the whole and permanent intereft of the ftate was likely to be beft promoted. If any one who had been present at both thefe conversations fhould upbraid me with change or inconsistency of opinion, fhould retort upon me the paffive doctrine I before taught, the large and abfolute terms in which I then delivered leffons of obedience and fubmiffion, I should account myself unfairly dealt with. I fhould reply, that the only difference which the language of the two converfations presented was, that I added now many exceptions and limitations, which were omitted or unthought of then; that this difference arose naturally from the two occafions, fuch exceptions being as neceffary to the subject of our present conference, as they would have been superfluous and unseasonable in the former. Now the difference in these two conversations is precifely the diftinction to be taken in interpreting thofe paffages of Scripture, concerning which we are debating. They inculcate the duty, they do not describe the extent of it. They enforce the obligation by the proper fanctions of Chriftianity, without intending either to enlarge or contract, without confidering indeed the limits by which it is bounded. This is also the method, in which the fame Apoftles enjoin the

duty

duty of fervants to their mafters, of children to their parents, of wives to their husbands. "Ser

vants be subject to your mafters.”—“ Chil"dren obey your parents in all things.-" Wives "fubmit yourselves unto your own husbands." The fame concife and abfolute form of expreffion occurs in all these precepts; the fame filence, as to any exceptions or distinctions; yet no one doubts, but that the commands of mafters, parents, and husbands, are often fo immoderate, unjuft, and inconfiftent with other obligations, that they both may and ought to be refifted. In letters or differtations written profeffedly upon separate articles of morality, we might with more reafon have looked for a precise delineation of our duty, and fome degree of modern accuracy in the rules which were laid down for our direction; but in those short collections of practical maxims, which compose the conclufion, or some fmall portion, of a doctrinal or perhaps controversial epistle, we cannot be surprised to find the author more folicitous to imprefs the duty, than curious to enumerate exceptions.

The confideration of this diftinction, is alone fufficient to vindicate thefe paffages of Scripture, from any explanation, which may be put upon them, in favour of an unlimited paffive obe

dience.

dience. But if we be permitted to affume a fuppofition, which many commentators proceed upon as a certainty, that the first Chriflians privately cherished an opinion, that their converfion to Christianity entitled them to new immunities, to an exemption as of right (however they might give way to neceffity) from the authority of the Roman fovereign, we are furnifhed with a ftill more apt and fatisfactory interpretation of the Apoftles' words. The two paffages apply with great propriety to the refutation of this error: they teach the Christian convert to obey the magiftrate "for the Lord's fake,"

not only for wrath, but for confcience fake;" "that there is no power but of God;"-" that "the powers that be," even the present rulers of the Roman empire, though heathens and ufurpers, feeing they are in poffeffion of the actual and neceffary authority of civil government,

are ordained of God," and, confequently, entitled to receive obedience from those who profefs themselves the peculiar fervants of God, in a greater (certainly not in a lefs) degree, than from any others. They briefly describe the office of civil governors, "the punishment of "evil doers, and the praise of them that do "well;" from which defcription of the use of government,

government, they juftly infer the duty of fubjection, which duty being as extenfive, as the reafon upon which it is founded, belongs to Chriftians no lefs than to the heathen members of the community. If it be admitted, that the two Apostles wrote with a view to this particular question, it will be confeffed, that their words cannot be transferred to a question totally different from this, with any certainty of carrying along with us their authority and intention. There exifts no resemblance between the cafe of a primitive convert who difputed the jurifdiction. of the Roman government over a difciple of Chriftianity, and his, who, acknowledging the general authority of the state over all its subjects, doubts, whether that authority be not, in fome important branch of it, fo ill conftituted or abufed, as to warrant the endeavours of the people to bring about a reformation by force: Nor can we judge what reply the Apostles would have made to this fecond queftion, if it had been propofed to them, from any thing they have delivered upon the first; any more than in the two confultations above defcribed, it could be known beforehand, what I would fay in the latter, from the answer which I gave to the former.

The

it

The only defect in this account is, that neither the Scriptures, nor any fubfequent hiftory of the early ages of the church, furnish any direct atteftation of the existence of fuch difaffected sentiments amongst the primitive converts. They fupply indeed fome circumstances, which render probable the opinion, that extravagant notions of the political rights of the Christian state were at that time entertained by many profelytes to the religion. From the question propofed to Christ, "Is is lawful to give tribute unto Cæfar?" may be prefumed that doubts had been started in the Jewish schools concerning the obligation, or even the lawfulness of fubmiffion to the Roman yoke. The accounts delivered by Jofephus, of various infurrections of the Jews, of that, and the following age, excited by this principle, or upon this pretence, confirm the prefumption. Now as the Chriftians were at first chiefly taken from the Jews, confounded with them by the reft of the world, and from the affinity of the two religions, apt to intermix the doctrines of both, it is not to be wondered at, that a tenet, fo flattering to the felf-importance of those who embraced it, fhould have been communicated to the new inftitution. Again, the teachers of Christianity, amongst the privileges which their religion