gal taxes, or taxes for a purpose which does not PART II. 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 advantage 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 purpose: 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, however, 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 Cæsar the things that are Cæsar'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. iii. p. 386.

PART II. believe, that they most conscientiously performed 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 exertions, to the support and service of idols, they calmly took the consequences, and were spoiled of their goods, or "tortured not accepting deliverance," "knowing in themselves that they had a more enduring substance,"preferring poverty and death, with a good conscience, to wealth and life without it.*

What are these things

to us?

We turn now to the examination of a question, at all times of importance, and in the circumstances in which we at present stand, of peculiar interest. What are these things to us? Holding, as we well may do, that the government under 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 greater 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 described than in the words of the anonymous tract formerly quoted (pp. 83, 84). “Tributa, vectigalia, munera, oneraque consueta non detrectant, modo id tributi, quod Deo debent, non intervertatur. Cæsari Cæsarem agenti parent. Cæsari fines suos excedenti, alienum imperium affectanti, Dei solium invadenti, superiorem amborum Dominum bello petenti, parere injustum, putant."-Vindicia Contra Tyrannos, pp. 59, 60.

tion to pay

Tribute is necessary to the permanent exist- PART II. ence of civil government, and the attainment of our obligaits ends. "There can be no peace," says Jeremy tribute. Taylor, paraphrasing a sentence of Tacitus, "without 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. We are to exercise the same conscientiousness, in making such payments, 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 precision by Dymond, whose valuable Essays are much less extensively known, at least in this end of the island, than they deserve to be. "The authority of civil government, as a director of individual conduct, is explicitly asserted in the Christian Scriptures. By this general sanction of civil government, a multitude 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 authority. If from any cause, the magistrate enjoins that which is

L

PART II. It is deeply to be regretted, that this view of the matter, though theoretically admitted by almost all, is by no means so extensively acted on. "How 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 fulfilment 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 evasion, give scope to their inventive ingenuity, and smile with conscious self-complacency at the prudence 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 withdrawn. ́All human authority ceases at the point where obedience 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 government 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 appears real, no room is left for doubt respecting his duty, or for hesitation .in performing it. With the consideration of consequences, 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. 1830.

fraud government, to gull a revenue officer, or, as PART II. 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 burdens. Indeed, to purchase smuggled or contraband goods, is not only to rob the public, but it is to commit a sin resembling that of buying articles 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 iniquity." If, as may not unfrequently be the case, particular taxes are unequal and oppressive, it cannot be wrong-in many cases it is an important 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.

gation un

But while all sound-minded men hold these Is that obliviews, and all right-hearted men act under their limited? influence, it does not at all follow that even under a government which, from its well answering, upon the whole, the ends of civil rule, is undoubtedly 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.