clined. Bishop SHERLOCK'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 aveρwπivη kтiσis ? 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 KTIσis aveρwжin should signify a creature or any thing else made by man, I know not. Aveрwmin oopia is not wisdom made by man, but wisdom which man has given him by God" (a very questionable statement). "So ктiσis avoρwπwn is not a creature made by man, but a human creature. And that this is St Peter's true meaning, will appear 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 interpreting the word of God, when we see to what an absolutely ridiculous length it carried so able a man as Sherlock! NOTE X. ON THE GROUNDS AND LIMITS OF CIVIL OBEDIENCE. DR THOMAS BROWN. "Our 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 already exists, and has long existed? "The 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 That proud exception to all nature's laws, To invert the world and counteract its cause! Force first made conquest, and that conquest law, 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 interest in the human race. Berkely, the Author of the Theory of Vision,-Berkely, the generous possessor of every virtue under heaven,' 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 reformation 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 authority 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 possesses this right divine only as tending to public happiness. It is secondary only, not primary; and when the public happiness, instead of being upon the whole promoted by obedience, would, upon the Pope's Essay of Man, Ep. iii. v. 241–248. * whole, when every consequence, indirect as well as direct, is taken into account, be promoted by shaking off that power which is inconsistent with its great object, remonstrance, even rebellion itself, if that name can justly be given, in such circumstances of dreadful necessity, 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 is to be found.”— Brown's Lectures on the Philosophy of the Human Mind, Lecture xc. vol. iv. pp. 336-338. 8vo. Edin. 1824. GISBORNE. "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 require it. The propriety of these exceptions is sufficiently apparent. No one would undertake to vindicate, by an appeal to human jurisdiction, what would be rebellion against the Sovereign of the Universe; nor would any one conceive himself bound to support his lawful 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 themselves to return. The establishment of the principles of the Reformation 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, something similar to what has happened heretofore can never take place again. The evil may not recur in its ancient form, and diffuse itself 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 commands 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 superiors, which his conscience should tell him were in any degree impious or unjust."-Duties of Men, Chap. iv. vol. i. pp. 77–80. ROBERT HALL. The manner in which the supreme law of obedience to God controls, modifies, limits, and, in certain cases, supersedes the subordinate 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 relation between magistrates and subjects. It is a more important relation, since all the good a creature can enjoy is derived from it. It differs too from every other, in that it is immutable, perpetual, eternal. A man 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 conscientiously 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. 364, 365. NOTE XI. 66 THE POWERS THAT BE" NOT EQUIVALENT TO THE LEGITIMATE POWERS. ERASMUS SCHMIDT, the compiler of that most useful work, Ταμειον Novi Testamenti,""-a man of whom the celebrated Heyné speaks as endowed with " præclara doctrina,” and says that every learned and candid judge will acknowledge " in iis in quibus hallucinatur, ingeniose tamen et sagaciter hariolari virum doctissimum"-this learned and ingenious man was, so far as I know, the first to broach the opinion referred to in the text. In a note in his posthumous work, "Notæ et Animadversiones in Novum Testamentum, cum versione nova;" Norimbergæ 1658, he remarks on his version—“ Quæ enim sunt legitimæ potestates eæ sunt a Deo,' 'the powers which are legitimate are from God'-that it is a convertible proposition-all legitimate 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 from the power, or rather the violence of robbers, depredators, antichrist, &c.; all whose govoria are not ovσa-all whose powers are not legitimate and true, and consequently not from God. Such powers Sophocles calls apxas ovк ovσas."-He then refers to a note 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." RAPHELIUS' note is distinguished by his usual accurate learning and sound judgment. He admits that the participle of the verb of existence may be used in this way-but observes, "Hic quidem non video qui aliter possit accipi quam in proximo superiori membro verbum EσTI." I do not see how the participle can be otherwise understood than the verb eoT is in the previous clause.' He also quotes a passage from Herodotus, where the phrase Tuas ras covσas 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 is not 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 translated congregation." Something is here supposed," as Robinson remarks," either that an unbiassed translator would endanger the hierarchy, 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. 66 On this principle, I suppose, we have the strange heathenish word |