"He that thinks a Parliament or a nation should 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 civis, a member of a commonwealth."* The present government of this country have no right to their places, if these principles are not true. Some account them dangerous principles, but they are in truth the best safeguard of a government. The hazards connected with resistance, while a government 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.† * 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 determines 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 extremities, 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 highminded from disdain and indignation at abusive power in unworthy hands; the brave and bold from the love of honourable danger in a generous cause; but with or without right, a revolution will be the very last resource of the thinking and the good."-Burke's Reflections on the Revolution in France, pp. 43, 44. Lond. 1790. The language of the Roman philosopher and orator, in reference to the life of the individual, is equally applicable to those interests of the community which are more valuable than life. "Est enim hæc non scripta sed nata lex; quam PART I. PART I. It has been urged by some who are not disposExercise of ed to call in question the justness of the princi this right not with Christ Inconsistent ples now stated, that while this may be the rule ianity. 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 unfit 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 converted Romans, residing in a heathen country, and under an arbitrary government, for reasons already stated, are certainly not called on-are not even permitted, to intermeddle with State affairs. But I 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 naturæ penu hausimus, arripuimus; ad quam non pacti sed facti, non instituti sed imbuti sumus; ut si vita nostra in tela, in latrones, in enses incideret, 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-calculated resistance to it be criminal." Terrot on the Epistle to the Romans, p. 292. good to all as he has opportunity;" and he who, PART 1. 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 tyranny and wrong-or of mental fortitude to avow these sentiments, and follow them out to their fair practical consequences, under pretensions to superior 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 spitting,"" the Captain of the Lord's host," in apportioning the rewards of his chosen tribes, will show that he regards with more complacency Zebulon and Naphtali, who "jeoparded their lives in the high places of the fields," than Reuben, who "abode among the sheep to hear the bleating of the flocks," or Dan, who "remained in ships," or Asher, who continued on the seashore, and abode in his breaches."* 66 gene I have now finished my remarks on the ral duty of obedience to civil rulers.-Before passing onward to the interpretation of our Lord's law respecting the particular duty of paying tribute, I must be permitted to congratulate you and myself, my brethren, on the happy circumstances 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. General reflections. PART 1. which, under our civil constitution, the laws of our Master in heaven, and the laws of our Sovereign on earth, are likely to come into collisionand 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 necessary, 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 "susceptibility 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 improved, but the tendency is decidedly toward improvement. Indeed there is but one great system of misrule, originating in the unnatural, unscriptural, revolutionary, and every way mischievous connexion between Church and State, which, scarcely yet touched by the hand of reform, strangely contrasts with the general good government of the country, and above all other PART 1. That system must fall. God has doomed it.* happy is he who, in his own place, and by peace- * Babylon must fall. "We would have healed Babylon :" But Babylon cannot be healed. The system of civil establishment 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 purity 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, “Babylon the great," must be overthrown. |