pulled off his ears with small cords; and the children going to 
 school made a sport of the affair, and suspending him in the open air, 
 and running against him, they alternately pushed him off, and re- 
 ceived him with their writing instruments, and thus mercilessly punc- 
 tured him. After his whole body had been thus wounded, and as he 
 nevertheless yet continued to breathe, they anointed him with honey 
 and sauce, and putting him into a wicker-basket, swung him aloft. 
 It is reported that, at this time, when wasps and bees had clustered 
 around him, and settled on his body, he said to the Arethusians that 
 he was exalted, whilst he saw them below, and grovelling on the 
 earth; and he added, that he divined from this, what would soon be 
 both his lot and theirs. 
 
 “Ὁ It is moreover reported, that he who was their governor—a man, 
 unconverted from heathenism, but yet commanding even to this day 
 the highest reputation for his moral character—was so much struck 
 at the resolute self-denial of Marcus, that he made a bold represen- 
 tation to the emperor, in which he blamed them (the heathen party), 
 as, on the one hand, justly exposing themselves to shame, in being 
 overcome by a single old man heroically bearing up against such ex- 
 cruciating sufferings ; and as, on the other hand, running the risk of 
 becoming ridiculous themselves, and rendering those more glorious 
 who suffered at their hands. Thus, then, the blessed martyr so nobly 
 withstood the fury of the Arethusians, and the many torments which 
 they inflicted, that he gained the admiration even of the heathen 
 
 “themselves.” 
 
- 
 
 MARCUS BISHOP OF ARETHUSA. BO 
 
 Socrates aseribes to Marcus—sometimes styled “ the Syrian,” some- 
 times “ the Arethusian,’—the first appellation being borrowed from 
 his country, the latter from the place of his ministry—a creed which 
 is to be found in his History, Lib. ii. cap. xxx., and also in Atha- 
 nasius, vol. ii. p. 742, and in Nicephorus, Lib. ix. cap. xxxi., and in 
 Hilary’s work “ De Synodis,” col. 1174, in which there is little sus- 
 picious, but the want of the shibboleth of the orthodox of those days, 
 ὁμοουσιος. Its principal fault is that which is common to all the 
 creeds of that age, but unhappily not confined to them—the being 
 unduly specific and explanatory on subjects on which Scripture is 
 general and simply dogmatic. 
 
 Rurnart speaks of him, likely from this circumstance, as favouring 
 the Arians, or, at any rate, being among the chief of the Semi-Arians ; 
 but not only does Tueoporet, who was an orthodox bishop, speak high- 
 ly of him, but Grecory Nanzianzen (whom Gisson styles “ the scourge 
 of Arianism and the pillar of the church,” while he praises him for 
 ** the tenderness of his heart and the elegance of his genius”), pro- 
 nounces a high eulogium on him. 
 
 There is a difference between the two historians as to the event of 
 the venerable bishop’s sufferings—Theodoret representing him as sur- 
 viving his torments, Sozomen as dying in the midst of them. The 
 elder Lowrn’s remark seems well founded, that Sozomen’s narrative 
 has most verisimilitude. Indeed, Theodoret is so much of a rhetori- 
 cian in this case, that a person almost instinctively feels more confi- 
 dence in the plainer and more circumstantial narrative of Sozomen. 
 
 In permitting, if not directly commanding, this venerable old bishop 
 to be so inhumanly treated, Julian was guilty of base ingratitude, as 
 Gregory Nanzianzen informs us, that, at the beginning of the reign 
 of Constantius, Marcus had saved Julian by concealing the whole of 
 the family in a church when they were in danger. 
 
 It has been conjectured by Valesius, that there were two Marks 
 τ bishops of Arethusa, but he fails satisfactorily to support his conjec- 
 ture. ‘“ There might indeed be,” as Dr Jorrin observes, “ more bishops 
 than one in those days who held the name of Mark ; but we find only 
 one Mark of Arethusa.”—Jortin’s Remarks on Ecclesiastical History, 
 Book third, vol. ii. p. 284. Lond. 1805. 
 
 “ The sufferings and constancy of Mark,” says Gibbon, notwith- 
 standing his decided bias against Christian confessors, ‘“‘ are confirmed 
 by the unexceptionable and reluctant evidence of Libanius,” a heathen. 
 Mapkos EKELVOS κρέμάμενος, Καὶ μαστιγουμενος; Και TOU τγωνος αὐτῷ τιλ- 
 
 λομενου, πάντα ἐνεΎκων ανδρειως"» νυν ἰισοθεος εστι ταις τιμαις, καν φανὴ 
 
356 NOTES. 
 
 που; περιμαχητος evlus.—Epist. 730, pp. 350, 851. Amstel. 1738.— 
 Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, vol. ii. p. 396. 4to. Lond. 1781. 
 I have been “ defied” to produce a single instance arnong the early 
 Christians of a refusal to pay money exacted by the recognised autho- 
 rities; and in answer to the defiance, I bring forward the indomitable 
 old man, Mark, bishop of Avethusa. But his case was not singular. 
 
 Amprose, Bishop of Milan, seems to have held, and acted on, the same 
 principles as Marcus of Arethusa. When Valentinian required him 
 to cede a church to the Arians, he replied, “‘/Nec mihi fas est tra- 
 dere, nec tibi accipere, Imperator, expedit.—Noli te extollere, sed si 
 vis diutius imperare, esto Deo subditus. Scriptum est: Que Dei Deo, 
 que Cesaris Cesari. Ad Imperatorem palatia pertinent, ad Sacerdo- 
 tem Ecclesiae. Publicorum tibi moenium jus commissum est, non sac- 
 rorum.”—Ambrosii Epist. Class. i. Ep. xx. § 19. Opera, Tom. vi. 
 p- 48. 4to. Venet. 1781. “ I will neither yield the church, nor is 
 it well for thee, O Emperor, to take it. Exalt not thyself; if thou 
 wouldst continue to reign, be subject to God. It is written, ‘ to God, 
 the things of God,—those of Cxsar to Cesar.’ Palaces belong to the 
 emperor: churches to the priest. The public, not the sacred walls 
 are committed to thee.” It is plain that Ambrose would not volun- 
 tarily part with property, for a purpose of which he conscientiously 
 disapproved, though demanded from him by the supreme civil au- 
 thority. 
 
 Lavrentius, the chief deacon of the Church of Rome, suffered mar- 
 tyrdom in the reign of Valerian, being barbarously roasted to death, 
 rather than yield up the treasure of his church when demanded by 
 the secular power.—Prudentit Peristephanon. Opera, fol. 104. 12mo. 
 Antv. 1540.—Tillemont. Hist. Ecc. Tom. iii. p. 16, et seq.—Fleury, 
 Hist. Ecc. Tom. ii. p. 807, et seq. 12mo. Brux. 1719. 
 
 It does not at all affect my argument, that the property withheld from 
 the magistrate in both these cases, was rather corporate than personal 
 property ; for I believe it would be difficult to show, that the Empe- 
 yor had not just as legal a right to the one as to the other. It is true 
 that Ambrose, in the very same epistle, says, that he is ready to part 
 with his patrimonial estate, if the Emperor demands it ; but to make 
 the good Bishop consistent with himself, we must suppose that he 
 means that he would part with his property when the Emperor re- 
 quired it for civil purposes. On the same principle that he refused 
 to give up the church to the Arians, must he have refused to pay a 
 tax for the specific purpose of building a church for those whom he 
 considered as “ deniers of the Lord that bought them.” 
 
LIMITS OF THE LAW OF TRIBUTE. 354 
 
 NOTE XXX. 
 OPINIONS RESPECTING THE LIMITS OF THE LAW OF TRIBUTE. 
 
 EPISCOPIUS. 
 
 Episcorius was a man of a powerful mind, and, though a Remon- 
 strant, on subjects not immediately connected with the Quinquarticular 
 controversy, shows himself an able theologian, and a clear and shrewd 
 expositor of Scripture. In his Tract entitled, “ Responsio ad ques- 
 tiones theologicas, ipsi a discipulis in privato disputationum Collegio 
 Amstelodami propositas,” one of the questions discussed is, “¢ Qualis 
 obedientia debeatur magistratibus in tributo pendendo?” What obe- 
 dience is due to magistrates in paying tribute? He goes pretty fully 
 into the subject, and certainly shows no disposition unduly to cireum- 
 scribe the magistrates’ power. The whole disquisition is worth read- 
 ing. 
 
 I shall content myself with transcribing a few sentences, which di- 
 rectly bear on the point under discussion. In answer to the ques- 
 tions—“ What is to be done when tribute is exacted for a purpose 
 which we know and are persuaded is hurtful to the Church, or op- 
 posed to the eternal salvation of men, or the express commands of God, 
 —as if a tax were levied to extirpate heretics, whom I did not think 
 heretics, and considered it injustice to hurt ; or if any impost were ex- 
 acted from those whose religion was oppressed, for the sake of support- 
 ing those who were engaged in oppressing it—as the Emperor within 
 our memory did in Germany; or if the means of carrying on war 
 were exacted from the Mennonites—(a sect of Dutch Baptists, who 
 agree with the Quakers in condemning all war) ; or when taxes are 
 required in support of an obviously unjust war—as if the Oriental 
 Christians were required to pay a tax to enable the Turk, stimulated 
 by ambition, to make war on his unoffending Christian neighbours ?” 
 he replies in these words, “ Alterutrum faciendum est: Aut post om- 
 nia licita remedia, per supplicationes et intercessiones frustra adhibita, 
 exeundum etiam cum periculo et damno fortunarum omnium, si ne- 
 cesse sit, ut conscientiam illesam possideamus: aut siid vel non licet 
 vel rebus nostris incommodum est, ferendum potius quidlibet est, quam 
 parendum jussibus divine voluntati directe adversantibus, siquidem 
 juxta Apostolum Petrum, ‘ Obediendum est Deo magis quam homi- 
 nibus.’” One of two things is to be done,—either, after having em-~ 
 
308 NOTES. 
 
 ployed all lawful means of redress by petitions and requests in vain, to 
 leave the country, though to the injury or utter ruin of our temporal 
 affairs, in order to preserve our conscience unhurt—or if this be not 
 permitted, or is inconvenient in our circumstances, then we are ra- 
 ther to suffer any thing than yield obedience to commands directly 
 opposite to the divine will, since, according to the Apostle Peter, “‘ we 
 must obey God rather than men.”—<Acta iv. 19, 29.—S. Episcopii Re- 
 sponsio, ad Quest. xxviii. Opera, tom. 1. Fol. Amst. 1650. 
 
 BAXTER. 
 
 “It may be sinful in a governor to lay an unnecessary tax upon 
 the people ; who yet may be bound in conscience to obey the impo- 
 sition. If the thing be not evil in itself, nor by a more weighty ac- 
 cident, than the magistrates’ command to the doing of it, we must 
 obey.”—Bawter's Holy Commonwealth, p. 358. Lond. 1659. It is 
 plain from this, that Baxter, whose opinions of civil power were very 
 high, held that the very act of paying tribute might in certain cases 
 become sinful. 
 
 NOTE XXXJ. 
 
 DIFFERENCE OF TAXES FOR GENERAL AND FOR SPECIFIC PUR 
 
 POSES. 
 
 ANONYMOUS. 
 
 The truth on the subject of taxes for specific objects, reckoned sin- 
 ful by the person from whom the tax is required, is luminously 
 stated by a writer in that useful periodical, the Voluntary Church 
 Magazine. 
 
 «ς The real question to be determined is this, Is the payment 
 of money for a purpose deemed sinful, a lawful action? That it 
 is not lawful, is surely the verdict of scripture and reason. This 
 verdict is applicable to all those cases in which the specific object of 
 a tax is determined, and that object is viewed by the payer, as con- 
 demned by the divine law. It is to be recollected, however, that in 
 imposing or levying a tax, the civil legislature are not necessarily ob- 
 liged to state its specific object. A general tax may in all circum- 
 stances be paid ; because, in such a case, the only motive presented 
 to the mind is the claim of the civil legislature—and the Divine com- 
 mand to pay tribute is strictly applicable. This view of the matter 
 
TAXES FOR SPECIFIC PURPOSES. 909 
 
 is not set aside, although it is known that a portion of the revenue is 
 applied to an unlawful object. The legislature, and not the people, 
 are responsible for the application of public money. No doubt, the 
 people are ultimately responsible for every public measure, by which 
 their interests are affected ; and they have it in their power to apply 
 a remedy to every existing evil. But when we speak of the people 
 as the subjects of the government, each individual is responsible only 
 for his own acts. Unless, therefore, the legislature, by the mode of 
 collecting a tax, make the contributors individually parties along 
 with themselves, they alone are morally accountable for the appro- 
 priation of its product. In the case of a general tax, the law to which 
 obedience is required, merely ordains that money be paid to the go- 
 vernment for national purposes ; the object to which that money is 
 to be applied is no part of the law. This object exists only in the 
 intention of those from whom the law emanates, and for that inten- 
 tion they alone must answer to God. In these circumstances, the act 
 of obedience is not essentially sinful ; on the contrary, it is lawful ; 
 nay, it is morally obligatory as an act of submission to an existing or- 
 dinance, which has the sanction of Heaven. But the case is materi- 
 ally altered, when money is demanded for a specific object, if that 
 object is sinful. Then the object specified is a part of the law, and 
 appears on its face. It no longer exists merely in the intention of 
 the legislature—it is no longer subject to any posterior act which 
 they have to pass: it is something fixed and publicly declared. To 
 this object the payer of the tax is made a party ; he yields obedience 
 to a law which specifically ordains it—he gives his money not merely 
 because the government demand it, but because they demand it for 
 this purpose. This purpose is stated as a part of the obligation under 
 which the payer lies, to give the sum required, and by the act of pay- 
 ment he acknowledges this obligation. The law demands his money 
 for a particular object, and he gives it for this object. Upon what 
 principle then can it be maintained, that he is not a party to the re- 
 sponsibility which that object involves? If it be essentially sinful— 
 or even if he believes it to be sinful, whether his judgment be true or 
 false—he violates conscience by the voluntary payment of the tax.” 
 —H. A. Voluntary Church Magazine, for March 1858, vol. vi. pp. 104, 
 105. 
 HIND LET LOOSE. 
 
 The difference between taxes for general and specific purposes, and 
 its bearing on our argument, are well stated by those whom I must 
 still be allowed to call * our covenanting ancestors,” 
 
900 NOTES. 
 
 “ These payments for such wicked ends, either particularly specified 
 and expressed in the very act appointing them, or openly avouched by 
 the exactors, are of another nature, than impositions fundamentally 
 appointed for the public good ; and the after misapplication thereof 
 made by such entrusted therewith, is no more imputable unto the 
 land or payers, than is the theft of a collector stealing or running 
 away with the same, without making count or reckoning to superiors. 
 It is then a foolish thing to say, that former impositions were peace- 
 ably paid, though we saw and were convinced that their use was per- 
 verted, and they were used against the good of the land and God’s 
 people: For no such thing was laid down as the ground, or declared as 
 the end of these exactions ; but what fell out was by the personal 
 abuse and perversion of those in power, which was their own per- 
 sonal fault, and posterior to the legal engagement and submission to 
 the payment thereof by the land in their representatives.’-—Hind let 
 Loose, Head VII. p. 704. 
 
 NOTE XXXII. 
 THE ANNUITY TAX. 
 
 The annuity tax was first proposed to be imposed by Charles I., in 
 a letter to the Town-Council of Edinburgh in 1625, but no steps 
 were taken to carry his recommendation into effect until 1635, when 
 the Council appointed a Commissioner “ to deal with his Majesty for 
 warrant for causing the haill inhabitants within Burgh, without ex- 
 ception, except the Lords of Council and Session, allenarly, to contri- 
 bute the sum of ten thousand merks for part of payment of the mi- 
 nisters stipends, . . . - since, of reason, who hears the word, and 
 receives the benefit of the church, ought to pay for the same.” In the 
 following year, the annuity tax was authorized to be imposed by an 
 act of the Privy Council, to which the application from the Town- 
 Council had been remitted by the Parliament, with powers “ to de- 
 cern, statute, and determine therein as they shall think expedient 
 for the good and weel of his Majesty’s lieges.” 
 
 The preamble of the act is very important, showing, as it does, in 
 the clearest manner, that the legislature, in imposing the tax, merely 
 contemplated that those who enjoyed the benefit of attending the 
 ministrations of the clergy of that period, should, in return, contri- 
 bute for their support—* that those who serve at the altar may be 
 
THE ANNUITY TAX. 361 
 
 entertained aff the altar,” through the contributions of their own 
 hearers. In considering the question, whether parties are under a 
 moral obligation to give an active obedience to any law for the impo- 
 sition of a tax for local purposes—apart altogether from its connexion 
 with religion—it is obviously of great impvurtance carefully to con- 
 sider the preamble of the act, stating the reasons for which the legis- 
 lature has imposed the tax ; and, if it can be proved that, in conse- 
 quence of a total change of circumstances, none of the reasons which 
 induced the legislature to pass the act now exist, at least so far as re- 
 gards a large proportion of the community, who neither require nor 
 receive any of the services, for which alone the tax was imposed, it 
 clearly follows, that there can be no moral obligation on such parties 
 voluntarily to pay it, although, by the operation of an unjust law, 
 their property may be legally attachable for the same, and that they 
 will sufficiently discharge every duty incumbent on them, both as 
 Christians and as citizens, by peaceably allowing their property to be 
 distrained, after having denounced the injustice and oppression in a 
 legal and constitutional manner. 
 
 For example, if, under the provisions of an old Act of Parliament, 
 passed when Edinburgh and Leith formed one community, it were 
 still competent for the authorities of Edinburgh to levy a tax from 
 the inhabitants of Leith for lighting and watching that burgh, al- 
 though, in point of fact, it had long since ceased to be lighted or 
 watched, or in any other way benefited by the establishments of Edin- 
 burgh, in consequence of having adopted and supported, at the ex- 
 pense of its own inhabitants, an independent system of lighting and 
 watching, which they believed to be far more efficient than the one 
 established in the neighbouring city ; and let it farther be supposed, 
 that the tax was imposed on Leith by this old act, expressly on the 
 narrative, that all its streets and lanes were actually lighted and 
 watched by the establishment which Edinburgh had provided, and 
 that the tax was to be levied for the purpose of maintaining that es- 
 tablishment in all time coming, and for putting it on a more efficient 
 footing, by increasing the number of its officers,—is there any man 
 who would contend that the inhabitants of Leith, in such cireum- 
 stances, would be guilty of sin by refusing voluntarily to pay the tax 
 to the magistracy of Edinburgh ; at the same time telling the collec- 
 tor, that they would offer no resistance to the spoiling of their goods, 
 if what they regarded and denounced as an unjust law should be en- 
 forced to that extent? It may be safely affirmed, that there is not 
 one person in a thousand who, in such circumstances, would blame 
 
 Aa 
 
902 NOTES. 
 
 the conduct of the inhabitants of Leith, far less venture to say that 
 they were guilty of sin. It may, with equal safety, be affirmed, that, 
 in such circumstances, the public feeling would be strongly and loudly 
 expressed in favour of the inhabitants of Leith, and that the autho- 
 rities of Edinburgh would be universally denounced as worse than 
 Egyptian oppressors, for attempting to compel payment of the tax 
 without performing any one of the conditions on which the legislature 
 stipulated that it should be imposed. 
 
 Apart from the religious aspect of the question, the case supposed 
 between Edinburgh and Leith is precisely the case between the Es- 
 tablished Church and the Dissenters, so far as regards the collection 
 of the annuity tax. When this tax was first imposed, the great mass 
 of the population of the city was attached to the Established Church, 
 or, at least, did not openly dissent from it; and even those who were 
 dissatisfied with some of the changes in its government which had 
 recently taken place, had not provided stated churches and pastors 
 for themselves. In fact, the inhabitants were required, under penal- 
 ties, to attend their respective parish churches, and such religious in- 
 struction as they did receive was from the Established clergy. The 
 annuity tax was imposed under these circumstances, altogether dif- 
 ferent from the present, when more than one-half of those who attend 
 public worship have entirely separated themselves from the Estab- 
 lished Church, and have provided churches and ministers for them- 
 selves and their families at their own expense ; and when the Estab- 
 lished clergy do not afford religious instruction to one-fourth part of 
 the population of that part of the city which is taxed for their sup- 
 port, the remainder being either Dissenters or persons who do not be- 
 long to any religious denomination. 
 
 The preamble of the act states that the whole inhabitants attend 
 the Established churches, and hear the word preached by the Estab- 
 lished clergy,—that the latter do actually administer the ordinances 
 of religion to the whole population ; in return for which services, 
 they are declared to be under a moral obligation to contribute for the 
 support of the clergy. After narrating these facts, the Act very consist- 
 ently declares, that the whole inhabitants should contribute to the - 
 maintenance of the gospel, in those places of worship in which they 
 enjoy the benefit of hearing the same preached ; that all who “ serve at 
 the altar should be entertained aff the altar,’—of course clearly imply- 
 ing, that if there had been any regularly organized Dissenting churches 
 in Edinburgh at the time of the passing of the Act, which were pro- 
 vided with stated pastors and places of worship, the members of these 
 
͵ 
 
 THE ANNUITY TAX. 363 
 
 churches would have been exempted from its operation, as they had 
 already complied with its requirements, by contributing for the sup- 
 port of the gospel in the places where they heard the same preached. 
 It as clearly follows, that the legislature, in first imposing the tax, 
 never contemplated the possibility of its being levied from Dissenters, 
 under the present state of the city, when they form a decided majo- 
 rity of the church-going population. 
 
 The preamble of the act is as follows:—‘ For sae meikle as there 
 is nothing more consonant to equitie and reason, than that all such 
 persons that dailie enjoy in plentie that blessing of the word of God, 
 and hears the same preached, and does participat the benefit of the 
 clergy, should contribute to the maintenance of the ministrie in these 
 places where they take the foresaid benefit. And our Soverand Lord 
 and Estates of this present Parliament, understanding that ever since 
 the Reformation, the whole inhabitants of the said burgh of Edinburgh 
 has enjoyed the foresaid benefits and blessings, and the common good 
 of the town, which has been given to them for the maintenance of 
 police, has been that way employed, through the inlaicke of other 
 sufficient means for entertaining the ministrie of the said burgh; ror 
 REMEID WHEREOF, and to the end that these who serve at the altar may 
 be entertained aff the altar, and the said common good may be rightly 
 applied to the use whereunto the same has been appointed, our Sove- 
 rand Lord and Estates foresaid, srature and orparn that the sum of 
 twelve thousand merks [£669:13:4 Sterling] shall be uplifted 
 yearlie of the whole inhabitants and indwellers within the said burgh 
 (the Lords of his Majestie’s Counsell and Session being onlie except- 
 ed), and that according to the quantity and proportion of the maills 
 [vents] which they pay, or the houses where they reside may pay.” 
 ‘** And ordains the said sums to be ingathered, to be applied only for 
 sustentation of the said ministrie.” It will be remembered that this 
 act was passed while government by bishops existed in the Scotch 
 Church. 
 
 In 1648, after the re-establishment of the Presbyterian form of 
 Church government, a public meeting of the magistracy and inhabit- 
 ants was held in the Parliament-house, at which it was resolved to 
 have twelve ministers, six of them to be paid from funds under the 
 management of the corporation, and six from the annuity tax, which 
 they agreed should be increased from 12,000 to 19,000 merks [ £1055, 
 115. 1d. |—the meeting considering “ how agreeable it is to conscience 
 and reason, that ail those who possess dwelling-houses and enjoy the 
 benefit of God's ordinances in the good town, besides other accommoda- 
 
364 NOTES. 
 
 tions [in the Established churches?] sHouLp coNTRIBUTE WILLINGLY to 
 the entertainment of God’s servants, who dispense the same.” 
 
 In 1649, an Act of Parliament was passed, which, after referring 
 to the proceedings at the public meeting of inhabitants held in the 
 Parliament-house, approves of the object of the same, and authorizes 
 the sum of 19,000 merks to be raised at the rate of five per cent. on 
 the rental of the city, not excepting the College of Justice, “ or any 
 person or persons whatsoever.” This act, like the first, proceeds on 
 the assumption that the whole inhabitants of the city attended on the 
 ministry of the Established clergy, and that the annuity tax was to 
 be a payment for duties actually performed, and advantages actually 
 enjoyed by the inhabitants. It narrates, “ that the providing and 
 maintaining of the said six ministers doth concern the worship of 
 God, and tend to the propagating and maintaining thereof, in the 
 ehief city of this kingdom, from which ΝΟΝῈ THAT ARF PARTAKERS OF 
 SO GREAT A BENEFIT will in conscience withdraw or exeeme [excuse } 
 themselves without great guiltiness before God: Turrerore the said 
 estates do statute and ordain,” &c. Ata later period of the same 
 Session of Parliament, a third act was passed, which, after quoting 
 the former act entire, narrates that it has been ascertained by an ac- 
 tual survey that five per cent. will not produce 19,000 merks, and 
 therefore enacts that the tax shall be levied at the rate of six per 
 cent., to raise the 19,000 merks for the stipend of six ministers. 
 
 These two acts having been passed during the troubles in Scotland, 
 when the Royal authority was at a very low ebb, if not entirely super- 
 seded, they fell under the General Recissory Act, passed in 1661, after * 
 the restoration of Charles the Second, rescinding all the acts of Par- 
 liament passed from 1639 to that date. The annuity tax being still 
 considered a good measure, a new act was immediately passed re-im- 
 posing the tax, and making all the out-standing arrears of former 
 years recoverable, notwithstanding the General Recissory Act. 
 
 This act of 1661—the fourth of the series—like the other acts, 
 proceeds on the assumption that there were no Dissenters in the city, 
 and no other churches than those by law established ; that the whole 
 inhabitants enjoyed the benefit of the preaching of the Gospel from 
 the Established clergy, and that they were therefore under an obliga- 
 tion to support the same :—“ And upon the consideration foresaid, 
 the inhabitants of the said burgh, who has the comfort and benefite of 
 the preaching of the Gospel, and ministrie within the same, be the space 
 of diverse years untill this tyme, has been in use to pay for the pro- 
 vision and stipend of six of the ministers,” &e.—“ and his Majesty 
 
THE ANNUITY TAX. 365 
 
 and Estates, considering that there is not a more easie and effectuall 
 way than in manner and be the imposition foresaid,” the tax is di- 
 rected to be imposed for the stipends of siv ministers, but without 
 limiting the sum to 19,000 merks, as in the former acts. In a memo- 
 rial to the kirk-sessions, which has recently been printed, signed by 
 sixteen of the city clergy (the names of Principal Baird and Dr Lee 
 being wanting), it is contended, contrary to all experience, that this 
 assessment is really a burden on property, and not on the tenants ; 
 but the Scottish Parliament, without troubling themselves with fine- 
 spun theories, took hold of the broad common-sense view of the ques- 
 tion, and declared (most unfortunately for the theory of the present 
 ministers), that ‘ the said imposition being only paiable be the inha- 
 bitants and ocecupyers of the said tenements, chambers, booths, cellars, 
 and other houses, shall not affect the ground ; and that the heritors, 
 and others, having right to the said houses, shall not be lyable to the 
 same, unless they actually inhabite, occupy, and dwell in them them- 
 selves.” This act farther declares, that the College of Justice shall 
 not be exempted from payment of the tax, “ the said ministers’ sti- 
 pends being a cause so pious and necessarie.” 
 
 These are all the acts under which the annuity tax was imposed, 
 and it is undeniable that every one of them proceeds on the assump- 
 tion that there were no congregations of Dissenters in the city ; that 
 the whole inhabitants enjoyed the advantage of hearing the Gospel 
 preached by the Established clergy ; and that it was for this reason 
 they were required to pay the tax for their support, for value receiy- 
 ed. From these premises it obviously follows, that since the Dissen- 
 ters perform for themselves all the duties which the acts require, not 
 merely in accordance with the letter, but with the spirit of their 
 enactments—since they maintain the Gospel for themselves, contri- 
 buting for its support as required “ in those places where they take 
 the foresaid benefit,” they are not only not bound to contribute for its 
 support in places where they do not “ take the aforesaid benefit,” but 
 it is an act of positive injustice and oppression to require them so to 
 contribute ; and the violation both of the letter and of the spirit of 
 the acts rests not with Dissenters, but with Churchmen, who do not 
 willingly provide the Gospel for themselves in the places where they 
 “take the foresaid benefit,” but insist on their dissenting brethren 
 bearing a part of their burden, besides the whole of their own. Thus, 
 for example, if by a fair allocation of the burden of supporting the 
 gospel, on the principle explained in the acts, that every man, whe- 
 ther Churchman or Dissenter, should contribute equally “ in those 
 
900 NOTES. 
 
 places where they take the foresaid benefit, —if the expense for each 
 family, on an average, would amount to one pound, the Churchman 
 insists that the Dissenter shall first pay his own pound for the support 
 of the place of worship which he attends, and then pay ten shillings 
 for the support of the Churchman’s place of worship; in order that 
 the latter, who enjoys the whole benefit of the same, may have only 
 ten shillings to pay, by his dissenting brother being obliged to pay 
 thirty shillings ; and all this he does in defiance of the admonition 
 contained in the act, that no man can refuse to support the gospel for 
 himself “ wirHouT GREAT GUILTINESS BEFORE Gop.” 
 
 The author cannot help thinking, that if the Established clergy 
 were seriously to consider these things, many of them, in place of 
 blaming the Dissenters, and especially dissenting ministers, for resist- 
 ing the tax, would positively refuse to receive it from them, it being 
 altogether out of their power to perform any one of the conditions to 
 them, on which alone the legislature declared the tax to be exigible. 
 That a very small proportion of the inhabitants of the ancient and 
 extended royalty of the city, over which alone the annuity tax is le- 
 viable, attend the thirteen city churches, for the ministers of which 
 it is exclusively appropriated, can easily be proved from documents 
 of unquestionable authority. The Return, printed by the Town Coun- 
 cil, of 20th February, 1837, regarding the seats let in the city churches, 
 shows that only 5867 sittings are let to inhabitants of these districts, 
 out of a population of 55,000. Allowing for the younger members 
 of those families who attend the Established churches, and for those 
 persons and their families who occupy seats without paying for them, 
 it may be assumed that the whole population connected with these 
 churches, is about 14,000 (exclusive of those who attend churches 
 beyond the boundaries of the royalty), or one-fourth of the whole. 
 Now the annuity tax was imposed on the condition that religious in- 
 struction should be provided for, and received by the whole population. 
 Has this condition been implemented? It has to the extent of one- 
 fourth part of what the legislature contemplated ; but the Establish- 
 ed clergy demand the same amount of taxation as if there were no 
 Dissenters, and as if there were a sufficient number of churches and 
 ministers for the proper pastoral superintendence of the whole popu- 
 lation of the city. The effect of this is, that each of the present mi- 
 nisters receives a proportion of the annuity tax greatly beyond what 
 was contemplated by the legislature when it was imposed. A strict 
 construction of the spirit of the act would require the produce of the 
 annuity tax to be equally divided among all the congregations which 
 
THE ANNUITY TAX. 367 
 
 support the gospel for themselves, in proportion to their respective 
 numbers; but as none of the dissenting congregations would accept of 
 any part of the proceeds, justice requires, at least, that the members 
 of these congregations should not be compelled to pay for the support 
 of the Established clergy in addition to their own; and it has been 
 already shown, that they are under no moral obligation to make such 
 payments. 
 
 It is scarcely necessary to notice, for the present purpose, the gene- 
 ral acts of 1767, 1785, and 1786, extending the royalty of the city ; 
 and, consequently, all the city taxes, including the annuity, over the 
 grounds on which the new town has been erected, as these acts merely 
 spread the burden of supporting the six ministers over a larger sur- 
 face than formerly, without interfering in any way with the provi- 
 sions of the act of 1661, which is still the leading authority under 
 which the tax is levied. In the act of 1809, a clause was inserted 
 without the usual Parliamentary notices to that effect being given, by 
 which the tax was authorized to be levied for the stipends of all the 
 ministers of the city, then seventeen, and now eighteen in number. 
 The history of this “ smuggled clause,” which was framed by the 
 ministers, with the law proceedings which followed thereon between 
 them and the magistracy, and which, in 1813, ended in the ministers 
 being declared to be the absolute proprietors of the tax, is too long 
 for insertion in a note, but will be found minutely detailed in Mr 
 M‘Laren’s History of the Resistance to the Annuity Tax. 
 
 The annuity tax is plainly a rediyious tax, in contradistinction to a 
 civil tax. It has this quality in common with tithes and tiends, which 
 are nothing but taxes on land for the support of a particular form of 
 Christianity. It is exacted for the support of a portion of the clergy 
 of the Presbyterian Establishment in this city ; and, in the preamble 
 of the statutes which enact it, its enaction is grounded on the reli- 
 gious principle, “ that nothing is more consonant to equitie and rea- 
 son, than that all such persons that dailie enjoy in plenty that bless- 
 ing of the word of God, and heares the same preached, and does 
 participat the benefit of the clergy, should contribute to the main- 
 tenance of the ministrie in these places where they take the foresaid 
 benefit.” 
 
 Like all taxes of the same general kind, it is objectionable, on the 
 ground of its enaction being really ultra vires of the civil magistrate ; 
 where there are Dissenters, it is farther objectionable, on the ground 
 of its injustice in requiring men to pay for what they derive no ad- 
 
908 NOTES. 
 
 vantage from, it being ‘“ inconsonant to equitie and reason,” that any 
 person who does not “ participat the benefit of the clergy” should be 
 required to “ contribute to their maintenance ;’ and where these 
 Dissenters conscientiously disapprove either of the existing Establish- 
 ment, or of all Establishments, it is still farther objectionable, as, in 
 their estimation, it not only rests on an unjust law, but on a law “ es- 
 tablishing iniquity by a decree,” and requiring them to take a direct 
 part in upholding it. 
 
 The annuity tax, besides the objectionable character which belongs 
 to it in common with all religious taxes, has faults peculiar to itself. 
 It is not an equal tax—even supposing all the citizens supporters of 
 the Established Church—the rent of houses being a very incorrect 
 mode of ascertaining the wealth of those who occupy them—the tax- 
 ation of shops, obliging the mercantile part of the community to pay 
 much more than their fair proportion—to say nothing of that gross 
 insult to every thing like fairness, the entire exemption from the im- 
 post of one of the wealthiest bodies of the community, by far the 
 greatest part of which profess the Established creed: and no unpre- 
 judiced person can read the clear and well-supported statements of 
 Treasurer M‘Laren, in his History of the Resistance to the Annuity 
 Tax, without being convinced that, from circumstances connected 
 with the obtaining the act under which at present the tax is levied, 
 since 1809 it has been an illegal tax. 
 
 The considerations, that the tax is for a purpose for which no civil 
 magistrate can have a right to impose or levy tribute—that it is un- 
 just to Dissenters—that it is unequal, and that it is illegal, are, I 
 apprehend, quite sufficient not only to warrant, but to require those 
 subjected to it to use constitutional means to get rid of it; but they 
 do not make it obligatory on them not to pay it. If, however, they 
 are conscientiously persuaded that all civil Establishments of religion, 
 or that the civil Establishment of religion existing in this country, is 
 inconsistent with the will of God, then I cannot perceive how, with a 
 good conscience, they can voluntarily pay it. They cannot safely, 
 actively support what they know to be sinful. There is—there can 
 be—no sin in suffering, in consequence of declining this active con- 
 currence. 
 
 Much anxiety has been discovered, and much ingenuity wasted in 
 endeavouring to make out that the clergy have, properly speaking, a 
 property in the tithes and teinds, and to identify the annuity tax in 
 this respect with those sources of the income of the Established 
 Churches. The tithes and the teinds are just a very ancient tax on 
 
THE ANNUITY TAX. 369 
 
 landed property, assigned by the legislature for the payment of a cer- 
 tain class of functionaries. Had it been assigned for the maintenance 
 of soldiers or of tax-gatherers, it would not have altered the nature 
 of the impost. With regard to the annuity tax, all attempts to prove 
 it a burden on house property, of the same kind as tithe or teind is 
 on landed property, have completely failed. It is just a tax on a cer- 
 tain class of the inhabitants, and the houses have no more to do with 
 it than as their situation defines the geographical limits of the tax, 
 and their rent fixes the amount of the tax. The truth on this subject 
 has been not only so clearly stated, but so fully demonstrated by Dr 
 Murray, in his acute and luminous tract, “ On the Incidence of the 
 Annuity Tax,” that it is very difficult to persuade oneself, that those 
 who have, since its publication, held the doctrine that that tax is an 
 impost on property, have ever perused that admirable lesson in the 
 science of Political Economy.* 
 
 * The following statements are quite unanswerable :—“ This impost can-. 
 not fall on landlords ; that is, rents are not so much lower on account of this 
 burden, nor would they be so much higher if it were abolished, The value 
 of houses, where there isno monopoly or exclusion—and consequently their 
 rent—are determined, like the worth of every other commodity, by the price 
 of their production, or building, including the feu or ground-rent. They must 
 make this return ; they must yield the average rate of profit, else they would 
 not be produced. But they cannot, building being free, and there being a 
 free market for house-property, yield more. If they yielded more, house- 
 building would be the best of employments, and capital would consequently 
 be attracted to it, till competition lowered profits to the average rate. Now, 
 the annuity tax does not enter into the price of production. It is, in fact, 
 extrinsic of production. It is not leviable when a house is uninhabited, 
 and is payable only when a house is occupied. If the tenant does not, or 
 cannot pay, or, by absconding, eludes payment, it is never laid on the land- 
 lord nor on the property, no more than the assessed or other taxes are. 
 Neither the landlord, in truth, nor any other individual, has any connexion 
 with the impost in question : the tenant only is responsible for it. To say, 
 then, as is said even by persons who should know better, that this tax is ul- 
 timately borne by landlords, though paid in the first instance by the tenants, 
 is to violate the most obvious principle. There is no peculiarity about this 
 tax. It partakes of the very same elements as, for example, the police and 
 assessed taxes. The incidence of all these burdens are the same ; they are 
 paid direetly and ultimately out of the pockets of the individuals on whom 
 they are levied. * * * * * * 
 
 * As the annuity impost does not enter into the price of production ; as 
 it is leviable only from tenants, and landlords are not responsible for it ; as, if 
 transferred from tenants to landlords, it could not, under any circumstances, 
 building being free, materially affect rents, and could not, owing to peeuliar 
 
370 NOTES. 
 
 This is a question, however, which docs not go deep into, or rather 
 does not at all affect the far more important question we have before 
 us—the safety, in a conscientious point of view, of a principled Dis- 
 senter, voluntarily paying a tax for the support of an Established 
 church. It matters not to me that there is the most abundant evi- 
 dence that this is the law of the land, and that it has long been the 
 law of the land. “ That which is in itself morally wrong in the sight 
 of God,” to use the words of an Episcopalian churchman, “ can never 
 become morally right by the mere fiat of an act of Parliament.”* If 
 the law of the land requires me to do what I believe to be inconsist- 
 ent with the law of God, I have no alternative, but to decline com- 
 pliance with the law of the land. The law of the land has power to 
 enforce its own exactions. It may take, but I must not give. 
 
 It has sometimes been said,—but what would become of the Esta- 
 blished clergy, if the principles upheld in the foregoing exposition 
 were generally acted on? The answer to that question is different, 
 according as you reply to it on the voluntary or on the compulsory 
 principle. On the voluntary principle all is plain and easy. “ No- 
 thing,” as the preamble to the Annuity Act says, “is more consonant 
 to equitie and reason, than that the persons that dailie enjoy in plen- 
 tie that blessing of the word of God, and heares the same preached, 
 and does participat the benefit of the clergy, should contribute to the 
 maintenance of the ministrie, in those places where they take the 
 foresaid benefit.” The adherents of the Established Church in this 
 city form a great majority of the wealthier classes ; and Dissenters 
 are somewhat astonished that they should permit those ministers, 
 many of whom so well deserve their esteem, and for whom they 
 loudly proclaim their affectionate regard, to suffer the slightest in- 
 convenience from the difficulty of collecting their legal income, in 
 consequence of the peculiar odiousness of the impost from which it is 
 chiefly derived. 
 
 If the question is to be answered on the compulsory principle, then 
 the reply is—It is a question of expedience, whether it would be better 
 to persist in using the power which the law, as at present understood, 
 gives, to raise the income of the clergy, by an impost which is all but 
 universally condemned, or to take means to have this matter put on 
 
 circumstances, affect them at all in this city, it hence follows, that this impost 
 constitutes a burden solely on tenants, and is entirely borne by them.”—The 
 Incidence of the Annuity Tax, by Thomas Murray, LL.D, Vidin. 1834, 
 
 * Acaster—The Church in Danger, 
 
THE ANNUITY TAX. 371 
 
 a footing which, though of course not satisfactory to Dissenters, would 
 yet not directly interfere with their conscientious convictions, and be 
 free from those peculiarities which have made the annuity tax very 
 generally considered, even by Churchmen, an intolerable nuisance. 
 It must strike every reflecting mind, that if there is to be an Esta- 
 blished Church at all, the least objectionable mode of paying its cler- 
 gy is directly from the public purse ; and that tithes and teinds al- 
 most necessarily occasion frequent disagreement between the minister 
 and his parishioners. But if human ingenuity had been tasked to 
 produce the plan which would throw most obstacles in the way of the 
 clergy of a city answering the great spiritual ends of their functions, 
 nothing more perfect in its kind could have been the result than our 
 annuity tax. 
 
 With the most friendly feelings towards the city clergy, as Chris- 
 tian ministers, | have often wondered that an enlightened regard to 
 their own interest, as well as the interests of religion, had not long 
 ago induced them to go, along with the citizens, to Parliament, and 
 insist that while they had as good a right to a respectable mainte- 
 nance as any other class of ministers in the church, they could not 
 consent to continue to be supported in a manner so hateful to the 
 great body of the people, and of course so hostile to the success of 
 their ministerial labours ; and if possible, | have wondered still more, 
 that when an arrangement was proposed by our municipal rulers, 
 which would have got rid of many of the evils connected with the 
 present system, the proposal, instead of being hailed by the clergy, 
 as a boon, was resented by them, as an insult. 
 
 The concluding words of Dr Murray’s Tract, already referred to, 
 published three years and a half ago, seem almost prophetic. Part of 
 the prediction has been fulfilled ; and if there is not a little more 
 wisdom manifested in certain quarters, the rest may be accomplished 
 sooner than they think. ‘ Assuredly if the annuity tax, in any shape 
 or under any circumstances, be continued, it will not fail to aggra- 
 vate the present excitement, to withdraw more and more both the 
 affections and respect of the people from our most respectable clergy, 
 and ultimately, perhaps, endanger the very existence of our national 
 church.” When the Establishment falls, it will be pulled down by’ 
 the hands of its supporters ; and the result, however unlooked for by 
 themselves, will surprise no other body. They are pulling very hard 
 just now. 
 
 This was true when this note was written ten months ago. It is to a 
 much greater extent true now. The late doings of the General Assem- 
 
a 
 
 372 NOTES. 
 
 bly of the Church of Scotland, and of its Commission, are a direct at- 
 tack on the very vitals of the Establishment. While our northern 
 presbyters are as busy as any Voluntary’s heart could wish in demo- 
 lishing “ the kirk”—the Bishop of Exeter seems equally bent on 
 “ dinging doun the cathedral,” as our gifted countryman Tennant, 
 (in whom philological erudition and poetical genius meet in uncom- 
 mon but not unseemly union) has it. Sound-minded, far-sighted 
 churchmen, like Dr George Cook, may cry “ Quid miserum laceras ? 
 parce pias scelerare manus.” We cannot but wish them success.— 
 The lessons they have given do not seem to have been lost on our 
 secular rulers—and we cannot regret this, for we have a confident 
 hope, that the day of the Establishments’ funeral will be the day of 
 the Churches’ resurrection. 
 
 NOTE XXXITI. 
 
 REMARKS ON THE ASSOCIATE SYNOD’S ACT RESPECTING CHURCH 
 PAYMENTS, 1752. 
 
 The doctrine whick I have taught and acted on in reference to the 
 payment of tribute, has been represented as something like an incon- 
 sistency in a person connected with the United Secession Church ; 
 and in proof of this, I suppose, repeated reference has been made to 
 an act concerning church payments in England and Ireland, passed 
 by the Associate (Antiburgher) Synod at Edinburgh, March 4, 1752, 
 —of which the following is a copy :— 
 
 “« The Synod resumed farther consideration of the affairs relating 
 to various payments required by the order of civil society in England 
 and Ireland ; particularly from some people there who are under the 
 inspection of this Synod ; which payments are applied for supporting 
 the Episcopal Churches there, in their present state of corruption and 
 superstition. After some time spent in reasoning and deliberation on 
 the subject, with prayer for light and direction in the case ; the Synod 
 agreed in declaring, That though the afore-mentioned payments are 
 applied to the support of manifold corruptions and superstitions in 
 those Episcopal Churches, which we are essaying to testify against, 
 and which all ranks of persons in these lands ought to be humbled 
 for before the Lord, as being deep causes of his wrath against and 
 controversy with them; yet the Synod did not find a relevant 
 
' ASSOCIATE SYNOD’S ACT. 373 
 ground for scruple of conscience, about submitting to civil authority 
 in the foresaid payments, as if this could imply any homologation of 
 the foresaid corruptions and superstitions, or of what application is 
 made of those payments unto the support thereof, while the payers 
 are openly engaged in a public testimony against the same, and are 
 not suppressed in the maintenance of that testimony, but are protect- 
 ed in the exercise of their civil and religious liberties, and the said 
 payments are made only in a compliance with the common order of 
 society.” —Gib’s Display, vol. 11. p. 125. 
 
 To this act Mr Gib appends the following note :—“ As hath been 
 observed elsewhere, persons may reckon themselves safe in point of 
 conscience to comply with all simple payments (that is, payments 
 without any concomitant declaration of consent to the uses made 
 thereof) according to the civil order of society, whether statute or 
 common-law, in any country where they are enjoying the benefit of 
 government (no way like the case of our late sufferers who were 
 thrown out from the protection of government, and yet were required 
 to pay a cess for the express purpose of hiring soldiers to kill them), 
 without reckoning themselves any way answerable for the govern- 
 ment’s application thereof, while they are otherwise studying honesty 
 with respect to public corruptions. 
 
 “« What of a person’s substance is required by common or statute 
 law, or by the common order of civil society, cannot be reckoned his 
 own,—more than the rent which is in a tenant’s hand can be reck- 
 oned his own; and, consequently, the payment of it can no more in- 
 fer an approbation of the uses to which it is applied by those to whom 
 it is paid, than a tenant's payment of his rent can infer an approba- 
 tion of the debauched uses, perhaps, his master makes of it. 
 
 “ Hard exactions were made on the Israelites in Egypt, and what of 
 their effects or workmanship they were obliged to give up, was, no 
 doubt, partly applied to the worst of uses; but this was considered as 
 their affliction, and non-submission to such exactions was never 
 charged on them as their sin. The Israelites likewise paid heavy 
 taxes under the Babylonish captivity ; which, no doubt, was partly 
 applied to the worst uses of heathen idolatry: and they complained 
 of this as a heavy trial (Neh. ix. 36, 57), but they never confessed it 
 as their transgression.” 
 
 It may be right to state, that, while I regard with great respect the 
 worthy men who, met in council, gaye the above utterance of their 
 
374 ‘NOTES. 
 
 judgments—1I hold along with them, that “ all Councils and Synods 
 since the Apostles’ times, whether general or particular, may err, and 
 many have erred,* ”—that acts of Synod were never, in the Secession, 
 placed on a level with the symbolical books, far less with the Bible— 
 and that at the union of the two great bodies into which the Seces- 
 sion had been divided, an approval of the acts of either of the two 
 Synods, formed no term of the consoziation. With the document I 
 therefore have nothing to do, but so far as it may contain in it a state- 
 ment or proof which may invalidate the principle | hold and act on. 
 In this aspect, let us look at it for a little. 
 
 With regard to the act itself, it is plain that it is only on the hypo- 
 thesis, that the payment of the religious taxes referred to did not ho- 
 mologate the corruptions and superstitions of the Churches of England 
 and Ireland, the Synod declare the payment safe ; and it is equally 
 plain that, but for their being openly engaged in a public testimony 
 against these corruptions and superstitions, they would have con- 
 sidered said payment as homologation, and on that ground would 
 have condemned it: aud it seems still farther evident, that had any 
 of the people under the inspection of the Synod declared that they 
 could not help considering it as homologation, the Synod would have, 
 with the Apostle, said, “It is evil to him who” payeth “ with offence. 
 He that doubteth is condemned if he” pay—* because he” payeth “ not 
 of faith: for whatsoever is not of faith is sin.” Ὑ 
 
 The notes appended to the act are not by the Synod, but by the 
 able and acute editor of their proceedings, the Rev. Apam Gis. The 
 first paragraph has no bearing on the question before us. In it we 
 are merely taught, what 1 firmly believe, that the fact that a govern- 
 ment does not make the best use of the public revenue, is no sufh- 
 cient reason for refusing to pay the taxes by which that revenue is 
 raised. The case supposed in the second paragraph is not parallel to 
 that of a person required to pay a religious tax for a purpose which 
 he conscientiously disapproves. The parallel case is this: The land- 
 lord not only wastes his rent, which I pay him, in vicious indul- 
 gence, but he exacts from me what he never had a right to, and re- 
 quires me to pay it not to himself, but directly to some minister of 
 his vile pleasures, for the express purpose of securing his services. 
 In the estimation of the really conscientious refuser to pay a religious 
 tax, the civil magistrate has no right to levy a religious tax; and 
 when he does levy it, he requires him to pay it directly to the sup- 
 port of what he considers as inconsistent with the will of God. I 
 
 * Westmin, Conf. of Faith, ο. xxxi. ὃ 4. + Rom. xiv. 20-23. 
 
PRINCIPLES OF THE FRIENDS. 37D 
 
 really think the tenant could not be justly blamed if he said—I will 
 not only pay you the rent 1 owe you, but, rather than quarrel with 
 you, | will pay also what I do not think you have any claim on me 
 for, if you require it, just as additional rent; but I never will be- 
 come the pander of your vices—the partner of your crimes. In like 
 manner, I can see nothing blameworthy in saying I will not refuse to 
 pay whatever the government may demand of me for the general 
 purposes of civil rule, even though the demand should appear to me 
 unreasonable ; but if they ask of me money for a purpose which 1 
 believe to be wrong, they may take it from me, but they shall not 
 get it from me. The cases referred to in the third paragraph are ob- 
 viously not at all to the point. We have no reason to believe that 
 in Egypt or in Babylon, or under the Persian kings, a specific tax for 
 the support of idolatry was levied of the Israelites. I am persuaded 
 that if, under the Syro-Macedonian dynasty, any such impost had 
 been exacted, the spirit of the Maccabees would have prevented its 
 payment. 
 
 NOTE XXXIV. 
 
 EXPOSITION AND DEFENCE OF THE PRINCIPLES OF THE FRIENDS 
 RESPECTING CHURCH TAXES. 
 
 J. 5. GURNEY. 
 
 “ It is certain that, whenever these demands (tithes and other ec- 
 clesiastical imposts) are made on the true and consistent Friend, he 
 will not fail to refuse the payment of them; not because such refu- 
 sal is generally insisted on in the Society, but because the religious 
 sentiments which he has embraced, and which have been explained 
 in these essays, inevitably lead him, if he be faithful, into that result. 
 He feels that it is a duty, laid upon him by his Divine Master, uni- 
 formly to maintain the spirituality and freedom of the Christian mi- 
 nistry ; nor will he venture, by any action of his own, to lay waste his 
 principle, and to weaken the force of truth, with respect to so import- 
 ant a subject. Such an action, the voluntary payment of tithes must 
 unquestionably be considered. 
 
 “This conclusion is by no means afiected by the consideration 
 that the payment of tithes is imposed on the inhabitants of this coun- 
 try by the law of the land; and that, therefore, the clergy have a 
 
376 NOTES. 
 
 legal claim to such a remuneration. Faithful as Friends desire to be 
 to the legal authorities of the state under which they live, it is plain 
 that, as Christians, they cannot render to the law an active obedience 
 in any particular which interferes with their religious duty; that is 
 to say, with their duty to an infinitely superior power. , They cannot 
 obey man rather than God. The only obedience to the law, which 
 can be allowable under such circumstances, is that which the most 
 scrupulous Quaker will not be found to withhold—I mean, a passive 
 obedience. It is no part of the practice, and it would be altogether 
 inconsistent with the sentiments of the Society, to resist the ‘ powers 
 that be. In those matters, in which they find an active compliance 
 with the law, precluded by the dictates of conscience, Friends are, I 
 trust, prepared to suffer, and quietly to allow the law to find its own 
 course. While they abstain from taking any part themselves, in 
 those things which they deem to be wrong, they are ready to stand 
 still, and abide by the consequences. On these grounds, therefore, 
 although they refuse to pay tithes, they oppose no resistance to those 
 legal distraints by which tithes are taken from them. [ὑ is surpris- 
 ing that any persons of reflection should form an opinion (not un- 
 frequently expressed), that there is no essential distinction between 
 these practices, and should assert that the suffering of the distraint, 
 in a moral and religious point of view, is tantamount to the voluntary 
 payment. The two courses are, in point of fact, the respective re- 
 sults of two opposite principles. The Friend, who voluntarily pays 
 tithes, puts forth his hand to that which he professes to regard as an 
 unclean thing, and actively contributes to the maintenance of a sys- 
 tem which is in direct contrariety to his own religious views. The 
 Friend, who refuses to pay tithes, but who (without involving him- 
 self in any secret compromise) quietly suffers a legal distraint for 
 them, is clear of any action which contradicts his own principles. He 
 only follows up another branch of those principles, in not opposing 
 force to force, and in rendering a passive obedience to the law. 
 
 “ It is sometimes remarked that, in refusing to pay tithes, Friends 
 withhold the property of their neighbour ; and thus, in their endea- 
 vour not to counteract their own views on the subject of a free mi- 
 nistry of the gospel, involve themselves in a breach of common in- 
 tegrity. Now, it appears to us that such a charge is wholly falla- 
 cious. Although, in the first place, the conscientious Friend cannot 
 take any active part in the satisfaction of Ecclesiastical demands, he 
 opposes no obstruction to those legal operations by which that satis- 
 faction is, without difficulty, obtained. And, secondly, we deem the 
 
PRINCIPLES OF THE FRIENDS. ove 
 
 notion, that any part of the produce of our lands is the property of 
 the priest, to be destitute of any sound foundation. If it is his pro- 
 perty, his title to it must be clear and unexceptionable. On what, 
 then, rests the title of the priest to this supposed property? On the 
 assumption of a divine right to the tithes on the part of the church, 
 and on the recognition of that divine right by the British legislature.— 
 See Statutes at large, 29 Hen. VIII. ch. 20. Since almost all Protest- 
 ants allow that no such right exists, and since, for our own parts, we 
 are persuaded that the assumption of it is directly opposed to some of 
 the leading principles of Christianity, we cannot admit that the 
 priest has any valid title whatsoever to a property in any part of the 
 produce of our lands. His claim, however groundless in itself, is in- 
 deed sanctioned by the law of the state ; and the individual who buys 
 land, pays a smaller sum of money than he otherwise would have 
 done for his purchase, because it is known, by both parties, that a 
 certain proportion of that which is annually grown upon it can be 
 legally claimed, and will be actually taken by the Ecclesiastical in- 
 cumbent. Nevertheless, every particle of the land which a man 
 purchases, or inherits in fee, is his own property ; so that he can, at 
 all times, use it as he pleases—crop it profitably—crop it unprofit- 
 ably—or allow it to run to absolute waste and ruin. And as every 
 particle of the land is his own property, so also is every particle of its 
 produce ; unless, indeed, he let the land to another person, when the 
 produce of it becomes, on certain conditions, the property of his te- 
 nant.” * * Ἔ ** ** x 
 
 “1 have already found occasion to observe, that the legality of Ke- 
 clesiastical claims is no just or sufficient cause why Friends should 
 take any active part in satisfying them. I may now advance a step 
 farther, and remark, that the establishment of such claims by the 
 law of the civil state, is, in itself, one reason among others, which 
 renders a refusal to comply with them binding on their consciences. 
 For, by refusing to pay tithes and other Ecclesiastical demands im- 
 posed upon them by the law of the land, they express their dissent 
 from that compulsory support of the hierarchy which originated dur- 
 ing the darkest ages of Papal superstition ; and, generally, from the 
 interference of merely human and civil authority with the affairs of 
 religion. 
 
 ‘** No one, who takes a calm and just view of the condition of man- 
 kind will deny the usefulness and importance, within their own 
 sphere, of established forms of government, and of those various re- 
 strictions and regulations by which the order and comfort of civil so- 
 
 ΒΡ" 
 
378 NOTES. 
 
 ciety are promoted and maintained ; and the reader is probably well 
 
 aware that the Friends, as well as other Christians, consider it to be 
 
 their bounden duty, in civil matters, to obey ‘ the powers that be,’ 
 
 and to be faithful in rendering ‘ unto Cesar the things which are 
 
 Cesar’s. —Matt. xxii. 21. We apprehend, however, that the affairs 
 
 of religion appertain not to any civil polity, but to the kingdom of 
 heaven: or, as it is otherwise described, the kingdom of God and of 
 Christ. Although, if we are true Christians, we cannot fail to render 
 
 to our earthly rulers the homage and service which are their due; 
 
 yet, in those things which appertain to the salvation of the soul, we 
 
 profess to call no man master, but to live under the undivided reign 
 
 of Christ himself. The law which Christians are bound, in such 
 matters, to obey, is revealed in the Holy Scriptures, and is engraven 
 on their hearts; and we believe that their Celestial Monarch exer- 
 cises his dominion over them principally by an unseen and spiritual 
 agency, with which no mortal, nor set of mortals, can ever possess 
 authority to interfere. Now, this kingdom or reign of Christ is not 
 
 of this world. The head of it is Almighty ; and, in the prosecution 
 
 of his glorious designs for the extension, edification, and final perfec-— 
 tion of his church, we are persuaded that he neither requires the 
 
 protection, nor sanctions the interference, of the laws and govern- 
 
 ments of men. 
 
 “ In thus stating a very important general sentiment, there are two 
 or three points which I think it desirable to guard. In the first 
 place, it ought to be observed, that there is nothing in that sentiment 
 intended to be opposed to those internal regulations which are adopted, 
 for the maintenance of its own order, by every religious society: for 
 I conceive that, if such regulations are properly formed, and the offi- 
 cers on whom it devolves to execute them are rightly appointed, the 
 discipline thus established in the church, is so far from interfering 
 with the government of Christ, that it is rather to be considered (ac- 
 cording to various declarations of Scripture) as one of the means 
 through which that government is conducted. And, in the second 
 place, it cannot be deemed, on religious grounds, objectionable, when 
 the civil authorities come forward, either by the exertion of preroga- 
 tive, or by the enactment of law, to prevent those various breaches 
 of Christian morality (including drunkenness, gaming, Sabbath-break- 
 ing, &c.), which plainly interfere with the true welfare of the body 
 politic. 
 
 “ The history of the last eighteen centuries does indeed afford, in 
 various ways, a strong presumptive evidence that the cause of true 
 
PRINCIPLES OF THE FRIENDS. 379 
 
 Christianity has very materially suffered in the world, in consequence 
 of the forced and arbitrary connexion between two systems, founded 
 on such different principles, regulated by such different laws, and di- 
 rected to such different objects, as those of the Church and the State. 
 While it does not appear that the State has derived any real advan- 
 tage from its supposed union with the church, it is, probably, in a 
 great measure, the consequence of such an union (invented and con- 
 trived as it has been by the wisdom of man), that the Church has as- 
 sumed, in almost all Christian countries, so secular a character, that 
 Christianity has become so lamentably. mixed up with the spirit, 
 maxims, motives, and politics of a vain and evil world. Had the 
 union in question never been attempted, pure religion might, pro- 
 bably, have found a freer course,—the practical effects of Christianity 
 might have been more unmixed and more extensive, and it might have 
 spread its influence in a much more efficient manner than is now the 
 case—even over the laws and politics of kings and nations. 
 
 ** It was in the reign of the Emperor Constantine (a. p. 325), that 
 the Christian religion was first established by law, forced into con- 
 nexion with the body politic, and handled as a matter appertaining 
 to the State. Now, though we ought not to attribute to a single 
 cause an effect which may have had its origin in many, we cannot 
 but be confirmed in our view of the present subject, when we remem- 
 ber that, before its union with the State, our holy religion flourished 
 with comparative incorruptness ; and that afterwards, it gradually de- 
 clined in its purity and its power, until all was nearly lost in dark- 
 ness, superstition, and spiritual tyranny. 
 
 “‘ Independently, however, of these considerations, which relate to 
 the interference of civil authority with the affairs of religion in ge- 
 neral, there appears to be a distinct moral objection to the legal es- 
 tablishment, in any country, ef a particular form of Christianity, 
 to the disparagement of other modifications of the same essential re- 
 ligion. However the provisions of such a legal establishment may 
 have been rendered liberal, and softened down (as has been so evi- 
 dently the case in Great Britain) by the powerful operation, on the 
 legislature, of public opinion, it may reasonably be questioned, whe- 
 ther there must not always exist in these provisions a radical opposi- 
 tion to a free, unbiassed, and inexclusive religious liberty. I would 
 therefore suggest, that we cannot conscientiously contribute, in an 
 active manner, by the voluntary payment of tithes, or church-rates, 
 to the maintenance of the Established Church, not only because we 
 object to the system on which it is in various respects conducted, but 
 
980 NOTES. 
 
 also because it appears to be inconsistent with the divine law, that 
 any human government should compel us, either to adopt for our- 
 selves, or to uphold for others, a mode of religious worship at variance 
 with our own principles. 
 
 “Tt ought to be noticed, that, although several observations offered 
 in the present chapter relate principally to tithes, most of them are, 
 on general grounds, equally applicable to other ecclesiastical taxes,— 
 such as those denominated church-rates. Tithes and church-rates, 
 though differently applied in detail, are intended for the support of 
 one and the same system ; and the Friend who refuses to pay church- 
 rates, as well as he who refuses to pay tithes, thereby expresses his dis- 
 sent from that system.”—Observations on the Religious Peculiarities of 
 the Society of Friends, by Joseph John Gurney, pp. 180-183, pp. 
 187-190. Lond. 1826. 
 
 JONATHAN DYMOND. 
 
 “ What is he who conscientiously disapproves of a state religion 
 todo? Is he, notwithstanding his judgment, to aid in supporting 
 that religion, because the law requires it. No: for then as it respects 
 him, the obligation of the law is taken away. He is not to do what — 
 he believes Christianity forbids, because the state commands it. If 
 public practice be a criterion of the public judgment, it may be con- 
 cluded that the number of those who do thus believe respecting our 
 state religion is very small ; for very few decline actively to support 
 it. Yet when it is considered how numerous the dissenters from the 
 Establishment are, and how emphatically some of them disapprove 
 the forms or doctrines of that Establishment, it might be imagined 
 that the number who decline thus to support it, would, in consist- 
 ency, be great. How are we to account for the fact as it is? Are we 
 to suppose that the objections of these persons to the Establishment 
 are such as do not make it a case of conscience, whether they shall 
 support it or not? Or are we to conclude that they sacrifice their 
 conscience to the terrors of a distraint? If no case of conscience is 
 involved, the dissenter, though he may think the state religion inex- 
 pedient, can hardly think it wrong. And if he do not think it wrong, 
 why should he be so zealous in opposing it, or why should he expect 
 the church to make concessions in his favour? If, on the other hand, 
 he sacrifice his conscience to his fears, it is obvious that before he re- 
 prehends the establishment, he should rectify himself. He should 
 leave the mote till he has taken out the beam. 
 
 ** Perhaps there are some who, seriously disapproving of the state 
 religion, suspect that in Christian integrity they ought not to pay to 
 
PRINCIPLES OF THE FRIENDS. 381 
 
 its support,—and yet are not so fully convinced of this, or do not so 
 fully act upon the conviction, as really to decline to pay. If they 
 are convinced, let them remember their responsibility, and not know 
 their Master’s will in vain. If these are not faithful, where is fide- 
 lity to be found? How shall the Christian churches be purified from 
 their defilements, if those who see and deplore these defilements, 
 contribute to their continuance? Let them show that their principles 
 are worthy a little sacrifice. Fidelity on their part, and a Christian 
 submission to the consequences, might open the eyes, and invigorate 
 the religious principles of many more: and at length the objection to 
 comply with these unchristian demands, might be so widely extended, 
 that the legislature would be induced to withdraw its legal provi- 
 sion; and thus one main constituent of an ecclesiastical system, 
 which has grievously obstructed, and still grievously obstructs, the 
 Christian cause, might be taken away. 
 
 “ As an objection to this fidelity of practice, it has been said that 
 since a man rents or buys an estate for so much less, because it is 
 subject to tithes, it is an act of dishonesty, afterwards to refuse to pay 
 them. The answer is this,—That no dishonesty can be committed, 
 while the law exacts payment by distraint ; and if the law were al- 
 tered, there is no place for dishonesty. Besides, the desire of saving 
 money, does not enter into the refuser’s motives. He does not de- 
 cline from motives of interest, but from motives of duty.’—Dymond’s 
 Essays on the Principles of Morality, and on the Private and Political 
 Obligations of Mankind, vol. ii. Essay iii. Chap. xvi. Lond. 1830. 
 
 RULES OF DISCIPLINE. 
 
 The following extracts from “ The Rules of Discipline of the Reli- 
 gious Society of Friends,” a work of public authority in that denomi- 
 nation, will still farther explain the grounds on which that respect- 
 able body refuse to pay church taxes. “ Our testimony against 
 tithes and forced maintenance in this gospel day, being received from 
 Christ our Head and High Priest, is not of our own making, or im- 
 posing, nor from the tradition of men.”—“ If all friends had been 
 faithful in their testimony against tithes, the time of our deliverance 
 from that oppression under which this nation yet groans, would have 
 been nearer at hand.”—“ As we have been convinced of the incon- 
 sistency of tithes with the nature of the Gospel dispensation, it is our 
 necessary duty to act agreeably to such convictions; and if sufferings 
 for our testimony shall be the consequences of our obedience thereto, 
 it will become us, after the example of the primitive Christians, cheer- 
 
382 NOTES. 
 
 fully to submit, and to take joyfully the spoiling of our goods; that 
 so We may preserve a conscience void of offence toward God, and at 
 the same time, by our Christian meekness and innocent deportment, 
 give reasonable evidence of our sincerity to men.”’—“ We tenderly 
 exhort that this branch of our Christian testimony be not laid waste 
 by connivance or private agreement with priests or impropriators, 
 but that all abide patient under that testimony which the Lord hath 
 called us to bear, not doubting but that the gradual progress of real 
 Christianity will at length operate to the removal of a yoke so di- 
 rectly contrary to the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free.”— 
 * The forced maintenance of the ministers of religion is in our view 
 a violation of those great privileges which God in his wisdom and 
 goodness bestowed on the human race, when he sent his Son to re- 
 deem the world, and by the power of the Holy Spirit to lead and 
 guide mankind into all truth.” “ The vesting of power by the laws of 
 the land in the King, assisted by his Council, whereby articles of be- 
 lief have been framed for the adoption of his subjects, and under 
 which the support of the teachers of these articles is enforced, is, in . 
 our judgment, a procedure at variance with the whole scope and de- 
 sign of the Gospel, and as it violates the rights of private judgment, so 
 it interferes with the responsibility by which man is bound to his Crea- 
 tor.” —“ It is our firm conviction, that in proportion as the heavenly 
 precepts, and the blessed example of the Son of God, who is given of 
 the Father to be Lord of all, spread and prevail, and effectually rule 
 in the hearts and consciences of men, in proportion as the pure doc- 
 trines of the gospel gain the ascendancy, it will be seen that to up- 
 hold any church establishments by compulsory laws, which oppress 
 the consciences of sincere believers in the Lord Jesus, is at variance 
 with his holy law, and is calculated to retard the universal spread of 
 his reign.’—Rules of Discipline of the Religious Society of Friends, 
 with Advices, being Extracts from the Minutes and Epistles of their 
 Yearly Meeting held in_ London, from its first institution, pp. 254-261, 
 third edition, 4to. London, 1894. 
 
DR WATTS AGAINST ESTABLISHMENTS. 380 
 
 NOTE XXXV. 
 
 DR WATTS DISAPPROBATION OF A CIVIL ESTABLISHMENT OF RE- 
 LIGION, AND REASON FOR PAYING CHURCH TAXES, 
 
 In his valuable tract “ on Civil Power in Things Sacred,” the Doc- 
 tor clearly and satisfactorily shows the impropriety of a civil Esta- 
 blishment of religion. ‘ Another question,” says he, “ arises here : 
 If the supreme power of the state, or civil government, professes some 
 particular revealed religion, or worships the great God with some 
 peculiar modes and ceremonies of its own, may not the rulers of the 
 state authorize and appoint men to be public teachers of their own , 
 religion in all the forms and ceremonies thereof? And may not these 
 men celebrate these ceremonies by public authority, and lead others 
 into the worship of their God, according to these special forms and 
 ceremonies ? And may not the rulers appoint those teachers or priests 
 to be paid out of the public revenue, or by tithes, &c., that is, tenths 
 or twelfths of the improvement of the land, or by taxes imposed by 
 the government ? 
 
 “ To this I answer, that every governor, every teacher, and every 
 single person seems to have a natural right and liberty, not only to 
 practise their own religion themselves, but to persuade as many as 
 they can, to worship the God they worship, and {παύ and by their 
 own approved forms. If duty to God should not require it, benevo- 
 lence and love to our neighbours will incline men to this. But we 
 must attempt it only so far as reason and persuasion can prevail, with- 
 out any compulsion or force, for conscience and religion must be ever 
 free. Whatsoever is done by mere compulsion and terror of men, is 
 not voluntary ; and, therefore, it is not religion, and can never be 
 pleasing to the great God. 
 
 “ But yet I cannot see any sufficient reason why a state should ap- 
 point the peculiarities of any revealed religion, or the special rites 
 and ceremonies of any particular worshippers, or the men who cele- 
 brate them, to be supported at the public charge: for these peculiari- 
 ties are not necessary to the preservation of the state, nor to the com- 
 mon outward civil welfare of a people: and I think the power of the 
 magistrate reaches no farther. 
 
 “* Nor will I venture to say that taxes, or tenths, or twelfths, or 
 any subsidy, should be raised by the state for any other end, than the 
 civil welfare of the state requires. If a heathen prince impose a tenth 
 
984 NOTES. 
 
 penny on all his subjects, as a tax to maintain heathen worship, would 
 a Christian willingly pay it, and think himself bound in conscience to 
 do it? Is not this evidently the reason why the people called Quakers, 
 in our nation, at home or abroad, refuse to pay the tithes to the clergy 
 of the Church of England, or of other Christian churches, because 
 they preach and practise many things in religion which the Quakers 
 do not believe, which the light of nature and reason does not dictate, 
 and which are not necessary to the outward and civil welfare of man- 
 kind.” 
 
 All this is quite as it should be ; but what a sad falling off is there 
 in the apology which he immediately offers for the payment of 
 Church taxes by Dissenters, who conscientiously disapprove of an 
 Established Church? “I do not, by any means, here pretend to 
 vindicate the refusal of tithes and dues to the Church in our nation ; 
 for they are to be considered as a civil or national tax or incumbrance, 
 belonging to every piece of land, or house bought or tented, and so 
 appointed by our laws: and, therefore, every man knowingly buys 
 or hires his land, or his house, with this incumbrance fixed on it, and 
 belonging to those whom the state appoints to receive and possess it. 
 But on the first framing or erecting a civil government, one would 
 not choose to have such laws made, or such taxes or incumbrances 
 established at first, which would afford any colour and occasion for such 
 a refusal and disobedience in times to come, as may arise from real 
 scruples of conscience.”— Watts’ Works, vol. iv. pp. 24, 25. 
 
 The sophism in these words is fully exposed in the preceding note. 
 Can time make wrong, right? And am I to be prohibited from being 
 a proprietor of land, or an occupier of a house, unless I am ready to 
 do what to me is sinful, as being inconsistent with my conscientious 
 convictions—though quite prepared to suffer the penalty ? 
 
 NOTE XXXVI. 
 
 CONSCIENTIOUS SCRUPLES IN REFERENCE TO THE PAYMENT OF 
 CHURCH TAXES. 
 
 Few things can more strikingly illustrate the assertion made in the 
 text, than the following letter, by an esteemed Christian friend, 
 which has been addressed to the Chamberlain of the City of Edin- 
 burgh, in consequence of legal measures for enforcing the payment 
 
SCRUPLES RESPECTING CHURCH TAXES. 385 
 
 of the annuity tax having been suspended during the trial of the 
 question as to the legality of the appointment of the Stent-masters, 
 according to whose valuation the amount of the tax on individuals 
 was apportioned. 
 
 “ὁ Sir,—I understand I am likely soon to be applied to, for payment 
 of ‘ annuity tax, and therefore think it proper, through you, to in- 
 form those who have the direction of the collection, that, as matters 
 now stand, I cannot conscientiously comply with the demand, and 
 therefore must decline compliance. Hitherto I have paid the tax on 
 demand, being satisfied that the enactment by which it was imposed, 
 proceeding, as it did, from unquestionable legislative authority, mere- 
 ly required me to pay money, and thus to bear my share of a ‘ tribute’ 
 which the government I have the happiness to live under, saw it fit 
 to require,—a government which I am, and hope ever shall be, dis- 
 posed cheerfully to obey. The enactment in no way either required 
 or authorized me to judge of its propriety, or to concern myself with 
 the application of the money,—the information conveyed by the 
 Collector's receipts being merely the mode of my knowing that the 
 demand was legal, and of my being able to show that I had complied 
 with it. 
 
 “Ὁ It is now matter of public notoriety that payment of the tax is 
 not enforced, and thus that the statutes by which it was imposed are 
 at present in abeyance. It is therefore left to every one to judge of 
 the propriety of the purpose, for which the demand is made ; and that 
 judgment every one is bound to form, every one being responsible for 
 the consequences of what he does. 
 
 “ It will be granted, I presume, that government can take cogni- 
 zance only of overt acts, and that religion, as distinguished from the 
 mere forms of it, must be matter of conviction, which being entirely 
 a state of mind, is a matter of which governments cannot take cogni- 
 zance. Any Establishment of religion, therefore, which governments 
 can frame, can only be the adoption of its forms, and thus must be- 
 come a prostitution of these, to what I think can be viewed aright 
 only as a mode of police, and a mode of a most objectionable kind. 
 That such an adoption has been followed by some good, I readily ad- 
 mit ; but, in so far as this has not been, through that gracious arrange- 
 ment, by which some of the greatest evils have been made productive 
 of good, I conceive it must have been, from the excellence of many 
 of the men, who have been engaged in the service,—men whose la- 
 bours, if legitimately employed, J cannot doubt, would have effected 
 
980 NOTES. 
 
 incalculably greater good, and whom it is painful to be required to 
 consider, in their official capacity, as merely officers of police. 
 
 “ That the evils of the adoption have counterbalanced, and must have 
 counterbalanced, inconceivably, all the good, is a point upon which 
 I have long been satisfied, and which seems to me to become almost 
 daily more apparent. It becomes so, I think, even taking into view 
 only the affairs of ‘ the life that now is ;’ but if our views be extended, 
 by means of revelation, to ‘ the life that is to come, awful indeed do 
 the consequences appear to me to become, from the natural tendency 
 of the improper adoption of forms, to lead to satisfaction with mere 
 form. 
 
 “ With such views, I cannot but withhold my support of the sys- 
 tem, whatever may be the consequences of my doing so. Among 
 these consequences, I contemplate, with unfeigned sorrow, a renewal 
 or increase, destructive of their usefulness, of that odium under which, 
 from the directions they will probably give or concur in, some of our 
 most amiable fellow-citizens will be placed. Such consequences, I 
 can only hope, will lead them to consider the legitimacy of their situ- 
 ation, and so to see a right way for the attainment of the high objects, 
 I believe they have in view. 
 
 (1 may notice here, without impropriety, that if the legislature 
 were by an enactment to require my worshipping, or professing to 
 worship in any way, or to prohibit my worshipping in such way as 1 
 judge proper, I could not dare to obey.—I am, &c. 
 
 “ Kdinburgh, Dec. 5, 1837.” 
 
 The following weighty observations, by Mr Marsuaur, deserve to 
 be most seriously pondered by those who impose—by those who ex- 
 act—and by those who are required to pay church taxes. The mea- 
 sure of guilt which these most unhappy imposts have been the occa- 
 sion of, in all these quarters, will never be known till the day of 
 judgment. Happy is he who has nothing to do with them. 
 
 “ An important remark in the present discussion is, that scruples 
 of conscience, whether well or ill-founded, are to be held sacred. If 
 the person who labours under such scruples is induced to act in oppo- 
 sition to them, the greatest guilt is incurred not only by himself, but 
 also by those who, whether designedly or heedlessly, throw the stum- 
 bling-block in his way. As for himself he sins—does what in his 
 heart he believes to be wrong—in other words, he destroys himself— 
 destroys himself in a spiritual sense ; for every sin, great or little, 
 
 infers that dreadful consequence—a consequence which is averted 
 
SCRUPLES RESPECTING CHURCH TAXES. 387 
 
 only by repentance ; and those who urge or entice him to the deed, 
 by whatever means they do it, whether by threats or by persuasions, 
 or only by their example, are chargeable with his ruin. 
 
 “ This is argued at length by the apostle Paul in more than one of 
 his epistles. A question was agitated among the primitive believers, 
 whether it was lawful to eat of meats that had been offered to an 
 idol, or to sit down to a feast in an idol’s temple. The more enlight- 
 ened, who knew that ‘ an idol was nothing in the world, deemed the 
 action indifferent—the less enlightened, who ‘ had conscience of the 
 idol, looked upon it as sinful ; and it happened that the one class, by 
 thoughtlessly using their liberty, threw a snare in the way of the 
 other class. The ‘ stronger brethren,’ as the apostle calls the more 
 enlightened, by partaking freely of meats offered to idols, when occa- 
 sion required, sometimes emboldened the less enlightened, whom he 
 calls the ‘ weaker brethren, to imitate their example ; and the con- 
 sequence was, the consciences of the latter were defiled. They acted 
 in opposition to their own convictions—they did what they suspected 
 to be sin—at least, what they did not certainly know to be duty, and 
 of course plunged themselves into guilt. 
 
 « The apostle says little, comparatively, to the ‘ weak,’ but the con- 
 duct of the ‘strong’ he censures in the severest terms. He charges 
 them with nothing less than ‘ destroying’ their christian brethren ; 
 by which he means causing their perdition. The following are a 
 few of the expressions he employs: ‘ Through thy knowledge shall 
 thy weak brother perish, for whom Christ died.’ ‘ When ye sin so 
 against the brethren, and wound their weak conscience, ye sin against 
 Christ. 1 Cor. viii. 11,12. ‘ Destroy not him with thy meat, for 
 whom Christ died.’ ‘ For meat,’ that is, for the sake of meat, ‘ destroy 
 not the work of God.’ ‘ He that doubteth is damned if he eat, because 
 he eateth not of faith ; for whatsoever is not of faith is sin. Rom. 
 xv. 15, 20, 23. 
 
 “ This is a subject of no ordinary importance. It demands the 
 most serious attention of every one who has any thing to do with ec- 
 clesiastical imposts, whether in the way of paying, or in the way of 
 exacting them. It is not men’s feelings alone that are concerned— 
 that were comparatively a trifling matter: nor is it their property 
 alone—that were more trifling still: but it is their spiritual and eter- 
 nal interests. The question is a question of sin or duty—of life or 
 death, in the highest sense of the terms. 
 
 “ Tf an ecclesiastical tax is demanded of a conscientious scrupler, and 
 if he is induced to comply with the demand, whatever be the motive, 
 
988 NOTES. 
 
 whether fear or shame, or the example of others, or the desire of be- 
 ing freed from importunity—if he is induced to comply from any 
 motive, while he is not satisfied in his conscience that it is right, he 
 sins—he is condemned in his own mind—he is condemned before 
 God. Those who urge, or entice, or compel him,—those who in any 
 way are accessory to his compliance, are placed in the same predica- 
 ment—they are condemned before God too—and without repentance, 
 which is in no man’s own power—which depends solely on the grace 
 of heaven, the consequences must be more awful than any words can 
 express.’ —Marshall’s Reply to Dr Inglis, pp. 275-278. 
 
 NOTE XXXVII. 
 
 LIST OF BOOKS, IN WHICH THE LAWFULNESS OF CIVIL ESTABLISH- 
 MENTS OF RELIGION IS DISCUSSED. 
 
 It formed no part of the design of this work, to furnish a com- 
 plete view of the evidence, that a civil Establishment of religion is in 
 direct opposition to the divine will—as being impolitic, unjust, im- 
 pious, and unscriptural. It is, however, of great importance that, on 
 this question, at all times, and especially at present, a practical one, 
 all christian men should endeavour to make up their minds. Abun- 
 dant materials, for such a purpose, will be found in the following 
 works :—Mirton’s Tracts on Ecclesiastical Subjects—Locke’s Letters 
 on Toleration—The Case of Dissent and Separation from a Civil Esta- 
 blishment of the Christian Religion fairly stated, by Rev. Tuomas 
 Mote—Towcoon’s Dissent from the Church of England fully justi- 
 fied—A Review of Ecclesiastical Establishments in Europe, by Rev. 
 Witiiam Granam—Hurcuison’s Dissertation on the Nature and Genius 
 of the Kingdom of Christ—An Address to Believers of the Gospel 
 of Christ, and Thoughts on Religious Establishments, by Jonn Wat- 
 KER—On Non. Conformity, by Jostan Conver, Esq.—A Comparison 
 of Established and Dissenting Churches, by Rev. Joun Bartantyne— 
 Essays on the Principles of Morality, and of the Private and Political 
 Rights and Obligations of Mankind, by Jonarnan Dymonp—Ececlesi- 
 astical Establishments considered —A Letter to the Rev. Andrew 
 Thomson, D.D.—Kcclesiastical Establishments farther considered—A 
 Reply to Dr Inglis’ Vindication of Ecclesiastical Establishments, by 
 Rey. Anprew Marsuarr—Thoughts on Establishments, particularly 
 the Established Church of Scotland, by a Layman—The Scripture Ar- 
 
BOOKS ON CIVIL ESTABLISHMENTS. 389 
 
 gument against Civil Establishments, and other Publications, by 
 Ratpag Warptaw, D.D.—Considerations on Civil Establishments of 
 Religion, by H. Heven, D.D.—A Dissertation on Church Polity, 
 by Ayprew C. Dick, Esq.—Protestant Dissent Vindicated, in Two 
 Letters, to the Rev. Dr Lee, by J. P. ὅμιτη, D.D.—James’ Princi- 
 ples of Dissent and the Duties of Dissenters, and Dissent and the 
 Church of England—Brnyey’s Ultimate Object of the Evangelical 
 Dissenters—Kcclesiastical Establishments opposed alike to Political 
 Equity and Christian Law—Reply: to the Rev. J. Esdail, and a Vin- 
 dication of Scripture and Common Sense, by Rev. Davin Youne—Po- 
 litical Christianity, by Rev. James W. Massis—Principles of Dissent, 
 by Rev. Tuomas Scates—Claims of Dissenters, and other Publications, 
 by Apam Tuomson, D.D.—The Union of Church and State anti-scrip- 
 tural and indefensible, by Rev. W. Tuorn, Winchester—The Tracts 
 published by the Society for promoting Ecclesiastical Knowledge, and 
 by the Voluntary Church Associations of Edinburgh and Glasgow, 
 especially The Whole Question stated and answered, by Rev. W. 
 Lowr1E—The Lectures on the Voluntary Church Question, delivered 
 in Edinburgh and Glasgow—The Ecclesiastical Journal, and the Vo- 
 luntary Church Magazine. 
 
 To those who wish to see the argument on the other side put in 
 its best form, we would recommend Hooxer’s Ecclesiastical Polity 
 —The Alliance between Church and State, or the Necessity and 
 Equity of an Established Religion and Test Law Demonstrated, by 
 Bishop Warsurtron—A Vindication of the Civil Establishment of 
 Religion, by J. Rocrrs, D.D.—An Essay on Establishments in Reli- 
 gion, by Dr Rotueram—RanxeEn’s Essay on the Importance of Reli- 
 gious Establishments—Dr M‘Crir’s Statement on the Difference of the 
 Profession of the Reformed Church of Scotland, and that of the Ge- 
 neral Associate Synod—Patey’s Moral and Political Philosophy—A 
 Vindication of Ecclesiastical Establishments, by Joun Inexis, D.D.—- 
 Correlative Claims and Duties of the Church and State, by Rev. S. 
 C. Witxs—Cuatmers’ Lectures on the Establishment and Extension 
 of National Churches. 
 
 lf any wish to see what extravagances and absurdities, contro- 
 vertists will resort to in defence of an untenable cause, they may 
 have their curiosity amply satiated by the perusal of Bishop Parker's 
 Ecclesiastical Policy, and the tracts of various sizes and literary me- 
 rit, but, with few exceptions, of a common character, so far as viru- 
 lence, personality, and abuse are concerned, which have been pub- 
 lished, on the side of Establishments, in the pending controversy. 
 
990 NOTES. 
 
 Of these productions, to adopt language originally employed in re- 
 ference to the apologies for another species of abuse, “ I am free 
 to confess, that if I had never heard an argument against Esta- 
 blishments, I should find in the writings of these defenders satis- 
 factory evidence that their cause is bad. So true is this, that if at 
 any time I needed peculiarly to impress myself with the iniquity 
 of the system, I should take up the book of one of these determined 
 advocates. There I find the most unequivocal testimony against it 
 —that which is unwittingly furnished by its advocates. There 
 I find that the temper and dispositions which are wont to infinence 
 the advocate of a good cause are scarcely to be found ; and those 
 which usually characterise a bad one continually appear ; and there- 
 fore, even setting aside inaccurate statements and fallacious rea- 
 sonings, I am assured, from the general character of the defence, 
 and conduct of the defenders, that the system is radically vicious and 
 bad.” 
 
 Some of these writers seem to have availed themselves of the li- 
 cense granted by Atticus, as unscrupulously as if it were sanctioned 
 by Christian morality : ‘“ Concessum est Rhetoribus, ementiri in his- 
 toriis, ut aliquid dicere possint argutius.’—Cic de clay. orat. c. xi. It 
 might be well for such persons to ponder the question and the state- 
 ment of Job.“ Will ye speak wickedly for God, and talk deceitfully 
 forhim? . . . He will surely reprove you ;” Job. xiii. 7, 10. 
 
 NOTE XXXVIII. 
 
 ANDREW FULLER'S OPINION OF THE INFLUENCE OF A CIVIL ESTA- 
 BLISHMENT OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 “ The Christianity here defended is not Christianity, as it is cor- 
 rupted by popish superstition, or as interwoven with national esta- 
 blishments, for the accomplishment of secular purposes ; but as it is 
 taught in the New Testament, and practised by sincere Christians. 
 There is no doubt, but that in many instances, Christianity has been 
 adopted by worldly men, even by infidels themselves, for the purpose 
 of promoting their political designs. Finding the bulk of the people 
 inclined to the Christian religion, under some particular form, and at- 
 tached to certain leading persons among them, who sustained the 
 character of teachers, they have considered it as a piece of good policy 
 
CHURCH PROPERTY. 391 
 
 to give this religion an establishment, and these teachers a share in 
 the government. It is thus that religion, to its great dishonour, has 
 been converted into an engine of state. The politician may be pleas- 
 ed with his success, and the teacher with his honours, and even the 
 people be so far misled as to love to have it so; but the mischief re- 
 sulting from it to religion is incalculable. Even where such esta- 
 blishments have arisen from piety, they have not failed to corrupt 
 the minds of Christians from the simplicity that is in Christ. It was 
 by these means that the church at an early period from being the 
 bride of Christ, gradually degenerated to a harlot, and in the end be- 
 came the mother of harlots, and abominations of the earth. The 
 good that is done in such communities, is not in consequence of their 
 peculiar ecclesiastical constitution, but in spite of it; it arises from 
 the virtue of individuals, which operates, notwithstanding the disad- 
 vantages of their situation. _ These are the things that afford a handle 
 to unbelievers. They seldom choose to attack Christianity, as it is 
 drawn in the sacred writings, and exemplified in the lives of real 
 Christians, who stand at a distance from worldly parade, political 
 struggles, or state intrigues; but as it is corrupted and abused by 
 worldly men.” —Fuller’s Gospel its own Witness — Introduction — 
 Works, vol. iii. pp. 14-16. 8vo. Lond. 1824. 
 
 NOTE XXXIX. 
 CHURCH PROPERTY. 
 
 SIR JAMES MACKINTOSH. 
 
 ‘“‘ The author of the opinion, that church lands are national pro- 
 perty, was Turgot, a name now too high to be exalted by eulogy, or 
 depressed by invective.” That benevolent and philosophic states- 
 men delivered it in the article Fondation of the Enecyclopedie, as the 
 calm and disinterested opinion of a scholar, at a moment when he 
 could have no view to palliate rapacity or prompt irreligion. It was 
 no doctrine contrived for the occasion by the agents of tyranny; it 
 
 * Of this most enlightened minister to Louis XVI., Dr Parr, when ques- 
 tioning the soundness of some of his principles, speaks, as “a late celebrated 
 foreigner, who had deeply explored the true science of politics, and was sin- 
 eerely attached to the best interests of humanity.”—Spital Sermon, p. 14. 
 4to. Lond. 1801. 
 
392 NOTES. 
 
 was a principle discovered in pure and harmless speculation by one 
 of the best and wisest of men. But dismissing the genealogy of doc- 
 trines, let us examine their intrinsic value, and listen to no voice but 
 that of truth‘ Are the lands occupied by the church the property 
 of its members?’ Various considerations present themselves, which 
 may elucidate the subject. 
 
 “1. It has not hitherto been supposed that any class of public ser- 
 vants are proprietors. They are salaried by the state for the perform- 
 ance of certain duties. Judges are paid for the distribution of jus- 
 tice; kings for the execution of the laws; soldiers where there is a 
 mercenary army for public defence, and priests where there is an es- 
 tablished religion for public instruction. The mode of their payment 
 is indifferent to the question. It is generally in rude ages by land, 
 and in cultivated periods by money. But a territorial pension is no 
 more property than a pecuniary one. The right of the state to regu- 
 late the salaries of those servants, whom it pays in money, has not 
 been disputed. But if it have chosen to provide the revenue of a cer- 
 tain portion of land for the salary of another class of servants, where- 
 fore is its right more disputable, to resume that land, and to establish 
 a new mode of payment ? 
 
 «97. The lands of the church possess not the most simple and indis- 
 pensable requisites of property. They are not even pretended to be 
 held for the benefit of those who enjoy them. This is the obvious 
 criterion between private property and a pension for public service. 
 The destination of the first is avowedly the comfort and happiness of 
 the individual who enjoys it; as he is conceived to be the sole judge 
 of this happiness, he possesses the most unlimited rights of enjoyment, 
 alienation, and even abuse. But the lands of the church destined for 
 the support of public servants, exhibit none of the characters of pro- 
 perty. They are inalienable; for it would not be less absurd for 
 the priesthood to exercise such authority over these lands, than it 
 would be for seamen to claim the property of a fleet they manned, or 
 soldiers that of a fortress they garrisoned. 
 
 «9. It is confessed that no individual priest is a proprietor, and it is 
 not denied that his utmost claim was limited to a possession for life of 
 his stipend. Ifall the priests taken individually are not proprietors, the 
 priesthood, as a body, cannot claim any such right,—for what is a 
 body but an aggregate of individuals, and what new right can be con- 
 veyed by a mere change of name? Nothing can so forcibly illustrate 
 this argument as the case of other corporations. They. are volun- 
 tary associations of men for their own benefit. Every member of 
 
CHURCH PROPERTY. 393 
 
 them is an absolute sharer in their property. It is therefore alienated 
 and inherited. Corporate property is here as sacred as individual, 
 because in the ultimate analysis it is the same. But the priesthood is 
 a corporation endowed by the country, and destined for the benefit 
 of other men. It is hence that the members have no separate, nor 
 the body any collective, right of property. They are only entrusted 
 with the administration of the lands from which their salaries are 
 paid. 
 
 “4. It is from this last circumstance that their legal semblance of 
 property arises. In charters, bonds, and all other proceedings of law, 
 they are treated with the same formalities as real property. The ar- 
 gument of prescription will appear to be altogether untenable, for 
 prescription implies a certain period, during which the rights of pro- 
 perty have been exercised, but in the case before us they never were 
 exercised, because they never could be supposed to exist. It must be 
 proved that these possessions were of the nature of property, before 
 it can follow that they are protected by prescription, and to plead it, 
 is to take for granted the question in dispute. If they never were 
 property, no length of time can change their nature. 
 
 « 5. The clamour of sacrilege, by which, at the Reformation, the 
 church attempted to protect its pretended property seems to have fal- 
 len into early contempt. The treaty of Westphalia secularized many 
 of the most opulent benefices of Germany. In our own island, on the 
 abolition of Episcopacy in Scotland, the revenues of the church peace- 
 ably devolved on the sovereign. When, at a still later period, the Je- 
 suits were suppressed in most Catholic monarchies, the wealth of that 
 formidable and opulent body was every where seized by the sovereign. 
 In all these memorable examples no traces are to be discovered of 
 the pretended property of the church. The salaries of a class of pub- 
 lic servants are in all these cases resumed by the state when it ceases 
 to deem their service, or the mode of it, useful. 
 
 “© 6, The whole subject is indeed.so evident, that little diversity of 
 opinion could have arisen,—if the question of church property had 
 not been confounded with the claims of the present incumbents. 
 The distinction is extremely simple. The state is the proprietor of 
 the church revenues, but its faith, it may be said, is pledged to those 
 who have entered into the church for the continuance of those in- 
 comes for which they abandoned all other pursuits. The right of the 
 state to arrange at its pleasure the revenues of any future priests, 
 may he confessed, while a doubt may be entertained whether it is 
 competent to change the fortune of those to whom it has solemnly 
 
 σο 
 
994 _*. NOTES. 
 
 promised a certain income for life.’—Muckintosh’s Vindicie Gallica, 
 pp. 85-96, 
 
 The above is the clearest and most satisfactory exposition of the 
 true nature, of what is often termed church property, that we have 
 any where met with. These remarks appear in the “ Vindicie Gal- 
 lice,” a work which an enemy to its principles (Mr Plumer Ward) 
 says, ‘*¢ will ever be read as a first-rate production of genius,” and are 
 brought forward with a direct reference to the church lands of the 
 Roman Catholic Church of France—but they are of universal appli- 
 cation. The following observations, which follow the expression of 
 a generous regret of the individual sufferings which the change aris- 
 ing out of the state taking the management of these lands into their 
 own hands, are pregnant with most important and interesting truth : 
 
 “ But these sentiments imply no sorrow at the downfall of a great 
 corporation, the determined and implacable enemy of freedom ; at the 
 conversion of an immense public property to national use ; nor at the 
 reduction of a servile and imperious priesthood to humble utility, as 
 the moral and religious instructors of mankind. The attainment of 
 these great objects consoles us for the portion of evil that was per- Ὁ 
 haps inseparable from them, and will be justly admired by a poste- 
 rity too remote to be moved by these minute afflictions, or to be af- 
 fected by any thing but their general splendour. The enlightened 
 observer of an age thus distant, will contemplate with peculiar asto- 
 nishment, the rise, progress, decay, and downfall* of spiritual power 
 in Christian Europe. It will attract his attention as an appearance 
 that stands alone in history. Its connexion in all stages of its pro- 
 gress with the civil power, will peculiarly occupy his mind. He will 
 remark the unpresuming humility by which it gradually gained the 
 favour and divided the power of the magistrate; the haughty and 
 despotic tone in which it afterwards gave law to sovereigns and sub- 
 jects; the zeal with which, in the first desperate moments of de- 
 cline, it armed the people against the magistrate, and aimed at re-es- 
 tablishing spiritual despotism on the ruins of civil order; and the 
 asylum which it at last found against the hostilities of reason in the 
 prerogatives of temporal despotism, of which it had so long been the 
 implacable foe.”—Vind. Gall. pp. 98-100. 
 
 * Did we not dread the ridicule of political prediction, it would not seem 
 difficult to assign its period, Church power (unless some revolution auspi- 
 cious to priesteraft, should replunge Europe in ignorance), will certainly not 
 survive the nineteenth century, 
 
CHURCH PROPERTY. 395 
 
 ANONYMOUS. 
 
 τς The class denominated High-Churchmen, both in England and 
 Scotland, affirm most positively that the support of the Ecclesiastical 
 Establishments costs nothing to the country. The Established 
 churches, they say, are incorporations possessed of property and re- 
 venues, sacred and inalienable, to which they have absolute right, and 
 of which they cannot be deprived without flagrant injustice, and the 
 unsettling of all rights to property of every description, whether pub- 
 lic or private. 
 
 “ Among Voluntary churchmen a different opinion prevails. They 
 generally hold that the burden of supporting the national churches 
 rests upon no particular class or classes of the community, but upon 
 the nation at large. It is, according to them,” so far at least as it is 
 derived from tithe, as well as immediately from the exchequer, “a ge- 
 neral tax, of which a part falls upon the food and raiment, upon every 
 necessary and comfort of life, used by the humblest member of so- 
 ciety. The truth of this theory, it is said, may be strictly demon- 
 strated on the principles of political economy, which may indeed 
 be the case ; but whether it be so or not, the subject is a great deal 
 too recondite for present discussion. It is safest to deal with those 
 matters that can be comprehended by persons of ordinary under- 
 standing. 
 
 “ In Scotland, the country in which we are principally interested, 
 the support of the Established clergy, exclusive of manses and glebes, 
 is derived from the three following sources: teinds or tithes, annuity 
 or house-tax, and allowance or bounty bestowed by government. 
 When tithes were first introduced, the persons who paid them would 
 have no doubt, in so far as tithes were concerned, that the clergy 
 were supported at their expense. A man who one year enjoyed the 
 whole produce of his land, and of the labour bestowed on it, and who 
 next year found himself compelled to part with a tenth part of that 
 produce, would understand quite clearly, that a certain portion of his 
 property had been taken from him; he would think so every year after 
 while he lived ; and supposing him to have been succeeded in his es- 
 tate by a son, that son would be equally sure that what the law had 
 taken from his father, continued to be taken from him, and equally 
 sure may be his descendant to the tenth or twenticth generation. 
 The lapse of time makes no alteration in the nature of the case. 
 
 “ But though this were granted in regard to heirs, it is argued in 
 the ease of land acquired by purchase, that the purchaser can have 
 
396 NOTES. 
 
 no claim to tithes, seeing he must have taken the amount of them 
 into account in making the purchase, and have ascertained the value 
 of the land of course, according to its probable produce remaining 
 after tithes were deducted. It is argued farther, that as almost all 
 the land in the country has been repeatedly transferred by purchase, 
 since the payment of tithes was ordained by the civil law, it follows 
 that tithes, if not the absolute property of the church, are not private 
 but national property, and may justly, if taken from the church, he 
 applied to any national purpose. 
 
 “ In point of fact, tithes are neither more nor less than a tax upon 
 land, in this respect of the same nature with the property-tax levied 
 for so many years during the late war, and equally, with it, under 
 the control of the legislature. Should therefore the government see 
 meet, at any future period, to remit the tax of tithes, it seems clear, 
 that as in the case of other taxes remitted, the persons who pay the 
 tax, or from whose property it is levied, are justly entitled to the di- 
 rect benefit of the repeal. The argument against this, in regard to 
 the proprietors of land acquired by purchase, does not appear to be 
 well founded ; for as an heir succeeds to all the unreserved rights of — 
 his ancestor, in the same manner does a purchaser to all the unreserved 
 rights of the person from whom the purchase is made. Now, it was 
 the right of this person, as it is of every British subject, to claim ex- 
 emption from every kind of tax not required by the exigencies of the 
 state ; and as it respects taxes on property, this right or claim, as 
 necessarily connected with the property, must be transferred along 
 with it, and become vested in the person of each successive proprie- 
 tor. The same thing holds true with regard to the annuity or house- 
 tax paid by the occupiers of houses in Edinburgh. There can be no 
 doubt that the payers of this tax support the clergy, and there is lit- 
 tle doubt that, were the city to get free of the tax, those who pay it 
 would think it the highest injustice if, instead of being allowed to 
 retain its amount, it continued to be claimed as public money. The 
 third source of clerical support is supplied from the public revenue, 
 and were the bounty withdrawn, those, as in the other two cases, by 
 whom it is furnished, would be entitled to the repeal of taxes to the 
 amount.”—These remarks are extracted from one of the most inge- 
 nious tracts which the Voluntary Church Controversy has produced, 
 
 entitled “ Calm Answers to certain angry Questions,” pp. 88-42. Edin. 
 1833. 
 
 JONATHAN DYMOND. 
 
 “It is argued that the legislature has no right to take away tithes 
 
CHURCH PROPERTY. 397 
 
 any more than it hasa right to deprive citizens of their lands and 
 houses; and that a man’s property in tithes is upon a footing with his 
 property in an estate. Now, we answer, that this is not true in fact ; 
 and that if it were, it would not serve the argument. 
 
 “ It is not true in fact. If tithes were a property, just as an estate 
 is a property, why do men complain of the scandal of pluralities ? 
 Who ever hears of the scandal of possessing three or four estates ? 
 why again does the law punish simonaical contracts ? who ever hears 
 of simonaical contracts for lands and houses? The truth is, that 
 tithes are regarded as religious property. The property is legally 
 recognized not for the sake of the individual who may possess it, but 
 for the sake of religion. The law cares nothing for the men, except 
 so far as they are ministers. Besides, tithes are a portion of the pro- 
 duce only, of the land. The tithe-owner cannot walk over an estate, 
 and say of every tenth acre, it is mine. In truth, he has not, except 
 by the consent of the landholder, any property in it at all; for the 
 landholder may, if he please, refuse to cultivate it—occasion it to 
 produce nothing ; and then the tithe-owner has no interest or pro- 
 perty in it whatever. And in what sense can that be said to be pro- 
 perty, the possession of which is at the absolute discretion of another 
 man.” 
 
 “ But grant for a moment that tithes are property. Is it affirmed, 
 that whatever property a man possesses cannot be taken from him by 
 the legislature? Suppose I go to Jamaica and purchase a slave” 
 (Happily this supposition made in 1829, cannot now be made in 1888), 
 “ has the law no right to take this property away? Assuredly it has 
 the right, and exercises it too. Now, so far as the argument is con- 
 cerned, the cases of the slaveholder, and of the tithe-owner are pa- 
 rallel. Compulsory maintenance of Christian ministers, and com- 
 pulsory retention of men in bondage, are both inconsistent with Chris- 
 tianity ; and, as such, the property which consists in slaves and in 
 tithes may be rightly taken away ; unless, indeed, any man will af- 
 firm that any property, however acquired, cannot lawfully be taken 
 from the possessor. But when we speak of taking away the pro- 
 perty in tithes, we do not refer to the consideration that it has been 
 under the sanction of the law itself that that property has been pur- 
 chased and obtained. The law has in reality been accessary to the 
 offence, and it would not be decent or right to take away the posses- 
 sion which has resulted from that offence, without offering an equi- 
 valent. I would not advise a legislature to say to persons who, un- 
 der its own sanction, have purchased slaves, to turn upon them and 
 
398 NOTES. 
 
 say, I am persuaded that slavery is immoral, and therefore I com- 
 mand you to set your slaves at liberty ;—and because you have no 
 moral right to hold them, I shall not grant you a compensation. 
 Nor, for the same reason, would I advise a legislature to say so to 
 the possessor of tithes. 
 
 “ But what sort of compensation is to be offered? Not surely an 
 amount equivalent to the principal money, computing tithes as in- 
 terest. The compensation is for life-interest only. The legislature 
 would have to buy off not a freehold but an annuity. The tithe- 
 owner is not like the slave-holder, who can bequeath his property to 
 another. When the present incumbent dies, the tithes, as property, 
 cease to exist, until it is again appropriated to an incumbent by the 
 patron of the living. This is true, except in the cases of those de- 
 plorable practices, the purchase of advowsons, or of any other tithes 
 by which individuals or bodies acquire a pecuniary interest in the 
 right of disposal. 
 
 “‘ The notion that tithes are a ‘ property of the church,’ is quite a 
 fiction. In this sense what is the church? If no individual man has 
 his property taken away by an abolition of tithes, it is unmeaning 
 to talk of the church having lost it. 
 
 “It is perhaps a vain thing to talk of how the legislature might do 
 a thing which perhaps it may not resolve for ages to do at all.”— 
 (How much less likely is it in 1838 than it was in 1829,—that ages, 
 or even an age, will elapse before the legislature deal with church 
 property as public property ?)—“ But if it were to take away the right 
 to tithes as the present incumbents died, or as the interests of the pre- 
 sent owners ceased, there would be no reason to complain of injus- 
 tice, whatever there might be of procrastinating the fulfilment of a 
 Christian duty.”—Dymond’s Essays, vol. ii. Ess. iii. Ch. xvi. 
 
 LORD BROUGHAM. 
 
 “ Lord Brovenam argued, ‘that both on the principles on which 
 they were formed, and on the rules by which they were accustomed 
 to be dealt with, there was a broad and direct distinction between 
 private property and church property. Private property was that 
 sort of property to which an individual of his own right, and of that 
 right only, had a title. It was a property which could be sold or 
 given away, or transferred or encumbered,—property which the pos-: 
 sessor could bequeath as he listed, or which, in default of bequest, 
 descended to his heirs. But how did the property of the parson at 
 all correspond with this description ὁ He could neither sell it nor 
 
CHURCH PROPERTY. 399 
 
 transfer it, nor leave it to whom he pleased; but it passed from him 
 to a successor of whom he knew nothing, and who perhaps had been 
 his most mortal enemy. If private property were taken from an in- 
 dividual, the state robbed not only him, but his children or next 
 heirs ; but if the law said to a clerical incumbent, ‘ The profits of this 
 living shall cease after your death,’ who, in whom that clergyman 
 had any interest, was in the smallest degree damnified ? Besides, was 
 it not clear that private property was that income for the receipt of 
 which the holder had no duty to perform? The clergy were officers 
 of the state, and, like other officers of the state, might be got rid of 
 in proportion as they were no farther required. If the church pro- 
 perty, as it was called, was private property, why was not the pay 
 of the army and navy personal in an equal degree? And the prac- 
 tice showed how the fact stood. If the tithe was really private pro- 
 perty, it could not be meddled with at all.’”—Mirror of Parliament. 
 Session for 1825, pp. 367, 368. 
 
 THE REY. ἢ. 5. BOGIE, B. A.—LORD MELBOURNE. 
 
 The remarks that follow are from the pen of a beneficed clergyman 
 of the English Church—the author of a singular little book, entitled, 
 “ The Crisis ; or the approaching Grand Religious Revolution, and the 
 Fall of the National Churches.” 
 
 “ That the Protestant Establishment possesses no property in her 
 own right, but holds it from and under the government, seems to re- 
 quire no proof ; yet some of our high churchmen, now that they find 
 themselves called to account by the nation, would fain assume an in- 
 dependent position, and pretend that the property of their holy church 
 is indefeasable and inviolable, and cannot be appropriated by the 
 state. Assuming the high ground of the inalienable rights of the 
 Church, they render themselves ridiculous, and become a laughing- 
 stock to all Protestants. For what is the origin and constitution of 
 the reformed Church? It is founded on an act of Parliament; and 
 it holds its property, as the ichurch of the state, directly from the 
 state. By an act of Parliament the authority of the Pope was an- 
 nulled, and the Catholic Church was overthrown ; by the same power 
 the king was made the supreme head of the Church, and exercised 
 all the functions of the Pope, in the appointment of bishops, and in au- 
 thorizing all the doctrines and canons of the Church. By acts of Par- 
 liament, that great reformer Henry VIII. who is in bad odour with 
 the Protestant clergy now, as then with the Roman Catholic,—abo- 
 lished some bishoprics, and sequestrated their revenues, established 
 
400 NOTES. 
 
 others, alienated much of the church property, and spoliated many 
 sinecure livings. By the mandate of the king, the bishops are elected : 
 directly from him they hold the bishoprics as baronies; and from 
 these spiritual barons every incumbent holds on performance of certain 
 service. There are examples enough of the tenure of church pro- 
 perty from the state, and of the spoliation and alienation of that pro- 
 perty. Ifit could not be alienated from its original purposes, why 
 should it not revert to-morrow to the Roman Catholics? But every 
 day shows that it is the property of the state, which can either take 
 it away or appropriate it to some other use. Much of this property 
 was bequeathed by our Roman Catholic ancestors, for the mainte- 
 nance of the monks of the Established religion, and for the saying of 
 masses for the souls of the donors in purgatory. How do the Pro- 
 testant clergy, who talk of the inviolability of church property, vin- 
 dicate their right to it? If, on the ground that it was set apart for 
 sacred purposes,—their right is null and void; for the intention of 
 the donor defines what were the sacred purposes, which purposes, so 
 far from fulfilling, they rather desecrate in the eye of the Catholic, 
 by their heretical and damnable doctrines. The right of the Protest- — 
 ant clergy to the tithes on land, is founded on an act of Parliament. 
 This is plain, from ‘ the Act of Uniformity,’ which restricts the enjoy- 
 ment of that property to those who entirely conform to the state re- 
 ligion, as exhibited in the book of Common Prayer ; and therefore 
 due respect being paid to vested interests, it is in the power of Parlia- 
 ment to alienate or apply that property to other purposes, or other 
 forms of religion, to-morrow. 
 
 « This has been fully stated by the present premier (Lord Mr- 
 BOURNE) in the debate on the Ecclesiastical Commission. He said, 
 that ‘ the tithes and landed property in the hands of clergymen, did 
 not belong to them, but was a portion of the national property, which 
 had been set aside either by the institutions of the country, or by the 
 superstition of former ages, for the maintenance of the established 
 religion of this country ; and being a portion of that national proper- 
 ty, it was in the power of the state, from time to time, to increase it 
 should it be too small, or to diminish it if too large, and apply the 
 surplus to whatever purposes might be considered the fittest to pro- 
 mote the great end and object in view. These were the only safe 
 principles upon which the legislature or government could proceed.’ 
 And, accordingly, upon these principles, not of spoliation, but of ap- 
 propriation, the government and legislature have proceeded first in 
 diminishing ten of the Irish bishoprics, and applying the property to 
 
RESISTANCE TO THE ANNUITY TAX. 40}1 
 
 other uses; and now, on the recommendation of the bishops them- 
 selves, are about to apply the surplus of the cathedral property to 
 other purposes."—The False Alarm, or the Church in Danger, p. 87. 
 Lond. 1837. 
 
 NOTE XL. 
 
 RESISTANCE TO THE ANNUITY TAX BY OUR COVENANTING 
 ANCESTORS, 
 
 “ After the restoration of Charles II., Episcopacy became ‘ the 
 Church by law established,’ and from that period to the Revolution 
 of 1688, the resistance to the payment of the tax on the part of the 
 members of the present Established Church, who were then Dissenters, 
 was greater than at any period, either before or since that time, not 
 even excepting the last ten years. Like the Dissenters of the present 
 day, they supported their own ministers at their own expense, on 
 the Voluntary principle, and they naturally objected to being compel- 
 led to pay for the support of the ministers of a church to which they 
 did not belong, and which they believed to be an Antichristian Esta- 
 blishment. They did not, like the Dissenters of the present day, ob- 
 ject to all civil Establishments of religion, but in common with them, 
 they considered it ‘ persecution for conscience’ sake,’ to be compelled 
 to support any sect but their own. The poinding and rouping of 
 their goods, for payment of stipend, was carried on to a great extent ; 
 but this did not produce the desired effect. They suffered ‘ the spoil- 
 ing of their goods’ without being intimidated into compliance with 
 demands which they believed to be essentially unjust. In this state 
 of matters, the Town Council, adopting the fashionable expedient of 
 the day, ordered soldiers to be quartered on all those who refused to 
 pay the tax. This most iniquitous resolution was instantly carried 
 into effect, but the “ still small voice’ of conscience was not to be sub- 
 dued. Proceeding from one degree of wickedness to another, the 
 Town Council ordered the soldiers to be paid by the parties on whom 
 they were quartered, and their goods to be rouped to provide the ne- 
 cessary funds ; but notwithstanding all their ingenuity, and all their 
 iniquitous contrivances for enforcing payment of this hated tax, there 
 was one discovery which they did not make, but which the superior 
 light and civilization of the nineteenth century has enabled ‘ the 
 friends of the Church’ to make,—that the imprisonment of the per- 
 
402 NOTES. 
 
 sons of those who resist the tax, is the most effectual method of en- 
 forcing payment. 
 
 “ To the members of that Church, which is at present ‘ by law Es- 
 tablished, the inhabitants of this city are deeply indebted for the first 
 determined and continued resistance to the payment of the annuity tax, 
 and for the vindication of the rights of conscience under the severest 
 trials, and amidst the greatest dangers. By their resistance they had 
 reason to believe they would incur the displeasure of the most arbi- 
 trary government which had ever existed in Scotland—of such men 
 as Middleton, Lauderdale, Sharp, Rothes, Dalzell, Perth, and the 
 Duke of York—under whose direction every species of cruelty and 
 oppression was perpetrated. In other cases of resistance for consci- 
 ence’ sake, they were in the practice of employing torture as freely as 
 ever the agents of the Inquisition did ; and not satisfied with the in- 
 struments employed by them, by a refinement in cruelty, they in- 
 vented new instruments of torture, of a more dreadful kind. These 
 they frequently ordered to be applied in their presence, before the 
 Privy Council, in torturing those who were prisoners ‘ for conscience’ 
 sake. They fined, and imprisoned, and banished, without law, and 
 without merey. They caused hundreds to be put to death by mili- 
 tary execution, without even the forms of justice ; and others, after 
 a mock trial, were ordered to be executed with every refinement in 
 cruelty which the most fiendish ingenuity could suggest. They 
 spared neither age nor sex. The barbarities which they committed 
 cannot be read without exciting the most intense feeling of horror. 
 Yet all these enormities were perpetrated in the name of religion, 
 for the professed object of supporting the Established Church, and, 
 consequently, for promoting the glory of God, and spreading the 
 knowledge of the Gospel of Jesus Christ! To such lengths did these 
 supporters of Church Establishments carry their love of compulsory 
 principles. 
 
 “ Notwithstanding the dangers to which they were subjected from 
 the character and conduct of their rulers, the Presbyterian Dissenters 
 resisted the tax in the most determined manner. Each of these prac- 
 tical Voluntaries by their resistance in effect declared, with respect to 
 the Episcopalian ministers, ‘ I think my religion better than theirs ; 
 and, therefore, I never will pay them one shilling—no, not one far- 
 thing. They may seize my cattle, my corn, my furniture—they 
 may distrain my tenants—they may sell, carry away, or destroy—I 
 will never pay one penny ; it is an unjust demand—I will not pay. 
 1 will not resist the law, because, like so many other monstrous iniqui- 
 
RESISTANCE TO THE ANNUITY TAX. 403 
 
 ties, there is law for this also; but I repeat, I never will pay them 
 one shilling—to them, or to their use, not one farthing. Come what 
 may, I never will pay them one single farthing.’* These conscien- 
 tious and consistent apostles of the doctrine of passive resistance, were 
 not to be deterred from performing what they believed to be their 
 duty by the fear of personal danger, much less by the clamour that 
 the ministers of the Established Church were not adequately sup- 
 ported, and that they had an indisputable right by the existing law 
 of the land to the proceeds of the annuity tax. Believing that a tax 
 for the support of a church to which they did not belong was unjust 
 in principle, they acted in the way which their own consciences ap- 
 proved, resisting all attempts to compel them to do what they consi- 
 dered evi/, in order that what others considered good might come, 
 and disregarding the consequences which might follow from their 
 resistance. 
 
 “ The ministers were reduced to the greatest distress. Their sti- 
 pends were small in amount, and very irregularly paid. On the 28th 
 November, 1661, the Town-Council resolved to apply to the inhabit- 
 ants to know what they would /end for ministers’ stipend. Shortly 
 afterwards, they resolved to consult the city assessors, to know what 
 security they could give the inhabitants for any advances they might 
 be inclined to make for this purpose. On the 6th February, 1663, 
 they resolved that the stipends of six of the ministers should be £138, 
 and that the stipends of the other six, who were to be allowed for 
 house-rents, should be £83. Nearly one-half of the records of the 
 Town-Council, about this period, are filled with matters concerning 
 the ministers and their stipends, and churches and sessions. Judging 
 from the Records, the support of the church appears to have been a 
 source of constant annoyance, and an intolerable burden on the inha- 
 bitants of Edinburgh, for the last two centuries} The fruits which 
 
 * Letter to the People by Daniel O’Connell, Esq. June 1896, 
 
 + There is a volume of the Jndew to the Records of the Town Council, 
 with the words “ Ministers” on the back of it, and there is not a single re- 
 ference in the volume to any thing but proceedings regarding ministers ! The 
 volume contains 326 foolseap pages, and embraces the period from 1560 to 
 1813. This will give an idea of the number of volumes of the Record, which 
 must be taken up with the affairs of the ministers, when it requires a volwme 
 to contain the references to them. The words “ Churches,” “ Annuity,” 
 ** Poinding,” ὅθ. occupy a large proportion of several other volumes of the 
 Index. The Record consists of 220 volumes, of various sizes, containing 
 from about 300 to 1000 pages each. 
 
404. NOTES. 
 
 have been produced by these expensive and troublesome Establish- 
 ments will be afterwards adverted to; in the meantime, it may be 
 proper to explain the mode in which the business of poinding and 
 rouping, for the support of the church, was transacted. 
 
 “Ὁ It appears that the collector was in the habit of going to the 
 houses of those in arrear, and carrying off to ‘ the Annuity Office,’ 
 such articles as would sell by public auction, for a sum equal to the 
 amount of the assessment. These articles were called ‘ poynds for 
 Anuitic,’ and were entered in a book, with the names of the parties 
 from whom they were taken, in the same manner as is done by pawn- 
 brokers at the present day. They were redeemable at pleasure on 
 payment of the arrears, until they had accumulated to an inconveni- 
 ent extent, when the collector applied to the council for an order to 
 sell ‘ the poynds for anuitie, which was granted as a matter of course, 
 but generally with an intimation that public notice. was to be given 
 to ‘ the neighbours to redeem their poynds within a fortnight, other- 
 wise they would be sold to the highest bidder for payment of the 
 ministers’ stipends. The ‘ Anuitie Office’ appears to have been a sort 
 of general pawn-broking establishment and ‘ auction mart,’ for the | 
 support of whatever church was established by law for the time be- 
 ing, and consequently was one of the means employed for the promo- 
 tion of the gospel! How unlike the means employed by the Founder 
 of Christianity and his apostles !” 
 
 “ The following extracts will show the nature and extent of the 
 resistance made to the Annuity Tax by the Presbyterians of the pre- 
 sent Established Church, in the palmy days of Episcopacy. 
 
 « 19th Feb. 1662.—* Compeared William Brown, collector of the 
 Annuitie, and gave the overtures underwritten.’ ‘In respect, there are 
 many poynds taken that are suffered to lie unrelieved, till the per- 
 sons employed by those entrusted for collecting the Annuitie are 
 gone [have left the town], and then the poynds are challenged and 
 called for, and oftentimes that sought [claimed] that was never taken 
 from them ; in respect whereof, the Council would ordain and declare 
 all such poynds so taken, if not relieved by payment of the Annuitie, 
 and satisfaction given to the persons employed thereanent, within 
 
 days after the poynding thereof, to be forefaulted, and the 
 persons [to be] still liable for the Annuitie.’* The Council approved 
 of the same, and enacted accordingly. 
 
 * Records of the Town Council, vol. xxi. p. 97. Although Episcopacy 
 was substantially restored at the date of this act of Council, it was not until 
 
RESISTANCE TO THE ANNUITY TAX. 405 
 
 “ 21st Jan. 1666.—‘ The Council appoints the hail poynds taken 
 for Annuitie to be disposed of according as the Bailies shall think fitt, 
 provyding the owners doe not redeem them betwixt and this day 
 fortnight.’* 
 
 “ The following extract shows that within fifteen years after the 
 passing of the act of 1661, the resistance was so great, that the Coun- 
 cil adopted the extraordinary expedient of enforcing payment, by 
 quartering soldiers on all those in arrear, until the tax was paid ! 
 January 21st, 1676 :—‘ The Council considering that there is many 
 poynds lying in the hands of the collector of the Anuitie, which are 
 exceedingly troublesome to him,’ empowers him ‘ éo sell and dispose 
 of the hail poynds in his custody preceding the date hereof, to the best 
 advantage, for the use of the ministers’ stipends, and that with all con- 
 venient diligence, as likewise considering that the taking of poynds 
 makes the inhabitants slack in payment of their Annuitie, and is not 
 such an effectual way for inbringing thereof, as was expected ; there- 
 fore ordains the said John Kinnear To QUARTER SOLDIERS UPON THE DE- 
 FictenTs [ defaulters] or THE samp ANviITIE; and that they remove not 
 from their houses, till they pay the said Anuitie.’ + 
 
 “ 27th March, 1678.—There is a long act of Council of this date, 
 setting forth, generally, that the means hitherto employed for the 
 collection of the Annuity, had not been found effective, and requir- 
 ing the inhabitants instantly to pay up the arrears due by them ; and, 
 as usual, ordering the poynds to be sold. It appears from the con- 
 cluding part of the minute, that the inhabitants who had soldiers 
 quartered on them as a punishment for refusing to pay the tax, were 
 obliged to pay for the soldiers as well as for the ministers, and that 
 when their ‘ poynds’ were rouped, the expenses of the soldiers were 
 to be deducted from the proceeds of the sale, and the surplus to be 
 paid over to the parties from whom the goods were taken. The fol- 
 lowing part of this act deserves to be quoted, to show the means em- 
 ployed at this period for the propagation of the gospel: ‘ And what 
 
 _ poynds are already in the custody of the said collector, or shall be 
 poynded from the said deficients, betwixt and the Ist of May next, 
 the said day being come and bygane, in case the owners do not re- 
 lieve the said poynds, the same shall then be apprised [sold] and the 
 collector shall only be accountable for the surplus of the value more 
 
 December of the same year, that the Presbyterian Ministers of Edinburgh 
 were formally expelled from their offices. Some of them were afterwards 
 obliged to leave the kingdom. 
 
 * Records of the Town Council, vol. xxviii. p. 122. + Ibid. p. 135. 
 
400 NOTES. 
 
 nor is DUE TO THE SOLDIERS wHo [were] QUARTERED UPON THE PERSONS 
 POYNDED | for | THE SAME.” * ᾿ 
 
 * 15th October, 1684.—‘ The Council appoints a proclamation to 
 pass through this city, intimating to the hail inhabitants that are de- 
 fective in payment of their Annuitie, from whom John Kinnear, col- 
 lector, has poynded severall poynds, that they come to the said col- 
 lector and relieve their poynds by payment of their bygaine Aunuitie, 
 betwixt and Martinmas next, certifying these that shall not relieve 
 them, they shall be disposed upon by the collector, and they shall pay 
 their Annuitie notwithstanding thereof. Ὁ 
 
 * 26th February, 1686.—‘ The Council appoints a proclamation to 
 pass by tuck of drum through the citie, intimating to the whole in- 
 habitants from whom the collector of the Anuitie has taken poynds, 
 upon the amount of their deficiency in payment of their bygane An- 
 nuity, that they repair to the collector's office, within eight days after 
 the said intimation, certifying such as shall fail in relieving of their 
 poynds, within the said space, by payment of their bygane Annuity, 
 the collector is to dispose upon the said poynds by rouping the 
 same.” |—M‘Laren’s History of the Resistance to the Annuity Tax, pp. 
 37-39. 
 
 NOTE XLI. 
 
 THE CORRELATIVE DUTIES OF GOVERNORS AND SUBJECTS, AND THE 
 ETHICS OF TRIBUTE. 
 
 My readers will, 1 am persuaded, feel indebted to me for transfer- 
 ring from the ephemeral columns of a newspaper to, it may be, the 
 not much more enduring pages of this work—the two articles bear- 
 ing the above titles. The first is from the Birmingham Puinan- 
 THropist ; the second is from that Journal, which has been one of the 
 ablest and most efficient promoters of the cause of civil and religious 
 liberty in this country—The Scorsman. Both are valuable ; but, of 
 the last, it is but justice to say, that so much important truth has 
 very seldom been so clearly, and accurately, and forcibly stated, in so 
 
 * Records of the Town Council, vol. xxix, page 55. 
 + Records of Town Council, vol, xxxi. p. 85, t Ibid. p. 289. 
 
DUTIES OF GOVERNORS AND SUBJECTS. 407 
 
 few and so well-chosen words. 1 believe it to be the production of 
 my esteemed brother and friend, the Rey. W. L. ALexanper, pastor 
 of the Congregational Church assembling in Argyle Square Chapel, in 
 this city. 
 
 CORRELATIVE DUTIES OF GOVERNORS AND SUBJECTS. 
 
 * The Scriptures have treated this matter with such clearness and 
 accuracy, that no one who is disposed to learn, and has the means of 
 reading and considering his Bible, needs to be informed of any thing 
 more than the places where to look. First, Let us state, that the 
 submission to governors is required by Scripture in the most absolute 
 manner, in all things which are not forbidden by God. ‘ Render 
 unto Cesar the things which are Cesar’s, is a maxim and command 
 of the Saviour’s. Yet he followed it by another as solemn and impor- 
 tant, on the other side of the question. ‘ Render unto God the things 
 which are God’s.’ It may not always be clear which is Cesar’s and 
 which is God’s: but wherever it is clear, Cesar has no more right to 
 God’s, than the people have to Cesar’s. 
 
 “ ὁ Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers, says the 
 Apostle Paul : ‘ For there is no power but of God : the powers that be 
 are ordained of God: whosoever, therefore, resisteth the power, re- 
 sisteth the ordinance of God—and they that resist, shall receive to 
 themselves (con)demnation.’ Here is most clearly laid down, the 
 most absolute submission to the powers that be, as far as their office 
 goes. But the same apostle who wrote this to his disciples, was all 
 his life engaged in preaching doctrines which were forbidden by the 
 powers that be: and he died at last as a criminal against the laws of 
 the ‘ powers that be.’ 
 
 “ When the apostles had received the authority from the Saviour 
 to preach the gospel, they were frequently forbidden to do so by ‘ the 
 powers that be ; and they persevered in opposition to these powers, 
 unto death itself. The ‘ powers’ were evidently in the wrong—since 
 the apostles did nothing to excite confusion and tumult in the state, 
 and only occupied themselves in teaching what, to say the worst of 
 it, was harmless truth: and therefore they were not called upon by 
 the necessity of the case to punish. The apostles did not ‘ resist,’ but 
 they did most unequivocally ‘ disobey’ these ‘ powers,’ and they have 
 left their martyrdom behind them as a proof of their sincerity, and 
 their governors’ cruelty. 
 
 ‘““ When a government does wrong to us, we are required to submit 
 rather than resist—but we may appeal and remonstrate, and try to 
 
48 NOTES. 
 
 change the government, or have the perpetrators punished if there be 
 any law to which we can appeal. When a government requires 
 wrong from us, we have no occasion or right to consider the conse- 
 quences. At all hazards, we must not do wrong.”—Philanthropist— 
 Voluntary Church Magazine for Jan. 1888, pp. 42, 48. 
 
 ETHICS OF TRIBUTE-PAYING. 
 
 ** As considerable confusion of thought seems to pervade the minds 
 of many respecting the moral aspect of tribute-paying, perhaps it may, 
 at the present time, serve an important end to state a few leading 
 principles on this subject. These may be comprised in the following 
 propositions :— 
 
 “ 1st, Tribute is that proportion of property which each individual 
 in a community pays for the support of that government under which 
 he lives. , 
 
 ‘* 2d, This proportion every member of the community is morally 
 bound to pay, because, first, It lies in the very nature of the civil re- 
 lation that every subject should contribute (i. 6. pay in tribute) his _ 
 share towards the support of that government of which he reaps 
 the benefits ; and, second, God has expressly commanded us to be 
 subject to the higher powers in this way, viz. by rendering to them 
 tribute. 
 
 “ 3d, This moral obligation is not destroyed by the knowledge that 
 many of the purposes to which government may apply the money thus 
 contributed are improper and inexpedient ; because all that in a mo- 
 ral point of view the subject has to do with, is the object for which 
 the tribute is paid, and, where this is right in itself, the contributor 
 is morally exempt from further inquiry into the uses to which his 
 money may be put. 
 
 « 4th, The same moral obligation does not attach itself to the pay- 
 ment of taxes levied not for the support of government, but for the 
 benefit of a particular class in the community ; because, first, There 
 is nothing in the civil relation to render it obligatory on the nation 
 at large to pay for the advantage of a particular class ; and, second, 
 God expressly limits the general command to pay tribute, by the con- 
 dition that it is to be paid only to those to whom it is due (Rom. 
 xiii. 7), i. e. as the context shows, not to every one that asks it, nor 
 to every one for whom the legislature may choose to ask it, but to 
 those only to whom we owe tt, viz. the government under which we 
 live. 
 
 “ 5th, When a man, therefore, refuses to pay such a tax, he may 
 
DUTIES OF GOVERNORS AND SUBJECTS. 409 
 
 subject himself to certain /ega/ penalties, but he commits no moral 
 offence. 
 
 “ 6th, As a general rule, however, it is proper, both for peace’s sake, 
 and because it is a less evil, to pay a tax which we may deem unequal 
 and unjust, than to suffer the legal penalties consequent on refusal, to 
 pay what is demanded. 
 
 “ 7th, But this general rule is to be qualified by the condition, that 
 the object for which the tax is levied be not directly opposed to the 
 will of God ; in which case, we are not only not bound to pay it, but 
 bound not to pay it; for, as no act of the legislature can make it 
 right to support what God has forbidden us to support, to pay such 
 a tax would be to rebel against God, and become guilty of sin in his 
 sight. 
 
 “ 8th, We must distinguish between paying this tax, and respect- 
 ing the authority by which it is levied. It is always our duty to do 
 the latter ; but sometimes our duty not to do the former. 
 
 “ἐ 9th, As every law proposes an alternative, by acquiescence, in 
 either part of which the law is obeyed, and the authority of the law- 
 giver reverenced, the man who peaceably submits to the penalty of 
 the law when his conscience forbids him to follow its prescription, as 
 truly respects the law, and submits to the power, as the man who 
 chooses the other part of the alternative. 
 
 « 10th, These principles admit of an easy and obvious application 
 to the case of Dissenters, in regard to the annuity tax. Four things 
 they establish on this head :—1st, No Dissenter is morally bound to 
 pay this tax, for no tribute is due from him to the city clergy: he 
 owes them nothing. 2d, As they occupy a position, and support a 
 system, which the Dissenter believes to be contrary to the will of God, 
 he cannot support that system without sin. 3d, As a subject, he is 
 nevertheless bound to submit to the laws of his country. And, 4th, 
 He can comply with both these conditions only by pursuing one 
 course, viz. by peaceably submitting to the penalty of the law, while 
 he resolutely and conscientiously declines to follow its prescription.” 
 —A.—Scotsman. 
 
 dd 
 
410 NOTES. 
 
 NOTE XLII. 
 
 MR HALDANE'S OPINIONS RESPECTING CIVIL ESTABLISHMENTS OF 
 RELIGION STATED BY HIMSELF AND DR ANDREW THOMSON. 
 
 From Mr Haldane having pronounced the author guilty of “ rebel- 
 lion against Christ,” for not paying the tax imposed forthe support of 
 the Established clergy, it might be inferred by one ignorant of that 
 gentleman’s opinions, that he considered a tax by the civil government 
 for the maintenance of the gospel ministry, one of the ordinances of 
 Christ. But such an inference, however plausible, would be very 
 remote from the truth. 
 
 Mr Haldane’s views of civil Establishments of religion are thus 
 given by himself—“ Civil government cannot be a divine ordinance 
 to regulate men in matters of religion and conscience—with ‘these it 
 has nothing at all to do.” —“ When the laws of man run counter to the 
 laws of God, they cease from that moment, in as far as they do so, to — 
 be binding, and with the Apostles Peter and John, we may appeal to 
 all ‘ Rulers, Elders, Scribes, and Priests, whether it be right in the 
 sight of God to hearken unto you more than unto God, judge ye.’ ”"— 
 “ The civil magistrate then, as such, has nothing to say in matters 
 purely of a religious nature.”—“ I do not consider civil government 
 to be an ordinance of God to man for religion :—the Holy Scriptures 
 contain every rule of duty which in religion mankind are bound to 
 observe. In the church of Christ, the civil magistrate as such can 
 never, according to Scripture, under the New Testament dispensation, 
 have any place. When he enters there, he must come not as a ma- 
 gistrate, but as any other disciple. He must submit to the rules al- 
 ready prescribed by Jesus Christ, and he must assume no pre-emi- 
 nence or authority, from his official civil situation, over others, even 
 the meanest slave upon earth.”—“ Not a hint is given in the word of 
 God, that the regulation of any thing belonging to the churches of Christ, 
 forms a part of the object of civil government ; but, on the contrary, 
 every thing is already settled and published in the Scriptures, respect- 
 ing church communion and religious conduct, individually and col- 
 lectively, to direct the Christian or Christian societies, by the para- 
 mount authority of God himself.”* 
 
 * Address to the Public, by Robert Haldane, concerning Politieal Opi- 
 nions, &e.—2d Edit. 12mo. Edin. 1800. pp. 76, 97, 98. 
 
MR HALDANE’S OPINIONS. 411 
 
 Mr Haldane has never retracted these opinions. Amid all his 
 changes, we believe, he has retained them unaltered. How he recon- 
 ciles these opinions with holding that a Christian cannot refuse to 
 pay tribute, which the civil magistrate requires for the avowed sup- 
 port of Christian ordinances,—thus interfering in a matter in which 
 he has no concern, and on which Christ has legislated,—without re- 
 belling against Christ,—it is not easy to discover. One would think 
 that in this case the Christian was in greater danger of rebelling 
 against Christ in paying, than in not paying suchatax. Is it because 
 Mr Haldane holds the societies for whose support the civil govern- 
 ment imposes a tax not “ to be churches of Christ,” and, of course, 
 the enacting such a law in reference to them, to be in no way “ the re- 
 gulation of any thing belonging to the churches of Christ,” that he 
 thinks paying the tax so obviously not wrong? This account of the 
 matter cannot be very satisfactory to those friends of the church, who 
 have felicitated themselves so much in the possession of Mr Haldane 
 as an ally—but we are not able to furnish them with any more pro- 
 bable solution of the difficulty. In the forthcoming demonstration of 
 the author’s rebellion against Christ, perhaps some light may be 
 thrown on the subject. * 
 
 In the meantime it would seem as if the defenders of the compul- 
 sory support of the Church in Edinburgh were reduced to great straits 
 indeed, when they so gratefully accept of an attempt at a proof that 
 the clergy of that city have the same right to demand support from 
 the Dissenters, as the Pagan priests had to demand support from the 
 primitive Christians, on the supposition that the civil power had au- 
 thorised them to do so. This seems to be the full extent of support, 
 which Mr Haldane’s argument, taken in connexion with his princi- 
 ples, gives to the claimants of the annuity tax. When one looks at 
 the palpable demonstration, how highly Mr Haldane’s interposition is 
 valued, it is impossible not to say there must be a great lack of argu- 
 ment, or a great superabundance of gratitude among the defenders of 
 that obnoxious impost. 
 
 The following clear and convincing statements respecting the true 
 character of civil establishments of religion, may be fairly considered 
 as containing Mr Robert Haldane’s opinions on this subject, till he 
 disclaim them. They are from the pen of his brother, Mr J. A. Hal- 
 
 * The hint was not taken. Not a word is said on this subject in any of the 
 TEN long letters which followed. Silence is sometimes more expressive than 
 
 language. 
 
419 NOTES. 
 
 dane, the respected pastor of the Baptist Church, Tabernacle, Leith 
 Walk, who is said by some who should know, never to have publish- 
 ed any sentiments in which his elder brother was not understood to 
 concur. “ What is the object of a national religious establishment ? 
 Is it to maintain the doctrine of Christ in purity? The nature of the 
 case, confirmed by all experience, shows that it must corrupt it. Is 
 it to save the souls of men? Those by whom national religious esta- 
 blishments have been founded and supported, have in general proved 
 the contrary by their indifference about their own souls. What then 
 is the object? A national church is judged necessary for supporting 
 the government, and thus the religion of Jesus is completely pervert- 
 ed. The gospel, which is the power of God unto salvation to every 
 one that believeth, the message of reconciliation from the God of 
 Mercy to his guilty creatures, which has for its object man’s eternal 
 happiness, is converted into an engine of state.”’—‘* National churches 
 are in direct opposition to the nature of the kingdom of Christ, as ex- 
 hibited in the New Testament.”—“ The great apostacy so frequently 
 predicted in the New Testament, has taken place. The religion of 
 Jesus has been transformed into a system of priestcraft and idolatry. | 
 We are now at no loss to recognize ‘ the woman drunken with the 
 blood of the saints and of the martyrs of Jesus.’ And to what is all 
 this to be ascribed? To national religious establishments.’— We 
 live in an age when the experience of the world is rapidly leading 
 mankind to perceive that national religious establishments are hurt- 
 ful to society. Trade was formerly shackled with monopolies, and 
 bounties, and drawbacks, and prohibitions, and the merchants of those 
 days ‘ honestly believed’ that an alteration of the system ‘ would 
 reach a blow to the commerce and power of the country.’ The happy 
 effects of a more liberal policy now begin to be felt, and the mer- 
 chant, from regard to his own interest as well as to that of the coun- 
 try, rejoices in the change. The time is approaching when Christian- 
 ity shall also be disentangled from the monopolies, the prohibitions, 
 the bounties, and the drawbacks, by which her progress has been so 
 long retarded. Already she is pluming her wings, and ere long, ex- 
 ulting in her native freedom and purity, she shall bear the olive 
 branch to every land, and crown the world with her choicest bless- 
 ings. Her timid friends may start when they behold her no longer 
 supported by what they honestly believed essential to her prosperity ; 
 and the hoary statesman may anxiously inquire how the world can 
 be ruled without the aid of a civil religious establishment. But the 
 fears of the one will be lost in admiration—and the other will feel 
 
 + 
 
TAXES FOR SPECIFIC PURPOSES. 413 
 
 relieved from half the cares and toils of government.”—These admir- 
 able passages, in every word of which we most cordially concur, are 
 to be found in “* Two Letters to the Rev. Dr Chalmers, on his proposal 
 for increasing the number of Churches in Glasgow,” pp. 16, 22, 28, 18. 
 Glasgow, 1818. They appeared without the name of the author in 
 the first edition. A second and enlarged edition was, we understand, 
 published with the author's name, though we have not seen it: we 
 shall be glad to see a third edition. It breathes throughout a truly 
 Christian spirit. In a pamphlet published 1806, the same author 
 says, “ I consider every society, calling itself a church of Christ, which 
 can enter into alliance with, or be adopted by any civil government 
 upon earth, as ipso facto, constituting a branch of the family of that 
 establishment, predicted by John, under the name of Babylon.” 
 
 Mr Robert Haldane is thus described by one to whose opinion of men 
 and things, he is accustomed to attach much weight—the late Dr An- 
 DREW THomson, as a man “ that has some peculiarities in his views of 
 faith—loves independency—hates confessions—and is an enemy to all 
 ecclesiastical establishments.’—Edinburgh Christian Instructor, vol. 
 xix. p. 555. 
 
 NOTE XLIII. 
 
 OBJECTIONS TO THE DOCTRINE RESPECTING TAXES FOR SPECIFIC 
 PURPOSES, STATED AND ANSWERED. 
 
 These doctrines have found a very acute expounder and able de- 
 fender in the Eclectic Review for August 1838. One of the most 
 important services which can be done to a good cause, is clearly to 
 state the objections to which it is likely to be thought liable, and a 
 still more important service is satisfactorily to reply to these objec- 
 tions. The friendly reviewer has very effectually performed both 
 these services for the good cause to which this work is devoted. I 
 cannot resist the temptation to give the following most appropriate 
 observations a place here. 
 
 “ That there are difficulties connected with the subject no one will 
 deny ; but they are not insurmountable. (1.) It may be said, if you 
 object to pay a tax imposed specifically for a bad object, how can you 
 consistently pay the general taxes which may be partially applied to 
 such objects? To this it may be sufficient to reply, that the support 
 of government is laudable and necessary—that security of property, 
 
414 NOTES. 
 
 life, and liberty could not otherwise be maintained—that for these 
 objects tribute is a debt, and that we must not refuse the whole on 
 account of the misapplication of a part, which were obviously unjust. 
 But when a bad object is defined, when a tax for that object specifi- 
 eally is imposed, all ambiguity is removed, and we owe it to ourselves, 
 to the government, and to God, to keep ourselves clear in such a 
 matter. 
 
 « (2.) Tribute it has been said is a debt ; and as my obligation to 
 pay my private debts is irrespective of the abuse which may be made 
 of them when paid, so my obligation to pay tribute is not affected by 
 the purposes to which that tribute may be applied. In the one case 
 the creditor, not the debtor—is solely responsible for the abuse of the 
 money paid to him ; and so is it in the other. This objection, how- 
 ever, assumes that subjects have no more control over the state, than 
 private and independent individuals have over each other. But espe- 
 cially, it takes for granted the very thing to be proved, namely, that 
 the tribute in the case supposed is really a debt. When I pay a pri- 
 vate debt, by the very supposition, I owe it for something which I 
 have received or am to receive. By equity or compact the debt ex- . 
 ists, and all that I have to do is to pay it. But in the other case, the 
 question is, whether the tribute be debt? Pay debt by all means ; 
 but ascertain, first, whether what you pay be debt, especially when 
 you are assured that whatsoever you pay is to go to mischief. Obe- 
 dience to civil authority, in all lawful things, is a debt, and as a debt 
 I pay it ; but when the state requires what no state has a right to de- 
 mand, the doing of what is evil, the debt of civil obedience is not con- 
 stituted ; a false claim is made; a fictitious debt is created ; when I 
 am told I owe it, I am told what is not true ; when the bill is urged 
 I have a right to dishonour it. By a prior and paramount law, the 
 state has been denuded of all right, or rather all right has been denied 
 to the state to constitute such a debt against me. So, if I am required 
 to support with my money a wicked object, the payment is not due ; 
 I do not owe that debt ; and in refusing to pay it, it is not debt I re- 
 fuse to pay. The law of God renders it sinful in the state to impose, 
 or in me to pay in such a case. 
 
 “ (3.) Perhaps the most formidable objection remains to be noticed. 
 It may be asked who is to judge respecting the objects of taxation ? 
 Must every individual be left to judge for himself? In this case, 
 will not the pretence of conscience be in the mouth of every greedy 
 malcontent ? Will not one object to this tax, another to that, a third 
 to all, until the resources of the state be drained, the whole process 
 
TAXES FOR SPECIFIC PURPOSES. 415 
 
 of its administration suspended, and anarchy, first, with its ruin, and 
 next, with its iron despotism, ensue? To all this, it may be replied, 
 that if this refusal, on the plea of conscience, is to be rejected for its 
 abuse, every thing good being liable to abuse, may be disposed of in 
 the same way, for the same reason—that if this plea is invalid, in re- 
 gard to taxation, it must also be invalid in regard of civil obedience 
 generally—that the power possessed by the state to coerce and dis- 
 train, is sufficiently powerful to prevent, not perhaps the pretence of 
 conscientious objections to particular taxes, but the reducing of these 
 pretences to practice—that when passive resistance to any tax be- 
 comes general, it is invariably wrong to impose it, and its imposition 
 in such circumstances can only be vindicated on the principles of ty- 
 rannical despotism—and that the opposite doctrine,’ namely, that 
 which would exclude the conscientious judgment of the individual 
 from this department of his obedience, is mischievous and degrading, 
 investing government with despotic power, reducing the subject to a 
 mere machine, which the state may move at its pleasure, and assur- 
 edly preparing the way for intolerable oppression on the part of the 
 state, the ruin of all that is generous, noble, and free on the part of 
 the people, and ultimately some violent reactive convulsion to break 
 in pieces a yoke, which even men reduced to the condition of the brutes 
 can no longer bear.” —Eclectic Review, New Series, vol. iv. pp. 172- 
 174. 18388. 
 
 The following shrewd remarks from a masterly article in the United 
 Secession Magazine, meet most satisfactorily two of the principal 
 objections, brought against the doctrine of the treatise respecting 
 tribute. 
 
 “Ὁ It is not true, that the government requires of its subjects no 
 sanction of the purposes for which a specific tax is exacted, or to 
 which it is applied. Laws usually contain preambles setting forth 
 the necessity, or importance, or excellence of the purposes for which 
 they are made (the acts imposing the annuity tax are appropriate 
 instances of this), these preambles are addressed to rational beings, 
 and must therefore be designed to secure the approbation and sanc- 
 tion of the subject to the purposes in view. To suppose the reverse 
 is to suppose that rulers are knaves, and that subjects may be treated 
 as fools. 
 
 “ But though it were true, that government does not require the 
 subject to sanction the destination of a specific tax, is the conscience 
 of the subject thereby relieved ὁ Will government answer for him 
 at the bar of God, for doing an action which his conscience condemn- 
 
410 NOTES. 
 
 ed? Or has the law of God not merely absolved him from inquiring 
 into the moral character of certain actions, but absolved him also from 
 consistency, and warranted him to do what he esteems sinful, merely 
 because he is not required to approve of hisown deed? *« * * 
 
 “ As to the analogy between a tax and a debt, it is plain, that as 
 no one can be called upon to pay a debt until it has been incurred, 
 so no tax can, in a free country, become due until a law has imposed 
 it. But what if this law, by which a tax has been imposed, be a pro- 
 fane usurpation of the prerogatives of God? What if it be a direct 
 violation of the prior and paramount law of the Creator, which no 
 legislature, therefore, has a right to make, and to which no human 
 being has a right to consent? And what if by the avowal of its pro- 
 fane and impious purpose, it calls on all the subjects as rational be- 
 ings, to judge of that purpose, and by their obedience consent to it ? 
 Is the tax then due? Is it a debt which, according to the Apostle’s 
 injunction, can be paid for conscience sake? Such a tax is not ana- 
 logous to a just debt appropriated by the person to whom it is due, to 
 an immoral purpose, but it is analogous to an exaction made upon the | 
 debtor, avowedly for such a purpose, and over and above what he was 
 legally and morally bound to pay ; it is analogous to a burden added 
 to the stipulated rent of a house, and expressly demanded for the 
 purpose of enabling the proprietor to violate the law of the land ; it 
 is as if the ruler of a city, or the governor of a colony, should exact 
 money to which the supreme authority can have given no claim, in- 
 asmuch as it is avowedly exacted for the purpose of waging war against 
 that supreme authority itself."—United Secession Magazine, vol. vi. 
 pp. 809-811. Edin. 1898. 
 
 The paragraphs which follow, contain the fuller development of 
 certain statements made towards the close of Part IL. of the foregoing 
 Treatise, p. 167, et seq., and may be of use in helping to a right deci- 
 sion some of those who “ halt between two opinions,” on the interest- 
 ing and practical question in Christian Ethics, to which they refer. 
 
 Can a person, conscientiously persuaded that civil establishments 
 of religion are inconsistent with the revealed will of God, without sin 
 contribute to their support, by voluntarily paying a tax imposed for 
 this express object? The answer to this question, which naturally 
 suggests itself to every mind is, No: he cannot; and he cannot for 
 two reasons ; first, a man ought not to sanction what he counts wrong, 
 in others; and, secondly, still less, if possible, should he himself do 
 what he counts wrong. In supporting an establishment, by paying 
 
TAXES FOR SPECIFIC PURPOSES. 417 
 
 a tax imposed for that specific object, such a person does both. He 
 virtually gives a sanction to the act of the civil government, form- 
 ing and maintaining the establishment, which he conscientiously con- 
 demns, and he also yields direct support to this, in his estimation, 
 immoral institution. 
 
 It is usual to attempt to evade the force of the first of these reasons, 
 for the criminality of a dissenter supporting a civil establishment of 
 religion, by the statement, that in paying a tax, no sanction is given 
 to the conduct of the government, farther than an implied declara- 
 tion, that upon the whole, in the estimation of him who pays this tax, 
 the government serves the great purposes of civil government, and 
 therefore ought to be supported. This reply, however, in all its ex- 
 tent, applies only to taxes, imposed for the general purposes of go- 
 vernment. With regard to taxes, for a specific purpose which I 
 count sinful, such a general conviction can bind me only to passive 
 obedience. I must not, while such a conviction continues, resist the 
 government ; but I may innocently, so far as the government is con- 
 cerned,—and I must, so far as conscientious principle is involved, de- 
 cline active compliance, and rest in passive obedience, quietly allow- 
 ing the government to take what my duty to God will not permit me 
 to give. In doing so, I in no degree injure the government. Its power 
 is as much honoured in submission as in obedience. Even if my ex- 
 ample were generally followed, it could only tend, not to the destruc- 
 tion, but to the improvement of the government, by getting rid of a 
 law which tends to shake the attachment of the subjects. 
 
 I know that another mode of neutralizing the force of this reason 
 has been resorted to; grounded on the admitted difference between 
 a wilful transgression, and an unintentional error. “ I think,” it has 
 been said, “ that civil establishments of religion are unwise and mis- 
 chievous institutions, preventive of much good, productive of much 
 evil; but in originating and maintaining them, I consider govern- 
 ments rather as having fallen into a blunder in legislation, than as 
 having been guilty of a delinquency in morals ;—in one word, I look 
 upon the civil establishment of religion as not a sin, but a mistake ; 
 and I can do without scruple in reference to them, considered in this 
 latter aspect, what I durst not do at all, in reference to them, con- 
 sidered in the former.” 
 
 In reply to this ingenious suggestion, we must remark, that even 
 in the case of an error, innocent in a moral point of view, because 
 unavoidable, on the part of him who commits it, I who know it to be 
 error—inischievous error, am morally bound not to give, in any mea- 
 
418 NOTES. 
 
 sure, sanction to that error, while I make all just allowances for him 
 who fell into it; and the degree of this moral obligation is propor- 
 tionate to my sense of the mischievous tendency and effects of the 
 blunder. The case of civil establishment of religion is not, however, 
 a case of this kind. It is not a case of mischievous, yet innocent, be- 
 cause unavoidable error,—though, even in this case, I should be bound 
 to guard against giving any thing like sanction to it. We are far 
 from attributing to the founders of these establishments, universally, 
 or indeed in any case, the fearful guilt of, with conscious intention, 
 violating divine laws, and usurping divine honours: but we hold 
 that the mistake, though not in every instance equally criminal, is 
 in no instance altogether innocent. 
 
 The authors of civil establishments have all of them been in a mis- 
 take; but though the mistake has not been the same in every case, 
 in all cases it has not only been an injurious, but a guilty mistake. 
 In forming these institutions, their authors have been influenced by 
 mistaken views, either of political expediency, or of religious prin- 
 ciple, or of both. 
 
 The expediency errorists have been of two kinds. The first class con- 
 sists of Infidels, who, while they regard all religions as equally the off- 
 spring of imposture or delusion, conceive that they may be turned to 
 good account for gaining certain important ends of civil polity, or who, 
 finding it impossible to extinguish the religious principle, judge the 
 establishment of a particular class of religionists, over whom they 
 shall have a peculiar control, the most effectual method of keeping 
 within safe bounds a principle so powerful, if not for good, for evil. 
 Hobbes, Harrington, Hume, and Frederic of Prussia, belonged to this 
 class. The second class consists of professed, but inconsistent believ- 
 ers in the Christian revelation, who think that the establishment of 
 the form of religion, which antecedently prevails most extensively 
 among the subjects, may either directly or indirectly facilitate the 
 exercise of government in all its various functions. 
 
 Now surely, to seek as, in the first case, by the establishment of 
 admitted error, to obtain political good, must on all but atheistical 
 principles be allowed to be immoral; and even, in the second case, 
 there is a confounding of truth and falsehood, right and wrong, which 
 has a character of moral pravity, as well as philosophical absurdity 
 and political inexpediency. 
 
 The mistake of the religious errorists is of a very different kind, 
 but it has this in common with the mistakes of the expediency er- 
 rorists, that it is not innocent, because not unavoidable. The authors 
 
TAXES FOR SPECIFIC PURPOSES. 419 
 
 of both our Establishments were, I have no doubt, many of them 
 firmly convinced that secular powers, are not only warranted, but 
 bound to establish the true religion, and to suppress all false reli- 
 gions among their subjects ; and that for them to have let this alone, 
 would have been the enormity of crime, as well as the height of 
 folly. That they should have entertained such notions, wildly ab- 
 surd, fearfully impious as they now must appear to every enlightened 
 mind, is not wonderful. The wonder would have been if they had not 
 entertained them. But to account for an error, and to defend it, or 
 even apologise for it, are very different things. To prove it natural, 
 is not to prove it innocent. With the Bible in their hands, and its 
 supreme authority admitted by them, these men were not only mis- 
 taken but criminal,—deeply criminal as well as deplorably mistaken. 
 To what degree their errors extenuated their criminality, is left to 
 Him to decide, who alone has the data and the wisdom necessary for 
 such a decision; but it seems plain that my sanction, even of what 
 would have been to them who originated it, the result of innocent, 
 had it been unavoidable error, when it appears to me in its true co- 
 lours as opposed to the divine will, can not be innocent ; and a still 
 higher degree of impropriety must attach to my sanction, when, from 
 the beginning, criminality, as well as folly, characterised the authors 
 of the institution. Viewed, then, merely in the light of sanction given 
 to the criminal act of another, I do not see how the support of a civil 
 establishment, on the part of a conscientious Dissenter, by the volun- 
 tary payment of a tax imposed for that purpose, can be satisfactorily 
 defended. 
 
 But the difficulty of such a defence increases—or rather its im- 
 possibility becomes more apparent, when we come to consider it in 
 the aspect of the direct support of a system, which I, as a Dissenter, 
 must conscientiously condemn. I am quite aware that the justness 
 of this view of the subject is questioned, and even denied, by many 
 intelligent and conscientious dissenters. “6 Neither,’’ say they, “ in 
 the estimation of the government, nor in our own estimation, nor in 
 the estimation of others, is our payment of a church tax considered 
 as an approbation of the principle of an Establishment, or of that 
 particular Establishment, to the support of which the produce of the 
 tax is professedly devoted. As a question of conscience, then, so far 
 as a supposed implied approbation of a principle or a system, consci- 
 entiously condemned, is concerned, I feel no difficulty in the matter. 
 It may be wrong in me to pay the tax, but not on this principle.” 
 
 Here I would remark, that what may be termed the natwral moral 
 
49, NOTES. 
 
 significancy of an action, or course of action, is not, except on very 
 strong grounds, to be disregarded. To pay a tax voluntarily, imposed 
 for the specific purpose of supporting a civil establishment, as a use- 
 ful institution, is the natural expression of approbation, or, at the 
 very least, of non-disapprobation. To refuse to pay it, especially if I 
 must suffer for refusing, is the natural expression of disapprobation 
 and condemnation. It is, to speak the truth gently, dangerous to 
 employ either words or actions with a signification which does not 
 naturally belong to them. If it is not falsehood and sin, it is some- 
 thing which naturally leads to falsehood and sin, and which, if gene- 
 rally prevalent, would confound all moral distinctions, and make men 
 * call evil good and good evil, put darkness for light and light for 
 darkness, bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter.” 
 
 But, farther, civil establishments of religion have not in this coun- 
 try been based, on the mere will of the civil magistrate, nor on their 
 importance as instruments for gaining the ends of civil polity. In 
 the laws sanctioning them as churches, and calling them into exist- 
 ence as establishments, their support is represented as a religious — 
 and moral duty, and on this ground demanded of the subjects. Surely 
 without a very strong disclaimer, the payment must be considered as 
 what the law, which demands it, declares it to be. That in the esti- 
 mation of the founders of the establishments, such payments on the 
 part of conformists were considered as the performance of a religious 
 duty, as well as the discharge of a civil obligation ; and that, in refer- 
 ence to non-conformists, their exaction by forcible means was con- 
 sidered as the punishment of a moral delinquency, as well as of a 
 civil crime,—there can be no reasonable doubt; and it would seem 
 that the only way for a non-conformist to steer completely clear 
 of appearing to government to approve of that, of which he really 
 disapproves, is to take the course which secures that the exaction 
 shall bear on its forehead, what in his case is its true character—and 
 thus to make it obvious that there is no mistake. 
 
 The principle that the voluntary payment of a tax, for a pur- 
 pose of which I conscientiously disapprove, is safe, because I am 
 inwardly conscious, that while I pay it, I do not approve of it in 
 its object, may be in practice convenient, but in morality is ha- 
 zardous. It would have saved a great deal of trouble to the primi- 
 tive Christians, when required to offer incense on an idol’s altar, and 
 to our covenanting ancestors, when called on to take equivocal and 
 seemingly contradictory oaths. The former were quite conscious that . 
 they meant nothing less than to offer religious homage to the idol— 
 
CONDUCT OF THE COVENANTERS. 421 
 
 and the latter, that they understood the oath in a manner consistent 
 with their conscientious views. But where had been “ the resisting 
 to blood striving against sin’—“ where the faith and patience of the 
 saints?’ Without a very plain and public disclaimer, a man must 
 be considered as holding what his words and actions naturally mean ; 
 and it must be a very strong case indeed where he is warranted even 
 with such a disclaimer, to use words and do actions which naturally 
 mean the very reverse of what he thinks and feels. To do so in any 
 case, is to endanger “ the simplicity and godly sincerity” with which 
 Christians should have their conversation in the world. Habitually 
 to do so would be to destroy them. 
 
 With regard to the conclusions which others draw from such con- 
 duct, there is some difficulty in speaking decidedly. That is a point 
 not easily settled ; for it is not easy to arrive, with any thing like 
 certainty, in many cases, at what these conclusions are. When a 
 man’s conduct and his professions are at apparent variance, it will de- 
 pend on circumstances whether the one or the other be viewed as 
 expressive of his real principles, or whether the conclusion come to, 
 be not, the apparently not unreasonable one, that the man has no 
 principles at all. At any rate, in the case before us, if a man ha- 
 bitually profess to disapprove of civil establishments of religion, and 
 yet habitually do what is naturally expressive of approbation of them— 
 the impression made on the public mind will undoubtedly be, that 
 whatever he may profess, he does not believe them to be the de- 
 cidedly bad thing which his neighbour does, whose profession and 
 whose practice on this subject obviously correspond. The respect 
 which is due to straightforward consistency, he does not deserve, and 
 he will not receive, either from friends or from enemies. 
 
 NOTE XLIV. 
 
 CONDUCT OF OUR COVENANTING ANCESTORS IN REFERENCE TO 
 TAXES EXACTED FOR PURPOSES RECKONED SINFUL BY THOSE 
 ON WHOM THEY WERE IMPOSED. 
 
 The reference in the text is to the conduct of a portion of our co- 
 venanting ancestors, who refused to pay “ the cess,” imposed by the 
 Convention of Estates of the kingdom of Scotland, in 1678, for the 
 
429 NOTES. 
 
 purpose of “ enabling his majesty to put down dangerous field con- 
 venticles.”—The following is the account which “ the honest chroni- 
 cler,” Wodrow, gives of the result of passing the act imposing the 
 cess ; and it is to be remembered, if the historian had a bias, it was 
 not in favour of the refusers to pay the cess. ‘ This act divided those 
 who were already disjointed, and the debates, about the lawfulness 
 or unlawfulness of paying the cess here imposed, were not few. Upon 
 the one hand, it was strongly urged, that the payment of this cess 
 was an active concurrence with the persecutors in their bearing down 
 of the Lord’s work in the land, and it was said, it was much the same 
 whether this was done by the sword or the purse. Upon the other side, 
 it was reasoned, that since violence was both expected and used, it 
 appeared more advisable, by a piece of money, to preserve themselves 
 and their families alive, and their substance in their hands for better 
 uses, than by an absolute refusal to give an occasion, and afford a 
 legal pretext to the collector's cruelty, to destroy all and take as much 
 as would raise and maintain two armies. It was added, that paying 
 cess in this case was not spontaneous, but involuntary and forced, 
 and therefore to be excused, a person in such circumstances being ra-_ 
 ther a sufferer than an actor; and though it would be certainly sin- 
 ful in a merchant to throw his goods into the sea in fair weather, yet 
 it becomes his duty to lighten the ship that he may save his life in a 
 storm. Some of very good parts and great piety were upon both 
 sides of this debate, and the heats and heights among ministers, 
 preachers, and people, were not small. The banished ministers in 
 Holland were warmly against paying this assessment ; and such mini- 
 sters here who were of the same sentiments, preached against the pay- 
 ing of it, and some of the hearers violently pressed ministers to preach 
 against it, while those of the other side asked how they would keep 
 it and much more out of the soldier’s hand? Against paying it the 
 example of one of the primitive Christians was much urged, who 
 having rashly demolished an idol temple, chose to suffer martyr- 
 dom, before he would rebuild it. Those who were for paying it as 
 the lesser evil of suffering, were silent till the clamour and heat was 
 a little over, and used to declare, that if in their judgment they had 
 been against paying it, they would have advised people to retire and 
 leave the country. Some few did pay it with a declaration, and 
 chose the middle way betwixt paying it without any testimony 
 against what was evil in it, and refusing to pay it at all."—Wodrow's 
 History, Book ii. Chap. xiii. vol. ii. p. 491. 8vo. Glasgow, 1829. 
 Those who refused to pay the cess seem to haye acted not only 
 
CONDUCT OF THE COVENANTERS. 423 
 
 the most consistent part on the principles of sound ethics ; but also 
 to have followed out the path chalked out by the famous reforming 
 General Assembly in 1648. When the Scottish Parliament, in that 
 year, resolved to carry war into England, and called for support, both 
 by men and money, from the nation, a number of officers refused 
 to serve; and many refused to pay the tax for defraying the ex- 
 penses of the war. In these circumstances, the General Assembly 
 published an elaborate and eloquent declaration, in which, while 
 they disclaim “ all disloyaltie or undutifulness to the King’s Majesty, 
 and also factious disposition,” they call on all under their authority, 
 in cautious words, but which, in the circumstances of the case, can- 
 not be misunderstood, ‘so to respect and honour authority, as that 
 they be not the servants of men, nor give obedience to the will and 
 authority of rulers, in any thing which may not consist with the 
 word of God, but stand fast in the liberty wherewith Christ hath 
 made them free, and obey God ratherthan men,’—charging them “that 
 they do not concur in, nor any way assist this present engagement, 
 as they would not partake of other men’s sins, and so receive of their 
 plagues; but that, by the grace and assistance of Christ, they sted- 
 fastly resolve to suffer the rod of the wicked, and the utmost which 
 wicked men’s malice can afflict them with, rather than put forth their 
 hand to iniquity.”—The Principal Acts of the General Assembly, con- 
 vened at Edinburgh, July 12, 1648, pp. 21, 23. Folio. Edin. 1648. 
 The following judgment respecting the conduct of those who, from 
 conscientious principles, scruple about paying a tax imposed for a 
 purpose which they think sinful, seems much more consistent with 
 sound sense, as well as Christian charity, than that which pronounces 
 it “ rebellion against Christ.’—“ In the present, and all like cases, it 
 is highly of the concernment of all men to be careful and circum- 
 spectly cautious, when the case comes to be stated upon suffering 
 or not suffering, in examining well whether the cause whereby a 
 man shuns suffering be of God, and not to take plausibilities for de- 
 monstrations; seeing the flesh is not only ready to inculcate that 
 doctrine, spare thyself, but is most witty of invention to plead for 
 what will afford ease, and as unwilling to listen to what would, if 
 attended to, expose us to the malice and rage of rigorous enemies: It 
 being always more becoming the professors of the gospel, and the fol-. 
 lowers of our Lord Jesus, who must walk to heaven bearing his 
 cross, to abstain, at all hazards, when the case is doubtful, than to 
 rush forward upon an uncertainty, when it is not evident that they 
 have God’s approbation in doing so. Yea, suppose a person erred to 
 
494 NOTES. 
 
 his own hurt, in the first case through weakness, yet it would argue 
 much more sincerity and uprightness towards God, and is done with 
 less danger than in the other. And as many as walk according to 
 these rules are like to have the peace of the Israel of God, to com- 
 pense whatever of trouble or loss they may meet with in the world, 
 when others shall not have this bird of Paradise to sing in their bo- 
 som.’—A Hind let Loose, 1687, pp. 709, 710. 
 
 What the section of Covenanters, referred to above—who “ suffered 
 more for their adherence to the Covenanted Church of Scotland, and 
 for their opposition to all its deformations and defections than any party 
 within the land,’—held on the general subject of the limits of civil 
 obedience,—and what they had to say in defence of their opinions, are 
 very strikingly brought out in the following account of the exami- 
 nation of Surexps, perhaps the ablest of their leaders, before the Scot- 
 tish Prelates, as most graphically described by himself in his interest- 
 ing Autobiography.—The extract is instructive in a variety of points 
 of view. These prelates answer to Jerome's description of the Empe- 
 peror Decius—“ Hostis callidus,—animas cupiebat jugulare, non cor-_ 
 pora,” which Shields very appropriately prefixes as a motto to his 
 book. 
 
 “¢ MY CONFERENCE WITH THE PRELATES, MAY 5TH, 1685. 
 
 “ When I came into the chamber where they were in the council- 
 house, I found three of them sitting, being (as I was informed since), 
 the two Arch-prelates of St Andrews and Glasgow, and the Prelate οἵ. 
 Dunkell. After a while’s silence, one of them had a harangue, seek- 
 ing leave first of the rest, to this purpose, that such was the re- 
 spect and regard they had to my life, and youth, &c., and unfeigned 
 desire of my better information, and being brought off these danger- 
 ous notions, so dangerous both for life and conscience, that though they 
 were called to wait on weightier matters, yet they were content to post- 
 pone all to the desire they had of my advantage at this time; and, 
 therefore, as they understood, I stuck upon some points of conscience, 
 very ticklish and disputable, which yet may be, I had not duly con- 
 sidered ; so they hoped I would not throw away my life upon these 
 things out of a humour of obstinacy, and refuse what reason they 
 would offer for my conviction ; for, for that end this conference was 
 appointed. 
 
 “ The harangue was prolix to this purpose ; and I was never very 
 prompt or skilful in making extemporary answers ; yet the Lord 
 helped me to say something to the effect following :—I first prefaced, 
 that I must needs decline giving them their usual titles, and that I 
 
CONDUCT OF THE COVENANTERS. ' 495 
 
 hope they did not expect them from me, nor would not be offended 
 at my forbearance ; for I durst not make use of any such compella- 
 tions as might signify my respect to, or approbation of their office. 
 They answered, they could bear with that from me, though they be- 
 lieved they were in cases to justifie and maintain their titles before 
 the world or against it,—somewhat to that purpose. 
 
 “ Then I proceeded to tell them, that [it] was not my business, at 
 present to dispute points of state with them: I was a Presbyterian, 
 and did own all Presbyterian principles, and should be content to offer 
 what light I had for them, or to hear what they had to say against 
 any of them; but I believed their purpose was, which was also 
 my desire, to restrict their discourse to those that rendered me so 
 obnoxious, and on which my sufferings were stated, and for these 
 I offered them freely, that if they could produce better arguments 
 against them from Scripture or reason of any convincing force, than 
 I had for them, I should be content to lay them down, but desired 
 that they should not cajole me into a blind implicitness, by authority 
 or arguments taken therefrom ; and promised that then they should 
 not find me either obstinate, or disingenuous, or standing upon any 
 humour or honour, for I had none to look to but honesty. 
 
 “ They professed with protestations a great tenderness to consci- 
 ence in things wherein the conscience was concerned, but that those 
 things that I endangered myself for, were small and disputable,— 
 no ways fundamental. I thanked them for any regard they had for 
 my life, which also, I did value much, for I told them J had not lived 
 so long, and though I had been much afflicted, I had not been so de- 
 void of the comforts of life, as to be weary of it, or throw it away for 
 nothing. And though these truths I maintained were comparatively 
 not so material as some others, yet to me the least hoof or concern of 
 truth, was more valuable than life, or all interests of the world, and 
 that I did not think them small, but great matters to me. If they 
 were doubtful or disputable to me, I durst not throw away my life 
 so confidently for them ; but now, the denying or doubting of them 
 were a manifest doing violence to conscience. I will rather suffer all 
 violence before I do that ; but yet I will lay myself open for your 
 information. ‘ 
 
 “ They told me, 1 might have reason to suspect my own opinion, 
 being but a young man, and to be supposed not so well acquaint with 
 those controversies, nor of so mature a judgement to assert things in 
 contradiction to so many eminent and learned men in all ages. I 
 confessed the supposition was rational upon these grounds, but I had 
 
 ΕΘ 
 
4926 | NOTES. 
 
 endeavoured to inform myself as well as I could. I could do no less 
 than embrace light when it is offered. I had not troubled the world 
 much with my assertions, having long declined giving my judgement 
 in those things, until it was extorted from me: But now if they 
 would inform me better out of these learned men, I was willing to 
 hear it, and receive it. So they addressed themselves to it, and took 
 their turns about, to propound their arguments. 
 
 “ But first they interrogated me many things, as preliminaries, 
 though altogether extraneous to the following debate, as first, how 
 old I was? I answered, I thought I was about 25 or 26 years of age. 
 Then, where I was born? And if my father was a Presbyterian ? 
 And if he had any fortune in the world? If he was an heritor? All 
 which I answered obviously. Then, if I was graduate ? And where ? 
 and how long ago? And what was my station and study before I left 
 Scotland? I answered, my station was to teach children, my study 
 was to be a Christian. Being asked in what parish I lived, 1 answer- 
 ed in several parishes, which 1 could not give a ready account of, be- 
 ing no great observer of parishes as now constitute, nor haunter of 
 their kirks. Then, what places of the world I had been in, in my 
 travels? I told them. Then, how long I had been in England? I 
 answered. Then, in what vocation I went abroad and travelled by 
 sea? I answered, in that of a chaplain of a ship. And again, how I 
 officiated ὁ Whether I read common prayers or not? I answered 
 no; I would never do that. Next, how the ship's company was 
 pleased with me? I told them I could not tell, but they never ex- 
 pressed their displeasure. Then, what ministers I was acquainted 
 with at London? Itold them I could not give an account, but I was 
 acquainted with severals, both Scotch and English, both Presbyterian 
 and Independent. They asked, if I was acquainted with no regulars 
 officiating in churches? I said, no. They asked, if I never went to 
 hear none? I answered, no, never. They said that was my great 
 disadvantage, for they were learned men. I said there were many 
 learned men there. They asked, how the Presbyterians and Inde- 
 pendents did agree? I answered, they had differences in judgement, 
 but these did not alienate their affection and sympathy ; but they 
 lived together as brethren. Then they interrogate me about several 
 men, which is not worth the rehearsing. Neither was I willing to 
 answer, smelling out at last what was the tendency of that multipli- 
 city of questions, only to try my humour and freedom. 
 
 “ At length they came to the matter, and said, they would reduce 
 all these opinions I was tryed for, to one head, which they thought the 
 
CONDUCT OF THE COVENANTERS. 427 
 
 fountain-head and spring of all ; that was, that principle of the law- 
 fulness of private subjects, using defensive arms against their sove- 
 reign. They asked, if I had read books on‘that controversie. I told 
 them, I had read some. We doubt not, said they, but you have read 
 those of your own party, as Lex Rex, and Naphtali, Jus Populi, 
 &c. But did you ever read and consult their antagonists, that are 
 against that thesis? I answered, I had never the opportunity of 
 reading much, but yet I had seen some who had written against it, 
 and of late one Mr Sherlock, against resistance of the sovereign’s 
 power, the reading of which did confirm me in my judgement of 
 the lawfulness of that which he went to confute, as much as ever any 
 thing did, his arguments are so weak, and his expressions so unsa- 
 vory. They asked me, if ever I had read the Fathers, Greek or La- 
 tine. I answered, I never had the advantage of reading much of them, 
 though I could not deny but I had read some, both historians and 
 others. No, said they, we believe you do not value the Fathers 
 much. Yes, said I, 1 would value the opportunity of reading them, 
 if I had it. Its too late now, said they, to expect time to fall about 
 that study. And so went about to state the question, which they , 
 formed to this purpose: Whether or not it was lawful for subjects, 
 or a party of them, when they thought themselves injured, or to be 
 in a capacity, to resist or oppose the supreme power of a nation ? 
 
 “1 quarrelled at this stating of it, and objected several things, as in 
 the first place, that the question is not, if when a party think them- 
 selves injured, they may resist; but when they are really injured, ~ 
 and not for every reality of injury neither, but when their nearest 
 and dearest liberties and rights, civil and religious, were invaded, 
 especially such an invasion as threatens ineluctable subversion of 
 them, and not then in every case neither, if other means to prevent 
 it be accessible; but chiefly when all addresses, petitions, remon- 
 strances, are prohibited. Next}I thought not a partie’s esteeming 
 themselves in a capacity, or being really in.a capacity, did make re- 
 sistance lawful, except ceteris paribus, they had a call as well asa 
 capacity ; they behoved to have both necessity and a right to the 
 action, and the things they were contending for were their real and 
 legal rights, their capacity gave them only a conveniency and encou- 
 ragement to go about the thing that was previously lawful on a mo- 
 ral ground ; and lastly, I alleged that it was not the Supreme power 
 that was formally intended to be opposed per se, but only per accidens, 
 the person or party invested with it happening to be on the side in- 
 vading, and the defenders were not to make distinctions and excep- 
 
428 NOTES. 
 
 tions, but to defend their own. These things were several times 
 tossed, but I chuse rather to set them down as they now occur, than 
 in the method they were then proposed. 
 
 “ Against the first it was urged, that the question must needs be, 
 when the people think themselves injured, for they have no rule to 
 regulate them, they will not, neither can they admit of another re- 
 ference? I answered, their thought is the understanding they have 
 of the rule, but it is not their rule, they could walk by no other un- 
 derstanding than their own, and it might be supposed they have the 
 best [knowledge | of their own grievances, and so it would only follow 
 that when their thinking themselves injured was wrong, and only 
 pretended, then the resistance was unjust ; but when their thoughts 
 were true, then it were just. 
 
 “It was urged, but who shall be judge, whether they be really in- 
 jured or not in their rights and liberties? Should they be judges of 
 their own cause, then every person or party might claim the same 
 privilege ; this would confound all judgement in the world. I an- 
 swered, that I thought the laws of the kingdom should judge it, and 
 the world and all impartial spectators might judge that: For when 
 it comes to a necessity of resistance, it is to be supposed that the griev- 
 ances complained of, and sought to be reduced by arms, are not hid 
 but manifest. It is not so with any private person, pretending parti- 
 cular injuries. It cannot be so with any party only pretending their 
 suffering wrong. 
 
 “ It was urged again, that the king and his party with him might 
 have as much and more reason to judge of the people’s indignity done 
 to his sovereignty, and that really they deserved to be so dealt with 
 as they complained, and in that case, who shall be judge between the 
 king and the people? I answered, let God be judge, who could only 
 give the essential decision ; but if no other agreement could be made 
 otherwise, I could see no other way of determining the case, but by 
 standing laws, and the clearest evidence of their respective manifestoes 
 to the world of the state of their cause. It was replyed, that is the 
 only rule of judging, but who shall give a judgement? I answered, 
 if the king and the people be supposed to be two parties, I could not 
 see how he could be both judge and party, for then he might claim that 
 prerogative in every case. They said, the king can never be a party, 
 but always a judge. I alleged, that he could not be in the supposed 
 case, for that would establish tyranny in the world. But shall the 
 people be judges, said they, over their king? Then they descanted 
 on people's dethroning their kings, and reducing them, at some length, 
 
CONDUCT OF THE COVENANTERS. 429 
 
 which is neither fit nor possible for one to rehearse. ἴ remember I 
 told them, that this was no act of judgement for a people to defend 
 their own. Defence is no act of jurisdiction, but a privilege of 
 nature. 
 
 “ΜΟΙ more was spoken of fixing of a judge to those cases of op- 
 position between a king and his people. [remember when I said, that 
 for a people's religious rights there could be no judge, but the Norma, 
 which is the Scriptures ; they replyed to this purpose, that then there 
 would never be an end of the controversie ; I said, if that would not 
 hold, then we must flee to the old plea of a Pope, or a general coun- 
 cil. They said, the king must have the judgement of what religion he 
 will have professed in his kingdom, and subjects have no remedy 
 but submissive suffering. I said to this effect, that subjects must 
 have the discretive judgment, what religion they will embrace, and 
 when it is established as a landright, they might contend for it some- 
 times otherwise than by suffering. 
 
 “ When the state of the question was allowed to be reformed, I 
 made it to this effect :—Whether it be lawful for a community of the 
 subjects of a land, when really injured and deprived, or unavoidably 
 threatened to be deprived of their nearest and dearest liberties, lives, 
 fortunes, &c., and all redress otherwise by remonstrances, &c., is 
 rendered inaccessible,—to defend themselves and their religion, &c., 
 by arms against their princes’ emissaries? I affirmed it was. They 
 gave the contradiction to it, in this position, or to this purpose, that 
 it was no ways lawful in any case, or upon any pretence whatever, 
 to resist the sovereign power of a nation, in whomsoever it was resi- 
 dent, whether a single person or state, and which way soever it were 
 erected, whether by hereditary succession, or election, or conquest. 
 
 “1 was required first to prove the contrary, which I would have 
 addressed myself to do, and offered the head, that I would insist on 
 the probation, viz. from the law of nature, practice of nations, and 
 scriptures. Others opposed that, insinuating as much as a promise 
 (or rather threatening) of another hearing of that matter, and willed 
 rather their lordships to propone the arguments for my conviction 
 and confutation. I shall only hint at some heads of them as they 
 occur. One was taken from the practice of our Saviour, the best ex- 
 ample, who both in the tract of his life lived peaceably under the 
 then government, and at his death he could have resisted, but would 
 not. I answered, suffering was the end of his voluntary suscepted 
 humiliation, and his errand to the world appointed by the Father, 
 and undertaken by Himself. That it is not the rule of our practice. 
 
430 NOTES. 
 
 It was replyed, even in his suffering he left us an example, that we 
 should follow his steps. 1 answered ; it’s true in many things; as he 
 was a martyr, his sufferings were the purest rule and example for us 
 to follow, both for the matter and frame of spirit, submission, pa- 
 tience, constancy, meekness, &c. But not as he was our sponsor, and 
 after the same manner. For then it were unlawful for us to flee, as 
 well as to resist. 
 
 ** They instanced that Scripture, Rom. xiii., as an express proof, 
 repeating the first, second, and fifth verses. I replyed, I would pick 
 my answer out of the verses they had skipped. That I thought in- 
 deed it was damnable to resist the excellent ordinance of God, or any 
 powers acting as becomes persons cloathed therewith, keeping their 
 line of subordination to God, and subserviency to the end of their 
 erection, as being not a terrour to good works, as the ministers of 
 God, &c. But otherways to resist the abuse of the power, was not a 
 resisting of the power. It was urged, that all powers there are or- 
 dained of God, and therefore, be what they will, not to be resisted. 
 I answered, all powers are not such as they are described, for there 
 are qualifications of the persons and powers not to be resisted. It — 
 was replyed, these are not qualifications of the powers, but motives 
 for our subjection and obedience. I answered, they are so, but they 
 could not be motives, except they were found true in the persons. 
 But, said they, there all power is ordained of God, be what it will. 
 I answered, all power is ordained of God by his providential will, but 
 not every power assumed of men, is so by his approbative and precep- 
 tive will. One of the prelates said, that even his providential will 
 is not to be resisted. I answered, that the holy product of it can- 
 not, and may not, but the instrument he made use of, sometimes 
 might be resisted. I granted, that even tyrants, when God lays 
 on this yoke as our punishment, must be subjected to, as a plague, 
 but not always to be submitted to, when he gives a capacity to shake 
 off the yoke. Otherways the devil must not be resisted, for he is the 
 prince of this world by permissive providence. It was urged, that 
 Nero was then regnant, when this command of non-resistance was 
 given. I answered, that the command was given in general for our 
 instruction, how to carry on our duties under lawful magistrates, ab- 
 stracting from Nero. And I thought it was hard to prove that Nero 
 was thena tyrant. I have read of the Quinquennium Neronis, wherein 
 he reigned very well. And, however, I alleged, that an ill man might 
 sometimes be a good magistrate, they said, that was a great confes- 
 sion from me. 
 
CONDUCT OF THE COVENANTERS. 431 
 
 “ Then I was asked, if I owned that that article of our confession 
 of faith, that difference in religion or infidelity, could not make void 
 the magistrate’s just power or greatness? I said, I did with all my 
 heart. They asked, how I could reconcile that with that principle of 
 resistance? I said, very easily; for, first, though difference in religion 
 did not make void his power, yet it might stop from admitting to that 
 power, where that religion he differed from was established by law. 
 But waving that, at this time, though it did not make void his power, 
 yet his subjects differing from him, might defend theirs. Again, a 
 king might differ in religion from his subjects several ways ; some 
 might be obstinate, and always continue ina different religion. Others 
 might fall from that, which sometimes they professed. Some might 
 not only profess the same religion with their subjects, but engage by 
 covenant to maintain it, and on these terms be admitted to the go- 
 vernment, and yet fall from it. Some again may not only aposta- 
 tise, but persecute the faithful professors of it, and go to destroy them 
 and their religion. I think in that case he may be resisted, and they 
 may defend their own, not meddling with his religion. 
 
 “ Another Scripture argument was brought from Ist Peter ii. 13, 
 &c. I answered, I was endeavouring to answer that command now, 
 in this my suffering lot, 1 must and do submit. They replyed, 
 that is but forced and not conscientious. I said, they would not re- 
 quire active obedience to every pleasure of every ordinance of man. 
 They said, passive, at least, is required. Well, said I, all that is for- 
 ced, suffering is always forced. But I alleged, that submission there 
 required was very consistent with defensive arms in some cases. 
 They might submit to the government, and yet defend themselves 
 against unjust violence. We had some wrangling about this. 
 
 “ Then they argued, from the example of the primitive Christians, 
 who they could demonstrate were many times in a capacity to resist, 
 and yet did it not. I told them, that was a dispensation of suffering ; 
 I could not well tell what capacity they were in sometimes, or whe- 
 ther they did not sometimes resist, but I thought the case was not 
 alike ; and if we were stated in the same circumstances, living under 
 the Turk’s government, having no vote in the law, nor no privileges 
 of legal land-right to our religion, I could not tell, but we might do 
 as they did, if the Lord spirited us as he did them. Then I offered 
 to prove, it hath been the laudable, at least not condemned practice 
 of many Christian nations. I instanced the carrying on of our work 
 of reformation at home, and the Bohemians, and French, and Holland- 
 ers resistance. They said, these were not so much respected and 
 
432 NOTES. 
 
 proposed for imitation as the primitive Christians; and besides, said 
 they, these acted by authority in the subordinate magistrates, as par- 
 liaments, &c. I answered, I owned indeed, some of our writers, for 
 defence, did maintain only that carried on by the Ephori, or Premi- 
 res Regni, but I could not stick there; for I thought that was no au- 
 thority ; but that of subjects resisting their prince, and defence was 
 no act of authority, but a privilege of nature, common to all. They 
 urged much the old saying, preces et lachryme, &c. Prayers and 
 tears are the church’s arms. I granted they were so, the only best 
 prevailing arms; and without which all others would be ineffectual, 
 and that they were the only ecclesiastick or spiritual arms of a church 
 as a church; but the members thereof were men, and as men they 
 might use the same weapons that others did. 
 
 “ When I offered to plead from the law of nature, as that which 
 could not contradict the revealed law of Christ, and which was not 
 the grant or donative of princes, nor to be dispensed with or aban- 
 doned to their pleasure: They had some quibbling sophisms, that if 
 this were the law of nature, then in no case it ought to be laid aside, 
 then a man should resist always, and he can no more part with his ἡ 
 resistance than with his life; and therefore, said they, if you were 
 going to be hanged, you ought to fight and resist for your life. I 
 answered, that were not a mean to preserve my life. And be- 
 sides, it is an affirmative duty, not obliging ad semper, at all times. 
 At which one of them wondered how that could be. I confess, I 
 wondered at that bishop’s ignorance. The same man asked, if I 
 thought it were lawful for a man voluntarily to bind himself to sla- 
 very, whether that was consistent with the law of nature? I an- 
 swered, I thought no, where he can have his liberty. Then, said he, 
 how do you read of the Hebrew servant his voluntarily giving his 
 ear to be bored to his master’s door. I answered, that was his con- 
 tentment to be a servant for ever, not his slave, for he could not be 
 sold as such. 
 
 “ Many other things past that have escaped my memory ; but I 
 remember, they spoke of hearing my arguments another time. Then 
 fell again exhorting, that I would seriously ponder, whether these 
 things be of such weight, as to lose my life for them. I answered, I 
 reckoned I was a prisoner for conscience, and I was also a prisoner 
 to conscience, bound by the bonds of its authority, to own what I 
 understood to be truth ; and if they could loose me from these bonds, 
 I was content to retract and be better informed. 
 
 ἐς Then they began to make proposals to me, that 1 might save my 
 
CONDUCT OF THE COVENANTERS. 433 
 
 life, 161 would but engage to live peaceably under the government of 
 church and state. I told them, I was not charged with any unpeace- 
 able practice ; yea, but said they, your principles are inconsistent 
 with the peace of the government. I told them, I did not think so, 
 but that they were very consonant with the gospel of peace; but for 
 engaging to live peaceably, I could do it very well in the general, 
 for I am a lover of peace ; but I thought it would argue I had been 
 guilty of the breach of it formerly, and suspected they and I would 
 not agree in the explaining of that peace; for I believed, whatever 
 it were, it should be such a living peaceably as would contradict my 
 way of living, and that for which I am a prisoner. They said, by 
 living peaceably, they meant that I would not rise against the king, 
 and submit to the government of church and state. I answered, as 
 for the government of the state in many things, I profess myself a 
 malcontent. Then they made three offers, whereby I might have 
 my life, viz. If I would go and hear the regular incumbent in any 
 parish I pleased to reside in ; or next, if I would not do that, if I would 
 engage to forbear preaching ; or at least, in the last place, I would en- 
 gage and give it under my hand never to preach that doctrine, I had 
 maintained even now before them. I refused them all, and to the 
 last I told them I was a prisoner for truth, and though I should die 
 for it, I had vather remain so, and suffer the worst of it, before I 
 kept any truth a prisoner. Then they threatened death, and that 
 within a very short time. Nay, one of them proceeded to threaten 
 damnation for owning such principles, and so went away. 
 
 “ One passage I had forgot, that for a considerable time before I was 
 dismissed, Sir William Paterson, and the clerk of the Justiciary, 
 came in and heard our debates, and before the close, Sir William 
 challenged me for a passage in my letter, where I reported, he con- 
 fessed, that in some case the king might be resisted. I then affirmed 
 before him it was true, and attested the other clerk, who answered, 
 he did not remember any such thing; then I repeated before them 
 the case that he confessed. If the king were distracted, or came fu- 
 riously to kill me without a cause, I might defend myself: O! but, 
 said one of the prelates, you indulge yourself in your fanciful suppo- 
 sitions of things that rarely fall out, and are so improbable, that they 
 are next to impossibilities. I answered, it was not impossible but a 
 king might be distracted as well as another man, and that such as 
 had their wits might do, and cause to be done, distracted acts. And, 
 for instance, I told them one story, which I had proper knowledge of, 
 viz. of the young king of Bantam, who, when he got the govern- 
 
484 NOTES. 
 
 ment in his hands, by his father’s resignation, he killed with his own 
 hands many of his subjects, and caused them to be murdered without 
 any cause, which was the reason of his subjects’ present revolt, which 
 yet the late King of England justified, by his sending for their relief, 
 ammunition, το. 
 
 “1 shall here abruptly close this confused relation of that weary 
 conference. I was so weary in the time of it, that I could not stand, 
 and [am }so weary in writing it, that I cannot sit, longer. I was from 
 thence carried back to prison, to the gentlemen’s chamber. But be- 
 fore I was taken thither, the prelates departing in a huff, left me 
 alone in the room a pretty space, and forgot to give orders concern- 
 ing me to the soldiers, who were waiting in the outer-room. After I 
 had stayed so long alone, that I wondered what was intended to be 
 done with me, I came forth of the room, and the soldiers in all civi- 
 lity, and (as I thought), seriously asked me if I was free ; for they 
 had no orders about me. I answered, I knew nothing of it, and so I 
 continued talking with the soldiers, until a macer came running in 
 great haste, and no little fray, with an order to take me to prison, 
 which was done as above said.”—A True and Faithful Relation of the © 
 Sufferings of the Reverend and Learned Mr Alexander Shields, Minister 
 of the Gospel, written with his own hand, pp. 85-94. 4to. Sine Loco, 
 1715.* 
 
 * Things are often found in odd places. Who would have expected to have 
 met with the doctrine of the supremacy of the people, in the writings of a 
 Lord Chancellor of England, in the days of Henry VIII ? Yet so it is. The 
 epigram that follows, by Sir THomas Mors, proves, as well as some remark- 
 able passages in his Utopia, that liberal principles in politics, which even yet 
 have but imperfectly established themselves in the public mind of this coun- 
 try, were familiar to that truly great man, of whom Erasmus so beautifully 
 says, “ Cui pectus erat omni nive candidius, ingenium quale Anglia nec ha- 
 buit unquam, nee habitura est, alioqui nequaquam infelicium ingeniorum 
 parens.”—Erasmi Ecclesiastes, Prefat.p.9. Basil. 1544. 
 
 POPULUS CONSENTIENS REGNUM DAT ET AUFERT. 
 
 “ Quicunque multis vir viris unus preest, 
 Hoc debet his quibus preest : 
 Przesse debet neutiquam diutius, 
 Hi quam yolent quibus preest. 
 Quid impotentes principes superbiunt ? 
 Quod imperant precario ?” 
 Thome Mori Lucubrationes, pp. 215, 216. Basil, 1563. 
 
TWO ADDRESSES, 
 
 ON 
 
 THE VOLUNTARY CHURCH QUESTION: 
 
 WITH NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 “ Non est opus vi, quia religio cogi non potest :—nec potest veritas cum vi con- 
 jungi.—Nihil est tam voluntarium quam religio, in qua si animus aversus 
 est, jam sublata, jam nulla est.” 
 
 Lactantii Div. Inst. Lib. v. ¢. xix. 
 
ADVERTISEMENT. 
 
 Tse following Addresses are introduced into this Volume, from 
 the affinity of their subjects to the topics discussed or referred to 
 in the foregoing pages, and in the hope that they may be of some ᾿ 
 use in communicating information, correcting misconception, and 
 counteracting misrepresentation, respecting the designs and doings 
 of Voluntary Churchmen—by briefly stating the principles they 
 maintain, the objects they are prosecuting, and the means they 
 
 are employing to assert these principles and gain these objects. 
 
ADDRESS I. 
 
 ON THE NATURE AND DESIGN OF VOLUNTARY CHURCH 
 ASSOCIATIONS.* 
 
 Amon the salutary results which may be reasonably 
 anticipated from the transactions of this evening, the 
 removal from the public mind, of all uncertainty and 
 misapprehension respecting the true character and 
 object of the Voluntary Church Association is, in my 
 opinion, one of the most important. It is strange 
 that such uncertainty or misapprehension should ex- 
 ist, after the very unequivocal statement which has 
 been made of the principles on which the institution 
 is founded,—the end which it is designed to accom- 
 plish—and the means by which it seeks to attain 
 that end. 
 
 But however strange it may be, it is undeniably 
 true, that misrepresentation of the character and ob- 
 ject of the institution does prevail to a great extent ; 
 and charity, which “ hopeth all things, and believeth 
 all things,” requires us to conclude, that in many 
 
 * This Address was delivered at the first public meeting of the 
 
 Edinburgh Voluntary Church Association, held in Broughton Place 
 Church, on January 29, 1833. 
 
438 ADDRESS I. 
 
 cases, in every case indeed, where evidence does not 
 compel us to draw another inference, this misrepre- 
 sentation must have originated in misapprehension. 
 Surely nothing but mistake could lead good and ho- 
 nourable men to represent this Society as political in 
 its character, and revolutionary in its object ; and to 
 treat its supporters as if they were guilty of some 
 great crime against social order, which renders them 
 unworthy of being associated with their brethren, in 
 advancing the interests of Christianity, or promoting 
 the happiness of mankind. Surely those who think 
 and act in this manner cannot be aware, that we are 
 only maintaining and avowing principles which have 
 been maintained and avowed by some of the wisest - 
 and best of men—by Milton, and Locke, and Owen, 
 and Hall—and that, like them, we are merely seek- 
 ing the exposure of what we believe to be error, and 
 the correction of what we believe to be abuse, by the 
 public statement of what we believe to be truth.— 
 “This is the head and front of our offending—no 
 more.” 
 
 The design of our Association has been so clearly 
 stated in the resolution, which the meeting has al- 
 ready adopted, and in that which has been so ably 
 moved, by my old fellow-collegian, and our public- 
 spirited townsman,* and which I now, with the cor- 
 dial approbation of my own mind, recommend to 
 their favourable reception, that all who either hear 
 or read these resolutions, must be wilfully deceived 
 if they continue any longer in error on this subject. 
 
 * Adam Black, Esq. 
 
VOLUNTARY CHURCH ASSOCIATIONS. 439 
 
 They cannot be ignorant either of what are not, or of 
 what are, the objects of the Society. 
 
 It has all along been a mistake, and, if now per- 
 sisted in, it will become a calumny, to assert, that 
 the object of our Association is seditious and revolu- 
 tionary; and that its members are disaffected to the 
 civil government under which we live, and indisposed 
 to render to it those duties which the Christian law 
 requires. We fearlessly assert, and we appeal to the 
 whole tenor of our conduct for the proof, that his 
 Majesty has not more loyal subjects, nor the civil 
 constitution of our country more cordial and consist- 
 ent supporters, than the members of the Voluntary 
 Church Association. 
 
 By far the greater part of them are men who enter 
 with comparatively little ardour into any mere poli- 
 tical question; and who assuredly contemplate civil 
 establishments of religion less, in their reference to the 
 interests of worldly kingdoms, than in their reference 
 to the interests of that kingdom which is “not of this 
 world ;” who are less affected with their bearing on 
 the events of time, than by their relation to the des- 
 tinies of eternity. They are men who, because they 
 “fear God, honour the king;” who cheerfully yield 
 obedience to their civil rulers, “ not only for wrath, 
 but for conscience’ sake;” who have no sympathy 
 with those restless men, who appear to consider the 
 fact of an institution having been long established, 
 as a sufficient reason for attempting its destruction ; 
 and, were it possible, still less with those factious 
 men, who seem to think every thing short of overt 
 
440 ADDRESS I. 
 
 rebellion lawful, in endeavouring to re-establish 
 abuses, which the constituted authorities of the coun- 
 try, in perfect accordance with the judgment and 
 wishes of the people, have abolished. 
 
 These remarks will not be considered as uncalled 
 for, by any one who bas read the dark insinuations, 
 and the calumnious charges, which, for some months 
 past, in many of our public journals, as well as in se- 
 parate publications, have been directed against the 
 members of the Voluntary Church Association. In 
 our opinion, the ecclesiastical establishments of the 
 country have no necessary connexion with its civil 
 constitution (even Warburton contends for alliance, 
 not for mutual incorporation), and their ceasing to. 
 exist as establishments, would have no other effect 
 on the state, than to relieve it from an oppressive 
 burden and a disturbing force, and thus to enable it 
 to perform its appropriate functions with greater 
 ease, and regularity, and efficiency. 
 
 We have always, since capable of thinking, been 
 of opinion, with a profound, as well as eloquent wri- 
 ter, that “ among the evils attending the alliance of 
 church and state, it is not the least that it begets a 
 notion of their interests having some kind of inse- 
 parable and mysterious connexion, so that they who 
 are dissatisfied with the one, must be the enemies of 
 the other.”* This delusion is passing away. There 
 was a time when the West Indian slaveholder pro- 
 claimed that every enemy to slavery and the slave- 
 trade, was of course a democrat and anarchist ; and, 
 
 * Hall. 
 
VOLUNTARY CHURCH ASSOCIATIONS. 44] 
 
 to a certain extent, he was believed. But now that 
 the government itself has, in good earnest, become 
 the enemies of slavery and the slave-trade, the ca- 
 lumny, having no chance of being credited, has ceased 
 to be circulated. And we look forward to a period, 
 it may not be a distant one, when the equally well 
 founded charges of a similar kind, against the friends 
 of Voluntary churches, will, for a similar reason, be 
 disposed of in a similar way. 
 
 10 has also all along been a mistake, and, if now 
 persisted in, will become a calumny, to assert, that 
 the design of our Society is to destroy, or in any way 
 to interfere with any existing church or religious de- 
 nomination, in their ecclesiastical capacity. It has 
 often been strongly asserted, that our object—our 
 avowed object, is the destruction of the two great 
 ecclesiastical bodies, usually termed, The United 
 Church of England and freland, and the Church of 
 Seotland. : 
 
 No representation could well be less consistent 
 with truth. It is certainly our object to effect, by 
 legal means, a disconnexion of these ecclesiastical 
 bodies from the state, or, in other words, their deli- 
 verance from the degrading control of the civil autho- 
 rity, in the management of their own religious affairs. 
 But we do not think so meanly of these two great 
 bodies, venerable as they certainly are, not so much 
 for their antiquity, as from the learning and worth 
 which they have contained,—aye, and do contain,— 
 as to identify such a change with their destruction. 
 
 Without giving any opinion as to how far either 
 
 ἘΠῚ 
 
449 ADDRESS I. 
 
 of these associations is a well constituted Christian 
 church, I have no hesitation in avowing my convic- 
 tion, that both of them have a strong hold of the 
 minds and hearts of a large portion of the people, in 
 the two divisions of our island, in which they are re- 
 spectively established. What the precise extent of 
 this attachment may be, it would be difficult accu- 
 rately to ascertain. Coming events will probably 
 throw light on this subject. I believe it to be much 
 less, than their devoted admirers declare it to be, and 
 much more, than their extreme terror, for a with- 
 drawal of compulsory support, would seem to inti- 
 mate that they believe it to be. It is my firm per- 
 suasion, that both the Church of England and the | 
 Church of Scotland, were the change, which we think 
 most desirable, effected, would continue large eccle- 
 siastical bodies, and incomparably more active and 
 useful than they have ever hitherto been. 
 
 We do not interfere—we have no wish to inter- 
 fere—with their creed, their worship, their govern- 
 ment, or their discipline; and, surely a church that 
 continues in the full possession and peaceful enjoy- 
 ment of all these, is not destroyed.* We merely 
 wish those churches relieved from what is a burden 
 to others, and an injury to themselves. We can ho- 
 nestly say, we love them, as we love ourselves. “ We 
 would God that they were not only almost, but alto- 
 gether such as we are, ewcept these bonds.” + 
 
 The civil establishment which these churches en- 
 joy (suffer is, I believe, the more appropriate word), 
 
 * Vide Note I. + Acts xxyi. 29. 
 
VOLUNTARY CHURCH ASSOCIATIONS. 443 
 
 never was a source of real advantage to them. In the 
 progress of society, it has become a source of obvious 
 evil and of extreme danger. That shapeless mass 
 which, under the name of a buttress, has been erect- 
 ed against the walls of these churches, has already 
 moved the edifices, massive as they are, off the level, 
 and if not speedily taken down, threatens to bury the 
 inhabitants in the mingled ruins of buttress and build- 
 ing. Is he an enemy who, standing at some distance, 
 and thus having superior advantages for ascertaining 
 the true state of matters, warns the tenants of these 
 ancient fabrics, of their danger, and even offers his as- 
 sistance in having the misnamed buttress removed, be- 
 fore it has effected their destruction? If the friendly 
 hint is taken in the spirit in which it is given, the 
 building may yet right itself, the inclined walls may 
 yet become perpendicular, and the edifice stand as 
 erect and more secure than ever. If it is neglected or 
 resented, the tenants must take the consequences. 
 Their blood will be on their own head. 
 
 There is yet another misapprehension respecting 
 the design of our Association, which the transactions 
 of this evening, and especially the resolution which I 
 am supporting, is well calculated to remove. It has 
 all along been a mistake, and if now persisted in, will 
 become a calumny, to assert, that our object is spo- 
 liation,—that our design is to rob the established 
 churches of their property, that we may enrich cur- 
 selves. We are not, Sir, either in deed or desire, 
 “ robbers of churches,” though we may be held “ blas- 
 
 phemers of the Goddess,” whom the idolaters of civil 
 
444 ADDRESS I. 
 
 establishments worship. This charge is indeed ab- 
 solutely ridiculous. 
 
 Were we directing our attacks against the nume- 
 rous and flagrant abuses of the established churches, 
 while we maintained that it was the right and duty 
 of the magistrate to establish the true religion: were 
 we asserting, that they ought to be stripped of the 
 privileges which they have abused, and that we should 
 be invested with them: were we thus taking the 
 ground occupied by the Reformed Presbyterians, 
 the fathers of the Secession, and some of the minor 
 Seceding bodies in our own day, in their contro- 
 versy with the Established church,—something like 
 plausibility might attach to the charge brought 
 against us. But we condemn, in the most unquali- 
 fied manner, the principle, of the civil establishment 
 of religion, as unjust, impolitic, unscriptural, and mis- 
 chievous. We declare, not only against the compul- 
 sory support of this or that religious denomination ; 
 we declare against the compulsory support of any, of 
 every, religious denomination. We do not like to 
 be the unwilling supporters of this unjust system, 
 but we should still less like to be supported by it. 
 If we must be one or other, we would far rather be 
 its victims than its nurslings. 
 
 Our firm conviction is, “ that the principal evils 
 in established churches are not accidental, but the 
 necessary and unavoidable result of the compulsory 
 support of religious institutions, and the alliance be- 
 tween church and state.” We are fully persuaded, 
 to borrow the words of the great author already 
 
VOLUNTARY CHURCH ASSOCIATIONS. 445 
 
 referred to,—‘ that if any Christian society were 
 converted into an Established church, it is no longer 
 a voluntary assembly for the worship of God: it 
 is a powerful corporation, full of such sentiments 
 and passions as usually distinguish these bodies,—a 
 dread of innovation, an attachment to abuses, a pro- 
 pensity to tyranny and oppression.”"* We have no 
 wish that our Voluntary churches, with all their im- 
 perfections, should undergo such a metamorphosis. It 
 would appear to us too severe a punishment, for any 
 misdeeds they may have committed, and we should 
 deprecate, as one of the worst evils that could befal 
 them—their being cursed and blasted by a state al- 
 liance. : 
 
 Happily this is an evil which we are in no great 
 danger of incurring, The remark of Dr Owen is 
 fully as applicable to our times as to his own: “If 
 the present establishment of superfluous revenues to 
 the clergy were removed, I do not think the world 
 itself would, in haste, run into the same state again.” 
 
 While it is obvious that we do not, that we can- 
 not, indulge any hope of enriching our own religious 
 denominations, by the spoils of the secularly endowed 
 churches—while we have, and can have no other in- 
 terest in the dissolution of civil establishments (which, 
 as we have seen, is a very different thing from the 
 destruction of the churches which are established), 
 than every citizen has in closing up one of the sources 
 of useless and injurious expenditure of public money 
 —it does by no means follow, that we survey uncon- 
 
 * Hall. 
 
440 ADDRESS 1. 
 
 cerned, far less regard with a malignant eye—as some 
 of our opponents with equal charity and modesty, not 
 only surmise, but assert—the suppression of flagrant 
 abuses, or the growth of vital Christianity within the 
 
 pale of the established churches. We regard such 
 
 ge 
 events with deep interest; we hail them with cordial sa- 
 tisfaction. We hear with delight that the number of 
 faithful ministers is increasing, in both the established 
 churches—and, though we more ardently wish, than 
 sanguinely hope, for the abolition of lay patronage, 
 pluralities, and other abuses, while the alliance be- 
 tween church and state continues, we rejoice in every 
 thing that looks like improvement, even when the 
 circumstances in which it takes place, may induce a. 
 suspicion, that a sense of necessity, fully as much as 
 a conviction of duty, may have produced it. 
 
 We are as fully persuaded, as we well can be, with 
 respect to any future event, that a dissolution of the 
 connexion between church and state must take place 
 at no very distant period: and we congratulate the 
 two ecclesiastical bodies, at present encumbered with 
 secular patronage and support, on every change which 
 is calculated to prepare them for acting usefully their 
 part, when raised to a level with their sister denomi- 
 nations, and required like them, in order to obtain 
 public support, to deserve it by public service. The 
 greater the reform which takes place in these churches, 
 previously to what they may think their disfranchise- 
 ment, but which we know to be their emancipation, 
 the easier will be the transition into their new and 
 higher state; and the better fitted will they be for 
 
VOLUNTARY CHURCH ASSOCIATIONS. 447 
 
 exercising their new functions, and performing their 
 new duties. At the same time, we cannot help think- 
 ing, that it is deep degradation, for a church to have 
 to ask leave from secular authorities, to reform them- 
 selves; still deeper degradation, to have reformation 
 obtruded on them by these authorities ; and that there 
 is much greater probability of a thorough change to 
 the better, following, than preceding the liberation of 
 these bodies, from the paralysing influence of a state 
 connexion. 
 
 While the transactions of this evening are well 
 calculated, to disabuse the public mind of the mis- 
 takes, produced by those false representations, which 
 have been so sedulously made of the objects of the 
 Voluntary Church Association, they appear to me 
 equally fitted to communicate just conceptions, as to 
 what the design of that institution really is, and what 
 are the motives which urge its supporters to seek its 
 attainment. 
 
 We unequivocally avow, what we are prepared satis- 
 factorily to prove, that the civil establishment of re- 
 ligion, under the New Testament economy, is unjust, 
 impolitic, unscriptural, and mischievous; and that 
 therefore our object is to obtain, not a less objection- 
 able form of the connexion between church and state, 
 but the complete dissolution of that connexion—the 
 putting an entire end to all interference on the part 
 of the civil authorities, with regard to religion, in 
 the way of sanctioning creeds, appointing ministers, 
 and providing for their support. In other words; our 
 object is to induce civil governments to let religion 
 
448 ADDRESS I. 
 
 alone, and to allow every man, and every body of men, 
 while they conduct themselves as good citizens, to 
 manage their own religious concerns, in the way they 
 think to be most agreeable to the will of God, “ with 
 whom” alone, in such matters, “ they have to do.” 
 This is the object—the sole object—of the Voluntary 
 Church Association.* 
 
 In endeavouring to obtain this object, we are in- 
 fluenced by various motives, none of which we are 
 either afraid or ashamed to avow: some of these hay- 
 ing a direct reference to our own convictions and in- 
 terests as individuals, and others having a reference to 
 the great interests of our common country, and com- 
 mon Christianity. As occupying a high place among 
 these motives, we have no wish to conceal, that our 
 desire of the extinction of the civil establishments of 
 Christianity, partly originates in our unwillingness to 
 give a portion of our property, for a purpose which, 
 in our conscience, we believe to be not only useless, 
 but mischievous. 
 
 Let me not be misunderstood. I do not say that 
 either of the churches established in this country, is 
 either a useless or a mischievous institution. I be- 
 lieve both have done incalculable good, though I am 
 persuaded they have done this good, not because they 
 were established, but notwithstanding their being es- 
 tablished : and I believe much more good would have 
 been done had they not been established at all. But 
 I do most distinctly assert, that the compulsory sup- 
 port of these churches, by a tax levied from multitudes 
 
 * Vide Note II. 
 
VOLUNTARY CHURCH ASSOCIATIONS. 449 
 
 who conscientiously disapprove of some of the prin- 
 ciples of these churches, and from multitudes more, 
 who disapprove of the principle on which they are 
 supported,—is at once useless and mischievous : UseE- 
 LESs—because surely the members of these churches, 
 including the greater part of the wealth of the coun- 
 try, are able, and ought not to be unwilling, to sup- 
 port them: Miscutevous—in as much as it destroys 
 the natural connexion established between the mea- 
 sure of labour and reward—of work and wages; su- 
 persedes entirely the operation of the only authentic 
 financial law of the church of Christ, and prevents all 
 the advantages flowing from its unobstructed opera- 
 tion; excites jealousies and contention among the 
 citizens of the same commonwealth, and tends to en- 
 gender dissatisfaction with a government which, how- 
 ever unintentionally, tampers with the rights of pro- 
 perty and of conscience. 
 
 It has indeed been frequently of late, distinctly 
 stated, that there is no such thing as a compulsory 
 support of religious institutions, in this our land; 
 and the amazing assertion has been hazarded, that, 
 with some trifling exceptions, not worth mentioning 
 in so great a question, the established churches do 
 not cost dissenters—do not cost the country—a far- 
 thing.* ‘ 
 
 In reference to the first of these assertions, nothing 
 is so wonderful as the temerity of him who made it, 
 if it be not his simplicity in supposing it possible that 
 it could be credited, at a time when every newspaper 
 
 * Vide Note III. 
 
450 ADDRESS I. 
 
 brings accounts of sales in a neighbouring country, 
 under the protection of the military, of corn and cat- 
 tle distrained for tithes refused to be paid; and ina 
 city where it is no very uncommon sight to witness 
 the sale of household furniture, poinded in conse- 
 quence of the refusal to pay ministers’ stipend. 
 
 The second assertion may require, if it do not de- 
 serve, a little more attention. It is the opinion of 
 some of the best informed political economists, that 
 tithes and teinds are in reality, a tax on produce, 
 which, like every other tax of the same kind, is paid 
 by the consumer, so that every consumer of agricul- 
 tural produce, pays his share of all the expense of 
 our ecclesiastical establishments. * 
 
 But whatever there may be in this, there is ano- 
 ther view of the subject, which makes it evident that 
 these establishments are supported by public proper- 
 ty, and that of course, every one of that public, to 
 whom that property belongs, pays his share of the - 
 expenses ; and were this portion of public property 
 otherwise employed, would be relieved, to a certain 
 extent, from the burdens under which he labours.— 
 Whatever may be considered as the nature of the 
 tenure by which the Roman Catholic church held her 
 property, there can be no doubt, that that property, 
 whether justly or not, was confiscated by the public 
 authorities, at the time of the Reformatiou, and thus 
 
 * « Tithes are a burden which falls equally on every individual in 
 the kingdom, on the poorest beggar as well as the richest lord, in 
 proportion to their respective consumption of the articles from which 
 a tithe is levied.”-—M‘Cuttocn—Encye. Edin. Art. Taxation. 
 
» 
 
 VOLUNTARY CITURCH ASSOCIATIONS. 451 
 
 became public property. A part of that public pro- 
 perty was given, in many instances, I believe, un- 
 “ wisely, and iniquitously given to private individuals 
 —but it was given, irrevocably given. Another por- 
 tion of it was assigned as a fund for paying salaries 
 to certain politico-ecclesiastical functionaries, for the 
 performance of certain services. This portion cer- 
 tainly did not cease to become public property, any 
 more than the funds appropriated at different times, 
 for the payment of the army or the navy 
 
 and if this 
 country, in the course of those changes which time 
 brings round, should find that the services of the 
 
 army, or the navy, or the clergy, may be dispensed 
 with, it is obvious, that the competent authorities, 
 i. e. the legislature, have a right to give a new direc- 
 tion to these funds, to withdraw these salaries, with 
 an equitable regard to the claims of the present in- 
 cumbents, and apply them to lessening the burdens 
 which press on the community, or to any other im- 
 portant public purpose. It was a silencing remark 
 lately made to a zealot for establishments, boasting 
 that what is styled church property, was as good pro- 
 perty as any landed estate,—“ I should like to see 
 the progress of writs.” 
 
 In this way, it must be apparent to all, except to 
 those who will not see, that even in this point of 
 view, we have personal interests in the affair of civil 
 establishments of religion, which should protect us 
 from the charge of being “ busy bodies,” “ intermed- 
 dlers in other men’s matters,” in endeavouring to ob- 
 tain an arrangement respecting this large portion of 
 
» 
 
 452 ADDRESS f. 
 
 public property, such as strict justice, as well as good 
 policy, demands.* 
 
 It is thus perfectly obvious, that every dissenter is” 
 paying for the support of an order of public religious 
 instructors, from whom he cannot conscientiously re- 
 ceive “ spiritual things,” in return for his “ carnal 
 things :” and the irksomeness of the tax is more than 
 doubled, when, in paying it, he feels that he is relue- 
 tantly compelled to support an institution, in his esti- 
 mation, inconsistent with the laws of Christ, and most 
 injurious to the great interests of his kingdom. This 
 is our principal motive, if we do not deceive ourselves, 
 in seeking to be emancipated from what we feel the 
 degrading bondage of supporting a system which, on ἢ 
 many accounts, we conscientiously condemn. 
 
 In expressing our settled convictions on this sub- 
 ject, I employ the words of our fundamental princi- 
 ples, slightly modified, merely because I find it im- 
 possible to express these convictions in fewer or 
 plainer words—words so plain, that I have been in 
 no ordinary degree surprised, to hear the short state- 
 ment which they compose, characterized as being 
 enigmatical, and its authors, like the crafty king of 
 Ithaca, accused of “ scattering ambiguous expressions 
 among the vulgar.” We are persuaded “ that a com- 
 pulsory support of religious institutions, is inconsist- 
 ent with the nature of religion, the spirit of the gos- 
 pel, the express appointment of Jesus Christ, and the 
 civil rights of men: that in every case, it is an un- 
 warrantable attack on the right of property,” be- 
 
 * Vide Note LV. 
 
VOLUNTARY CHURCH ASSOCIATIONS. 453 
 
 ing an exaction for a purpose which comes not within 
 the limits of civil authority, and in every case “ where 
 the individual disapproves of the system supported, 
 or the principle of its support,” it is “ a direct inva- 
 sion of the rights of conscience,” being an exaction 
 for the support of what he accounts sinful: “ that it 
 keeps in a state of unnatural separation, those who 
 should be united, and in a state of unnatural union, 
 those who should be separated: that its tendency, as 
 exhibited in its effects, is to secularize religion, pro- 
 mote hypocrisy, perpetuate error, produce infidelity, 
 destroy the unity and purity of the church, and dis- 
 turb the peace and order of civil society: that by its 
 direct and indirect influence, it is among the princi- 
 pal causes of the low state of Christianity, in those 
 countries where it is professed, and of the slowness 
 of its progress throughout the world: and that while 
 thus unreasonable, impolitic, unjust, and mischiev- 
 ous, it has not even the plea of necessity—Christian- 
 ity having within itself, in the native influence of its 
 doctrines, on those who believe them, every thing 
 which is required for its efficient support, and indefi- 
 nite extension.” 
 
 With these convictions, with regard to the nature 
 and tendency, and consequences of the civil establish- 
 ment of religion, can we be reasonably blamed for 
 wishing its extinction ? With these convictions, could 
 we be justified, were we not to employ all the means 
 competent to us, for having it extinguished? If we 
 are wrong in our views on this subject, we are very 
 willing to be put right. Let it be but satisfactorily 
 
454 ADDRESS I. 
 
 proved to us, that ecclesiastical establishments are 
 not in their nature, and tendencies, and consequences, 
 what we believe them to be, and we will cease to op- 
 pose them. But till then, we will, we must use every 
 means which reason, religion, and law warrant, in or- 
 der to gain our end. 
 
 And we will use no other means. We do not 
 dream of proclaiming a crusade against establish- 
 ments. We will neither attempt to sap them by 
 plots, nor overturn them by violence. Our warfare 
 shall be the legitimate warfare of argument; and it 
 shall be, as it has been hitherto—notwithstanding 
 every temptation, from the unworthy arts of some of 
 the “ baser sort” of our opponents—conducted on the. 
 principles of honourable literary combat. We shall 
 make no dishonest use of men’s prejudices, and aim 
 no thrust at private reputation. We shall endeavour 
 to make truth and duty on this subject, manifest to 
 the reason and conscience of men, and in this way, to 
 persuade them, what we ourselves are persuaded of, 
 that the civil establishment of religion is a great evil. 
 And such is our confidence in truth, and the God of 
 truth, that we cannot doubt but we shall ultimately 
 prevail. When we do prevail, the removal of the 
 evil we complain of, cannot be distant. Public opi- 
 nion has long been very powerful in this country ; 
 but now that it has an appropriate organ, not only in 
 a free press, but in a reformed House of Commons, it 
 will be found to be irresistible. ᾿ 
 
 I understand that some of our opponents have all 
 but challenged us, to try our cause on another field, 
 
VOLUNTARY CHURCH ASSOCIATIONS. 455 
 and by other weapons. At the hazard of being count- 
 ed cowards, we must decline the challenge, and de- 
 clare that we have no idea of deciding a question of 
 truth and right, in any other way, than by fair argu- 
 ment. If they are for any other kind of fighting, for 
 us, they must fight alone. They have declared their 
 determination to shed the last drop of their blood in 
 defence of their church. Their church, as a church, 
 has never been attacked by us. We war only with 
 its compulsory support. And even if they are dis- 
 posed to shed their blood, for the privilege of com- 
 pelling others to support the ordinances of religion 
 for them, they will wait a long time before they shed 
 the first drop of their blood, if they wait till we shed 
 it. We will never attack even this “ abomination 
 of desolation, which standeth where it ought not,” 
 but by argument, addressed to the people, and pe- 
 titions addressed to the legislature, and prayers ad- 
 dressed to God. 
 
 It is, indeed, our belief, that Christ’s church has 
 never been much the better of any blood shed in its 
 defence, but the blood of the martyrs. “ The unre- 
 sistible might of weakness”* has done more for her, 
 than the “ might and mastery of any establishment,” 
 with all the pomp of civil authority, and all the ter- 
 rors of military foree. To these Knights Templar 
 we beg leave to hint, that He whom we own as our 
 common Master, once gave an advice to a very zeal- 
 ous disciple, but somewhat more forward than wise, 
 with which it would have been good for the church and 
 
 * Milton. 
 
450 ADDRESS I. 
 
 the world, if his followers had more implicitly com- 
 plied :—*“ Put up thy sword into the sheath; they 
 who draw the sword, shall perish by the sword.” 
 
 It may seem strange, Sir, after having made these 
 strong statements of disapprobation of the civil esta- 
 blishment of religion in all its forms, I should now 
 profess myself a decided friend to an established reli- 
 gion, and an established church—to the established 
 religion, and the established church, in the only pro- 
 per, though it may not be quite in the common and 
 conventional, sense of these words. But strange as 
 it may seem, it is true; and I know I carry you, and 
 all around me, along with me in the profession I have 
 now made. 
 
 The only way in which religion, that is, a system of 
 religious doctrines and laws, can be established, in a 
 consistency with its nature, is by satisfactory evi- 
 dence of their divine truth, and divine authority. 
 There has been such an establishment of religion 
 made. The code of doctrine and law contained in 
 the Holy Scriptures has been thus established. This 
 religion was “ spoken to us by the Lord, and con- 
 firmed by them who heard him; while God also bare 
 witness by diverse signs and wonders, aud diverse 
 miracles, and gifts of the Holy Ghost, according to 
 his own will.” This is the established religion, and 
 this is the establishment of it. 
 
 And as to the established church—What is the 
 church? It is very well described in the nineteenth 
 article of the church of England, as “ a congregation 
 of faithful,” 7. e. believing ‘“‘ men, to which the pure 
 
VOLUNTARY CHURCH ASSOCIATIONS. 457 
 
 word of God is preached, and the sacraments be duly 
 administered.”* Now, how is such a church esta- 
 blished? When, by the effectual influence of the 
 Holy Spirit, a man is brought to understand and be- 
 lieve the doctrines, to understand and submit to the 
 laws of Jesus Christ, the true religion is established 
 in that man; he becomes a faithful or believing 
 man: and when a number of these faithful men, from 
 aregard to the authority of Jesus Christ, associate 
 themselves together, according to the due order, that 
 among them “ the pure word of God may be preach- 
 ed, and the sacraments be duly administered ;” there 
 is a church established. This is the true established 
 
 * The following somewhat more extended account of “ the 
 Church,” by an Epistopalian divine (who, though so blind to the 
 true character of the politico-ecclesiastical body, with which he is 
 connected, as to style it “ our most unsectarian church,’—an unhesi- 
 tating utterance of a mere hallucination which irresistibly provokes a 
 good humoured smile,—manifests a clearness and width of view, and 
 a catholicity of spirit, curiously contrasting with his idolatry of what 
 certainly is the most sectarian of all Protestant ecclesiastical bodies), 
 will serve our purpose still better than the very brief, though just, 
 description quoted above from the Thirty-Nine Articles,—the civilly 
 sanctioned, and enacted symbol of the only faith which, according to 
 the British Parliament, owght to be held or professed within the realm 
 of England :— 
 
 “ The Church is emphatically a voluntary society, attracting, not 
 compelling men into its fellowship, and binding together those who 
 have entered thereunto, not by the chains of a penal enactment, but 
 by the cords of a man, which are the bands of love. Community of 
 thought and feeling is the end to be constantly kept in view,—and 
 communication of truth by every rational and moral means, by preach- 
 ing, writing, speaking; by example, education, social influence,— 
 this is the method by which that end must be pursued. Not legal 
 enactment, not priestly domination, not Procrustean efforts for en- 
 forced similarity, can ever create a spiritual brotherhood, but the pre- 
 sence, of one common purpose, in each and in all, animated by one 
 common feeling, and pressing towards one common end.’—Griffith's 
 Christian Church, pp. 16, 19, 20. 
 
458 ADDRESS I. 
 
 church, and this is the establishment of it. he whole 
 of such societies, thus constituted, form the church 
 militant—universal. This, then, is the established re- 
 ligion; and this is the established church, founded, 
 not on acts of a human legislature, but on “ the 
 apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the 
 chief corner-stone.” * 
 
 Of this established religion,—of this established 
 church, we are the devoted admirers. We believe 
 in this true religionn—*“ we believe in this holy ca- 
 tholic church.” “ Her foundations are in the holy 
 mountains. The Highest himself shall establish HER. 
 God is in the midst of her; she cannot be moved. We 
 pray for the peace of Jerusalem; they shall prosper ᾿ 
 that love her. Peace be within her walls, and pros- 
 perity be within her palaces. For our brethren and 
 companions’ sake, we will say, Peace be within her ; 
 for the house of the Lord our God, we will seek her 
 good. The gates of hell shall not prevail against her. 
 Walk about Zion, and go round about her, tell the 
 towers thereof; mark ye well her bulwarks, and con- 
 sider her palaces, that ye may tell it to the genera- 
 tion following. For this God is our God, for ever ; 
 He will be our guide, even unto death.” Ὁ 
 
 But, it is just because we are such fervent admir- 
 ers of this religion, and this church, and this esta- 
 blishment, that we have lost all admiration for any 
 other established religion—for any other established 
 church. Of course, it cannot be expected, that we 
 
 * Eph. ii. 20. 
 + Psal. Ixxxvii. 1-4; xlvi. 5; exxii. 6-9; xlviii. 12-14. 
 
VOLUNTARY CHURCH ASSOCIATIONS. 459 
 
 are to give reasons for not liking the establishment 
 of a false religion, or the establishment of a spurious 
 church. Our opponents do not go so far as to ask 
 this of us; though, were we adopting their principles, 
 we should find it difficult to show good cause, when 
 the magistrate is a pagan, a mohammedan, or a he- 
 retic, why we should not approve of the establishment 
 of a false religion, and a spurious church—of the ko- 
 ran and the mosque—of the shaster and the pagoda, 
 —as well as of the Bible and the Church. 
 
 But our admiration of the divine establishment of 
 the true religion, and the true church, is such, as to 
 give us a strong disrelish of all human establishments 
 —even of them. To establish them, really seems, to 
 us, actum agere, with a witness,—to do what is done 
 already. Who would think of giving greater beauty 
 to the rose, or brightness to the sunbeam, or depth 
 to the fathomless ocean, or stability to the everlast- 
 ing hills? It is shrewdly remarked, by an old writer 
 on this subject, “ One would think, when God him- 
 self had taken in hand to establish the true religion, 
 and had done what he in his wisdom thought proper 
 for that purpose, what he had done should be sufi- 
 cient, so far as any thing could be, to the end he pro- 
 posed: without which, one can hardly think, that he 
 would have done it at all.”* 
 
 To establish the true religion by human means, 
 seems to us impracticable, if it were desirable ; and 
 useless, if it were practicable. Can all the power and 
 authority on earth, give additional evidence to divine 
 
 * Mole’s Case of Dissent. Vide Note V. 
 
400 ADDRESS 1. 
 
 truth, or additional authority to divine law? “ Reli- 
 gion,” it has been finely observed, “ if it has any 
 power, operates on the conscience of men. Resting 
 solely on the belief of invisible realities, and having 
 for its object, the good or evil of eternity, it can de- 
 rive no additional weight or solemnity from human 
 sanctions; but will appear to most advantage upon 
 hallowed ground, remote from the noise and tumult 
 of a worldly policy. Human laws may debase Chris- 
 tianity, but they cannot improve it; and being able 
 to add nothing to its evidence, they can add nothing 
 to its force.”* There is indeed something ineffably 
 absurd, in the attempt to make Christianity, as it is 
 barbarously phrased, “ part and parcel” of the law of ᾿ 
 any land. It is to hold up a taper in the effulgence 
 of noon-day. [Ὁ is the petty municipal head of some 
 decayed borough reduced to a hamlet, attempting to 
 give new authority to an act of the British legisla- 
 ture, sanctioned by king, lords, and commons—by 
 declaring it the law of his dominions ; or rather, for 
 it far transcends such folly, it is the same self-import- 
 ant personage issuing a proclamation, that the sun 
 shall have liberty to rise in the east, and set in the 
 west, within the limits of his jurisdiction. 
 
 To attempt to establish the true church, seems to 
 us equally preposterous. Can human—can created 
 power form the materials of which the true church is 
 composed? “15 the residue of the Spirit” with any 
 civil government on earth, that by his plastie influ- 
 ence they may make men “ new creatures?” No; 
 
 * Hall. 
 
VOLUNTARY CHURCH ASSOCIATIONS. 461 
 
 they are “ His workmanship, created anew unto good 
 works.” “He sendeth forth his Spirit, and they are 
 created.” And even after they are formed, can hu- 
 man authority constitute them Christian churches 4 
 No; under the same influence that has quickened 
 them, must they submit themselves to divine autho- 
 rity; and in obedience to the command of the only 
 King, “ whom God has set on his holy hill of Zion,” 
 join themselves together in a holy fellowship. He 
 who is the Author of the natural world, is the Author 
 of the spiritual world. It is “a new creation:” and 
 in it, “ all things are of God.” He who formed the 
 materials of the universe, can alone create those 
 “ living-stones,” which are the materials of the Chris- 
 tian church; and He, who out of the materials, called 
 into existence by his “ word of power,” formed that 
 admirable system, which is all beauty to the sense, all 
 order to the mind; He alone can build up these “ liv- 
 ing-stones” in comely symmetry, into a “ spiritual 
 temple,” in which a holy priesthood “ offer up spi- 
 ritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ.”* 
 
 But, it may be said, that the design of what is 
 commonly called the civil establishment of religion, 
 is not to make Christians, nor even to form Christian 
 churches, but it is to protect and support Christian 
 churches, when formed, according to the divine mo- 
 del, by him who alone can form them. But the 
 Christian church wants no peculiar protection from 
 the civil magistrate. Her members are entitled to 
 
 =] Peter ti 5, ὡς 
 + Some gentlemen talk of raising barriers about the Church of 
 
462 ADDRESS I. 
 
 the common privileges of citizens, and they need no 
 more. Surely, their being Christians, is not to place 
 them beyond the pale of the law, either in the way of 
 excluding them from its protection, when they act as 
 good citizens, or of shielding them from its penalties, 
 if they should act as bad ones. And as to support, 
 Jesus Christ has abundantly provided for the support 
 of his church, when, by that word which made and 
 sustains the universe, he ordained, “ that they who 
 preach the gospel, should live by, or on the gospel ;” 
 and by his apostle he has explained that law, so that 
 its meaning cannot be misunderstood, however it may 
 be overlooked and opposed: “ Let him who is taught 
 in the word, communicate to him that teacheth, in 
 all good things.”* Wherever the religion of Christ 
 is established in the heart, the obligation of this law 
 will be felt; and wherever a church is composed of 
 persons, in whose heart this law is written, it will be 
 
 God, and protecting his honour!—Jlanguage that is astonishing, 
 that is shocking, that almost_approaches to blasphemy. What! man— 
 a poor vile contemptible reptile, talk of raising barriers about the 
 church of God! He might as well talk of protecting Omnipotence, 
 and raising barriers around his throne. Barriers about the church of 
 God, Sir! about that church, which, if there be any veracity in Scrip- 
 ture, shall continue for ever, and against which the gates of hell shall 
 not prevail! If I may be allowed on so serious an occasion to recol- 
 lect a fable, it puts me in mind of one which I met with, about a 
 stately, magnificent, impregnable castle, built upon a rock, the basis 
 of which was the centre of the earth, the top of it pierced the clouds, 
 and the thickness of the walls could not be measured by cubits. At 
 the bottom of it a few moles were one day very busy in raising a lit- 
 tle quantity of earth, when some mice said, ‘ What are you doing, 
 said they, ‘ to disturb the tranquillity of the lord of this earth?’ ‘ We 
 are not disturbing his tranquillity,’ said the moles; ‘ all blind as you 
 are, you may see that we are only throwing up a rampart to protect 
 his castle.’ ”—Sir George Saville in the House of Commons in 1772. 
 * Gal. vi. 6. 
 
VOLUNTARY CHURCH ASSOCIATIONS. 463 
 
 obeyed. It has always appeared to us, one of the 
 worst features of the compulsory system, that it 
 makes void this ordinance of our Lord—an ordinance, 
 not less plainly instituted by him, than the holy Sup- 
 per. If we condemn Popery, for robbing the mem- 
 bers of the church of one half of the last of these 
 ordinances—what shall we say of civil establishment, 
 which deprives them of the whole of the first 4 
 
 But we object to the human establishment even of 
 the true church, on the ground, not merely that it is 
 useless, but that it is mischievous. This remark opens 
 a wide field, but having already occupied so much 
 of your time, I must not enter on it. I shall con- 
 tent myself with quoting, what “ one of themselves, 
 even a prophet of their own,” Bishop Hoadly, says on 
 the subject. “ Many glorious things have I read and 
 heard on all sides, about the flourishing state of the 
 church of Christ before Constantine ; and many me- 
 lancholy and terrible accounts of its condition, from 
 and after that time, till by degrees it became, in the 
 corrupt estate of the church of Rome, the sink of hy- 
 pocrites, and the sanctuary of atheists.”* 
 
 Bear with me a moment, when, before sitting 
 down, I advert to a charge, which has often of late 
 been made against this institution and its operations, 
 as if they were disturbing the peace of society, and 
 sowing dissension among Christians. We throw back 
 the accusation on those who have cast it on us. The 
 civil establishment of religion is that “ root of bit- 
 terness,” which has been so productive of the poison- 
 
 * Letter to Dr Snape. Vide Note VII. 
 
464 ADDRESS I. 
 
 ous fruits of civil broils, and religious animosities ; 
 and till “ this plant, which our heavenly Father never 
 planted, is rooted up,” neither undisturbed peace in 
 the state, nor cordial union in the church, can be ra-~ 
 tionally anticipated. TuHry are the friends of peace 
 and union, not who cultivate this parisitical plant, 
 but who endeavour, by peaceful means, to extirpate 
 it, as the great cause of discord and division. What 
 is it that keeps those members of the Church of Scot- 
 land, who are really attached to her doctrines, and 
 worship, and government, and discipline, apart from 
 their dissenting Presbyterian brethren, but the bar- 
 rier of civil establishment? And what is it that 
 keeps these dissenting Presbyterian bodies separate - 
 from each other, but controversies, which, but for civil 
 establishment, never could have had an existence, 
 and, which could not long survive the destruction of 
 that which has occasioned them ?* 
 
 One of the principal causes of my deep-rooted 
 grudge at the compulsory system, is, that while it ex- 
 ists, it seems to place an insurmountable obstacle in 
 the way of that visible union of all Christ’s genuine 
 followers, which is the subject of his intercessory 
 prayer, and which is to be one principal mean of the 
 conversion of the world. “ But Hi the Father 
 heareth always ;” and whatever is incompatible with 
 the fulfilment of his wishes, or the answer of his pray- 
 ers, must be destroyed: for, “ Jehovah will give him 
 his heart’s desire, and will not withhold from him the 
 request of his lips.”+ We would that “ the mind 
 
 * Vide Note VIII. + Psal. xxi. 2. 
 
VOLUNTARY CHURCH ASSOCIATIONS. 465 
 
 which was in him,” were in us, and in all our breth- 
 ren, whom we love not to call opponents, and will 
 not think enemies ; and it is our constant prayer,— 
 surely they will not refuse to join with us in it,— 
 that all Christians “ may be one in him, even as the 
 Father is in him, and he in the Father, that the world 
 may know that the Father hath sent him.”* 
 
 In our apprehension, the extinction of the compul- 
 sory system of supporting religious institutions, is ne- 
 cessary to the fulfilment of this petition, and to the 
 establishment of that millennial state of purity and 
 peace, 
 
 “ Foretold by prophets, and by poets sung, 
 Whose fire was kindled at the prophet’s lamp,” + 
 
 when the church, weaned from all dependance on 
 man, shall rest entirely on the invisible arm of her om- 
 nipotent Protector; when she shall “ no more again 
 stay on him who has” so often “‘ smitten her, but shall 
 stay on the Lord her God—the Holy One of Israel ;” t 
 when strong as well as beautiful, in her dependance 
 on her Divine Head, and in the union of her mem- 
 bers, “ fitly joined and well-compacted,” she “ shall 
 look forth, as the morning,” on a world destined then 
 soon to become her inheritance—“ fair as the moon, 
 clear as the sun, and terrible as an army with ban- 
 ners.” 
 
 * John xvii. 21. + Cowper's Task. t Isa. x. 20. 
 
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ADDRESS II. 
 
 THE VOLUNTARY SUPPORT OF CHRISTIANITY A DIVINE 
 ORDINANCE; OR, THE FINANCIAL LAW 
 OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH.* 
 
 THE question respecting Civil Establishments of Re- 
 ligion, though not in itself peculiarly difficult, is, with- 
 out doubt, considerably complex ; ‘and those whose 
 interest it is to mystify the subject, have dexterously 
 availed themselves of its complexity, to give it a cha- 
 racter of depth and difficulty which does not properly 
 belong to it. It may be viewed as a question in the 
 philosophy of the human mind, or in general poli- 
 tics—the science of government, or in political eco- 
 nomy, or in morals, or in religion. I have endea- 
 voured to look at it in all these phases, and the re- 
 sult of my examination may be given in a very few 
 words. 
 
 When considered as a question of the philosophy 
 of mind, the conclusion arrived at is, that a czvil es- 
 tablishment of religion is an absurdity of the same 
 
 * This Address was delivered at the Annual Meeting of the Glas- 
 gow Voluntary Church Society, held in East Regent Street Church, 
 March 3, 1835. 
 
468 ADDRESS II. 
 
 kind as, what the world has never yet seen out of a 
 madhouse—a project to demolish fortresses by syllo- 
 gisms ; or as, what the world has, alas! seen but too 
 much of, in the open arena of public life—the attempt 
 to settle a question of truth and right by physical force. 
 It is, as an absurdity, in the same category with war 
 and duelling. Viewed as a question in general poli- 
 tics, the conclusion is, that a Civil Establishment of 
 Religion is most wnwise and inexpedient. Viewed as 
 a question in political economy, the conclusion is, that 
 a Civil Establishment of Religion is at once useless 
 and mischievous. Viewed as a question in morals, the 
 conclusion is, that a Civil Establishment of Religion 
 is wyust. And viewed as a question in religion, the 
 conclusion is, that a Civil Kstablishment of Religion 
 is ¢mpious, both as interfering with the most sacred 
 rights of God, and duties of man, and as directly op- 
 posed to distinct intimations of the Divine will, in 
 a well-accredited Revelation.* 
 
 * Of the processes of thought which have led us to the above con- 
 clusions, the following sentences exhibit a specimen :— 
 
 Even in its most plausible form—rorrration, the exercise of civil 
 power (the essence of which is force), in reference to religious belief and 
 worship, is palpably an impious absurdity. The toleration and the pro- 
 scription of particular forms of religious profession and worship, on 
 the part of a civil government, though opposite modes of conduct, are 
 not manifestations of antagonist principles. They are expressions of 
 the same principle, they are assertions of the same right, they are 
 assumptions of the same power. The right to grant includes the 
 right to withhold, the power to tolerate supposes the power to pro- 
 scribe. 
 
 And what is the right thus claimed, what is the power thus as- 
 sumed, equally, in proscribing and in tolerating certain modes of 
 faith and worship? It is the right to interfere between man and his 
 Maker ; it is the power not only to restrict man’s noblest privilege, but 
 
FINANCIAL LAW OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. 469 
 
 The religious view of the subject has always ap- 
 peared to me the most interesting, as well as the most 
 important view that can be taken of it. I like to 
 
 to limit God’s highest prerogative. To tolerate the worship of God, only 
 in certain forms, is not merely to prescribe to man what homage he is 
 to present to God,—it is (‘horresco referens’) to prescribe to God 
 what homage he is to accept from man. An act. of uniformity is a 
 law prohibiting God to be worshipped, except in a particular way ; 
 and an act of toleration is a law permitting him to be worshipped in 
 a variety of ways; and since, as has been shrewdly remarked, ‘ in 
 the complex idea of worship, the component parts, the object and 
 the agent—the worshipped and the worshipper cannot be separated, 
 these laws are respectively an explicit prohibition or permission to 
 men, and an implicit prohibition or permission to God. In absur- 
 dity and impiety, though not in injustice and cruelty, the two acts 
 are equal. We are far from charging either the authors or uphold- 
 ers of civil establishments of religion, with consciously sanction- 
 ing the absurdity and impiety, which is thus necessarily and obviously 
 implied, even in the most plausible form of civil interference with re- 
 spect to religious opinion and profession—toleration, but till our argu- 
 ment is fairly met and refuted, we must insist that this is the charac- 
 ter of the system, whatever may be that of its supporters. 
 
 In truth, neither of these impious absurdities—the legal proscrip- 
 tion or the legal toleration of religion, could ever have been dreamed 
 of, had the plain truth not been lost sight of, that the religious rela- 
 tions, rights, and obligations of all men are substantially the same,— 
 that the greatest of monarchs, and the most abject of slaves, in refer- 
 rence to the Supreme Potentate—the Sovereign of Minds—the Lord 
 of the Conscience, are entirely on a level,—and that the subject 
 has just as good a right, on such a topic, to dictate to the sovereign, 
 as the sovereign to the subject; for the plainest of all reasons, 
 that no creature can, without an express grant from Heaven, have any 
 right of the kind. By the statement of what he counts truth, and 
 its evidence, the sovereign may séek to bring the subject, just as the 
 subject may seek to bring the sovereign, to think along with him, 
 and act along with him in religion,—but the exercise of civil autho- 
 rity, the principle of which is force either felt or feared, is obvi- 
 ously utterly out of the question. It cannot in the slightest degree 
 communicate the qualities of truth or right to the dogmas or usages 
 in support of which it is put forth,—nor supposing them possessed of 
 these qualities, can it manifest them to the apprehension of “ the man 
 within the breast.” It cannot convert falsehood into truth nor wrong 
 into right. It cannot make clear what is obscure, nor certain what 
 
470 ADDRESS II. 
 
 look at it chiefly as a religious question, and not only 
 as a religious question, but as a Christian question. 
 I like to look at it as a Bible question, and not only 
 as a Bible question, but as a New Testament ques- 
 tion; for though I believe we have quite as much 
 respect for the Old Testament as our opponents, yet 
 1 cannot help thinking that common sense dictates, 
 that for the laws and ordinances of the Old Covenant 
 we should go to the book of the Old Covenant—the 
 Pentateuch : and that for the laws and ordinances of 
 the New Covenant, we should go to the book of the 
 New Covenant—the Evangelical Histories, and the 
 Apostolical Epistles. I most cordially concur in the 
 sentiment so well expressed by a much loved and re- 
 vered brother and friend,* in his “ Testimony of Serip- 
 ture against the Civil Establishment of Christianity,” 
 a work bearing the deep impress of that soundness 
 of mind, and piety of spirit, and suavity of manner, 
 and “ meekness of wisdom,” which so remarkably 
 characterize its author. “ It is the scriptural view 
 
 of the question which will make the deepest impres- 
 sion upon godly persons, both in and out of the Ks- 
 tablishment : 
 
 and from this a light will shine, sooner 
 or later, which will bring their opinions and feelings, 
 on the subject, into entire harmony.” 
 
 In the following remarks I intend not only to con- 
 fine myself to the scriptural view of the question, but 
 is doubtful. It cannot make what is true more true, nor what is right 
 more right. It cannot make a statement more perspicuous, nor an 
 argument more conclusive. Till it can do such things as these, what 
 
 has it to do with articles of faith or modes of worship ? 
 * The Rey. John Jamieson of Scoon. 
 
FINANCIAL LAW OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. 4/1 
 
 to one aspect of that view. My object is to show, 
 that the principle for which we plead, for the pro- 
 gress of which we give God thanks, and to the pro- 
 motion of which, we anew, as in his presence, so- 
 lemnly pledge ourselves 
 
 has had the highest honour 
 done it, that can be conferred on any principle, in 
 being embodied in a Divine ordinance; that, apart 
 from this consideration, it has strong claims on our 
 zealous support; and that all the objections which 
 have been brought against it, when they have been 
 honestly stated, are founded on misconception. 
 
 It is impossible to read the New Testament care- 
 fully, without perceiving that it was the intention of 
 Jesus Christ, not only to render his followers indivi- 
 dually holy and happy, but, in subordination to this 
 end, to form them into a holy, happy fellowship ; 
 the bond of which should be the faith and love of 
 the same truth, and the objects of which should be 
 the united worship of their common God and Father, 
 the united promotion of the honour and interests of 
 their common Lord and Saviour, and their mutual 
 improvement in the knowledge of Christian truth, 
 the cultivation of Christian dispositions, the perform- 
 ance of Christian duty, and the enjoyment of Chris- 
 tian comfort. This society, founded on His institu- 
 tion, subject to His authority, regulated by His law, 
 animated by His spirit, devoted to His honour, bless- 
 ed by His presence, is the Christian Church. From 
 the very nature of the case, this Church is in the 
 highest sense of the term a Voluntary Society. No 
 man can be compelled to be one of its members. 
 
472 ADDRESS II. 
 
 Every man in becoming a member, follows the con- 
 viction of his mind and the inclination of his heart, 
 though it is obvious that in doing so, he performs, in 
 the inmost sanctuary of his rational active nature, an 
 act of humblest homage to Him who is the great 
 Head of the society, and avows his determination, in 
 all his behaviour in this “ house of God,” into which 
 he has entered, to regulate himself, not according to 
 the caprices of his own humour, nor according to the 
 conclusions of his own reason, nor according to the 
 commandments or customs of men, but according to 
 the revealed will of Him whom God has “ set as his 
 King on his holy hill of Zion.” 
 
 Christianity is favourably distinguished from Ju- 
 daism, as a religion of general principle, rather than 
 of particular minute statute ; but although, in conse- 
 quence of this, many of the minor arrangements of 
 time, place, and circumstance, are left to be deter- 
 mined by individual societies, guided by the great com- 
 prehensive canons, “ LET ALL THINGS BE DONE WITH 
 cHaARITY: LET ALL THINGS BE DONE TO EDIFYING: 
 LET ALL THINGS BE DONE DECENTLY, AND IN ORDER ;* 
 every thing essential to the permanent existence, the 
 continued progress, and the ultimate triumph of the 
 system—every thing necessary to the being and the 
 well-being of the Church, is provided for by the express 
 appointment of the “ One Lawgiver.” Among such 
 essential points must be numbered, the means of sus- 
 taining and propagating the system. Such a religion 
 as Christianity cannot be maintained and extended 
 
 * 1 Cor. xvi. 14; xiv. 26, 40. 
 
FINANCIAL LAW OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. 473 
 
 without expense as well as labour; and the question 
 is obviously an important one in its bearings on the 
 character and success of the whole scheme—from 
 what sources, are those necessary revenues to be de- 
 rived ? 
 
 The natural anticipation, that, in the Christian law, 
 some distinct provision should be made on this head, 
 is not disappointed. On no subject has our “ one 
 Master in heaven” more clearly revealed his will. 
 The germ of what may be termed the financial law 
 of the Christian Church, is to be found in our Lord’s 
 charges to his twelve apostles, and to his seventy dis- 
 ciples, when he sent them forth without money or 
 change of apparel, “ Freely ye have received, freely 
 give ; if they receive you, eat such things as are set 
 before you. Eat and drink such things as they give. 
 The labourer is worthy of his hire.”* 
 
 These declarations alone, taken in connexion with 
 the nature of Christianity, would have been sufficient 
 to show us, what is the will of Jesus Christ, as to the 
 manner in which his religion is to be supported and 
 propagated. But He who is iffinite in wisdom and 
 kindness, has been pleased to declare that will, in the 
 form of express statute, and in terms so unlimited, as 
 plainly not to refer to any particular age or combina- 
 tion of circumstances: “ The Lord hath oRDAINED,” 
 says one of those princes, who sit on their twelve 
 thrones, judging the twelve tribes of the spiritual 
 Israel, “ The Lord hath ordained, that they who 
 preach the gospel should live of the gospel.”+ And 
 
 * Matth. x. 8; Luke x. 7. + 1 Cor. ix. 14. 
 nuh 
 
474 ADDRESS II. 
 
 lest it should be said, that these words merely mean, 
 that the subsistence of the preacher should, in some 
 way or other, be the result of the discharge of his office, 
 he adds, that he is to live of the gospel, in the same 
 way as “he who planteth a vineyard, is to eat of the 
 fruit of that vineyard ;” and “ he who feedeth a flock, 
 is to eat of the milk of that flock.” And to convey 
 the same important idea without a figure, in another 
 part of the Christian law, it is written, “ Let him 
 who is taught, communicate, in all good things, to him 
 that teacheth.” 
 
 “ This is the law of the house,” and, like every 
 thing about it, is “ holy,” sacred, inviolable. The 
 Christian Church is not, as some good men seem to 
 think, an institution of the same kind as our Bible, 
 and Missionary, and Tract, and Educational Societies. 
 They are humanly devised means to obtain a divinely 
 appointed end. It is a divinely appointed means to 
 obtain a divinely appointed end; and we are equally 
 bound to use this means, as to seek this end. 
 
 Had no law been given on this subject, it would 
 not only have been warrantable, but it would have 
 been obligatory, to have used our rational faculties, 
 guided by the general principles of Christian truth, 
 to devise the most probable method—the plan with 
 fewest drawbacks and most recommendations, for 
 gaining the undoubtedly divinely appointed end— 
 the maintenance and extension of the faith and ordi- 
 nances of Christ. In this case, it would have been 
 perfectly fair, to have discussed the comparative ad- 
 vantages and disadvantages of various conceivable 
 
FINANCIAL LAW OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. 475 
 
 methods for this purpose. Should Christian minis- 
 ters be maintained in the same way as the Levitical 
 priesthood? Should their maintenance be derived 
 from a compulsory tax, raised from the whole body 
 of a nation, without reference to their religious prin- 
 ciples? or should they be supported by voluntary 
 contributions from those who enjoy the advantage of 
 their labours? Such questions might, in the supposed 
 case, with propriety have been put; though, keeping 
 steadily in view the character and design of Chris- 
 tianity, we apprehend there could have been very 
 little difficulty in answering them, even in the ab- 
 sence of all explicit law on the subject. 
 
 But, now that the law has been given forth, all 
 such inquiries are not only unnecessary, but they are 
 impious. As Dr Chalmers happily says, “ Let the 
 principle of ‘ What thinkest thou?’ be exploded, 
 and that of ‘ What readest thou?’ be substituted in 
 its place.” Had Jesus Christ merely stated that it 
 was his will that his death should be commemorated 
 in an appropriate emblematical institution, then it 
 would have been proper to have endeavoured to dis- 
 cover what particular emblematical service would 
 have best gained the end; but now that he has bid 
 us “ Kat bread, and drink wine” in remembrance 
 of him, the Christian who neglects, thus to comme- 
 morate him, and the Christian who would seek to 
 commemorate him, in any other way, would equally 
 violate the law, and contemn the authority of the 
 Lord. 
 
 ΤῸ must be plain that the language of the passages 
 
470 ADDRESS II. 
 
 quoted, is the language, not of counsel, but of law; 
 not of human, but of divine law; and not of an ap- 
 pointment, in reference to a temporary arrangement, 
 but of a perpetual ordinance. We put it to our op- 
 ponents, Had it been the design of Jesus Christ to 
 give law on the subject, could he have used plainer 
 words—could he have adopted stronger language ? 
 
 This is a view of the subject which has always ap- 
 peared to me conclusive; and I must take leave af- 
 fectionately and earnestly to press it on the attention 
 of the pious supporters of Civil Establishments of 
 Christianity; and I very readily and gladly admit, 
 that such supporters, though they form a minority, 
 are by no means few. When distinctly perceived, - 
 by a mind which “ trembles at God’s word,” it must 
 lead to the immediate abandonment, of what must 
 appear, a “ making void the commandment of the 
 Lord by man’s tradition” Among the enlightened 
 defenders of Establishments, few will plead for them, 
 except as an innocent and useful humanly devised 
 means to gain a divinely appointed end; but if,—as 
 we apprehend, is clear as a sun-beam,—the use of 
 this means is utterly incompatible with, is directly 
 subversive of, the use of a divinely ordained means, 
 though it were in itself altogether unobjectionable, 
 which is far from being the case, the employment 
 of it becomes disobedience to the law—rebellion 
 against the authority of God. 
 
 The ordinance of the Lord’s Day, or the first-day 
 Sabbath, though established on evidence which com- 
 mands my obedience, is by no means so explicitly 
 
FINANCIAL LAW OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. 477 
 
 revealed, as the ordinance of the voluntary support 
 of Christian institutions. The institution of the 
 Lord’s Supper is not embodied in plainer and more 
 authoritative terms. Now, what Christian would 
 not shrink with horror, from the proposal to purchase, 
 from the secular authorities, such advantages as they 
 can confer, by permitting them to abolish the Lord’s 
 Day, or to change it from the first to any other day 
 of the week, or to consecrate the seventh part of 
 every day, instead of one day in the week, to religious 
 purposes, or to abolish the Lord’s Supper, or to 
 substitute some other emblematical rite in its place, 
 or, in imitation of the Roman Catholic priesthood, 
 who relieve the laity of the trouble of communicating 
 in the cup, to appoint a particular privileged class 
 to observe the complete rite in the room of the whole 
 Church? What Christian mind, I say, does not shud- 
 der, at the very thought of such absurdities and im- 
 pieties? But is one part of the divine law, more ob- 
 ligatory than another? and is it less obviously, the 
 sin to which Simon Magus tempted the apostles, to 
 purchase secular advantages, by bartering the ordi- 
 nance of voluntary support, than it would have been 
 to have bought them by bartering the ordinance of 
 the Lord’s Day, or the Lord’s Supper ? 
 
 When we take this view of the subject, it is easy 
 to see how utterly untenable is the subterfuge, that 
 is generally had recourse to on this subject—that Es- 
 tablished Churches, at least the Established Church 
 of this country, give the secular power no authority 
 m religion, but only some authority about religion— 
 
478 ADDRESS II. 
 
 power not im sacris but only circa sacra. Is there 
 any power in religion superior to that which institutes 
 and annuls ordinances, which ordains and repeals 
 law ? 
 
 We do again most earnestly beseech our Christian 
 brethren, to consider the position in which, by giving 
 their support to Civil Establishments of Christianity, 
 they place themselves. We know our appeal will 
 excite only bitter contempt—exasperated irritation, 
 in the minds of that numerous body, who, from secular 
 principles, support these Establishments, as a secular 
 institution, in a secular spirit, and for secular pur- 
 poses; but we cannot but anticipate a different re- 
 sult from Christian men, dispassionately contemplat- 
 ing this subject in the pure light of revealed truth. 
 We know, that they, equally with ourselves, wish to 
 know and to do the will of our common Master. We 
 love them, and therefore we must lift up the voice 
 of friendly warning. We must tell them the cause 
 is far less ow’s, than our Lord’s. It is with Him 
 that they, as well as we, have todo. JEHOVAH-JESUS 
 has “ ordained it,” and “ who shall disannul it?” 
 During a long season, their minds have not been se- 
 riously turned to the subject. They sinned, but it 
 was in ignorance; they erred, but it was through in- 
 consideration. “The times of this ignorance God 
 winked at ;” but now he is, by the events of his pro- 
 vidence, and a peculiarly clear exhibition of this part 
 of his will, calling on all such misguided Christians 
 “to repent,” 7. ¢. to change their mind, aye, and to 
 change their conduct too. He is now addressing 
 
FINANCIAL LAW OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. 479 
 
 them in the language he long ago employed to one of 
 his mistaken servants, to whom it is no discredit to 
 them to be compared, “ Gird up thy loins like a man. 
 I will demand of thee, and declare thou unto me— 
 Wilt ¢how disannul my judgment? Wilt thow con- 
 demn ΜῈ, that thou mayst be righteous ?”* 
 
 It thus appears, that the principle of our Associa- 
 tion has had the highest honour conferred on it, that 
 can be conferred on any principle. It has been em- 
 bodied in a Divine institution. It has been made 
 the substance of a Divine law. And what is the 
 object of our union, but just by the legitimate in- 
 fluence of this principle on the public mind, to put 
 an end to the making void the commandment of God, 
 by man’s traditions, or at any rate to secure ourselves, 
 from being any longer compelled, to supply the means 
 of that, which appears to us so presumptuous and so 
 perilous an invasion of the rights of the Most High ? 
 Ts it not plain that this our principle comes from 
 God, and that its prevalence ought to be ascribed 
 to his agency? and ought we not to count it our ho- 
 nour and duty to be, in our humble sphere, co-ope- 
 rators with Him? Yes, we will “ thank God and 
 take courage.” . 
 
 This, in my apprehension, is the stronghold of our 
 cause ; and we cannot be driven from it but by a 
 proof, either that no such ordinance as that of the 
 voluntary support of Christianity was ever instituted, 
 or that it has been repealed by the same authority 
 which appointed it. We challenge our opponents 
 
 * Job ΣΙ. 8. 
 
480 ADDRESS II. 
 
 to the proof. But though this is our citadel,we have 
 other bulwarks. All Christ’s ordinances are founded 
 on the highest reason: none of his arrangements are 
 merely arbitrary. It is enough to make it our duty 
 to submit to them, that they are his will; but in al- 
 most every case he makes it evident, that, apart 
 from this highest consideration, what he requires of 
 us is “ a reasonable service.” This is obviously the 
 case, in reference to the divinely ordained method of 
 supporting and extending Christianity. The arrange- 
 ment has high claims on our admiration, from its 
 simplicity, its equity, its generosity, and its usefulness, 
 in all which qualities it is strikingly and favourably 
 contrasted with the plans which human presumption | 
 has substituted in its place. 
 
 Nothing more remarkably characterises the works 
 of God, than their divine s¢mplicity. Had human or 
 angelic wisdom been tasked, to form a plan, for keep- 
 ing in perfect order, for an indefinite duration, such 
 an immense and complicated machine, as our plane- 
 tary system, what an endless variety of curious con- 
 trivances would have been proposed? It would have 
 taken many a volume to describe them. The Crea- 
 tor impresses on matter a tendency towards the cen- 
 tre, and by this simple law of gravitation, secures 
 that these mighty masses shall be steady in their or- 
 bits, and regular in their revolutions. When Jesus 
 Christ would erect to himself a monument more last- 
 ing than the pyramids of Egypt, he takes bread and 
 wine, and says, “ Do this in remembrance of me.” 
 And making provision for the support and extension 
 
FINANCIAL LAW OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. 481 
 
 of a society which was to spread over all the earth, 
 and endure till that earth and all that is in it is burnt 
 up, He merely says, “ The Lord hath ordained, that 
 they who preach the gospel should live of the gospel 
 —Let him that is taught in the word communicate 
 to him that teacheth in all good things.”* Will any 
 dare to say the appointment has been a failure ?— 
 though he spoke, it has not been done; though he 
 commanded, it has not stood fast? Till men pre- 
 sumptuously intermeddled with his ordinance, it fully 
 answered all its purposes ; and for them to throw on 
 his appointment the blame of the effects produced by 
 their violation of it, were not less foolish or impious, 
 than, were the order of the planets disturbed, by man 
 or angel introducing some counteracting force, to 
 complain that the law of gravitation, which, till in- 
 terfered with, had kept all regular, was not fitted to 
 serve the purpose for which the Creator intended it. 
 Looking at the simplicity of the Divine method of 
 supporting Christianity, in contrast with the com- 
 plexity of human arrangements, who can help ex- 
 claiming, 
 “ΟἿ, how unlike the complex works of man, 
 
 Heaven's easy, artless, unencumber’d plan! 
 
 No meretricious graces to beguile, 
 
 No clustering ornaments to clog the pile. 
 
 From ostentation, as from weakness free ; 
 
 It stands like the cerulean arch we see, 
 
 Majestic in its own simplicity ?” + 
 
 Hiquity is another striking feature in this Divine 
 
 arrangement. ‘“ The Lord” who has thus ordained, 
 
 = © Cor: tx. 14; Gal: vi. 6: + Cowper. 
 
482 ADDRESS II. 
 
 ‘iga rock ; his work is perfect ; all his ways are judg- 
 ment; the righteousness of his testimonies is ever- 
 lasting.”* According to the principles of the New 
 Testament, no man is called to submit to a spiritual 
 instructor, against his will, or without his consent. 
 It never entered into the mind of our Lord or his 
 apostles, that Christian teachers should, by mili- 
 tary force, be introduced into their sphere of labour ; 
 or that the compulsory power of civil government 
 should be employed, to wrest a support for them, from 
 the unwilling hands of those, who derived no advan- 
 tage from their labours. His ordinance provides, that 
 the taught choose their own teacher ; and what can be 
 more reasonable, than that he, who at the request of 
 others, devotes his whole time and talents to their ad- 
 vantage, should be recompensed by them with ἃ suit- 
 able maintenance? “ The labourer is worthy of his 
 hire.” I cannot help noticing here, that there is a beau- 
 tiful connexion among Christ’s ordinances. They are 
 nicely dove-tailed into each other. They are parts of 
 one machine. Free election, and voluntary support, 
 go well together. Neither institution, however ex- 
 cellent, abstractedly considered, will work well apart. 
 
 The voluntary support of the institutions of Chris- 
 tianity, bears also the deep impress of that generosity, 
 which is decidedly the most prominent character of 
 the whole Christian economy. The spring of all is 
 Divine generosity—“ Herein is love, not that we 
 loved God, but that God loved us, and gave his Son 
 to be the propitiation for our sins; he spared not his 
 
 * Deut. xxxii. 4; Psalm exix. 144. 
 
FINANCIAL LAW OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. 483 
 
 Son, but delivered him up for us all.” “ Ye know 
 the grace of our Lord Jesus, who, though he was rich, 
 yet for our sakes he became poor, that we through 
 his poverty might be rich.”* Men become Chris- 
 tians by having this “ love of God shed abroad in 
 their hearts, by the Holy Ghost given to them,”+ on 
 their believing the truth, and by its influence being 
 formed to a character of similar generosity. 
 
 And all the institutions of Christianity are intend- 
 ed to cherish and perfect such a character. Noman, 
 according to the intention of the Author of Christi- 
 anity, should be one of its teachers, unless he person- 
 ally feel its influence. Men ought to be themselves 
 “ reconciled to God,” before they become “ ministers 
 of reconciliation” to others: and such men are re- 
 quired, having freely received, to give freely—to go 
 forth, casting themselves on the faithfulness of their 
 Master, firmly persuaded, that his word, attended by 
 his Spirit, in its native effects on the minds of those to 
 whom they minister, will secure for them that mainte- 
 nance, which he knows to be best for them. And if the 
 institution of voluntary support thus cherishes a gene- 
 rous spirit in the teacher, it has the same tendency 
 in reference to those who are taught. Our Lord had 
 all the wealth of the world at his command, but, in- 
 stead of employing it, for the endowment of his 
 church, he, in the ordinance we are associated to up- 
 hold, proclaims, ‘ My treasure is in the hearts of my 
 people. I entrust the support of my cause and my 
 servants to the native operation of my truth on their 
 
 * 1 John iv. 10; 2 Cor. viii. 9. + Rom. v. 5. 
 
484 ADDRESS II. 
 
 minds, and my love on their affections. With what 
 a different set of principles and feelings, both in the 
 teacher and in the taught, are the humanly devised 
 methods of supporting Christianity, actually, natur- 
 ally, necessarily, associated ! 
 
 Practical usefulness is another character of the Di- 
 vine arrangement, as to the voluntary support of 
 Christianity, which ought to recommend it to our 
 warmest approbation, and most persevering advocacy. 
 Such an arrangement is fitted equally to be useful to 
 the teacher and the taught. In reference to the 
 teacher, it is just a particular modification of a prin- 
 ciple that pervades every sphere of social life, and 
 without which, it seems doubtful if civil society could | 
 exist; that the comfort of the individual depends on, 
 and is proportioned to, his performance of the duties 
 of the station in which he is placed. It absolutely 
 secures, “ that he who will not work, shall not eat ;” 
 and when you take into consideration, what in this 
 controversy is often overlooked, the true character of 
 the Christian church, it secures, as completely as it 
 is desirable that it should be secured, “ that he who 
 works shall eat.” And as to the taught, it goes on 
 the universally admitted principles, that men seldom 
 value much what costs them nothing, and that they 
 are likely to examine the quality of an article which 
 they purchase, and to take care that when they pay 
 for work, it shall be both regularly and well done. 
 
 This arrangement connects, in the closest manner, 
 the duty and the interest of the Christian teacher, and 
 this voluntary, though commanded, support, when it 
 
FINANCIAL LAW OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. 485 
 
 is cheerfully yielded, binds him to his people by the 
 additional tie of gratitude, while it gives the taught 
 a much deeper interest, than otherwise they could 
 have, in their instructor and his instructions; the dis- 
 play of which, by them, exercises a strong and salu- 
 tary re-action on his character and conduct. It is 
 not necessary to prove, the fact is notorious, that 
 the schemes which have been substituted in the room 
 of this Divine ordinance, have not produced such ef- 
 fects. They have exerted an influence, a powerful 
 influence, both on teacher and taught, but it has been 
 of a different character. It would have been won- 
 derful if it had been otherwise—* do men gather 
 grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles?”* 
 
 It is strange that an arrangement, bearing on it the 
 broad deep stamp of Divine appointment, and in it- 
 self so simple, so equitable, so generous, so use- 
 ful, should have been found fault with, especially by 
 those, who profess to admit the Divine authority of 
 that Revelation, in which it is so plainly asserted, that 
 the Lord has thus ordained. But this is but one out 
 of ten thousand ways, in which man manifests that 
 pestilent spirit of criticism of, and interference with, 
 Divine appointments of all kinds, by which our fallen 
 nature is characterised. 
 
 I have sometimes amused myself by thinking, if 
 man’s powers had corresponded to his inclination, what 
 strange changes he would have attempted in the or- 
 der of God’s universe. I have no doubt, that long 
 ere now, some ingenious philosopher, having, in his 
 
 * See Note IX. 
 
480 ADDRESS II. 
 
 own estimation, discovered that the inclination of our 
 globe’s axis to the ecliptic, was not the best possible, 
 and justified his opinion by a long series of misrepre- 
 sented facts, and sophistical, though plausible, reason- 
 ings, would have made an alteration, which, instead 
 of improving the condition of mankind, would have 
 overwhelmed them in a general deluge. I have no 
 doubt, that we should have had the sun rising in the 
 west, instead of the east, and water flowing up to- 
 wards the mountains, instead of down into the ocean. 
 Happily, God has placed the laws of the physical 
 world, entirely beyond the reach of human wisdom or 
 folly. Interferences with the laws of God’s moral 
 and spiritual worlds, are not, however, so impracti-— 
 cable, but they are not less absurd,—they are still 
 more impious. 
 
 When such interference takes place, it is requisite 
 that something like a reason should be assigned for 
 it. Let us look at some of the reasons which have 
 been assigned, for interfering with that financial law 
 of the Christian church, which it is the purpose of 
 our Institution to uphold,.and we will see that the 
 objections urged against it, when honestly urged, ori- 
 ginate in misconception. I cannot notice all such 
 objections, but the following are a specimen, and cer- 
 tainly they are not selected on the principle, that they 
 are the least plausible which have been brought for- 
 ward, though in answering them 1 think it proper 
 distinctly to state, that I feel as if I were doing a work 
 of supererogation. I have proved the Divine autho- 
 rity of the ordinance, I have shown the intrinsic ex- 
 
FINANCIAL LAW OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. 487 
 
 cellence of the ordinance, and therefore I should be 
 perfectly warranted in saying, all objections are bar- 
 red. It is impious even to propose them. But waiv- 
 ing this undoubtedly legitimate advantage of our po- 
 sition, let us examine them. It has been urged that 
 the Voluntary system debases the character of the 
 Christian ministry, throws almost insuperable obsta- 
 cles in the way of the honest discharge of their duties, 
 renders their support very precarious, and even places 
 in hazard, not only the prosperity, but the very ex- 
 istence of Christianity. 
 
 With regard to the first of these objections, I 
 might remark, that it is obviously the general law of 
 the social world, and it bears deep marks of Divine 
 wisdom and benignity, that man should be dependent 
 onman. If absolute independence of condition is 
 necessary to true dignity of character, there can be 
 no such thing in our world. I might inquire if phy- 
 sicians and lawyers are necessarily men of low, de- 
 graded characters, and time-serving habits, because 
 they are dependent on their patients and clients, and 
 are not likely to retain their support, unless they are 
 skilful and active in their respective professions. I 
 might inquire, if a Christian minister should think 
 himself, or be thought by others degraded, because he 
 is supported, in the way in which Jesus Christ has ap- 
 pointed him to be supported,—in the way in which 
 Jesus Christ himself chose to be supported, when he 
 was on earth,—by the voluntary contributions of such 
 as believed on him. But I choose to give the answer 
 to this objection, in the words of the great and good 
 
488 ADDRESS II. 
 
 Dr Owen, and I do this the rather, as I have been 
 publicly accused of ignorance, or of something worse, 
 for representing that illustrious divine as a friend of 
 the Voluntary principle.* 
 
 “ This way” of Voluntary support “is the most 
 honourable way, and that which casts the greatest re- 
 spect upon them. Even the princes and rulers of 
 the world have their revenue and supportment, from 
 the substance of the people. Now I would only ask, 
 whether it would not be more honourable that the 
 people should willingly, and of their own accord, 
 bring in their contribution, than merely to pay it un- 
 der the compulsion of a law? For in this latter way, 
 no man knoweth, whether they have the least true 
 honour for their ruler, or regard unto his office. But 
 if it might be done in the former, all the world must 
 take notice what reverence, regard, and honour they 
 have for the person and dignity of their prince. How- 
 ever men may please themselves with outward ap- 
 pearances of things, true honour consists in that re- 
 spect and reverence, which others pay them in their 
 minds and hearts. Now, when this is such, and that 
 on account of duty, that men will freely contribute to 
 their supportment, I know no more honourable sub- 
 sistence in the world. 
 
 “ What! will some say, to depend on the wills and 
 love of the people—there is nothing more base or 
 
 * This accusation was brought forward in “ the Record” London 
 Newspaper. I could not have been gratified by the eulogy, and am 
 in no degree mortified by the censure, of the calumniators of Βιν- 
 ney and Pyr Smits, and indeed all consistent Dissenters. 
 
FINANCIAL LAW OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. 489 
 
 unworthy. Yea, but what if all the honour that 
 Jesus Christ himself hath, or accepts, from his people, 
 proceeds from their wills and affections? Mohammed, 
 indeed, who knew well enough, that neither honour, 
 respect, nor obedience were due unto him, and that 
 he could in no way recompense what should be done 
 towards him in that kind, provided that men should 
 be brought into subjection to his name, by fire and 
 sword. But our Lord Jesus Christ despiseth all ho- 
 nour, all obedience, and respect, that is not voluntary 
 and free, and which doth not proceed from the wills 
 of men. And shall his servants, in the work of the 
 gospel, suppose themselves debased to receive respect 
 and honour, from the same principle ? 
 
 “ Well, therefore, because our apostle tells us that 
 our ‘ Lord hath ordained that they who preach the 
 gospel should live of the gospel,’ and all obedience 
 unto his ordinances must be voluntary, if ministers 
 are ashamed, and esteem it unworthy of them to re- 
 ceive what is so contributed, in a way of voluntary 
 obedience, let them try if they can prevail with them- 
 selves to receive it so, for him who is not ashamed to 
 receive it, if it be only a cup of cold water, so it 
 comes from a free and willing mind, when he despiseth 
 the whole revenue of the world on compulsion. If 
 they will not do so, their best way is to leave His 
 service, and take up with that, which is more ho- 
 nourable. 
 
 “ For my own part, I do judge that the way of 
 maintenance of ministers by voluntary benevolence, 
 in a way of duty and obedience to Christ, though it 
 
 τὴ 
 
400 ADDRESS II. 
 
 be not likely the most plentiful, is the most honour- 
 able of all others, and of this judgment I shall be, 
 until I am convinced of two things; that true hon- 
 our does not consist, in the respect and regard of the 
 minds of men, unto the real worth and usefulness of 
 those who are honoured, but in outward ceremonies 
 and forced works of regard; and that it is not the 
 duty which every church owes to Jesus Christ, to 
 maintain those who labour in word and doctrine ac- 
 cording to their ability, or that that is any gospel 
 duty which is influenced by force and compulsion.”* 
 The second objection, that the Voluntary system 
 throws almost insuperable obstacles, in the way of the 
 honest discharge of the ministerial functions, is easily. 
 disposed of. When Christian churches are, in any 
 tolerable degree, composed of the materials of which 
 they ought to consist (and with all that is wanting 
 and wrong about us, we may safely enough assert, 
 that in this respect, the Voluntary Churches will not 
 suffer on a comparison with the compulsory ones) ; the 
 system has no such tendency, but indeed the very re- 
 verse, and in fact it is found to have no such effect. 
 In forming a right judgment on the whole of this 
 question, an essential element is the principle, so lit- 
 tle understood by Churchmen,—Chvrist’s institutions 
 were intended for Christ's people. He never meant 
 that “ a mixed multitude”—a casual concourse—the 
 whole inhabitants of a certain district, should observe 
 the Lord’s Supper together, or elect a Christian pas- 
 
 * Owen's Exposition of the Epistle to the Hebrews, folio edition, 
 vol. 111. pp. 128, 129. 
 
FINANCIAL LAW OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. 491 
 
 tor, or be the primary instruments, by their voluntary 
 contributions, for sustaining the gospel ministry. 
 Christ’s ordinance is, “ Let him that is taught in the 
 word, communicate to him that teacheth.” Let the 
 disciple support his teacher. When a Christian church 
 is at all what it ought to be, how can the minister 
 secure the good opinion and support of the majority, 
 but by a faithful discharge of his duty ? 
 
 As the system has no such tendency, so it has no 
 such effect. Unprincipled men will find their way 
 into the purest ecclesiastical societies. There was a 
 Judas among the apostles. But we have no objec- 
 tions to make the appeal, to the well-informed among 
 our opponents: Is it in Voluntary churches, that a 
 faithful exhibition of Christian doctrine and duty, is 
 most rarely to be met with, and are the greater pro- 
 portion of supple, time-serving preachers to be found 
 among their ministers ? * 
 
 The Oxonian Vice-chancellor furnishes us, with a 
 very satisfactory reply to this objection. “It were 
 easy to manifest, with how many more and greater in- 
 conveniences, the other way is attended, were we now 
 comparing of them; and, in truth, it is a vain thing 
 to look for or expect any such order and disposal of 
 these things, as should administer no occasion, for the 
 wisdom and graces of them concerned, nor would 
 such a way be at all useful. I say, therefore, that 
 God hath established mutual duty, to be the rule and 
 measure of all things between ministers and people. 
 Hereunto it is their wisdom and duty to attend, leay- 
 
 * Vide Note IX. ad finem. 
 
409 ADDRESS ΤΙ. 
 
 ing the success unto God. And ἃ minister may easily 
 conclude, that seeing his whole supportment in earth- 
 ly things, with respect unto his ministry, depends on 
 the command of God, on account of the discharge of 
 his duty, if he have respect thereto in his work, or so 
 far as it is lawful for him to have, that the more sin- 
 cere and upright he is therein, the more assured will 
 his supportment be. And he who is enabled to give 
 himself up to the work of the ministry, in a due man- 
 ner, considering the nature of that work, and what 
 he shall assuredly meet withal in its discharge, is not 
 in much danger of being greatly moved with this piti- 
 ful consideration, of displeasing this or that man, in 
 the discharge of his duty.”* 
 
 In reference to the third objection, that the Vo- 
 luntary system renders the support of the Christian 
 ministry very precarious, we have to ask, if it makes 
 it no more precarious, than “ the Lord” has thought 
 fit to leave it, where doés the complaint light? It 
 has pleased God to make the support of all classes of 
 men in the present state, to a certain degree preca- 
 rious. Important advantages rise out of this arrange- 
 ment, and why should the ministers of religion be 
 excluded from these advantages? But, in reality, 
 with all their laborious and complicated plans, with 
 all the wisdom of senates, and all the power of ar- 
 mies, have they succeeded in placing the incomes of 
 the state-pensioned clergy beyond the reach of sub- 
 lunary hazard? Are the livings of the Established 
 
 * Owen's Exposition of the Epistle to the Hebrews, folio, vol. iii. 
 pp. 129, 180. 
 
FINANCIAL LAW OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. 499 
 
 Clergy in Ireland, in England, aye, in Scotland, per- 
 fectly secure just now? Do they feel them to be 
 so? Their uncalled-for vauntings, and their lugubri- 
 ous complaints, supply the answer. The ministers 
 of voluntary churches are secured of such a living as 
 their flocks can afford them, while the authority of 
 Christ continues to govern the mind, and the love of 
 Christ, to influence the hearts of their people. While 
 we do our duty we have no fear—we need have no 
 fear, of obtaining such a support as our Master sees 
 best for us; and if we have confidence in his wisdom 
 and kindness, what would we have more? No politi- 
 cal change can materially affect us—“ We need not 
 fear though the earth be removed, though the moun- 
 tains be cast into the midst of the sea.” 
 
 The last objection, that by the general prevalence 
 of the Voluntary system, the very existence of Chris- 
 tianity would be hazarded, wears a much more infi- 
 del appearance, than any thing that has ever been 
 advanced by the Voluntaries. “If it be said,” to 
 draw again from the stores of Dr Owen, “ that it is 
 a thing impossible to work the people into a due dis- 
 charge of their duty in this matter, I grant it is, 
 while that is only, or principally intended. But if 
 men (2. 6. ministers), would not consider themselves 
 and their interests, in the first place, but really en- 
 deavour their recovery unto faith, love, obedience, 
 and holiness, and that by their own example, as 
 well as teaching, it may well be hoped that this 
 duty would recover again in the company of others; 
 for, it is certain, it will never stand alone by it- 
 
494 ADDRESS II. 
 
 self.’* The safety of the Church depends, not on 
 human expedients, but on the exercise of the power, 
 and grace, and faithfulness of her Lord and King, 
 and the more likely method to draw these forth, for 
 either ministers or people, is not to usurp his autho- 
 rity, but to submit to it; not to alter his laws, but to 
 obey them. 
 
 These objections, and they are the strongest our 
 opponents bring forward, are easily disposed of. It 
 is, however, deeply to be regretted, that the very im- 
 perfect observance of the ordinance of the voluntary 
 support and extension of Christianity, on the part of 
 some free churches, has given a plausibility to the 
 representations of the enemies of the system, which. 
 otherwise they could not readily have obtained. The 
 fact cannot be denied, and is to be accounted for on 
 various principles. [Ὁ is owing, in a considerable de- 
 gree, to many Christians being imperfectly instructed 
 in this part of the law of the Lord: and this again is 
 owing to a false delicacy, on the part of their teachers, 
 preventing them from bringing, so fully as they ought, 
 before the minds of their people, this portion of Chris- 
 tian truth. The general prevalence of another mode 
 of supporting the institutions of religion, contributes 
 also to this result. Voluntary churches have many 
 causes of complaint against Established churches, and 
 this is one of the chief, that they not only rob their 
 members, but have infected them with their worldly, 
 illiberal spirit. 
 
 * Owen's Exposition of the Epistle to the Hebrews, folio, vol. iii. 
 p: 1380. 
 
FINANCIAL LAW OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. 495 
 
 But the principal cause remains to be told— 
 Christ's institutions are meant for Christ's people. 
 The laws of his house are intended, for those who 
 really dwell in it. ‘Till the churches of Christ are 
 more remarkable for their purity, we must not ex- 
 pect them to be more remarkable for their liberality. 
 I know our adversaries will readily avail themselves 
 of this concession ;* but in the use they make of it 
 
 * The anticipation that our adversaries would avail themselves of 
 the concession, “ that Christ's institutions are meant for Christ’s peo- 
 ple, and that till his churches become more remarkable for their pu- 
 rity, we must not expect them to be more remarkable for their libe- 
 rality,” has speedily been fulfilled. In a tract published since this 
 address was delivered, under the superintendence of the Glasgow As- 
 sociation for promoting the interests of the Church of Scotland, entit- 
 tled, “‘ The Church of Scotland the Poor Man’s Church, by William 
 Collins,” it is stated, that Dr John Brown, at a Voluntary Church 
 meeting, said, that ““ Voluntaryism was only fitted for those who are 
 really under the influence of Christian principle.” As I believe Mr 
 Collins is incapable of wilful misrepresentation, he must have been 
 misinformed ; and the misinformation may have originated on the 
 part of his informer, in misconception. I most certainly uttered no 
 such words as the above (and from their being put within double 
 inverted commas, it seems meant to be understood, that they are my 
 ipsissima verba) ; most certainly I expressed no such sentiment, as that 
 which I suppose from what follows—(for I can only guess at the 
 meaning) they are intended to convey—‘ that the system of the vo- 
 luntary support of Christian institutions may maintain, but cannot 
 extend them. I hold that Christ’s ordinance on this subject is quite 
 adequate to both purposes; and that man’s substitute for it, has pre- 
 vented the propagation, fully as much as it has corrupted the purity 
 of Christianity. I hold, as I presume Mr Collins does, that the gos- 
 pel should be preached only by Christian men, but neither of us hold 
 that it should be preached only to Christian men. I hold that Christ’s 
 mode of maintaining and extending his church is by the voluntary 
 contributions of his people; but I equally hold, that, taught by his 
 Spirit, as well as by his word, to “ look, not every one at his own 
 things, but every one also at the things of others,” they wil/ not, they 
 cannot, as Mr Collins says they will, “‘ leave untouched the great’ 
 mass of the ungodly and the irreligious” around them, but that “ the 
 word of the Lord will sound out from them” to those who are not dis- 
 
400 ADDRESS II. 
 
 they only show the deplorable ignorance, under which 
 they labour, respecting the true nature and the true 
 energies of the Christian Church. It is our firm con- 
 viction that far more would be done, both for the sup- 
 port and for the extension of Christianity, by a body 
 numerically much smaller than the present Volun- 
 tary Church, if that body was more fully under the 
 influence of Christian principle—that the true Chris- 
 
 posed, or who are not able, to support a gospel ministry for them- 
 selves. This seems to me, on every principle of Scripture or reason, 
 a preferable plan to a Civil Establishment. My doctrine is, that a 
 few qualified, willing agents, acting in the way in which He, on whose 
 blessing ultimate success entirely depends, has appointed, will do 
 more execution, than many unqualified, unwilling agents, acting in 
 a manner which he not only never authorized, but which is directly. 
 opposedto his express appointment—that the Christians in this country 
 left to the native operation of Christian principle, would do far more 
 to extend Christianity, than the mass of the population, the great 
 majority of which is composed of unbelievers, will do, by being com- 
 pelled to pay a tax for its support. A system, which necessarily en- 
 courages ungodly men to become teachers of a religion, which they 
 neither understand nor believe, and does this in such a degree, that 
 without breach of charity, it may be doubted, whether in any reli- 
 gious body under its influence, such men have not always formed the 
 majority of its clergy—which attempts to create a demand for an ar- 
 ticle, for which men have naturally no relish, but a strong dislike, by 
 strengthening and irritating all their prejudices against it, by oblig- 
 ing them to buy it, or at any rate pay its price, whether they use it 
 or not—which seeks to convert ungodly men by taxing them for the 
 maintenance of a religion for which they have no regard, and to make 
 men Christians by compelling them to support a class of Instructors 
 whom they have not chosen, and whose services, they, in their own 
 estimation, neither need nor desire—such a system seems to me not 
 well fitted to be efficient, either for maintaining or for extending Chris- 
 tianity. If Established Churches have, in either of these ways, pro- 
 moted Christianity, it has been because they were churches, not be- 
 cause they were Established Churches. Their connexion with the 
 State is the source, not of their strength, but of their weakness, as spi- 
 ritual societies; and all the good they have done, has been, not in 
 consequence, but in spite, of their establishment. 
 
FINANCIAL LAW OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. 497 
 
 tians would do far more, if they were disjoined from 
 the false brethren, than the connected, not united, 
 society does at present. Worldly men, and especi- 
 ally worldly men of wealth and influence, bring 
 weakness, not strength, into the Christian Church. 
 We are persuaded that the Christian Church, like 
 Gideon’s army, must be thinned, and thinned again, 
 before it become fit, for the exertions which are to 
 precede its taking possession of “ the inheritance of 
 the world :” And we “rejoice, with trembling,” to 
 know that “ His fan is in his hand, and he will tho- 
 roughly purge his floor.” 
 
 It is also deeply to be regretted, that, in many 
 cases, where there is no ground to complain of want 
 of Christian liberality in Christian Churches,—where 
 the provision made for the support of Christian ordi- 
 nances is fully adequate to every purpose of useful- 
 ness, such as to astonish, if not to shame Compulsory 
 Churchmen, the contributions are made without any 
 direct reference tothe authority of Jesus Christ 
 requiring them. There is no sum more cheerfully 
 paid, it may be, than the liberal seat-rent; but still 
 it is paid, rather as the result of a human arrange- 
 ment, than as the observance of a Divine ordinance ; 
 it is the payment of a civil debt, rather than the per- 
 formance of a religious duty. When the contribu- 
 tion is not an oblation—when the communication is 
 not a sacrifice—when it is not felt as an act of obe- 
 dience to Jesus Christ—an expression of gratitude 
 primarily to him, and secondarily to the instruments 
 of his kindness, it cannot be that powerful means of 
 
408 ADDRESS ΤΙ. 
 
 spiritual improvement which our Lord meant it to 
 be, and which, when thus rendered, it is obviously 
 calculated to be. Will you bear with me, in mak- 
 ing one quotation more from that great theologian, 
 to whose authority our opponents are ready enough, 
 on some occasions, to appeal. They appeal to Dr 
 Owen, and to Dr Owen let them go. 
 
 “ Let them who are true disciples indeed, know, 
 that it is greatly incumbent on them, to roll away 
 that reproach which is cast on the institutions of 
 Christ, by the miscarriages of the generality of Chris- 
 tians. ‘ He hath ordained that those who preach the 
 gospel, live on the gospel,—and the way whereby he 
 has prescribed this to be effected, is, that those who 
 are his disciples, should, in obedience to his com- 
 mands, supply them with temporals, by whom spi- 
 rituals are dispensed to them. If this be not done, 
 a reproach is cast on HIS institutions as insufficient 
 for the end for which they are designed. It is there- 
 fore incumbent on all who have any true zeal for the 
 glory and honour of Christ, to manifest their exem- 
 plary obedience and faithfulness in this matter, where- 
 by it may appear that it is not any defect in the 
 appointment of Christ, but the stubborn disobedience 
 and unbelief of man, that is the cause of any dis- 
 order.” 
 
 I conclude, by expressing my earnest desire that 
 we may, and my firm hope that we shall, be enabled 
 to hold steadily on the way which God has so plainly 
 opened before us; and that, instead of murmuring, 
 that by our conscientious convictions, we are shut out 
 
FINANCIAL LAW OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. 499 
 
 from partaking of the apparent advantages of a com- 
 pulsory support of Christian institutions, though by 
 a law equally at war with sound policy, equity, and 
 Christianity, we are compelled to contribute to its 
 funds (a species of persecution for conscience’ sake, 
 to which, while it continues, we should submit with 
 a Christian spirit; or, if we oppose it at all, oppose 
 it only by a passive resistance ; while we are, by no 
 means, forbidden to use every constitutional means 
 to get rid of so degrading and vexatious a burden), 
 we shall rejoice that we are placed in circumstances 
 in which we are under no temptation to render void 
 by human traditions a Divine ordinance, and that in 
 the unsparing faithfulness, yet fatherly kindness of 
 the ministrations of our teachers—in the strict, im- 
 partial, yet meek exercise of discipline by our rulers, 
 and in the growing intelligence, and piety, and liber- 
 ality, and active usefulness of the great body of our 
 church members, we shall be enabled to live down 
 the slanders of our enemies, and correct the misap- 
 prehensions of our rash-judging brethren of the Esta- 
 blishment, by thus exhibiting to the world the native 
 influence, of the simple principles of the Christian in- 
 stitution operating on the minds of men, uncramped 
 by the interference of secular power, which even, 
 where the intentions of the immediate agents may 
 have been honest (which they seldom have been) has 
 just, in the degree in which it has been exerted in the 
 Christian church, prevented good, and produced evil. 
 
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 ον vi ae } Rv te. a 
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 ; ᾿ τ ee ee ee ae Re hg, beds hent ie 
 
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 A y LSND. bait HEC Ea OMAR hak “eal Hh ipl ΠΥ 4 
 πὰ Phiady atic TRAIT MEE μα NPY NT ‘ini 
 She tal ἜΤ WAS Δ a Fyt Ldap “Mg My 
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 ame wei " ἴω ἀπ: a. bib bath he δῇ ¥ eee vi 
 wi pl ͵ old ea ee ne riety y si ΕἾΝ μὲν ᾿ 
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NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS TO 
 THE ADDRESSES. 
 
 NOTE I. 
 
 THE ESTABLISHMENT MAY BE IN DANGER, WHILE THE 
 CHURCH IS SAFE. 
 
 DYMOND. 
 
 “‘ Ir has frequently been said that ‘ the church is in danger.’ What 
 is meant by the church ? or what is it that is in danger? Is it meant 
 that the Episcopal form of church government is endangered—that 
 some religious revolution is likely to take place, by which a Chris- 
 tian community shall be precluded from adopting that internal con- 
 stitution which it thinks best ? This surely cannot be feared. The 
 day is gone by, in England at least, when the abolition of prelacy 
 could become a measure of state. One community has its conference, 
 and another its annual assembly, and another its independency, with- 
 out any molestation. Who then would molest the English Church, 
 because it prefers the government of bishops to any other? Is it 
 meant that the doctrines of the church are endangered, or that its li- 
 turgy will be prohibited? Surely no. Whilst every other church is 
 allowed to preach what doctrine it pleases, and to use what formu- 
 laries it pleases, the liberty will surely not be denied to the Episcopal 
 church. If the doctrines and government of that church be Christian 
 and true, there is no reason to fear for their stability. Its members 
 have superabundant ability to defend the truth. What then is it that 
 is endangered ? Of what are those who complain of danger, afraid ? Is it 
 meant that its civil immunities are endangered,—that its revenues are 
 
502 NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 endangered 7 Is it meant that its members will hereafter have to support 
 their ministers, without assistance from other churches? Is it feared that 
 there will cease to be such things, as rich deaconries and bishoprics? Is 
 it feared that the members of other churches will become eligible to 
 the legislature, and that the heads of this church will not be temporal 
 peers? In brief, Is it feared that this church will become merely one 
 amongst the many, with no privileges but such as are common to 
 good citizens and to good Christians? These surely are the things, 
 of which they are afraid. It is not for religious truth, but for civil 
 immunities ; it is not for forms of church government, but for poli- 
 tical pre-eminence : it is not for the church, but for the church esta- 
 blishment. Let a man, then, when he joins in the exclamation, ‘ the 
 church is in danger,’ present to his mind distinct ideas of his mean- 
 ing, and of the object of his fears. If his alarm and his sorrow are 
 occasioned not for religion but for politics—not for the purity and 
 usefulness of the church, but for its immunities—not for the offices of 
 its ministers, but for their splendour—let him be at peace. There is 
 nothing in all this for which the Christian needs to be in sorrow or . 
 in fear. 
 
 “« And why? Because all that constitutes a church, as a Christian 
 community, may remain when these things are swept away. There 
 may be prelates, without nobility ; there may be deans and archdea- 
 cons, without benefices and patronage ; there may be pastors, without 
 a legal provision ; there may be a liturgy, without a test. 
 
 “ Tn the sense in which it is manifest that the phrase ‘ the church 
 is in danger, is ordinarily to be understood, that is, the Establish- 
 ment is in danger—the fears are undoubtedly well-founded : the dan- 
 ger is real and imminent. It may not be immediate, perhaps; per- 
 haps it may not be near at hand; but it is real, imminent, inevitable. 
 The Establishment is indeed in danger ; and I believe that no advo- 
 cacy, however zealous, that no support, however determined, that no 
 power, however great, will preserve it from destruction. If the de- 
 clarations which have been cited in this chapter be true, if the rea- 
 sonings which have been offered in this and in the last be just, who is 
 the man that, as a Christian, regrets its danger, or would delay its 
 fall? He may wish to delay it as a politician ; he may regret it as an 
 expectant of temporal advantage, but as a Christian he will rejoice. 
 
 « Supposing the doctrines and government of the Church to be 
 sound, it is probable, that its stability would be increased, by what is 
 called its destruction. It would then only be detached, from that al- 
 liance with the state, which encumbers it, and weighs it down, and 
 
ACT OF THE ASSEMBLY OF VIRGINIA. 503 
 
 despoils its beauty, and obscures its brightness. Contention for this 
 alliance will eventually be found to illustrate the proposition, that a 
 man’s greatest enemies are those of his own household. He is the 
 practical enemy of the church, who endeavours the continuance of its 
 connexion with the state: except, indeed, that the more zealous the 
 endeavour, the more quickly, it is probable, the connexion will be 
 dissolved ; and, therefore, though such persons ‘ mean not so, neither 
 do their hearts think so,’ yet they may be thus the agents, in the 
 hand of God, of hastening the day, in which she shall be purified from 
 every evil thing ; in which she shall ‘ arise and shine because her light 
 is come, and because the glory of the Lord is risen upon her.’ ”—Dy- 
 mond’s Essays, Essay iii. Chap. 15. vol. ii. pp. 329-332. 
 
 NOTE II. 
 
 ACT FOR ESTABLISHING RELIGIOUS FREEDOM, PASSED IN THE 
 ASSEMBLY OF VIRGINIA, IN THE BEGINNING OF THE YEAR 
 1786. 
 
 The object of Voluntary Church Associations, is just to bring this 
 country into the same situation, in which some of the United States 
 of America have, with great advantage to all interests, civil and reli- 
 gious, been placed for more than half a century. The following Act 
 of the General Assembly of Virginia, contains a very clear and con- 
 densed view of the reasons against civil establishments of religion. 
 Few superior legal documents are to be found in the statute-book of 
 any country :— 
 
 “ Well aware that Almighty God has created the mind freé,—that 
 all attempts to influence it by temporal punishments or burdens, or 
 civil incapacitations, tend only to beget hypocrisy, and are a depar- 
 ture from the plan of the Holy Author of our religion, who being 
 Lord of body and mind, yet chose not to propagate it by coercion on 
 either ;—that the impious presumpticn of legislators and rulers, civil 
 and ecclesiastical (who being themselves but fallible and uninspired 
 men, have assumed dominion over the faith of others, setting up their 
 own opinions and modes of thinking, as alone true and infallible, and 
 as such endeavouring to impose them upon others), hath established 
 and maintained false religions over the greater part of the world, and 
 through all time ;—that to compel a man to furnish contributions of 
 
504 NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves, is sinful 
 and tyrannical ;—that even the forcing a man to support this or that 
 teacher of his own religious persuasion, is depriving him of the com- 
 fortable liberty of giving his contributions to the particular pastor, 
 whose morals he would make his pattern, and whose powers he feels 
 most persuasive to righteousness, and withdrawing from the ministry 
 those temporal rewards, which, proceeding from an approbation of 
 their personal conduct, are an additional incitement to earnest and 
 unremitted labours for the instruction of mankind ;—that our civil 
 rights have no dependence on our religious opinions, more than on 
 our opinions in physics or in geometry ;—that, therefore, the proscrib- 
 ing any citizen as unworthy of the public confidence, by laying upon 
 him an incapacity, of being called to offices of trust and emolument, 
 unless he profess to renounce this or that religious opinion, is depriv- 
 ing him, injuriously, of those privileges and advantages, to which, in 
 common with his fellow citizens, he has a natural right, and tends 
 also to corrupt the principles of that very religion, it is meant to en- 
 courage, by bribing with a monopoly of worldly honours and emo- 
 luments, those who will externally conform to it ;—that though in- 
 deed those are criminal who do not withstand such temptations, yet 
 neither are those innocent who lay them in their way ;—that to suffer 
 the civil magistrate to intrude his powers into the field of opinion, 
 and to restrain the profession or propagation of principles on a sup- 
 position of their ill tendency, is a dangerous fallacy, which at once 
 destroys all religious liberty, because he being, of course, judge of that 
 tendency, will make his opinions the rule of judgment, and approve 
 or condemn the sentiments of others only as they shall agree with or 
 differ from his own ;—that it is time enough for the rightful purposes 
 of civil government, for its officers to interpose, when principles break 
 out in 6vert acts, against peace and good order ;—and, finally, that 
 truth is great, and will prevail if left to herself,—is the proper and suf- 
 ficient antagonist to error, and can have nothing to fear from the 
 conflict, unless (by human interposition), disarmed of her natural 
 weapons, free argument and debate,—errors ceasing to be dangerous 
 when it is permitted freely to contradict them. 
 
 “ Be it therefore enacted by the General Assembly, That no man 
 shall be compelled to support any religious worship, place or minis- 
 ter, whatsoever, nor shall be forced, restrained, molested, or burdened 
 in his body or goods, nor shall otherwise suffer, on account of his reli- 
 gious opinions or belief ; but that all men shall be free to profess, and 
 by argument to maintain, their opinion, in matters of religion ;—and 
 
ESTABLISHED CHURCH NOT SELF-SUPPORTED. 505 
 
 that the same shall in no wise diminish, enlarge, or affect their civil 
 capacities. 
 
 “ And though we well know that this Assembly, elected by the 
 people for the ordinary purposes of legislation only, have no power to 
 restrain the acts of succeeding Assemblies, constituted with powers 
 equal to our own; and that, therefore, to declare this act irrevocable, 
 would be of no effect in law; yet we are free to declare, and do de- 
 clare, that the rights hereby asserted are natural rights of mankind ; 
 and that if any act shall be hereafter passed to repeal the present, or 
 to narrow its operation, such act will be an infringement of natural 
 rights."—A Collection of Testimonies in favour of Religious Liberty, 
 pp. 87, 88. 8vo. Lond. 1790. 
 
 NOTE III. . 
 
 THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH NOT SELF-SUPPORTED. 
 
 “ It is said that in our own country, the individual citizen does not 
 pay the ministers of the state religion. Iam glad that this seeming 
 paradox is advanced, because it indicates that those who advance it 
 confess that to make them pay would be wrong. Why else should 
 they deny it? It is said, then, that persons who pay tithes, do not 
 pay the established clergy ; that tithes are properly held as a person 
 holds an estate ; that if tithes were taken off, rents would advance to 
 the same amount ; that the buyer of an estate pays so much the less 
 for it, because it is subject to tithes, and therefore that neither owner 
 nor occupier pay any thing. This is specious, but only specious. 
 The landholder pays the clergyman, just as he pays the tax-gatherer. 
 If taxes were taken off, rents would advance just as much, as if tithes 
 were taken off; and a person may as well say, that he does not pay 
 taxes, as that he does not pay tithes. The simple fact is, that an or- 
 der of clergy are, in this respect, in the same situation as the body of 
 stockholders who live on their dividends. They are supported by 
 the country. The people pay the stockholder in the form of taxes, 
 and the clergyman in the form of tithes. Suppose every clergyman 
 were to leave the country to-morrow, and to cease to derive any in- 
 come from it, it is manifest that the income they now derive would 
 be divided among those who remain,—that is, that those who now 
 pay would cease to pay. Rent, and taxes, and tithes, are, in these re- 
 
 K k 
 
506 NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 spects, on one footing. Without now inquiring whether they are 
 right, they are all payments—something by which a man does not 
 receive the whole of the product of his labour. 
 
 « The argument, therefore, which affirms that dissenters from the 
 state religion, do not pay to that religion, appears to be wholly falla- 
 cious; and being such, we are at liberty to assume, that to make 
 them pay, is indefensible and unchristian ; for we repeat the observa- 
 tion, that he who is anxious to prove they do not pay, evinces his 
 opinion, that to compel them to pay would be wrong.’—Dymond’s 
 Essays, vol. ii. Ess. iii. Chap. xvi. 
 
 NOTE IV. 
 
 CHURCH PROPERTY PUBLIC PROPERTY. 
 
 JAMES DOUGLAS, ESQ. 
 
 The following observations of Mr Dovetas are decisive of the ques- 
 tion :—“ At the Reformation, the doctrine that church property is 
 ., public property, was established beyond any reasonable doubt, by 
 the wealth despoiled from the Church of Rome being applied, to the 
 support of principles diametrically opposite to the superstition, for 
 whose maintenance these funds had been originally set apart. It 
 would almost surpass belief, that a Protestant clergyman, subsisting 
 on the residue of Popish benefices, could hesitate for a moment to 
 admit that church property is public property, for otherwise what 
 right has he to his present living? which, unless the State had the 
 power to divert it from its original intention, must inalienably have 
 belonged to the Popish priesthood, and he who appropriates their 
 goods to his own use, except upon the principle that church property 
 is public property, is, in terms of his own confession, a robber and 
 ‘spoiler of churches.’ But by every mite that a Protestant clergyman 
 receives, he acknowledges this principle, that church property is pub- 
 lic property, that the legislature has the right to withdraw it from 
 its original purpose, and to assign it to objects diametrically opposite, 
 provided these objects are supposed to coincide with the greatest pos- 
 sible amount of public good.” 
 
USELESSNESS OF CIVIL ESTABLISHMENTS. 507 
 
 NOTE V. 
 USELESSNESS OF A CIVIL ESTABLISHMENT OF RELIGION. 
 
 ARCHDEACON BLACKBURNE. 
 
 “ΤῊ reason given why human establishments with regard to re- 
 ligion are necessary, is, ‘ that the welfare and support of society is so 
 founded, by the great Author of Nature, on the basis of religion, that 
 it is impossible to separate the one from the other; and, of conse- 
 quence, the establishment of the one will necessarily require the esta- 
 blishment of the other τ The meaning of which at the bottom is only 
 this: that human laws reach the exigencies of civil society so imper- 
 fectly, that unless the influence of religion is connected with them, 
 the welfare and peace of civil society cannot be supported: which I 
 apprehend nobody will deny. 
 
 * But, then, as this plan of civil government is delineated by the 
 great Author of Nature, it will be necessary to take his directions in 
 the execution of it, if any such direction may be come at ; and if no 
 such directions are to be found, it is doubtful whether the plan itself 
 authorized by the great Author of Nature may be found. 
 
 “ The sophism here turns upon the word establishment. Religion 
 may be said to be established, where it is received and professed by 
 individuals, upon the sole authority of divine revelation. Civil so- 
 ciety can only be established, by human laws and ordinances. If, 
 then, the establishment of religion by divine revelation, is sufficient 
 to answer the purposes of civil society, the purposes of the great Au- 
 thor of Nature, in creating this connexion, are answered at the same 
 time ; and with any farther establishment of religion, human laws 
 have nothing to do. Whether they have or not is the question,—and 
 it has been very pertinently asked, Who is the judge ? that is to say, 
 who is the judge, how far it may be necessary to establish religion 
 by human laws? 
 
 « To this it has been answered,—‘ the same legislative powers which 
 establish the one have a right to establish the other; and to chuse 
 that religion which they think best.’ Where it must be supposed, 
 that the great Author of Nature hath left it, as free for magistrates 
 and legislators to establish, by human laws, what doctrines or modes 
 of religion they choose, or find expedient for secular utility, as it is 
 for them to choose what mode of civil society, they find convenient ; 
 which, indeed, is to suppose, that there never was any authentic re- 
 
508 NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 velation of true religion in the world. For as surely as God hath re- 
 vealed true religion, so surely has he inhibited magistrates and all 
 others, from establishing any thing contrary to it, or deviating 
 from it. 
 
 “ It is most likely that this right of the legislative powers will be 
 held to be confined to the enforcing of a uniformity of profession 
 only. But in this view, the establishment of religion will afford no 
 aid to civil laws; inasmuch as he who professes one thing, and be- 
 lieves another, will derive none of that influence, from his profession, 
 which is necessary to supply the unavoidable defects of civil ordi- 
 nances. And if the Great Author of Nature founded the welfare and 
 support of society, on no surer basis of religion than this, it hardly 
 seems worthy of his infinite wisdom, to have interposed in this matter 
 at all. 
 
 “ Upon these principles, whatever right, Christian legislators have 
 to establish what religion they choose for the best, the same had the 
 Pagan legislators. Suppose, then, these latter to have extended their 
 establishment no farther than to an uniformity of profession, what 
 were St Paul's converts to do? Were they to comply with the modes 
 of the times, and profess themselves idolaters? This the Apostle pro- 
 hibits in express terms, and herein ventures to counteract this right 
 of the civil legislative powers; and no doubt upon good authority.”— 
 Confessional, Ch. vi. Blackburne's Works, vol. v. pp. 865-874. 8vo. 
 Lond. 1804. 
 
 “ Protestant churches ought not to employ human powers, to esta- 
 blish religion, upon civil and political principles, nor ought conscien- 
 tious Christians to receive their religion so established. But if Pro- 
 testant churches, so called, have done this, and approved by deeds 
 what they have disclaimed in words, they have left the consistent 
 Christian no option, but either to comply with these churches on 
 civil and political principles, or to decline all doctrinal connexion 
 with them.’—Jbid, pp. 339, 340. 
 
FOLLY OF CIVIL ESTABLISHMENTS. 509 
 
 NOTE VI. 
 
 ABSURDITY OF HUMAN ATTEMPTS TO ESTABLISH CHRISTIANITY 
 AND THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. 
 
 CHARLES STUART, M. Ὁ. 
 
 “It was prophesied, that in the last days, ‘ the mountain of the 
 house of the Lord’ opened to all nations, should be ‘ established on 
 the top of the mountains.’ We know that this house, in the view of 
 the prophets, denotes those who have received and hold fast ‘ confi- 
 dence and rejoicing of hope in Christ Jesus; Heb. iii. 6. And 
 we are assured by the apostles, that these prophecies are fulfilled ; 
 that Jesus is ‘ the Mediator of a covenant,’ not temporary, like the 
 former, with Israel, but ‘ established on better promises,’ and that ‘the 
 holy nation, redeemed and gathered out of all nations, with whom 
 this new covenant is made, ‘ receive a kingdom’ that cannot be shak- 
 en and shall not be moved, but will ever remain; Heb. xii. 27, 28. 
 All the events which have hitherto taken place, or shall ever take 
 place upon earth, have shown, and will show, the accomplishment of 
 this and of every part of the word of God. Notwithstanding the 
 apostacy of professing friends, persecutions by enemies, the removal 
 from this world of those who seemed to be pillars, for upholding this 
 spiritual building ;—notwithstanding the flood of opposition poured 
 forth by those, who have endeavoured, openly or covertly, to under- 
 mine and sweep it away ; notwithstanding the corruption of the di- 
 vine doctrines, and precepts, and institutions, God has hitherto made 
 good his promise to his chosen. ‘ Thy seed will I establish for ever, 
 and will build up thy throne to all generations. He hath built his 
 church upon a rock, nor shall death, nor ‘ He that has the power of 
 death, prevail against it.’ The church of God, then, can never be in 
 danger. 
 
 ‘“¢ The means employed to establish it, serve to excite our admira- 
 tion. The Scriptures have been preserved and handed down, by those 
 who prohibited their use, because they testified against them. The 
 seed of the word has proved incorruptible, in circumstances which 
 must have been fatal, to any book that was not divine. God also hath 
 provided agents, to spread the knowledge of it, who meant not so: 
 and often they have had a grand part to act in his designs, whose 
 warmest wish was to thwart them. But ‘ his kingdom ruleth over 
 811. Every event of this world is ultimately more or less subservient 
 
510 NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 to the Religious Establishment, for which it was created. Besides the 
 passive instruments of his designs, and the invisible ministers, who 
 delight to fulfil them, he hath demanded the spontaneous co-operation, 
 of all his willing people, to promote the welfare and establishment of 
 that kingdom, to which they belong. Nor can they bear true al- 
 legiance to its Lord, if they be not actively engaged in this. He hath 
 clearly and fully declared, what he calls them to do for this end ; and 
 as far as their efforts are directed by, and agreeable to his will, they 
 haye been attended with his blessing, and crowned with success. 
 
 ** But men have thought fit, to make use of other means, than God 
 has prescribed, and have meanwhile imagined, that they were em- 
 ployed acceptably to him. The wayward policy, the corrupt in- 
 fluence, the vain philosophy, the authority, the glory, and the splen- 
 dour of this world, have all been employed, as those concerned have 
 said, to promote and establish religion,—i. e. to establish * a kingdom 
 not of this world, which might, and power, and worldly wisdom, 
 may corrupt and defile, but which God’s word and Spirit have set up, 
 and alone can establish.’—Quarterly Magazine, vol. ii. pp. 87-89. 
 
 These pungent remarks had for their author Dr Cuartes Stuart of 
 Dunearn, once a minister of the Church of Scotland, but who, from 
 conscientious scruples, left her communion, and was long an eminent 
 physician in this city. He was the son-in-law of Dr Joun Erskine, “ ve- 
 nerandum nomen,’ and the intimate friend of Anprew F unter ; and the 
 biographer of John Knox, in an eulogium on him, soon after his death, 
 at an annual meeting of the Gelic School Society,—of which it is not 
 too much to say, that it was worthy of its subject and its author 
 —with the beauty and simplicity of truth, says of him: “ In Dr 
 Stuart I always found the honourable feelings of the gentleman, the 
 refined and liberal thinking of the scholar, and the unaffected and 
 humble piety of the Christian.” Having, like that distinguished and 
 lamented individual, “ had the honour and happiness of an intimate 
 acquaintance with Dr 8. during a considerable number of years,” I 
 may be permitted to add, that for critical acumen, acquaintance with, 
 and veneration for the Word of God, I do not know if I have ever met 
 with his superior. , 
 
 The concluding observations of the article, of which the above re- 
 marks form the introduction, written about forty years ago, seem al- 
 most prophetic. ‘ The ecclesiastical establishments of this country 
 can boast of the best abilities of the time. Let such men descend into 
 the field, and bring forth their strong reasons. The advocates of 
 Christ’s spiritual kingdom will meet them, we doubt not, as David 
 
DR HARDY ON THE INFLUENCE OF ESTABLISHMENTS. 511 
 
 met Goliah. Those opposed to establishments of religion upon Chris- 
 tian principles, cannot, however, endeavour to subvert them by con- 
 spiracies and violence. No: ‘the weapons of our warfare are mighty, 
 but ‘they are not carnal.’ ‘ Spiritual wickedness in high places’ will 
 not be pulled down, at least by the efforts of Christians, in the same 
 way as it was set up, by those engines employed by superstitious or 
 political men. True dissenters are not robbers of temples nor blas- 
 phemers of established religion. The sword they employ is that of 
 the Spirit. Truth doth not destroy by violent convulsions, but by 
 slow consumption. ‘ The Man of Sin, indeed, hath received his 
 death-wound ; at least, if his soul and spirit remain, his body, the 
 organs by which they acted, his secular power is struck in the fifth 
 rib. Grey hairs are here and there also upon all his offspring ; and 
 with whatever wailings, the friends of the family may lament them, 
 they shall not be able to re-animate their broken constitutions, but 
 ‘the consumption decreed shall overflow in righteousness.’ ”—Jbid, 
 pp. 53, 54. ' 
 
 NOTE VII. 
 
 INFLUENCE OF CIVIL ESTABLISHMENT ON CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 THOMAS HARDY, D. D. 
 
 “ Unhappily the early Christian emperors departed alike from 
 prudence and from evangelical principle, in their public measures re- 
 lative to Christianity. These measures had three objects: to oblige 
 their Heathen subjects to become Christians ; to oblige all the Chris- 
 tians to hold the same opinions on speculative subjects; and to in- 
 crease the power of the clergy. 
 
 “ The continued pursuit of these ends, for several reigns, produced 
 effects which were decisive and fatal. The Pagans, perceiving that 
 Christianity was become the road to preferment, and finding them- 
 selves first subjected to disabilities, and then to penalties, for conti- 
 nuing to worship the gods of their ancestors, abandoned their profes- 
 sion, and flocked into the church by hundreds and by thousands. 
 Their conversion was nominal, and was not founded on conviction ; 
 they retained the prejudices of their superstition unsubdued, instead 
 of throwing them down at the foot of the Cross. They could not ‘see 
 the kingdom of God’ in its proper character, for they were not ‘ born 
 again’ in the spirit of truth; they came not as little children under 
 
512 NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 the tuition of Christ ; they introduced into the church itself, the es- 
 sential principles of Paganism ; by their numbers they gave to those 
 principles a footing, which was permanent, and which a great part 
 of Christendom has not, even yet, been able to remove. 
 
 “ The terrible influx of the Pagans, on the conversion of the court, 
 corrupted the church ; and the resolution of the emperors, to have 
 but one religion among their subjects, brought unspeakable detriment 
 to the cause which they meant to support. The other two objects 
 of the imperial policy were not more fortunate in the event ; for, in 
 endeavouring, by the secular arm, to compel all the Christians, to 
 entertain the same speculative opinions, on the questions then debated, 
 the sovereigns at once turned free discussion into controversy and 
 strife ; they inflamed instead of extinguishing party spirit ; they for- 
 mally divided the church into sects; they entailed the disputes of 
 their own times, as an inheritance of sorrow to posterity, and wrote 
 INTOLERANCE over the portal of the house of God. — 
 
 The elevation of the clergy to power, by which the teachers of the 
 humble religion of Jesus were transformed into an ambitious priest- - 
 hood, was the creation of a formidable support, to any superstitions 
 which might find access to the church, and, at the same time, an effec- 
 tual clog to prevent the progress of the Christian faith, in new re- 
 gions. Thus, in consequence of fatal indiscretion in the measures of 
 the court, and of a system of policy erroneous in principle, Christian- 
 ity suffered infinitely more from Constantine, than it had done from 
 Diocletian, and received wounds from the hands of Theodosius, such 
 as Julian could never have inflicted. 
 
 “ The mode of corruption which Christianity experienced, during 
 its period of decline in the fourth and fifth centuries, consisted 
 partly in an extension of the ritual, which transformed the religion 
 in its obvious characters from the discipline of the heart, to a pitiful 
 exhibition of gestures, forms, and pageantry ; and partly in the in- 
 troduction of dark theories, imported from the academies of the Egyp- 
 tian sophists, and mixed with the doctrine of the gospel, as alloy and 
 dross, debasing the gold of the sanctuary. By the extended ritual 
 and the mysticism together, the beauty and authority of religion as 
 a practical rule was lost, the actual redemption from vice, and the 
 improvement of men individually in piety and holiness, for which 
 the Lord of the Christians had laboured and bled, were in effect set 
 aside, and supplanted by new contrivances, which were adopted as 
 substitutes for eternal virtue. From all this it followed, that to ten- 
 der, to a new nation, the religion as now altered in substance, was to 
 
EUTHANASIA OF SECESSION AND DISSENT. 019 
 
 offer something else, than that, which the experience of three centu- 
 ries had proved to be calculated for success; it was to offer some- 
 thing, which having no foundation in human nature, no support from 
 right reason, no accommodation to the general exigencies of the hu- 
 man race, could not succeed ; of course, it did not succeed ; men 
 would not exchange for it the opinions and rites of their fathers, and 
 their reluctance is in no degree surprising.”—The Progress of the 
 Christian Religion—A Sermon by Thomas Hardy, D.D., Regius Profes- 
 sor of Divinity and Church History, in the University of Edinburgh, pp. 
 22-25. Edin. 1794. 
 
 The author of this admirable passage, was one of the ablest men of 
 his time. It is to be regretted, that his few but valuable publications 
 have not been collected, and thus put into wider circulation, and a 
 more enduring form. It is still more to be regretted, that the thoughts 
 and opinions of such a man, embodied in his Lectures on Ecclesias- 
 tical History, should be lost to the world. 
 
 NOTE VIIL. 
 
 EUTHANASIA OF SECESSION AND DISSENT. 
 
 “ We have no wish that the Secession should be perpetual. We 
 have no expectation that it shall. Its founders had no such wish or 
 expectation. Dearly as they loved the Secession Church, cheerfully 
 as they suffered, willingly as they would have died in her cause, their 
 prayer never was EsTo peRPETUA. They did not secede till, in their es- 
 timation, secession had become absolutely necessary ; and it was their 
 avowed intention, that when secession ceased to be necessary, seces- 
 sion should cease to exist. They seem for some time to have indulged 
 the hope, that by the Established Church effecting the required re- 
 formation, the necessity of secession would be but of short continu- 
 ance, for, in some instances, their places of worship were so con- 
 structed, as that, with little difficulty, they could have been converted 
 into private dwellings. 
 
 « The Euthanasia of the Secession in this way is now at the end of 
 a hundred years, an event far less probable than ever. But in ano- 
 ther and a better way, that desirable event does seem hastening for- 
 ward with a rapidity, as terrific to one class of persons, as it is delight- 
 ful to another. Our forefathers hoped that the Secession would hon- 
 
δ14 NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 ourably close, in the reformation of the national church. The majority 
 of their descendants are expecting materially the same event, in the 
 dissolution of the national establishment. If we can at all decypher 
 the mystic characters of unfulfilled prophecy, ‘ the cities of the na- 
 tions’ are tottering to their fall, and ‘ Babylon is coming up in remem- 
 brance before God.’ If we can at all discern the signs of the times, 
 the band which binds in corrupt union the Church and the State, is 
 near disruption. It seems plain, that if not ere long cautiously un- 
 loosed by the wary hand of legislation, in compliance with the de- 
 mand of enlightened public opinion, it will be rudely torn asunder by 
 the reckless hand of tumultuary violence. 
 
 « That band, while it remains, necessarily perpetuates division in 
 the church of Christ. It unites those who ought to be separate. It 
 separates those who ought to be one. When that unnatural, loath- 
 some conjunction of the living and the dead, which the Established 
 Church of this country exhibits—which every established church 
 ever has exhibited, ever must exhibit—shall be dissolved, the dead 
 will soon be buried in that grave which is ready for them, and for . 
 which they have long been ready ; while the living, freed from the 
 fetters which bound them to disease and pollution, will walk at liber- 
 ty, and associate with their living brethren who never were in bond- 
 age, in prosecution of the great objects for which spiritual life is be- 
 stowed. The corrupt part of the Established Church, deprived of the 
 support of the State, could not exist for a year as a distinct religious 
 denomination. The faithful portion of the church would naturally 
 connect themselves, with those who, in their views of Christian truth, 
 are already of one mind and heart with them, and the name of the 
 Secession Church would be honourably merged in that of the United 
 Presbyterian Church of Scotland. 
 
 “ And may we not hope that ere another century revolves, even 
 this name will be felt to be unduly sectarian—that under the clear 
 light and genial influence of a millennial sun, the true followers of 
 Jesus Christ of every denomination will be made to ‘see eye to eye, 
 —that there shall be a general return to the purity of primitive doc- 
 trine, the holiness of primitive discipline, and the simplicity of pri- 
 mitive usage—that Christians shall be known only by names expres- 
 sive of their subjection to one Lord, and their love to one another— 
 
 ‘ That sects and party names shall fall, 
 And Jesus Cunist be all in all.’ 
 
 —that it shall no longer be the Established Church, and the Seces- 
 
ADVANTAGES OF THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM. 515 
 
 sion Church, and the Relief Church, and the Congregational Churches, 
 and the Baptist Churches, but the Church of Christ in Scotland— 
 that in our land, as by and by in all lands, there shall be but ‘ one 
 fold, as there is ‘ One Shepherd.’”—Address at the Celebration of the 
 Centenary of the Secession, Dec. 1833.—United Secession Magazine, 
 vol. ii. pp. 120, 121. 
 
 NOTE IX. 
 
 ADVANTAGES OF THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM CONTRASTED WITH THE 
 COMPULSORY SYSTEM. 
 
 DYMOND. 
 
 « There are some advantages attendant on the voluntary system, 
 which that of a legal provision does not possess. 
 
 “ And, first, it appears to be of importance, that there should be a 
 union, a harmony, a cordiality, between the minister and the people. 
 It is, in truth, an indispensable requisite. Christianity, which is a 
 religion of love, cannot flourish, where unkindly feelings prevail. 
 Now, 1 think it is manifest, that harmony and cordiality are likely 
 to prevail more, where the minister is chosen and voluntarily remu- 
 nerated by his hearers, than where they are not consulted in the 
 choice, where they are obliged to take him, whom others please to 
 appoint, and where they are compelled to pay him, whether they 
 like him or not. The tendency of this last system is evidently opposed 
 to perfect kindliness and cordiality. There is likely to be a sort of 
 natural connexion, a communication of good offices, induced between 
 hearers and the man, whom they themselves choose and voluntarily 
 remunerate, which is less likely in the other case. If love be of such 
 consequence generally to the Christian character, it is especially of 
 consequence, that it should subsist between him who assumes to be a 
 dispenser, and them who are in the relation of hearers of the gospel 
 of Christ. 
 
 “¢ Indeed, the very circumstance that a man is compelled to pay a 
 preacher, tends to the introduction of unkind and unfriendly feelings. 
 It is not to be expected that men will pay him more graciously, or 
 with a better will, than they pay a tax-gatherer; and we all know 
 that the tax-gatherer is one of the last persons men wish to see. He 
 who desires to extend the influence of Christianity, would be very 
 
516 NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 cautious of establishing a system, of which so ungracious a regulation 
 formed a part. There is truth, worthy of grave attention, in the lu- 
 dicrous verses of Cowper. Speaking of the tithing-time of his friend 
 Unwin, he says,— 
 
 ‘ In sooth the sorrow of such days, 
 Is not to be expressed : 
 When he that takes and he that pays, 
 Are both alike distressed. 
 Now all unwelcome at his gates, 
 The clumsy swains alight, 
 With rueful faces and bald pates, 
 He trembles at the sight— 
 And well he may, for well he knows 
 Each bumpkin of the clan, 
 Instead of paying what he owes, 
 Will cheat him if he can. 
 + 2 ᾿ξ ᾿ξ 
 At length the busy time begins, 
 “ Come, neighbours, we must wag,”’ 
 The money chinks, down drop their chins, 
 Each lugging out a bag. 
 ἧς * * * 
 Quoth one, “ A rarer man than you 
 In pulpit none can hear ; 
 But yet, methinks, to tell you true, 
 You sell it plaguy dear.”’’ 
 
 “ It is easy to perceive that the influence of that man’s exhorta- 
 tions must be diminished, whose hearers listen with the reflection, 
 that his advice is ‘ plaguy dear.’ The reflection, too, is perfectly 
 natural, and therefore cannot be helped. And when superadded to 
 this, is the consideration that it is not only sold ‘ dear,’ but that pay- 
 ment is enforced, material injury must be sustained, by the cause of 
 religion. In this view, it may be remarked, that the support of a 
 establishment by a general tax, would be preferable to the payment 
 of each pastor by his own hearers. Nor is it unworthy of notice, that 
 some persons will always think (whether with reason or without it), 
 that compulsory maintenance is not right ; and in whatever degree 
 they do this, there is an increased cause of dissatisfaction or estrange- 
 ment. 
 
 “ Again. The teacher who is independent of the congregation— 
 who will enjoy all his emoluments whether they are satisfied with 
 him or not, is under manifest temptations to remissness in his duty— 
 
ADVANTAGES OF THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM. 517 
 
 not perhaps to remissness in those particulars on which his superiors 
 would animadvert—but on those which respect the unstipulated and 
 undefinable, but very important duties of private care and of private 
 labours. To mention this is sufficient—No man who reflects on the 
 human constitution, or who looks around him, will need arguments 
 to prove, that they are likely to labour negligently, whose profits are 
 not increased by assiduity and zeal. I know that the power of reli- 
 gion can and often does counteract this; but that is no argument for 
 putting temptation in the way. So powerful, indeed, is this tempta- 
 tion, that with a very great number, it is acknowledged to prevail. 
 Even if we do not assert, with a clergyman, that a great proportion 
 of his brethren labour only so much for the religious benefit of their pa- 
 rishioners as will screen them from the arm of the law, there is other 
 evidence that is unhappily conclusive. The desperate extent to which 
 non-residence is practised, is infallible proof that a large proportion 
 of the clergy are remiss, in the discharge of the duties of a Christian 
 pastor. They do not discharge them con amore. And how should 
 they ὁ It was not the wish to do this, which prompted them to become 
 clergymen at first. They were influenced by another object, and 
 that they have obtained—they possess an income ; and it is not to be 
 expected, that when this is obtained, the mental desires should sud- 
 denly become elevated and purified, and that they who entered the 
 church for the sake of its emoluments, should commonly labour in it 
 for the sake of religion. 
 
 “ Although to many the motive for entering the church is the 
 same as that for engaging in other professions, it is an unhappiness 
 peculiar to the clerical profession, that it does not offer the same sti- 
 mulus to subsequent exertion—that advancement does not usually 
 depend on desert. The man who seeks for an income from surgery 
 or the bar, is continually prompted to pay exemplary attention to its 
 duties. Unless the surgeon is skilful and attentive, he knows that 
 practice is not to be expected—unless the pleader devotes himself to 
 statutes and reports, he knows that he is not to expect cases and 
 briefs : But the clergyman, whether he study the Bible or not, whe- 
 ther he be diligent and zealous or not, still possesses his living. Nor 
 would it be rational to expect, that where the ordinary stimulus to 
 human exertion is wanting, the exertion itself should generally be 
 found. 
 
 “ Upon the question of the comparative advantages of a legal pro- 
 vision and a voluntary remuneration, in securing the due discharge 
 of the ministerial function, What is the evidence of facts? Are the 
 
518 NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 ministers of established or of unestablished churches the more zealous, 
 the more exemplary, the more laborious, the more devoted? Whe- 
 ther of the two are the most beloved by their hearers? Whether of 
 the two lead the more exemplary and religious lives?) Whether of 
 the two are the more active in works of philanthropy? It is a ques- 
 tion of facts—and the facts are before the world.”-—Dymond’s Essays, 
 vol. ii. Essay iii. Chap. 14. 
 
 ISAAC TAYLOR. 
 
 “ A body of clergy at once exonerated of all solicitude, removed 
 from all dependence, and at the same time sheltered from the salu- 
 tary operation of public opinion, or, at least, so shielded as to save 
 the inert and negligent from real alarms, such a body, we say, wants 
 a stay to its virtue, which human nature may not safely dispense 
 with. Ministers of religion so seated under the hedge, may look 
 down upon others, beating the waves, and bless their happier lot ; 
 but all such boasting is vain ; the congratulation of those who are at 
 ease is often, and assuredly it is so in this instance, a fatal delusion. . 
 To rejoice that we are free from every invigorating excitement, and 
 to be glad that we are not permitted to breathe the open fresh air, is 
 the pitiable solace of a crazed hypochondriac.”—Spiritual Despotism, 
 p- 75. 8vo. Lond. 1835. 
 
 These observations, weighty in themselves, derive additional im- 
 portance from the consideration, that their accomplished author is a 
 decided, but, as it appears to many of his admirers, an inconsistent 
 enemy to the dissolution of the connexion between Church and State, 
 though desirous that that connexion should be better regulated than it 
 is. Like Dr Chalmers, whom in many points he resembles, especially 
 in sometimes clothing a common-place thought in such gorgeous array 
 as that we scarcely recognize our old acquaintance,—he has great 
 faith in the “ machinery,” if it were but thoroughly repaired and well 
 worked. Like many other good men, he does not seem to see any 
 thing wrong, in men’s “ setting their threshold by God’s threshold, 
 and their posts by his posts,’* in his own spiritual temple—nor to 
 hear the voice which ere long is likely to peal its thunders through 
 the land, so as to arouse the most inattentive-—“ Take away her bat- 
 tlements, for they are not the Lord’s.” t 
 
 * Ezek. xliii. 8. + Jer. v. 10. 
 
PRINCIPLES OF VOLUNTARYISM. 519 
 
 NOTE X. 
 
 THE PRINCIPLES OF VOLUNTARYISM STATED AND DEFENDED BY 
 DISTINGUISHED CHURCHMEN, 
 
 It is with great satisfaction that I grace the concluding pages of 
 this “ Farrago,”—dibri, I suppose I must say, for the number of the 
 page, if not the weariness of the reader, would proclaim the inappro- 
 priateness of the poet’s diminutive “ libelli,’—with the sentiments of 
 three men, who have generally and justly been considered as among 
 the “ decora et tutamina” of the Scottish Establishment: The first, 
 Principal Grorcr Camppett, of Aberdeen (the most accomplished Bi- 
 blical critic which our country has produced since the days of Came- 
 ron), who for half a century has been gathered to his fathers: The 
 second, Dr AnprEw Tuomson, a man of strong intellect and ardent 
 temperament, an acute disputant, ἃ dexterous debater, an eloquent de- 
 claimer, who succeeded in making many devoted adherents and many 
 keen opponents, and whose premature and sudden call into eternity, 
 commanding general attention and exciting general regret, read a very 
 solemn lesson to both: The third,—who lives, and long may he 
 live,—Dr Cuaumers, probably by all without the Church of Scotland, 
 and by most within it, admitted to be not only among “ the first thirty,” 
 but among “ the first three” of her living worthies, if he be not the 
 foremost of them all. 
 
 - 
 
 DR GEORGE CAMPBELL. 
 
 “ΤῊ methods whereby, according to the command of our Lord, 
 his religion was to be propagated, were no other than teaching, and 
 the attractive influence of an exemplary life, Matth. xxviii. 19; Mark 
 xvi. 15; Matth. v. 16; Matth. x. 14-28. Of the whole armour of 
 God to be employed in this warfare, the apostle has given us a cata- 
 logue, Eph. vi. 14, et seq. Behold the Christian’s panoply! But for 
 the use of other arms, offensive or defensive, in the battles of faith, I 
 can find no warrant. ; 
 
 “* But though this suited the infancy of the church when she was 
 yet feeble and tender, now that she is grown hardier and more robust, 
 is it not reasonable that she should change her plan, and assume, in 
 addressing her adversaries, a bolder note? Is there no permission 
 given by our Lord to have recourse, when that should happen, to 
 other weapons? Had his disciples no hint of the propriety, or rather 
 
520 NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 necessity, of penal statutes, for adding weight to their teaching, for 
 checking the encroachments of error, and chastising the insolence of 
 those who should dare, in the maturity of the church, to controvert 
 her judgment ? Not the slightest suggestion of such an alteration. 
 On the contrary, it appears inconsistent with the nature of the church, 
 devised by our Saviour, and modelled by his apostles. Hear himself 
 in that good confession, which he witnessed before Pontius Pilate, 
 ‘ Jesus answered, my kingdom is not of this world: if my kingdom 
 were of this world, then would my servants fight, that I should not 
 be delivered to the Jews; but now is my kingdom not from hence.’ 
 Swords and spears, and all such instruments of hostility, are suited to 
 the defence of secular and worldly kingdoms ; but such weapons are 
 preposterous, when employed in support of a dispensation, quite spi- 
 ritual and heavenly. In regard to it, the order is, ‘ Put up again thy 
 sword into his place ; for all they that take the sword shall perish 
 with the sword ;’ Matth. xxvi. 52. 
 
 “ The maxims of the apostles we find entirely conformable to the 
 lessons they had received from their Lord ; 2 Cor. v.11; x. 3; 2 Tim. 
 ii. 24; Tit. iii. 10. 
 
 “Ts it not most natural to think that a cause will be best sup- 
 ported by the same means by which it was founded? To the dispen- 
 sation of the Gospel, which is the dispensation of ‘ grace, mercy, and 
 peace, ought there not to be a suitableness in the methods employed 
 to promote it? Shall we then think of any expedient for defending 
 the cause of Christ different from those which he and his Apostles 
 successfully employed? In the most unlovely spirit of Popery, and 
 with the unhallowed arms of Popery, we would fight against Popery. 
 It is not by such weapons that God hath promised to consume the 
 Man of Sin, but it is with ‘the breath of his mouth,’ that is his word. 
 As for us, though we be often loud enough in our pretensions to faith, 
 our faith is not in his word. We have no faith now in weapons in- 
 visible and impalpable. Fire and steel suit us a great deal better. 
 Christians in ancient times confided in the divine promises; we in 
 these days confide in acts of Parliament. They trusted to ‘ the sword 
 of the Spirit’ for the defence of truth and the defeat of error ; we 
 trust to the sword of the magistrate. God’s promises do well enough, 
 when the legislature is their surety; but if ye destroy the hedges 
 and the bulwarks which the laws have raised, we shall cry, ‘ Behold 
 our bones are dried, our hope is lost: we are cut off for our part.’ 
 There is no more security for the true religion: Protestantism is 
 gone! all is lost.’ ‘ Woe to him,’ saith the prophet, ‘ that establish- 
 
PRINCIPLES OF VOLUNTARYISM. 521 
 
 eth a city by iniquity.’ And shall the city of God itself, his church, 
 his cause, the cause of truth and purity, be established by such ac- 
 cursed means? The introduction of force, into the service of religion, 
 whether applied by the magistrate or the mob, has ever proved, and 
 will prove, the bane of true religion. It is the establishment of the 
 profession of religion, on the ruins of its spirit."-—Address to the Peo- 
 ple of Scotland, upon the Alarms which have been raised in regard to 
 Popery, pp. 7-12, 40, 50. Edin. 1779. 
 
 The inconsistency of these sentiments, with the defence of civil es- 
 tablishments of religion, was clearly perceived, by the Principal’s 
 acute antagonist in the Popish Bill Controversy, Professor Bruce ; and 
 in his able, learned, and eloquent, though unsatisfactory work, “ Free 
 Thoughts on the Toleration of Popery,” published under the assumed 
 name of Canvinus Minor, he administers, “ con amore,” a somewhat 
 severe castigation. ‘‘ These doctrines,” says he, “‘ come a little awk- 
 wardly, from the clergy and doctors in the legal establishment; and 
 if turned into another shape, and applied against themselves, we 
 greatly suspect, they would not relish quite so well. Great as the 
 Doctor’s admiration of the Apostle’s method of propagating religion 
 appears to be, yet, I daresay, he has not betaken himself to the apos- 
 tolic plan of labouring in this design, ‘ without purse or scrip ;) and 
 strong as his faith in the divine promises may be, yet it is not so 
 strong as to convince him, that he has no manner of use, for an act of 
 parliament for his benefice, nor will he reckon it a disparagement to 
 his faith, to trust somewhat to that additional security. Nothing al- 
 most has been heard in the Assembly- house, where the Doctor has so 
 often sat, but acts of Parliament, and the statute-book, while the 
 rules of the Gospel, the principles of the Reformation, and the ends 
 of spiritual edification, have been forgot : And what has been so com- 
 mon as to see their ecclesiastical acts confirmed by king’s messen- 
 gers, and backed with the irresistible argument of G. R. greeting: 
 And even in those days of boasted moderation, have not red-coated 
 apostles and military saints, trained and ‘equipped according to the 
 gospel of Mohammed or St Dominic, often been sent forth ta obtain 
 obedience to their oppressive decisions ; who have charged the rascally 
 Christians (who perhaps scrupled to call a trifling fop their spiritual 
 Father in Christ, or who would not accept of some ignorant, worth- 
 less, or profane wretch for their guide to heaven), charged them, 
 with the sword and musket at their breast, to receive the gospel? But 
 adieu now to all such methods of planting the gospel. Now that the 
 Papists are coming on the field, to claim their ancient property, and 
 
 hi | 
 
522 NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 re-assume their own weapons, our Established clergy are willing to 
 resign them in their favour, and to content themselves with their 
 Bibles, homilies, and prayers, ‘ hating’ every weapon, as well as ‘ every 
 garment spotted with the flesh.’ We may surely henceforth expect 
 happy reforming times!”—F ree Thoughts on the Toleration of Popery, 
 pp- 261, 262. Edin. 1780. 
 
 That Dr Campbell’s sentiments on this subject remained unchang- 
 ed, is plain, from the following quotation, from a note on Mark x. 20, 
 in his last and greatest work—a work, the true value of which will 
 never be adequately appreciated in this country, till a higher stand- 
 ard of Biblical learning be established, among its theologians. 
 
 “ If our Lord’s kingdom had been, what it is not, a worldly king- 
 dom ; if greatness in it, had resulted, as in such kingdoms, from 
 wealth and dominion, there would have been reason to consider the 
 reign of Constantine, as the halcyon days of the church, and a blessed 
 time to all its members. But if the reverse was the fact; if our 
 Lord’s kingdom was purely spiritual; if the greatness of any member 
 resulted from his humility and usefulness; and if superior authority - 
 arose purely from superior knowledge and charity; if the riches of 
 the Christian consisted in faith and good works, I am afraid the 
 changes introduced by the emperor, were more the corrupters, than 
 the establishers, of the kingdom of Christ. The name, indeed, was 
 extended, the profession supported, and those who assumed the name, 
 when it became fashionable, and a means of preferment, multiplied ; 
 but the spirit, the life, and the power of religion, visibly declined 
 every day.”"—The Four Gospels, translated from the Greek, with preli- 
 minary Dissertations and Notes, Critical and Explanatory, vol. ii. p. 
 491. 4to. Lond. 1789. 
 
 DR ANDREW THOMSON. 
 
 Dr Tuomson’s statement is short, but very decisive. It appears in 
 a letter addressed to Sir James W. Moncreiff, and read by him at a 
 public meeting held in Edinburgh, on the 14th March 1829, to peti- 
 tion parliament, for the removal of the disabilities affecting the Ro- 
 man Catholics. 
 
 “JT cannot sce it to be consistent, with the maxims either of 
 Scripture or of expediency, that the ministers of that faith” (the Es- 
 tablished Protestant clergy in Ireland), “ should rest upon the foun- 
 dation of their tithes and their stipends, and consult for its safety 
 mainly, by surrounding and fortifying it with acts of Parliament, as 
 galling and oppressive as they are inefficient in their operation, in- 
 
PRINCIPLES OF VOLUNTARYISM. 523 
 
 stead of going forth to fight the battles of the Truth, clothed in the 
 spiritual armour with which the Great Head of the Church has so li- 
 berally provided his servants, if they will but put it on and use it, 
 and employing the school and the Bible, enlightened zeal, faithful 
 preaching, sound argument, diffusive knowledge, fervent prayer, un- 
 wearied benevolence, and holy example, which, by God’s blessing, are 
 mightier than all other means besides for exterminating error and 
 sin, and for enlarging the kingdom of righteousness, and peace, and 
 joy.” —Report of Speeches of Sir James Moncreiff, Sc. p. 10. Edin. 1829. 
 
 DR CHALMERS. 
 
 Dr Cuatmers, though somewhat more magniloquent, than either 
 the clear-sighted, cool-headed Principal, or the sturdy-minded, ardent- 
 spirited Doctor, with equal explicitness and force, states and defends 
 the radical principles of Voluntaryism. 
 
 “ How comes it, that Protestantism made such triumphant progress, 
 in these realms, when it had pains and penalties to struggle with ?— 
 and how came this progress to be arrested, from the moment it laid on 
 these pains and penalties, in its turn? What have all the enactments of 
 the statute-book done, for the cause of Protestantism in Ireland? and 
 how is it, that, when single-handed truth walked through our island, 
 with themight and prowess of a conqueror,so soon as propped by the au- 
 thority of the state, and the armour of intolerance was given to her, 
 the brilliant career of her victories was ended ? It was when she took 
 up the carnal and laid down the spiritual weapon ; it was then that 
 strength went out of her. She was struck with impotency, on the 
 instant that, from a warfare of principle, it became a warfare of poli- 
 tics. There are gentlemen opposed to us profound in the documents 
 of history ; but she has really nothing to offer half so instructive, as 
 the living history, that is now before our eyes. With the pains and 
 penalties to fight against, the cause of Reformation did almost every 
 thing in Britain ; with the pains and penalties on its side, it has done 
 nothing, and worse than nothing, in Ireland. ὁ « «* κα 
 
 “1 am sensible of one advantage which our opponents have against 
 us, and that is a certain command over the religious feelings of the 
 population: And yet Iam not aware of any public topic on which 
 the popular and prevailing cry ever ran so counter as it does at 
 present to the whole drift and spirit of Christianity. What other 
 instruments do we read of, in the New Testament, for the defence and 
 propagation of the faith, but the Word of God, and the Spirit of God ? 
 How does the Apostle explain the principle of its triumphs, in that 
 
524 NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 age, when truth was so ‘mighty to the pulling down of strongholds ζ΄ 
 It was because the weapons of his warfare were not carnal. He con- 
 fined himself to the use of spiritual weapons, the only ones by which 
 to assail the strongholds, either of popery or paganism. The kingdom 
 of God, which is not of this world, refuses to be indebted for its ad- 
 vancement to any other. Reason, and Scripture, and prayer—these 
 compose, or ought to compose, the whole armoury of Protestantism ; 
 and it is by these alone, that the battles of the Faith can be success- 
 fully fought. It is since the admission of intolerance, that unseemly 
 associate, within our camp, that the cause of the Reformation has 
 come down from its vantage ground ; and from the moment it wrested 
 this engine, from the hands of its adversaries, and began to wield and 
 brandish it itself, from that moment it has been at adead stand. We 
 want to be disencumbered of this weight, and to be restored thereby 
 to our own free and proper energies. We want truth and force to be 
 dissevered from each other,—the moral and spiritual to be no longer 
 implicated with the grossly physical ; for never shall we prosper, aud 
 never shall we prevail in Ireland” [nor any where else], “ till our - 
 cause be delivered from the outrage and the contamination of so un- 
 holy an alliance.”—Report of Speeches, Se. pp. 18, 19. 
 
 ‘“‘ There is much to be gathered upon this subject from the lessons 
 of the New Testament, taken in conjunction with the conduct of the 
 early Christians. ‘ The powers that be’ are said to be ‘ ordained of God,’ 
 and yet these powers, who were heathen magistrates, were called ‘ mi- 
 nisters of God,’ and that at a time, when there was not a Christian, far 
 less a Protestant magistrate, in existence. But these Christians gave all 
 up, except their conscience and their faith, to the will of idolatrous 
 masters. The apostle Paul never aimed at Christianizing the govern- 
 ment, in any other way than by doing with Nero what he did with some 
 of Nero’s household—turning them to the faith. Whatever may be 
 the right of citizens—and I do not question it—to pull a tyrant from 
 his throne, he never, in his ecclesiastical capacity, would have put his 
 hand to other than ecclesiastical work ; that is, plied men with the 
 overtures of the gospel as he had opportunity. To this the Christians 
 of the primitive ages confined themselves ; and by this they at length 
 effected the Christianization of the empire, when, through the con- 
 version of Constantine, whether real or nominal, the church came 
 into a new position, and the religion of the Bible became what is 
 called the religion of the State. 
 
 “ In reference to what has been alleged by a speaker who has gone 
 before me, from the Old Testament, it is of prime importance to re- 
 
PRINCIPLES OF VOLUNTARYISM. 525 
 
 mark, that on the introduction of this complex polity of church and 
 state, there took place nothing, which could at all liken it to the theo- 
 cracy of the Hebrews. There is no warrant whatever, for that Judaism 
 of spirit and principle wherewith the notions of so many in our day, 
 on the subject of the union between the ecclesiastical and the civil, 
 are so thoroughly, and, I will add, so grossly infected. The flaming 
 top of Mount Sinai in the sight of all the people—the voice of God that 
 issued therefrom—the express and statistical provisions of a law 
 grounded upon temporal sanctions, and which took cognizance chiefly, 
 if not solely, of the temporal interests and rights of all in the com- 
 monwealth ;—these were what ushered in that peculiar economy 
 which has now passed away, and in which the authority of the church, 
 and the authority of the state, were so intimately blended. There 
 was nothing in the least like unto this, in the economy of the Gospel. 
 There could not. For about three centuries there was a Christian 
 church, but it was a church without a state. Each took its own se- 
 veral way. The state persecuted the church, or forbore at pleasure ; 
 and the church stood to the state in the relation of duty only, not at 
 all of power. It preached submission to rulers, it prayed for them, 
 and in all, but the things of conscience, was obedient to them. It 
 never once dreamed of religion as being the qualification, for any other 
 crown than a crown in heaven—for any other office than an office of 
 labour and faithfulness in that church, whose business it is to prepare 
 a people for heaven’s exercises and heaven's joys. Under these prin- 
 ciples it grew in the midst of conflict and persecution, and was only 
 cradled into maturity and strength, by the adverse elements of an ad- 
 verse world. But this change in its outward state brought no change 
 on the principles of the Gospel. It may have corrupted the practice 
 of Christians, but it could not alter, by one iota, the nature of Chris- 
 tianity, whose lessons are entirely, and indestructibly the same ; as 
 in its days of suffering, so in the days of its prosperity and triumph. 
 * * * * x κ 
 
 “ If it be really a religious fear which is making these alarmists 
 so tremulously alive to the changes that are coming upon us; if, after 
 all, it be something holier and higher than a sordid fear for their per- 
 sons and properties, if instead of a carnal affection for their own pri- 
 vate interests, it be a spiritual and sacred affection for the high inte- 
 rests of truth and righteousness in the world; it should surely yield 
 them some comfort to be told, that never did the Church more 
 prosper, and never did the Church’s right and peculiar business go on 
 more prosperously, than when all the high places of society were filled 
 
526 NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 with idolaters, and the sovereigns of the earth, besides being idolatrous 
 despots, were the greatest monsters the world ever saw. This con- 
 temporaneous existence of a most Christian church, along with a 
 most unchristian government, is worthy at least of being noticed by 
 those who are now charging themselves with the regulation of the 
 one, as if that were indispensable to the well-being of the other. 
 It may well prompt the misgiving thought, that possibly after all 
 they are looking and labouring in the wrong way, and that the vital 
 prosperity of the Church comes from another quarter altogether, than 
 that whither their cares and cogitations are now carrying them. It 
 may well beget the suspicion, that there is perhaps a misjudgment 
 and misdirection of effort and zeal, in this whole matter. Certain it 
 is, that neither apostles nor apostolic men took the direction which 
 they are now doing. They never thought of kings and of governors 
 but to pray for them; and leaving states and statesmen, and all the 
 elements of this world behind them, confined themselves to their own 
 high and holy walk of labouring, with the souls and consciences of 
 men. And the principle is, that we are not to fight the battles of the . 
 Lord with other weapons than himself has consecrated. We are not 
 to attempt the forwarding of a holy cause by unholy means. We 
 are not to vitiate the pure ministration of righteousness and truth, by 
 the deleterious ingredient of human policy. We are not to force 
 even the best of causes, by an infringement on the natural rights, 
 whether of property or of conscience.”—Speech of Dr Chalmers before 
 the Presbytery of Edinburgh, April 1829. 
 
 “ This assimilation of our plan” [the support of the Bible Society by 
 regular contribution from the poor] “ toa tax, may give rise to a world 
 of impetuous declamation ; but let it ever be remembered, that the 
 institution of a Bible Society” [It is obviously equally true of a Vo- 
 luntary Church. ] “ gives you the whole benefit of such a tax, without 
 its odiousness. It brings up their economy to a higher pitch, but it does 
 so, not in the way which they resist, but in the way which they 
 choose. The single circumstance of its being a voluntary act, forms 
 the defence and the answer to all the clamours of an affected sympa- 
 thy. You take from the poor. No! they give. You take beyond 
 their ability. Of this they are the best judges. You abridge their 
 comforts. No! there is a comfort in the exercise of charity ; there 
 is a comfort in the act of lending a hand to a noble enterprize ; there 
 is a comfort in the contemplation of its progress; there is a comfort 
 in rendering a service to a friend, and when that friend is the Saviour, 
 and that service the circulation of the message he left behind him, it 
 
PRINCIPLES OF VOLUNTARYISM. 527 
 
 is a comfort which many of the poor are ambitious to share in. Leave 
 them to judge of their comfort, and if, in point of fact, they do give 
 their penny a-week to a Bible Society” [ora Voluntary Church], “ it 
 just speaks them to have more comfort in this way of spending it, 
 than in any other which occurs to them. 
 
 “ Perhaps it does not occur to those friends of the poor, while they 
 are sitting in judgment on their circumstances and feelings, how un- 
 justly and how unworthily they think of them. They do not conceive 
 how truth and benevolence can be at all objects to them, and sup- 
 pose, that after they have got the meat to feed, the house to shelter, 
 the raiment to cover them, there is nothing else that they will bestow 
 a penny upon. They may not be able to express their feelings on a 
 suspicion so ungenerous, but I shall do it for them: ‘ We have souls 
 as well as you, and precious to our hearts is the Saviour who died for 
 them. It is true, we have our distresses, but these have bound us 
 more firmly to our Bibles, and it is the desire of our hearts, that a 
 gift so precious, should be sent to the poor of other countries. The 
 word of God is our hope and our rejoicing ; we desire that it may 
 be theirs also, that the wandering savage may know it and be glad, 
 and the poor negro, under the lash of his master, may be told of a 
 Master in heaven, who is full of pity and full of kindness. Do you 
 think that sympathy for such as these is your peculiar attribute ? 
 Know that our hearts are made of the same materials with your own, 
 that we can feel as well as you, and out of the earnings of a hard and 
 an honest industry, we shall give an offering to the cause; nor shall 
 we cease our exertions till the message of salvation be carried round 
 the globe, and made known to the countless millions who live in guilt, 
 and who die in darkness.’”—Chalmers on the Influence of Bible Socie- 
 ties on the Temporal Necessities of the Poor, §§ 20, 21, pp. 18, 19. 
 12mo. Edin. 1814. 
 
 Lest it should be said—these statements are either of a very re- 
 mote date, or they are the unguarded expressions of an orator, excited 
 by opposition, we call the reader’s attention to the following passage 
 from a sermon, ‘ on the respect due to antiquity’—which, having 
 been revised by the author, has just come from the press, in the ele- 
 venth volume of his collected works. 
 
 “« After having wrested from Popery its armour of intolerance, was 
 it right to wield that very armour, against the enemy that had fallen ? 
 After having laid it prostrate, by the use alone of a spiritual weapon, 
 was it right or necessary, in order to keep it prostrate, to make use 
 of a carnal one? thus reversing the characters of that warfare, which 
 
528 NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 Truth had sustained, and with such triumph against Falsehood ; and 
 vilifying the noble cause by an associate so unseemly, as that which 
 the power of the State can make to bear on the now disarmed and 
 subjugated minority. Surely the very strength which won for Pro- 
 testantism its ascendancy in these realms, is competent of itself to 
 preserve it; and if argument and Scripture alone have achieved the 
 victory over falsehood, why not confide to argument and Scripture 
 alone the maintenance of the truth? It is truly instructive to mark, 
 how, on the moment that the forces of the statute-book were enlisted 
 on the side of Protestantism, from that moment Popery, armed with 
 a generous indignancy against its oppressors, put on that moral 
 strength, which persecution always gives to every cause, that is at 
 once honoured and sustained by it. O if the friends of religious 
 liberty had but kept by their own spiritual weapons, when the cause 
 was moving on in such prosperity, and with such triumph. But 
 when they threw aside argument, and brandished the ensigns of au- 
 thority, then it was that truth felt the virtue go out of her; and 
 falsehood, inspired with an energy before unknown, planted the un- 
 yielding footstep, and put on the resolute defiance. And now that 
 centuries have rolled on, all the influences, whether of persuasion or 
 of power, have been idly thrown away on the firm, the impracticable 
 countenance of an aggrieved population.”—The Works of Thomas 
 Chalmers, D.D. and LL.D., vol. xi. pp. 152, 158. 12mo. Glasgow. 
 1838. : 
 
 There is, indeed, in the same volume, a defence of religious esta- 
 blishments—but this is only one, out of many, of the Doctor's ex- 
 ploits, in the way of ““ building again what he had destroyed.” He 
 is much more successful, however, in demolition, than in re-edifi- 
 cation. 
 
 These very remarkable paragraphs contain the unretracted senti- 
 ments of one, of whom, nearly twenty years ago, I, with most cordial 
 admiration, recorded my opinion, as “ a distinguished individual, 
 whose original genius, extensive literary and scientific aequirements, 
 and overwhelming eloquence, devoted, as they honestly, zealously, and 
 steadily are, to the best interests of mankind, make him an honour 
 and blessing to his country and age.” * 
 
 When, some twelve years ago, he became Professor of Divinity in 
 our metropolitan University, I felt, in common with many not con- 
 
 * On the State of Scotland, in reference to the means of religious instrue- 
 tion, p. 27. Edin, 1819. 
 
PRINCIPLES OF VOLUNTARYISM. 529 
 
 nected with the Established Church, almost as if 1 had made a per- 
 sonal acquisition. I admired the disinterested desire of becoming the 
 means of great and extensive good, which led him to relinquish a 
 comparatively easy academical situation, and occupy a chair, which, 
 though honourable, was but poorly endowed, and the duties of which, 
 if rightly discharged, must be very laborious; especially as his prin- 
 ciples rendered it impossible for him to accept of a city pastoral charge, 
 which the law of the church left open, and which the patrons would 
 have felt honoured in bestowing ; and I congratulated the country on 
 the prospect of, through his energetic exertions, soon receiving a 
 more enlightened, and therefore a more liberal national clergy, than 
 it perhaps had ever enjoyed. How lamentably these anticipations 
 have been disappointed, need not be told. He has contrived to inocu- 
 late many of his pupils with his zeal, but in not a few of them, 
 through some peculiarity in their mental constitution, it has unhap- 
 pily degenerated into virulence ; and, as he has been less successful 
 in infusing, so extensively, the comprehensiveness of his theological 
 views, and the kindliness of his personal feelings, it is by no means 
 *‘ an undoubted truth,” as he takes for granted (Lecture I. ad finem), 
 “ that there is a distinct and a decided improvement in the personnel 
 of the Church of Scotland.” A bitter hatred of dissent and dissenters 
 
 and a blind zeal for civil establishment and additional endowments, 
 if they can create “ an energetic agency” for working the so highly 
 admired “ machinery,” will not go far to form “an efficient clergy ;” 
 if by that is meant a Christian ministry, whose labours are fitted to 
 ** convince and convert sinners, and build up saints, in holiness and 
 comfort, through faith, unto salvation.” 
 
 The improvement of a party is not always in the direct,—it may 
 sometimes be in the inverse, ratio of its enlargement. The category of 
 Quality, in such a case, is fully as important as that of Quantity. 
 Moral power does not necessarily grow, with numbers. 
 
 We may be hard to please—but really (not to speak of those living 
 ornaments of the Church of Scotland, with whom at one time we 
 frequently associated, and whom we still regard with most sincere 
 esteem and affection—alas! a yearly lessening band, lest the mere 
 fact of their being the object of our friendly regards, should render 
 them suspected by their younger very zealous brethren), when we think, 
 as we often do, of the Ersxinrs and the Biacxs, the Snoperasses and 
 the Batrours, the Dicksons and the Davinsons, the Smatus and the 
 Wraicuts, and the whole class to which they belonged, of sound theo- 
 logians, warm-hearted Christians, liberal churchmen, laborious mi- 
 
990 NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 nisters, and honest friends of the constitutional rights of the Chris- 
 tian people, with some of whom, in “ the days of other years,” we 
 have “ taken sweet counsel, and gone to the house of God in com- 
 pany,” we must be excused if the inspired adage should suggest itself 
 to our recollection, “‘ No man having tasted old wine straight de- 
 sireth new, for he saith the old is better.” 
 
 I am not alone in the deep regret, with which I have witnessed the 
 narrow, and devious, and interrupted channel, along which, for some 
 years, with occasional hazard of the shipwreck of something more va- 
 luable than literary reputation,* the irrepressible current of the Doc- 
 tor’s zeal and exertions has been forcing its tumultuous way. Alas! 
 how unlike that “ place of broad rivers and streams,” where the tide 
 of his Christian eloquence had full course, amid the heartfelt plaudits 
 of the Christian public of this country, without reference to sectarian 
 denomination. It is to be deplored, for his own fame, and still more 
 for the interests of Christian truth and charity, that this distinguished 
 individual, who seemed equally, by his intellectual and moral consti- 
 tution,—the liberality of his mind, and the kindliness of his heart, 
 “‘ made a public creature,”t as Burke says of his accomplished son, 
 formed to be the common property of the Christian world, should 
 have chosen, to throw himself away, on the most sectarian portion of 
 that community, and to “ give up to a party what was meant for 
 mankind.” 
 
 To reconcile the sentiments contained in the above paragraphs, 
 with much that their author has spoken, and written, and done, since 
 they were published, is, to me, I confess, utterly impracticable ; but 
 that he considers them quite compatible, I do and must believe ; for 
 I will not easily be driven to either of the alternative conclusions, to 
 which otherwise I should find myself shut up; that Dr Chalmers is 
 so cowardly as not, publicly and plainly, to retract sentiments which 
 he is convinced are false and dangerous, or so daring as, in defiance 
 equally of conscientious conviction and public opinion, to prosecute a 
 course which he knows, and they see, to be utterly inconsistent with 
 his strongly expressed, deliberately published, frequently repeated, 
 
 * The deplorable squabble abowt the moderatorship, in 1837, was one of 
 the most perilous of these cataracts. Some of the small craft sustained irre- 
 parable damage, and even the admiral’s gallant ship did not escape unhurt 
 In that most unseemly conflict, in the estimation of all unprejudiced specta- 
 tors, the vanquished was the victor. The “ odium clericum” has seldom 
 
 assumed a more odious form. ‘“ Tantzene irze ad 
 + Burke’s Letter toa Noble Lord, p.30. Lond. 1796. 
 
PRINCIPLES OF VOLUNTARYISM. 531 
 
 and, hitherto unretracted and unmodified opinions. Real inconsist- 
 ency is, however, not always conscious inconsistency. This consider- 
 ation should prevent uncharitable conclusions as to character, but it 
 is no reason why incongruities of conduct should not be exposed 
 when the interests of truth require it. Really, some good men do try 
 severely the ingenuity and charity, of those who are very unwilling 
 to lower, in their “ chambers of imagery,” the object of disinterested 
 and long-cherished esteem and affection. It is curious how often “ the 
 idol” abolishes itself. 
 
 The Doctor’s defence of Establishments in his lately published lec- 
 tures, is by no means so luminous or satisfactory (though equally 
 strenuous and still more elaborate), as his above defence of Volun- 
 taryism. It has, no doubt, an air of philosophy about it ; but it is 
 that kind of philosophy which Bacon describes as “* phantasticum et 
 tumidum et quasi poeticum”*—into which, according to him, men 
 endowed “‘ingeniis altis et elevatis,” and we are sure the Doctor belongs 
 to that class, are most apt to fall. Sir James Mackintosh’s words, in 
 reference to Burke’s theory of a civil establishment of religion,+ are 
 as appropriate to Dr Chalmers’, as if they had been originally intend- 
 ed for it.’ The shoe, though not made to fit, fits when made. 
 ** When he or his admirers translate his statements into a series of pro- 
 positions, expressed in precise and unadorned English, they may be- 
 come the proper objects of argument and discussion.” }{ Till then, 
 though they may be written about, I fear they cannot well be an- 
 swered. Causa patet. ‘ An author,” says Dr Campbell, in reference 
 to Mr Hume, “ is never so sure of writing unanswerably as when he 
 writes altogether unintelligibly. It is impossible, that you should 
 fight your enemy before you find him ; and, if he have screened him- 
 self in darkness, it is next to impossible, that you should find him.’§ 
 Literary combat becomes equally impracticable when the antagonist 
 occupies different, and distant, and even opposite, positions at the 
 same time—or, to borrow the elegant phrase of a celebrated statesman 
 and orator, “ turns his back upon himself.” In such a case, for more 
 reasons than one, the conflict might be declined without dishonour. 
 
 In a useful periodical, the Colossus he has raised, with the one 
 foot on Great Britain and the other on Ireland—the latter especially 
 
 * Baconi. Noy. Org. 1.10.1. § Ixv. Works, vol. i. p. 283. Folio. Lond. 
 1740. 
 
 + Reflections on the Revolution in France, pp. 145, 146. 
 
 1 Vindicize Gallice, p. 144. 
 
 § Campbell's Dissertation on Miracles. Concl. p. 133. Lond, 1834. 
 
532 NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 rather insecure footing,—by a process as dexterous as effectual, is 
 completely undermined ; a-pebble may now lay him prostrate.* 
 
 The scheme of extension, to which he has sacrificed so many of his 
 best years, though, as it exists in his mind, a beautiful vision, no doubt, 
 bright with the colours of his fancy, mellowed by the tints of the 
 pious benevolence of his heart, is a plan which, in the present state 
 of society in this country, cannot possibly be realized ; and the de- 
 gree, though by no means so great, as his flatterers lead him to sup- 
 pose, in which that scheme has found zealous supporters, would be a 
 wonderful proof of the power of genius to invest the most absurd 
 theories with the guise of plausibility, were it not that a considerable 
 portion of that support must be traced to the operation of other princi- 
 ples. ‘ The fear of change perplexes” others besides “* monarchs”— 
 disorders even minds of considerable strength and soundness, and not 
 unfrequently, as in the present case, hurries into a course of conduct 
 which precipitates the catastrophe, it was intended to prevent. It is, 
 always, dangerous to prophesy, but especially in these strange times, 
 when the foundations of the earth seem-to have gone out of their 
 course, yet we cannot doubt, that the period is not very distant, when 
 that extension scheme, which appearing in the dark and troubled sky 
 of the State-church, was hailed by many, as the star, which betokened 
 the approach of a new and brighter dawn, will be discovered to be 
 but a meteor, which, after having led its followers into a quagmire, 
 will leave them there, to ponder their folly, and to extricate them- 
 selves as best they may. 
 
 Another and a better light is gilding the tops of the mountains,— 
 the harbinger of the sun of that “ thousand years” of purity and bless- 
 edness, which “ with the Lord is as one day.” Ere long the battle- 
 ments of Zion, struck by its holy radiance, will, like the fabled image 
 of Memnon, become vocal. ‘ Her watchmen shall lift up the voice— 
 with the voice together shall they sing,” and all her true citizens, 
 wherever they are, shall hear and obey the joyful summons, “ Arise 
 AND SHINE, FOR THY LIGHT IS COME, AND THE GLORY OF THE LorpD IS RISEN 
 UPON THEE. QO HOUSE oF JACOB, COME YE AND WALK IN THE LIGHT OF THE 
 Lorp.” t 
 
 * United Secession Magazine, for August and October, 1838. 
 + Isaiah lii. 8; Ix. 15 ii. δ. 
 
INDEX Il. 
 
 PASSAGES OF SCRIPTURE ILLUSTRATED OR REFERRED TO. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Gen. ii. 23, 24 : ‘ é 62 
 xii. 5 ; é : Ε 60 
 χοῦν xx, 13 |. : : senso 
 xxii. 28 : ; 187 
 
 σα. 12 : ; olga 
 Levit. xxvii. 28, 29 : 5 82 
 Devt. xvii. 14,15. : - 49 
 XXxii. 4 κ : «482 
 JupeGeEs v. 16-18 ὃ A ce pale? 
 2 Kings xviii. 86, 4 2) CAN 
 Neu. ix. 36, 37 : weeds 
 ΦῸΒ iv. 14,15. : ; SL fobs 
 ΕΣ (oil 0) A : 5 aw, 
 ΧΙ. p : : ak 4.79 
 ESA παῖς - Ἶ 5 « 464 
 <lvib. -. : : 30 458 
 xlvili, 12-14 . : . 458 
 Ixxxvii. 1-4. . : AG 
 
 exix. 144 Ρ 5 a, 482 
 
 seh ΟΣ Στ Ὁ. 9 4 ὃ 458 
 Prov. xviii. 18 ‘ Do ἈΣΙΝ 
 Psa. 1/5, . A : : ἮΝ 580 
 - x. 20 : : : -. 465 
 Sel. 8 : Ἢ j or 
 
 ib 1 ἷ , 3 ΟΣ 
 JER. v. 10 : : F νἀ 8 
 πον 14, . : Ε 622] 
 Ezek. xliii. 8. A 4 we OLS 
 Hac. ii. 7 ‘ : P  OXSIx 
 Matn.y.12 . : : Rl 
 VakG: .. : : at HoH) 
 
 Woo oie : 5 τὴν 51] 
 
 mag 9 : 473 
 
 x. ]4-28 . 519 
 
 PIN ae 147 
 
 MarTH. xiii. 52. 
 KV Ld. 
 
 xvii. 24-27 
 xxi. 16-22 
 
 SX, ΟἹ 
 xxii. 14 
 xxvi. 52 
 
 Xxvill. 19 
 
 Marx xii. 24 . 
 τ RVI (ours 
 LUKE x. 7 
 ΧΙ. 11] 
 
 xxi. 25, 26 
 
 xxiii. 40 
 xxiv. 20 
 JouN vii. 41 
 Sige LE 
 Xvii. 21 
 XVli. 36 
 χῖς. bl 
 Acts iv. 18, 19 
 iv. 19, 29 
 we 10 
 v. 29 
 v. 37 
 viii. 31 
 xii. 4 
 Xv1. 35 
 Xvili. 2 
 xviii. 14 
 xix, 25-27 
 xix. 35 
 xx. 28 
 > 6.4 9] 
 xxil. 25 
 
 PAGE 
 
 122 
 
 τ 208 
 181-184 
 181-183 
 95, 378 
 248 
 
 520 
 
 519 
 
 122 
 
 519 
 
 473 
 
 57 
 
 ΧΧΙΧ 
 247 
 
 247 
 
 121 
 
 245 
 
 465 
 
 259 
 
 122 
 
 85 
 
 358 
 
 Me ae 
 eg 85 
 118, 214 
 121 
 
 246 
 
 87 
 
 234 
 
 77 
 
 77, 140, 141 
 121 
 
 246 
 
 77 
 
 87, 256 
 
534 INDEX. 
 
 PAGE PAGE 
 ACTSixxDutS) ). 5 : : 87 Ga. v.22, 23 . : - . 258 
 
 ΕΣ δι, : : 2 187 ne eh ἢ : : : 462, 481 
 xxi. 12-23 . : : 77 Epa. ii. 20 : : : εὖ 458 
 
 Χχν. passim : i : 77 aoe ΤΠ LO) : ᾿ : ‘ 57 
 τς EKKO. : : ; 442 se vy : ᾿ A 2 57 
 Rom. ii. 1 Ξ . : ἢ 122 vi. 14 : ‘ A . 4519 
 
 li. 8 : , : ᾿ 78 PHT. eB 5 3 Σ . οὐδὲ 
 
 iii. 3 5 : ΠΡ] Cor. 1 16 : : : : δὴ 
 
 i. 5 5 2 a : 78 peep αἴ 18 ᾿ : ᾿ Ε 57 
 8 ; 3 5 : 69 sm lle 90; 25 j ‘ 7 81} 
 
 ili. 22-24 : ‘ τ 129 Pars. 4% : : 262 
 15 
 
 iy. 78 20HEs. τ. 4: P τ A DOT 
 v.5 : ; 483 1 Tim. ii. 1 ‘ ἃ ἕ ; 188 
 v.9 ; ‘ i ‘ 78 Ἀπ δ 55 5 : Ρ 52 
 ix..5 245 2Tim.ii.24 . ‘ ν᾽ οὖν 620 
 
 ἘΠ te ee ame a Oo ἢν πῆ ds, di, 16)... -, 046) 
 
 SAT ὦ" : 8 se 6248 ΤΠ τ. 1.1 2 = : 57, 188 
 
 aati 1.-:7.- : ὃ 41-189 2:5 Wily ὃ : 5 ᾿ 3 72 
 
 xiv. 20-23 . : 5 374 bog) tb U0) > : Ε 4 520 
 
 παν. ol, be 5 : : 197 Hes. iii. 6 . : - ‘ 509 
 
 xy. 4 δ δ ; Η 90 evs 14 5 ° - . ΗΝ 
 τ» 20; 29: Ξ ᾿ 387 ἘΣ 15 3 - Β 5 122 
 ΠΕ: ἃ. 27 é - : : 259 te) Kio 28 5 = ᾿ δ09 
 
 vii. 21.1.29. : 52 coo, Obi ANG : : ; 73 
 Vas 11. 19. ae : 88. JaMES iii. 1. : - - 248 
 
 τα eB : : 473, 481 ISPEr τῖς 5,9). ἃ : . 461 
 
 Koes < 4 ; See vill ee eit dS 1Ὁ : ᾿ 62, 75 
 
 ΧΙ OH ee : : : 69 son wy Wels : ; ~ 8:10 
 
 xi. 29, 34 : ‘ Ὁ 247 Ἀν Te 185-10 A F 08 1388 
 
 ΧῊ 25% 2 : ὃ 57 So. martha! KT ἢ ; ᾿ : 50 
 
 xiv. 26,40 . ; ree we il Soe : : 3 57 
 
 757 BBY 6 : : ΠῚ he νὴ ἢ .. x 2 τ RAG 
 
 Bee) exw. 14," ᾿ 3 ee AT we OVO j δ ᾿ 7 SHORE 
 2(Corn.ve 11 .. ‘ : wy P b20 1 Jouniv. 10. F 5 »« 483 
 ΨῊΙ 9... : : ΠΡ 4.35 Rey. viii. 10, 11 3 ὦ : 43 
 
 Kr ΞΘ... 3 » 12595520 ES ably Nf 5 , SCR 7 
 
 GaL. v. 2 ἢ ᾿ ; 2) 256 Lore eg ptlly PAU c : : . DAT 
 
 v.10 4 : " : 69 
 
9 
 
 INDEX II. 
 
 AUTHORS QUOTED OR REFERRED TO. 
 
 ACASTER, 370 
 
 Acts of the General Assembly, 423 
 Adam, Dr Alexander, 124 
 
 Aikin, Dr John, xv, 247 
 Alexander, 408 
 
 Ambrose, 356 
 
 Ammianus Marcellinus, 239 
 Arnobius, 213 
 
 Articles, 39, of the Church of England, 456 
 Athanasius, 355 
 
 Atterbury, 247 
 
 Aurelian Victor, 78 
 
 Bane, 271 
 
 Bacon, 531 
 
 Ballantyne, 116, 388 
 
 Bannatyne, Richard, 100 
 
 Barclay, 47 
 
 Baxter, Richard, 96, 111, 172, 233, 276, 
 358 
 
 Becearia, 289 
 
 Bennett, 286 
 
 Ben Sirach, xxii 
 
 Berkeley, 293 
 
 Betty, 227 
 
 Beza, 84, 183, 350 
 
 Binney, 389 
 
 Blackburne, Archdeacon, 507 
 
 Bogie, 399 
 
 Bogue, 286 
 
 Bohemian Confession, 101 
 
 Boston, 172 
 
 Bradbury, 259 
 
 Bright, 338 
 
 Brodie, Geo. 179 
 
 Brougham, Lord, 398 
 
 Brown, J. of Haddington, 159, 350 
 
 Browne, Simon, 293 
 
 Brown, Dr Thomas, 241 
 Brown, William, 349 
 Bruce, Professor, 284, 521 
 Bucer, 248 
 
 Buchanan, 51, 232 
 Bunyan, 293 
 
 Burke, 111, 318, 530, 531 
 Burmann, 342 
 
 Burnet, 95, 205 
 
 Butler, 249 
 
 CauMeEt, 350 
 
 Calvin, xxvi 
 
 Camerarius, xx 
 
 Campbell, Dr George, 310, 519, 531 
 Campbell, John, 257 
 
 Carson, xx, 58, 68 
 
 Casaubon, xiii, xxvi, 84, 183, 349 
 Cave, 203, 209, 251, 340 
 Chalmers, 389, 475, 523 
 Chillingworth, 108 
 
 Christian Instructor, 413 
 Christian Observer, 333 
 Chrysostom, 60, 234 
 
 Cicero, 112, 294, 390 
 
 Codex Theodosiana, 346 
 
 Collins, 495 
 
 Conder, 388 
 
 Cowper, 465, 481, 516 
 
 Crellius, 84 
 
 Dick, 268, 389 
 
 Dionysius Halicarnassius, 239 
 
 Doddridge, 67 
 
 Douglas, 326, 506 
 
 Dwight, 83, 86, 159 
 
 Dymond, 153, 319, 380, 388, 396, 501, 
 505, 515 
 
536 
 
 Ecrecric Review, 413 
 
 Edinburgh Advertiser, 198, 200, 209, 
 214, 216 
 
 Edinburgh Review, xxxiii, 177 
 
 Ellis, 349 
 
 Epiphanius, 349 
 
 Episcopius, 357 
 
 Erasmus, 434 
 
 Erskine of Dun, 99 
 
 Eusebius, 239, 344 
 
 Evelyn, 205 
 
 Ewing, 136, 176 
 
 Frumer, 47 
 Fleetwood, 232 
 Fleury, 356 
 Fuller, 390 
 Fulwood, 172 
 
 GENEVAN Translation, 246 
 
 Gib, 57, 102, 110, 272, 373 
 Gibbon, 139, 140, 250, 348, 355 
 Gillespie, 270 
 
 Gisborne, 129, 130, 155, 237, 243, 311 
 Gothofredus, 346 “ 
 
 Graham, 323, 588 
 
 Gregory Nanzianzen, 355 
 Griffith, 238, 457 
 
 Grotius, 183 
 
 Gurney, 375 
 
 Haixes, Lord, x, 144 
 
 Hales of Eton, 83 
 
 Haldane, James, 412 
 
 Haldane, Robert, 198, 410 
 
 Hall, Robert, 51, 151, 173, 174, 227, 
 228, 244, 445, 460 
 
 Hammond, 183 
 
 Hardy, 511 
 
 Harwood, 246, 349 
 
 Heineccius, 344 
 
 Heugh, 326, 389 
 
 Heyne, 244 
 
 Hilary, 355 
 
 [lind let Loose, 207, 339, 358, 423 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Hoadly, 46, 188, 218, 232, 253 
 Hobbes, 47, 160, 204, 294 
 Holt, Lord, 249 
 
 Hooker, 389 
 
 Hottoman, 84 
 
 Hutcheson, Professor, 302 
 Hutchison of Paisley, 271, 388 
 
 Tnauis, 172, 389 
 Irving, Dr David, 250 
 Tviney, 293 
 
 Jamison, 470 
 
 James, 389 
 
 James VI. 69, 245 
 Jerome, 234, 424 
 Jortin, 250, 355 
 Josephus, 119, 140, 239 
 Justin Martyr, 145, 210 
 Jus Populi, 321 
 Juvyenal, 239 
 
 Kaye, Bishop, 347 
 King, Lord, 108 
 Knox, 158 
 
 Koppe, 248 
 
 Kuinoel, 183, 184, 239 
 
 Lacrantius, x, 142, 435 
 
 Languet, 84 
 
 Lardner, 139, 140, 349 
 
 Le Clere, 183 
 
 Libanius, 355 
 
 Lipsius, 183 
 
 Livy, 123 
 
 Locke, 46, 101, 108, 232, 282, 290, 
 293, 388 
 
 Logan, George, 240 
 
 Lowrie, 389 
 
 M:Criz,308, 389 
 
 M‘Culloch, 450 
 
 Mackintosh, 205, 249, 277, 312, 531 
 Macknight, 246 
 
 M‘Laren, 367, 368, 401 
 
INDEX. 53 
 
 M‘Millan, 233 
 
 M‘Ward, 158 
 
 Mace, 246 
 
 Marshall, 169, 287, 386, 388 
 Marvell, 205 
 
 Massie, 389 
 
 Mathias, xii 
 
 Mattheei, 349 
 
 Mede, xviii 
 
 Melbourne, Lord, 400 
 Menander, 214 
 
 Middleton, 128 
 
 Milton, xiv, 46, 157, 232, 257,388,455 
 Mole, 388, 459 
 
 More, Dr Henry, 115 
 
 More, Sir Thomas, 434 
 Mornay, 84 
 
 Mosheim, 140, 349 
 
 Moyle, 142, 343 
 
 Murray, 369 
 
 ΝΆΡΗΤΑΙΙ, 306 
 Neander, 142 
 Nedham, 279 
 Nicephorus, 355 
 Noldius, 349 
 Norris, 293 
 Nugent, Lord, 177 
 
 O’ConneELL, 403 
 
 Origen, 141 
 
 Ovid, 143, 213, 343 
 
 Owen Dayid, 246 
 
 Owen, John, ii. 81, 265, 292, 336, 445, 
 488, 490, 493, 498 
 
 Patey, 50, 51, 93, 106, 110, 300, 389 
 Pareus, David, 246 
 
 Pareus, Philip, 246 
 
 Parker, 47, 205, 389 
 
 Parr, ix, 391 
 
 Petit, 344, 349 
 
 Pliny, 140, 239 
 
 Plumer Ward, 179, 394 
 
 Polyearp, 251 
 
 Ni 
 
 Pope, 242 
 
 Porson, Xxiy 
 
 Price, Dr Richard, 102 
 Price, Dr Thomas, 289 
 Prideaux, 349 
 Prudentius, 356 
 Purver, 246 
 
 Pusey, xxviii 
 
 Pye Smith, 388 
 
 QuaRTERLY MaGazing, 510 
 Quarterly Review, 108, 156, 229 
 
 RankEN, 389 
 Raphelius, 245 
 
 Reeves, 341 
 
 Rhemish Translators, 61 
 Robinson, 150, 245 
 Rogers, 389 
 Rotherham, 389 
 Rousseau, ix 
 Ruddiman, 84 
 
 Ruinart, 355 
 
 Russell, Dr, 178 
 Russell, Lord John, 312 
 Rutherford, 65 
 
 Saurin, 349 
 Saville, Sir George, 463 
 Saxon Confession, 79 
 Scales, 389 
 Sealiger, 348, 349° 
 Sehmidt, 244 
 Scheetgen, 239 
 Schultetus, 349 
 Scott, 150 
 Scots Confession, 99 
 Scotsman, 193, 221, 222, 224 
 Selden, 306 
 Serarius, 348, 349 
 Sherlock, Dean, 294 
 Sherlock, Bishop, 75, 234, 240, 247 
 Shields, 424 
 Sidney, Edwin, xxviii 
 Simon, 183 
 Μ΄ 1 
 
538 
 
 Smith, J. P. 389 
 Smith, Adam, 267 
 Socrates, 355 
 Sophocles, 245 
 
 South, 313 
 
 Sozomen, 147, 355 
 Stephanus Junius Brutus, 84, 109, 152 
 Stuart, Dr Charles, 509 
 Stuart, Moses, 240 
 Suetonius, 78, 140, 143 
 Suidas, 120 
 
 Sully, 318 
 
 Tacitus, 78, 153, 344 
 
 Tatian, 145, 210 
 
 Taylor, Isaac, 518 
 
 Taylor, Jeremy, 153, 158, 339 
 
 Taylor, John, xxi 
 
 Terrott, 112, 234 
 
 Tertullian, x, 127, 142, 143, 146, 203, 
 209, 340, 346 
 
 Tillemont, 356 
 
 Theodoret, 78, 147, 157, 355 
 
 Theological Repository, New, 102 
 
 Thomson, Dr Adam, 389 
 
 Thomson, Dr Andrew, 413, 522 
 
 Thorn, 389 
 
 Tindal, 246 
 
 Towgood, 251, 388 
 
 Turgot, 391 
 
 Tweddell, 109 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Unirep Secession Magazine, 415, 515, 
 532 
 32 
 
 Usher, Archbishop, 294 
 
 Vane, 46, 277 
 
 Valesius, 355 
 
 Varro, 213 
 
 Voet, 345 
 
 Voluntary Church Magazine, 138, 358, 
 407 
 
 Waker, 248, 260, 888 
 Warburton, ix, 75, 170, 264, 267, 389 
 Wardlaw, 67, 154, 389 
 Watson, Bishop, ii, xlviii 
 Watt, 103, 104 
 
 Watts, 101, 105, 163, 383 
 Whately, 268 
 
 Whiston, 266 
 
 Whitby, 248 
 
 Wiclif, 246 
 
 Wells, 250 
 
 Westminster Confession, 374 
 Wetstein, 184, 349 
 
 Wilde, 249 
 
 Wilks, 389 
 
 Witherspoon, 304 
 
 Wodrow, 422 
 
 Wolfius, xxvi 
 
 Youna, 389 
 
GREEK AND LATIN WORDS AND PHRASES REMARKED ON. 
 
 Ανθρωπινη coda, 241 
 ἈΑντιτασσομενος, 68 
 Amro Geov, 63, 240 
 Tap, 70, 121 
 
 Διαταγὴ; 68 
 
 Ata τουτο; 122 
 Avdpaxpa, 184 
 
 Ey ὑπεροχὴ οντων; 59 
 Ἑξουσια; 56, 57, 238 
 Emauwos, 75 
 
 Imperia, 239 
 
 Ka, 122 
 
 Κηνσος; 182 
 
 Κληροι, 225 
 
 Kpipa, 69, 247, 248 
 Κτισις ανθρωπινη; 62, 241 
 Μαχαιραν opet, 77 
 
 539 
 
 INDEX 
 
 ILE 
 
 Mn yevotro, 246 
 
 “Ou Ἄρχοντες; 7] 
 Opyn 78 
 
 Ovoa, 65, 66, 244 
 Πασα Wuxn, 60 
 Πασι, 128 
 Potestates, 239 
 Stipes, 343, 345 
 Τασσομενοι; 67 
 Tedos, 123 
 Tributum, 123, 344 
 Ὑπακοη πιστεως; 339 
 Υπερεχουσαι; 58, 239 
 Vectigalia, 123, 344 
 Vectigalia templorum, 342 
 Φορος; 123 
 
 FINIS,. 
 
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SUPPLEMENTARY NOTES 
 
 TO THE THIRD EDITION OF 
 
 THE LAW OF CHRIST RESPECTING 
 CIVIL OBEDIENCE, 
 
 &e. 
 
“ The public power of all societies is above every soul, contained in the 
 same societies: And the principal use of that power is to give laws unto all 
 that are under it ; which laws, in such case, we must obey, unless there be 
 reason showed, which may necessarily enforce that the law of reason or of 
 God doth enjoin the contrary.”"—Hooxrr. 
 
 “ No governors or legislators have any authority from God or man to 
 make such laws as are unjust, and oppressive, and destructive of public 
 good; nor the people consequently any obligation in point of conscience to 
 submit to them ; though, when they are not such to a great degree, public 
 good may induce them to such submission.”—HoanDty. 
 
 “ Disobedience unto laws, which are made by the magistrate, is not a 
 thing of so small account, as some would make it. However too rigorous 
 it were, that the breach of every human law should be held a deadly sin. 
 A mean there is between those extremities, if so be we can find it out.”— 
 Hooker. 
 
SUPPLEMENTARY NOTES 
 
 TO THE THIRD EDITION OF 
 
 THE LAW OF CHRIST 
 RESPECTING CIVIL OBEDIENCE, 
 ESPECIALLY 
 
 IN THE PAYMENT OF TRIBUTE. 
 
 BY JON BROWN, D_D., 
 
 MINISTER OF THE UNITED ASSOCIATE CONGREGATION, BROUGHTON PLACE, EDINBURGH; 
 AND PROFESSOR OF EXEGETICAL THEOLOGY TO THE UNITED SECESSION CHURCH. 
 
 “ Qui rempublicam cum ecclesia confundunt, de utroque statu tam civili quam 
 ecclesiastico, pessime merentur; suamque produnt non minus impietatem, quam 
 maximarum rerum ignorationem.”—ANnD. MeELyinus. Com. in Ep. ad. Rom. MS. 
 
 LONDON :—BALL, ARNOLD, & CO. 
 
 27, PATERNOSTER ROW. 
 
 MDCCCXXXIX. 
 
EDINBURGH : W. OLIPHANT, JUN. AND CO., PRINTERS, SOUTH BRIDGE STREET. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 In looking over the Third Edition of the Treatise “ On the 
 Law of Christ respecting Civil Obedience, especially in the 
 Payment of Tribute,” on its coming from the Press, to detect 
 such mistakes as might have escaped the eye both of the 
 Printer and the Author, various remarks occurred, and a num- 
 ber of passages, I had overlooked, or had met with in the 
 course of subsequent reading, suggested themselves to me, as 
 fitted to throw additional light, on the important topics treated 
 in the Work ; and thinking that, if another Edition should, at 
 any future time, be required, they might be useful, I jotted 
 them down, on the margin. By the time I had finished, I 
 found the number of the remarks considerable, and the ex- 
 cerpts, most of them from rather out of the way books, at once 
 so numerous and so important, that,—considering that the sale 
 of such a volume could not reasonably be expected to be rapid, 
 
 and that no probable method of interesting and enlightening 
 
1] PREFACE. 
 
 the public mind, on a question which must ere long be de- 
 cided, and on the right decision of which, interests so impor- 
 tant hang, should remain unemployed,—I formed the resolution 
 of immediately printing them as a Supplement. When Ba- 
 
 bylon is beleaguered, the command goes forth, ““ Spare No 
 
 ARROWS. * 
 
 Should any apology, additional to that which has already 
 been made in the words of the accomplished author of ‘“ The 
 Pursuits of Literature,” be counted necessary, for such nu- 
 merous notes and multifarious extracts, I shall leave Dr Parr 
 and Mr Coterince to offer my excuse. ‘ As to the Notes, 
 which in number and size have grown far beyond my original 
 expectation, I must content myself with stating that the ad- 
 ditional ones suggested themselves to my mind, when revising 
 the sheets printed off; that the matter contained in them and 
 the preceding ones relates to subjects which I think import- 
 ant; that, in all probability, I will have no future opportunity 
 for communicating my opinions on these subjects, and that I 
 see no reason for believing even the present communication of 
 them likely to be unacceptable to that class of readers to whose 
 decision upon questions of criticism, politics, and ethics, I am 
 disposed to pay the greatest respect.”{ In making these quo- 
 
 tations, ‘“‘ I please myself with the fancy now, that I have 
 
 * Jer. 1. 14. 
 + The Law of Christ, Pref. p. xiii. 
 
 + Character of Charles James Fox, vol.i. p. viii. Lond. 1809. 
 
PREFACE. ill 
 
 saved, from oblivion, the only striking passage, in a whole vo- 
 lume, and now, that I have attracted notice, to a writer unde- 
 servedly forgotten. If this should be attributed to a silly am- 
 bition, in the display of various reading, I can do no more, than 
 deny any consciousness of being so actuated: and for the rest 
 I must console myself, by the reflection that if it be one of the 
 most foolish, it is, at the same time, one of the most harmless, 
 of human vanities.” * 
 
 It is with great satisfaction, that I have noticed the decided 
 approbation, which has been expressed, of the sentiments up- 
 held, in the work, ‘‘ On the Law of Christ respecting Civil Obe- 
 dience,” in some of the most respectable religious, and literary 
 and political periodical journals; and that I have received, from 
 Dissenters, both ministers and laymen, of various denomina- 
 tions, Congregationalists, Baptists, and Friends, as well as Pres- 
 byterians, deservedly holding the highest place in the estimation 
 of their respective bodies, assurances of their agreement with 
 me, in opinion, and their conviction, that the plan recommended 
 by me is that, which, if generally adopted, gives the fairest pro- 
 mise of bringing to a speedy and peaceful issue the present 
 ecclesiastical dissensions in this country, which have not only 
 all but destroyed co-operation in the prosecution of common 
 religious and benevolent objects, by Christians of different reli- 
 gious denominations, but are threatening to dissolve the bonds 
 of ordinary intercourse in general society ; and of preventing, 
 
 * Coleridge’s Friend, Essay vi. Vol. i. p. 81. Lond. 1818. 
 
iv PREFACE. 
 
 what all good men must earnestly deprecate, but what all 
 thinking men must be aware to be by no means improbable, 
 an outburst of popular fury, provoked by the obstinate sup- 
 port of demonstrated oppressions and abuses,* in which, in- 
 stitutions of less questionable value than civil establishments 
 of religion may be put in hazard. 
 
 The elementary principles of our civil constitution are so 
 favourable to freedom, that no institution of an opposite cha- 
 racter can be incorporated or even connected with it, without 
 disturbing its working. It is a profound remark of Mr Burke, 
 ‘“‘ Our constitution is not made for great general prescriptive 
 exclusions. Sooner or later it will destroy them, or they will 
 destroy it.”-- It is comfortable to think that the latter alter- 
 native, notwithstanding the occasional reflux of the wave, dur- 
 ing the advance of the tide of improvement, is becoming every 
 day less probable. 
 
 It is a still more consolatory reflection, that the character 
 
 of the ruler of the world, ‘“* A God of truth, and without ini- 
 
 * The Corn Laws, which the men who derive advantage from them, refuse 
 to allow to be made the subject of parliamentary investigation, and the Civil 
 Establishment of the Episcopal Church in Ireland, are striking specimens of 
 demonstrated oppression and abuse obstinately persisted in. It is dangerous to 
 make the limits of endurance among a partially, and but partially, enlightened 
 populace, the subject of too nice calculation. A mistake there may involve 
 those who make it in rather serious consequences. Alas! it would not involve 
 them only. 
 
 + Letter to Sir Henry Langrish. 
 
PREFACE. W 
 
 quity,” and the principles of his moral government render it 
 absolutely certain that no system, however excellent upon the 
 whole, which embraces in it institutions founded on falsehood, 
 and supported by injustice, and refuses to let them go, can be 
 secure or permanent. “ The thrones of iniquity” can have 
 no fellowship with God. ‘ The work of riGHTEOUSNESS 
 shall be peace—and the effect of r1cHTEOUSNESS, quietness 
 
 and assurance for ever.” * 
 
 * Psalm xciv. 20 ; Isaiah xxxii. 27. 
 
 BELLEVUE TERRACE, 
 May 20, 1839. 
 
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CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 PREFACE, Ξ : i 
 I. Admitted danger of Church and State. GLADsToNE, 13 
 II. Synestus on clerical politicians, - 15 
 III. Dr Hey on the interpretation of Scripture, 15 
 IV. High Churchmen characterized. Samurn Jounson, 17 
 V. Bishop Horsey on the meaning of the word “‘ powers,” 17 
 VI. New interpretation of Rom. xiii. 1-7, by a high churchman, 18 
 VII. Parevus on the meaning of ὑπερεχουσας, 18 
 VIII. Carysostom’s illustration of maca Ψυχὴ, 18 
 IX. Civil government “ of God” as agriculture is “ of God,” 18 
 
 X. Pawery’s theory of the origin of the rights of magistrates 
 and duties of subjects, anticipated by Grove, 19 
 
 XI. Bishop Conypeare’s account of how civil government is 
 the ordinance of God, 19 
 
 XII. Mrzron and Anrrne on the force of αντιτασσομενος, as 
 opposed to τασσομενος, 20 
 
 XIII. Principles of Biblical interpretation. Jounson. Wuicn- 
 COTE, 20 
 XIV. Grand limit of civil obedience. Taytor. Basiz, 21 
 
 XY. Bishop Hurp on the non-resistance of the primitive Chris- 
 tians, 21 
 XVI. Bishop Burrer on the foundations and limits of civil power, 22 
 XVII. Additional notice of the ΒΟΗΈΜΙΑΝ Conression, 22 
 
 XVIII. Religion not subject to civil control. Trignanp. Mar- 
 VELL, 23 
 
 XIX. Constanrine’s and Tueoporic’s assertion of the rights 
 of conscience, 23 
 
 XX. Archbishop ARunDEtx and ἃ Wyctirrire on personal re- 
 sponsibility, 25 
 
vill 
 
 ΧΧΙ. 
 
 XXII. 
 
 XXIII. 
 
 XXIV. 
 XXV. 
 XXVI. 
 
 XXVII. 
 
 XXVIII. 
 
 XXIX. 
 XXX. 
 XXXI. 
 XXXII. 
 XXXII. 
 
 XXXIV. 
 XXXV. 
 
 XXXVI. 
 
 XXXVII. 
 
 XX XVIII. 
 
 XX XIX. 
 XL. 
 XLI. 
 XLII. 
 
 XLIII. 
 
 XLIV. 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 General dissatisfaction a proof of misgovernment.. Carrt- 
 WRIGHT, : 
 
 The right and duty of Christians to defend their civil rights. 
 Guas, 
 
 The peace of society endangered not by Dissenters but by 
 
 High Churchmen. CoLeBrooxe, 
 RapueEtivs on Φορος, 
 Autrnc on the reference of παάσι, 
 
 AvcusTINneE on the limits within which tribute and obedi- 
 ence are obligatory, 
 
 On the right and duty of atu magistrates to establish what 
 they think the true religion. Grapstone. Macautay, 
 
 Drs Inexis’ and CHAtmeErRs’ comparison of the established 
 
 clergy to ConsTABLES, anticipated, 
 Non-obedience and resistance different things. Brza, 
 WetstTein on Matthew xxii. 16-22, 
 
 Curysostom on Matthew xxii. 16-22, 
 
 De Marca on Matthew xvii. 24-27, 
 Temple tribute paid by Jews even in foreign countries. 
 Cicero. Tacrrus, : ὁ ὃ ‘ : 
 
 Jounson and Corn. A. Laprpe on Matthew xxii. 16-22, 
 
 On the honour due to the magistrate. 
 GLAS, - : . 
 
 Bishop Watson. 
 
 Connexion between civil establishments of religion and per- 
 
 secution. Emnyn. Parry, 
 
 Paraphrase of Rom. xiii. 1-7, on the principles of passive 
 obedience and non-tesistance. Hoapuy. 
 
 General precepts often to be understood with limitations. 
 
 Haupane. Horne. ΤΌΚΒΕΤΙΝΕ, 
 
 Thesis of Bishop Parxer’s Ecclesiastical Polity, 
 Cheerful obedience essential to Christian duty. QuEsNEt, 
 Guas on the reference of πρεσβεύομεν, 2 Cor. v. 20, 
 
 Scriptural use of the words Ctercy and Cnurcn. Letcan- 
 
 Ton. Penn. CuHanpuER. MArveELt, 
 High Church pretensions exposed. Tracts FOR THE 
 Times. Patmer. Gutover, 
 
 Additional reasons why Christians should attend to politics. 
 
 Davis. CarrwricuHrt, 
 
 PAGE 
 
 27 
 28 
 
 29 
 30 
 30 
 31 
 31 
 
 31 
 32 
 
 32 
 
 34 
 
XLV. 
 
 XLVI. 
 
 XLVII. 
 
 XLVIII. 
 
 XLIX. 
 
 L. 
 
 LI. 
 111. 
 Π11. 
 LIV. 
 
 LY. 
 
 LVI. 
 
 LVII. 
 
 LVIII. 
 LIX. 
 LX. 
 LXI. 
 LXII. 
 
 LXIII. 
 LXIV. 
 
 LXV. 
 
 LXVI. 
 
 LXVII. 
 LXVIII. 
 
 LXIX. 
 LXX. 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 ΙΧ 
 
 PAGE 
 Mr Houme’s opinion of the politics natural to the clergy and 
 to the Dissenters, é 2 - Ξ 45 
 Clerical sycophancy exemplified. Burner, 46 
 Mistaken interpretation of Rom. xiii. 1-7, by the friends of 
 civil freedom. Jac. ΡῈ Parapiso. WARBURTON. Ro- 
 BINSON, 46 
 Reason why the Apostles so often inculcated the duties of 
 civil obedience. Bisoop Watson, : 47 
 Bishop Usnrr’s and Sanprerson’s method of reconciling 
 Paul and Peter, 49 
 Authorities for dividing the Apostle’s reasons for civil obe- 
 dience. Limsporcu. THonuck, 49 
 Buacxsrove on the excellence of the Roman law, 50 
 VaLta on the incongruity of civil and ecclesiastical power, 50 
 Dr Owen on the legitimate sphere of civil punishments, 51 
 De Marca on the design of civil government, 52 
 Bishop Arrersury on the design of civil government, 53 
 Tue ΑΒΒΟΟΙΑΤῈ Synop’s disapprobation of the exercise of 
 civil power in religion, 53 
 Commands of the magistrate beyond the limits of his office 
 not obligatory. Mr Samurn Jounson, 54 
 Incongruity of civil-religious legislation. FosTEr, 55 
 Incongruity of civil-religious legislation. Moxnz, 60 
 Incongruity of civil-religious legislation. Professor Bruce, 61 
 Incongruity of civil-religious legislation. PriestiEy, 62 
 TinuEMontT on the problematical advantage of magistrates 
 intermeddling with religion, 63 
 Notice of ALuAN on the power of the civil magistrate, 63 
 Nature and extent of the obligation of civillaw. Manvett. 
 ConyBEARE. BLACKSTONE, 64 
 Right of resistance. Noopr. 67 
 The Church of Scotland stands more in need of purification 
 than of extension, 70 
 Apruorp on the revenues of the heathen temples, 70 
 Probable reference of ‘‘ Stripes,” in the quotation from TER- 
 TULLIAN, A : τ : 3 4 71 
 Srackuouse on the distinguishing tenets of the Herodians, 71 
 Odd mistake of Drusius respecting the Herodians, 72 
 
xii CONTENTS. 
 PAGE 
 LXXI. Grsporne on the disadvantages of tithes, : - 72 
 LXXII. Conduct of the Scottish clergy described by Locks, . 72 
 
 LXXIII. Seceders not unworthy of the name, though differing in some 
 points from the founders of the Secession. Dr Lawson, 73 
 
 LXXIV. Exposition and defence of the principles of the Friends re- 
 
 specting church taxes. Purpps, . : : 75 
 
 LXXV. Church property. Epinsurcu Revirw. WALKER, 75 
 LXXVI. Notice of sus POPULI VINDICATUM, . : : 78 
 LXXVII. Wycutrre and his followers voluntary churchmen, . 78 
 LXXVIII. Voluntaryism taught by Str Tuomas More, 5 84 
 LXXIX. Lord Cuaruam on the political influence of dissent, 85 
 
 LXXX. Civil establishments of religion disturb civil government. 
 Waker. Mitton, Ξ : : 5 85 
 
 LXXXI. An enemy of ecclesiastical establishments may be a friend 
 to the civil constitution. Atsop. Waker. Cone- 
 BROOKE. RoBrNson, ; - ἡ 3 86. 
 
 LXXXII. Tendency of civil establishments to corrupt Christianity. 
 Cotresrooxke. C. Dick, ‘ : é 88 
 
 LXXXIII. Occasional good may be done by a bad system. Hoppus, 89 
 
 LXXXIV. Tendency of civil establishments of religion to produce 
 infidelity. Waker, 2 ὃ : : 89 
 
 LXXXV. Tendency of civil establishments to disturb civil order. 
 Warpurton. Barnes, . J 2 4 91 
 
 LXXXVI. Civil establishments obstruct the progress of Christianity. 
 
 Dr Henry Mors, ᾿ 3 : 5 99 
 
 LXXXVII. Civil establishments not necessary for their alleged pur- 
 pose. WALKER, : ἢ : : 99 
 
 LXXXVIII. The origin of the dictum that Christianity is part and par- 
 cel of the law of England. Jerrrrsoy, . : 93 
 
 LXXXIX. The legitimate claims of the Christian church on the civil 
 power. CoLERIDGE, ; : : 5 95 
 
 XC. Luruer’s opinion of human defences of Christianity and 
 the church, : : ᾿ A Ἢ 96 
 XCI. Bishop Crorts on the needlessness of an establishment, 97 
 
 XCII. Establishments a bar in the way of the unity of the church. 
 Horrus, . : 5 Ἶ : : 98 
 
 XCIII. Dissolution of civil establishments necessary to prepare 
 for the millennial glory. Dr Morse. Bishop Watson, 99 
 
XCIV. 
 
 XCV. 
 
 XCVI. 
 
 XCVII. 
 
 XCVIII. 
 
 XCIX. 
 
 C. 
 
 CI. 
 CIl. 
 
 CII. 
 
 CIV. 
 GY: 
 
 CVI. 
 CVII. 
 
 CVIII. 
 CIX. 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 Absurdity of civil establishments of religion. Wuuicn- 
 cote. Parry. Dr Samuet Crarke, 
 Injustice of civil establishment of religion. Bishop War- 
 BURTON. FE. GLADSTONE, 
 Toleration indefensible on political grounds. CreRMontT 
 
 ToNNERRE, 
 
 A civilly enforced maintenance of the Christian ministry 
 a virtual repeal of one of Christ’s laws. WarBurTon. 
 Mitton, 
 
 Voluntary support not only the law but the practice of the 
 primitive church. Dr Marca. Conver, 
 
 The importance of Christian churches being formed of pro- 
 
 Dr More, 
 
 Comparative efficiency of the voluntary and compulsory 
 system brought to the test of experiment, 
 
 per materials. 
 
 Simon Browne on the exercise of civil power in religion, 
 
 Advantages of the voluntary system compared with the 
 compulsory. GIsBoRNE, 
 
 Advantages of the voluntary system compared with the 
 compulsory. FrRrEmAn, &c., 
 
 Additional statement of voluntaryism, by Dr CampzeEtt, 
 Inconsistency of Dr CampsBetx’s continuance in an esta- 
 blishment, 
 
 Mr Grapvsrone’s opinion of Dr Cuatmers’ lectures, 
 
 Mistaken interpretation of Rom. xiii. 1-7, by the friends of 
 
 civil freedom. AnDREw MELVILLE, 
 Church property. Joun Wyctirre, 
 
 Dr Dicx on the duties of subjects, 
 
 Minor Corrections anp ADDITIONS, 
 
 INDEX OF AUTHORS QUOTED OR REFERRED TO, 
 
 InpEX oF GreeK AND Latin Worps, 
 
 102 
 
 103 
 
 104 
 
 104 
 106 
 
 107 
 
 108 
 109 
 
 109 
 110 
 
 110 
 112 
 113 
 
 116 
 121 
 129 
 
“ We mean not to take away the authoritie of the civile magistrate 
 to whom we wish all blessednesse, and for the increase of whose godlinesse 
 we daily praye; but that Christ, being restored into his kingdome, may rule _ 
 in the same by the scepter of his word.”—THomas CaRtwRiGHT. 
 
 “ There have never been wanting suchas would set the magistrate on the 
 pinnacle of the temple, and showing him all the power, wealth, and glory of 
 the kingdoms of the earth, have proffered the Prince all, so he would be 
 tempted to fall down and worship THEM.” *—MarveEL. 
 
 * John viii. 34, 
 
SUPPLEMENTARY NOTES. 
 
 I. . 
 ADMITTED DANGERS OF CHURCH AND STATE. 
 
 Foot Note, p. eevii.—Tuesr dangers are very distinctly admitted by 
 Mr Gladstone, in his elaborate defence of the English ecclesiastical esta- 
 blishment.— The loss of the temporal endowments of the church, and 
 of the national homage yet awarded to her,” is stated to be “at least 
 within the bounds of obvious possibility.” ‘ Probably,” says he, “ there 
 never was a time in the history of our country, when the connexion 
 between the Church and the State was threatened from quarters so 
 manifold and various as at present.” He styles this “ the most criti- 
 cal period of its history,” and intimates, that ‘“‘ some attached mem- 
 bers of the church are growing cool in their approbation of the con- 
 nexion,’ * and that “ the State has given signs of an inclination to- 
 wards its dissolution ;” and complains that “ the symptoms are omi- 
 nous as well as cheering ;—a lukewarmness or a timidity on the 
 
 ? 
 
 part of some high in office, deeply pledged to our institutions, or 
 even an adoption of notions involving the seminal principle of their 
 entire overthrow and abandonment, and preparing us to fear, that 
 should the church become, in a secular view, less popular and strong, 
 and should men be called to suffer for her sake, we may expect to see 
 these notions carried out, by those who dally with them, or by their 
 successors, to their results.” ‘ Can we,” says he, “ see the gorgeous 
 
 * Dr Burton, the Regius Professor of Divinity at Oxford, acknowledges 
 that he had met with high churchmen who “ denounced the present con- 
 nexion between Church and State as an unholy union, and who felt it a so- 
 lemn duty to pray for the separation.” Froude, one of the wildest of the 
 Via Media men, speaks of the Establishment as an incubus on the country, 
 compares its effects to the blighting influence of the Upas tree, and likens 
 the union of the Church to the State, to “ the union of Israel to Egypt.”— 
 Remains of the late Rev. Richard H. Froude, vol. i. p. 405. Lond. 1838. 
 
 A 
 
14 ADMITTED DANGERS OF CHURCH AND STATE. 
 
 buildings of such an earthly Jerusalem, and the doom impending, with- 
 out tears.”"—The State in its Relations with the Church, pp. 1, 2, 3, 
 313, 322. 
 
 There seems an unintentional fitness in these words. The earthly 
 Jerusalem is “in bondage with her children.” Enlightened Chris- 
 tians know that they are come to Mount Zion—“ the heavenly Je- 
 rusalem.” The kingdom they have received is one “ that cannot be 
 moved ;” Heb. xii. 22. Her citizens never need to shed tears over 
 her impending doom. But there is an earthly Jerusalem, which, in 
 the Apocalyptic tongue, is called Babylon, of which it is said, that 
 “ they who have lived deliciously with her, will, standing far off for 
 fear of her torment, say, Alas! Alas! that great city Babylon,—that 
 mighty city, for in one hour is thy judgment come ;” Rev. xviii. 9, 
 10. It might be well if Mr Gladstone were to inquire how far his 
 earthly Jerusalem, with its “ gorgeous buildings,” is identical with the 
 doomed city of the Apocalypse. We are afraid it forms a part of its 
 suburbs. In that case, a speedy retreat is the most politic, as well as 
 the most dutiful course. Our advice is that of the angel to Lot,— 
 « Escape for thy life, look not behind thee ; neither stay thou in all 
 the plain; escape to the mountain, lest thou be consumed ;” Gen. 
 xix. 27. 
 
 Mr Gladstone is not alone in these alarms. The following remarks 
 in a periodical, which is one of the organs of orthodox churchmen, 
 are striking and ominous. “ Every engine of assault is already called 
 into requisition against us ; spiritual wickedness in high places is pre- 
 dominant ; the battle rages fiercely under the walls of our last strong- 
 hold; the buttresses have been removed ; many a Demas has forsaken 
 us; but still all have not bowed the knee to Baal—a little flock re- 
 mains. —The Christian Remembrancer, Jan. 1839. 
 
 These doleful anticipations seem. the counterpart of the Midianite’s 
 dream, Judges vii. 13, 14. Mr Gladstone meant to tell his dream 
 only “to his fellows,” for he says, p. 23, that “ hardly is his argument 
 addressed to persons in a systematic separation from our national 
 church,’—but, like Gideon, the Voluntaries will overhear it, and as in 
 the case referred to, the prediction is likely to lead to its own accom- 
 plishment. The crash of the pitchers, the display of the torches, and 
 the loud and shrill blast of the ear-piercing trumpets, will follow of 
 course,—and the panic-struck host will “ run, and cry, and flee.” It 
 will not be the Voluntaries’ fault, if the victory is not a bloodless one. 
 It will be the triumph of truth—and truth, instead of enslaving those 
 whom it overcomes, makes them “ free indeed.” 
 
DR HEY ON THE INTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTURE. 15 
 
 Il. 
 
 SYNESIUS ON CLERICAL POLITICIANS. 
 
 Addition to Foot-Note +, p. 48.—There is much truth in the 
 words of an ancient bishop, ““ TWoAcrixny ἀρετὴν ἱερωσυνὴ συνάπτειν, 
 To κλωθειν ἐστι τα ασυγκλωστα" (Synesii Opera, Ep. 67), which Jortin 
 renders freely, ‘“ What has an ecclesiastic to do with politics?” 
 
 lil. 
 
 DR HEY ON THE INTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTURE. 
 
 Foot Note to page 45, l. 3 from the foot.—A number of valuable ob- 
 servations on this very important subject, will be found in Dr Hey’s 
 Lectures on Divinity, Book I. Chap. X. vol. i. p. 64. Camb. 1796. 
 The title of the chapter is, "" Of interpreting expressions of Scripture 
 by entering into the circumstances of those to whom they were im- 
 mediately addressed.” The whole chapter deserves to be studied. 
 We can afford room only for one or two of the introductory para- 
 graphs. 
 
 “ Let us now suppose all the words of Scripture fixed and agreed 
 upon; still something more than lexicons and grammars is neces- 
 sary to our attaining the true and full sense of them. And that 
 is putting ourselves in the place of those who spoke or heard; or 
 what amounts to the same, interpreting words of Scripture as we 
 would like words in common life. Some parts of Scripture are 
 indeed lofty and sublime, and remote from common life; but I 
 do not imagine that these have occasioned either so much contro- 
 versy or so much anxiety of mind as the more familiar parts, plain 
 narrations, dialogues, /etters ; all expressions in which, we must en- 
 deavour to understand, as we should understand similar expressions 
 in similar compositions. 
 
 “1 doubt not but this may seem an easy matter to some, on the first 
 mention; but it is attended with considerable difficulties: at this 
 day it requires great knowledge and great steadiness of attention. 
 Some persons would be apt to say, if I may. but interpret Scrip- 
 ture as I do ordinary expressions, that is all I wish for; for it is 
 no pain or trouble for me to understand what common people say 
 to me; I do it without trying to do it: This is true; popular lan- 
 guage seems to express what it means, to those who are rightly cir- 
 cumstanced : but why does this happen? because each man in such 
 case knows familiarly and habitually not only what the words express, 
 
10 DR HEY ON THE INTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTURE. 
 
 but what they imply ; but habit makes all this easy to those who are 
 exactly in the right circumstances. Take a man who is ever so little 
 out of the right circumstances, let him come from a different coun- 
 ty, let him be of a different occupation, and he immediately wants 
 some explanatory information ; sometimes he will see too little in 
 the words used to him ; and sometimes too much. Not that he, who 
 is in the right circumstances, understands rightly without numberless 
 acts of the mind; only he is not conscious of them; any more than 
 he is of the action of the muscles of his eyes, when he looks at ob- 
 jects at different distances. Hence if one far removed from the right 
 circumstances wants to form a judgment how he should understand 
 expressions, if he could put himself in those right circumstances, he 
 must have to estimate, First, what knowledge the person rightly 
 situated has, which he has not ; secondly, what are those acts of mind, 
 which such persons perform habitually when he takes the words he 
 hears rightly ; so that they really are intended to imply neither more 
 nor less than he conceives them to imply. 
 
 “ This is what we should do, if possible, with the words of Scrip- 
 ture ; as we are far removed from the circumstances of those for whom 
 they were calculated, we should see what knowledge the persons 
 rightly circumstanced for understanding them, had, which we have 
 not; and we should analyze those acts of the mind by which they 
 were able habitually, without being conscious of it, to give them pre- 
 cisely that degree of meaning which they were intended to convey. 
 Ido not conceive, that we can do this perfectly, but we may approach 
 towards it; it is the end at which we ought to aim. 
 
 ‘“* The way to approach as near as possible seems to be this: to ob- 
 serve first how, in our own common life, words imply more or less 
 than they express; and then apply our observations to Scripture ; 
 using them first to illustrate some plainer cases, in order to get them 
 at length applied to all cases whatever. « o* « Many of us 
 may have tried to read of the things of common life in dead languages ; 
 and when we have attempted to put ourselves in the place of those, 
 for whom they were immediately intended, in what researches have 
 we engaged ? Grevius in twelve folio volumes, and Gronovius in thir- 
 teen, have told us many things, Roman and Grecian ; and given us 
 many descriptions, and many opinions, on this side and that ; but still 
 we fall far short of the knowledge which a plain citizen of Rome and 
 Athens would have, without ever suspecting that he had any know- 
 ledge at all; we fall far short of understanding those allusions, which 
 such a one would make in every thing he said; without any consci- 
 
ON THE MEANING OF THE WORD “ POWERS.” 17 
 
 ousness that he was alluding to any thing; and would understand 
 without being aware, that the words meant more than they ex- 
 pressed.” 
 
 Dr Hey illustrates these remarks very happily—by giving a speci- 
 men of a letter containing an account of the county assizes at an English 
 town—and on the supposition that it should be explained to the 
 Chinese, or to any people 1800 years hence, our language being sup- 
 posed to be a dead language, very justly adds, “ Fifty-four disserta- 
 tions might be made on this letter, such as those of Grevius or Gro- 
 novius.” 
 
 On the important subject of Scriptural interpretation, the reader 
 will do well to consult Ernesti’s learned and judicious dissertations, 
 « De difficultatibus Novi Testamenti recte interpretandi.”—‘“* Pro 
 Grammatica Interpretatione librorum, imprimis Sacrorum.”—* De Va- 
 nitate Philosophantium, in Interpretatione Librorum S8.S.”’—De Diffi- 
 cultate Interpretationis Grammatice Novi Testamenti.”—Opuscula 
 Philologica Critica, pp. 198-287, 8vo. Lugd. 1776. A translation of 
 these excellent dissertations is to be found, in that valuable collection 
 of tracts on Biblical Literature, Professor Hodge’s Biblical Repertory, 
 vol. iii. pp. 93-271. New York, 1827. 
 
 IV. 
 
 HIGH CHURCHMEN CHARACTERIZED. 
 SAMUEL JOHNSON 
 
 Foot Note, p. 47, 1.10 from the foot —“ They had gotten the true art 
 of spelling all the oppressions and devildoms in the world, out of the 
 pregnant word king: though it is impossible to fetch more ont of that 
 word, than just what the people of England have put into it.”—John- 
 son's Works, Ὁ. 294. Fol. Lond. 1713. 
 
 ve 
 
 BISHOP HORSLEY ON THE MEANING OF THE WORD “ POWERS.” 
 
 Addition to Foot-Note t, p. 57.—Bishop Horsley, in his Sermon 
 before the Lords, on the Anniversary of Charles the First’s Mar- 
 tyrdom, remarks on this passage, “ that the word ‘ powers’ here 
 signifies persons bearing power: any other meaning of it, what- 
 ever may be pretended, is excluded by the context.”—And, in a note, 
 he very justly observes, that “ none of these things” in the context— 
 such as being a minister of God for good, and to execute wrath, 
 bearing the sword, &c., “‘ can be said of forms of government, with- 
 
18 IN WHAT SENSE CIVIL GOVERNMENT Is “ΟΕ GOD.” 
 
 out a harshness of metaphor unexampled in the didactic parts of 
 Holy Writ; but all these things may be said, with great propriety, 
 of the persons governing.” —Horsley’s Sermons, p. 527. Lond. 18386. . 
 
 Vile 
 
 NEW INTERPRETATION OF ROM. XIII. 1-7, BY A HIGH 
 CHURCHMAN. 
 
 Foot-Note, p. 58, 1. 12.—A new interpretation has lately been 
 given of these terms—“ the nicuER powers.” They have been repre- 
 sented as descriptive of the “ ecclesiastical rulers!”—‘“ The text,” 
 says the author, “ throws its awful light over the state and prospects 
 of the resisters, whatever their denomination may be, of God's ar- 
 rangements and God's authorities. Do the mysteriously expressed 
 punishments appear disproportionate? Disproportionate they would 
 be, to any offence whatever against civil authorities. But civil autho- 
 rities are not the subject. The offences are spiritual, and the punish- 
 ments ETERNAL. The offence is resistance to the love, the wisdom, and 
 the power of God, and the punishment is the wrath of αον."-- 
 Sword Unsheathed, quoted by Prof. Hoppus, in his truly valuable 
 Prize Essay “on Schism.” 
 
 WE: 
 
 PAREUS ON THE MEANING OF υπερεχουσας- 
 Addition to Foot-Note *, p. 60.—Pareus (in loco) says tersely, 
 ‘¢ Magistratus, non mutua relatione, sed subditorum ratione, vocat 
 
 ” 
 ὑπερεχουσας εξουσιας. 
 
 VIll. 
 
 CHRYSOSTOM’S ILLUSTRATION OF zraca Ψυχη- 
 
 To be prefixed to Foot-Note {, p. 60.— Kay Αποστολος ns, Kav 
 
 ς G ᾽ 
 Ἐυαγγελιστης; kav Προφητης; kav ὅστι ουν---πασα Ψυχὴ ὑποτασσεσθω.᾽ 
 ΙΧ. 
 
 CIVIL GOVERNMENT “OF GOD,” AS AGRICULTURE IS “ OF GOD.” 
 
 Foot Note to p. 62, 1. 20.—The prophet Isaiah uses, in reference to 
 agriculture, language of equivalent meaning with that here em- 
 ployed by the Apostle respecting civil government. After describing 
 the operations of husbandry, he says, “ Tuts also cometh forth from 
 the Lord of Hosts, who is wonderful in counsel, and excellent in 
 working.’ —Jsa. xxviii. 29. Both agriculture and civil government 
 
CIVIL GOVERNMENT HOW THE ORDINANCE OF GOD. 19 
 
 are the native results of the constitution and circumstances of man, 
 “which come forth from the Lord,” and both conducing to man’s hap- 
 piness are in accordance with God’s will.—Ben Sirach expressly styles 
 agriculture, γεωργίαν io ὕψιστου extioapyevny.—Leclus. vii. 16. 
 
 X. 
 
 PALEY'S THEORY OF THE ORIGIN OF THE RIGHTS OF MAGISTRATES 
 AND DUTIES OF SUBJECTS, ANTICIPATED BY GROVE. 
 
 foot-Note to p. 63, ἰ. 5.—It deserves notice, that the theory of the 
 origin and foundation, of civil power, and of the obligation of civil 
 obedience, which Paley has so clearly expounded and ably supported, 
 is broached and defended in an ingenious letter to the editor of the 
 St James's Journal, by Grove of Taunton, in 1722. “ All power,” 
 says he, “ is directly from God, not by positive appointment, but as 
 he is pleased to signify his sovereign will by the nature of things, 
 leaving it to the choice and discretion of people, in what form, by 
 what persons, and on what conditions, this power shall be exercised. 
 «x «This notion differs from the popular one (Locke’s and Hoad- 
 ly’s), in asserting God to be the immediate donor or fountain of 
 civil power; and both from that, and the patriarchal (Sir Robert 
 Filmer’s) in this, that when searching after the will of God, it does 
 not run back to the original, or any former state of things, but only 
 considers in what way the general good is best promoted, and by this 
 one consideration cuts off all other inquiries.”—Grove's Discourses, 
 Tracts, and Poems, Vol. iv. pp. 848, 853. Lond. 1747. This is exact= 
 ly what Paley terms “ THE wit or Gop AS COLLECTED FROM EXPEDI- 
 ENncy. — Works, Vol. i. p. 318. 
 
 ΧΙ. 
 
 BISHOP CONYBEARE’S ACCOUNT OF HOW CIVIL GOVERNMENT Is 
 THE ORDINANCE OF GOD. 
 
 Addition to Foot-Note *, p. 65.—The following is Bishop Cony- 
 beare’s account of how civil government is the ordinance of God :— 
 «ς The social principle was implanted in us by God himself. That 
 constitution of things, which made these civil combinations neces- 
 sary, was by him appointed, and is by him perpetually directed. 
 The happiness attainable under the influence of civil administration, 
 is itself intended us by God, who, approving the end, must likewise 
 approve the means.’—-Scrmon before the House of Lords, p. 15. Lond. 
 1751. 
 
20 PRINCIPLES OF BIBLICAL INTERPRETATION. 
 
 XII. 
 
 MILTON AND ALTING ON THE FORCE OF αντιτασσόομενος AS OPPOSER 
 
 TO τασσομενος.- 
 
 Addition to Foot-Note *, p. 68.—To mark the contrast referred to, 
 Milton says, ‘“‘ Hee enim duo simul contraria ponit, taxin et ataxian.” 
 Pro populo Anglicano defensio, p. 85. 18mo. Lond. 1651. Alting, 
 whose scholarship is not likely to be called in question, has the fol- 
 lowing note :-—“ ‘O αντιτασσομενος; qui se opponit. Sed non satis sic 
 expressa emphasis ; ea dicit ordini refragantem, 1111 contrarium, ut 
 evertatur. Quod ipsum confirmat quod diximus de legitima potes- 
 tate loqui, de illa quam descripserat ὑπο Geov τεταγμενὴν; que ordi- 
 nem habet a Deo et imprimis sub Deo, hoc minorem et ea propter 
 subditam et obsequentem Deo. Huic potestati qui non solum non 
 paret, sed etiam ordinem alium molitur, atque eopse, eum qui 
 constitutus est labefactat, evertit. Est vero alia etiam emphasis in 
 illa voce. Quevis inobedientia contra magistratum legitimum est 
 aragia, contra raf institutam, uti ἀνομία quicquid fit contra le- 
 gem: et Apostolus ubique ταξιν vult observari, 1 Cor. xiv. 40; verum 
 non qui ἀταξίαν committit, imo ne quidem qui sepius in ταξιν pec- 
 cat, quem ἀτάκτως; vivere dicit apostolus, 2 Thes. iii. 11 ; est ὁ αντι- 
 τασσομενος; sed qui destinato consilio adversatur illi ra&ec qua subor- 
 dinatio superiorum et inferiorum constat, et agit ea quibus nova 
 raéis instituatur, prior autem queat aboleri, everti, mutari.’—Alting 
 in Ep. ad Rom. Opera, tom. iv. p. 94. 
 
 XIII. 
 PRINCIPLES OF BIBLICAL INTERPRETATION. 
 
 JOHNSON. WHICHCOTE. 
 
 Foot Note to p. 82, l. 7 from the foot.—“ The Bible is a miscellaneous 
 book, where dishonest and time-serving men may ever in their loose 
 way find a text for their purpose ; but eternal righteousness, justice, 
 and truth, upright honesty, the right of the case, and the reason of 
 the thing must always govern the sense of Scripture expressions.”— 
 Johnson's Works, p. 270. This, though rather loosely expressed for 
 a canon of interpretation, is substantially the truth. 
 
 “ Scripture, as a rule of faith and life, is not one text, but all; the 
 sense and meaning of Scripture is Scripture ; that is not said which is 
 
ON THE NON-RESISTANCE OF THE PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANS. 21 . 
 
 not meaned.”—Whichcote. Moral and Religious Aphorisms collected 
 Srom his MS. Papers, by Dr Jeffery, Cent. v. No. 422. Lond. 1753. 
 
 ΧΙΝ. 
 
 GRAND LIMIT OF CIVIL OBEDIENCE. 
 TAYLOR. BASIL. 
 
 Addition to Foot Note*, p. 83.—* When divine and human laws are 
 opposed, these must always yield to those ; and without dispute God 
 is to be obeyed rather than man; and although we must obey man 
 for God, we must never obey man against God ; and therefore it was 
 excellently counselled by Ben-Sirach, ‘ Let not the reverence of any 
 man cause thee to sin.” —Tuylor’s Ductor Dubitantium, Book iii. Chap. 
 i. p. 443. ‘“ Laws are public mischiefs if they bind to injustice; and 
 therefore to establish any thing that is unjust and evil is against the 
 nature of laws, and the power of the superior, and the intendment of 
 the Supreme. For God gives to no man power above or against him- 
 self.”"—Ibid. Book iii. Chap. i. Rule iii. p. 449. 
 
 Basiz’s ethical maxim deserves to be quoted,—“Ace: ἐξουσίαις ὑπερε- 
 xovoas ὑποτασσέσθαι ev dis av ἐντολή Θεου μὴ εμποδιζη. -- Βαδίϊ. in 
 Eth. Reg. Ἰχκῖχ. 
 
 ΧΥ. 
 
 BISHOP HURD ON THE NON-RESISTANCE OF THE PRIMITIVE 
 CHRISTIANS. 
 
 Foot-Note to p. 90, 1. 13.—Bishop Hurp’s remark is worthy of 
 quotation: “* How far the general precepts of the gospel require a pas- 
 sive submission and non-resistance to outrageous intolerance, whe- 
 ther absolutely, and in all cases, is a point of nice discussion, in 
 which I take no part at present, because I am not making the apo- 
 logy of the reformers, but shewing the completion of the prophecies 
 concerning the propagators of Christianity ; and the wonder to see 
 them so punctually completed, is not lessened, but increased, by sup- 
 posing that the precepts of the gospel leave mankind to the free use 
 of their natural rights in the case of extreme violence and injustice.”— 
 Hurd’s Introduction to the Study of the Prophecies, Vol. i. p. 203, 204. 
 Lond. 1788. 
 
22 ADDITIONAL NOTICE OF THE BOHEMIAN CONFESSION, 
 
 XVI. 
 
 BISHOP BUTLER ON THE FOUNDATION AND LIMITS OF CIVIL POWER. 
 
 Foot Note to p. 94, 1. 1 from the foot.—Bishop Butter, with his cha- 
 racteristic wisdom, sums up the whole truth in a sentence or two. 
 “ Since men cannot live out of society, nor in it without government, 
 government is plainly a divine appointment ; and consequently sub- 
 mission to it, a most evident duty of the law of nature. And we all 
 know in how forcible a manner it is put upon our consciences in Serip- 
 ture. Nor can this obligation be denied formally upon any principles, 
 but such as subvert all other obligations. Yet many among us seem 
 not to consider it as any obligation at all. This doubtless is, in a great 
 measure, owing to dissoluteness and corruption of manners, but I think 
 it partly owing to their having reduced it to nothing in theory. 
 Whereas this obligation ought to be put on the same footing with all 
 other general ones, which are not absolute and without exception ; 
 and our submission is due in all cases but those which we really dis- 
 cern to be exceptions to the general rule.”—Sermons on Public Occa- 
 sions, Ser. III. pp. 78, 79. 
 
 XVII. 
 
 ADDITIONAL NOTICE OF THE BOHEMIAN CONFESSION, 
 
 Addition to Foot Note *, p. 99.—I find another ‘“* Bohemian Con- 
 fession,” quoted inarare volume, entitled, “‘ An Harmony of the Con- 
 fessions of the Faith of the Christian and Reformed Churches,” p. 583. 
 Camb. 1586. The Christian magistrate is in it represented as “ a par- 
 taker, and, as it were, a minister of the power of the Lamb as King of 
 kings,” and he is told, that “ unless he will be transformed into that 
 beast and hideous monster, that carrieth the beast” [ whore ], he must be 
 «ἐν defender of the ministers and people of Christ, and suffer not, so far 
 as in him lieth, idolatrie, or the tyrannie of Antichrist.” Even this is 
 very guarded language, in comparison of what is employed in most of 
 the other confessions,—and if a word or two were omitted, most Volun- 
 taries would have no objection to subscribe to it. In the catalogue of 
 the confessions prefixed to the Harmony—this confession is described 
 as “the last of four former, which were farre more auncient,’—and as 
 published “ in the yere 1573.” It is said to be “ recited in the same 
 order of chapters, and somewhat more plainly expressed,” than “ the 
 more auncient” creeds. In this case, as in many others, alteration 
 does not seem to have been improvement. 
 
CONSTANTINE AND THEODORIC ON RIGHTS OF CONSCIENCE. 23 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 RELIGION NOT SUBJECT TO CIVIL CONTROL. 
 TRIGLAND. MARVELL. 
 
 Foot Note, p. 102, 1. 3 from the foot.—* In rebus religionis, liberi 
 parentibus, servi dominis, subditi magistratibus non subsunt, sed soli 
 Deo, utpote in quem solum tendit omnis religio—Non competit illis 
 hac in parte potestas coactiva, et cum imperio conjuncta, ut nec pa- 
 rentes liberos nec Domini servos, nec magistratus subditos suos ad ve- 
 ram religionem cogere possint aut debeant, nedum ad falsam. Et 
 ratio illius satis seipsam manifestat. Nam pictas et religio ratione 
 nulla cogi potest, nec Deus delectatur religione coacta. Spontaneum 
 liberum vult obsequium non coactum ; et ad illud obtinendum, fidem- 
 que et pietatem animis humanis indendam, atque in illis confirman- 
 dam, aliud destinavit medium,—predicationem verbi et speciatim 
 Evangelii filii sui simul cum spiritus sui efficacia."—Triglandius de 
 Potestate Civili et Ecclesiastica, Ch. xxi. pp. 444, 445. 18mo. Am- 
 stel. 1642. 
 
 “ Although he who was ‘ Lord of all, and to whom ‘all power was 
 given in heaven and in earth, was nevertheless contented to come ‘ in 
 the form of a servant, and to let the emperors and princes of the 
 world alone with the use of their dominion ; he thought it good rea- 
 son to retain his religion under his own cognizance, and exempt its 
 authority from their jurisdiction. In this alone he was imperious, 
 and did not only practise it himself against the laws and customs 
 then received, and in the face of the magistrate ; but continually sea- 
 soned and hardened his disciples in the same confidence and obsti- 
 nacy.’—Marvell’s Historical Essay touching General Councils. Works, 
 Vol. iii. p. 107. 4to. Lond. 1776. 
 
 XIX. 
 
 CONSTANTINE'S AND THEODORIC’S ASSERTION OF THE RIGHTS OF 
 CONSCIENCE, 
 
 Addition to Foot-Note *, p. 104.—It is a curious fact, that the doc- 
 trine that the magistrate has no right to interfere with religious 
 opinion or worship, should be very explicitly recognised in the pre- 
 amble to the first Roman law, in favour of Christianity, by Con- 
 stantine and Licinius. The words are well worth transcribing :-— 
 “© Hbn μεν παλαι σκοπουντες τὴν ἐλευθερίαν τῆς θρησκειας οὐκ apynteav 
 
24 CONSTANTINE AND THEODORIC ON RIGHTS OF CONSCIENCE, 
 
 εἰναι», αλλ᾽ Evos ἕκαστου τὴ Stavota και βουλησει εξουσιαν δοτεον Tov τὰ 
 θεια πράγματα τημελεῖν κατα τὴν αὐτου mpoaperw. —Luseb. x. ὃ. “ We 
 have long considered that religious liberty is not to be controlled, 
 but that every one is to be left to his own judgment and free will to 
 worship according to his own choice.” Alas! how soon was this prin- 
 ciple forgotten and disregarded, even by him who promulgated it. 
 
 A still finer expression of the truth, on this subject, is to be found 
 in what Milman, in his edition of Gibbon, vol. vii. p. 44, calls ““ the 
 golden words’ of Theodoric the Ostrogoth. ‘To pretend to a domi- 
 nion over the conscience, is to usurp the prerogative of God. By 
 the nature of things, the power of sovereigns is confined to exter- 
 nal government, and their right of inflicting punishment extends 
 only to those who disturb the public peace, of which they are the 
 guardians. The most dangerous (dpeots) heresy is that of a sove- 
 reign who separates from himself a part of his subjects, because they 
 believe not according to his belief.” I have not been able to verify 
 Milman’s quotation, of what he represents as a letter from Theodoric 
 to Justin. He says, Gibbon should have quoted those golden words. 
 I thought so too; but I rather think I have found out the reason he 
 did not. Milman refers to no original authority ; he merely bids 
 his reader compare Le Beau, Vol. viii. 68. On turning up the vo- 
 lume and page referred to, nothing in reference to the subject was 
 discovered. On turning over the volume, however, I found that, in 
 page 274, it is recorded as a saying of Theodoric, ‘‘ Nous n’avons 
 aucun empire sur la religion, parcequon ne peut forcer la croyance ;” 
 and, at p. 559, the passage, of which Milman’s words are a translation, 
 occurs. The edition I consulted was that in 12mo., printed at Paris, 
 1764. Not thinking it quite safe to trust to Le Beau's word, I pro- 
 ceeded to examine his authorities. He refers to Cochlei vita Theo- 
 dorici. On examining this book, I could find no trace of “ the golden 
 words.” He refers to Fleury. The reference is inaccurate ; and no- 
 thing like the passage quoted is to be found anywhere in that histo- 
 rian. He refers to Theodoret ; but as his history ends at a period 
 antecedent to Theodoric’s birth, it would be unreasonable to expect any 
 account of the golden words there. Evagrius mentions Theodoric, but 
 says nothing about this letter to Justin. He refers to Cassiodorus, the 
 cotemporary, friend, and secretary of Theodoric, and his references are 
 particular.—Lib. i. Ep. 27 ; Lib. iv. Ep. 53; Lib. v. Ep. 37. The second 
 of these references is to an epistle that does not exist. In the other 
 two there is nothing at all to the purpose. We have looked through 
 the whole twelve books of Cassiodorus’ ‘* Varie,” but have failed to 
 
GENERAL DISSATISFACTION A PROOF OF MISGOVERNMENT. 25 
 
 discover any traces of the precious sentences; and in the copious in- 
 dex added to the Benedictine Edition of Cassiodorus, the name Justin 
 does not appear. Jortin, who was very likely to have quoted such a 
 passage, if he had known of it, though he notices Theodoric’s toler- 
 ance, makes no mention of it. After all this fruitless labour,—Gib- 
 bon’s omission of “* the golden words,” ceased to appear to us remark- 
 able. We rather think the historian was somewhat more difficult to 
 please than his annotator, as to authorities. Le Beau would not satisfy 
 him ; and it is not unlikely he made the same fruitless search that 
 we have done. Our dislike of second and third-hand authorities has 
 not been lessened by this lost labour. 
 
 XX. 
 
 ARCHBISHOP ARUNDELL AND A WYCLIFFITE ON PERSONAL 
 RESPONSIBILITY. 
 
 Foot-Note p. 106, 1. 16.—Archbishop Arundell seems to have had 
 no scruple in offering such security as he could give of this kind. 
 “ A prelate,” said he to the Wycliffite, “‘ will bidde his subject do 
 nothing, but that he will answere for before God, that it is lefull, and 
 then, though the biddinge of the prelate be unlefull, the subject 
 hath no perill to fulfille it, syns that he thinketh and judgeth that 
 whatsoever thing his prelate biddeth him doe, that it is leful to him 
 for to do it.” Most will be of opinion that the honest Wycliffite gave 
 the right reply. His narrative of it is very néivé: “ And 1 said, Sir, 
 I truste not hereto.”—State Trials, Vol. i. Fol. Lond. 1719. Foa’s 
 Acts and Monuments, vol. i. p. 701. Fol. Lond. 1641. Vol. iii. 
 p- 279. &vo. Lond. 1837. 
 
 XXI. 
 
 GENERAL DISSATISFACTION A PROOF OF MISGOVERNMENT. 
 
 To be added to Foot-Note t, p. 111.— When men tell us that an 
 enlightened people are refractory, that they will not contribute their 
 proportion of taxes; that at the hazard of their lives, by the sword 
 or the halter, they oppose and seek to subvert the government, and 
 this for a succession of years; they tell us with a moral certainty, 
 that they feel oppression,—some real inyasion of their rights and 
 liberties ; for no other causes ever did or ever will produce a general 
 and permanent opposition in the whole body of a people towards 
 their governors.”"—Cartwright’s Letters on American Independence, 
 p- 17. Lond. 1775. 
 
20 PUBLIC PEACE ENDANGERED BY CHURCHMEN. 
 
 XXII. 
 
 THE RIGHT AND DUTY OF CHRISTIANS TO DEFEND THEIR CIVIL 
 RIGHTS. 
 
 GLAS. 
 
 Foot-Note to p. 112, 1. 2 from the foot.—“ Christ’s subjects on this earth 
 are members of those societies, that have power to defend themselves 
 by the sword, and he has allowed them to do their duty in their sta- 
 tions and callings in them, and his grace will make them more faith- 
 ful and conscientious in the duties of their stations and callings in 
 those kingdoms. 
 
 *“* As violence offered to the consciences of men is one of the greatest 
 injuries, so in all associations for defence by the sword, this ought to 
 be attended to, and all men have a right of defence in the kingdoms 
 of this world, from violence offered to their consciences in matters of 
 religion. This right is by no means refused to those kingdoms by 
 the Lord Christ. Antichrist is the great invader of the liberty 
 of mankind in this matter. He is furnished with worldly power, 
 and he uses it unto this purpose. Where he prevails, tyranny, as 
 in other respects, so especially in this, hath taken place, and men 
 are enslaved this way; but in Protestant kingdoms and common- 
 wealths there is some more freedom, and the subjects of Christ enjoy 
 that liberty, in common with others in those kingdoms, where this 
 natural right of mankind is in any measure defended. Thus far hath 
 the earth helped the woman; and this is properly the Protestant 
 cause, so far as the sword, and the power of the kingdoms of this 
 world is concerned in it. And, upon this ground, stands the revolu- 
 tion fully warranted, as it concerns religion.” —Glas’ Testimony of the 
 King of Martyrs, Ch. iii— Works, Vol. i. pp. 91, 92.—Edin. 1761. 
 
 XXIII. 
 
 THE PEACE OF SOCIETY ENDANGERED, NOT BY DISSENTERS BUT BY 
 HIGH CHURCHMEN. 
 
 Foot-Note, p. 117, 1. 5.—Words, originally written in 1791, with 
 a slight alteration, accurately describe the present state of affairs. 
 “ If the State be in any danger, it is not from the opinions of Dis- 
 senters, either in religion or politics, but from the bigotry, the false 
 zeal, and intolerance of high-flying Episcopalians” (the Presbyterian 
 churchmen are now nearly as zealous and intolerant), “to which the 
 downfall of both Church and State in the last age is to be ascribed, 
 
“ 
 
 AUGUSTINE ON THE LIMITS OF CIVIL OBEDIENCE. 2 
 
 more than to any other cause whatsoever.’—Sir George Colebrooke— 
 Letters on Intolerance, Letter II. p. 241. Lond. 1791. 
 
 XXIV. 
 
 RAPHELIUS ON qopos. 
 
 Foot-Note, p. 123, /. 15.—Raphelius (Annotat. Phil. Tom 11. p. 
 286), referring to a passage in Herodotus, where the phrase used 
 here by the Apostle is employed (lib. i. p. 78. Lut. 1592), remarks, 
 “ Utroque loco apparet popor dici quidquid magistratui solvitur prop- 
 ter munus publicum, quo fungitur.” 
 
 XXV 
 
 ALTING ON THE REFERENCE OF zac. 
 
 Addition to Foot-Note*, p. 128.—Altingius (Jac.) takes the same 
 view of it: “Si maou de hominibus intelligatur, erit hic generalis 
 regula justitie, que valet quoad omnes et singulos homines :—Sin 
 agatur de superioribus, complectetur omnia officia quinto precepto 
 mandata: sin denique de potestate, quod quidem poscit argumentum 
 Apostoli et antecedentia hujus capitis, tum comprehenduntur quot- 
 quot in eminentia sunt, et potestatem habent.’—Alting in Epist. ad 
 Rom.—Opera, Tom. iv. p. 114. Amst. 1686. 
 
 XXVI. 
 
 AUGUSTINE ON THE LIMITS WITHIN WHICH TRIBUTE AND 
 OBEDIENCE ARE OBLIGATORY. 
 
 Addition to Foot Note *, p. 141.—Augustine’s words well deserve to 
 be quoted. In one of his sermons, he represents a heathen magistrate 
 as saying to a Christian: ‘¢ Solve tributum, esto mihi in obsequium.” 
 The Christian replies, ‘“‘ Recte: sed non in idolio. In idolio prohi- 
 bet.” “ Quis,” rejoins the magistrate, “ quis prohibet?” The Chris- 
 tian’s answer is, “ Major potestas. Da veniam: tu carcerem, ille 
 gehennam minatur.”—Avugust. de Verbis Domini, Sermo. VI.—These 
 words seem fairly to warrant the inference, that the Christians felt 
 that the “‘ major potestas” equally prohibited them, “ solvere tribu- 
 tum,” and “ esse in obsequio,” to pay tribute equally as to yield obe- 
 dience in offering sacrifice “in idolio.” 
 
28 MR GLADSTONE ON THE MAGISTRATES’ DUTY. 
 
 XXVII. 
 
 THE RIGHT AND DUTY OF ALL MAGISTRATES TO ESTABLISILT WHAT 
 THEY THINK THE TRUE RELIGION. 
 
 GLADSTONE. 
 
 Addition to Foot-Note *, p. 149.—The justice of this conclusion has 
 been admitted by one of the latest and ablest advocates for civil es- 
 tablishments, though the cautious manner in which he expresses him- 
 self shows that he feels himself on rather dangerous ground :—“ Ifa 
 Mohammedan conscientiously believes his religion to come from God, 
 and to teach divine truth, he must believe that truth to be beneficial, 
 and beneficial beyond all other things to the soul of man; and he 
 must therefore, and ought to desire its extension ; and to use, for its 
 extension, all proper and legitimate means ; and if such a Mohamme- 
 dan be a prince, he ought to count, among those means, the applica- 
 tion of whatever influence or funds, he may lawfully have at his dis- 
 posal for such purposes.’—Giadstone’s The State in its Relations to the 
 Church, Ch. ii. p. 86. Lond. 1888. This is only following out to its 
 fair consequences his fundamental principle, that “ the State is a 
 moral person, and, of course, has a conscience which makes it cogni- 
 sant of religious falsehood and truth, sin and duty,” pp. 37, 39.—This 
 monstrous dogma will surely not go down with rational churchmen. 
 How would Warburton and Paley have laughed it to scorn! Our mo- 
 dern churchmen are, however, great adepts at straining at gnats and 
 swallowing camels. But this is an elephant, or rather a megathe- 
 rion of an antiquated world. Surely they will never be able to bolt 
 this. No, no, it cannot go down. 
 
 The absurdity of Mr Gladstone’s dogma is ably exposed in an arti- 
 cle in the Edinburgh Review, which general report ascribes to T. B. 
 Macaulay, Esq. “Surely this isa hard saying. Before we admit that 
 the Emperor Julian in employing his power for the extinction of 
 Christianity, was doing no more than his duty,—hefore we admit that 
 the Arian Theodoric would have committed a crime, if he suffered a 
 single believer in the divinity of Christ to hold any civil employment 
 in Italy—before we admit that the Dutch government is bound to ex- 
 clude from office all members of the Church of England ; the King 
 of Bavaria to exclude from office all Protestants ; the Great Turk to 
 exclude from office all Christians; the King of Ava to exclude all 
 who hold the unity of God—we think ourselves entitled to demand 
 
DRS INGLIS AND CHALMERS ΑΝΤΙΟΙΡΒΑΤΕΘ. 29 
 
 a very full and accurate demonstration. Where the consequences of 
 a doctrine are so startling, we may well require that its foundations 
 shall be very solid.”—Zdin. Rev. vol. Ixix. p. 298. 
 
 XXVIII. 
 
 DRS INGLIS’ AND CHALMERS COMPARISON OF THE ESTABLISHED 
 CLERGY TO CONSTABLES, ANTICIPATED. 
 
 Addition to Foot Note *, p. 172.—I was amused to find the deno- 
 mination, bestowed by Dr Inglis on his order, in sober seriousness, to 
 serve a purpose—employed, in bitter sarcasm, by one of his predeces- 
 sors among the champions of moderation, to serve a purpose also. In 
 a work entitled, “‘ The Religious Establishment in Scotland examined 
 upon Protestant Principles,’ published in London 1771, the author, 
 who is understood to have been the late Dr M‘Kenzie of Portpatrick, 
 in reply to the argument of the orthodox, or wild party, against the 
 favourite scheme of the moderates of that day, to abolish subscrip- 
 tion,—that subscription was the law of the land,—sneeringly remarks, 
 “An Act of Parliament is certainly the foundation, and a very sure 
 one it is, of every monopoly as well as this. The parliament has 
 given a certain society an exclusive patent, annexing such and such 
 emoluments to the teaching, preaching, and maintaining such and 
 such tenets as are therein specified. I say again, this reasoning must 
 be unanswerable ; for if it were not, it would not be so frequently 
 made use of by the leaders, that is, the wisest men of all churches, as 
 we find it is. It was only to be wished that these unanswerable ad- 
 vocates for subscription, who abhor nothing so much as dissimulation 
 in matters of religion, would give us one little additional specimen of 
 their sincerity by altering certain terms which have insensibly crept 
 into their reasonings on this subject ; and instead of talling concern- 
 ing ministers, spiritual concerns, christian communion, &c. &c., say, 
 in plain words, so as unlearned people may understand them, ‘ That 
 Jesus Christ has rendered a piece of good service to civil society by 
 furnishing government with an useful corps of constables to keep the 
 peace of the country.’” Pp. 86, 87- How curious that leading men of 
 both parties in the church of Scotland, should now apply to their or- 
 der with the utmost complacency an appellation, which sixty years 
 ago was considered as so discreditable, that it was considered as answer 
 sufficient to an argument that it implied the applicability of such a 
 denomination to the clergy. But the American and French Revolu- 
 tions, the Reform Bill, and the Voluntary controversy, were all then 
 
 B 
 
30 WETSTEIN ON MATTHEW ΧΧΙ]. 10--22, 
 
 in the darkness of futurity. Had the author possessed the gift of 
 prophecy, he would have been more cautious. 
 
 I know nobody who has gone so far in pleading for the clergy on 
 this ground as Bishop Parker, in his preface to Bramhall. “ Put the 
 case the clergy were cheats and jugglers, yet it must be allowed that 
 they are necessary instruments of state, to awe the common people 
 into fear and obedience, because nothing else can so effectually enslave 
 them as the fear of invisible powers, and the dismal apprehensions of 
 the world to come ; and for this very reason, though there were no 
 other, it is fit they should be allowed the same honour and respect as 
 would be acknowledged their due if they were sincere and honest 
 men.”—Quoted by Marvell in the Rehearsal Transposed. Works, vol. 
 ii. p. 219. 4to. Lond. 1776. 
 
 XXIX. 
 NON-OBEDIENCE AND RESISTANCE—DIFFERENT THINGS. 
 
 Addition to Foot Note *, p. 176.—“ Aliud est non parere quam re- 
 sistere.”— Beza in Confessione fidei Christiane, cap. vy. Shadrach, 
 Meshach, and Abednego, refused to obey Nebuchadnezzar’s edict to 
 worship the golden image, but they made no resistance. Daniel re- 
 fused obedience to Darius’ decree, but neither did he resist. 
 
 XXX. 
 WETSTEIN ON MATTHEW XXII. 16-22. 
 
 Foot Note, p. 182, J. 16.—The “ Questio Vexata,” respecting the 
 payment of tribute to the Roman imperial government, deeply inte- 
 rested the Jews, and its agitation had produced a variety of opinions. 
 To apply the language of Cicero :—‘‘ Multi dubitabant quid optimum 
 esset : Multi quid sibi expediret: Multi quid deceret : Nonnulli etiam 
 quid liceret.”—Cic. pro-Marcel. c. 10. Wetstein’s note puts the di- 
 lemma in which the pharisees hoped to place our Lord, in a very clear 
 point of view. ““ 51 pro Romanis diserte pronunciasset, civium suo- 
 rum et discipulorum animos a se alienasset : ‘ Adhuc putatis hunc esse 
 Messiam regem et liberatorem Judeorum qui vos servituti Romanorum 
 addicit ? hune veracem esse et personam hominum non spectare, qui 
 in solitudine, in campis et vicis et apud plebem, in publicanorum ex- 
 actiones, et principum vitia invehitur, in urbe vero, ubi libertas et 
 veritas ipsi periculum crearet, dominis adulatur?’ Si vero contra 
 Romanos pronunciasset, imo si vel verbum dixisset, quod eo spectare 
 poterat videri, ipsum tanquam seditionis auctorem potestati presidis 
 tradidissent.—Luce. xx. 20. xxiii. 2.” 
 
TEMPLE TRIBUTE PAID BY JEWS IN FOREIGN COUNTRIES. 93] 
 
 XXXI. 
 
 CHRYSOSTOM ON MATTHEW XXII. 16-22. 
 
 Foot Note, p. 183, 1. 15—Chrysostom’s note deserves to be quoted. 
 “ Cum vero audis reddenda Cesari que sua sunt, illa solum dici, non 
 dubita, que pietati ac religioni nihil afficiunt. Nam quod fidei ac vir- 
 tuti obest, non Cesaris, sed Diaboli tributum ac vectigal est.”-—Hom. 
 71. in Matth. 
 XXXII. 
 
 DE MARCA ON MATTHEW XXII. 16-22. 
 
 Addition to Foot-Note *, p. 183.—De Marca’s argument on the other 
 side is very lame. ‘‘ Interrogatio enim Christi, ‘ quibus Reges terre 
 accipiant tributum ?’ satis evincit didrachmum illud pertinuisse ad 
 functiones publicas, non autem ad capitationem illam sacram semi 
 sicli, seu didrachmi, que quotannis Templo inferenda erat ex lege 
 Mosis.— De Concordia, lib. ii. c. v. tom. i. p. 69. A more complete 
 non sequitur cannot well be conceived. It is impossible to make a 
 coherent argument on this principle,even though it were admitted that 
 there was a capitation tax by the Roman government—and that that 
 tax was a διδραχμον. On the other hand, the facts are ascertained that 
 there was an annual temple tax—and that that tax was half a shekel, 
 or a διδραχμον. Josephus repeatedly speaks of the tax by this name. 
 (Antiq. lib. xviii. chap. iv. § 1. De Bell. Jud. lib. vii. chap. vi. § 6.) 
 And these facts lay a foundation for a conclusive argument, which 
 our Lord’s words very naturally express. 
 
 XXXII. 
 
 TEMPLE TRIBUTE PAID BY JEWS EVEN IN FOREIGN COUNTRIES. 
 
 Addition to Foot Note*, p. 184.—This temple tribute appears to have 
 been paid even by Jews residing in foreign countries. To this annual 
 payment, there seems a reference in the two following passages from 
 Cicero and Tacitus. ‘“ Aurum, Judeorum nomine, quotannis ex Ita- 
 lia, et ex omnibus vestris provinciis Hierosolymam exportari solet.” 
 —Cic. pro Flac. 28. “ Quisque, spretis religionibus patriis, tributa 
 et stipes illuc (i. 6. ad Hierosolymam et templum) congerebant.”—Ta- 
 cit. Hist. lib. v. cap. 5, p. 5385. Amst. 1665. 
 
32 ON THE HONOUR DUE TO THE MAGISTRATE. 
 
 XXXIV. 
 
 JOHNSON AND CORN. A LAPIDE ON MATTH. XXII. 22. 
 
 Foot-Note, p. 185, l. 18.—“ ‘Render unto Cesar the things which are 
 Cesar’s,’ neither makes a Cesar, nor tells who Cesar is: but only 
 requires men to be just in giving him those supposed rights, which 
 the laws have determined to be his.’—Mr Samuel Johnson's Works, p. 
 152. Folio. Lond. 1718.—Instead of enjoining the payment of church- 
 taxes, the passage seems to intimate, that Cesar ought not to inter- 
 fere with ta του Θεου. “ Christus hic,” says the learned Jesuit, Cor- 
 nelius a Lapide, “ tacite monet Cesares et principes ut suis contenti, 
 Dei et Ecclesie negotiis sese non ingerant.’—Comm. in quatuor Evang. 
 p- 414. Alas! that the tacit admonition has been so little attended 
 to! The period of silent monition will come to a close. “ THEN 
 shall He speak to them in his wrath, and vex them in his sore dis- 
 pleasure.”—“ Br wisz Now, THEREFORE, O ye Kines, BE INSTRUCTED YE 
 JupcEs or THE EARTH.’ —Psal. ii. 5, 10. 
 
 XXXV. 
 ON THE HONOUR DUE TO THE MAGISTRATE. 
 
 WATSON——GLAS, 
 
 Foot-Note, p. 187, 1. 21.—“ Let no one suppose that he honours his 
 prince when he flatters his follies, or shuts his eyes to his faults, or mi- 
 nisters to his vices, or misleads his councils by adulatory compliances 
 with his passions or his prejudices. This is the kind of honour, by 
 which bad men take possession of the hearts of weak princes, under- 
 mine the virtue of the best, insinuate themselves into places of confi- 
 dence and profit, keep at a distance from the throne its true support- 
 ers, ridicule with impudent buffoonery honest men, laugh in the pre- 
 sence of their prince at public virtue, and riot in the ruin of their 
 country or their king. This is the kind of honour by which Charles 
 the First unhappily lost his life, and James the Second lost his crown ; 
 it is the offspring of the subject’s iniquity, and it is the parent of the 
 prince’s tyranny ; for there had never been a bad prince, but for the 
 flagitious flattery of bad subjects. The true honouring of a prince 
 consists in a conduct diametrically opposite to this; in confining the 
 established prerogative within the ancient limits; in repressing, too, 
 the licentious attempts of factious men to diminish it ; in speaking 
 the truth to him, with reverence, indeed, but with firmness; in run- 
 
ON THE HONOUR DUE TO THE MAGISTRATE. 33 
 
 ning the risk of his displeasure, by warning him against measures 
 oppressive to the nation, and ultimately destructive to himself; in 
 persuading him that he can have no interest different from that of 
 his subjects; and that the safety and glory of his crown is best con- 
 fided, not toa rotten system of corruption, but to the uninfluenced 
 support of an enlightened, a brave, and a loyal people. 
 
 “ But besides this species of honour, which none but the more im- 
 mediate servants of the crown, or the more distinguished members 
 of the community, can have an opportunity of showing to their 
 princes, there is another kind of it, which extends to the subjects in 
 general, and which is briefly comprised in the scriptural precept, 
 ¢ Thou shalt not speak evil of the rulers of thy people.’ The strength 
 of government is principally built upon the opinion which subjects 
 entertain of the sovereign’s authority ; and he who, to serve a party, 
 or to forward his interest with an ambitious leader, endeavours, by 
 false insinuations, and licentious misrepresentations, to render go- 
 vernment odious or contemptible, is guilty of a great transgression 
 against this duty of honour.”—Bishop Watson's Sermon on Rom. xiii. 
 3,4. Sermons and Tracts, Pp. 94-96. Lond. 1788. 
 
 “ When our interests are connected with them who are in autho- 
 rity, we wish the government well; but when we stand connected 
 with the discontented, out of power, and pushing to be in, we are, 
 from the same principle, as ready to wish ill to our rulers, and more 
 disposed to curse than to bless them. In this we have an example 
 set us by the clergy, the greatest flatterers of rulers, that serve them 
 with their power to crush their adversaries, and to maintain their 
 pretended spiritual, but really carnal rights and privileges. For such 
 rulers they can pray heartily, and zealously preach up subjection to 
 them; but when princes have showed them neglect, or wanted any 
 way to reduce them, or bring them a little under, they have as zeal- 
 ously prayed and prophesied against them, as wicked men, and ene- 
 mies to the church, sanctified evil speaking of them, and turned re- 
 bellion into a point of religion. If ‘ the power that is, seems in any 
 instance to strike at the independence of the National Church, or 
 Established Clergy ; and if that power show itself higher than they, 
 as to the privileges of their Establishment, we see how they rage and 
 ery out of wrong, and some of them go the length of boding ill upon 
 it, if not to the King, to the King’s minister, wishing him Haman’s 
 fate.”"—Glas’s Second Fast Sermon, 1741. Works, Vol. ii. p. 478. 
 Edin, 1761. 
 
34 CIVIL ESTABLISHMENT AND PERSECUTION. 
 
 XXXVI. 
 CONNEXION BETWEEN CIVIL ESTABLISHMENT AND PERSECUTION. 
 
 EMLYN. PARRY. f 
 
 Foot-Note, p. 189, 1. 18.—“ It must be with great difficulty that 
 any Established Church can avoid being a persecuting one ; for there 
 is no Establishment but by laws, no laws without sanction, sanc- 
 tions imply penalties threatened,—these are nothing if they are not 
 executed,—and this for religion is persecution.”—Emlyn’s Tracts, 
 Vol. i. p. exxxviii. Lond. 1746. 
 
 The fact that persecution originates in the civil establishment of 
 religion, is at once stated and accounted for, in the following admir- 
 able passage :—‘* Wherever men’s temporal prosperity, honours, and 
 emoluments, have been connected with an Established religion, they 
 have had another interest to support, separate from the interest of 
 truth and virtue, and which they have often supported by means in- 
 consistent with both. This has been a common defect running. 
 through all human religious establishments of every kind. If ido- 
 latry had not been the established religion of the Roman empire, 
 it would not have persecuted the primitive Christians. But the hea- 
 then priests were solicitous to crush the harmless disciples of Jesus, 
 lest the truth they taught should, in its influence, destroy their tem- 
 ples, their idols, and their gain together. If Constantine had not 
 made a civil establishment of Christianity, he would not have em- 
 ployed persecuting measures against the Pagans. But interest then 
 required, that idolatry should be suppressed by force, lest the tem- 
 ples should be restored, and the revenues of the church impaired. If 
 the orthodox and heterodox, under the following emperors, had not 
 each in their turn sought the patronage of the State, and endeavoured 
 to establish their own party, they would not alternately have perse- 
 cuted one another. Zeal for the establishment of their own tenets 
 and influence, first led professing Christians to shed the blood of one 
 another. The same cause continued in after times to produce the 
 same effects. If Popery had not been established through Europe, 
 the Albigenses, and Valdenses, and Lollards, would not have been 
 persecuted. A fear that their pure principles and practice would in 
 time weaken the authority of the Pope, and lessen the influence and 
 riches of the priesthood, roused the thunder of the Vatican, and 
 darted the lightning of ecclesiastical vengeance on these unhappy suf- 
 ferers. Not the love of virtue but of power and riches kindled the 
 
ON TIE PRINCIPLES OF PASSIVE ODEDIENCE, 35 
 
 flames of persecution in Europe. The Marian persecution had the 
 same origin. Not pure and savage cruelty, but a dread lest the prin- 
 ciples of the Reformation should regain their influence in the king- 
 dom, and the power and wealth of the Popish clergy be lost, gave 
 birth to those sanguinary measures, which brought the venerable La- 
 timer, and a host of other pious witnesses, to the stake. Happy 
 would it have been, for the credit of all Protestants, if similar causes 
 had not operated among them. But if Episcopacy had not been es- 
 tablished, the reign of Elizabeth had not been disgraced by the perse- 
 cuting laws against the Puritans ; nor Fox, the learned and laborious 
 Martyrologist, been neglected, to poverty and want, because of his 
 scruples, as to the habits, while his Acts and Monuments were or- 
 dered to be read in the churches. If Presbyterianism had not been 
 established by the Long Parliament, they would not have persecuted 
 the adherents of Episcopacy, nor would those who had just emanci- 
 pated themselves from oppression, have become immediately oppres- 
 sors in their turn. Ifthe present Establishment had not been made 
 under Charles the Second, and uniformity of faith and worship im- 
 posed upon all persons, the sanguinary laws afterwards made, had not 
 existed, nor peaceable and pious men been fined and imprisoned, im- 
 poverished and destroyed, for worshipping God according to their con- 
 sciences.” —Parry’s Thoughts on such Penal Religious Statutes as affect 
 the Protestant Dissenters, pp. 89-42. Lond. 1791. 
 
 XXXVII. 
 
 PARAPHRASE OF ROMANS XIII. 1-7. ON THE PRINCIPLES OF PAS- 
 SIVE OBEDIENCE AND NON-RESISTANCE. 
 
 BISHOP HOADLY. 
 
 Foot-Note, p. 189, 1. 31.—The utter inconsequence of the apostle’s 
 reasoning on the principles referred to, is very happily exposed in the 
 following extract from Bishop Hoadly’s Measures of Submission, pp. 
 45-47. 
 
 “ Verse 1.—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. 
 
 “ Whereas some men of turbulent and seditious spirits, may be apt 
 to imagine that there is no subjection due to magistrates, but only 
 when they answer the end of their institution, and promote the public 
 happiness ; I give it in charge to you all who are Christians, to pay an 
 entire and hearty subjection to magistrates, though acting never so 
 contrary to the end of their office, and manifestly destroying the 
 
86 ON THE PRINCIPLES OF PASSIVE OBEDIENCE. 
 
 public happiness. For they received their power from God, and were 
 ordained of Him, on purpose to consult and promote the public hap- 
 piness. 
 
 “ Verse 2.—Whosoever therefore resisteth the power, resisteth the ordi- 
 nance of God: and they that resist shall receive to themselves 
 damnation. 
 
 “ From whence it is plain, that whosoever opposeth and resisteth 
 the magistrate (though opposing the will of God, and acting contrary 
 to the end for which he was ordained of him), opposeth the ordinance 
 and will of God. For it is by God’s authority that he acts contrary 
 to God’s will; and when God ordained him to his office, he gave him 
 a divine commission to bear him out in the destruction of public hap- 
 piness, and in bringing about the public misery. And they that re- 
 sist and oppose him, though in the most manifest instances of violence 
 and oppression, must expect God’s anger, as acting contrary to the 
 ordinance of God, even whilst they oppose one who acts contrary to 
 his will. 
 
 “ Verses 3, 4—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 re- 
 venger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil. 
 
 “ For in confirmation of what I have been saying, I must tell you 
 that these rulers, to whom I am pressing an unlimited submission, as 
 well when they oppress the best of their subjects, and encourage the 
 worst, as when they lay waste the public happiness, as when they 
 consult and promote it, are not a terror to good works, but to the 
 evil; and are executing an useful office in the world. And if you 
 have a mind to rid yourselves of all dread of the magistrate, in all 
 cases whatever, here is an effectual way of doing it. Behave your- 
 selves well; and you may be sure of his encouragement, whether he 
 act agreeably to his office or no; for he is appointed under God for 
 your protection and advantage. But if you do that which is evil, you 
 will certainly feel his anger, even though he be one who encourageth 
 
 all that is evil: For he is appointed under God to punish such as do 
 evil. 
 
 “ Verse 5.—Wherefore ye must needs he subject, not only for wrath, but 
 also for conscience sake. 
 
 “ This being a true account of magistrates, that they act by God's 
 
PRECEPTS TO BE UNDERSTOOD WITH LIMITATIONS. 37 
 
 authority, even in those instances in which they oppose his will, and 
 that they have his commission to show, even whilst they are destroy- 
 ing the happiness of the people committed to their care, for which 
 happiness only they were appointed of God; it manifestly follows 
 that you are in conscience bound patiently to submit to their will in 
 all things, though to the ruin and misery of yourselves, and of the 
 generations which are yet unborn. Or thus: 
 
 “‘ Since, therefore, magistrates are appointed by God for so good a 
 work ; to promote the welfare and happiness of humane society ; it 
 follows from hence, that even when they destroy the public happi- 
 
 ness, you are obliged in conscience patiently to submit yourselves to 
 their will. 
 
 “ Verse 6.—For for this cause pay you tribute also; for they are God’s 
 
 ministers attending upon this very thing. 
 
 “ For for this very same cause that you are obliged in conscience 
 to pay tribute, and taxes to them, whether they destroy the public 
 happiness, or not ; because they are the ministers of God, whose bu- 
 siness it is continually to attend upon, and consult the public hap- 
 piness. 
 
 “ Verse 7.—Render therefore to all their dues; tribute to whom tribute is 
 due, custom to whom custom, fear to whom fear, honour to whom 
 
 honour. 
 
 “ It being therefore evident, that magistrates are appointed by God 
 to so good a work ; to be aterrour to the evil ; and an encouragement 
 to the good; and to be continually attending to promote the public 
 happiness ; it appears from hence to be your duty to pay them that 
 tribute and honour, which is due to them on the account of their office, 
 whether they execute their office or no; nay, though they act con- 
 trary to the end of their institution, and turn the greatest tyrants and 
 enemies to the peace and happiness of their people.” 
 
 XXXVIII. 
 
 GENERAL PRECEPTS OFTEN TO BE UNDERSTOOD WITH LIMITATIONS. 
 
 JAMES HALDANE. HARTWELL HORNE. ALPH. TURRETINE. 
 
 Foot Note, p. 201, 1. 15 from the foot—“ Many general precepts 
 must be understood, with some limitation, and this does not imply 
 that these precepts are not sufficiently plain. Language is imperfect ; 
 and with the help of a little ingenuity, we might adduce plausible ar- 
 guments to prove that from its imperfection it could be of no great 
 
38 THESIS OF BISHOF PARKER’S ECCLESIASTICAL POLITY. 
 
 utility. We might allege the various meanings attached to the same 
 word, and many other peculiarities, which we might affirm must pre- 
 clude the possibility of attaining certainty in regard to what is writ- 
 ten or spoken. But, in fact, language does convey our meaning with 
 sufficient precision for every practical purpose ; and, in like manner, 
 while general precepts must frequently be understood, with some limi- 
 tation, the commandments delivered in Scripture are by no means 
 obscure or difficult to be understood.”—Haldane's Strictures on Wal- 
 ker’s Primitive Christianity, Letter VI. p. 59. Edin. 1820. 
 
 Dr Hartwell Horne, in his useful Introduction to the Critical Study 
 and Knowledge of the Holy Scriptures, lays it down as a canon for 
 the interpretation of the moral parts of Scripture, that “ many pre- 
 cepts are delivered generally and absolutely, concerning moral duties 
 which are only to be taken with certain limitations.”-—Horne’s Intro- 
 duction, Part II. chap. x. vol. ii. p. 744. Lond. 1822. 
 
 Turretine, the younger, lays down “ the Canon” on this subject, 
 with his usual accuracy and terseness. ‘ Multa, de rebus moralibus, 
 generaliter et absolute dicuntur, que secundum quid, et certis cum _ 
 limitationibus, duntaxat sumenda sunt.’—De Sacre Scripture In- 
 terpretatione, Part 11. cap. viii. J. A. Turretini Opera, tom. ii. p. 128. 
 Quarto. Leovard. 1775. 
 
 XXXIX. 
 THESIS OF BISHOP PARKER'S ECCLESIASTICAL POLITY. 
 
 To be inserted at 1. 3 of Foot Note *, p. 205.—“ The grand thesis” of 
 this elaborate volume is, “‘ that it is necessary to the peace and go- 
 vernment of the world, that the supreme magistrate of every country 
 should be vested with a power to govern and conduct the consciences 
 of subjects in affairs of religion,”’—“ an assertion so obvious and harm- 
 less,” according to its author, “ that never any people in the world 
 had so little brains or so much forehead as to deny it to all intents, 
 but only the salvage Anabaptists of Germany,” and which even after 
 the thorough exposure which both the thesis and its author met with 
 from the patriotic member of parliament for Hull, he with a cha- 
 racteristic bragadocio air, declares himself ready to “‘ maintain against 
 Hungary, Transylvania, Bohemia, Poland, Savoy, France, the Nether- 
 lands, Denmark, Sweden, Scotland, Geneva, Germany, Charing-Cross, 
 Lincoln-Inns Fields, Grub Street, Pin-maker’s Hall, J. O., and your- 
 self, and any one man more, I care not though it be the sturdy Swiss.” 
 —A Reproof to the Rehearsal Transposed, pp. 9, 274. Lond. 1673. 
 
GLAS ON THE REFERENCE OF πρεσβεύομεν. 39 
 
 It was not without reason that Dr Owen (who, though he seldom 
 indulges in sallies of wit, shows that he had a keen sense of what was 
 ludicrous, as well as a clear apprehension of what was false), says of 
 Parker, ‘“‘ He has brought in the magistrate booted and spurred, and 
 armed cap-a-pie, into the church of God, and given all power into his 
 hands to dispose of the worship of God, according to his will and plea- 
 sure ; and that not with respect to outward order only, but with direct 
 obligation on the consciences of men. . . . Some of the old Irish 
 have a proverbial speech among them, that if Christ had not been 
 Christ when he was Christ, Patrick had been Christ. But it seems 
 now, that taking it for granted that Christ was Christ, yet we have 
 another that is so also; that is, lord over the souls and consciences of 
 men ; and what can be said more of um, ‘ who sits in the temple of 
 God, and shows himself to be God.’”—Truth and Innocence V indicated 
 by John Owen, D.D., pp. 107, 109. 8vo. Lond. 1670. 
 
 XL. 
 
 CHEERFUL OBEDIENCE ESSENTIAL TO CHRISTIAN DUTY. 
 
 Foot-Note, p. 217, 1. 8.—I am not the broacher of the heresy, “ that 
 nothing is christian duty, which is not cheerfully performed.” Ques- 
 nel, who was the very antipode of a Jesuit, has very distinctly stated 
 it in his Notes on the Gospels on Matth. xxii. 22.—“ Respect, submis- 
 sion, dependence, and obedience to sovereign princes, as to whatever 
 is temporal, being part of the divine law, we cannot pay them as we 
 ought, in the sight of God, but by doing it heartily, and on the principle 
 of love.” —The Four Gospels, with a Comment and Reflections, by Pas- 
 quier Quesnel, vol. i. p. 294. Bath.—Neither Quesnel nor I, however, 
 can claim the honour of originating this strongly denounced senti- 
 ment. ‘That, I believe, belongs to him who plainly teaches, that obe- 
 dience to masters is then only christian duty, when it is done “ heart- 
 ily, as to the Lord, and not unto man.”—Col. iii. 23. 
 
 XLI. 
 
 GLAS ON THE REFERENCE OF πρεσβευομεν. 2 COR. V. 20. 
 Foot Note, p. 225, l. 11 from the foot.—The impropriety of applying 
 the word πρεσβευομεν, 2 Cor. v. 20, to ordinary christian teachers, 
 is very fully and satisfactorily proved by Glas, in his Use of Cate- 
 chisms farther Considered. Works, vol. iii. pp. 157-166. Edin. 1761. 
 
40 SCRIPTURAL USE OF THE WORDS CLERGY AND CHURCH. 
 
 XLII. 
 
 SCRIPTURAL USE OF THE WORDS CLERGY AND CHURCH. 
 
 LEIGHTON. PENN. CHANDLER. MARVELL. 
 
 Foot Note, p. 225, 1. 1 from the foot.—The New Testament clergy 
 (khypor), are not the ministers, but the people; 1 Pet. vy. 8. “ All 
 believers,” as Archbishop Leighton justly observes, ‘“‘ are Christ’s cler- 
 gy.’-—A Practical Commentary on the First Epistle General of St Peter. 
 Vol. i. p. 807. Quarto. York, 1693. 
 
 “‘ There is but one place to be found in the Holy Scripture, where 
 the word kAnpos can properly be applied to the church, and they have 
 got it to themselves; from whence they call themselves the Clergy, 
 that is, the inheritance or heritage of God. Whereas Peter exhorts 
 the ministers of the gospel ‘ not to be lords over God’s heritage, nor 
 to feed them for filthy lucre.’ Peter (belike) foresaw pride and ayva- 
 rice to be the ministers’ temptations; and, indeed, they have often 
 proved their fall; and, to say true, they could hardly. fall worse. 
 Nor is there any excuse to be made for them, in these two respects, 
 which is not worse than their sins. For if they have not been ‘ lords 
 over God's heritage,’ it is because they have made themselves that 
 heritage, and disinherited the people: so that now they may be the 
 peoples’ lords, with a salvo to good old Peter's exhortation.”—Penn’s 
 No Cross, No Crown, Part i. chap. xii. ὃ 9, p. 145. Lond. 1762. 
 
 “The words clergy and church—«Aypou and exkAnova, are never 
 once used in Scripture to denote the bishops or other officers, but the 
 christian people. St Peter (1 Pet. v. 3) advises the presbyters to 
 ‘ feed the flock of God, and to exercise the episcopal office willingly, 
 not as lording it over the heritages, or clergy of God. And St Paul, 
 writing to the Ephesians (Eph. iv. 11), and speaking of their privi- 
 Jeges as Christians, says, that ‘ by Christ they were made God’s pe- 
 culiar lot, or heritage, or clergy. In like manner, the body of 
 Christians, in general, and particular congregations in particular 
 places, are called the church, but the ministers of the gospel never in 
 contradistinction to them.* It is of all believers that St Peter gives 
 that noble description that they are ‘ a spiritual house, an holy 
 priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifice; a chosen generation, a 
 royal priesthood, a holy nation, and a peculiar people, or a people 
 for his mepuromors, his peculiar heritage, or purchased possession, as 
 
 * That is a question still svb te.—J. B. 
 
HIGH CHURCH PRETENSIONS EXPOSED. 4] 
 
 the word is rendered, Eph. i. 14. So that, to be the Church, the 
 clergy, and the sacred priests of God, is an honour common to all 
 Christians in general by the gospel charter. These are not the titles 
 of a few only, who love to exalt themselves above others.’—Chand- 
 ler’s History of Persecution, Book iv. Sect. 7. p. 406. Hull, 1819. 
 
 “ The clergy, in the true and apostolical sense, were only those whom 
 they superciliously always call the laity ; the word clerus being never 
 but once used in the New Testament, and in that signification, and 
 in a very unlucky place too, 1 Pet. v. 3, where he admonishes the 
 priesthood that they should not ‘lord it, or domineer over’ the 
 christian people, ‘ clerum Domini,’ or ‘ the Lord’s inheritance.’””— 
 Marvell's Essay touching General Councils. Works, Vol. iii. p. 150. 
 4to. Lond. 1776. 
 
 XLII. 
 
 HIGH CHURCH PRETENSIONS EXPOSED. 
 
 To be inserted p. 227, 1. 15.—In the first tract of the Series of “ Tracts 
 for the Times,” which is an address of a clergyman to his brethren, on 
 their ministerial commission, we have the following most arrogant 
 and impious language. ‘‘ We have been born not of blood, nor of the 
 will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. The Lord Jesus 
 Christ gave his Spirit to his apostles: they, in their turn, laid their 
 hands on those who should succeed them ; and these again on others ; 
 and so the sacred gift has been handed down to our present bishops, 
 who have appointed us as their assistants, and in some sense repre- 
 sentatives. The grace of ordination is contained in the laying on of 
 hands; we have confessed before God our belief, that through the 
 bishop who ordained us we have received the Holy Ghost, the power 
 to bind and to loose, to administer the sacraments and to preach.’— 
 Oxf. Tracts, No. I. pp. 2, 3. 
 
 In succeeding tracts, statements, if possible, still more startling oc- 
 eur :—The Church of England, by law established, is declared to be, 
 “ THE ONLY CHURCH IN THIS REALM WHICH HAS A RIGHT TO BE QUITE SURE 
 THAT SHE HAS THE Lorp’s BODY TO GIVE TO HIS PROPLE. —Oaf. Tracts, 
 No. 4, p. 5. “*A person not commissioned by the bishop may use the 
 words of baptism, and sprinkle or bathe with the water on earth, but 
 there is no promise from Curist that such aman shall admit souls to the 
 kingdom of heaven. A person not commissioned may break bread and 
 pour out wine, and pretend to give the Lord’s Supper, but it can afford 
 no comfort to any to receive it at his hands, because there is no war- 
 rant from Curist to lead communicants to suppose that while he does 
 
42 HIGH CHURCH PRETENSIONS EXPOSED. 
 
 so here on carth, they will be partakers of the Savicur’s heavenly body 
 and blood. And as for the person himself, who takes upon himself 
 without warrant to minister in holy things, he is all the while tread- 
 ing in the footsteps of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram.”—Oaf. Tracts, 
 No. 35, pp. 2, 3. 
 
 This charge on the part of the Anglicans, is a very curious example 
 of the tendency of blinded men, to reproach others with what they 
 themselves are notoriously guilty of. If the crime of Korah can be 
 committed under the New Testament dispensation, which we do not 
 question, we know none to whom it can be brought so clearly home 
 as the Popish and High Church English clergy. There is but one 
 Priest, in the strict sense of the term, under the New Economy—the 
 antitype of Aaron and all his sons—the substance of which they were 
 the shadow—and if there be any meaning in the expressions “remitting 
 
 nd retaining sins—the communication of the Holy Ghost—the giv- 
 ing men the heavenly body and blood of Christ—the imparting to 
 them the Trinity’—these Anglicans, as well as their papistical breth- 
 ren, have invaded the office of “ the High-priest of our profession.” 
 The truth of the charge is abundantly made out by that very assump- 
 tion of the sacerdotal character, that lays the foundation of the calum- 
 nious charge against a class of men, who claim no higher name than 
 that of pastors and teachers, and who would not accept the fearful re- 
 sponsibility connected with an intrusion into the place of Him who is 
 “‘ a priest for ever after the order of Melchizedek,” for all the honour 
 and power which the mitre of Canterbury, or the triple crown of 
 Rome brought their possessors, in the age of Becket or of Hilde- 
 brand. 
 
 Palmer, in his elaborate “‘ Treatise of the Church of Christ, de- 
 signed chiefly for the use of Students in Theology,” has the following 
 remarks, which we leave to the digestion of the Presbyterian ad- 
 mirers of “ the venerable hierarchy of England.” “ The Presbyte- 
 rians of Scotland were innovators . . . . Their opinion was erro- 
 neous, but had it merely extended to a preference for the presbyte- 
 rian form, it might have been in some degree tolerated : it would not 
 have cut them off from the Church of Christ ; but it was the exagge- 
 ration of their opinion: their separation for the sake of this opinion, 
 
 their actual rejection of the authority and communion of the existing 
 successors of the apostles in Scotland, and therefore of the Universal 
 Church, in all ages, that marks them out as schismatics; and all the 
 temporal enactments and powers of the whole world would not cure 
 this fault, nor render them a portion of the Church of Christ .. . With 
 
Ἂ HIGH CHURCH PRETENSIONS EXPOSED. 43 
 
 regard to all the other sects in Scotland which have seceded from the 
 Presbyterian community ... . the same observations apply to them 
 all. Their predecessors, the Presbyterians, voluntarily separated them- 
 selves from the Catholic Church of Christ, and they, in departing 
 from the Presbyterian communion, have not yet returned to that of 
 the true Church. Consequently, they form no part of the Church of 
 Christ."—Vol. i. Part i. Ch. iv. § 2; Ch. xii. §§ 1, 8; and Part ii. 
 Ch. i. 
 
 Cambridge, too, numbers among her sons—some thorough high 
 churchmen. The rector of Charlton, who boasts of being a Cambridge 
 man—after quoting, in imitation of a living archdeacon (Wilkins), 
 the following passage from Morinus de Ordinationibus Maronitarum. 
 “ The most High God came down to Mount Sinai, and consecrated 
 Moses; Moses laid his hands on Aaron; Aaron upon his sons; his 
 sons successively on those that followed them until John the Baptist ; 
 John the Baptist laid his hands upon the Saviour; our Saviour upon 
 his apostles ; his apostles on the bishops that succeeded them; and 
 they ever since on those who are admitted into holy orders,” goes on 
 to say, quite in the Betty style, “In this, brethren, there is something 
 inexpressibly grand ; absolute actual contact with the God of all the 
 earth at Mount Sinai; conveyed down to us through the person and 
 office of our faithful and merciful High Priest, Jesus the Mediator of 
 the New Covenant; AND DOES ALL THIS Go FoR NotHING?” Indeed, if 
 we believe himself, it does not go for much, for in the very next page 
 we meet with these words, “ Having about us all the marks of apos- 
 tleship, episcopal call, ‘ laying on of hands,’ and apostolical mission, 
 we want but the unction of the Holy One, in answer to your prayers, to 
 make our ministrations applicable to your case; and so to you, to 
 make us fit for the ministry of the altar we be called upon to serve.” 
 —The Church, The Bishop, Or Korah, Which? Two Sermons, by Frede- 
 ric A Glover, Rector of Charlton, pp. 72-74. Lond. 1838. This gen- 
 tleman seems no fonder of the Scottish Establishment than his Oxo- 
 nian brothers, Betty and Palmer. He gives it no better name than 
 “ the Scottish Schism,” and declares its members “ practically excom- 
 municated” by the episcopal witness—who has all along been in the 
 midst of them representing the true church, p. 71. 
 
 Well might John Walker say, “ Apostolical succession, in the high 
 church sense of the phrase, is indeed a fiction so monstrously absurd, 
 that it might excite laughter, if it were not so monstrously profane, 
 that indignation rather must predominate in the Christian who con- 
 siders it ;” and well might the late Archbishop of Cashel, Dr Lawrence, 
 
͵. 44 REASONS WHY CHRISTIANS SHOULD ATTEND TO POLITICS. 
 
 one of the most learned prelates who have lately adorned the Episcopal 
 Bench, complain, “ In our days it has happened that the sacerdotal 
 functions of our clergy, derived in regular succession from the Apos- 
 tles themselves, have been singularly magnified ; and the consequent . 
 danger of non-conformity, placed in a point of view in which our 
 ancestors would have feared to place, and have been startled to con- 
 template, it.”—Oharge to the Clergy of the Diocese of Cashel and Emly, 
 p. 20. Dublin. 1822. 
 
 We understand that the author of “ The Natural History of En- 
 thusiasm,” is engaged in an elaborate refutation of the Oxonian here- 
 sies, or rather hallucinations. We regret that his excellent talents 
 and valuable time should be so wasted. The proper answer to these 
 modern Monks, is that which, an ancient chronicler tells us, a Friar 
 of ‘the olden time’ made to certain ‘ monitiones’ of his Prior: “ Et 
 frater Solomon de Ripple ad monitiones dicti Prioris respondit sic di- 
 cendo, Truretes, Truretes, Trureves.”*— An equally appropriate, 
 and still more laconic reply, might be made in Mr Burchell’s (Vicar 
 of Wakefield) emphatic monosyllable—F uper. 
 
 XLIV. ᾿ 
 
 ADDITIONAL REASONS WHY CHRISTIANS SHOULD ATTEND TO 
 POLITICS. 
 
 To be added, p. 228, 1. 16.—The observations which follow are from 
 the pen of an Episcopal clergyman :—“ If you mean by politics the 
 exercise of violent party spirit—the eager seeking of place or power— 
 the pandering either to the great or to the little—there is no need to 
 keep religion and politics apart ; they are of necessity so apart that 
 Omnipotence itself could not join them together. But if you mean 
 by the term politics all that relates to the government of a nation, 
 to the ordering and conducting its affairs (and this beyond question 
 is its true meaning), then to say that religion has nothing to do with 
 politics, is in effect, or virtually to say, that religion has nothing to 
 do with the affairs of the nation. It is to assert, that national affairs 
 are those affairs in which men are engaged as beings independent of 
 God, accountable to him neither here nor hereafter. And what affairs 
 I would ask are these? and where are such men to be found ?”—The 
 Voter's Duty, by the Rev. Thomas Davis, Curate of All Saints, Wor- 
 cester. 
 
 It is a sharp, but a deserved rebuke, administered by an able jour- 
 
 * An old English word for trifies. 
 
MR HUME ON CLERICAL AND DISSENTING POLITICS, 45. 
 
 nalist to a certain class of Dissenters. ‘“‘ The want of political spirit,— 
 of public principle, among too many members of Dissenting churches, 
 who are well off in the world, and wish to stand well with other par- 
 ties, is resolvable into nothing better than an Antinomian selfishness.” 
 —Patriot, Jan. 3, 1839. Onr Seceding forefathers used to give this 
 temper the characteristic designation “ detestable neutrality.” —“ Not 
 to be a politician in these days, not to be religiously observant of our 
 political duties as citizens, is to be a traitor to those principles which 
 are identified with the advancement of Chirist’s kingdom, and to that 
 cause which is the last and best hope of the world.”—Zclectic Review, 
 Jan. 1839, p. 40. 
 
 The following words of that thoroughly honest friend to liberty, 
 Major Cartwright, form an appropriate conclusion to this note :— 
 _ “ Politics is a word of wide extent, applying, indeed, to whatever re- 
 lates to the ordering of society, and the well-being of a community ; 
 wherefore it were next to an impossibility that any two men, respecting 
 all such matters, should perfectly agree ; although in first principles, 
 on which all the rest depends, such a perfect agreement is natural to 
 men of sense and integrity, who have paid an ordinary attention to 
 the science of politics. » 
 
 « Religion and politics, although of most importance to men, are 
 the only two subjects on which corrupt rulers, by their laws, forbid 
 free discussion, impose false and absurd creeds, and, by arts and frauds, 
 endeavour to mislead a people. No wonder, then, that the well 
 meaning become so perplexed, as not perfectly to agree on these sub- 
 jects. 
 
 “ Religion and politics are, however, much more nearly allied than 
 is commonly imagined, and, indeed, I cannot consider politics in any 
 other light than as [a part of] practical religion, and pre-eminently 
 so under the christian dispensation. It is one of the vile arts of cor- 
 ruptionists, to talk of religion and politics as being without affinity.” 
 —Cartwright’s Memoirs, vol, ii. p. 216. Lond 1826. 
 
 XLV. 
 
 MR HUME’S OPINION OF THE POLITICS NATURAL TO THE CLERGY 
 AND DISSENTERS. 
 
 Foot-Note, p. 229, l. 18.—Mr Hume, who is the apologist of arbi- 
 trary power, and who, of all kinds of ministers of religion, hated an en- 
 dowed clergy least, seems to have been quite aware of this. ‘ The 
 
 Established clergy,” says he, ‘* while things are in their natural situa- 
 Ἐ 
 
40 MISTAKEN INTERPRETATION OF ROM. XIII. 1--7. 
 
 tion, will always be of the court party ; as, on the contrary, Dissenters 
 of all kinds will be of the country party ; since they can never hope 
 for that toleration which they stand in need of, but by means of our 
 free government. All princes that have aimed at despotic power 
 have known of what importance it was to gain the Established clergy ; 
 as the clergy, on their part, have showed a great facility in entering 
 into the views of such princes.” —Hume’s Essays, Part i. Ess. ix. Vol. i. 
 p. 67. 8vo. Edin. 1804. 
 
 XLVI. 
 
 CLERICAL SYCOPHANCY EXEMPLIFIED. 
 
 Page 229, 1. 18 from the foot.—Seldom have the terms of the com- 
 pact been so honestly acknowledged, as in a Memorial offered to Queen 
 Elizabeth, and afterward to King James, entitled, ‘‘ Reasons to in- 
 duce Her Majesty, that Deans, Archdeacons, and some of the grave 
 and wise Clergie may be admitted into the Lower House of Parlia- 
 ment.” ‘In the meantime,” say these most-loyal and submissive 
 clergy, “ her Majesty shall be sure of a number more in that assem- 
 bly, that ever will be most ready to maintain her prerogative, and to 
 enact whatsoever may make most for her Highness’s safety and con- 
 tentment, as the men that next, under God's goodness, do most depend 
 upon her princely clemency and protection.” It was a fortunate cireum- 
 stance for the liberties of the nation, that the Queen thought her au- 
 thority too firmly established, to require the support of these shame- 
 less sycophants.—Vide Luder’s Reports, Vol. iii—Burnet’s Hist. of 
 Reform. Vol. ii. 
 
 XLVII. 
 
 MISTAKEN INTERPRETATION OF ROM. XIII. 1-7, BY THE FRIENDS 
 OF CIVIL FREEDOM. 
 
 JAC. DE PARADISO. WARBURTON. ROBINSON. 
 
 To be introduced at the head ef page 232.—Jaconus ΡῈ Parapiso, one 
 of the Precursors of the Reformation, in his tract “ De Septem Stati- 
 bus Ecclesiz,” published about 1449, commenting on the words— 
 “ there is no power but of God—he that resisteth the power, resist- 
 eth the ordinance of God,’—remarks more ingeniously than soundly, 
 “ Ponit inquam in abstracto [potestas] nop in concreto [potens] quia 
 potens potest esse non a Deo, sed officium potestatis semper justum 
 est, quia ordinatum secundum regulas Dei, rationibiliter institutum, 
 licet potens ea abutitur. Ideo Deus dicit per Oseam : ‘ Ipsi regnayerunt 
 
NECESSITY OF ENJOINING CIVIL OBEDIENCE. 47 
 
 et non, ex me, &c. Et dicit Christus Pilato: ‘non haberes in me po- 
 testatem ullam, nisi tibi data esset desuper. Potestas igitur justa 
 erit—sed ille ea abutebatur injuste Christum condemnando. Unde 
 subdit Paulus ‘ Qui potestati resistit Dei ordinationi resistit.’ Non dicit, 
 Qui potenti in concreto resistit abutenti sua potestate, Deo resistit : 
 imo talis sic resistens contraria Deo precipienti, non Deo resistit, sed 
 ei se conformat.”—Appendix ad Fasciculum Rerum Expetendarum et 
 Fugiendarum. Edit. Ed. Brown, p.109. Lond. 1690. 
 
 To be introduced before line 2 from the foot, p. 232.—W arBuRTon 
 says, “* When we are bid by the Apostle Peter to ‘ honour the king,’ 
 we must conclude he previously supposes, that we have had the ccu- 
 rage to procure for ourselves such a constitution, as establisheth a king 
 worthy of honour. . . . . When he bids us honour the king, he 
 must needs mean a legitimate magistrate, in opposition to a lawless 
 tyrant, so contrary to the true spirit of gospel liberty. And St Paul, 
 where he exhorts men to civil obedience, defines this lawful magis- 
 trate to be one whe ‘ beareth not the sword in vain,—a terror not to 
 good works but to the evil—a minister of God to us for good—an 
 avenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil,—the very descrip- 
 tion of our own constitutional monarch.’— Warburton’s Principles of 
 Natural and Revealed Religion, Opened and Explained, Vol. ii. Appen- 
 dix, Ser. i. pp. 15, 14. Lond. 1754. 
 
 Rosinson, of Cambridge, says wittily, as he is wont, but certainly 
 not accurately, ‘“‘ The Apostle speaks in the text of government, not 
 governors, of a good civil government, and the non-resistance enjoined 
 is limited to the subject of which the Apostle speaks. This is the true 
 key of the thirteenth of the Romans, and with this the whole period 
 1-7 softly opens to the hand of a child.”—Sermons on Particular Oc- 
 casions, p. 23. Lond. 1804. 
 
 XLVIII. 
 
 REASON WHY THE APOSTLES SO OFTEN INCULCATED THE DUTIES OF 
 CIVIL OBEDIENCE. 
 
 BISHOP WATSON. 
 
 To be inserted before 1. 11 from the foot, p. 234.—“ About six years 
 before St Paul wrote to the Christians at Rome, the Emperor Clau- 
 dius had banished the Jews from that city, for raising continual tu- 
 mults against the state, ‘impulsore Chresto. Of this event Paul must 
 have had circumstantial intelligence from Aquila and Priscilla, with 
 whom he lodged at Corinth, and who had left Italy on this very ac- 
 
{8 NECESSITY OF ENJOINING CIVIL OBEDIENCE. 
 
 count. It is not an easy matter to say what Suetonius meant by the 
 expression ‘impulsore Chresto.’ Some (Dr Lardner’s Collection of An- 
 cient Testimonies, Ch. viii. Works, Vol. iii. p. 618) have thought, 
 that the enmity of the Jews against those of their own country, who 
 had embraced Christianity, had produced some disturbances, which, 
 coming to the Emperor’s knowledge, occasioned their expulsion ; 
 others (Powell’s Discourses, Discourse x. p. 157. Lond. 1776) have 
 supposed that the historian alludes to the success which attended the 
 first promulgation of Christianity at Rome, and the consequent deser- 
 tion of the established system of Polytheism; to me it seems most 
 probable, that the Jews, in becoming Christians, had shown a dispo- 
 sition to rebel against government, from the notion of Jesus, as the 
 Anointed of God, being the long-expected Prince, who was to over- 
 come the Romans and redeem Israel. Christ, indeed, was ascended 
 into heaven; but those who had proposed the question to him, ‘ wilt 
 thou at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?’ had been told that 
 he would so come in like manner as they had seen him go into hea- 
 ven; and this declaration might easily be interpreted by the preju- 
 dices of the Jews, into an expectation sufficient to excite the jealousy 
 of the Roman state. It was a received maxim among the Jews, that 
 the Messiah should free them from the Roman yoke; this was the 
 principle by which many false Christs were continually exciting tu- 
 mults in Judea: it was the same expectation which induced the 
 Jews, some fourteen years after their banishment from Rome by Clau- 
 dius, to begin that rebellion, which ended in the destruction of their 
 city and their civil polity; and it does not appear an unreasonable 
 conjecture to suppose, that the same opinion had operated in the 
 same manner upon the minds of those who acknowledged Jesus to be 
 the true Messiah. Be this as it may, we are certain, at least from 
 the testimony of Josephus (Antiq. Lib. xviii. C. 1), that the whole 
 nation of the Jews had become infected with the seditious principles 
 of Judas the Gaulonite ; who, in the reign of Augustus, had excited 
 no inconsiderable tumult in Judea; and every where taught the peo- 
 ple doctrines, till then unheard of amongst them, that it was not law- 
 ful to acknowiedge submission to any earthly governor, the Lord Je- 
 hovah being their only Lord, or to pay tribute to the Romans. St 
 Paul, in his Epistle to the Christians at Rome, consisting of Jews and 
 converted Gentiles (who considered themselves as ‘ partakers of the 
 root and fatness of the olive-tree,’ into which they had been grafted ; 
 as acquiring a title to all the real or fancied privileges of the com- 
 monwealth of Israel), seems to have had a particular view to the re- 
 
APOSTLES REASONS FOR CIVIL OBEDIENCE. 49 
 
 futing the tenets, that Judas had broached, which the whole nation 
 had embraced, and for an adherence to which, probably, the Jews and 
 Christians had been banished the city.” —Sermons on Publie Occasions, 
 and Tracts on Religious Subjects, pp. 88, 89. 8vo. Lond. 1788. 
 
 XLIX. 
 
 BISHOPS USHER’S AND SANDERSON’S METHOD OF RECONCILING 
 PAUL AND PETER. 
 
 To be added to Note LX. p. 241.—Archhbishop Usuer does not suc- 
 ceed better, in his long and elaborate attempt to shew that ἀνθρωπινὴ 
 κτισις must signify something else than “ human institution.”— Power 
 of the Prince, and Obedience of the Subject, pp. 8-12. 8vo. Lond, 
 1688. 
 
 Bishop Sanprrson, in his attempt, manifests the good plain com- 
 mon sense which generally characterises his writings, and succeeds 
 better than Sherlock with all his ingenuity.— St Paul saith, ‘ The 
 powers that be are ordained of God, and yet St Peter calleth the ma- 
 gistracy ‘a human ordinance.’ Certainly the Holy Spirit of God, 
 which speaketh in these two great Apostles, is not contrary to itself. 
 The truth is, the substance of the power of every magistrate is the 
 ordinance of God; and that is St Paul’s meaning; but the specifica- 
 tion of the circumstances thereto belonging, as in regard to places, 
 persons, titles, continuance, jurisdiction, subordination, and the rest, 
 is, as St Peter termeth it, ‘a human ordinance,’ introduced by custom 
 or positive law.”—Quoted in Mant and D’Oyley’s Commentary, 1 Peter 
 iii. 13. 
 
 L. 
 AUTHORITIES FOR DIVIDING THE APOSTLE’S REASONS FOR CIVIL 
 OBEDIENCE. 
 
 LIMBORCH. THOLUCK. 
 
 To be inserted before 1. 9 from the foot, p. 247.—“ Posset hee,” says 
 Limporcu, “ quis referre ad peenam divinam, quam incurrunt seditiosi 
 et magistratui rebelles, quale exemplum habemus in Dathan et Abi- 
 ram, Num. xvi., et in Absolone, 2 Sam. xvii. 14. Sed si considere- 
 mus sequentia, ubi dicitur quod magistratus gladium non gestat frus- 
 tra, prestat id interpretari de poena quam magistratus juxta leges le- 
 gitimi regiminis rebellibus infligit.".—Limborch. Comment. in Act. Ap. 
 et in Epp. ad Rom. et Heb., p. 479. Fol. Rot. 1711. 
 
 To be added at the end of the note, p. 249, 1. 4.—Tuotuck remarks, 
 “The expression intimates, as a consequence of the very order of 
 
50 INCONGRUITY OF CIVIL WITH ECCLESIASTICAL POWER. 
 
 things, that every insurrection brings along with it its due punish- 
 ment.”—Menzies’ Translation of Tholuck’s Exposition of the Epistle to 
 the Romans, Vol. ii. p. 392. Edin. 1836. 
 
 LI. 
 
 BLACKSTONE ON THE EXCELLENCE OF THE ROMAN LAW. 
 
 To be added to Note XIV. p. 250.—“ A knowledge of it,” according 
 to Brackstone, “ is useful as well as ornamental, to the scholar, the 
 divine, the statesman, and even the common lawyer.” ‘“ In most of 
 the nations on the continent, where the civil or imperial law under 
 different modifications is so clesely interwoven with the municipal 
 laws of the land, no gentleman, or, at least, no scholar, thinks his 
 education complete, till he has attended a course or two of lectures 
 both upon the institutes of Justinian and the local constitutions of his 
 own soil, under the very eminent professors that abound in their se- 
 veral universities. And in the northern parts of our own island, 
 where also the municipal laws are frequently connected with the 
 civil, it is difficult to meet with a person of liberal education, who is 
 destitute of a competent knowledge in that science which is to be the 
 guardian of his natural rights, and the rule of his civil conduct.’— 
 Blackstone's Commentaries, Introd.§ 1, p.4. So far as the knowledge 
 of civil law is concerned, things in Scotland are not so well as they 
 were eighty years ago. 
 
 111. 
 
 VALLA ON THE INCONGRUITY OF CIVIL WITH ECCLESIASTICAL 
 POWER. 
 
 Foot-Note, p. 262, 7. 20.—In a curious tract of Laurentius Vaila, 
 entitled, ‘ De falso credita et ementita Constantini donatione,” edited 
 by Ulric Hutten, the learned and witty author of that most cut- 
 ting satire on monkish ignorance and licentiousness—* Epistole Ob- 
 scurorum Virorum,” he, pn the supposition that secular power had 
 been offered by the emperor to the bishop of Rome, puts into Silves- 
 ter’s mouth sentiments somewhat like those which Mr Walker, with 
 more verisimilitude, has ascribed to the bishops and deacons of the 
 church at Philippi. ‘“‘ Nostra potestas est potestas clavium regni 
 celorum. Nihil ad hance potestatem, nihil ad hance dignationem, nihil 
 ad hoc regnum adjici potest. Quo qui non contentus est, aliud sibi 
 quoddam a Diabolo postulat, qui etiam Domino dicere ausus est, ‘ tibi 
 dabo omnia regna mundi, si cadens in terram adorayeris me. Quare 
 
DE MARCA ON THE DESIGN OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT. δὶ 
 
 Ea 
 
 Cesar, cum pace tua dictum sit, noli mihi diabolus effici, qui me regna 
 mundi a te data accipere jubeas. Malo enim illa spernere quam pos- 
 sidere. Et ut aliquid de infidelibus, sed ut spero futuris fidelibus 
 loquar, noli me de Angelo lucis reddere illis Angelum tenebrarum, 
 quorum corda ad pietatem inducere volo, non ipsorum cervici jugum 
 imponere, et gladio, quod est verbum Dei, non gladio ferri mihi sub- 
 jicere, ne deteriores efficiantur, ne recalcitrent, ne cornu me feriant, 
 ne nomen Dei, meo irritati errore, blasphement. Filios mihi charissi- 
 mos volo reddere non servos: adoptare non emere: generare non ma- 
 nucapere : animas eorum, sacrificium offere Deo, non Diabolo corpora. 
 ‘ Discite a me’ (inquit Dominus) ‘ qui mitis sum et humilis corde. 
 Capite jugum meum et invenietis requiem animabus vestris: Jugum 
 enim meum suave et pondus meum leve.’ Cujus ad extremum, finem 
 faciam : illam in hac re sententiam accipe, quam quasi inter me et te 
 tulit. ‘ Reddite que sunt Cesaris Cesari, et que sunt Dei Deo.’ Quo 
 fit, ut nec tu Cesar tua relinquere, neque ego que Cesaris sunt acci- 
 pere debeam, que vel si millies offeras nunquam accipiam.’—L. Valle 
 in donationem Constantini declamatio in Ortuini Gratii Fasciculo rerum 
 expetendarum et fugiendarum, edit. Edw. Brown, p. 188. Folio. Lond. 
 1690. For writing the tract of which the above is an extract, and 
 some other rather free exposures of papal impostures and abuses, the 
 very learned author, who may be accounted one of the precursors of 
 the Reformation, was punished by banishment from Rome—of which 
 city he was a patrician. He died in 1457. 
 
 LI. 
 
 DR OWEN ON THE LEGITIMATE SPHERE OF CIVIL PUNISHMENTS. 
 
 To be inserted after line 7, p. 266.—* The warrant of exercising vin- 
 dictive power among men, is from the reference of offences to their 
 common tranquillity. ‘ Delicta puniri, publici interest.. Where pu- 
 nishment is the debt, ‘ bonum totius’ is the creditor to exact 1{."- 
 Owen's Sermons, p. 291. Fol. Lond. 1721. 
 
 LIV. 
 DE MARCA ON THE DESIGN OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 
 
 DE MARCA. 
 
 “ Regium imperium quietem publicam, Episcoporum solicitudo 
 felicitatem eternam hominibus procurat, testante Apostolo. Reges 
 
δῷ DE MARCA ON THE DESIGN OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 
 
 secularibus, pontifices spiritaalibus ordinandis se impendunt. Quam- 
 diu neutra potestatum in alienos limites insiliet, mutua concordia res 
 Christiana amplificabitur. Soli Principi potestas in hee terrena et 
 temporalia imperandi asseritur, ut Ecclesie sacra et spiritualia procu- 
 randi. . . . Observandum est, sententiam meam abesse a Fortunii 
 Garcie opinione, qui eundem esse legum civilium, et canonicarum 
 finem contendit, adeo ut legi civili non solum propositus sit finis pro- 
 movende tranquillitatis publice sed etiam vere «eterneque felicitatis 
 civibus procurande. Hoc enim precipuum est discrimen inter cano- 
 num decreta et leges publicas, quod illa unicuique Christiano felici- 
 tatem eternam parent, et ad eum finem instrumenta accommodata 
 subministrent ; hee vero reipublice pacem, et singulorum civium— 
 quatenus sunt partes reipublice, promoveant. . . . Ecclesiastica 
 potestas seu respublica Christiana, que sub nomine Ecclesie sepe ex- 
 plicatur, cam significat clericorum et laicorum collectionem, qui in 
 unum corpus adunati, ecclesiasticis legibus se subjiciunt: non quidem 
 quatenus homines civilem rempublicam componentes sed quatenus 
 in spiritualem coetum admissi. Eadem ratione civilis respublica dici- 
 potest qu vel ex infidelibus principibus et rebuspublicis constat, vel 
 que ex Christianis hominibus quidem, sed nullo ad religionem re- 
 spectu habito componitur.’—Petrus de Marca de Concordia Sacerdotii 
 et imperii seu de libertatibus Ecclesiae Gallicane, 1. ii. ¢. 1. 1. ii. c. 10. 
 1. ii. c. 1. tom. i. pp. 47, 81. Fol. Paris, 1669. 
 
 These enlightened views respecting the proper and exclusive design 
 of civil government, and the entire distinctness of the State and the 
 Church, are found in the able work of De Marca (‘“ the wisest divine,” 
 according to Warburton, “* whom the French nation has ever pro- 
 duced :” “aman,” as Atterbury says, “ excellently well read in this 
 debate, and of abilities equal to his reading”), whose title has just 
 been transcribed. It was composed at the request of Cardinal Rich- 
 lieu, and published 1641. To propitiate the pope who was offended 
 at some portions of the book, he made an unmanly retractation of the 
 unpalatable sentiments. A short while before his death, he ordered 
 his secretary Baluze to supply the omissions, and expunge the retrac- 
 tations he had made, and the work was published in its original state 
 soon after his decease, 1669. The best edition is that in six volumes 
 4to. Bamberger, 1738. It is enriched with the learned and liberal 
 Bohmer’s “ Observationes,” and the “* Annotationes” of Fanianus. ‘The 
 epigrammatic epitaph, written on his death, immediately after his no- 
 mination to the archbishopric of Paris, may amuse the reader :— 
 
BISHOP ATTERBURY—THE ASSOCIATE SYNOD. fie 
 
 “ Cy git V’illustre pe Marca, 
 Que le plus grand des rois marqua, 
 Pour le Prelat de son Eglise : 
 Mais le mort qui le remarqua, 
 Et qui se plait ἃ la surprise, 
 Tout aussi-tot le demarequa.” 
 
 ων. 
 BISHOP ATTERBURY ON THE DESIGN OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 
 
 ATTERBURY. 
 
 To be inserted before the quotation from Whiston, p. 266.—* The civil 
 and spiritual powers are distinct in their end and nature ; and there- 
 fore ought to be so in their exercise too. The one relates to the peace, 
 order, health, and prosperity of the man in this life, as a sociable 
 creature; the other concerns his eternal state, and his thoughts, 
 words, and actions preparative thereto. The first is common to all 
 societies, whether pagan or christian ; the latter can rightly be exer- 
 cised among Christians only ; and among them, not as enclosed within 
 any civil state or community, but as members of a &piritual society, 
 of which Jesus Christ is the head ; who has also given out laws, and 
 appointed a standing succession of officers, under himself, for the go- 
 vernment of this society. And these ministers of his did actually 
 govern it, by these powers committed to them, for near three hundred 
 years, before any government was christian. From whence it fol- 
 lows, that such spiritual jurisdiction cannot be in its own nature ne- 
 eessarily dependent on the temporal ; for then it could never have 
 been lawfully exercised till kings, states, and potentates became 
 christian.”—Atterbury’s Letter to a Convocation Man, concerning the 
 Rights, Powers, and Privileges of that Body, pp. 17,18. Lond. 1697. 
 
 LVI. 
 
 THE ASSOCIATE SYNOD’S DISAPPROBATION OF THE EXERCISE OF 
 CIVIL POWER IN RELIGION, 
 
 To be added to Note XX, p. 276.—The Associate (Antiburgher) 
 Synod, so early as the year 1761, gave utterance to the following 
 most scriptural and liberal sentiments. In the year 1759, a motion 
 was made by one of their number, and afterwards insisted on in the 
 years 1760 and 1761, that they should apply to the King for the re- 
 dress of some religious grievances, and petition him to interpose his 
 power in behalf of religious reformation. This motion being delibe- 
 
δά INOBLIGATORY COMMANDS OF THE MAGISTRATE. 
 
 rately considered, and reasoned upon, was laid aside with the consent 
 of the whole Synod, except the original mover, and one other mem- 
 ber ; and in the record of the reasons for laying it aside are these truly 
 memorable words :—‘* The apostles, in all the course of their ministry, 
 made no such application to these (civil) powers. They never called 
 in the assistance of the secular arm, against the prevailing abomina- 
 tions ; whatever advantages they had for doing so, from the univer- 
 sality of their commission, and from the miraculous powers with 
 which it was accompanied. Our Lord did not see mect to make 
 choice of that secular way, for promoting the interests of his king- 
 dom.” —Gib’s Display, vol. ii. p. 242. Allan on the Power of the Civil 
 Magistrate in Matters of Religion, p. 12. Edin. 1807. M‘Kerrow’s 
 History of the Secession, vol. i. pp. 349-852. Edin. 1839.* 
 
 In 1796, in consequence of a reference from the presbytery of Edin- 
 burgh, originating in Mr, afterwards Dr M‘Criec, refusing to take the 
 formula without a judicial explication on the head of the powers of 
 the civil magistrate, the Synod unanimously passed an act, declaring, 
 “ That as the Confession of Faith was at first received by the Church - 
 of Scotland, with some exception as to the power of the civil magistrate 
 relative to spiritual matters, so the Synod, for the satisfaction of all who 
 wish to know their mind on this subject, extend that exception to every 
 thing in the Confession, which, taken by itself, seems to allow the 
 punishment of good and peaceable subjects, on account of their reli- 
 gious opinions and observances ;” declaring moreover, “that they ap- 
 prove of no other means of bringing men into the church, or retain- 
 ing them in it, than such as are spiritual, and were used by the apos- 
 tles, and other ministers of the word, in the first ages of the christian 
 church ; persuasion not force ; the power of the gospel not the sword 
 of the civil magistrate."—AUan, p. 18. M‘Kerrow, vol. ii. pp. 45-48. 
 
 ΠΥῚῚ. 
 
 COMMANDS OF THE MAGISTRATE BEYOND THE LIMITS OF HIS 
 OFFICE, NOT OBLIGATORY. 
 
 MR SAMUEL JOHNSON. 
 
 To be added to Note XXJ, p. 276.— A constable represents the 
 king’s person, and in the execution of his office is within the purview 
 
 * The Secession Church may well be congratulated on the completion of 
 this valuable record of her origin, progress, and present state. It places the 
 industry, candour, and sound judgment of its author in a most favourable 
 light. The narrative is clear and full—and the spirit is christian and catholic. 
 
INCONGRUITY OF CIVIL-RELIGIOUS LEGISLATION. 58 
 
 of the thirteenth of the Romans, as all men grant: but in case he so 
 far pervert his office, as to break the peace, and commit burglary or 
 robbery on the highway, he may and ought to be resisted.”—Johnson’s 
 Works, p. 152. j 
 
 These are the words of Mr not Dr Samuel Johnson. Never were 
 two men, bearing the same name, more decidedly distinguished by their 
 principles, than these two Samuel Johnsons: Both churchmen, but 
 the first a very low and liberal, the second a very high and bigotted, 
 churchman—the first a revolution Whig—the second a Jacobite Tory. 
 Mr Samuel had an opportunity of proving the value he attached to 
 his principles, by becoming a confessor, and all but a martyr. He 
 had the honour of being “sometime chaplain to the Right Honourable 
 William Lord Russel,” and seems to have imbibed his patron’s spirit. 
 For his exertions in the cause of truth and liberty, this learned and 
 exemplary divine was repeatedly imprisoned, the second time, for 
 more than five years, degraded from the order of priesthood, exposed 
 three times in the pillory, and publicly whipped from Newgate to 
 Tyburn. When speaking to a friend of the execution of this last part 
 of his sentence, he stated, “that the text of Scripture, ‘ Hz endured 
 the cross, and despised the shame, coming suddenly into his mind, 
 so much animated and supported him in his bitter journey, that had 
 he not thought that it would have looked like vain glory, he could 
 have sung a psalm while the executioner was doing his office, with as 
 much composure and cheerfulness as ever he had done in the church ; 
 though, at the same time, he had a quick sense of every stripe that 
 was given him with a whip of nine cords knotted, to the number of 
 317.” “ This,” says his biographer, “‘ was the more remarkable in him, 
 as he had not the smallest tincture of enthusiasm.” His collected 
 works were published by subscription, in a folio volume, after his 
 death, 1718. Some of his tracts have been republished singly. 
 
 LVIII. 
 
 INCONGRUITY OF CIVIL-RELIGIOUS LEGISLATION. 
 FOSTER. 
 
 “ Let modest Foster, if he will, excel 
 Ten metropolitans in preaching well.’”’—Popr. 
 
 “ A person of eminent character and abilities.” —Bisnor Lowtn. 
 To be taken in after 1.18, p. 284.—“ There is another inquiry still 
 
 behind, the greatest and most momentous of all, and reaching in its 
 consequences, far beyond the utmost period of all civil societies, and 
 
56 INCONGRUITY OF CIVIL-RELIGIOUS LEGISLATION. 
 
 the dissolution of the world itself, viz. ‘ What is the just extent, and 
 what are the boundaries of the magistrates’ power, with respect to 
 religion and the rights of conscience?’ And here I believe it will ap- 
 pear that he neither has, nor can have, from God, from nature, from 
 the people, or from the peculiar reason and design of his office, any 
 authority at all. 
 
 “Tn all affairs of justice, and as to many other branches of moral 
 conduct, he has, indeed, an undoubted right to interpose ; nay, to en- 
 force these which are likewise eternal laws of heaven, and indispen- 
 sable parts of true religion by the sanction of civil laws. But why ? 
 Not at all as they are religious, but merely as they are necessary 
 social virtues ; or rather, and to speak more properly, not even as they 
 are virtues, religious or social, but as outward acts, or courses of pub- 
 lic behaviour requisite to the order and regular support of govern- 
 ment. The exterior, the overt act of fidelity and equity will fully an- 
 swer all civil purposes, whether it proceed from virtue in the heart, 
 or only from fear and worldly interest. And civil authority, like all 
 other authority, being of necessity bounded by the ultimate view and - 
 end of it; to stretch it farther must be tyrannical violence and usur- 
 pation. It may, indeed, enjoin some things which religion enjoins, 
 but from motives entirely different: It may comprehend within the 
 true scope of it, what ought also to be matter of conscience, yet have 
 no right to interfere in the least degree, so far as they really are points 
 of conscience ; and that this is the just state of the case, the following 
 considerations will, I hope, clearly demonstrate :— 
 
 “« First, In matters merely religious, God is and must be the sole 
 legislator. No creature can without great pride and presumption, 
 pretend to fix what are the general terms of acceptance with him ; or 
 so much as to determine any thing, about public forms of belief or 
 worship, without leaving conscience absolutely free and uncontrolled. 
 Religion is a law to the heart ; chiefly indeed urged and enforced on 
 the internal powers of human nature. But can the magistrate take 
 cognizance of inward principles or intentions? Can he reward inward 
 virtue, or punish the inward temper and habit of vice? of both which 
 it is impossible that he should be rightly informed. The power that 
 can neither give sure infallible laws, nor secure the efficacy and ope- 
 ration of its laws, nor in one case out of ten thousand, distinguish be- 
 tween the guilty and the innocent, can have no pretence to the cha- 
 racter of a power instituted and ordained by God. 
 
 “ And this utterly dissipates and destroys all the claims of civil go- 
 vernment, to interfere in the concerns of religion and conscience, ei- 
 
INCONGRUITY OF CIVIL-RELIGIOUS LEGISLATION. 57 
 
 ther in essentials or circumstantials ; in the imposition of things ne- 
 cessary or indifferent. For as soon as scruples and doubts arise about 
 things deemed to be, or which are really in their own nature, indif- 
 ferent, they immediately become matters of conscience. And there- 
 fore even in such cases, the magistrates’ authority must be nothing, 
 unless it be unlimited and absolute in all instances: To assert which, 
 would be to abolish reason, conscience, and integrity altogether, and 
 to exclude the government of God himself. 
 
 “ For it is a most certain truth, thatif the magistrate has a right to 
 make laws and ordinances respecting religion, God can have no right. 
 Because, between a power omniscient, and a power limited, weak, 
 and fallible, there can, in innumerable great and important cases, be 
 no concurrence or harmony of rule. So that if God be rejected, from 
 being the sole monarch of the whole religious world, the consequence 
 must be no government, no religion at all, but the giving up man- 
 kind to the loose and arbitrary sway of error, capriciousness, and 
 violence. 
 
 “ Again, as the magistrate in the religious world (which is most 
 strictly and unalterably God’s kingdom), has no claim to be a law- 
 giver ; as he is entirely unqualified for the enacting proper laws, for 
 an impartial administration of justice, and effectual support of govern- 
 ment—this equally evinces that he has neither from nature, nor the 
 positive will of the Supreme Being, nor from the consent of the peo- 
 ple (the most solemn sacred sources of all government), a right to 
 set himself up as an interpreter of divine laws; or to frame creeds, or 
 articles to be universally subscribed, and assented to, as a standard of 
 faith or as articles of peace, or to qualify for higher emoluments and 
 honours in society. 
 
 “ For the law of nature declares, that with respect to acts of real 
 virtue, offices relating to God, and transactions for eternity, the rank 
 of the lowest and meanest subject is upon an exact level with the 
 pride and ostentation of the greatest princes ; that kings are to be 
 judged not as men have raised, but as God created them ; not by the 
 accidental privileges of their high station, but by the general laws of 
 human nature, adapted to their peculiar circumstances. 
 
 “ But further. As the eternal law of nature strongly remonstrates 
 against civil authority in matters of conscience, both in enacting new 
 and in explaining the old laws of religion ; so likewise does revela- 
 tion, for it describes God as ‘ the only potentate, as alone searching 
 the hearts, and ‘ trying the reins of the children of men,’* and ca- 
 
 “tim. vi. 15 3 Jer: xvii. 10. 
 
δ8 INCONGRUITY OF CIVIL-RELIGIOUS LEGISLATION. 
 
 pable of ‘ rendering’ to every one ‘ according to his deeds ;’* as the 
 original source of power from whom all government is derived, and 
 to whom it is accountable. And Christ himself, the last great restorer 
 and founder of true religion, that was to continue unrepealed and un- 
 alterable to the end of time, has expressly declared, that ‘ his king- 
 dom is not of this world; and, consequently, that the doctrines of 
 religion ought not to be established, nor the rules of it enforced, by 
 worldly terrors and rewards. Besides, if the magistrate be invested 
 with this absolute right of interpretation, he must have an equal, if 
 not a superior power, to the maker of the law: I say a superior 
 power, because the law is nothing but according to his sense and ex- 
 planation ; which (unless his skill in moral polities is equal to that 
 of God, the original legislator), will be often, if not generally, a per- 
 version of the law. And this must subject not only the doctrines of 
 revealed religion, but the eternal principles of reason and nature to 
 be altered, corrected, or depraved by ignorance, craft, or ambition. 
 
 “ Besides, who are more unqualified than the supreme magistrates 
 have been in almost all countries and ages of the world, to give judg- © 
 ment in religious controversies? controversies which, in the general, 
 they never studied ; of which they are almost entirely ignorant ; about 
 which, as points of real religion, they have very little concern, being, 
 for the most part, trained up in voluptuousness and want of thought ; 
 and which they are under strong temptations to pervert (if they did, 
 by a kind of miraculous and supernatural inspiration, understand 
 them rightly), to vile secular purposes. 
 
 « Suffer me to pursue the argument a little farther, and to add, 
 that if magistrates have aught to command in affairs relating to reli- 
 gion, subjects must be obliged to obey, to obey absolutely with or 
 against conscience ; to obey all magistrates, since their right is sup- 
 posed to result from their office ; and, consequently, to be Protest- 
 ants and Papists, idolaters or worshippers of the one true God, Mo- 
 hammedans, Pagans, Christians—all kinds of contrarieties as they 
 are differently dispersed and situated. For if they are anywhere al- 
 lowed to dissent, and remonstrate against the impositions of the civil 
 power, it can only be upon this foundation, that the injunctions laid 
 on them are contrary to their reason and the dictates of their private 
 conscience ; and if this be ever admitted to be a rightful plea, it must 
 be admitted in all cases; and conscience, not the will of the magis- 
 trate, must be the universal guide. 
 
 “It is proper to be remarked, farther, that there is a manifest and 
 
 * Roms 11. Ὁ; + John xviii. 36. 
 
INCONGRUITY OF CIVIL-RELIGIOUS LEGISLATION, 59 
 
 important difference between civil and religious disputes; because, 
 in the former instance, it may be impossible for one man to be abso- 
 lutely possessed of a particular branch of property, without another 
 being deprived of it. But every man may enjoy his religious opin- 
 ions, and practise his peculiar mode of worship, without the least in- 
 jury to any other single member of the society, or detriment to the 
 whole. 
 
 «ς Add to all this, that by espousing the sentiment which I am now 
 opposing, of the necessity and authority ofa public magistratical reli- 
 gion, Christianity itself is virtually condemned; because all those 
 who at first either published or embraced it, renounced, and directly 
 confronted the religion of the state. Upon the same foot, all refor- 
 mations of the most wicked and hurtful errors, must, by this new in- 
 vented scheme of tyranny, be precluded and discouraged. It cramps 
 free and ingenuous inquiry, obstructs all improvement in moral and 
 divine knowledge, tends to establish and perpetuate error throughout 
 all ages and generations of men, and to exchange true religion for 
 artifice, and the uniformity of an outward, slavish, hypocritical pro- 
 feSsion. As the result of all, it must weaken every moral tie, un- 
 dermine justice, honesty, mutual truth and fidelity, and supplant the 
 foundations of civil society itself. And this, I think, isapplicable not 
 only to extremes of violence, but to worldly rewards and discourage- 
 ments of all kinds, which are a degree of force upon the understand- 
 ing, and of tyranny over the freedom and immunities of conscience. 
 
 “Once more, if it be every man’s indispensable duty, and, of 
 course, a right which he may justly claim, to act agreeably to the 
 inward light and convictions of his own mind, the civil power can 
 have no authority to impose the minutest article with respect to reli- 
 gion; because these two rights are in their natures, utterly repug- 
 nant and incompatible. The allowing the magistrate’s right is di- 
 rectly calculated, and the experience of the world shows, that it has 
 no other usual effect, than to produce ignorance, slavery, and misery. 
 Whereas a variety of opinions and sects can of itself create no dis- 
 orders. And a public leading in religion has generally been, in fact, 
 the bane of knowledge and rational piety ; and continues, at this day, 
 in almost all nations, to be nothing better, than the establishment of 
 ‘ falsehood’ and ‘ iniquity by a law.”’*—Foster’s Discourses on all 
 the Principal Branches of Natural Religion and Social Virtue, Vol. ii. 
 Pp. 186-192. 4to. Lond. 1752. 
 
 * Psalm xciv. 20. 
 
00 INCONGRUITY OF CIVIL-RELIGIOUS LEGISLATION, 
 
 LIX. 
 INCONGRUITY OF CIVIL-RELIGIOUS LEGISLATION. 
 
 MOLE. 
 
 To be taken in after the quotation from Foster— The principle 
 upon which a civil establishment of the Christian religion is founded, 
 and a compliance with it expected and required, is the authority or 
 right of the civil magistrate to declare, constitute, and appoint what 
 is true religion, or what shall be the public religion of the country ; 
 and that whatsoever he shall enjoin in matters of religion, should be 
 obeyed by all his subjects. This authority has frequently been claim- 
 ed, but it is necessary to be proved, for the rightful setting up of such 
 a practice, or inferring any obligation upon conscience to comply 
 with it. 
 
 * But, now, are civil magistrates possessed of this authority, or the 
 right to do this, or is it mere imagination only? Have they been 
 able, or have they attempted, to prove it, or is it not assertion only 
 and mere claim? Is it from God, or from the people, or how is it 
 that they have acquired this authority, if they are possessed of it ? 
 And how do they appear qualified to execute the work they presume 
 to undertake? Or shall we not, if we narrowly examine into this 
 claim, find it to be destitute of all right, and to be nothing else besides 
 the mere argument of power or of the sword? For can they make such 
 a declaration of true religion ? Can they so ascertain men of its being 
 the will of God? Or can they so assure them of the certain con- 
 nexion of their perfection and salvation, with the practice of what 
 they enjoin, as to lay an obligation on the consciences of their sub- 
 jects, and cause them with safety and satisfaction to trust their eter- 
 nal salvation thereunto ? 
 
 « All this God can do, all this he has done in his establishment of 
 real religion ; and that in such a manner as is applicable and obliga- 
 tory to all nations and to all ages, to the end of the world. And if 
 so, what need is there or what room is there for any other establish- 
 ment? Or if there was, who else can make it? ‘ Who is sufficient 
 for these things?’ What have civil magistrates or civil law to do in 
 this province? Have such persons a competent ability to do any 
 of these acts? Or have their acts any competent efficacy to these 
 ends? After God has done what he has to establish the Christian re- 
 ligion, and that in such a manner as that ‘ the gates of hell can never 
 prevail against it,’ nothing more is needful, and if it were, it is not 
 
INCONGRUITY OF CIVIL-RELIGIOUS LEGISLATION. 61 
 
 possible to be done by any men. ‘There isa wisdom, a truth, a power, 
 which, though multitudes of men satisfy themselves without, rational 
 minds feel to be necessary to these ends, which do not belong to the 
 highest names or characters on earth, but are the properties of God 
 alone. And when God has perfectly established the whole of true 
 religion, whatever is added to it or called by its name, must necessa- 
 rily come under the notion of false religion. But is there any autho- 
 rity sufficient to establish what is really false religion ?”—The Case of 
 a Dissent and Separation from a Civil Establishment of the Christian 
 Religion, fuirly stated by the late Thomas Mole, § ix. pp. 93-96. Lond. 
 1782. 
 
 The author of these shrewd remarks was a learned and ingenious 
 Dissenting divine, who, during a ministry of nearly sixty years, pub- 
 lished at intervals a number of tracts, on various subjects, of consider- 
 able merit. The most valuable of these are, a tract “ On the Foundation 
 of Moral Virtue,” 1732; and “ A Defence” of it, 17383; and “ The 
 Grounds of the Christian Faith Rational,” 1743, in answer to the 
 younger Dodwell’s insidious attack on Christianity, entitled, ‘‘ Chris-: 
 tianity not founded on Argument.” The work quoted above was 
 posthumous, and, like all its author’s productions, is now scarce. 
 
 LX. 
 
 INCONGRUITY OF CIVIL RELIGIOUS- LEGISLATION. 
 PROFESSOR BRUCE. 
 
 To be added to ἰ. 12, p. 286.—** To invest any on earth with a legis- 
 lative power in matters purely religious ; to make a pope, or a king, 
 or a parliament, lords of men’s consciences, and supreme arbiters of 
 christian doctrine, ecclesiastical government, and worship, which are 
 already settled by the church’s truly supreme and infallible Head ; to 
 enact severe laws on the score of harmless, doubtful, or even false 
 opinions, or on account of frivolous and indifferent rites and ceremo- 
 nies ; to impose any religion, even the best, by force and violence, to 
 extirpate error and heresy by fire and sword, to destroy men’s lives, 
 liberty, or estates, under a pretended regard to the salvation of their 
 souls; these are, indeed, anti-christian principles and practices, con- 
 genial only to hell and Rome, and can never be sufficiently held in 
 abhorrence by Protestants.’-—Free Thoughts on the Toleration of Po- 
 pery, by Calvinus Minor, p. 254. Edin. 1780. 
 
02 INCONGRUITY OF CIVIL-RELIGIOUS LEGISLATION. 
 
 LX]. 
 INCONGRUITY OF CIVIL-RELIGIOUS LEGISLATION. 
 DR PRIESTLEY. 
 
 To be taken in after l. 22, p. 286.—‘ ΑἸ] the service which the 
 princes of this world can do to religion, is not to intermeddle with it 
 at all, so as to interrupt the reformation, which might take place in 
 it from natural and proper causes, and for this negative assistance the 
 friends of religion would think themselves under the greatest obliga- 
 tion to civil government. Civil power is a very improper engine to 
 be employed in work of this nature; and whenever employed can 
 hardly fail to defeat its end. Wherever opinion is concerned ; force 
 of all kinds, and all motives of interest (both of which will ever ac- 
 company the civil magistrate), ought to be removed to the greatest 
 distance ; and spontaneous, disinterested, and calm reasoning, have 
 the field entirely to herself. Jesus Christ and his apostles asked no 
 aid of the civil powers. 
 
 ‘ Non tali auxilio, nec defensoribus istis.’-— Vira. 
 
 The kingdom of Christ is not represented by any part of the metallic 
 image of King Nebuchadnezzar, which denoted all the empires of 
 this world; but is the little stone cut out of the mountain without hands. 
 It is a thing quite foreign to the image, and will at last fall upon it 
 and destroy all the remains of it. All that true christianity wishes, 
 is to be unmolested by the kings and rulers of the earth, but it can 
 never submit to their regulations. No christian prince before the Re- 
 formation ever interfered in the business of religion, without esta- 
 blishing the abuses which had crept into it; and all that christian 
 princes have done since the Reformation, has tended to retard that 
 great work, and to them and their interference, it ismanifestly owing 
 that it is not farther advanced at this day."-—A Free Address to Pro- 
 testant Dissenters as such, by a Dissenter, § i. pp. 5, 6. Lond. 1769. 
 The anonymous pamphlet now quoted, was one of the earlier pro- 
 ductions of the prolific pen of Dr Joseph Priestley, a man whose “ re- 
 ligious tenets appear to me erroneous in the extreme,” but whose in- 
 tellectual endowments and acquirements command my admiration, 
 while his moral courage both as an actor and sufferer in the cause of 
 freedom, excite a yet deeper feeling of reverence. I know, this eulo- 
 gium will draw down, on its author, the censure of many bigots, and 
 some good men, but to borrow Robert Hall’s words, I should count it 
 
ALLAN ON THE POWER OF THE CIVIL MAGISTRATE. 63 
 
 “ gothic barbarity of sentiment and reptile meanness,” to refrain to 
 give the due meed of praise to the friend of liberty and the victim 
 of intolerance, “ for talents which the whole world admired, and for 
 virtues which his enemies confessed, merely because his religious 
 creed was erroneous.’ —Hall’s Reply to the Review of his Apology by the 
 Christian Guardian. Works, vol. iii. p. 187. 8vo. Lond. 1882. 
 
 LXII. 
 
 TILLEMONT ON THE PROBLEMATICAL ADVANTAGE OF MAGISTRATES 
 INTERMEDDLING WITH RELIGION. 
 
 Foot Note, p. 288, l. 20.—It is curious to find TittEmont, though a 
 staunch Roman Catholic, compelled to acknowledge that judging from 
 history, “ there is room to doubt whether it would not be more to the 
 advantage of the church, to have at all times princes not disposed to 
 meddle with matters of religion, and only attentive to the execution 
 of the laws relating to justice and equity.”—Histoire des Emp. v. 10. 
 
 LXIIl. 
 
 NOTICE OF ALLAN ON THE POWER OF THE CIVIL MAGISTRATE, 
 
 To be added to Note XXII. p. 250.—In the conclusion of this note, 
 I would recommend as one of the ablest, fullest, and most satisfactory 
 discussions of the whole subject of the exercise of civil power in reli- 
 gion, “ The Power of the Civil Magistrate in matters of Religion, 
 and the Nature of Religious Covenanting considered: being the Sub- 
 stance of Two Remonstrances presented to the General Associate Sy- 
 nod, in the years 1804 and 1805, and of the Answers to them, prepar- 
 ed by the Committee. At the desire of the Synod, collected and ar- 
 ranged with some enlargements. By Alex. Allan, Minister at Cupar 
 Angus. Edin. 1807.” Never, I believe, was the principle of a civil 
 establishment of religion, more plausibly stated and more ingeniously 
 supported, than by Professor Bruce and Dr M‘Crie, in the remon- 
 strances referred to. I do not wonder, that the late defenders of Esta- 
 blishments should have largely availed themselves of the stores of 
 subtle argument to be found in these papers—though to be obliged 
 to borrow their best weapons from Seceders must have exercised hu- 
 mility, if it did not awaken a sense of degradation. It was a proof of 
 extreme destitution of the means of defence, when the Israelites were 
 obliged to go into the land of the Philistines to have even their mat- 
 tocks and axes sharpened. The work referred to does honour to the 
 
64 NATURE AND EXTENT OF CIVIL LAW. 
 
 sound mind and sincere piety of its venerable author, whose name 
 still flourishes in the odour of sanctity in the district blessed by his 
 holy example and judicious teaching. 
 
 LALY: 
 NATURE AND EXTENT OF THE OBLIGATION OF CIVIL LAW. 
 
 MARVELL. 
 
 To be added to Note XXIII. p. 293.—The magistrate’s “ adminis- 
 tration is humane, neither is it possible either for him to exact, or 
 men to pay him, more than a civil obedience in those laws which 
 he constituteth. Otherwise, it were in his power not only, as some, 
 and Caligula, for example, to decree that he is God, but even to be so. 
 God surely, although it does for the most part, or ought to fall out, 
 that the same action is a sin against God, and a disobedience to the 
 humane law, punishes the fact so far as he sees and knows in him- 
 self that it is sinful and contrary to the eternal rule of justice ; but a 
 humane law can create only a humane obligation; and unless the - 
 breach chance likewise to be against some express divine law, I can- 
 not see but that the offender is guilty not to God, but only to the 
 magistrate, and hath expiated the offence by undergoing the pe- 
 nalty.”"—Marvell’s Rehearsal Transposed. Works, Vol. ii. pp. 896, 
 397. These are the words of “‘ Andrew Marvell, the disciple, friend, 
 and protector of John Milton, and, like him, learned, able, witty, vir- 
 tuous, active, magnanimous, and incorruptible.” Hartley Coleridge’s 
 
 life of this distinguished patriot is perhaps the fullest record we have 
 of his doings, and the best picture we have of his character. 
 
 CONYBEARE. 
 
 “ There remains another question, to be considered, which naturally 
 arises from the foregoing discourse ; viz. How far subjects may be 
 thought to have discharged their conscience, by merely submitting 
 to penalties, without paying an active obedience to laws. 
 
 “Τὴ order to solve this doubt, let it be observed, first, That a strict 
 regard must always be had to the design of the legislator, since the 
 obligation of laws will reach just so far as the legislator intended 
 them to reach. 
 
 «1 would observe, in the next place, that, as in most instances, it 
 must be the design of legislators, that the directive part of their laws 
 should be observed absolutely, so it may happen, in some cases, that 
 
NATURE AND EXTENT OF CIVIL LAW. 65 
 
 a greater latitude was intended ; and though it cannot well be pre- 
 sumed, that any wise man would enact a law, without intending that 
 the direction of it should be in some sense observed; yet there is no 
 absurdity in supposing, that he may allow, and even prescribe, an 
 equivalent to be made; in which case, he who readily complies with 
 such an appointment, shall be justly esteemed to have fulfilled the 
 law, according to the intent and design of the legislator. 
 
 «ἐ To speak strictly, such laws as these consist of two parts, without 
 obliging subjects determinately to either; and rightly understood, 
 amount to thus much; either such an act shall be performed, or 
 such a forfeiture incurred. The person concerned is allowed to choose 
 which he pleases: and the forfeiture, in this case, is considered by 
 the magistrate as a full satisfaction, or as a reasonable commutation, 
 for not performing the act directed. 
 
 « If this account be just, then forfeitures of this nature are not pro- 
 perly penalties: they are not such penal sanctions, as are intended to 
 support and enforce laws; and, consequently, this case, however it 
 may appear at first sight, doth not relate to the question before us. 
 
 “ The penalties, then, which are intended in this question, are, 
 strictly speaking, punishments ; and the laws, to which the subject is 
 supposed not to have paid obedience, are such, as the legislator de- 
 signed, should be observed absolutely. These observations having 
 been noted, I shall proceed in the following manner :— 
 
 “ Hither the point commanded by the legislator to be done is in 
 itself lawful and agreeable to the will of God, or it is not so. If it be 
 either in itself unlawful or forbidden by express revelation, the not 
 observing such a command becomes a duty; because we are under 
 higher obligations to obey God than man. And patiently to submit, 
 for the sake of public peace, to punishments in such a case, is an in- 
 stance of true christian fortitude, and will entitle us to the especial fa- 
 vour of God. 
 
 “ But supposing the point be in reality the proper matter of hu- 
 man laws; yet, forasmuch as all men are liable to error, difficulties 
 may arise in the minds of subjects. They may possibly be per- 
 suaded that the observation of such a law is disagreeable with the 
 will of God; and we are concerned to inquire, what ought to be de- 
 termined in such a case as this. 
 
 “ The point now proposed is the case of an erroneous conscience, 
 with reference to which I think it is agreed by all sober men, that 
 such a wrong persuasion will oblige so far, as to render that per- 
 son criminal who acts against it; but how far the obeying such an 
 
 é 
 
66 NATURE AND EXTENT OF CIVIL LAW. 
 
 erroneous conscience can acquit a man in the sight of God is another 
 question. 
 
 “If the mistake arose from a man’s negfigence or partiality, or 
 any other cause, which he ought to, and might, have removed, then 
 the case is plain: He is properly the author of his own errors, and 
 must answer for all the consequences which follow from them. 
 
 «“ But if the mistake be such as was, in a human way of speaking, 
 unavoidable, we must then leave him to the mercy of that God, whom 
 he hath sincerely endeavoured to obey: and to suffer patiently for 
 not paying an active obedience to that law, which he is persuaded he 
 ought not to observe, as it is the clearest evidence of his own honesty, 
 so it is the best recommendation to the divine favour. 
 
 “ The main point, however, is still behind: It remains to be in- 
 quired, whether a man hath discharged his conscience, by barely sub- 
 mitting to penalties in those instances, in which he hath no scruples 
 about the lawfulness of obedience ; and when it plainly appears to 
 have been the legislator’s intention to require his obedience. 
 
 «ς 1 conceive there will be no difficulty in deciding this question, if - 
 we attend to the remarks which I have already offered. As far as 
 the legislator hath a right to command, and intends to oblige, so far 
 must subjects be under an obligation to obey. By refusing, there- 
 fore, an obedience in such cases, they must evidently contradict these 
 obligations, and become guilty in the sight of God.’—Conybeare's 
 Penal Sanction of Laws Considered, pp. 24-27. Oxford, 1728. 
 
 The strong good sense, discovered in the treatment of a moral ques- 
 tion, in the above passage, strangely contrasts with the utter igno- 
 rance of the first elements of christian truth, betrayed in the two 
 clauses which we have marked by italic characters. What no- 
 tions must he have of the grace of God, and of the moral condition 
 of man, who can talk of him recommending himself to that favour,— 
 aye, entitling himself to that favour, by merely not outraging the 
 dictates of conscience in a particular case. Surely that favour must 
 not be of great value, which can be so purchased,—or that conduct 
 must be very meritorious, which can buy what is usually considered 
 as so inappreciably valuable. Gracn, from its very nature, seeks no 
 recommendation in its objects, and excludes every thing like entitling 
 claims. Man has entitled himself to God’s displeasure ; and though he 
 may, if he do not obstinately refuse it, obtain God’s favour as a free 
 gift, he never can become entitled to it. The Apostle’s argument is 
 quite applicable here, “ otherwise grace were no more grace.” * 
 
 * Romans xi. 6. 
 = 
 
RIGHT OF RESISTANCE. - 67 
 
 BLACKSTONE. 
 
 “It hath been holden, and very justly, by the principal of our 
 ethical writers, that human laws are binding upon men’s consciences ; 
 but, true as this principle is, it must be understood with some restric- 
 tion. In regard to natural duties, and such offences as are mala in se, 
 we are bound by conscience, because we are bound by superior laws, 
 before those laws were in being, to perform the one and abstain from 
 the other. But, in relation to these laws, which enjoin only positive 
 duties, and forbid only such things as are not mala in se, but mala pro- 
 hibita merely, without any intermixture of moral guilt, annexing ¢ 
 penalty to non-compliance, I apprehend conscience is no farther 
 concerned, than by directing a submission to the penalty, in case of 
 our breach of these laws: for otherwise, the multitude of penal laws 
 in a state would not only be looked upon as impolitic, but would also 
 be a very wicked thing; if every such law were a snare for the con- 
 science of the subject. But, in these cases, the alternative is offered 
 to every man, ‘ either abstain from this, or submit to such a pe- 
 nalty ;’ and his conscience will be clear, whichever side of the alter- 
 native he thinks proper to embrace.’—Blackstone’s Commentaries, 
 Introd. ὃ 2. vol. i. pp. 57, 58. Lond. 1791. 
 
 These remarks, though far inferior to the profound statements of 
 Locke, and scarcely throughout self-consistent, sufficiently prove that 
 the doctrine taught in the treatise is no novelty ; and, if “ disgusting 
 paltry sophistry,’-—Marvell and Locke, Conybeare and Blackstone, 
 to say nothing of Bunyan and Norris, and the Quarterly Reviewers, 
 must share with me the disgrace of being its propagators. My share 
 of the burden will not be oppressive. 
 
 LXV. 
 RIGHT OF RESISTANCE, 
 
 NOODT. 
 
 To be taken in after 1. 15, p. 310.—The following able and eloquent 
 pleading in defence of the right of resistance, comes from the pen of 
 the acute and learned Dutch jurist, Grrarp Noopr. It forms the 
 peroration of an Address, “ De Jure Summi Imperii,” delivered by 
 him on retiring from the Rectorship of the University of Leyden, 
 Feb. 9, 1699. 
 
 “ Φ Apage, inquies doctrinam qua imperii reverentia profanatur, 
 qua humanae vinculum conjunctionis solvitur. Quid? nonne vitia 
 erunt, ubi homines erunt, maxime in aulis; ac, si non erunt, adhue 
 
68 RIGHT OF RESISTANCE. 
 
 credentur esse, proclivibus hominibus de magistratibus et principibus 
 male opinari? porro quoties fit, ut optima consilia pessime cadant, 
 atque interim ex eventu de consiliis conjiciatur ὁ adde, quod virtutes 
 sunt affines vitiis, parsimonia avaritie, liberalitas luxurie, severitas 
 crudelitati, modestia ignavie ; possitque huic scelus dici, quod illi 
 virtus videatur. Ita si a yulgi levitate pendebit imperii sanctitas, nil 
 principatu calamitosius, nil magis incertum, cogitari potest. Sed 
 neque in republica quid perniciosius aut minus tolerabile vite secta 
 qua summus magistratus populo temere subjicitur. Id agite sultis ; 
 et pro obsequio turbas, pro pace bella habebitis, ccelum denique terre 
 miscebitis.’ 
 
 ** Auditis, AA, questum ad speciem gravem et acerbum : sed date 
 rerum simplicitati, ut ejus momenta justo pendatis examine: sentie- 
 tus, levem, vanum atque inanem esse. Quaeso enim, quid vult ? utrum, 
 ne unquam Principem in ordinem redigat populus, ne pessimum 
 quidem? Atqui illud ratione naturali, et nobilissimarum gentium 
 exemplis veteribus, ac recentibus, convincitur. An, ne quid temere 
 agat adversus honum? hoc vero nihil promovet. Non enim usum 
 juris reprehendit, sed abusum: nec oportet haberi malum quo bene 
 uti licet. Alioquin nec magistratus, sine quibus nulla est vita, utiles 
 erunt. Quis enim nescit, summos, medios, imos sepe sibi suisque civi- 
 bus exitio fuisse? Nee tamen quisquam dixerit, eos esse non opor- 
 tere, aut periculosam esse doctrinam qua necessarios in republica 
 magisiratus principesque esse probatur, tantum quod possint esse 
 mali. Quod si in his non usum tollendum putamus, sed abusum ; 
 cur dicamus, Principis, si pessimus, si perniciosus sit, coercitionem, 
 ideo malam aut injustum esse, quod Populus ea abuti etiam adversus 
 bonum possit. Sed et hic periculum principi quod metuendum est ? 
 Si, quod ejus fidei convenit, omnium quietem illius vigilia custodiat ; 
 omnium fortunas, vitam, libertatem, illius justitia ac fortitudo tueatur ; 
 omnium periculis illius, prudentia occurrat ; omnium mala atque in- 
 fortunia, illius benignitus soletur: quid multa? Sise non Tyrannum, 
 sed civem, non dominum, sed patrem prestet, postremo si hominem 
 se, et hominibus presse, arbitretur ; quorum virtutibus, atque honori- 
 bus, non invideat ; quorum copiis et artibus letetur ; quorum animi 
 cultum, et sapientiz studia inter reipublice ornamenta, non inter 
 malas artes habeat. Qui enim fieri potest, ut quiseculi beatitudinem 
 atque adeo sua bona intelligant, in principis tam salutaris, tamquam 
 divinitus sibi dati et amorem, et venerationem non rapiantur, atque 
 illo se dignos usu et rebus non prebeat ? 
 
 “ Age vero, si non teneat yirtutis viam que est vere glorie ; sed 
 
RIGHT OF RESISTANCE, 69 
 
 malorum optimus sit, et paucorum exitio ejus ferocia consumatur : 
 nec adhue facile se eo moverit populus, ut eum coerceat, etsi meren- 
 tem: sive ingenio humane infirmitatis quo tardiora sunt remedia, 
 quam mala: sive quod facilis est apud infirmos excusatio ejus, qui et 
 prodesse et nocere possit : sive denique quod unius aut paucorum in- 
 juria, etiam gravis, quia ad paucorum dolorem pertinet, fere publice 
 negligitur ; privatim vero paucis quibus ob legum defectum jus belli 
 sit nature lege, magis utile est quiescere, quam inani ultionis studio 
 majus sibi malum arcessere. Jam si ea sit Principis atrocitas, ut 
 ad totius populi, aut majoris partes lesionem pertingat: et hic que, 
 quanta, quam multa ei populus et belli metu, et otii dulcedine non 
 indulgent? Quamquam, si extrema patiatur crudelitatis aut super- 
 bie exempla, quis culpet eum qui consumpta omni patientia, non 
 ea ignavia sit, ut expectandum sibi putet donec de ccelo descendat 
 Deus, in humani generis hostem sua missurus fulmina? imo quis non 
 eum laudet, quod aliquando se cireumspiciat, et a Deo reprimi putet, 
 qui nature lege, id est, divina voluntate coercetur ? 
 
 “ἐς Prestat tamen, aliquam esse rempublicam, quam nullam, pacem 
 esse quam bellum.’ Quasi respublica sit in qua leges nomen sunt, 
 judicia jacent, omnia vi aut factione, nihil ratione, nihil equo jure 
 decernitur. ‘ At pacistudendum. An ut tu me jugules et expiles ? 
 Ego interim digitum non moveam? Hane si tu pacem vocas, quid 
 bellum erit? Quin, ut abstineam bello, ne mihi inferto bellum: ut 
 pacem servem, pacem mihi presta. Non enim civem ab hoste na- 
 tura et loco, sed animo, factisque distinguo : nec mea interest, si spo- 
 lier, si torquear, si discerpar, si denique misere atque injuste occidar, 
 ac lanier, cujus sevitia fiat, utrum hostis, aut latronis, an ejus qui se 
 meum civem aut Principem ferat, non enim res mutatur, sed nomen : 
 res eadem est: tantum ad augendam sceleris atrocitatem pertinet, 
 quod ille a quo adversus hostes aut latrones defendi debebam, ipse 
 mihi importunissimus et crudelissimus hostis aut latro factus est. 
 Adversus hune igitur si lacertos suos moveat Populus, aliquis clamet 
 de pacis commodis deque belli malis; tamquam si felicia sint tem- 
 pora quibus boni pereunt, tantum ut Tyrannus cum paucis, improbis 
 ac nefariis sua libidine αὐ nequitia fruatur tuto secureque ; tamquam 
 si per populum stet, cum a se et suis scelera et injurias arcet, quo 
 minus metuenda sint civilis belli mala. Nihil horum. Non ea in- 
 felici populo qui lacessitus, sed Tyranno qui eum lacessivet, malisque 
 sua feritate causam dedit, imputanda sunt. Sed finio, AA, longius 
 enim progressa oratio quam cogitavi: et vos intelligitis summum 
 Magistratum, qualiscumque sit, in republica, non de ccelo demitti, 
 
70 ON THE REVENUES OF THE HEATHEN TEMPLES. 
 
 sed communi civium consensu imponi: ac si se principem aut magis- 
 tratum prebere velit, non legibus solutum sed alligatum profiteri 
 oportere : nec suam potestatem sua libidine, sed populi utilitate me- 
 tiri: ceterum non principem aut magistratum agere, sed Tyrannum, 
 atque A SUIS CIVIBUS OMNI JURE ET DIVINO ET HUMANO COERCERI POSSE. ” 
 —Dissertatio De Jure Summi Imperii. Neodt Opera, Tom. i. pp. 632, 
 633. Folio. Lugd. 1735. 
 
 LXVI. 
 
 THE CHURCH OF SCOTLAND STANDS MORE IN NEED OF 
 PURIFICATION THAN OF EXTENSION. 
 
 To be inserted p. 335, 1. 20, after “ end.’—The Church of Scotland 
 would do a great deal more, towards gaining the professed end of 
 her present movement, the promotion of the spiritual improvement 
 of our native land, by getting rid of the erroneous, indolent, and im- 
 moral ministers in her communion, and filling their places with 
 « workmen that need not be ashamed,” than by doubling the number. 
 of her churches, or the amount of her endowments. The purification 
 of the Church would do much good ; the extension of the Hstablish- 
 ment would do much evil. As Dr M‘Crie said—To extend it in its 
 present state, would be to extend corruption. Oh could she be but 
 induced to “ loose the bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy bur- 
 dens, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke ; then should 
 her light break forth as the morning, and her health should spring 
 forth speedily, then her righteousness should go before her, and the 
 glory of the Lord be her rereward.” * 
 
 LXVII. 
 APTHORP ON THE REVENUES OF THE HEATHEN TEMPLES, 
 
 To be inserted before l. 4 from the foot, p. 8343.—It is very justly re- 
 marked by a learned English divine, that “ it is to be regretted as a 
 defect in the science of antiquities, that we have not particular ac- 
 counts of the endowments of the Gentile Priesthood. We know in 
 general, that a landed property was consecrated to maintain the 
 temples. The temples of Greece were endowed with lands called 
 τεμενη. The twelve tables forbade the private donation of lands in 
 mortmain, on political reasons, to prevent the excess of superstitious 
 munificence. Numa assigned a fund which was augmented by Au- 
 
 * Isa. lviii. 6-8. 
 
ON THE DISTINGUISHING TENETS OF THE HERODIANS. 71 
 
 gustus, for the maintenance of the vestals, and another for the ex- 
 pense of victims. The revenues of the priesthood were probably 
 supplied from established funds.’—Apthorp’s Letters on the Prevalence 
 of Christianity, before its Civil Establishment, pp. 296, 297. Lond. 
 1778. 
 
 LXVIII. 
 
 PROBABLE REFERENCE OF “ STIPES” IN THE QUOTATION FROM 
 TERTULLIAN. 
 
 Foot-Note, p. 847, 1. 19.—An ingenious and learned friend suggests 
 that perhaps the direct reference of the “stipes” may be to those 
 payments by which the expense of the /ectisternia, or suppers of the 
 gods, was defrayed. These solemnities, besides occurring occasionally, 
 as on the celebration of a great victory, seem to have been observed re- 
 gularly once a month, when in the temples couches were spread 
 (‘lecti vel pulvinaria sternebantur’ ), for the gods as about to feast, and 
 their images taken down from their pedestals, and placed on couches 
 round the altars, which were loaded with the richest dishes. If Ter- 
 tullian, in the passage under consideration, had the ‘ lectisternia’ in 
 his eye, it would give a peculiar propriety and significance to his sar- 
 castical recommendation to send out Jupiter in propria persona, a beg- 
 ging for his sustenance.—Liv. iii. 63 ; xxii. 1. Adam’s Roman An- 
 tiquities, Religion of the Romans, § iii. p. 295. Lond. 1819. 
 
 LXIX. 
 
 STACKHOUSE ON THE DISTINGUISHING TENETS OF THE HERODIANS. 
 
 Foot Note, p. 350, 1. 3.—It is the conjecture of SrackuousE, founded 
 on the fact that Herod had done many things inconsistent with the 
 Mosaic law, to ingratiate himself with the Romans, that the charac- 
 teristic dogma of the sect which bore his name, was, “ that although 
 they professed the Jewish religion, and abominated idolatry in their 
 hearts ; yet, to humour the Romans, and make themselves easy with 
 their governors, it was not unlawful to comply sometimes with their 
 demands, and at least outwardly to become occasional conformists.’— 
 Stackhouse’s History of the Bible, Book vii. Chap. v. vol. ii. p. 1144. 
 Fol. Lond. 1764. According to this conjecture, which is certainly 
 more probable than that of Calmet, the Herodians were the prototypes 
 of a numerous class in our times—those who condemn church taxes 
 and yet pay them. 
 
72 LOCKE ON THE CONDUCT OF THE SCOTTISH CLERGY, 
 
 LXX. 
 
 ODD MISTAKE OF DRUSIUS RESPECTING THE HERQDIANS. 
 
 To be added to Note XXVilJ.—The note-writer may comfort him- 
 self with the reflection that he is not the first learned man who has 
 made a ridiculous mistake about the Herodians. Drusius, who well 
 deserves the appellation Beza gives him, “‘ Pereruditus,” flattered him- 
 self that in a Hebrew Lexicon, called among the Jews Baal Aruch, he 
 had found the true account of the sect so much disputed about. He 
 translates the passage as follows :—‘* Herodes eduxit Grecos e deserto 
 et educavit eos in terra habitabili, unde ex Herodis nomine, Herodiani, 
 a loco, unde abducti fuerint, Dorsiani dicuntur.” By a strange hallu- 
 cination, the truly learned Dutchman understood the word Jonim, of 
 Ionians or Grecians, instead of doves, and converted an account of a 
 particular species of pigeons, which Herod had brought out of the de- 
 sert, and naturalized in the cultivated region, into a statement re- 
 specting a religious or political sect.—Drusii Praterita in Crit. Sec. 
 Tom. vii. col. 742. Hammondi Nov. Test. p. 98. Fol. Amst. 1699. 
 
 LXXI. 
 
 GISBORNE ON THE DISADVANTAGES OF TITHES. 
 
 Foot Note, p. 371, 1. 9.—‘* There is no circumstance which so often 
 disturbs the harmony which should ever subsist between a clergyman 
 and his parishioners, as contention respecting tithes. Many objections 
 are urged, and not without reason, against this mode of providing for 
 the clergy, as being injurious to the progress of agricultural industry. 
 But this is the least important of its bad effects. The heart-burnings 
 excited by it, the heats, the animosities, the quarrels, the spirit of 
 rooted aversion, long surviving the contest which produced it, and 
 frequently displaying itself in an obstinate desertion of public wor- 
 ship, so long as the obnoxious minister continues on the living ; these 
 are consequences which in their tendency are subversive of all reli- 
 gion, and strike at the root of the very purpose for which ecclesiasti- 
 cal establishments are instituted.”—Gisborneé's Duties of Men, C. xi. 
 yol. ii. pp. 65, 64. 
 
 LXXIl. 
 
 CONDUCT OF THE SCOTTISH CLERGY, DESCRIBED BY LOCKE. 
 
 Foot Note, p. 872, 1. 2.—Locke’s description of the Scottish Presby- 
 terians of 1692, in a letter to his friend Limborch, is singularly appli- 
 
DEFENCE OF SECEDERS. 78 
 
 cable to their present circumstances. ‘ Presbyteriani in Scotia quid 
 agant, mallem ex aliis quam ex me scires. Zelus illic in frigido isto 
 aere per antiperistasin incalescere videtur. Satis fervide, discipline 
 suse operam dant, an satis prudenter, an satis modeste ipsi videant. 
 Sed ubi causa Dei agitur, ut nosti, et ejus ecclesiz, quid sibi theologi 
 non putant licere, autoritatem suam, soli Deo acceptam referentes.’— 
 Locke's Familiar Letters. Works, vol. iii. p. 623. 
 
 LXXIII. 
 
 SECEDERS NOT UNWORTHY THE NAME, THOUGH DIFFERING IN 
 SOME POINTS FROM THE FOUNDERS OF THE SECESSION. 
 
 DR LAWSON. 
 
 Foot Note, p. 372, /. 19.—To the senseless reproaches, which have 
 been cast on the Seceders of the present day, for entertaining and 
 avowing sentiments, respecting Church Establishments, different from 
 those of their venerated ancestors, as if this rendered them unworthy 
 even to bear their name, a better answer cannot be found than in the 
 following sentences, so replete with “ the meekness of wisdom,” from 
 a very valuable tract, published more than forty years ago, by Dr 
 George Lawson of Selkirk, long professor of theology to the Associate 
 (Burgher) Synod, in whom met strong natural talent, extensive and 
 varied professional learning, originality of view, soundness ofmind, strict 
 integrity, deep devotion, childlike simplicity, unaffected humility, and 
 kindliness of heart,—in rare, and so far as my observation has gone, 
 when the degree of the qualities are taken into account, in singular 
 union. To have enjoyed the advantages of the tuition and friendship 
 of this truly great and good man, I count one of the principal blessings 
 and honours of my life, and 1 have a melancholy satisfaction in thus 
 recording the indelible impression made on my mind by so much eru- 
 dition and wisdom, worth and benevolence. 
 
 ** No man can revere the memory of our pious ancestors more than 
 I do, if he does not yield them a veneration they never wished to pos- 
 sess, and [if possible] wish less in their present state to possess, than 
 while they conversed with mortals. I admire their virtues, and the 
 remembrance of them will be a powerful motive, to urge me onward 
 in my christian course, that I may be for ever with them where they 
 are, and where their Lord is. But I will show my reverence for their 
 memory, not by a bigotted attachment to every one of their opinions, 
 but by a constant adherence to the fundamental principles of their 
 
74 DEFENCE OF SECEDERS. 
 
 conduct, that ‘ the word of God is the only rule to direct us how we 
 may glorify God and enjoy him.’” 
 
 “ When did our Fathers discover a zealous attachment to the doc- 
 trine of the magistrate’s power in matters of religion? Their act con- 
 cerning the power of the civil magistrate” (quoted p. 101), “ is a suf- 
 ficient evidence to me, that they did not believe the whole doctrines 
 of the Confession of Faith on that head; although they did not per- 
 ceive that they had departed from it. There are expressions, too, in 
 some of their sermons, from which it may be fairly inferred, that, in 
 the opinion of at least some of them, peaceable subjects, however 
 different their religious sentiments might be from those that are pub- 
 licly professed, are entitled to the protection of the State. But I will 
 not waste time in answering this cavil. The first Seceders were not 
 Papists, nor did they wish their followers to follow them implicitly. 
 They judged for themselves, according to the best of their ability, 
 from the word of God, and were open to conviction when they erred. 
 We find Mr Ralph Erskine, in his Sermon on John ii. 19 (Works, 
 vol. ii. pp. 324-326. Folio. Glasgow, 1765), confessing, in the pre- 
 sence of his brethren, several mistakes into which they had been suf- 
 fered to fall. Why should we be bound to think these men infal- 
 lible, whom we would consider as the most presumptuous of mortals, 
 if they had thought themselves infallible ?” 
 
 ** It is needless to say much in vindication of our right to the name 
 of Seceders, which has not been generally considered as an honour- 
 able appellation. We are not, however, ashamed of it. If it is a 
 reproach to be called Seceders, we consider it as the reproach of 
 Christ. Besides, we are not willing to lay aside a name which de- 
 notes our relation to a set of noble church patriots, who contended to 
 deprivation for the liberties of the church, and for the purity of the 
 doctrine of Christ. We would rather, however, renounce all con- 
 nexion with them, than bind ourselves implicitly to approve all their 
 sentiments, and every part of their conduct. Were we ‘ baptized in 
 their name ¢’ ‘ Had they not ‘a body of death’ in them, while they 
 lived in this world? Were their understandings perfectly delivered 
 from the influence of the corrupt principle any more than their 
 hearts? They certainly erred in practice every day of their life ; 
 Psalm xix. 10; and who will say that they might not err in judg- 
 ment ? Will a man be refused the appellation of a Lutheran, because 
 he will not call the Epistle of James straminea epistola, an epistle of 
 straw ὁ or the name of a Calvinist, because he believes the moral ob- 
 ligation of the fourth commandment as well as the third? Did our 
 
CHURCH PROPERTY. 75 
 
 Fathers of the Reformation dream that they had forfeited all right to 
 claim a connexion with the Church of Geneva, because they would 
 not observe Christmas and Easter? There are already too many dis- 
 tinctive names for different classes of Christians. A thousand more 
 must be speedily invented, if every difference, and every change of 
 opinion, render a new name necessary.”—Considerations on the Over- 
 ture lying before the Associate Synod, respecting some Alterations in 
 the Formula concerning the Power of the Civil Magistrate in Religion, 
 &c., Pp. 26, 32, 77, 78. Edin. 1797. 
 
 LXXIV. 
 
 EXPOSITION AND DEFENCE OF THE PRINCIPLES OF THE FRIENDS 
 RESPECTING CHURCH TAXES. 
 
 JOSEPH PHIPPS. 
 
 To be inserted p. 375, 1. 20.—“ Tithes are not imposed in the man- 
 ner of a civil tax. They are founded on religious considerations. 
 The intent of imposing them is to support religious ministers in the 
 pursuit of religious duties. Being not required for a civil but for a 
 religious purpose, the payment of them is to be treated as a matter of 
 religious concern. 
 
 “ As the foundation upon which tithes are exacted is not of a civil 
 nature, neither can they be a just debt upon those who are of a dis- 
 tinct society in point of religion, from that of the demanders. The 
 Quakers, in particular, have no connexion with the legally established 
 clergy, but in a natural or civil relation. They are not of the same 
 religious society with them ; therefore, these are no ministers to them, 
 and, by consequence, can have no equitable demand upon them as 
 such.”—Quoted by H. T. [Henry Tuke], Christian Observer, Vol. x. 
 p- 835. Vide also Pearson’s Great Case of Tithes Truly Stated. 1654. 
 
 LXXV. 
 CHURCH PROPERTY. 
 
 EDINBURGH REVIEW. 
 
 To be inserted before ““ ANonymous,” p. 395.—It is to the acknow- 
 ledgment of the great principle, that the State may legislate as freely 
 upon the revenues of the Church, as upon the interests of any other 
 class of men in the kingdom, or upon any other description of public 
 property, that England and Ireland must look for ultimate and effec- 
 tual relief from one of the great grievances under which they now 
 suffer.” —Edinburgh Review, vol. xxxviii. 
 
76 CHURCH PROFERTY. 
 
 WALKER. 
 
 ** In the current phrase ‘ Church Property, the Church is repre- 
 sented as a body corporate, endowed with certain civil privileges and 
 rights ; while the various orders of clergy from the Archbishop to 
 the Curate, are considered as the members of the corporation. What 
 an abuse this is of the term Church, it would be easy to demonstrate: 
 and what an utter departure from its primitive and scriptural mean- 
 ing, as importing in general an assembly of persons convened for any 
 purpose, and peculiarly a congregation of Christians coming together 
 into one place, for christian purposes. I briefly notice this, because 
 the perception of it will relieve any man from the dread of sacriLEcE 
 in touching the soi disant church. 
 
 “ And asto the alleged 1nsustice of diverting Church property from 
 the present purposes for which it is employed, I must say that, if 
 these purposes were found inconsistent with the peace and welfare of 
 the nation, it would be more unjust to sacrifice the peace and welfare 
 of the nation to the abstract conception of the clergy as a body cor- 
 porate, however countenanced that abstract conception may be by 
 the technicalities of legal language. The interest in this Church 
 property, which any existing individuals actually possess, ought as- 
 suredly to be preserved inviolate ; for I have no idea of promoting 
 even public benefit by private wrong. But I deny that any princi- 
 ples of justice bind the Legislature to continue a system for provid- 
 ing a continued succession of claimants to that property. 
 
 “* Let me suppose a case, which will at once illustrate my meaning, 
 and establish the truth of my opinion. Let me suppose, that by the 
 common law of England, for time immemorial the tenth part of the 
 produce of the soil had been allotted to the maintenance of a favourite 
 corps of military officers ; each of whom should have but a life-rent 
 interest in his portion of these military tithes; but on his death or pro- 
 motion, should be succeeded by one educated for the profession, and 
 appointed by some public functionary to hold the vacant commission. 
 Supposing this, we may easily imagine that in a course of years other 
 corps of officers would feel a strong desire to participate in these pe- 
 cuniary advantages, as well as much jealousy and irritation at being 
 precluded from them. We may easily imagine, also, that the mili- 
 tary tithe proctors would become very obnoxious to the people ; and 
 that the land-owners and land-holders would at length murmur 
 loudly at this disposal of the tenth part of the produce of the soil. 
 Yet I am ready to admit that it might be fairly replied against such 
 
CHURCH PROPERTY. 77 
 
 murmurs, that the land-owners held their land, from time immemo- 
 rial, subject to this defalcation, or, in other words, were legally own- 
 ers of but nine-tenths of the produce ; and that, if the military tenth 
 were abolished, it would benefit not the tenants of the land, but the 
 proprietors, as they would certainly demand and receive a propor- 
 tionally greater rent. 
 
 ** But let us suppose that the public should at length become con- 
 vinced that this old allotment of the tenth-of the soil, and the tenth 
 of the labour and expense of its cultivation, had been exceedingly 
 absurd and impolitic ; that its effects were to the highest degree in- 
 jurious to the community, and endangered the peace and well-being 
 of the nation. In such a case, shall I be told that the legislature 
 would act unjustly if they dissolved that corps of officers, set up to 
 auction these military tithes, and applied the public fund thus form- 
 ed to purposes beneficial to the State? In such a case, if the officers 
 raised a loud clamour, and held a high language about their being a 
 corporate body, whose property could no more be legally invaded 
 than the property of an individual, should we not laugh at the so- 
 phism? Should we be at any loss to say, ‘ Gentlemen, whom do we 
 injure? You have but a personal and life-interest in these military 
 tithes, which some foolish monarch of old allotted to the maintenance 
 of your corps. Your vested interests we will not invade: we shall 
 take care that you shall not be losers: that you shall have an income 
 fully equivalent to what you have received. But we think it for the 
 good of the State that your corps, as a favoured military body, should 
 become extinct. And whom again we ask do we injure? Your 
 successors? and who are they? Nonentities at present, and we 
 think it expedient that they should remain so,—that you should have 
 no successors. That there are many who would be very glad of the 
 appointment to succeed to your commissions, we have no doubt. But 
 is there an individual who can say that he has a legal right to the ap- 
 pointment ? And no man can reasonably complain that he is deprived 
 of what he has never had, either in possession or inright. That many 
 may have had it in prospect and expectation,—that many may have 
 indulged the hope of being appointed to your commissions, we do not 
 deny. Such may be disappointed but will not be injured. And per- 
 haps even they will ultimately have no cause to regret that they are 
 obliged to turn their exertions into another channel.’ Common sense, 
 I think, would dictate such a reply in such a case ; and, for my part, 
 I can see no essential difference between this imaginary case, and that 
 which I brought it to illustrate.’-—Plain Truths, or a Speech which 
 
 E 
 
78 WYCLIFFE AND HIS FOLLOWERS VOLUNTARY CHUKCHMEN. 
 
 may be delivered in the approaching Session by any Member who likes it, 
 on a motion for going into a Committee of the whole house upon the state 
 of Ireland. Avoxpov ἐστι ὦ avdpes A@nvator, φενακιζειν ἑαυτοῖς (trans- 
 lated for the benefit of the country gentlemen. “ It is shameful 
 gentlemen that we should humbug ovursgtves.”) Lond. 1825. 
 
 LXXVI. 
 NOTICE OF JUS POPULI VINDICATUM. 
 
 Foot-Note, p. 427, 1.5.—This is not the able tractate from which 
 two of my mottos are taken, and which is quoted at some length in 
 Note XXIV., “On the Right of Resistance,” but a much larger anda 
 much less readable book, the full title of which is, “‘ Jus Porunt Vin- 
 picatum, or the People’s Right to Defend themselves and their Cove- 
 nanted Religion Vindicated ; wherein the act of Defence and Vindi- 
 cation which was enterprised, anno 1666, is particularly justified ; 
 the lawfulnesse of private persons defending their lives, libertyes, and 
 religion against manifest oppression, tyranny, and violence, exerced 
 by magistrats, supream and inferiour, contrare to solemn vows, cove- 
 nants, promises, declarations, professions, subscriptions, and solemn 
 engadgments, is demonstrated by many arguments. Being a full re- 
 ply to the first part of the survey of Napthali, &c., by a Friend to 
 true Christian liberty.”—The Mottos are Psal. lxxiv. 20-23, and 
 Hos. i. 7. Its author is understood to have been Sir James Stewart 
 of Goodtrees. It bears date 1669, and, like a number of the books of 
 the Scottish Covenanters, seems to have proceeded from a Dutch 
 press. 
 
 LXXVII. 
 
 WYCLIFFE AND HIS FOLLOWERS VOLUNTARY CHURCHMEN. 
 
 To be inserted p. 488, l. 15.—What were Wycliffe’s opinions may 
 be learned from the following extracts from his MSS. “ By the gos- 
 pel and the life of Christ and of his apostles, priests have no power to 
 constrain men to pay their dymes. Especially while they do not 
 their spiritual office, but harm men by false teaching and evil exam- 
 ple. But even though they did their office well, and men could not 
 pay them tithes, still they should not curse men, but rather suffer 
 meekly, as did Jesus Christ. « « « «+ Christ and his apostles 
 took no tithes as men now take them, neither paid them, nor spake 
 of them either in the Gospel or in the Epistles,—the perfect law of 
 freedom and grace. But Christ lived on the alms of Mary Magda- 
 
WYCLIFFE AND HIS FOLLOWERS VOLUNTARY CHURCHMEN. 79 
 
 lene and of other holy women, as the Gospel telleth. And apostles 
 lived sometimes by the labour of their hands, and sometimes accepted 
 a poor livelihood and clothing, given by the people in free will and 
 levotion without asking or constraining. And to this end Christ 
 said to his disciples, that they should eat and drink such things as 
 were set before them, and take neither gold nor silver for their 
 preaching, or their giving of sacraments. And Paul giving a general 
 rule for priests, saith thus ; ‘ We having food and clothing, with these 
 things we be content in Christ Jesus.’ Paul also proved that priests 
 who preach the Gospel truly should live by the Gospel, and of tithes 
 he said no more.” = « « Speaking of the Popish Bishops, he re- 
 marks, “ They take not tithes and offerings by the form of the Old 
 Testament, that is, parting them in common io all the priests and 
 ministers of the Church, nor according to the form of the Gospel ; 
 that is, having a simple livelihood, given without compulsion by the 
 free devotion of the people; but they take them according to a 
 new law of sinful men, one priest challenging to himself all the tithes 
 of a great country.”-—Vaughan's Life and Cpinions of John de Wy- 
 cliffe, vol. ii. pp. 253-255. 
 
 What the opinions of Wycliffe’s followers were, appears from the fol- 
 lowing interesting extract from “ the examination of Master William 
 Thorpe, preste, accused of heresye before Thomas Arundel, Arch- 
 bishop of Canterbury, penned with his own hand, 1407, 8th Henry 
 τὰ 
 
 ArcusisHor. “ What saist thou to this fourth point that is certi- 
 fied against thee, preching openly and boldely in Shrewsbury, that 
 priestes have no title to tithes ?” 
 
 Tuorre. ‘I named there no worde of tithes in my preaching. But 
 more than a moneth after that I was arreasted there in pryson, a 
 man came to me into the pryson askynge me what 1 said of tithes. 
 And I saide to him, Sir, in this toune are many clerkes and _ priestes, 
 of which some be called religious men, though many of them be se- 
 culars, therefore, ask ye of them this question. And this man saide 
 to me, Sir, our prelates say that we are also obliged to pay our tithes 
 of all thinges that renue to us; and that they are accursed that 
 withdraw any part wittingly fro them of their tithes. And I said, 
 Sir, to that man, as, with my protestacyon, I say now here before 
 you, that I hadde wonder that ony prieste dare say men to be accur- 
 sed without grounde of Godde’s worde. And the man said, Sir, our 
 priestes say that they curse men thus by authoritie of Godde’s law. 
 And I sayde, Sir, 1 know not where this sentence of cursing is autho- 
 
80 WYCLIFFE AND HIS FOLLOWERS VOLUNTARY CHURCH MEN, 
 
 rized now in the Bible. And therefore, Sir, 1 pray you that ye will 
 aske the most conninge clerk of this toune, that ye may know where 
 this sentence, cursing them that tithe not now, is written in Godde’s 
 law ; for yf it were writen there, I wolde right gladly be learned where. 
 But shortely this man wolde not go from me to ask this question of 
 another body ; but required me there, as I wolde answere before 
 God, if in this case the cursing of priestes were lawfull and approved 
 of God. And shortely herewith came to my mind the learnyng of 
 Seynt Peter, teaching priestes specially to hallow the Lord Christ in 
 their hearts ; being evermore redye (as farre as in them is) to an- 
 swere thorowe faith and hope to them that ask of them a reason. 
 And this lesson Peter teacheth men to use with a meke spirit, and 
 with dreade of the Lord. Wherefore, Syr, I said to this man in this 
 wise, In the olde lawe which endyd not fully till the tyme that Christ 
 rose up ageyn from dethe to lyfe, God commanded tithes to be gyven 
 to the Levites for the great besynesse and daily travel that pertayned 
 to their office. But priestes, because their travel was mekyll more 
 light and easy than was the office of the Levites, God ordeyned that 
 priestes should take for their life-lode to do their office, the tenth ἢ 
 part of the tithes that were given to the Levites. But now (I said), 
 in the newe lawe nother Christe nor any of his apostles take tythes 
 of the people, nor commanded the people to pay tythes nother to 
 priestes nor to deacons. But Christe taught the people to do Almesse, 
 that is, works of mercy to poor nedy men, of surpluse, that is, super- 
 fluous of their temporall goodes, which they had more than them 
 needid reasonably to their necessary lyvelode. And thus (I said) not 
 of tythes but of pure almesse of the people, Christ lived and his 
 apostles, whan they were so besye in teachynge of the worde of God 
 to the people, that they myght not travell otherwyse for to get their 
 lyvelode. But after Christe’s ascension, and whan the apostles had 
 receyved the Holy Goste, they traveled with their handes for to get 
 their lyvelode, when that they myght thus do for besye preachynge. 
 Therefore, by example of himself, Seynt Paul teacheth all the priestes 
 of Christe for to travel with their hande, whan for besye teachynge 
 of the people they might thus do. And thus all these priestes, whose 
 priesthode God accepteth nowe, or will accepte or did in the apostle’s 
 time, and after their decease, will do to the worlde’s ende. But (as 
 Cisterciensis telleth) in the thousande year of our Lorde Jesu Christe, 
 two hundreth and eleventh yere one Pope Gregory the Tenth or- 
 dered new tythes fyrst to be gyven to priestes, now in the newe law. 
 But Seynt Paul in his time, whose trace or example all priestes of 
 
_ WYCLIFFE AND HIS FOLLOWERS VOLUNTARY CHURCHMEN. 8] 
 
 God enforce them to follow, seyng the covetousnesse that was among 
 the people, desyrynge to destroye this foule synne thorowe the grace 
 of God, and true virtuouse. lyvynge an example of himselfe, wrotte 
 and taught all priestes for to followe him as he followed Christe, pa- 
 ciently, willingly, and gladly, in his povertie. Wherefore Paul saithe 
 thus, the Lord hath ordered that they that preach the Gospel should 
 lyve of the Gospel. But we (saith Paul) that covet and besy us to 
 be faithful folowers of Christ, use not this power. For lo (as Paul 
 witnesseth afterwarde) whan he was full pore and nedy, preaching 
 among the people, he was not chargeous unto them, but with his 
 hands he travelled not only to get his own lyvynge, but also the 
 lyvynge of other poore and nedy creatures. And syns the people 
 was never so covetousse nor so avarouse (I gesse) as thei are now, it 
 were good counsell that all priestes take good hede to this heavenly 
 learnyng of Paul, folowing him here in wilful poverte, nothing charg- 
 ing the people for their bodely lyvelode. But because that many 
 priestes do contrary to Paul in this foresayde doctrine, Paul biddeth 
 the people take hede to those priestes that follow him as he had given 
 them example. As if Paul would say thus to the people, Accept ye 
 none other priestes than they that lyve after the fourme that I have 
 tauchte you. For certeyn in whatsoever dignitie or ordre that any 
 prieste is in, yf he conforme him not to followe Christe and his apos- 
 tles in wilful poverte, and in other heavenly virtues, and specially in 
 true preachynge of Godde’s worde : though soch a one be named a 
 prieste, yet he is no more but a prieste in name, for the worke of a 
 very prieste such a one wanteth. This sentence approveth Augustine 
 Gregory Chrisostome and Lincolne* plainly. 
 
 “¢ And the archbishop said to me, Thinkest thou this, wholsome learn- 
 inge for to sow openly or yet privily among the people? Certeyn 
 this doctrine contrarieth playnly the ordinaunce of Holy Fathers, 
 which have ordained, graunted, and licensed priestes to be in diverse 
 degrees, and to lyve by tithes and offeringes of the people, and by 
 other dueties. 
 
 “ And I said, Syr, if priestes were now in mesurable mesure and 
 number, and lyved vertuously, and taucht besyly and truely the worde 
 of God by example of Christe and of his apostles, withouten tythes, 
 offringes, and other dueties that priestes now challenge and take, the 
 people wolde gyve them freely sufficient lyvelode. 
 
 “ And aclerke said to me, How wilt thou make this good that the 
 people will give frely to the priestes their lyvelode, syns that now by 
 
 * John Grostete, or Grosthead, Bishop of Lincoln. 
 
82 WYCLIFFE AND HIS FOLLOWERS VOLUNTARY CHURCHMEN. 
 
 the lawe every prieste can scarcely constrayne the people to gyve them 
 their lyvelode ? 
 
 “ And I said, Sir, it is now no wonder though the people grudge to 
 gyve priestes the lyvelode that they aske, for mekell people knowe 
 now how that priestes should lyve, and how that they lyve contrary 
 to Christe and to his apostles: and therefore the people is full hevy 
 to paye (as they do) their temporal goodes to parsones and to other 
 vicars and priestes, which should be feithful dispensatours of the pa- 
 rishes goodes, taking to themselves but a scarce lyving of tythes nor 
 of offrynges, by the ordinaunce of the common lawe. For whatsoever 
 priestes take of the people, be it tythe or offering, or any other duetie 
 or servyce, the priestes oughte not to have thereof no more but a bare 
 lyvinge, and to depart the residew to the poore men and women spe- 
 cially of the parish, of whom they take this temporal lyvynge. But 
 the most dele of priestes nowe wastesth their parishes goodes, and 
 spendeth them after their owne will after the worlde in their vayn 
 lusts, so that in few places poore men have dewly (as they should 
 have) their own sustenaunce, nother of tythes nor of offerynges, nor. 
 of other large wages and foundations that priestes take of the people 
 in diverse manners, above that they nede for nedeful sustenaunce 
 of meat and clothynge. But the poore nedy people are forsaken, and 
 left of priestes to be sustained of the paroshenes, as if the priests toke 
 nothing of the paroshenes for to help the poore people with. And 
 thus, Syr, into over great charges of the paroshenes they pay their 
 temporal goodes twice, wher ones myght suffice, if priestes wer trew 
 dispensatours. Also, Sir, the paroshenes that pay their temporal 
 goodes (be they tythes or offeringis) to priestes that do not their office 
 among them justely, are parteners of every synne of those priestes, 
 because that they susteyne those priestes foly in their synne with their 
 temporall goodes. If these things be well considered, what wonder 
 is it then, Syr, if the paroshenes grudge against thes dispensatours. 
 
 “ Then the Archbishop said to me, Thou that shouldest be judged 
 and ruled by Holy Chirche, presumptuously thou deemest Holy Chirche 
 to have erryd in the ordinance of tythes and other dewties to be payd 
 to priestis. It shall be long or thou thryve, Losell; that thou des- 
 pisest thy ghostely Mother, how darest thou speake this, Losell, among 
 the people? Are not tythes gevyn to priestis for to lyve by ? 
 
 «“ And I said, Sir, Seynt Paul saith, that tythes were given in the 
 old lawe to Levites and to priestis, that came not of the lynage of 
 Levi; but our priest, he saith, came not of the lynage of Levi, but of 
 the lynage of Juda; to which Juda no tythes were promised to be 
 
WYCLIFFE AND HIS FOLLOWERS VOLUNTARY CHURCHMEN. 88 
 
 gevyn. And, therfore, Paul saith, syns the priesthode is chaunged 
 from the generacion of Levi to the generacion of Juda, it is neces- 
 sary that chaunging also be made of the lawe. So that priestis lyve 
 now without tythes and other dewties that they now claime, follow- 
 ing Christe and his Apostles in wilful povertie, as they have gyven 
 them example. For syns Christe lyved all the tyme of his preach- 
 ing by pure almes of the people, and, by example of hym, his apos- 
 tles lyved in the same wyse, or els by the travell of their handis, as 
 it is above, every prieste, whose priesthode Christe approvyth, know- 
 ith well, and confessith in worde and in werke, that disciple owith 
 not to be above his master; but it sufficeth to a disciple to be as his 
 Master, symple and pure, meke, and patient, and by example spe- 
 cially of his Master, Christe, every prieste sholde reule hym in all 
 his lyvynge, and so, after his comyng and power, a prieste should 
 besy hym to enfourme, and to reule whome soever he myght charit- 
 ably. 
 
 “ And the Archbishope said to me with a great spirite, Goddis 
 curse have thou and thyne for this teaching ; for thou woldist hereby 
 make the olde lawe more free and perfect than the newe lawe. For 
 thou saist that it is lefull to Levites and to Priestis to take tythes in 
 the olde lawe, and so to enjoy their privileges ; but to us priestis in 
 the new lawe, thou saist it is not lefull to take tythes; and thus thou 
 gevist Levites of the olde lawe more freedom than to Priestis of the 
 new lawe. 
 
 * And I said, Sir, I marvell that ye understande this playne text 
 of Paut thus: Ye wote well, that the Levites and Priestis, in the 
 olde lawe, that took tythes, were not so fre nor so perfite as Christe 
 and his apostles that tooke no tithes. And, Sir, there is a Doctour (1 
 thinke that it is Seynt Jerome), that saith thus, The priestis that 
 challenge now, in the new law, tythes, say, in effecte, that Christe is 
 not becomen man, nor that he hath yet suffered dethe for mannis 
 love. Wherfore this Doctour saith thys sentence, syns tythes were 
 the hyres and wagis limited to the Levites, and to Priestis of the old 
 lawe, for bearing about of the tabernacle, and for slaying and fleay- 
 ing of beastis, and for burning sacrifice, and for keping of the tem- 
 ple, and for tromping of battell before the hoste of Israel, and other 
 diverse obseraunces that perteinyed to their office, those priestis that 
 will challenge or take tithes, denye that Christe is comen in fleshe, 
 and do the Priestis office of the old lawe, for whom tythes were graunt- 
 ed; for els (as the Doctour saith), Priestis take now tythes wrongfully. 
 
 « And the Archbishop said to his clerkes, Herde ye ever Losell 
 
84 VOLUNTARKYISM TAUGHT BY SIR THOMAS MORE. 
 
 speake thus? Certain this is the learnyng of them all, that whenso- 
 ever they come, and they may be suffered, they enforce them to ex- 
 pugne the freedome of Holy Chirche. 
 
 “ And I said, Sir, why call you the takyng of tythes and of soche 
 other dewties that priestis challenge now wrongfully, the fredome of 
 Holy Chirche? syns nother Christe nor his Apostles chalenged nor 
 tooke such dewties. Therefore thes takyngis of priestis now are not 
 called justely the fredome of Holy Chirche: but all soche gevyng 
 and takyng ought to be called and holden sclaunderous covetousnesse 
 of men of the Holy Chirche.”—State Trials, Vol. i. p. 18, &c. Folio. 
 Lond. 1719.—Vide Fou’s Acts and Monuments, Vol. i. p. 689, &c. 
 Fol. Lond. 1641. Vol. iii. pp. 269-292. 8vo. Lond. 1837. 
 
 Gower, to whom his better known cotemporary and friend Chaucer 
 has given the laudatory epithet of ‘ the Moral, seems to have been 
 as much a voluntary as Wycliffe and his follower Thorpe. Milton, 
 in his Apology for Smectymuus, quotes the following pithy verses: 
 
 * This Constantine, which heal hath found, 
 Within Rome anon let found 
 Two churches which he did make 
 For Peter and for Paul’s sake : 
 Of whom he had a vision, 
 And yafe therto possession 
 Of Lordship and of worlds good ; 
 But how so that his will was good 
 Toward the Pope and his franchise, © 
 Yet hath it proved otherwise 
 To see the working of the deed: 
 For in Chronick thus I read, 
 Anon, as he had made the yeft, 
 A voice was heard on high the left, 
 Of which all Rome was adrad, 
 And said this day venim is shed 
 In holy Church, of temporall 
 That meddleth with the spirituall ; 
 And how it stant in that degree, 
 Yet may a man the sooth see. 
 God amend it whan he will, 
 I can thereto none other skill.” 
 
 LXXVIII. 
 VOLUNTARYISM TAUGHT BY SIR THOMAS MORE. 
 
 From the following remarkable passage in “ The Utopia,” that 
 very amusing and instructive philosophical romance, it would appear 
 
CIVIL ESTABLISHMENTS DISTURB CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 85 
 
 that Sir Thomas More was a voluntary at heart :—“ Utopus enim jam 
 inde ab initio, cum accepisset, incolas ante suum adventum de reli- 
 gionibus inter se assidue dimicasse, atque animadvertisset eam rem, 
 quod in commune dissidentes, singule pro patria secte pugnabant, oc- 
 casionem prstitisse 5101 vincendarum omnium: adeptus victoriam 
 inprimis sanxit, uti quam cuique religionem libeat, sequi liceat: ut 
 vero alios quoque in suam traducat, hactenus niti posset, uti placide 
 ac modeste suam rationibus astruat, non ut acerbe ceteras destruat, 
 si suadendo non persuadeat, neque vim ullam adhibeat et conviciis 
 temperet: petulantius hac de re contendentem, exilio aut servitute 
 mulctant. Hee Utopus instituit non respectu pacis modo, quam as- 
 siduo certamine atque inexpiabili odio funditus vidit everti: sed quod 
 arbitratus est, uti sic decerneretur, ipsius etiam religionis interesse : 
 de qua nihil est ausus temere definire, velut incertum habens, an va- 
 rium ac multiplicem expetens cultum Deus, aliud inspiret alii. Certe 
 vi ac minis exigere, et quod tu verum credis, idem omnibus videatur, 
 hoc vero et insolens et ineptum censuit: tum si maxime una vera sit 
 cetere omnes vane, facile tamen previdet (modo cum ratione et mo- 
 destia res agatur) futurum denique, ut ipsa per se veri vis emergat 
 aliquando et emineat: sin armis et tumultu certetur, ut sint pessimi 
 qui maxime pervicaces, optimam ac sanctissimam religionem ob va- 
 nissimas inter se superstitiones, ut segetes inter spinas ac frutices ob- 
 rutum iri. Itaque hance totam rem in medio posuit, et quod creden- 
 dum putaret, liberum cuique reliquit.”. . . . “ Sacerdotes eligun- 
 tur a populo.’—Utopia, Lib. ii. Mori Lucubrationes, p. 188, 144. 
 Basil, 1563. 
 
 LXXIX. 
 
 LORD CHATHAM ON THE POLITICAL INFLUENCE OF DISSENT. 
 
 Foot-Note, p. 489, 1. 14.—“ There is no instance to be found of any 
 sect, which dissented from the Established worship in any country, 
 having been the means of disturbing the general tranquillity, unless 
 they had been treated with cruelty, and injured in their rights as 
 citizens and men.’—Lord Chatham in a Letter to Dr Price. 
 
 LXXX. 
 
 CIVIL ESTABLISHMENTS DISTURB CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 
 
 Foot-Note, p. 440, 1. 19.—* The clerical system, even in this coun- 
 try, overlays the State which it professes to support. The govern- 
 ments of Europe will yet discover, however slowly, that it is their 
 
86 CIVIL ESTABLISHMENTS DISTURB CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 
 
 practical wisdom to disentangle the civil polity from the embarrass- 
 ments of all theological controversy, and ecclesiastical rivalship. 
 Statesmen are finding it their wisdom to loosen the connexion be- 
 tween the so-called Church and the State; and I doubt not, that 
 they will at length find it their wisdom to dissolve it. They will find 
 that the things of this world are the proper province of the rulers of 
 this world; and that, in attempting to legislate about the concerns 
 of another world, and to provide for the souls of their people, they 
 have cumbered themselves with a burden, which they are not called 
 to bear. Is it not indeed ‘ a cumbersome stone, the weight of which 
 is obviously pulling down almost all the governments of Europe ?”— 
 Walker's Essays and Correspondence, Vol. ii. pp. 647, 577 and 533. 
 
 “ Then both commonwealth and religion will at length, if ever, 
 flourish in Christendom, when either they who govern discern be- 
 tween civil and religious, or they only who so discern shall be per- 
 mitted to govern. ‘Till then nothing but troubles, persecutions, com- 
 motions, can be expected, the inward decay of true religion among 
 ourselves, and the utter overthrow at last by a common enemy.’— . 
 Milton's Treatise of Civil Power in Ecclesiastical Causes. Works, 
 vol. i. p. 545. 
 
 LXXXI. 
 
 AN ENEMY OF ESTABLISHMENTS MAY BE A FRIEND TO THE CIVIL 
 CONSTITUTION. 
 
 » 
 
 Foot-Note, p. 441, 1. 9.—“ It was a malicious artifice,” says the 
 witty Alsop, “ of Julian the Apostate, to erect the images of the gods 
 in the forum, near his own station, reducing hereby the Christians to 
 this dilemma, either to seem to worship the images, while they re- 
 verenced his statue, or contemn their soveroign, by refusing to bow 
 before the images. Into the same streights would the masters of ce- 
 remonies bring us, that either our loyalty must argue us into a con- 
 formity to their intention, or non-conformity shall be an interpreta- 
 tive contempt of authority. Thus it has ever been a successful po- 
 licy to twist their own concerns with those of majesty and royalty, 
 that they may not be separated ; and when they have laid up their 
 little knacks among the sacred κειμηλία in his Majesty’s jewel-house, 
 to touch one ceremony is to steal the crown.”—WMelius Inquirendum, 
 p- 861. 8vo. 1679. ; 
 
 “ὁ Tt is not uncommon for the zealous advocates of our religious es- 
 tablishments, to speak evil of all who dissent from them as necessa- 
 rily ill affected to the State. ‘ The Church and State, say they, form 
 
NO NECESSARY CONNEXION OF CHURCH AND STATE. 87 
 
 one constitution in these realms ; and to that constitution those who 
 dislike the Church must be hostile.’ If this be so, nothing can more 
 clearly show the impolicy and absurdity of the connexion. If this 
 be so, the British constitution has indeed a host of irreconcileable 
 foes, not only in Ireland, but in England, Scotland, and Wales; and 
 that host yearly increasing ; for I believe it will not be denied, that 
 the number of Dissenters from the Establishment is decidedly on the 
 increase. If this be so, it was most pernicious to introduce the Re- 
 formation into these countries ; for the appeal then made to the Serip- 
 tures must necessarily produce Dissenters for any political establish- 
 ment of religion, which could be adopted ; whereas the continued do- 
 mination of Popery, keeping down the spirit of inquiry, might have 
 united the people in blind submission to the dictates of their priests. 
 
 “ But I must add, that if this be so, then the Lord Chancellor him- 
 self, and all our Most Reverend Archbishops, and Right Reverend 
 Bishops, and Very Reverend Deans, and Venerable Archdeacons, are 
 disaffected subjects, on the northern side of the Tweed, and all the 
 sincere members of the Established Church of Scotland, are disaffected 
 subjects on the southern side of that stream. 
 
 “ But his Majesty—what should we say of him, upon the supposi- 
 tion against which I argue? He has in his dominions at least two ec- 
 clesiastical systems, of which he is the common head. Now, those 
 who maintain that a man cannot be well affected to the State, unless 
 he be attached to the Church, would do well to say, which of his 
 churches the king himself must be attached to! They would do well 
 to pause and consider the disloyal imputation which they cast on his 
 Majesty, if he be considered as cordially attached to either. Our 
 civil constitution might subsist in full vigour, though the so-called 
 church was set adrift; and to that constitution, as consisting of the 
 well-balanced powers of King, Lords, and Commons, a man may be 
 cordially attached, who yet thinks the Church a dead incumbrance 
 on the State, a morbid tumour, which it would be desirable to eradi- 
 cate, if it might be done without danger from hemorrhage.”— Wal- 
 ker’s Essays and Correspondence, vol. ii. p. 644. 
 
 “ We are persuaded that the civil constitution of this country 
 might continue to subsist in full vigour, if totally disconnected from 
 the ecclesiastical ; and that the present connexion is a dead weight 
 upon the State, however it may contribute to the purpose of swelling 
 the patronage and influence of the crown.”—ZJbid. p. 583. 
 
 “ What is the constitution of this country, so much boasted of, and 
 which our neighbours are said to be striving to imitate, or rather to 
 
88 TENDENCY OF CIVIL ESTABLISHMENTS. 
 
 surpass? The existing form of government under King, Lords, and 
 Commons: but religion and civil government are distinct in their 
 natures. The constitution would not be altered by a change of wor- 
 ship, more than it was at the Reformation. The religious establish- 
 ment, so far as it is settled by human laws, and as to external rites 
 and ceremonies, is liable to change as much as any civil appointments 
 whatsoever.”—Sir George Colebrooke’s Six Letters on Intolerance, Let. I. 
 pp- 50,51. Lond. 1791. 
 
 It is acutely said by Robinson, “ It is not accurate to speak of a 
 constitution in Church and State, as if the Church were half the 
 State, or as if the British constitution consisted of two independent 
 empires in alliance, because the truth is, the executive power distri- 
 butes the religion of the State by the clergy, exactly as the same exe- 
 cutive power distributes the wealth, the protection, and the law of 
 the State, by other classes of state officers. We do not say constitu- 
 tion in Law and State, or in Army and State, or in Exchequer and 
 State, for all these are creatures of State, and such is the Church.”— 
 Robinson's Occasional Sermons, pp. 51, 52. 
 
 LXXXIlI. 
 
 TENDENCY OF CIVIL ESTABLISHMENTS. 
 
 To be added to Foot Note *, p. 445.—“ The history of church esta- 
 blishments is the history of the decline and corruptions of Christian- 
 ity. Every religious establishment among Christians, without adding 
 to the evidence, hath abated from the purity of the gospel.”—Sir 
 George Colebrooke. Letters on Intolerance, Let. 11. p. 207. Let. V. 
 p. 429. 
 
 “‘ Christianity inevitably suffers the destruction of some of her 
 fairest characteristics, in a union with civil government. Originally, 
 the christian church is spiritual in its office and end, but in an esta- 
 blishment, it is employed in earthly and political services. Originally, 
 it is a voluntary society, but in an establishment, it is maintained by 
 a system of force. Originally, it is independent, but in an establish- 
 ment it is subjected to the power and caprice of secular princes and 
 parliaments. Originally, it is Catholic, but by an establishment, it 
 is made sectarian and schismatic. Originally, it is popular and free, 
 but in an establishment its government is necessarily despotic or 
 aristocratical. Originally, its members are select, but admission be- 
 comes promiscuous, when it aims at being national. Originally, the 
 dependence of its ministers on the voluntary support of its members, 
 
TENDENCY OF CIVIL ESTABLISHMENTS. 80 
 
 affords a powerful secondary stimulus to exertion, and its freedom 
 from every restriction, except ‘ the royal law’ of its Divine Ruler, 
 fits it for unfettered movement in the prosecution of its objects ; but 
 in an establishment, its fixed salaries operating upon its officers as 
 bribes to indolence, and its connexion with a system of human law 
 obliging them to a rigid adherence to form and precedent, produce 
 weakuess and lethargy in the whole frame.”—Memorial to Earl Grey, 
 by a Public Meeting of Dissenters and Others, Inhabitants of the City of 
 Edinburgh, Sc. Feb. 12, 1834. 
 
 LXXXIII. 
 
 OCCASIONAL GOOD MAY BE DONE BY A BAD SYSTEM. 
 
 Foot Note, p. 448, 1.6 from the foot.— It is no proof of the good- 
 ness of a system, that occasional good may be traced to its operation ; 
 for desolating wars have overthrown tyrannies ; oppression has led to 
 freedom ; and when the iniquity of Rome was ‘ full’ like that of the 
 Amorites, it produced the Reformation. Providence may have some- 
 times rendered the supremacy of the secular power subservient to the 
 objects of Christianity ; but it should also be remembered, that the 
 exercise of this authority, by clashing with the rights of conscience, 
 has proved the grand source of religious discord among Protestants 
 during three centuries.’—Hoppus on Schism, pp. 172, 178. 
 
 LXXXIV. 
 
 TENDENCY OF CIVIL ESTABLISHMENTS TO PRODUCE INFIDELITY. 
 WALKER. 
 
 Foot Note, p. 458, 1. 11.—“ It is sufficiently evinced by existing 
 facts, that, in the political establishment of religion, the truth or false- 
 hood of the religious system is a question altogether out of contem- 
 plation. And this certainly is one of the circumstances, which ren- 
 der every religious establishment an eminent instrument of promoting 
 irreligion. The populace may be very slow to notice this merely po- 
 litical character in the state church, but thinking and observing men 
 must perceive it, and will call the attention of others to what they 
 see themselves. Naturally indisposed to view the revelation which 
 the only true God has made in the Scriptures, and willing to draw 
 their puny conclusions against all religion from what they perceive 
 to be the character of state religion ; they find in this a ready justifi- 
 cation to their consciences for laughing at every thing sacred, either 
 
00 TENDENCY OF CIVIL ESTABLISHMENTS. 
 
 openly or under the profession of ardent zeal for the church.’— 
 Walker's Essays and Correspondence, vol. ii. p. 584. 
 
 LXXXV. 
 
 TENDENCY OF CIVIL ESTABLISHMENTS TO DISTURB CIVIL ORDER. 
 
 WARBURTON. 
 
 Foot Note, p. 4538, 1. 13.—It is a just and important remark of 
 Bishop Warburton, though it is certain he did not see the full ex- 
 tent of its bearing when he made it: “ It is only the tyrannical 
 usurpation of the magistrate upon the rights of religion, that makes 
 diversity of opinions mischievous and malignant.” The manner in 
 which diversity of religious opinion affects the civil peace of a com- 
 munity, “ wherever more than one religion is found in a state,” 
 and where the principle that there ought to be a civil establishment 
 of religion is generally held, is very well described by him. “ Every 
 sect thinking itself alone the true church, or at least the most 
 perfect, is naturally pushed on to advance its own scheme on the 
 ruins of all the rest ; and where argument fails, civil power is made 
 to come in, as soon as ever a party can be formed in the public 
 administration: and we find that they have been too successful in 
 persuading the magistrate that his interests are much concerned 
 in their religious differences.” He is not so happy, however, in 
 the plan he proposes for putting down these disturbances. ‘“ Now, 
 the most effectual remedy to these dangerous and strong convulsions 
 into which states are so frequently thrown by these struggles, is an 
 alliance which establishes one church and gives a full toleration to 
 the rest; only keeping sectaries out of the public administration.” 
 “ Oh, most lame and impotent conclusion!” This is the direct way to 
 perpetuate such struggles—and to give them a peculiarly malignant 
 character. The true, the only cure, is to extend an equal protection 
 to all bodies of religionists, while they conduct themselves like good 
 subjects, without conferring peculiar patronage on any. ‘The bishop, 
 indeed, perceives that the consequences of establishing one church 
 will be, that “‘the zeal for opinions would be out of measure inflamed 
 by envy and emulation, which the temporal advantages enjoyed by 
 the established church, exclusive of the rest, will always occasion ;” 
 and to meet this difficulty, he prescribes “ a test law,” excluding all 
 but members of the favoured sect from a place in the administration 
 of civil government ; that is, to prevent the mischiefs occasioned by 
 one act of injustice—another must be committed. Our prescription 
 
TENDENCY OF CIVIL ESTABLISHMENTS. 91 
 
 has been followed in the United States of America, where there is 
 fully as much variety of religious opinion as in any country, and fully 
 as much religious zeal and activity. There, religious opinion never 
 interferes with civil tranquillity. And the reason is, the declaration 
 which formed the foundation of the Massachusett’s new constitution, 
 is now embodied in the constitutional law of all the states, “ That 
 every denomination of Christians demeaning themselves peaceably and 
 as good subjects of the commonwealth, shall be equally under the 
 protection of the law, and no subordination of one sect to another shail 
 ever be established by law.” 
 
 “It is matter of devout thanksgiving,” says an acute American 
 divine, “ that the subject of the rights of civil rulers and the rights 
 of conscience is now settled, and the principle is now understood. In 
 our own land there exists the happy and bright illustration of the 
 true principle on this great subject. The rights of conscience are re- 
 garded, and the laws peacefully obeyed. The civil ruler understands 
 his province ; and Christians yield a cheerful and cordial obedience to 
 the laws. The Church and State move on in their own spheres, united 
 only in the purpose to make men happy and good; and divided only 
 as they relate to different departments, and contemplate, the one the 
 rights of civil society, the other, the interests of eternity. Here every 
 man worships God according to his own views of duty; and at the 
 same time here is rendered the most cordial and peaceful obedience 
 to the laws of the land. Thanks should be rendered without ceasing 
 to the God of our fathers, for the wondrous train of events by which 
 this contest has been conducted to its issue ; and for the clear and full 
 understanding which we now have of the different departments be- 
 longing to the Church and the State.”—Barnes’ Notes, Explanatory 
 and Practical, on the Epistle to the Romans, p. 283. 12mo. New York, 
 1836. 
 
 In England, where the bishop’s prescription has been followed, how 
 different the result. The second dose, which was intended to cure 
 the disease, has so aggravated the symptoms, that it has been obliged 
 to be discontinued in the repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts— 
 and if the patient, the State, is to be saved from a violent death—the 
 first dose must be withdrawn also, in the dissolution of the establish- 
 ment. Commutation of tithes—a better administration of church re- 
 yenues—or even an establishment on less exclusive principles, are all 
 quack medicines. They may abate some of the more alarming symp- 
 toms—but they tamper with the vital principles of a healthy state of 
 society—and obstruct the return of that “ peace” which, in the public 
 
92 CIVIL ESTABLISHMENTS OBSTRUCT CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 body as in the individual mind, is, and can only be, “ the fruit of 
 righteousness.’— Warburton’s Alliance, Book 111. Chap. 1. p. 199. 
 Chap. II. p. 286. Book II. Chap. 2. p. 109. Book 111. Chap. 2. 
 p- 207. 
 
 Adam Smith, with characteristic sagacity, perceived this :-—“ Ina 
 country where the law favoured the teachers of no one religion more 
 than those of another, it would not be necessary that any of them 
 should have any particular or immediate dependency upon the sove- 
 reign or executive power; or that he should have any thing to do either 
 in appointing or in dismissing them from their offices. In such a 
 situation he would have no occasion to give himself any concern about 
 them, farther than to keep the peace among them as among the rest 
 of his subjects.’— Wealth of Nations, Book V. Ch. 1. vol. iii. p. 207. 
 
 LXXXVI. 
 
 CIVIL ESTABLISHMENTS OBSTRUCT THE PROGRESS OF CHRISTI- 
 ANITY. 
 
 Foot Note, p. 458, 1. 17.—“ There is nothing which would make 
 -so much for the interest of Christianity, as if the right of liberty 
 of conscience” (which is incompatible with religious establishments), 
 “ were known and acknowledged all over the world. For then as- 
 suredly by how much more manifest the truth and authority of 
 every religion is, by so much more certainty would it prevail ; 
 as we may observe that every religion, by how much more false 
 it is, by so much the more severely and tyrannically it is sup- 
 ported by external violence. Wherefore if it could be agreed up- 
 on to take away this external support, false religion and vain su- 
 perstition would sink, and those bladders and bulrushes being taken 
 from under them, that only would be found to swim whose in- 
 nate truth was able to bear it up of itself. And such certainly is 
 the naked simplicity of the christian religion, divested of those many 
 incumberments of human invention, both false and useless, wherewith 
 it is so laden that it would not choose but sink, notwithstanding any 
 external support, did not the force of the undeniable truth therein 
 bear up all that luggage which ignorance, hypocrisy, and covetousness 
 have cast upon it. How free and quick passage then would it have, 
 if this burden had once sunk from it, and it were restored to the pri- 
 meval purity thereof! Surely that religion that got ground so fast, 
 though cruelly persecuted and opposed, could not but make admir- 
 
CHRISTIANITY NO PART OF THE COMMON LAW. 93 
 
 able progresses, might it but once on equal terms grapple with other 
 religions. Iam prone to believe that it would not be long till “ all the 
 kingdoms of the earth would become the kingdoms of the Lord and 
 his Christ.’””—Dr H. More's Grand Mystery of Godliness, pp. xxviii. 
 Xxix. 
 
 LXXXVIL. 
 
 CIVIL ESTABLISHMENTS NOT NECESSARY FOR THEIR ALLEGED 
 PURPOSE. 
 
 WALKER. 
 
 Foot Note, p. 453, 1. 19.—“ The only true religion not only needs not 
 political support, but is absolutely incapable of receiving it ; and as 
 to false religion, really statesmen need not be at the trouble of pro- 
 viding it for the people. There is no danger but sinful men, under 
 the workings of a guilty conscience, will frame plenty of it for them- 
 selves. When will worldly rulers have sufficient common sense to 
 confine themselves to their proper province, the affairs of this life 7" --- 
 Walker's Essays and Correspondence, vol. ii. p. 528. 
 
 LXXXVIII. 
 
 THE ORIGIN OF THE DICTUM “ THAT CHRISTIANITY IS PART AND 
 PARCEL OF THE LAW OF ENGLAND.” 
 
 Foot-Note, p. 460, 1. 14.—This dictum is not only absurd in itself, 
 but apocryphal in its authority. The following extract from a letter 
 of President Jefferson, at the age of 81, to Major Cartwright, at the 
 age of 84, will probably astonish as well as amuse the reader. “ I 
 was glad to find in your book a formal contradiction, at length, of 
 the judiciary usurpation of legislative powers ; for such the judges 
 have usurped, in their repeated decisions that Christianity is a part 
 of the common law. The proof of the contrary which you have ad- 
 duced is incontrovertible ; to wit, that the common law existed while 
 the Anglo-Saxons were yet pagans; at a time when they had never 
 yet heard the name of Christ pronounced, or knew that such a cha- 
 racter had ever existed. But it may amuse you to show when and 
 by what means they stole this law in upon us. In a case of ‘ quare 
 impedit,’ in the Year Book 34, H. 6, fo. 88 (1455), a question was 
 made, how far the ecclesiastical law was to be respected in a common 
 law court. And Prisot gives his opinion in these words, ‘ A tiel leis 
 que ils de seint eglise ont en ancien scripture, covient a nous a donner 
 
 F 
 
94 CHRISTIANITY NO PART OF THE COMMON LAW. 
 
 credence ; car ceo common ley sur quels touts manners leis sont fon- 
 des—et auxy, Sir, nous sumus obliges de conustre leur ley de saint 
 eglise ; et semblablement ils sont obliges de conustre nostre ley ; et 
 Sir, si poit apperer or a nous que Yevesque ad fait come un ordinary 
 fera en tiel cas, adonq nous devyons ceo adjuger bon, ou auterment 
 nemy, &c.—See S. C. Fitzh. Abr. qu. imp. 89. Bro. Abr. qu. imp. 12. 
 Finch, in his first book, ο. 3, is the first afterwards who quotes the 
 case, and misstates it thus:—‘ To such laws of the church as have 
 warrant in holy scripture, our law giveth credence ;’ and cites Prisot, 
 mistranslating ‘ ancien scripture ’ into ‘ holy scripture, whereas Prisot 
 palpably says, “ To such laws as those of holy church (i. 6. church- 
 men), have in ancient writing, it is proper for us to give credence ; 
 to wit, to their ancient written laws.’ This was in 1618, a century 
 and a half after the dictum of Prisot. Wingate, in 1658, erects this 
 false translation into a maxim of the common law, copying the words 
 of Finch, but citing Prisot. Wingate, max. 3, and Sheppard, tit. ‘ Re- 
 ligion, in 1675, copies the same mistranslation, quoting the Y. B., 
 Finch, and Wingate. Hale expresses it in these words, ‘ Christianity 
 is parcel of the laws of England, 1 Ventr. 293, 3 Keb. 607, but quotes 
 no authority. By these echoings and re-echoings from one to an- 
 other, it had become so established in 1728, that in the case of the 
 King, v. Woolston, 2 Stra. 834, the Court would not suffer it to be 
 debated, whether to write against Christianity was punishable in the 
 temporal courts at common law. Wood, therefore, 409, ventures 
 still to vary the phrase, and says that all blasphemy and prophane- 
 ness are offences by the common law, and cites 2 Stra.; then Black- 
 stone in 1763, iv. 59, repeats the words of Hale, that ‘ Christianity is 
 part of the law of England,’ citing Ventris and Strange ; and finally, 
 Lord Mansfield, with a little qualification in Evans’ case in 1767, says 
 ‘ that the essential principles of revealed religion are parts of the 
 common law,’ thus engulphing Bible, Testament, and all, into the 
 common law, without citing any authority. And thus we find this 
 chain of authorities hanging link by link one upon another, and all 
 ultimately on one and the same hook ; and that a mistranslation of 
 the words ‘ ancien scripture,’ used by Prisot. Finch quotes Prisot ; 
 Wingate does the same. Sheppard quotes Prisot, Finch, and Win- 
 gate ; Hale cites nobody ; the Court in Woolston’s case cites Hale : 
 Wood cites Woolston’s case ; Blackstone quotes Woolston’s case and 
 Hale ; and Lord Mansfield, like Hale, ventures it on his own autho- 
 rity. Here I might defy the best read lawyer to produce another 
 scrip of authority for this judiciary forgery ; and I might go on fur- 
 
CLAIMS OF THE CHURCH ON THE CIVIL POWER. 95 
 
 ther to show how some of the Anglo-Saxon priests interpolated into 
 the text of Alfred’s laws, the 20th, 21st, 22d, and 28d chapters of 
 Exodus, and the 15th of the Acts of the Apostles, from the 284 to 
 the 29th verses. But this would lead my pen and your patience too 
 far. What a conspiracy this between Church and State !”—Letters and 
 Correspondence of Major Cartwright, vol. ii. pp. 271-274. Lond. 1826. 
 
 In verifying the above extract from the Year Book by the help of 
 a friend learned in that kind of lore, I find President Jefferson or 
 Miss Cartwright have made some slight mistakes. The following is 
 a correct transcript of the passage referred to. A tielx leys que eux de 
 saint esglise ont en auncient scripture covient pur nous a doner cre- 
 dence, car ceo est comen ley sur quels touts manners Icis sont fondues. 
 Et auxi Sir nous sumus obliges de conustre lour ley de saint esglise. 
 Et semblablement ils sont oblige de conustre nostre ley. Et Sir si 
 poit appiere ore a nous que l’evesque ad fait come un ordinarie ferra 
 en tiel cas, adonques nous diomus ceo adjudger pur bon ou au- 
 terment nemy, &c. Y. B. Pasche 34. Hen. 6 (1456) Bohme v. Bishop 
 of Lincoln, and oyrs in quare impedit, p. 40, Prisot. My friend whose 
 legal learning is not his principal recommendation, remarks, that 
 “* there is some ambiguity in the expressions, but on reading the case 
 it seems clear that ‘ auncient scripture’ means the ancient written 
 laws of the Church, viz., the canon law,—the common law of the 
 Church. I have my doubts, however, whether the whole stress of 
 the dictum that ‘ Christianity is part and parcel, &c.’, ought not to 
 be laid upon Lord C. J. Hale’s shoulders solely. He could not be mis- 
 led by translations. He had the year-books at his finger ends, and 
 knew well the meaning that should be put on the words in question. 
 The doctrine is the issue of his own brain, and was owing to his educa- 
 tion among the puritans, for you know how they jumbled the two testa- 
 ments together, and made up a mixture of the Civil, and Christian, 
 and Jewish laws, which showed itself in their speeches and sermons, 
 and in their conduct to those who differed from them. Judge Hale 
 enforced the laws against witchcraft,” &c. 
 
 LXXXIX. 
 
 THE LEGITIMATE CLAIMS OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH ON THE 
 CIVIL POWER. 
 
 COLERIDGE. 
 
 Foot-Note, p. 462, J. 6.—‘* The Church of Christ asks of the State 
 neither wages nor dignities. She asks only protection, and to be let 
 
90 HUMAN DEFENCES OF CHRISTIANITY AND THE CHURCH. 
 
 alone. These indeed she demands; but even these only on the 
 ground that there is nothing in her constitution, or in her discipline, 
 inconsistent with the interests of the State, nothing resistant or im- 
 pedimental to the State in the exercise of its rightful powers, in the 
 fulfilment of its appropriate duties, or in the effectuation of its legi- 
 timate objects. It is a fundamental principle of all legislation, that 
 the State shall leave the largest portion of personal free agency to 
 each of its citizens that is compatible with the free agency of all, and 
 not subversive of the ends of its own existence as a State. And 
 though a negative, it is a most important distinctive character of the 
 Church of Christ, that she asks nothing for her members, as Chris- 
 tians, which they are not already entitled to demand, as citizens and 
 subjects.’ —Ooleridge on the Constitution of the Church and State, ac- 
 cording to the idea of each, pp. 125, 126. Lond. 1839. 
 
 How happy would it have been for the Church and the world had 
 the eulogium of the heathen historian on the emperor Valentinian, 
 been applicable to all possessors of civil power. ‘ Hoc moderamine 
 principatus inclaruit, quod inter religionum diversitates medius ste-_ 
 tit: nec quenquam inquietavit neque ut hoc coleretur imperavit aut 
 illud: nee interdictis minacibus subjectorum cervicem, ad id quod 
 ipse coluit inclinabat: sed intemeratas reliquit has partes ut reperit.” 
 —Ammianus Marcellinus, Lib. xxx.c. 19. For his notions of tolera- 
 tion, Valentinian deserves great praise. It is an honour, as Jortin 
 remarks, which no christian emperor of those times has any right to 
 share with him, 
 
 ΧΟ. 
 
 LUTHER'S NOTION OF HUMAN DEFENCES OF CHRISTIANITY AND 
 THE CHURCH. 
 
 To be added to Foot-Note t+, p. 461.—Luther’s sarcastic words are 
 not inapplicable. “ The world is gone mad. There are the Hunga- 
 rians assuming the characters of the defenders of God himself. They 
 pray in their litanies, ‘ ut nos defensores tuos exaudire digneris.’ 
 Why do not some of our princes take on them the protection of Je- 
 sus Christ, others that of the Holy Spirit? Then, indeed, the divine 
 Trinity would be well guarded.” ** Who is the Church's pro- 
 tector, that hath promised to be with her to the end, and the gates 
 of hell shall not prevail against her? Kings, Diets, Parliaments, 
 Lawyers? Marry, no such cattle."—D’Aubigne’s History of the Re- 
 formation. Luther's Mensalia. 
 
NEEDLESSNESS OF AN ESTABLISHMENT. 97 
 
 XCI. 
 BISHOP CROFTS ON THE NEEDLESSNESS OF AN ESTABLISHMENT, 
 
 Foot-Note, p. 463, 1. 12.—The truth respecting the needlessness of 
 an Establishment to serve its great avowed purpose with regard to 
 Christianity and the Church, has seldom been better stated, than by 
 an amiable prelate of the Church of England, who had the rare me- 
 rit of being tolerant and liberal in an intolerant and illiberal age,— 
 Herbert Crofts, Bishop of Hereford. ‘*in the primitive times, when 
 the whole world of Jews and Gentiles were enemies to the Church, 
 and not one of your ceremonies to preserve it, the simple naked truth 
 without any surplice to cover it, without any ecclesiastical policy to 
 maintaine it, overcame all; and so it would do now did we trust to 
 it, and the defender of it.”—The Naked Truth, or the True State of the 
 Primitive Church. By a humble Moderator. P. 17. Lond. 1675. 
 Bishop Croft was attacked by many High Churchmen, and a Dr 
 Turner was peculiarly bitter in his “ animadversions.” His insolence 
 provoked Andrew Maryell to chastise him, and he enjoys an unenvi- 
 able immortality in the witty pages of Marvell’s publication, entitled 
 “ Mr Smirke, or the Divine in Mode, being certain annotations upon 
 the animadversions on the Naked Truth, by Andreas Rivetus, Jun. 
 Anagr. Res nuda veritas. Nudased magna est veritas et prevalebit. 
 Printed Anno Domini MDCLXXVI.” 
 
 The same important sentiment is finely expressed in an article in 
 the Edinburgh Review, which has been generally ascribed to Thomas 
 B. Macaulay, Esq. ‘* The ark of God was never taken, till it was 
 surrounded by the arms of earthly defenders. In captivity, its sane- 
 tity was sufficient to vindicate it from insult, and to lay the hostile 
 fiend prostrate on the threshold of his own temple. The real secu- 
 rity of Christianity is to be found in its benevolent morality, in its 
 exquisite adaptation to the human heart, in the facility with which 
 its scheme accommodates itself to the capacity of every human intel- 
 lect, in the consolation which it bears to the house of mourning, in 
 the light with which it brightens the great mystery of the grave. To 
 such a system it can bring no addition of dignity or of strength, that 
 it is part and parcel of the common law. It is not now for the first 
 time left to rely on the force of its own evidence, and the attractions 
 of its own beauty. Its sublime theology confounded the Grecian 
 schools in the fair conflict of reason with reason. The bravest and 
 wisest of the Ciesars found their arms and their policy unavailing 
 
98 ESTABLISHMENTS ESSENTIALLY SCHISMATIC. 
 
 when opposed to the weapons that were not carnal, and the kingdom 
 that was not of this world. The victory which Porphyry and Diocle- 
 tian failed to gain, is not to all appearance reserved to any of those 
 who in this age have directed their attacks against the last restraint of 
 the powerful, and the last hope of the wretched. The whole history of 
 the Christian religion shows that she is in far greater danger of being 
 corrupted by the alliance of power, than of being crushed by its op- 
 position. Those who thrust temporal sovereignty upon her, treat 
 her as their prototypes treated her author, They bow the knee, and 
 spit upon her; they cry hail! and smite her on the cheek ; they 
 put a sceptre into her hand, but it is a fragile reed; they crown 
 her, but it is with thorns; they cover with purple the wounds 
 which their own hands have inflicted on her; and inscribe mag- 
 nificent titles over the cross on which they have fixed her to per- 
 ish in ignominy and pain.”—Ldinburgh Review, Jan. 1830. 
 
 XCII. 
 
 ESTABLISHMENTS A BAR IN THE WAY OF THE UNITY OF THE 
 CHURCH. 
 
 HOPPUS. 
 
 Foot Note, p. 464, 1. 6 from the foot.— The gigantic dominion of 
 2ome, under the image of visible unity, was the consummation of the 
 greatest of all corruptions in the church ; the standing power of the 
 civil magistrate to enact laws for the same unity, is, as we deem, only 
 a second and milder form of the same evil—the chronic and invete- 
 rate evil of human legislative authority in the church. On the prin- 
 ciple of this authority, the chief magistrate, however unchristian and 
 immoral his character may be, is, as a matter of course, the legisla- 
 tive head of the church, the visible unity of which has no solid basis, 
 but is liable to be as shifting and variable as the laws of a nation, the 
 humour of princes, or the secular interests of society. The magistrate 
 may, in connexion with the legislature, frame and enforce laws which 
 shall have the effect of keeping back for ages that visible moral unity, 
 which is destined one day to distinguish the professing church of 
 Christ, and to be the instrument of salvation to the world. For it 
 cannot be too carefully borne in mind, that in the solemn moments 
 which preceded the scenes of Gethsemane and the cross, Jesus prayed 
 that all his disciples might be ‘ onz,’ and he added, ‘ that the world 
 may believe that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them as thou hast 
 
DISSOLUTION OF CIVIL ESTABLISHMENTS NECESSARY. 99 
 
 loved me.’ Now, the peculiar mark and visible sign of this oneness 
 was not placed in external forms and ceremonies, but in ‘love.’ ‘ By 
 this shall all men know that ye are my disciples if ye have love one 
 to another. * But to pronounce what Christ has left free and unde- 
 termined, essential to the visible unity of the church ; to prescribe, for 
 this purpose, forms and ceremonies which he has not prescribed, is 
 not regarded by all Christians as presumptuous only because it is so 
 familiar. This procedure cannot fail, in a multitude of instances, to 
 mar charity by wounding the minds of the most upright men, even 
 though there should be a free ‘ toleration’ to religious opinions.”— 
 Professor Hoppus on Schism, pp. 180, 181. Lond. 1839. 
 
 ΧΟΠΙ. 
 
 DISSOLUTION OF CIVIL ESTABLISHMENTS NECESSARY TO PREPARE 
 FOR THE MILLENNIAL GLORY. 
 
 DR MORE. BISHOP WATSON. 
 
 Foot Note tol. 1 from the foot, p. 465.—“ These good times, which 
 we expect and hope for, will not be the exaltation of this or that sect : 
 For the childish conceit of some is, that the future prosperity of the 
 church will be nothing but the setting up this form or that opinion, 
 and so every faction will be content to be Millennists, upon condition 
 that Christ may reign after their way or mode: But the true happi- 
 ness of those days is not to be measured by formalities or opinions, 
 but by a more corroborated faith in Christ and his promises, by devo- 
 tion unfeigned, by purity of heart and innocency of life, by faithful- 
 ness, by common charity, by comfortable provisions for the poor, by 
 cheerful obedience to our’superiours, and abundance of kindness and 
 discreet condescension one to another, by unspotted righteousness and 
 an unshaken peace, by the removal of every unjust yoke, by mutual 
 forbearance, and bearing up one another, as living stones of that tem- 
 ple, where there is not to be heard the noise of either axe or hammer, 
 no squabble or clamour about formes or opinions, but a peaceable 
 study and endeavour of provoking one another to love and good 
 works.’—Dr Henry More's Explanation of the Grand Mystery of God- 
 liness. Pref. pp. xvi. xvii. Fol. Lond. 1660. 
 
 That the destruction of civil establishments, and indeed of these 
 political institutions which have so interwoven themselves with these 
 establishments is necessary to the final triumph of Christianity, is the 
 decided opinion of that able prelate, Bishop Watson, whose liberal 
 
 * John xiii. 35. 
 
100 ABSURDITY OF CIVIL ESTABLISHMENTS. 
 
 principles prevented him from ever being raised to any of the richer 
 
 and more influential sees, and made him die a Welch bishop. The 
 
 following striking sentences were written in 1788 :—“ Though a ge- 
 
 neral view of the state of mankind at this time, when the colonies 
 
 and commerce of Christian nations have encompassed the whole earth, 
 
 when Babylon the Great seems falling, and all the states of Europe 
 
 manifest plain tokens of an internal decay, compared with the pro- 
 
 phetical writings of Daniel and St John concerning the latter times, 
 
 and illustrated by the standing miracle of the Jewish dispersion, and 
 
 the great apostacy and corruption of the Christian church, might pro- 
 
 bably, to a cool and comprehensive mind, exhibit the arm of the Lord 
 
 naked in the cause of Christianity ; yet doth not its full establish- 
 
 ment seem near at hand. The greatest nations of the East have 
 
 scarcely heard of the gospel of Christ, nor hath it been any where re- 
 
 ceived but as either polluted with Pagan superstitions, or debased by 
 
 the beggarly elements of Judaical ceremonies ; its purity and simpli- 
 
 city hath been every where depreciated ; it hath been made a ladder 
 of ambition by churchmen; an engine of government by statesmen ;_ 
 and though by its reciprocal action, it hath strengthened the bonds of 
 society, yet hath its spirit been depressed and weighed down by the 
 
 earthly principles of every civil institution; all of which, when it 
 
 shall exert its full activity, it will ‘ break to pieces with a rod of 
 iron;’ the stone which was cut out without hands shall in the season 
 
 which is known to ‘ the ancient of days, and to none besides, smite 
 
 thoroughly both ‘ the iron’ and ‘ the clay,’ reduce as small ‘ as the 
 
 chaff of the summer thrashing-floor,’ every stately image of political 
 
 power, “ become a great mountain, and fill the whole earth.” Ser- 
 mon on 1 Cor. vi. 7.—Sermons and Tracts, pp. 10, 11. 
 
 XCIV. 
 ABSURDITY OF CIVIL ESTABLISHMENTs. 
 
 WHICHCOTE. PARRY. DR SAMUEL CLARKE. ROBINSON. 
 
 Foot Note, p. 468, 1. 7.—‘* To use power to control the principles of 
 human nature (the use of reason, the exercise of liberty), is as strange 
 a phenomenon as to cross or pervert the common course of natural 
 agents ; to bring the sun back again, or to make it fill the world with 
 darkness. God doesnot do this; if he did he would contest with him- 
 self ; his power would rise up against his wisdom ; and he would dis- 
 parage and frustrate his own workmanship. Why should we think to 
 
TOLERATION INDEFENSIBLE ON POLITICAL GROUNDS. 101 
 
 do that which Gop will not do,—to overbear Reason with violence.”— 
 Whichcote’s Moral and Religious Aphorisms, Cent. I. No. 38. 
 
 “ΤῊ human mind is so formed as to be convinced by evidence 
 and argument, and cannot receive a conviction of truth by any other 
 means. How absurd the attempt, therefore, authoritatively to impose 
 upon it articles of faith or rites of worship.”—Parry’s Thoughts on 
 Penal Religious Statutes, p. 12. Lond. 1791. 
 
 “ To attempt to influence the will by force, is like applying sounds 
 to the eyes in order to be seen, or colours to the ears in order to be 
 heard. The absurdity in both cases is exactly the same, for, as no- 
 thing affects the eyes but light,—nor the ears but sounds, so nothing 
 affects the understanding and the will but reason and persuasion.”— 
 Dr Samven Crarxe, Serm. CIV. Works, vol. i p. 662. Fol. Lond. 
 1742. 
 
 ** Dominion over faith is the most absurd and impious claim, that 
 ever was set up by bad men: absurd because it can never be obtain- 
 ed; and impious, because it subverts that very principle on which 
 all religion is founded.”—Robinson’s Claude, vol. ii. p. 291. Lond. 
 1788. 
 
 XCV. 
 
 INJUSTICE OF CIVIL ESTABLISHMENTS. 
 
 BISHOP WARBURTON. 
 
 Foot Note, p. 468, 1. 14.—It deserves notice, that Bishop Warbur- 
 ton explicitly states and clearly demonstrates, that a civil establish- 
 ment, based on the principle of religious truth, and not of civil utility 
 (and this is the character of our establishments, if we may believe 
 Ewart Gladstone), is both unjust and absurd.—Alliance, Book III. 
 Chap. 4, pp. 248-252. He succeeds much better in proving this thesis 
 than in making out its counterpart—that a civil establishment, based 
 on the principles of civil utility, and not of religious truth, is equit- 
 able and wise. 
 
 XCVI. 
 
 TOLERATION INDEFENSIBLE ON POLITICAL GROUNDS. 
 
 To be added to Note *, p. 468.—In a political point of view, tolera- 
 tion is not more defensible. ‘ There is no medium: either admit 
 a national religion, subject all your laws to it, arm it with the tem- 
 poral sword, banish from your society all those who profess a differ- 
 ent form of worship, or else admit every man to enjoy his religious 
 
102 COMPULSORY SUPFORT A REPEAL OF CHRIST’S LAW. 
 
 opinion, and do not exclude from public trusts those who make use of 
 that permission. A system of toleration, attended with humiliating 
 distinctions, is so vicious in itself, that the man who is forced to to- 
 lerate is as much dissatisfied with the law, as he who obtains such 
 imperfect toleration.”—Count Clermont Tonnerre. 
 
 XCVII. 
 
 A CIVILLY ENFORCED MAINTENANCE OF THE CHRISTIAN MINIS- 
 STRY—A VIRTUAL REPEAL OF ONE OF CHRIST'S LAWS. 
 
 -Foot-Note, p. 478, l. 4.—Dr Warburton admits (A/liance, Book ii. 
 Chap. iv. p. 181), that “ the Christian church is debarred from en- 
 tering into any alliance with the State, that may admit any legisla- 
 tor into Christ’s kingdom but himself, which would indeed make his 
 kingdom of this world.” Now Christ has orparnep that his ministers be 
 maintained by the voluntary contributions of those to whom they 
 minister, whereas, according to the Bishop (Book iii. Chap. iii. p. 245), 
 “* one of the essential privileges of an Established Church is a public 
 maintenance from the State, in reward for their services in teaching 
 the people virtue and obedience.” Is it not plain then, that in the 
 very act of entering into an alliance with the State, the Church ad- 
 mits a legislator, who repeals one of Christ’s laws, and substitutes one 
 of his own in its room. 
 
 “If it be thought,” says Milton, “ that the magistrate ought to set- 
 tle by statute some maintenance of ministers, let this be considered, 
 first, that it concerns every man’s conscience, to what religion he 
 contributes; and that the civil magistrate is entrusted with civil 
 rights only; not with conscience, which can have no deputy or re- 
 presenter of itself, but one of the same mind; next, that which each 
 man gives to the minister, he gives either as to God, or as to his 
 teacher ; if, as to God, no civil power can justly consecrate to reli- 
 gious uses any part either of civil revenue, which is the people’s, and 
 must save them from other taxes, or of any man’s property, but God, 
 by special command, as he did by Moses, or the owner himself, by 
 voluntary intentions, and the persuasion of its giving it to God. 
 Forced consecrations, out of another man’s estate, are no better than 
 forced vows, hateful to God, who ‘ loves a cheerful giver :’ but much 
 more hateful, wrung out of men’s purses, to maintain a disapproved 
 ministry against their conscience ; however unholy, infamous, and 
 dishonourable to his ministers, and the free gospel maintained in such 
 unworthy manner as by violence and extortion. If he gives it as te 
 
THE LAW AND PRACTICE OF THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH. 103 
 
 his teacher, is it justice or equity which compels him to pay for learn- 
 ing that religion which leaves freely to his choice, whether he will 
 learn it or no, whether of this teacher or of another, and especially to 
 pay for what he never learned or approved not ; whereby, besides the 
 wound of his conscience, he becomes the less able to recompense his 
 true teacher ?”—Milton’s Likeliest Means to Remove Hirelings out of 
 the Church. Works, Vol. i. p. 576, 
 
 XCVIII. 
 
 VOLUNTARY SUPPORT NOT ONLY THE LAW BUT THE PRACTICE OF 
 THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH. 
 
 DE MARCA. CONDER. 
 
 To be added to Foot-Note *, p.479.—The financial law of the church 
 was strictly adhered to for the first three centuries. ‘ Vetus Eccle- 
 sia,” says the learned De Marca, “ nullis aliis reditibus ad supeditan- 
 das expensas alendis episcopis et clericis, sive etiam pro juvanda ino- 
 pum paupertate necessarias, fruebatur, preter oblationes fidelium que 
 ut adnotavit Irenezus, eousque assurgebant ut decimam redituum par- 
 tem egrederentur, quo manifestum omnibus esset charitatem Chris- 
 tianorum longe esse supra Judeorum pietatem.’—De Concordia Sa- 
 cerdotii et Imperii, Li. viii. ο. 18, tom ii. p. 418. 
 
 ““ The first ministers of Christianity disdained the reluctant tribute 
 of those on whom the motives of the gospel had no power. In their 
 view the disposition of the giver was every thing. ‘ Every man, ac- 
 cording as he purposeth in his heart, not grudgingly, nor of neces- 
 sity. No specific sum was exacted, no kind of compulsive autho- 
 rity employed ; they contented themselves with simply appeal- 
 ing to the generosity—the gratitude of believers: ‘ If we have sown 
 unto you spiritual things, is it a great thing if we shall reap your 
 carnal things?’ Surely there was nothing miraculous in this method 
 of providing for ‘ the preservation and communication of religious 
 knowledge.” Whence, then, has it arisen, that Christianity has lost 
 its divine power of enforcing its own claims upon the hearts of men, 
 so as to be driven to throw herself on the patronage of the secular 
 power for a maintenance in the world? How is it to be explained 
 that the inspired writers did not foresee, or forseeing, did not provide 
 for this delicate crisis in the affairs of the Church, which should ne- 
 cessitate so essential a change in her constitution, as is involved in 
 the superseding of all voluntary demonstrations of obedience in the 
 members of the christian fellowship, by substituting for religious 
 
101 VOLUNTARY AND COMPULSORY SYSTEMS COMPARED. 
 
 motives the obligations of human law? ‘ Let him that is taught in 
 the word,’ says the Apostle, ‘ communicate in all good things to him 
 that teacheth ;’ but this precept, together with the motive by which 
 it is enforced, is virtually abrogated by enactments, which designedly 
 render the teacher wholly independent of his people, lifting him at 
 once above their control, their moral claims, and their gratitude.”— 
 Conder on Protestant Non-Conformity, Book iy. Vol. ii. pp. 559, 560. 
 Lond. 1818. 
 
 XCIX. 
 
 THE IMPORTANCE OF CHRISTIAN CHURCHES BEING FORMED 
 OF PROPER MATERIALS. 
 
 DR HENRY MORE. 
 
 Foot-Note, p. 490, 1. 6 from foot.— Church discipline is as a fort 
 or castle of excellent use, if it be in the hands of the faithful soldiery 
 of Christ, or as a safe vessel for precious liquor, or as restringent and 
 corroborative physic, where there is an unexpected evacuation of the 
 serviceable supports of life. But if traitors to the kingdom of Christ 
 get possession of this castle, poison be mingled with this precious li- 
 quor, and foul and malignant humours be lodged in the body, it were 
 more desirable the castle were ruined, the vessel broken, the physic 
 cast down the sink, and the body left free to the course of nature, 
 than that things so hateful and pernicious should be continued and 
 conserved by them: that is to say, it were better that christian reli- 
 gion were left to support itself, by the innate evidence of its own truth, 
 than, being sophisticated with vain lies and wicked inventions, be 
 forcibly maintained for other ends than it was intended for, nay be 
 made to serve contrary ends, and prove a mystery of tyranny and 
 ungodliness."—Dr H. More’s Grand Mystery of Godliness, Pref. pp. 
 xviii. xix. Fol. Lond. 1660. 
 
 C. 
 
 COMPARATIVE EFFIENCY OF THE VOLUNTARY AND COMPULSORY 
 SYSTEMS BROUGHT TO THE TEST OF EXPERIMENT. 
 
 To be added to Foot Note *, p. 495.—The Christian Church, as ori- 
 ginally constituted by her lord and king, presented truths and pri- 
 vileges to the examination and acceptance of the world lying under 
 the dominion of the wicked one, and employing only the appropriate 
 means of argument and persuasion, provided for them the means of 
 
VOLUNTARY AND COMPULSORY SYSTEMS COMPARED. 105 
 
 instruction: ‘ The Establishment,” as the good Vicar of Harrow says, 
 “ς remembers that man is fallen, forces him to provide the means, and 
 trusts that the conversion may follow.”* Which is the better plan ? 
 Let common sense, experience, and Scripture reply. Take the results 
 of the two first centuries, when the Christian church used her Lord’s 
 plan with the Pagan world, and of the two last centuries} during 
 which the Episcopal Establishment has been trying their plan with 
 Roman Catholic Ireland, as exemplifications of the comparative effi- 
 ciency of the two systems. ‘“ Look here upon this picture and on 
 this.” On the one hand, we have a few poor unlettered men, com- 
 mencing the propagation of a new religion, opposed by all the reli- 
 gion, all the philosophy, all the political wisdom and power in the 
 world, in the course of two centuries effecting such a change, that 
 Tertullian, towards the close of that period, in addressing the Pagan 
 Emperor, could say, “ We are but of yesterday, yet we have filled 
 your cities, islands, towns, and boroughs. The camp, the senate, and 
 the forum, are full of us, we have left you only your temples.’— 
 Tertull. Apol. c. 37. On the other hand, we have a numerous, edu- 
 cated, richly endowed elergy, supported by the whole weight of the 
 secular powers, employed to convert the population of a single country 
 to a somewhat less corrupt form of Christianity,—after two hundred 
 years, with many completely empty churches, hundreds of parishes, 
 where there is absolutely not one Episcopal Protestant to take charge 
 of,—seven-eighths of the population more the slaves of Roman super- 
 stition than ever,—and, but for the help of dissent, which has 
 been placed in peculiarly unfavourable circumstances for efficient 
 exertion, it seems certain, that, by this time, there would scarcely 
 have been a Protestant in Ireland, except the patrons and the incum- 
 bents, of the richly endowed Ecclesiastical Establishment, and those 
 entirely dependent on them. Ah! “ the foolishness of God is wiser 
 than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.” —“ If any 
 man,” in forming plans for promoting Christianity, ““ seem to be wise 
 in this world, let him become a fool, that he may be wise, for the 
 wisdom of the world is foolishness with God.” Ὁ 
 
 * Cunningham’s Velvet Cushion, p. 88. 
 
 + The two centuries are expired. George Brown, the first Protestant Irish 
 Archbishop, was consecrated in March 1534-5, and constituted Primate of 
 all Ireland, October, 1551. , 
 
 +1 Cor, i. 25; iii. 18, 19, 
 
100 ΟΝ THE EXERCISE OF CIVIL POWER IN RELIGION. 
 
 Cl. 
 
 SIMON BROWNE ON THE EXERCISE OF CIVIL POWER IN RELIGION, 
 
 Addition to Note V. p. 507.— I meet with no directions in the 
 New Testament for magistrates to interpose in religious disputes, or 
 to require the belief (profession I mean, for it can go no farther), of 
 what they judge right: . . . And in nature | cannot see why 
 one magistrate should claim this power more than another; a Chris- 
 tian more than a heathen or Mohammedan, or one Christian more 
 than another. But if all magistrates may claim and exercise this 
 power, Christianity must in most countries be enjoined silence ; and 
 in most christian countries error will be declared truth.” . . . . 
 “‘ By these means” (the exercise of civil power), “ men may possibly 
 Βα induced to make a profession of Christianity without believing it ; 
 but this can do no good to them, nor bring any credit to it. It is the 
 excellency of a religion in itself, recommending it to a man’s own 
 reason and sober judgment, that can alone lay a foundation for its just 
 esteem, and make a way for it into the heart: And this is the only 
 establishment of it, that is pleasing to God or of benefit to men. The 
 mere profession without this is worthy no christian man’s, or minis- 
 ster’s, or magistrate’s concern, either as a lover of God or mankind. 
 Yet this is all the religion such measures are fitted to promote ; and 
 this is all they, who take them if they are wise men, can be supposed 
 to have in view: Not religion in truth, but the name and profession 
 of it, and perhaps the honours and profits in christian countries an- 
 nexed to it. The dishonest unmeaning profession of Christianity 
 may serve the worldly ends and interests of christian ministers [an 
 established clergy] but God can have no glory, nor Christianity any 
 credit from such professors, nor themselves any spiritual advantages 
 from such profession.”—Browne’s (Simon) Fit Rebuke to a Ludicrous 
 Infidel, Pref. pp. vi. vii. viii. Lond. 1792. 
 
 The author of the above shrewd remarks was a dissenting minister 
 of deserved eminence about the beginning of last century. The in- 
 genious and satisfactory controversial tract, in opposition to Wool- 
 ston’s attack on our Saviour’s Miracles, just cited, was, as well as his 
 larger work, in reply to Dr Tindal’s “ Christianity as Old as the 
 Creation,” “ A Defence of the Religion of Nature and the Christian 
 Revelation,” written under the depressing influence of mental dis- 
 ease, in perhaps the strangest form it ever assumed,—a conviction 
 that the thinking substance in him had been gradually annihi- 
 
ADVANTAGES OF THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM. 107 
 
 lated, and that though he retained the faculty of speaking what 
 appeared to others rational, he had no more notion of what he 
 said than a parrot. Ina dedication to Queen Caroline, of this last 
 work, he describes with great powers of language his singular mala- 
 dy. This most interesting psychological curiosity—was, as a matter 
 of course, prevented by his friends from appearing in the front of his 
 learned and able work, but has been happily preserved in the Adven- 
 turer, No. 88. The preface from which the above quotation is made, 
 is a most enlightened argument against the magistrate interfering in 
 religious disputes, and discovers a mind far in advance of the great 
 body even of his dissenting brethren of that age, who were generally 
 strenuous supporters of the penal laws against blasphemy. 
 
 Cll. 
 
 ADVANTAGES OF THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM CONTRASTED WITH THE 
 COMPULSORY SYSTEM. 
 
 GISBORNE. 
 
 To be inserted after 1. 7, p. 518.—* The disadvantages,” says that most 
 enlightened and liberal churchman, “ attached to church establish- 
 ments are the following. They afford encouragement in some respects 
 to idleness ; as individual clergymen may be considerably remiss in 
 the discharge of several of their functions, and considerably reprehen- 
 sible in their mode of life without incurring any diminution of their 
 incomes. « * * Church establishments have also the inherent 
 defect of biassing the judgment and ensnaring the consciences of the 
 clergy, by the temptations which they unavoidably hold out to them, 
 to strive to comply with the terms and subscriptions required ; temp- 
 tations which must be expected to lead in many instances to prevari- 
 cation and insincerity. + »«  * And finally, church establish- 
 ments tend to foster in the breasts of their members, and perhaps of 
 their ministers in particular, bigotry, narrowness of mind, unreason- 
 able prejudices, and a want of toleration and charity towards all who 
 dissent from the national religion.” Mr Gisborne distinctly states 
 that a civil establishment of religion is a mere “ human arrangement,” 
 and defends it only on what we hold to be the utterly untenable 
 ground, that its “ substantial benefits” abundantly overbalance its 
 “ undesirable consequences.’—Gisborne’s Duties of Men, c. xi. vol. ii. 
 pp- 19-22. 
 
108 ADVANTAGES OF THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM. 
 
 CIll. 
 
 ADVANTAGES OF THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM CONTRASTED WITH THE 
 COMPULSORY SYSTEM. 
 
 FREEMAN. 
 
 To be added to Note LX. p. 518.—The superiority of the Voluntary 
 mode of supporting religious institutions, to even the least objection- 
 able form of the compulsory mode, is very strikingly shown in the 
 following extract of a letter from the Rev. Charles Freeman, Secre- 
 tary of the General Conference of Maine, United States, to the Con- 
 gregational Union of England and Wales :—“ The laws of the seve- 
 ral New England States required, until within about twenty-five 
 years, that every town should support a learned orthodox minister, 
 and that every man should be connected with some religious society 
 of his own choice, and pay a tax somewhere, for the support of pub- 
 lic worship ; but these laws have been repealed, and entire liberty in 
 religion is now enjoyed. The consequences of the repeal of all laws 
 for the support of religion were greatly dreaded by many ministers 
 and members of our churches; but they have been most salutary, 
 rather than mischievous. The burden of supporting the ordinances 
 of the gospel is indeed borne more exclusively by the truly religious ; 
 but, in consequence of this, more interest is taken by them in this 
 subject ; a more evangelical ministry is demanded; more religious 
 zeal is felt ; ministers are more independent of the unbelieving world ; 
 and less popular prejudice exists against educated and well supported 
 preachers, as hirelings or a privileged class. Our ministers enjoy the 
 support and sympathy of an affectionate and liberal people ; our com- 
 municants are increased, and new churches gathered; and, though 
 much is needed to be done to supply with religious privileges the 
 growing population of our country; yet we can rely on no better 
 means than the voluntary efforts of those who know the value of the 
 gospel.”—Lcclesiastical Journal, vol. i. pp. 5, 6. Lond. 1835. 
 
 A still more striking proof of the superiority of the practical work- 
 ing of the Voluntary principle is to be found in the statement of the 
 Committee of the New York Legislature, on Colleges, Academies, 
 and Common Schools, given in, January 28, 1859.—‘ Your commit- 
 tee, in common they believe with nearly the whole body of their fel- 
 low citizens, would regard it as the deepest of calamities, if religion, 
 the Christian religion, should fall under the protection and patronage 
 
DR CAMPBELL’S CONTINUANCE IN AN ESTABLISHMENT. 109 
 
 of political pgwer. That religion is in its nature free ; it cannot take 
 support from law, without losing its lustre and purity: it is in its 
 very essence and spirit to demand none but a voluntary worship, 
 
 and allow none but a voluntary support.”—New York Observer, Feb. 
 1839. 
 
 CIV. 
 ADDITIONAL STATEMENT OF VOLUNTARYISM BY DR CAMPBELL. 
 
 To be inserted at p. 522, 1. 7.—An equally clear statement of Vo- 
 luntary Principles, is to be found in the Principal’s “ Lectures on Ke- 
 clesiastical History.”—“* Men have been very long in discovering, and 
 even yet seem scarcely to have discovered, that true religion is of too 
 delicate a nature to be compelled, by the coarse implements of hu- 
 man authority and worldly sanctions. Let the law of the land re- 
 strain vice and injustice of every kind, as ruinous to the peace and 
 order of society, for this is its proper province; but let it not tamper 
 with religion, by attempting to enforce its exercises and duties. 
 These, unless they be free will offerings, are nothing ; they are worse. 
 By such an unnatural alliance and ill-judged aid, hypocrisy and su- 
 perstition may indeed be greatly promoted; but genuine piety never 
 fails to suffer.” Campbell's Lectures on Ecclesiastical History, Lect. II. 
 p- 42. Lond, 1824. 
 
 evi 
 
 INCONSISTENCY OF DR CAMPBELL’S CONTINUANCE IN AN 
 ESTABLISHMENT, 
 
 To be added after the Quotation from him, p. 522.—The Principal's 
 words respecting the celebrated Sarpi, may, with great propriety, be 
 applied to himself. “* Why he continued in that communion, as I 
 judge no man, I do not take upon myself to say,—as little do I pre- 
 tend to vindicate it.” Perhaps what he assigns as the probable rea- 
 son of the conduct of the historian of the Council of Trent, in con- 
 tinuing in the communion of the Church of Rome, was also the rea- 
 son of his continuing in the communion of the Established Church 
 of Scotland: ‘ There was no Protestant sect then in existence, with 
 whose doctrine his principles would have entirely coincided. A sense 
 of this, as much as any thing, contributed to make him remain in the 
 communion to which he originally belonged.”—Lectures on Ecelesias- 
 tical History, Lecture III. p. 47. Lond. 1824. 
 
110 MISTAKEN INTERPRETATION OF ROM. XIII. 1-. 
 
 CVI. 
 
 MR GLADSTONE’S OPINION OF DR CHALMERS LECTURES. 
 
 Foot-Note, p. 531, l. 17.—* The profuse and brilliant eloquence of 
 Dr Chalmers, and the warm heart from which its colouring is chiefly 
 derived, have necessarily contributed to render the scientific deve- 
 lopment of his views less accurately discernible, than it would have 
 been, had he written more apathetically."—The State in its Relation 
 with the Church, by W. E. Gladstone, Esq. Lond. 1838. 
 
 CVII. 
 
 MISTAKEN INTERPRETATION OF ROM. XIII. 1-7, BY THE FRIENDS 
 OF CIVIL FREEDOM. 
 
 ANDREW MELVILLE. 
 
 To be introduced before l. 6, p. 232.—Andrew Melville, who, as Izaak 
 Walton, no friend, says, was “‘ master of a great wit, exceeded by none 
 of that nation but their Buchanan” (Walton’s Lives. Zouch’s Edi-- 
 tion, p. 337, note. 4to. York, 1796), resembles his illustrious friend, 
 whom he terms “ suum Preceptorem et Musarum Parentem,” in his 
 ardent love of liberty, and in his misinterpretation of the thirteenth 
 chapter of the Romans. I have been favoured with the perusal of a 
 manuscript, entitled, ““ Commentarius in divinam Pauli Epistolam ad 
 Romanos, auctore Andrea Melvino, Scoto.” It is contained in a small 
 quarto volume, of which it fills 120 leaves,—the leaves, not the 
 pages, being numbered. It is written ina very distinct and beautiful 
 hand. On the first page of the 121st folio, after quotations from Igna- 
 tius’ Epistle to the Ephesians, and Scaliger’s Poetica, these words are 
 written :—“ Finis quem imposuit Anno 1601, 26 Julii;” and in a 
 smaller character, with other ink, and apparently at a somewhat 
 later period, but seemingly in the same hand, there is written above 
 this line these words,—“ Daniel Demetrius octo dierum spatio exem- 
 plar Andr. Melyini, secutus,’—and below it, the words “ Andreapoli 
 in Scotia.” I find that Dr M‘Crie (Life of Melville, vol. ii. p. 518, 
 Edin. 1819), states, that Charters (Account of Scots Divines, p. 4), 
 says, that there is a copy of a Latin commentary by Melville, in the 
 library of the Students of Divinity in Edinburgh, and that Wodrow 
 (Life of Melville, p. 111), says, “1 have seen also in the library of 
 the College of Glasgow, a large folio, entitled Prelectiones in Episto- 
 lam ad Romanos, in small write, said to be writ by Mr Melvil.” Dr 
 
MISTAKEN INTERPRETATION OF ROM. XIII. 1~7. 111 
 
 M‘Crie adds, ‘‘ Neither of these MSS. is now to be found.” Of the ge- 
 nuineness of this MS. there can be no reasonable doubt. The writing 
 is that of the age. It seems to bea transcript from Melville's own auto- 
 graph by one of his students, probably a foreigner. The owner of the 
 MS., David Laing, Esq., so well known as deeply skilled in bibliogra- 
 phy generally, and especially in the ancient bibliography of this 
 country, informs me that Dr M‘Crie saw the MS. a short time before 
 his death, and was greatly pleased with it. It is valuable on other 
 grounds than as a curiosity. The exegesis in many cases is most sa- 
 tisfactory. In the locus vewatus, Rom. i. 17, he anticipates the inter- 
 pretation now so generally received, in connecting εκ πίστεως with 
 δικαιοσυνὴ, and rendering εἰς πίστιν, “ in order to faith” or “ to be be- 
 lieved.” The publication of the MS., with notes, would be doing honour 
 to Melville, and service to the cause of sound biblical interpretation. 
 
 That he considered the apostle as speaking of civil government and 
 governors, not as they were, but as they ought to be, is very plain 
 from the following passages:—‘* A Deo est Magistratus legitimus, 
 quem potestatem vocat «fovovay legitimam, non exlegem aut effrenem 
 licentiam. P.Melanthon. “ Potestas a personis discernenda: amabat 
 enim Paulus politiam et potestatem, sed Caligulam et Neronem exe- 
 olin ty tanquam monstra nature, organa Diaboli, et pestes humani 
 generis. . . . . . . . Tas οὔσας εξουσιας vocat, quasi dicat 
 Tas οντῶς εὐρύ ἐμ qu reapse potestates sunt, et hoc nomen merentur. 
 Unde impiam et injustam tyrannidem, que nec a Deo est, quatenus 
 talis, nedum secundum divinum ordinem, excludit ut illegitimam ab 
 hac legitima obedientia, nisi siquando visum Deo, vel suis etiam ty- 
 rannum imponere, tanquam ferulam paternam ad castigationem, tum 
 profecto et his parendum, si quid neque impium in Deum, neque in- 
 justum in alios imperat ; alioqui defugienda autoritas. 3 
 Magistratus de quibus loquimur, non sunt tyranni importuni, sed He 
 nefici et justi principes apud quos ut malis supplicia, ita bonis premia 
 sunt constituta. . . . . . Boni principeset legitimi magistratus 
 sunt, de quibus hic agitur et quos depingit graphice Apostolus, et 
 quibus debetur omnis legitima obedientia.” He interprets ὑπὸ τοῦ 
 @cou Teraypevat, “ non tam A Deo, quod jam dictum fuit, quam sus 
 Deo ordinatas potestates—imo yns. Theoc. ὑπὸ xOovos. Hesiod. 
 ὑπὸ μαλης. [Xenoph.] υπὸ στερνοιο. Hom. Αἰγυπτος δὲ παλιν 
 ἐγενετὸ ὑπὸ βασιλεως. Sub rege Persarum. Thucyd.” 
 
112 CHURCH PROPERTY. 
 
 CVIII. 
 CHURCH PROPERTY. 
 
 JOHN WYCLIFFE. 
 
 To be inserted p. 891.—Among Wycliffe’s opinions, none seem to 
 have been considered as more heretical, and none are more heartily 
 anathematized by Archbishop Arundell, “ illustris dominus, totius 
 Anglie primas et sedis apostolice legatus,” and by the Holy Fathers 
 of that ““ Sacro-sancta Synodus,” the Council of Constance, than his 
 doctrines respecting Church Property. They accuse him of teaching 
 “ Quod non solum domini temporales possunt auferre bona fortune 
 ab ecclesia habitualiter delinquente : non solum hoc eis licet, sed de- 
 bent hoe facere sub poena damnationis eterne.”—“ Ditare clerum est 
 contra regulas Christi.’—“ Imperator et domini seculares seducti sunt 
 a Diabolo, ut ecclesiam dotarent de bonis temporalibus.’—Articuli 
 Johannis Wiclefi Angli impugnati a Wilhelmo Wodfordo, No. 19, 
 —Rationes et motiva, ac reprobationes Articulorum Wiclefi et sequacis 
 ejus Johannis Hus in Concilio Constantiensi damnatorum. No. 16, 32, 
 39.—Fasciculus rerum Eapetendarum et Fugiendarum, pp. 190, 284, 
 290, 293. These opinions seem to have been ascribed to Wycliffe, 
 with somewhat more justice, than some others; for example, what 
 forms the sixth in the list of the Council of Constance, ““ Deum de- 
 bere obedire Diabolo.” Wycliffe’s own words are, “‘ Nos autem dici- 
 mus illis, quod nedum possunt auferre temporalia ab ecclesia habitu- 
 dinaliter delinquente, nec solum quod illis licet hoe facere, sed quod 
 debent sub pcena damnationis gehenne ; cum debent de sua stultitia 
 peenitere, et satisfacere pro peccato quo Christi ecclesiam macularunt.” 
 —Trialogus Wiclefi, lib. iv. cap. 18.—Lewis’ Life of Wicliffe, p. 396. 
 Lond. 1720. Of this work of Wycliffe, Mr Sharon Turner says, “ Its 
 attractive merit was that it combined the new opinions with the 
 scholastic style of thinking and deduction. It was not the mere il- 
 literate reformer, teaching novelties, whom the man of education 
 disdained and derided: it was the respected Academician reasoning 
 with the ideas of the reformer.”—History, vol. ν. p. 177. 
 
Dk DICK ON THE DUTIES OF SUBJECTS. 113 
 
 CIX. 
 DR DICK ON THE DUTIES OF SUBJECTS. 
 
 This concluding note contains the well considered sentiments of 
 one of the most sound-minded theologians of his own or of any other 
 times. No man who knew him, or who has carefully read his va-s 
 luable writings, can doubt the justness of the character I have, in 
 one word, given of his intellect,—and he must widely differ from me 
 in his estimate of mental qualities, who considers it as niggard praise. 
 The “ sana mens,” in the full meaning of the word, is no common 
 possession ; and, if enjoyed “in sano corpore,” its possessor has nearly 
 all of natural good that a wise man would be very anxious about. 
 His extensive and accurate scholarship, both general and professional, 
 his acute and perspicacious mind, his unfeigned faith, and unostenta- 
 tious piety, his unbending integrity and passion for truth, in every 
 sense of that term, any of one of these qualities as possessed by him, 
 and still more their rare union, in the degree in which he possessed 
 them, raised him very far above the level of ordinary good men and 
 good ministers. Yet still were I asked what was the distinguishing 
 character of his mind, I would say—just thinking, sound judgment— 
 the “sana mens.” It was this which balanced and regulated all the 
 other elements of his character, and made him the accomplished man 
 and scholar, and Christian and Minister—and Professor, that all who 
 knew him so readily admit him to have been. It is with great sa- 
 tisfaction that I find (for somehow or other the important passage 
 that follows had till now escaped my notice), that my views of civil 
 obedience so nearly harmonize with those of my venerated and 
 lamented friend : 
 
 “ The duty of subjects to their civil rulers claims our attention. 
 It is evident that the duties of this class, like those of servants, are 
 founded on convention or compact; because, with the exception of 
 parents and children, between whom nature itself has established an 
 inequality, all men possessed of reason are naturally equal in respect 
 of personal rights, and become subject to others, either by violence, 
 which establishes no moral obligation to submission, or by their own 
 consent virtually or explicitly given. It is worthy of attention, that 
 although the Scripture gives its general sanction to civil government, 
 as necessary to the existence and good order of society, it still calls it 
 an ordinance of man ;* signifying that it is a human institution, and, 
 
 * it Pets tig, 18. 
 
114 DR DICK ON THE DUTIES OF SUBJECTS. 
 
 consequently, that as in the government of masters, its claim to obe- 
 dience is not established by force but by law. The jus divinum of 
 governments, when rationally explained, can only mean that lawful 
 governments have a right to demand the obedience of the subjects, 
 and that it is the will of God that the subjects should submit to their 
 authority. ‘ The divine right of kings,’ says Paley, ‘ like the divine 
 sight of constables, is founded on the law of the land.’ 
 
 ** There is a considerable difficulty in determining how far the moral 
 obligation of submission extends, because cases may be supposed and 
 questions may be put, with respect to which it is not easy to come to 
 a satisfactory and consistent conclusion. In general, it may be said 
 that no government is lawful which does not exist with the formal 
 or virtual consent of the people. The world has been so long accus- 
 tomed to look upon civil government as independent of the people, 
 and the notion of legitimacy, as attached to a particular form and a 
 particular family, has been so carefully instilled into their minds, 
 that they are slowly brought to assent to what appears one of the 
 plainest propositions, that a despotic government is a usurpation. 
 Farther, the obedience of subjects is defined by the laws of the land. 
 No man is morally bound to submit to the arbitrary will of an indi- 
 vidual, because he is called a king, any more than because he is called 
 a master, or to the will of a lawful magistrate, when he orders any 
 thing contrary to the law of the land. The moment he steps beyond 
 the boundary of law, he loses his official character, and becomes a 
 private man oratyrant. Lastly, the obedience of subjects, like that 
 of servants, is restrained by the law of God. When civil rulers pre- 
 sume to command what he has forbidden, or to forbid what he has 
 commanded, they become rebels against the King of kings, and have 
 no claim to our homage. 
 
 “ «Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers; for there is 
 no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God. Who- 
 soever, therefore, resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God ; 
 and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation.’"* These 
 words have been understood to favour passive obedience, but, in my 
 opinion, they have been grossly perverted. How could any man in 
 his senses suppose that a messenger of truth would teach us to sub- 
 mit tamely to be plundered, and tormented, and destroyed, by per- 
 sons who, with the title of royalty, were worse than common rob- 
 bers and murderers; to surrender to them all that is dear to us as 
 men, all that renders life worth preserving ; to abstain from making 
 
 * Rom. xiii. 1, 2. 
 
DR DICK ON THE DUTIES OF SUBJECTS. 115 
 
 a single effort to secure to ourselves, and our friends, and our coun- 
 try, the blessings of liberty and equal laws? Is it to be supposed 
 that the God of justice and beneficence has commissioned a few ruf- 
 fians to pillage and oppress their fellow-creatures, and called upon the 
 latter, under pain of his displeasure, to submit like lambs to the 
 butcher’s knife? No; we will make no such supposition, any more 
 than we will suppose that he has forbidden us to use means to stop 
 the ravages of fire, pestilence, or flood ; or to employ force to restrain 
 and punish the private ruffians, who, with a title equally good, at- 
 tempt to rob us of our property or our lives. In the passage quoted, 
 the apostle, without referring to any existing government, or any 
 form in preference to another, lays down the general duty of Chris- 
 tians to their superiors in the state. They are bound to submit ; 
 but that it is not blind submission is evident from the reason assigned : 
 ‘ For rulers are not a terror to the good, but to the evil.’ Again, ‘ he 
 is the minister of God to thee for good.’* So far, then, as a govern- 
 ment patronises good works, and punishes such as are evil ; so far as 
 it answers the end of its institution, by maintaining order and peace 
 in civil society, it is entitled to submission ; but when, instead of pro- 
 tecting, it oppresses the people, we can be no more bound in con- 
 science to recognise it as lawful, than we are to acknowledge, as a 
 minister of Christ, the man who teaches error in doctrine, and licen- 
 tiousness in practice.” —Lectures on Theology, Lect. civ. pp. 465-467. 
 Edin. 1838. 
 
 * Rom. xiii. 3, 4. 
 
110 MINOR CORRECTIONS AND ADDITIONS. 
 
 MINOR CORRECTIONS AND ADDITIONS 
 
 P. ix, Foot-Note, 1. 5—for qui read que. 
 
 av, l. 5, add—proceeding apparently on the principle of “ boldly denying 
 what was not understood, and prudently concealing what could not be con- 
 futed.” 
 
 vai, after the word mind, add—(I might have added, and still more as 
 the expounder and advocate of the civil and religious rights of mankind). 
 
 axiv, l. 15, Foot-Note.—Ille pedum melior motu— 
 
 Hic membris et mole valens— 
 
 aviv, 1. 23, Foot-Note, insert—Some men act, as if, like the Clazomenians 
 (who are said to have been permitted, by express decree, by the Spartans 
 aoxnjovewv,) they were licensed κακήγορειν; καὶ λοιδορειν; και βλασφημειν 
 και προς πάντα αντιλεγειν- 
 
 φωυὶ, 1.5, Foot-Note, add—Who could stand before such a discharge of 
 artillery, if the skill of the cannoneer were proportioned to his hearty good 
 will, or the weight of the shot to the loudness of the explosion ?—But there 
 is comfort in the old adage—Pharvn δ᾽ ουδενα πώποτε avOpwrov απεκτεινε- 
 Werenfels’ Epigram is very applicable : 
 
 * Qua ratione probet, queeris, sua dogmata Fronto ὃ 
 Quemlibet hereticum, qui negat illa vocat: 
 Devovet hunce diris, hominemque ad Tartara damnat. 
 
 En sua quam valide dogmata Fronto probat!”” 
 Werenfelsti Opuscula, p. 864. 4to. Basil. 1718. 
 
 varvi. l. 14, for fifteenth »ead sixteenth. 
 
 xaexiii, 1. 12, for their read these. 
 
 al, 1. 5 from the foot, for mothod read method. 
 
 alix, Foot-Note, l. 5 from the foot,—Joseph. Antiq. Lib. xviii. 1. De Bell. 
 Jud. Lib. v. 9. 
 
 P.51, Note +, add—As his witty predecessor says, “ According to this 
 account, the old Romans would have been put into a worse condition by 
 Jesus Christ, than they had been in before his coming ; and to have gone 
 from Paganism to Christianity, would have been like going down from Jeru- 
 
MINOR CORRECTIONS AND ADDITIONS. 117 
 
 salem to Jericho, falling among thieves, to be stripped of raiment, wounded, 
 and left half dead.””—Robinson’s Occasional Sermons, p. 35. 
 
 61, Foot-Note, 1. 2, for Eph. read Ep. 
 
 62, 1. 17, after not insert even. 
 
 62, 7. 19, after state insert agriculture. 
 
 62, 1. 20, addition to Foot- Note (5. N. ix. p. 18.)—Melancthon’s illustra- 
 tion is of a similar kind :—‘‘ Πολιτεία est ordinatio divina, sicut vices tem- 
 porum, hyems, eestas, dies, nox, et hi perpetui cursus et motus siderum, a 
 Deo et conditi sunt, et conservantur. Ita ordinavit Deus et conservat πολι- 
 τειαν in mundo, magistratus, et leges.”—Wispositio Orationis in Epistola 
 Pauli ad Romanos. Auctore Philippo Melancthone. Wittembergze. Anno 
 XXX. 
 
 70, 2. 10, for precedeing, read preceding. 
 
 72, 1. 17, Foot-Note.—poBos pro φοβεροι eleganter. Sic Menander apud 
 Stobzeum, Serm. 17, dicit ἐστι δὲ γυνὴ λεγουσα xpnor ὑπερβαλλων φοβος. 
 —Rosenmulleri Scholia, in N. T. Vol. viii. p. 81. Noremb. 1804. Epyov 
 is for Epyarov.—Bloomfield’s N. T. Vol. ii. p. 85. Lond. 1839. 
 
 73, 1. 6, after society, add—for, as Bishop Butler remarks, “ the funda- 
 mental laws of all governments are virtuous ones, prohibiting treachery, in- 
 justice, and cruelty.” ἢ 
 
 84, Foot-Note, l. 6 from the foot—after Plessais, insert—whom TRIGLAND 
 terms, “ vir summus et ut generis ita eruditionis ac virtutum laude nobilissi- 
 mus ;”—and add to the Note,—and A Dissertation concerning the Book of 
 Stephanus Junius Brutus. Bayle’s Historical and Critical Dictionary, Vol. y. 
 p- 731. Lond. 1738. King James VI., by a conjecture less happy than 
 that which led to the discovery of the gunpowder plot, thought it likely that 
 it was the production of a disguised Papist, to throw odium on the reform- 
 ers. The preponderance of evidence seems on the side of Languet, though, 
 like the question about another Junius, better known to most readers, a con- 
 siderable degree of obscurity still rests on the subject. 
 
 Hottoman, in his Franco Guilia, avows the free principles so eloquently 
 stated and defended in the “ Vindiciz ;” and Beza, in his “ well-written and 
 well-reasoned” tract De Jure Magistratwum, supports the same good cause. 
 From prudential considerations, the magistrates of Geneva suppressed Beza’s 
 little work, though, in their deed of suppression, they declare, “ qu’il ne con- 
 tient rien que de vrai.” Seldom have “ the important and delicate questions 
 respecting the origin of civil power, its just limits, and the rights of subjects 
 to resist its abuse,” been more ably discussed than in these Opuscula of Bu- 
 chanan, Languet, Hottoman, and Beza.—Vide M‘Crie’s Life of Melville, 
 Vol. i. pp. 30, and 424-426. Edin. 1819. 
 
 86, Note *, add—Their sentiments are very well expressed: by Fructuosus, 
 the Spanish Bishop, in his reply to Aimilianus, the Roman Prefect : 
 
 * Butler’s Sermons on Public Occasions. Ser. III. p. 62. 
 
118 MINOR CORRECTIONS AND ADDITIONS. 
 
 «* Judex ASmilianus imminebat 
 Atrox, turbidus, insolens, profanus, 
 Aras dzmonicas coli jubebat. 
 Tu qui doctor, ait seris novellum 
 Commenti genus ut leves puelle 
 Lucos destituant, Jovem relinquant. 
 Damnes si sapias anile dogma : 
 Jussum est Cesaris ore Gallieni 
 Quod princeps colit, hoc colamus omnes. 
 Hee fanti placidus refert sacerdos 
 #ternum colo Principem Dierum 
 Factorem, Dominumque Gallieni. 
 Et Christum Patre prosatum perenni 
 Cujus sum famulus gregisque pastor.” 
 Prudentii Hymnus Beatissimorum Martyrum Fructuost 
 Episcopi Ecclesie Tarraconis et Augurii et Eulogti 
 diaconorum, Opera, fol. 141. Anty. 1540. 
 
 108, 1. 2, from the foot, add—“ Sucha kind of suffering,” says Archbishop 
 Usher, “ is as sure a sign of submission as any thing else whatsoever.” * 
 
 115, Foot-Note, 1. 6 from the foot, after More, add “ One of the most phi- 
 losophical of our learned elder divines,’’ as CoLeRIDGE justly characterises 
 him. 
 
 123, 1. 15, addition to Foot-Note (S. N. xxiv. p. 27.)—Melancthon’s re- 
 mark on this word is well worth transcribing: “ Apud Strabonem video 
 opoy appellari certum reditum ex possessionibus qui pendit[ur] magistra- 
 tibus ; τέλος autem vectigal, seu tributum superindictum, ac videtur Pau- 
 lus ordinaria et extraordinaria onera voluisse complecti.”—Disp. Or. in Ep. 
 Pauli ad Rom. 
 
 140, Foot-Note, 1.10 from the foot, for esmiendum read esuriendum. 
 
 143, Foot-Note, 1. 1, for di read de. 
 
 149, Foot- Note, prefix these words, “ If no way of defending our Establish- 
 ment can be devised, which would not, if fairly applied, defend the establish- 
 ment of Popery, of Mohammedanism, or Pagan idolatry, by the authority of 
 kings and rulers, I must acknowledge the cause to be desperate 5 yet, if it 
 be,” &c. 
 
 150, Foot-Note, 1. 7, dele the words treatise “ On the Evil of Separation,’”— 
 quoted by Conder, in his judicious work on non-conformity, and insert—Let- 
 ter to the Rey. Peter Roz, published in a series of letters by clergymen, 
 on “ The Evil of Separation from the Church of England,” p.16. Lond. 
 1817. Mutner, the ecclesiastical historian, concurs with his venerable 
 friend in opinion: “ Suppose the civil magistrate,’ says he, “ should 
 have happened to have formed an erroneous judgment concerning the true 
 religion, will he not, in that case, according to the principle of general expe- 
 diency, be justified in establishing a false one ?—Nothing can justify the ma- 
 gistrate in establishing a false religion.”—Milner’s History of the Church of 
 Christ, Cent. iv. Chap. xvii. 
 
 150, 1. 9, for principles, read principle. 
 
 * Power of the Prince and Obedience of the Subject, p. 150. 
 
MINOR CORRECTIONS AND ADDITIONS. 119 
 
 153, Foot-Note, 1, 4, add Tacit. Hist. Lib. iv. Cap. 74. 
 
 155, add to Foot-Note *:—Mankind are much the same in all ages. A 
 Dutch divine, about the middle of the century before the last, expounding 
 the precept, remarks, “ Conscientiam leedunt qui hie deficiunt, qui partem, 
 qui totum defraudant, e¢ hoc ingenii putant.””—Altingii Conciones in Cap. xiii. 
 Epist. ad Rom. Cone.ix. Opera, Tom. iv. p. 111. 
 
 159, 7. 17, for paid.” read paid. 
 
 171, add to Foot-Note *.—So true is it, that “ an Establishment is indeed 
 a merely political institution, a thing of this world, but it is a political insti- 
 tution about religion, and professedly about. the religion of Christ.”—Wal- 
 ker’s Essays and Correspondence, Vol. i. p. 210. 
 
 173, 1. 5 from the foot, for the name, read name. 
 
 200, Foot-Note, 1. 4, after he insert peremptory. 
 
 205, Foot-Note, 1. 8, after productions, insert “ A man,” as the biographer 
 of Marve.t terms him, “ without virtue or honour, and a divine without 
 religion.” 
 
 247, 1. 10, for peense read poenze. 
 
 259, Add as a Foot-Note to 1. 8.—It is shrewdly remarked by Emlyn, 
 “when once Christ’s kingdom became of this world, then did his servants fight 
 heartily for it.”"—Tracts, Vol. i. p. exxxviii. 
 
 279, 1. 41, after Nepuam, add author of Mercurius Politicus, whom Wood, 
 in his “ Athenze Oxonienses,” terms “ a great erony of Joun Mitton,” and 
 whom Eachard couples with Marve tt, calling them “ pestilent wits.” 
 
 323, 2. 11, for 1654, read 1644. 
 
 338, Foot-Note, 1. 2 from the foot, for unauthorized read authorized. 
 
 350, 1. 23, dele Gaulon, and insert Gaulonitis, the district in which—and, 
 after Judas’ city,—add Gamala was situated, 
 
 355, 1.16, after (whom insert—Jort1n terms “ a man of learning, a Bishop 
 and a Father of the Church, of whom Marve tt says,” than whom the 
 Christian church had not in these times (and I question whether in any suc- 
 ceeding), a Bishop that was more a Christian, more a gentleman, better ap- 
 pointed in all sorts of learning requisite, seasoned under Julian’s persecu- 
 cutions, and exemplary to the highest pitch of true religion and practical 
 piety,”’* and whom ΟἼΒΒΟΝ, &c. 
 
 372, 1. 8, after has it, add—so that Lord Cuarenpon’s remark about the 
 clergy of his time, seems equally true of their successors of our age,—‘ of 
 all persons who can read and write, the clergy are the most innocent of any 
 practical wisdom or common sense.”’ 
 
 388, 1. 23, after toleration, insert—The testimony of the King of Martyrs 
 concerning his Kingdom, illustrated by Joun Guas. 
 
 389, 7.1, after Establishments, add—National Church Establishments ex- 
 amined, 
 
 * Marvell’s Historical Essay concerning General Councils. Works, vol, iii. p. 166. 
 Lond. 1776. 
 
120 MINOR CORRECTIONS AND ADDITIONSSé 
 
 389, 1. 22, insert—Grotius de imperio summarum potestatum eirea sacra. 
 1. 23, after Polity, insert—Dissertatio Theologica de Civili et Eccle- 
 siastica potestate Jacopo TRIGLANDIO, Autore. 
 
 1. 27.—Balguy on Church Authority. 
 1. 35, after Churches, insert—The State in its Relations with the 
 Church, by W. E. Guapstong, Esq. 
 
 390, 1. 21, after c. xi. insert—Statements indeed abound in many of their 
 
 productions, the proper designation of which it may be as well to “ slur be- 
 neath well-sounding Greek,” ψευδὴ χειροδεικτα. Calvin’s Latin is equally 
 expressive, “ pura puta mendacia.” 
 
 391, 1. 4 from the foot, for statesmen, read statesman. 
 
 438, 1. 15, after men, insert—by Wyclifie and More. 
 
 502, 1. 4, for deaconries, read deaneries. 
 
 503, 1. 22, after Virginia, add drawn up, we believe, by JEFFERSON. 
 
 519, 1. 12, dele which our country has produced, and read who has ap- 
 peared among us. 
 
 519, 1. 18, after Cameron, add—whom Bishop Hat. styles “ the most 
 learned man Scotland ever produced.” s 
 
 523, Foot-Note to line 11, magniloquent.—* Vir eloquentissimus est, am~ 
 bitiosee tamen magis quam castigatee facundiz : nam multum luxuriat ejus 
 oratio.”—Scaticer de Maffeo. Epistole, Ep. ecexlix. p. 853. Lugd. 1627. 
 
 229, 1. 5 from the foot, insert as a Foot-Note.— Parco nominibus viven- 
 tium : veniet eorum laudi suum tempus: ad posteros enim durabit virtus, 
 non pervenit invidia.”—Quinitillian, Lib. iii. Cap. i. 
 
 Addendum to Note L. p. 50.—Locke’s paraphrase on the last clause of 
 Rom. xiii. 2, is, “ They that resist shall be punished by those powers that 
 they resist.’— Works, V. iii, p. 327. 
 
 Addendum to Note LVII. to be inserted p. 55, Supplementary Notes, 1. 14, 
 after Tyburn.—* When,’ in the ceremony of degradation, “ they came to 
 the formality of putting a Bible in his hand, and taking it from him again, 
 he was much affected, and parted with it with difficulty, kissing it, and say- 
 ing with tears, that they could not, however, deprive him of the use and be~ 
 nefit of that sacred depositum. It happened that they were guilty of an 
 omission in not stripping him of his eassock ; which, as slight a particular as 
 it might seem, rendered his degradation imperfect, and afterwards saved him 
 his benefice.”—Howell’s State Trials, No. 352, 2 James II., Vol. xi. Col, 
 1351. 
 
 - Addendum to the Title of No. LXXXII, p. 88.—tTo0 DEBASE AND CORRUPT 
 CHRISTIANITY. 
 
LEGITIMATE PROVINCE OF THE CIVIL MAGISTRATE. *121 
 
 POSTSCRIPT. 
 
 CX. 
 
 DR WARDLAW ON THE LEGITIMATE PROVINCE OF THE CIVIL 
 MAGISTRATE IN REGARD TO RELIGION. 
 
 * More last words of Richard Baxter !’—Just as the last sheet of these 
 Supplementary Notes was leaving the press, Dr Wardlaw’s “ Lectures on Na- 
 tional Church Establishments,” delivered in London during the last and pre- 
 sent month, reached this city; and I am unwilling to let this collection of 
 precious fragments go forth without enriching it with a valuable quotation, 
 from that very valuable work, corroborative of the views maintained in 
 “ The Law of Christ respecting Civil Obedience ;” and joining my voice 
 to the loud acclaim of affectionate grateful congratulation, with which its ac- 
 complished author will assuredly be greeted by the enlightened and liberal 
 part of the christian public, on the prosperous conclusion of his important 
 and delicate undertaking. Dr Chalmers, as we have already seen, has, on 
 various occasions, done good service to the cause of Voluntaryism, and cer- 
 tainly never more than in becoming the occasion of the delivery and publi- 
 cation of these lectures, which, as to matter and manner, are worthy of their 
 subject and their author. In characterising a most amiable churchman (the 
 Rey. Baptist Wriothesley Noel), Dr Wardlaw has unconsciously drawn his 
 own picture, as he appears in this work, though, even after it is held up to 
 him, we should not wonder, if, like Mr Newton’s C., he did not recognize 
 what to all who know him, will appear the striking likeness.* To the faith- 
 fulness of a devoted minister of Christ, and the elegance of a classically ac- 
 complished and richly furnished mind, he unites all the loveliness of chris- 
 tian charity, and all the courtesy of gentlemanly candour.” 
 
 * Few readers of Mr Newton’s works have forgotten the three beautiful sketches in Omic- 
 ron’s Letters, entitled, A. Grace in the Blade; B. Grace in the Ear; and Ὁ, Grace in the 
 Full Corn. A person wrote Mr Newton, thanking him for describing so accurately his (the 
 correspondent's) character in C. Mr Newton, in his reply, stated, that he had neglected to. 
 notice one of C.'s characteristic traits :— He never knew his own picture, 
 
*122 LEGITIMATE PROVINCE OF THE CIVIL MAGISTRATE. 
 
 “ What is the legitimate province of the civil magistrate in regard to re- 
 ligion? And here again, our question is—* What saith the Scripture 2?’ 
 There is much there, sometimes, comprised in few words. We have the 
 general order of our divine Master in a single emphatic sentencee—* Render 
 unto Czesar the things which are Czesar’s; and unto God the things which 
 are God’s.’ We are not to imagine any thing so inconsistent with the un- 
 compromising truth, the perfect sunlight simplicity of that Master’s charac- 
 ter, as that in these words he gave an evasive answer to an insidious ques- 
 tion,—that he thus met guile with guile, and foiled the dissemblers with a 
 weapon of their own. He meant what he said. And what he said expresses 
 a plain distinction. The distinction manifestly is, between things civil and 
 things sacred,—the rights of earthly governors, and the rights of the divine. 
 The words were addressed to Jews. Those Jews were under the obligations 
 of their own law :—and if their paying tribute to Czesar had, in any way, 
 been incompatible with the obedience they owed to God, they could not have 
 been permitted, far less enjoined, to pay it. God, in his providence, had 
 brought them under the yoke of Rome; and Jesus teaches them, that what 
 was exacted, by those who had the mastery over them, for the support of | 
 the imperial government, it was no infraction of their higher allegiance to 
 pay. The payment was not a religious act. Had it been so, it would have 
 been a rendering to Cesar of the things that were God’s. Under their own 
 theocracy, there was, properly speaking, no distinction between these. God 
 and Ceesar were one. Jehovah was both,—the Divine Head at once of their 
 ecclesiastical constitution and of their civil government. Under this pecu- 
 liar economy, what pertained to the one pertained to the other. But when 
 the words are applied to Christians, the case is different. We are under no 
 theocracy. There is no such identity now in the object to whom we render our 
 civil and our religious homage. The distinction, however, remains between 
 the two descriptions of debts and duties. We are still subjects of God, or of 
 Christ,—and subjects of Czesar. How, then, are we now to distinguish be- 
 tween what we owe to the one, and what we owe to the other? Are we not 
 to regard religious debts and duties as what we are to render to the one, and 
 civil debts and duties as what we are to render to the other? There ts a 
 distinction,—a distinction which, generally speaking, is sufficiently well un- 
 derstood, between things civil and things sacred,—between the duties of the 
 first and those of the second table of the law. If, in some points, difficulty 
 be experienced in tracing with precision the line of demarcation between 
 them, it may be a question deserving consideration, how far such difficulty 
 may not, wholly or in part, find its cause in the very habits of thought,—so 
 inveterate, and consequently so hard of segregation into their respective ele- 
 ments,—which have been engendered by their unnatural intermixture. The 
 very designation of a civil magistrate ought to be understood as defining his 
 official functions, and limiting them to the civil department. When he comes 
 
LEGITIMATE PROVINCE OF THE CIVIL MAGISTRATE. *]23 
 
 upon religious ground, he steps beyond his province. All that is properly 
 religious lies between God and the conscience. No human authority is en- 
 titled to interfere with it. If, while we are, conscientiously and cheerfully, 
 ‘ rendering unto Czesar the things that are Cesar’s,’ Czesar should overstep 
 the limit of his commission, and demand of us, in one jot or tittle, “ the 
 things that are God’s ;’—in such a case, disobeying Ceesar is not disobeying 
 the God who has enjoined submission to Caesar; because, in going beyond 
 his legitimate boundary, Czesar himself is the transgressor ;—he has inter- 
 fered with what did not belong to him; he has presumptuously intruded 
 into the province of the King of kings :—and if he transgresses in command- 
 ing, it can never follow that we should sanction and share his transgression 
 by obeying. 
 
 “ It is a most important principle on the present subject, that the right of 
 rulers to enact must be coincident in extent with the obligation of subjects to 
 obey. Religion is a matter in which no man can be under obligation to obey 
 a fellow-man ; and for this reason, it is a matter in which no man can havea 
 right to enact for afellow-man. The right cannot go beyond the obligation. If 
 it could, there would be two obligations imposed on the unfortunate subject of 
 Ceesar and of God,—by both of which he is bound, and yet both of which, con- 
 tradictory as they are of each other, it is impossible for him to fulfil! The 
 authority of civil rulers, moreover, involves the power of coercion,—that is, of 
 compulsion by penalty. The sword is the only instrument of that power ; 
 and, to the extent to which the power legitimately reaches, the sword must 
 not be borne in vain. But religion admits not of coercion. The two terms 
 ean never be made to comport. The one belongs to heaven, the other to 
 earth ; and they are, in their natures, as far asunder. They mutually neu- 
 tralize and destroy each other. Where coercion begins, religion ends, All 
 compulsion here is impiety,—a profane and presumptuous usurpation of the 
 paramount rights of Deity,—an overt act of treason against the Supreme 
 Ruler,—an attempt to force one of his subjects to withdraw his allegiance 
 from Him, and to give it to another—to a creature, to a dependant! Were 
 some underling of a mighty prince to claim for himself, and threaten to exact 
 
 ‘by severe penalties, the homage which the laws appropriate to the prince 
 himself, he would be chargeable with a presumption less flagrant, even by 
 infinitude, than that of which the prince is guilty, in compelling obedience to 
 his enactments on the part of those who, in their consciences, regard such 
 obedience as involving in it the ‘ rendering to Czesar the things that are 
 God’s ’—the abstraction, for the honour of a human master, of what is due 
 exclusively to the Divine. The civil magistrate can have no power in reli- 
 gion ; because the power which belongs to him is, in its very nature, coer- 
 cive,—and in religion such power is inconsistent with ifs very nature, and 
 ineapable of being exercised. 
 
 “1 know not a more admirable principle than that which is laid down by 
 
Χ] 94 LEGITIMATE PROVINCE OF THE CIVIL MAGISTRATE. 
 
 an acute and philosophical, as well as pious writer, in the present controver- 
 sy—Coventry Dick, Esq. in his Dissertation on Church Polity :—‘ Here we 
 may pause for a moment, to learn how we may best fulfil the meaning of 
 poets, philosophers, and jurists, when they warn us to lay the foundation of 
 civil society in an acknowledgment of Divine Providence. It is by owning 
 first all the rights of Providence. Observing that it has framed man a reli- 
 gious being, and, in that department of his nature, subjected him to no inter- 
 mediate superior, but directly to God, we are taught, neither to prescribe, 
 nor limit, nor enforce the inward or outward homage to which that subjec- 
 tion calls him. The state which, acting upon this lesson, anxiously provides 
 for freedom of worship, and sensitively withdraws its rulers from the pro- 
 vince of conscience, is of all states the most holy and religious ; presents in 
 its laws a perpetual homage to Divine Providence ; and may be truly said to 
 have laid its foundations in an act of worship.”* This is at once the true 
 philosophy, and the true theology, of the case. The sentiment is as beauti- 
 ful as it is scriptural and just. The most truly religious thing a state can 
 do, is devoutly to acknowledge the exclusive appropriation of all religious 
 duties to God, and scrupulously to abstain from all interference.””— Ward- 
 law’s National Church Establishments Examined, Lect. IV. pp. 185-190. 
 Lond. 1839. 
 
 * Pp. 16, 17. 
 
INDEX OF AUTHORS QUOTED OR REFERRED ΤΟ. 
 
 Avam, Dr Alexander, 71 
 Allan, 54, 63 
 
 Alsop, 86 
 
 Alting, 20, 27, 119 
 Ammianus Marcellinus, 96 
 Apthorp, 70 
 
 Arundell, Archbishop, 25, 79 
 Atterbury, 53 
 
 Augustine, 27 
 
 Batevy, 120 
 
 Barnes, 91 
 
 Basil, 21 
 
 Bayle, 117 
 
 Ben Sirach, 19, 21 
 Beza, 30, 117 
 
 Biblical Repertory, 17 
 Blackstone, 50, 66 
 Bloomfield, 117 
 Bohemian Confession, 22 
 Browne, Simon, 106 
 Brown, Edward, 47, 51 
 Bruce, 61 
 
 Burke, iv. 
 
 Burnet, 46 
 
 Burton, 13 
 
 Butler, Bishop, 22, 117 
 
 CampBELL, Principal, 109 
 Cartwright, John, 25, 45 
 Cartwright, Thomas, xiv 
 Cassiodorus, 24 
 Chandler, Doctor, 40 
 Charters, 110 
 
 Chatham, Lord, 85 
 Chaucer, 84 
 
 Christian Observer, 75 
 Christian Remembrancer, 14 
 Chrysostom, 31 
 
 Cicero, 30, 31 
 Clarendon, Lord, 119 
 Clarke, Dr Samuel, 101 
 Clermont Tonnere, 102 
 Cochleeus, 24 
 Colebrooke, Sir George, 27, 88 
 Coleridge, ii. 95, 118 
 Conder, 103 
 
 Conybeare, 19, 64 
 Crofts, Bishop, 97 
 Cunningham, J. W., 105 
 
 Davis, 44 
 D’Aubigne, 96 
 Dick, A.C. 88 
 Dick, Doctor, 113 
 Drusius, 72 
 
 Ecciesrasticau Journal, 108 
 Eelectic Review, 45 
 Edinburgh Review, 29, 75,97 
 Emlyn, 34, 119 
 
 Ernesti, 17 
 
 Erskine, Ralph, 74 
 
 Eusebius, 24 
 
 Freeman, 108 
 Froude, 13 
 Foster, James, 55 
 Fox, John, 25, 84 
 
 Grp, 54 
 
 Gibbon, 24 
 
 Gisborne, 72, 107 
 Gladstone, 13, 28, 110, 120 
 Glas, 26, 32, 39, 119 
 Glover, 43 
 
 Gower, 84 
 
 Gratius Ortuinus, 51, 112 
 Grotius, 120 
 
122 INDEX OF AUTHOKS QUOTED OR REFERRED TO. 
 
 Grove, 19 Hume, 45 
 
 Hatpane, James, 37 Hurd, 21 
 
 Hall, Bishop, 120 Hutten, Ulric, 50 
 
 Hall, Robert, 63 
 
 Hammond, 72 JEFFERSON, 93 
 
 Harmony of Confessions, 22 Johnson, Mr Samuel, 17, 20, 32, 54 
 Herodotus, 2 Jortin, 15, 119 
 
 Hey, 15 Josephus, 31, 48, 116 
 
 Hoadly, 35 Jus populi vindicatum, 78 
 
 Hodge, 17 
 
 H 2 Lapipr, Corn. a, 32 
 OLY SCRIPTURES. 
 Lardner, 48 
 
 Gen. xix. 27,...14 
 
 Laurence, Archbishop, 43 
 Numb. xvi....49 
 
 Lawson, Dr George, 73 
 
 Judges vii. 13, 14,14 icin oA 
 2 Sam. xvii.l4, 49 Leighton, 40 
 Psalm ii, ὅ--10,...82 Lewis, 112 
 Psalm xciv. 20,..-v. 59 Liniboreh, 49 
 Isaiah xxviii. 29,....18 Livy, 71 
 Isaiah xxxii. 27,.-V. Locke, 72, 120 
 Jeremiah xvii. 10,...57 Lowth, 55 
 Jeremiah 1. 1 4,.ii Luder, 46 
 Matthew xvii. 24—27,....31 Luther, 96 
 Matthew xxii. 16-22,....32, 39 
 Luke xx. 20,....30 M‘Crig, 101, 117 
 Luke xxiii. 2,...30 M‘Kenzie, 29 
 John ii. 19,....74 M‘Kerrow, 54 
 John xviii. 36,57 Macaulay, 28, 97 ° 
 Rom. i. 17,-.-lii, Mant, 49 
 Rom, ii. 6,57 Marea, De, 31, 51, 103 
 Rom. xi. 6,....66 Marvell, xiv. 23, 30, 40, 65, 97, 119 
 Rom. xiii. 1--7,...18, 35, 45 Melanethon, 111, 117, 118 
 1 Cor. i. 25,105 Melville, Andrew, 110 
 1 Cor. iii. 18, 19,105 Menander, 117 
 1 Cor. xiv. 40,...20 Milman, 24 
 2 Cor, V. 20,...89 Milner, 118 
 Eph. i. 14,...40 Milton, 20, 86, 102 
 Eph. iv. 11.....40 Mole, 60 
 * Col. iii, 23,39 More, Dr Henry, 92, 99, 104 
 2 Thess. iii. 11,....20 More, Sir Thomas, 84 
 1 Timvi. 15,..57 Morinus, 43 
 spe Ὑ1 New York Observer, 109 
 
 1 Pet. iii. 13,....49 
 Hoppus, 18, 89, 98 
 Horne, Hartwell, 37 : Owen, 39, 51 
 Horsley, 17 Oxford Tracts, 41 
 
 Noodt, 67 
 
INDEX OF AUTHORS QUOTED OR REFERRED TO. 123 
 
 Pauey, 19 
 
 Palmer, 42 
 Paradiso, Jac. de, 46 
 Pareus, 18 
 
 Parker, Bishop, 30, 38 
 Parr, ii 
 
 Parry, 34, 101 
 Patriot, 45 
 
 Pearson, 75 
 
 Penn, 40 
 
 Phipps, 75 
 
 Powell, 48 
 
 Pope, 55 
 
 Priestley, 62 
 
 Prisot, 93 
 Prudentius, 118 
 
 QUESNEL, 39 
 Quintillian, 120 
 
 RaPHEtius, 27 
 Robinson, 47, 101, 117 
 Rosenmuller, 117 
 
 SanvErson, Bishop, 49 
 Sealiger, Joseph, 120 
 Scott, 115 
 
 Smith, Adam, 92 
 Stackhouse, 71 
 
 State Trials, 25, 84, 120 
 Stewart, Sir James, 78 
 Suetonius, 48 
 
 Strabo, 118 
 
 INDEX OF GREEK AND LATIN WORDS 
 
 ἈΑντιτασσομενος; 20. 
 Διδραχμον; 31. 
 Εκκλησια; 40. 
 Ἑξουσιαι; 17. 
 Κληρος; 40. 
 Lectisternia, 71. 
 Πασα ψυχὴ; 18. 
 
 Sword unsheathed, 18 
 Synesius, 15 
 
 Tacitus, 31, 119 
 Taylor, Isaac, 44 
 Taylor, Jeremiah, 21 
 Tertullian, 105 
 Tillemont, 63 
 Theodoret, 24 
 Tholuck, 49 
 Thorpe, 25, 79 
 Triglandius, 23, 120 
 Tuke, 75 
 
 Turner, Sharon, 112 
 Turretine, Alph. 37 
 
 Usuer, Archbishop, 49, 115 
 
 Vata, Laur. 50 
 Vaughan, 79 
 
 WALKER, 43, 76, 86, 89, 93, 119 
 Walton, 110 
 
 Warburton, 47, 90, 101, 102 
 Watson, Bishop, 32, 47, 100 
 Werenfels, 116 
 
 Whichcote, 20, 100 
 
 Wetstein, 30 
 
 Wodrow, 110 
 
 Woodford, 112 
 
 Wycliffe, 78, 112 
 
 YEAR Book, 93 
 
 AND PHRASES REMARKED ON, 
 
 Πασι; 27. 
 Περιποιησις; 40. 
 Πρεσβευομεν, 89. 
 Stipes, 71. 
 Taooopevos, 20. 
 Ymepexovoas, 18. 
 Popos, 27, 120. 
 
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