Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no power but of God. Romans 13:1-7 Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers I. EVERY SOUL, or man ( Exodus 12:4 ; Genesis 46:27 ). 1. Secular person. 2. Ecclesiastical or religious. II. THE OBJECT. "The higher powers," or chief magistrates established in each nation. 1. To see that God be rightly worshipped ( 2 Chronicles 14:2, 4 ; 2 Chronicles 17:6, 9 ). 2. To preserve peace ( 1 Timothy 2:2 ; Psalm 72:7 ). 3. To execute justice ( Psalm 72:2 ; Romans 13:4 ). III. THE ACT. "Be subject." We owe them — 1. Prayers ( 1 Timothy 2:1 ). 2. Fear ( Proverbs 24:21 ; 1 Peter 2:17 ). 3. Not to speak evil of him ( Ecclesiastes 10:20 ; 2 Peter 2:10 ; Jude 1:8 ). 4. Dues (ver. 7). 5. Subjection and obedience ( Titus 3:1 ). (1) Otherwise the magistrates' power is in vain. (2) The public good depends upon our obedience. (3) We are bound to obey for fear ( Romans 13:2, 5 ). (4) For the Lord's sake ( Romans 13:5 ). (5) He that resisteth, resisteth the ordinance of God. IV. THE REASON OF THE COMMAND. "All power is of God." This appears — 1. From Scripture. (1) Every power is ordained of God (vers. 1-2). (2) The magistrate is the minister of God, ?????????? (ver. 4). (3) By God kings reign ( Proverbs 7:15, 16 ). (4) They judge under Him ( 2 Chronicles 19:5, 6, 7 ). (5) He sets up kings ( Daniel 2:21, 37 ; Daniel 5:21 ). (6) God first ordained the power of the sword in the hand of men ( Genesis 9:6 ). (7) God gave particular direction for choosing most of the kings of Israel; as Saul, David, Jehu: and so now. 2. From reason. (1) He is the first cause of all things ( John 19:11 ). (2) All power depends on Him ( Acts 17:28 ). (3) As the stream from the fountain. 3. All power in men is God's power in their hands ( 2 Chronicles 19:6 ). 4. Power is good and necessary: therefore from God ( James 1:17 ). 5. It is part of the law of nature ( Romans 2:14, 15 ). ( Bp. Beveridge. )

Benson Commentary Romans 13:1 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. Romans 13:1 . From exhorting the believers at Rome to a life of entire devotedness to God, and the various duties of brotherly kindness, the apostle now proceeds to inculcate upon them that subjection and obedience which they owed to their civil rulers, and those duties of justice and benevolence which were due from them to all men. And as Rome was the seat of the empire, it was highly proper for the credit of Christianity, for which indeed it was, in effect, a public apology for him to do this when writing to inhabitants of that city, whether they were originally Jews or Gentiles. Let every soul — Every person, of whatever state, calling, or degree he may be, however endowed with miraculous gifts of the Holy Ghost, whatever office he may sustain, or in what esteem soever he may be held in the church of Christ; (for that these things were apt to make some Christians overvalue themselves, is obvious from what St. Paul says to the Corinthians, first epistle, chap. 12.; and to the Romans, in the preceding chapter of this epistle;) be subject to the higher powers — ????????? ???????????? , the superior or ruling powers; meaning the governing civil authorities which the Divine Providence had established in the places where they lived: an admonition this peculiarly needful for the Jews. For as God had chosen them for his peculiar people, “and, being their king, had dictated to them a system of laws, and had governed them anciently in person, and afterward by princes of his own nomination, many of them reckoned it impiety to submit to heathen laws and rulers. In the same light they viewed the paying of taxes for the support of heathen governments, Matthew 22:17 . In short, the zealots of that nation laid it down as a principle, that they would obey God alone as their king and governor, in opposition to Cesar and all kings whatever, who were not of their religion, and who did not govern them by the laws of Moses.” And it is probable, as Locke and Macknight further observe, that some of the Jews who embraced the gospel, did not immediately lay aside this turbulent disposition, and that even of the believing Gentiles there were a few, who, on pretence that they had a sufficient rule of conduct in the spiritual gifts with which they were endowed, thought that they were under no obligation to obey ordinances imposed by idolaters, nor to pay taxes for the support of idolatrous governments. That some Christians were involved in this error, or at least were in danger of being involved in it, appears also from the caution which Peter gives the believers to whom he wrote, (first epistle, chap. 2.,) not to use their liberty for a cloak of maliciousness or misbehaviour. Now, as these principles and practices, if they should prevail, must, of necessity, cause the gospel to be evil spoken of, the apostle judged it necessary, in this letter to the Romans, to show that they had no countenance from the Christian doctrine, by inculcating the duties which subjects owe to magistrates, and by testifying that the disciples of Christ were not exempt from obedience to the wholesome laws, even of the heathen countries where they lived, nor from contributing to the support of the government by which they were protected, although it was administered by idolaters. For there is no power but of God — “There is no legal authority but may, in one sense or another, be said to be from God, the origin of all power. It is his will that there should be magistrates to guard the peace of societies; and the hand of his providence, in directing to the persons of particular governors, ought to be seriously considered and revered.” The powers that be — The authorities that exist, under one form or another; are ordained of God — “Are, in their different places, ranged, disposed, and established by God, the original and universal governor.” So Dr. Doddridge renders the word ?????????? , here used, thinking the English word ordained rather too strong. Compare Acts 13:48 . “Divine Providence,” says he, “ranges, and in fact establishes the various governments of the world; they are, therefore, under the character of governments, in the general, to be revered: but this cannot make what is wrong and pernicious, in any particular forms, sacred, divine, and immutable, any more than the hand of God in a famine or pestilence is an argument against seeking proper means to remove it.” But the expression, ??? ???? ?????????? ????? , might be rendered, are subordinate to, or orderly disposed under God; implying that they are God’s deputies, or vicegerents, and consequently their authority, being in effect his, demands our conscientious obedience. “In other passages,” says Macknight, “ ???????? , powers, by a common figure, signifies persons possessed of power or authority. But here, ?? ???????? ??????????? , the higher powers, being distinguished from ?? ???????? , the rulers, Romans 13:3 , must signify, not the persons who possess the supreme authority, but the supreme authority itself, whereby the state is governed, whether that authority be vested in the people or in the nobles, or in a single person, or be shared among these three orders: in short, the higher powers denote that form of government which is established in any country, whatever it may be. This remark deserves attention, because the apostle’s reasoning, while it holds good concerning the form of government established in a country, is not true concerning the persons who possess the supreme power, that there is no power but from God; and that he who resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God. For, if the person who possesses the supreme power in any state, exercises it in destroying the fundamental laws, and to the ruin of the people, such a ruler is not from God, is not authorized by him, and ought to be resisted.” The declaration, there is no power but of God, he thinks, “was written to correct the pride of the Jews, who valued themselves exceedingly because they had received a form of government from God. The government of every state, whether it be monarchical, aristocratical, democratical, or mixed, is as really of divine appointment as the government of the Jews was, though none but the Jewish form was of divine legislation. For God having designed mankind to live in society, he has, by the frame of their nature, and by the reason of things, authorized government to be exercised in every country. At the same time, having appointed no particular form to any nation but to the Jews, nor named any particular person or family to exercise the power of government, he has left it to the people to choose what form is most agreeable to themselves, and to commit the exercise of the supreme power to what persons they think fit. And therefore, whatever form of government hath been chosen, or is established in any country, hath the divine sanction; and the persons who by choice, or even by the peaceable submission of the governed, have the reins of government in their hands, are the lawful sovereigns of that country, and have all the rights and prerogatives belonging to the sovereignty vested in their persons.” The sum appears to be, the office of civil government is instituted by him, and the persons who exercise it are invested therewith by the appointment or permission of his providence. Romans 13:2 Whosoever therefore resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God: and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation. Romans 13:2 . Whosoever therefore resisteth the power — Or the authority, of which the magistrate is possessed; resisteth the ordinance of God — God’s appointment for the preservation of order and of the public peace. And they that resist — Who withstand so wise and beneficial an institution; shall receive to themselves damnation — Or condemnation and punishment, not only from the civil powers they injure, but from the supreme sovereign, whose laws they break, and whose order they endeavour to reverse. “As the precept in the foregoing verse, and the declarations in this, are general, they must be interpreted according to the nature of the subjects to which they are applied. Wherefore, since the power of which the apostle speaks in both verses is the form of government, and not the rulers of the country, the subjection enjoined in the first verse is not an unlimited passive obedience to rulers in things sinful, but an obedience to the wholesome laws, enacted for the good of the community by common consent, or by those who, according to the constitution of the state, have the power of enacting laws. To these good laws the people are to give obedience, without examining by what title the magistrates, who execute these laws, hold their power; and even without considering whether the religion professed by the magistrates be true or false. For the same reason the opposition to, and resistance of the power, forbidden in Romans 13:2 , is an opposition to, and resistance of the established government, by disobeying the wholesome laws of the state; or by attempting to overturn the government from a factious disposition, or from ill-will to the persons in power, or from an ambitious desire to possess the government ourselves. These precepts, therefore, do not enjoin obedience to the magistrates in things sinful, but in things not sinful; and more especially in things morally good, and which tend to the welfare of the state; besides, as in the following verses, the apostle hath shown, from the nature and end of their office, that the duty of rulers is to promote the happiness of the people, it is plain from the apostle himself, that they who refuse to do things sinful, or even things inconsistent with the fundamental laws of the state, do not resist the ordinance of God, although these things should be commanded by a lawful magistrate, because in commanding them he exceeds his power. And opposition to a ruler who endeavours utterly to subvert the constitution, or to enslave a free people, is warranted not only by right reason, but by the gospel, which teaches that rulers are the servants of God for good to the people, and are supported by God only in the just execution of their office.” Romans 13:3 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 same: Romans 13:3-5 . For rulers — In general, notwithstanding some particular exceptions; are not a terror to good works — Were not ordained, and do not use to punish those that do well, and conform to good laws; but to the evil — From which they deter people by punishing those who do them. Wilt thou — Wouldest thou then; not be afraid of the power — Of the high authority with which they are invested? Do that which is good — Carefully perform the good actions which they enjoin, and, according to the general course of administration, thou shalt have — Not only protection, but praise and respect from it. There is one fear that precedes evil actions, and deters from them: this should always remain. There is another which follows evil actions: they who do well are free from this. For he is — According to the original appointment, to be considered as elevated above his fellow-men, not for his own indulgence, dominion, and advantage, but that he might be to thee, and to all the rest of his subjects, as the minister of God for good — By maintaining all in their just possessions, and protecting them from all injury and violence. But if thou do that which is evil — And so makest thyself the enemy of that society of which he is the guardian; be afraid — Thou hast reason to be so. For he beareth not the sword in vain — Namely, the sword of justice, the instrument of capital punishment, which God hath put into his hands, and hath authorized him to use against malefactors. A revenger to execute wrath — Not his own personal resentment, but the wrath of a righteous Providence; upon him that doeth evil — In instances wherein it would be highly improper to leave that avenging power in the hands of private injured persons. Therefore a sense of duty to God, as well as prudence and human virtue, will teach you, that you must needs be subject, not only for fear of wrath — That is, punishment from man; but for conscience’ sake — Out of obedience to God. It must be well observed, that “the apostle did not mean that they were to be subject to the sinful laws of the countries where they lived, otherwise he made it necessary for the Roman brethren to join in the worship of idols, contrary to the superior obligation they were under of obeying God rather than man. Besides, by telling them they were to be subject on account of conscience, he intimated that the subjection which he enjoined did not extend to things sinful.” Romans 13:4 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. Romans 13:5 Wherefore ye must needs be subject, not only for wrath, but also for conscience sake. Romans 13:6 For for this cause pay ye tribute also: for they are God's ministers, attending continually upon this very thing. Romans 13:6 . For this cause pay ye tribute also — Not only in token of the duty and subjection you owe them, but because they are the ministers (officers) of God — For the public good; attending continually on this very thing — Giving the whole of their time, care, and labour to it. “The phrase, ?????????? ???? , rendered ministers of God, signifies ministers appointed by God in behalf of the people. The thing to which the magistrates attend, or ought to attend continually, is the good of the people; which they should promote by restraining evil-doers, distributing justice, and repelling the attacks of foreign enemies. Now these things they cannot do, unless taxes are paid to them.” Romans 13:7 Render therefore to all their dues: tribute to whom tribute is due ; custom to whom custom; fear to whom fear; honour to whom honour. Romans 13:7 . Render, therefore, to all — Magistrates, whether supreme or subordinate; their dues — What by law, or by the appointment of God, belongs to them, even though you may have opportunities of defrauding them of it, to your own immediate and temporal advantage. In this precept the apostle follows the Lord Jesus, who ordered the Jews to render to Cesar the things which were Cesar’s, though Cesar was neither of the Jewish nation, nor of their religion. Tribute — Taxes on your persons or estates; custom — For goods exported or imported. “By using the general expression, to whom tribute is due, the apostle leaves it to the laws and constitution of every state, and to the people in these states, to determine who are their lawful magistrates, and what the tributes and customs are which are due to their governors; but by no means allows individuals to determine these points, because that would open the door to rebellion.” — Macknight. Fear — Obedience; honour — Reverence: all these are due to the higher powers. Romans 13:8 Owe no man any thing, but to love one another: for he that loveth another hath fulfilled the law. Romans 13:8-10 . Here, from our duty to magistrates, he passes on to general duties. Owe no man any thing — Endeavour to manage your affairs with that economy and prudent attention that you may, as soon as possible, balance accounts with all who have any demands upon you, except it be with respect to that debt, which, while you pay, you will nevertheless still owe, namely, to love one another; an eternal debt, which can never be sufficiently discharged. But yet, if this be rightly performed, it, in a sense, discharges all the rest. For he that loveth another — As he ought; hath fulfilled the law — Of the second table. The word ?????? , another, here used, is a more general word than ??????? , neighbour, in the next verse, and comprehends our very enemies; according to the sublime morality enjoined by Christ. For this, Thou shalt not commit adultery, &c. — All these precepts, prohibiting sins frequently committed, comprehend also the contrary duties, due to our fellow-creatures; and if there be any other more particular commandment — Respecting them, as there are many in the law; it is briefly comprehended — ??????????????? , it is summed up in this saying — In this one general and most excellent precept, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself — Thou shalt learn to put thyself, as it were, in his place, and to act toward him as, in a supposed change of circumstances, thou wouldest reasonably desire him to act toward thee. Love worketh no ill to his neighbour — Nay, wherever that noble principle governs the heart, it will put men upon doing all they can for the good of others. Therefore love is the fulfilling of the law — For the same love which restrains a man from doing evil to any, will incite him, as he has ability and opportunity, to do good to all. Romans 13:9 For this, Thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shalt not kill, Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not bear false witness, Thou shalt not covet; and if there be any other commandment, it is briefly comprehended in this saying, namely, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. Romans 13:10 Love worketh no ill to his neighbour: therefore love is the fulfilling of the law. Romans 13:11 And that, knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep: for now is our salvation nearer than when we believed. Romans 13:11-12 . And that — That is, do this to which I exhort you; fulfil the law of love in all the instances above mentioned; knowing the time — Greek, ??? ?????? , the season, that it is the morning of the day of the gospel, a season of increasing light and grace, but hasting away: that now it is high time to awake out of sleep — Out of that sleep into which you had fallen during the darkness of heathenism, or before your illumination by divine truth and grace; that state of insensibility of, and unconcern about, things spiritual and eternal in general, and your own salvation in particular; to awake to a sense of the infinite importance of the truths and duties revealed to you in the gospel, and of the near approach of death and judgment, which will put a period to your state of trial, and fix you in a state of final and eternal retribution. It is therefore high time that you should labour, to the utmost of your power, to improve every opportunity of receiving and doing good, and of prosecuting the great business of life) which is to secure the favour of God, a conformity to his image, and your own everlasting happiness. For now is our final salvation — Our eternal glory; nearer than when we at first believed — It is continually advancing, flying forward upon the swiftest wings of time, and that which remains between the present hour and eternity is, comparatively speaking, but a moment. The night is far spent — The night of heathenish ignorance and error; the day — Of gospel light and grace; is at hand — Greek, ??????? , hath approached, hath dawned: the day-spring from on high hath visited us, to give light to us who sat in darkness and in the region of the shadow of death, and to guide our feet into the way of peace. The night, also, of the present life is far spent, during which we often confound truth and error, duty and sin, and the day of eternity is at hand, is drawing near, even that day which will show every thing in its proper colours and forms. Let us therefore cast off the works, only suitable to, or excusable in, a state of darkness — That is, let us abandon all manner of wickedness which is wont to be practised in the night, or in a state of ignorance, error, and folly; and let us put on the armour of light — For, being soldiers, it is our duty to arm and prepare for fight, inasmuch as we are encompassed about with so many enemies. In other words, let us be clothed with all Christian graces, which, like burnished and beautiful armour, will be at once an ornament and a defence to us, and which will reflect the bright beams that are so gloriously rising upon us. Romans 13:12 The night is far spent, the day is at hand: let us therefore cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armour of light. Romans 13:13 Let us walk honestly, as in the day; not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and envying. Romans 13:13 . Let us walk honestly — Greek, ?????????? , decently, or in a manner becoming those to whom the glorious light of the gospel has appeared: as in the day — Namely, of gospel light, already shining about us, which requires that we conduct ourselves with great wisdom, and exemplary holiness; not in rioting — Greek, ?????? , a word derived from Comos, the god of feasting and revelling; that is, feasting with lascivious songs, accompanied with music. “These revellings among the heathen were performed in honour of Bacchus, the god of wine, who, on that account, was named ???????? , Comastes, and were acted in the night-time, for the most part without arms. However, the actors in these revellings were sometimes armed, and insulted those whom they happened to meet. The youth among the heathen, especially in cities, when they were enamoured, used, after they had got themselves drunk, to run about the streets by night, having crowns made of the branches and leaves of trees upon their heads, and torches in their hands, with musical instruments of various kinds, upon which some of them played soft airs, while others accompanied them with their voice, and danced in the most lascivious manner. These indecencies they acted commonly before the house in which their mistress lived, then knocked at the door, and sometimes brake in. Hence, in the book of Wisdom, they are called, chap. Romans 14:23 , ???????? ?????? , mad revellings.” From all this it appears with what propriety the apostle joins ????? , drunkenness, and the other vices here mentioned, together, and opposes ?? ???? ??? ????? , the instruments, or weapons of light, to these nocturnal dresses and revellings. See Macknight. Not in chambering — In fornication, adultery, and fleshly lusts. The original expression, ??????? , is interpreted by Leigh, of lying long in bed. “I will not defend that sense of the word,” says Dr. Doddridge; “but I will here record the observation which I have found of great use to myself, and to which, I may say, that the production of this work, and most of my other writings, is owing; namely, that the difference between rising at five and at seven o’clock in the morning, for the space of forty years, supposing a man to go to bed at the same hour of the night, is nearly equivalent to the addition of ten years to a man’s life; of which, (supposing the two hours in question to be so spent,) eight hours every day should be employed in study and devotion.” And wantonness — ?????????? , lasciviousness, any kind of uncleanness, or lewd practices. In vices, alas! such as those here censured by the apostle, many, even professing Christians, are wasting and polluting the hours which nature has destined to necessary repose. Not in strife and envying — In contention about riches, or honours, or opinions; or envying the prosperity of others. Romans 13:14 But put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh, to fulfil the lusts thereof . Romans 13:14 . But put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ — A strong and beautiful expression for the most intimate union with him, and the being clothed with all the graces which were in him; including the receiving, in faith and love, every part of his doctrine; obeying his precepts, imitating his example, and adorning ourselves therewith as with a splendid robe, not to be put off; because it is the garb intended for that eternal day, which is never to be followed by night. The apostle does not say, “Put on purity and sobriety, peacefulness and benevolence;” but he says all this, and a thousand times more, at once, in saying, Put on Christ. And make not provision for the flesh — To raise foolish and sinful desires in your hearts, or, when they are raised already, to devise means to gratify them. Benson Commentary on the Old and New Testaments Text Courtesy of BibleSupport.com . Used by Permission.

Expositor's Bible Commentary Romans 13:1 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. Chapter 27 CHRISTIAN DUTY; IN CIVIL LIFE AND OTHERWISE: Romans 13:1-10 A NEW topic now emerges, distinct, yet in close and natural connection. We have been listening to precepts for personal and social life, all rooted in that inmost characteristic of Christian morals, self-surrender, self-submission to God. Loyalty to others in the Lord has been the theme. In the circles of home, of friendship, of the Church; in the open field of intercourse with men in general, whose personal enmity or religious persecution was so likely to cross the path-in all these regions the Christian was to act on the principle of supernatural submission, as the sure way to spiritual victory. The same principle is now carried into his relations with the State. As a Christian, he does not cease to be a citizen, to be a subject. His deliverance from the death sentence of the Law of God only binds him, in his Lord’s name, to a loyal fidelity to human statute; limited only by the case where such statute may really contradict the supreme divine law. The disciple of Christ, as such, while his whole being has received an emancipation unknown elsewhere, is to be the faithful subject of the Emperor, the orderly inhabitant of his quarter in the City, the punctual taxpayer, the ready giver of not a servile yet a genuine deference to the representatives and ministers of human authority. This is he to do for reasons both general and special. In general, it is his Christian duty rather to submit than otherwise, where conscience toward God is not in the question. Not weakly, but meekly, he is to yield rather than resist in all his intercourse purely personal, with men; and therefore with the officials of order, as men. But in particular also, he is to understand that civil order is not only a desirable thing, but divine; it is the will of God for the social Race made in His Image. In the abstract, this is absolutely so; civil order is a God-given law, as truly as the most explicit precepts of the Decalogue, in whose Second Table it is so plainly implied all along. And in the concrete, the civil order under which the Christian finds himself to be is to be regarded as a real instance of this great principle. It is quite sure to be imperfect, because it is necessarily mediated through human minds and wills. Very possibly it may be gravely distorted into a system seriously oppressive of the individual life. As a fact, the supreme magistrate for the Roman Christians in the year 58 was a dissolute young man, intoxicated by the discovery that he might do almost entirely as he pleased with the lives around him; by no defect, however, in the idea and purpose of Roman law, but by fault of the degenerate world of the day. Yet civil authority, even with a Nero at its head, was still in principle a thing divine. And the Christian’s attitude to it was to be always that of a willingness, a purpose, to obey; an absence of the resistance whose motive lies in self-assertion. Most assuredly his attitude was not to be that of the revolutionist, who looks upon the State as a sort of belligerent power, against which he, alone or in company, openly or in the dark, is free to carry on a campaign. Under even heavy pressure the Christian is still to remember that civil government is, in its principle, "of God." He is to reverence the Institution in its idea. He is to regard its actual officers, whatever their personal faults, as so far dignified by the Institution that their governing work is to be considered always first in the light of the Institution. The most imperfect, even the most erring, administration of civil order is still a thing to be respected before it is criticised. In its principle, it is a "terror not to good works, but to the evil." It hardly needs elaborate remark to show that such a precept, little as it may accord with many popular political cries of our time, means anything in the Christian but a political servility, or an indifference on his part to political wrong in the actual course of government. The religion which invites every man to stand face to face with God in Christ. to go straight to the Eternal, knowing no intermediary but His Son, and no ultimate authority but His Scripture, for the certainties of the soul, for peace of conscience, for dominion over evil in himself and in the world, and for more than deliverance from the fear of death, is no friend to the tyrants of mankind. We have seen how, by enthroning Christ in the heart, it inculcates a noble inward submissiveness. But from another point of view it equally, and mightily, develops the noblest sort of individualism. It lifts man to a sublime independence of his surroundings, by joining him direct to God in Christ, by making him the Friend of God. No wonder then that, in the course of history, Christianity, that is to say the Christianity of the Apostles, of the Scriptures, has been the invincible ally of personal conscience and political liberty, the liberty which is the opposite alike of license and of tyranny. It is Christianity which has taught men calmly to die, in face of a persecuting Empire, or of whatever other giant human force, rather than do wrong at its bidding. It is Christianity which has lifted innumerable souls to stand upright in solitary protest for truth and against falsehood, when every form of governmental authority has been against them. It was the student of St. Paul who, alone before the great Diet, uttering no denunciation, temperate and respectful in his whole bearing, was yet found immovable by Pope and Emperor: "I can not otherwise: so help me God." We may be sure that if the world shuts the Bible it will only the sooner revert, under whatever type of government, to essential despotism, whether it be the despotism of the master, or that of the man. The "individual" indeed will "wither." The Autocrat will find no purely independent spirits in his path. And what then shall call itself, however loudly, "Liberty, Fraternity, Equality," will be found at last, where the Bible is unknown, to be the remorseless despot of the personality, and of the home. It is Christianity which has peacefully and securely freed the slave, and has restored woman to her true place by the side of man. But then, Christianity has done all this in a way of its own. It has never flattered the oppressed, nor inflamed them. It has told impartial truth to them, and to their oppressors. One of the least hopeful phenomena of present political life is the adulation (it cannot be called by another name) too frequently offered to the working classes by their leaders, or by those who ask their suffrages. A flattery as gross as any ever accepted by complacent monarchs is almost all that is now heard about themselves by the new master section of the State. This is not Christianity, but its parody. The Gospel tells uncompromising truth to the rich, but also to the poor. Even in the presence of pagan slavery it laid the law of duty on the slave, as well as on his master. It. bade the slave consider his obligations rather than his rights; while it said the same, precisely, and more at length, and more urgently, to his lord. So it at once avoided revolution and sowed the living seed of immense, and salutary, and ever-developing reforms. The doctrine of spiritual equality, and spiritual connection, secured in Christ, came into the world as the guarantee for the whole social and political system of the truest ultimate political liberty. For it equally chastened and developed the individual, in relation to the life around him. Serious questions for practical casuistry may be raised, of course, from this passage. Is resistance to a cruel despotism never permissible to the Christian? In a time of revolution, when power wrestles with power, which power is the Christian to regard as "ordained of God"? It may be sufficient to reply to the former question that, almost self-evidently, the absolute principles of a passage like this take for granted some balance and modification by concurrent principles. Read without any such reserve, St. Paul leaves here no alternative, under any circumstances, to submission. But he certainly did not mean to say that the Christian must submit to an imperial order to sacrifice to the Roman gods. It seems to follow that the letter of the precept does not pronounce it inconceivable that a Christian, under circumstances which leave his action unselfish, truthful, the issue not of impatience, but of conviction, might be justified in positive resistance; such resistance as was offered to oppression by the Huguenots of the Cevennes, and by the Alpine Vaudois before them. But history adds its witness to the warnings of St. Paul, and of his Master, that almost inevitably it goes ill in the highest respects with saints who "take the sword," and that the purest victories for freedom are won by those who "endure grief, suffering wrongfully," while they witness for right and Christ before their oppressors. The Protestant pastors of Southern France won a nobler victory than any won by Jean Cavalier in the field of battle when, at the risk of their lives, they met in the woods to draw up a solemn document of loyalty to Louis XV; informing him that their injunction to their flocks always was, and always would be, "Fear God, honour the King." Meanwhile Godet, in some admirable notes on this passage, remarks that it leaves the Christian not only not bound to aid an oppressive government by active cooperation, but amply free to witness aloud against its wrong; and that his "submissive but firm conduct is itself a homage to the inviolability of authority. Experience proves that it is in this way all tyrannies have been morally broken, and all true progress in the history of humanity effected." What the servant of God should do with his allegiance at a revolutionary crisis is a grave question for any whom it may unhappily concern. Thomas Scott, in a useful note on our passage, remarks, that perhaps nothing involves greater difficulties, in very many instances, than to ascertain to whom the authority justly belongs Submission in all things lawful to the existing authorities’ is our duty at all times and in all cases; though in civil convulsions there may frequently be a difficulty in determining which are "the existing authorities." In such cases "the Christian," says Godet, "will submit to the new power as soon as the resistance of the old shall have ceased. In the actual state of matters he will recognise the manifestation of God’s will, and will take no part in any reactionary plot." As regards the problem of forms or types of government, it seems clear that the Apostle lays no bond of conscience on the Christian. Both in the Old Testament and in the New a just monarchy appears to be the ideal. But our Epistle says that "there is no power but of God." In St. Paul’s time the Roman Empire was in theory, as much as ever, a republic, and in fact a personal monarchy. In this question, as in so many others of the outward framework of human life, the Gospel is liberal in its applications, while it is, in the noblest sense, conservative in principle. We close our preparatory comments, and proceed to the text, with the general recollection that in this brief paragraph we see and touch as it were the cornerstone of civil order. One side of the angle is the indefeasible duty, for the Christian citizen, of reverence for law, of remembrance of the religious aspect of even secular government. The other side is the memento to the ruler, to the authority, that God throws His shield over the claims of the State only because authority was instituted not for selfish, but for social ends, so that it belies itself if it is not used for the good of man. Let every soul, every person, who has "presented his body a living sacrifice," be submissive to the ruling authorities; manifestly, from the context, the authorities of the state. For there is no authority except by God; but the existing authorities have been appointed by God. That is, the imperium of the King Eternal is absolutely reserved; an authority not sanctioned by Him is nothing; man is no independent source of power and law. But then, it has pleased God so to order human life and history, that His will in this matter is expressed, from time to time, in and through the actual constitution of the state. So that the opponent of the authority withstands the ordinance of God, not merely that of man; but the withstanders will on themselves bring sentence of judgment; not only the human crime of treason, but the charge, in the court of God, of rebellion against His will. This is founded on the idea of law and order, which means by its nature the restraint of public mischief and the promotion, or at least protection, of public good. "Authority," even under its worst distortions, still so far keeps that aim that no human civic power, as a fact, punishes good as good, and rewards evil as evil; and thus for the common run of lives the worst settled authority is infinitely better than real anarchy. For rulers, as a class, are not a terror to the good deed, but to the evil; such is always the fact in principle, and such, taking human life as a whole, is the tendency, even at the worst, in practice, where the authority in any degree deserves its name. Now do you wish not to be afraid of the authority? do what is good, and you shall have praise from it; the "praise," at least, of being unmolested and protected. For God’s agent he is to you, for what is good; through his function God, in providence, carries out His purposes of order. But if you are doing what is evil, be afraid; for not for nothing, not without warrant, nor without purpose, does he wear his sword, symbol of the ultimate power of life and death; for God’s agent is he, an avenger, unto wrath, for the practiser of the evil. Wherefore, because God is in the matter, it is a necessity to submit, not only because of the wrath, the ruler’s wrath in the case supposed, but because of the conscience too; because you know, as a Christian, that God speaks through the state and through its minister, and that anarchy is therefore disloyalty to Him. For on this account too you pay taxes; the same commission which gives the state the right to restrain and punish gives it the right to demand subsidy from its members, in order to its operations; for God’s ministers are they, His ?????????? , a word so frequently used in sacerdotal connections that it well may suggest them here; as if the civil ruler were, in his province, an almost religious instrument of divine order; God’s ministers, to this very end persevering in their task; working on in the toils of administration, for the execution, consciously or not, of the divine plan of social peace. This is a noble point of view, alike for governed and for governors, from which to consider the prosaic problems and necessities of public finance. Thus understood, the tax is paid not with a cold and compulsory assent to a mechanical exaction, but as an act in the line of the plan of God. And the tax is devised and demanded, not merely as an expedient to adjust a budget, but as a thing which God’s law can sanction, in the interests of God’s social plan. Discharge therefore to all men, to all men in authority, primarily, but not only, their dues; the tax, to whom you owe the tax, on person and property; the toll, to whom the toll, on merchandise; the fear, to whom the fear, as to the ordained punisher of wrong; the honour, to whom the honour, as to the rightful claimant in general of loyal deference. Such were the political principles of the new Faith, of the mysterious Society, which was so soon to perplex the Roman statesman, as well as to supply convenient victims to the Roman despot. A Nero was shortly to burn Christians in his gardens as a substitute for lamps, on the charge that they were guilty of secret and horrible orgies. Later, a Trajan, grave and anxious, was to order their execution as members of a secret community dangerous to imperial order. But here is a private missive sent to this people by their leader, reminding them of their principles, and prescribing their line of action. He puts them in immediate spiritual contact, every man and woman of them, with the Eternal Sovereign, and so he inspires them with the strongest possible independence, as regards "the fear of man." He bids them know for a certainty, that the Almighty One regards them, each and all, as accepted in His Beloved, and fills them with His great Presence, and promises them a coming heaven from which no earthly power or terror can for a moment shut them out. But in the same message, and in the same Name, he commands them to pay their taxes to the pagan State, and to do so, not with the contemptuous indifference of the fanatic, who thinks that human life in its temporal order is God-forsaken, but in the spirit of cordial loyalty and ungrudging deference, as to an authority representing in its sphere none other than their Lord and Father. It has been suggested that the first serious antagonism of the state towards these mysterious Christians was occasioned by the inevitable interference of the claims of Christ with the stern and rigid order of the Roman Family. A power which could assert the right, the duty, of a son to reject his father’s religious worship was taken to be a power which meant the destruction of all social order as such; a nihilism indeed. This was a tremendous misunderstanding to encounter. How was it to be met? Not by tumultuary resistance, not even by passionate protests and invectives. The answer was to be that of love, practical and loyal, to God and man, in life and, when occasion came, in death. Upon the line of that path lay at least the possibility of martyrdom, with its lions and its funeral piles; but the end of it was the peaceful vindication of the glory of God and of the Name of Jesus, and the achievement of the best security for the liberties of man. Congenially then the Apostle closes these precepts of civil order with the universal command to love. Owe nothing to anyone; avoid absolutely the social disloyalty of debt; pay every creditor in full, with watchful care; except the loving one another. Love is to be a perpetual and inexhaustible debt, not as if repudiated or neglected, but as always due and always paying; a debt, not as a forgotten account is owing to the seller, but as interest on capital is continuously owing to the lender. And this, not only because of the fair beauty of love, but because of the legal duty of it: For the lover of his fellow ( ??? ?????? , "the other man," be he who he may, with whom the man has to do) has fulfilled the law, the law of the Second Table, the code of man’s duty to man, which is in question here. He "has fulfilled" it; as having at once entered, in principle and will, into its whole requirement; so that all he now needs is not a better attitude, but developed information. For the, "Thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shalt not murder, Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not bear false witness, Thou shalt not covet," and whatever other commandment there is, all is summed up in this utterance. "Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself." { Leviticus 19:18 } Love works the neighbour no ill; therefore love is the Law’s fulfilment. Is it a mere negative precept then? Is the life of love to be only an abstinence from doing harm, which may shun thefts, but may also shun personal sacrifices? Is it a cold and inoperative "harmlessness," which leaves all things as they are? We see the answer in part in those words, "as thyself." Man "loves himself" (in the sense of nature, not of sin), with a love which instinctively avoids indeed what is repulsive and noxious, but does so because it positively likes and desires the opposite. The man who "loves his neighbour as himself" will be as considerate of his neighbour’s feelings as of his own, in respect of abstinence from injury and annoyance. But he will be more; he will be actively desirous of his neighbour’s good. "Working him no evil," he will reckon it as much "evil" to be indifferent to his positive true interests as he would reckon it unnatural to be apathetic about his own. Working him no evil, as one who loves him as himself, he will care, and seek, to work him good. "Love," says Leibnitz, in reference to the great controversy on Pure Love agitated by Fenelon and Bossuet, "is that which finds its felicity in another’s good." Such an agent can never terminate its action in a mere cautious abstinence from wrong. The true divine commentary on this brief paragraph is the nearly contemporary passage written by the same author, 1 Corinthians 13:1-13 . There, as we saw above, the description of the sacred thing, love, like that of the heavenly state in the Revelation, is given largely in negatives. Yet who fails to feel the wonderful positive of the effect? That is no merely negative innocence which is greater than mysteries, and knowledge, and the use of an angel tongue; greater than self-inflicted poverty, and the endurance of the martyr’s flame; "chief grace below, and all in all above." Its blessed negatives are but a form of unselfish action. It forgets itself, and remembers others, and refrains from the least needless wounding of them, not because it wants merely "to live and let live," but because it loves them, finding its felicity in their good. It has been said that "love is holiness, spelt short." Thoughtfully interpreted and applied, the saying is true. The holy man in human life is the man who, with the Scriptures open before him as his informant and his guide, while the Lord Christ dwells in his heart by faith as his Reason and his Power, forgets himself in a work for others which is kept at once gentle, wise, and persistent to the end, by the love which, whatever else it does, knows how to sympathise and to serve. Romans 13:11 And that, knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep: for now is our salvation nearer than when we believed. Chapter 28 CHRISTIAN DUTY IN THE LIGHT OF THE LORD’S RETURN AND IN THE POWER OF HIS PRESENCE Romans 13:11-14 THE great teacher has led us long upon the path of duty, in its patient details, all summed up in the duty and joy of love. We have heard him explaining to his disciples how to live as members together of the Body of Christ, and as members also of human society at large, and as citizens of the state. We have been busy latterly with thoughts of taxes, and tolls, and private debts, and the obligation of scrupulous rightfulness in all such things. Everything has had relation to the seen and the temporal. The teaching has not strayed into a land of dreams, nor into a desert and a cell: it has had at least as much to do with the market, and the shop, and the secular official, as if the writer had been moralist whose horizon was altogether of this life, and who for the future was "without hope." Yet all the while the teacher and the taught were penetrated and vivified by a certainty of the future perfectly supernatural, and commanding the wonder and glad response of their whole being. They carried about with them the promise of their Risen Master that He would personally return again in heavenly glory, to their infinite joy, gathering them forever around Him in immortality, bringing heaven with Him, and transfiguring them into His own celestial Image. Across all possible complications and obstacles of the human world around them they beheld "that blissful hope". { Titus 2:13 } The smoke of Rome could not becloud it, nor her noise drown the music of its promise, nor her splendour of possessions make its golden vista less beautiful and less entrancing to their souls. Their Lord, once crucified, but now alive for evermore, was greater than the world; greater in His calm triumphant authority over man and nature, greater in the wonder and joy of Himself, His Person and His Salvation. It was enough that He had said He would come again, and that it would be to their eternal happiness. He had promised; therefore it would surely be. How the promise would take place, and when, was a secondary question. Some things were revealed and certain, as to the manner; "This same Jesus, in like manner as ye saw Him going into heaven". { Acts 1:11 } But vastly more was unrevealed and even unconjectured. As to the time, His words had left them, as they still leave us, suspended in a reverent sense of mystery, between intimations which seem almost equally to promise both speed and delay. "Watch therefore, for ye know not when the Master of the house cometh"; { Mark 13:35 } "After a long time the Lord of the servants cometh, and reckoneth with them". { Matthew 25:19 } The Apostle himself follows his Redeemer’s example in the matter. Here and there he seems to indicate an Advent at the doors, as when he speaks of "us who are alive and remain". { 1 Thessalonians 4:15 } But again, in this very Epistle, in his discourse on the future of Israel, he appears to contemplate great developments of time and event yet to come; and very definitely, for his own part, in many places, he records his expectation of death, not of a deathless transfiguration at the Coming. Many at least among his converts looked with an eagerness which was sometimes restless and unwholesome, as at Thessalonica, for the coming King, and it may have been thus with some of the Roman saints. But St. Paul at once warned the Thessalonians of their mistake; and certainly this Epistle suggests no such upheaval of expectation at Rome. Our work in these pages is not to discuss "the times and the seasons" which now, as much as then, lie in the Father’s "power". { Acts 1:7 } It is rather to call attention to the fact that in all ages of the Church this mysterious but definite Promise has, with a silent force, made itself as it were present and contemporary to the believing and watching soul. How at last it shall be seen that "I come quickly," and "The day of Christ is not at { Revelation 22:12 ; Revelation 22:20 , 2 Thessalonians 2:2 } were both divinely and harmoniously truthful, it does not yet fully appear." But it is certain that both are so; and that in every generation of the now "long time the Hope," as if it were at the doors indeed, has been calculated for mighty effects on the Christian’s will and work. So we come to this great Advent oracle, to read it for our own age. Now first let us remember its wonderful illustration of that phenomenon which we have remarked already, the concurrence in Christianity of a faith full of eternity, with a life full of common duty. Here is a community of men called to live under an almost opened heaven; almost to see, as they look around them, the descending Lord of glory coming to bring in the eternal day, making Himself present in this visible scene "with the voice of the archangel and the trump of God," waking His buried saints from the dust, calling the living and the risen to meet Him in the air. How can they adjust such an expectation to the demands of "the daily round"? Will they not fly from the City to the solitude, to the hilltops and forests of the Apennines, to wait with awful joy the great lightning flash of glory? Not so. They somehow, while "looking for the Saviour from the heavens," { Php 3:20 } attend to their service and their business, pay their debts and their taxes, offer sympathy to their neighbours in their human sadnesses and joys, and yield honest loyalty to the magistrate and the Prince. They are the most stable of all elements in the civic life of the hour, if "the powers that be" would but understand them; while yet, all the while, they are the only people in the City whose home, consciously, is the eternal heavens. What can explain the paradox? Nothing but the Fact, the Person, the Character of our Lord Jesus Christ. It is not an enthusiasm, however powerful, which governs them, but a Person. And He is at once the Lord of immortality and the Ruler of every detail of His servant’s life. He is no author of fanaticism, but the divine-human King of truth and order. To know Him is to find the secret alike of a life eternal and of a patient faithfulness in the life that now is. What was true of Him is true for evermore. His servant now, in this restless close of the nineteenth age, is to find in Him this wonderful double secret still. He is to be, in Christ, by the very nature of his faith, the most practical and the most willing of the servants’ of his fellow men, in their mortal as well as immortal interests; while also disengaged internally from a bondage to the seen and temporal by his mysterious union with the Son of God, and by his firm expectation of His Return. And this, this law of love and duty, let us remember, let us follow, knowing the season, the occasion, the growing crisis; that it is already the hour for our awaking out of sleep, the sleep of moral inattention, as if the eternal Master were not near. For nearer now is our salvation, in that last glorious sense of the word "salvation" which means the immortal issue of the whole saving process, nearer now than when we believed, and so by faith entered on our union with the Saviour. (See how he delights to associate himself with his disciples in the blessed unity of remembered conversion; "when we believed.") The night, with its murky silence, its "poring dark," the night of trial, of temptation, of the absence of our Christ, is far spent, but the day has drawn near; it has been a long night, but that means a near dawn; the everlasting sunrise of the longed for Parousia, with its glory, gladness, and unveiling. Let us put off, therefore, as if they were a foul and entangling night robe, the works of the darkness, the habits and acts of the moral night, things which we can throw off in the Name of Christ; but let us put on the weapons of the light, arming ourselves, for defence, and for holy aggression on the realm of evil, with faith, love, and the heavenly hope. So to the Thessalonians five years before, { 1 Thessalonians 5:8 } and to the Ephesians four years later, { Ephesians 6:11-17 } he wrote of the holy Panoply, rapidly sketching it in the one place, giving the rich finished picture in the other; suggesting to the saints always the thought of a warfare first and mainly defensive, and then aggressive with the drawn sword, and indicating as their true armour not their reason, their emotions, or their will, taken in themselves, but the eternal facts of their revealed salvation in Christ, grasped and used by faith. As by day, for it is already dawn, in the Lord, let us walk decorously, becomingly, as we are the hallowed soldiers of our Leader; let our life not only be right in fact; let it show to all men the open "decorum" of truth, purity, peace, and love; not in revels and drunken bouts; not in chamberings, the sins of the secret couch, and profligacies, not-to name evils which cling often to the otherwise reputable Christian-in strife and envy, things which are pollutions, in the sight of the Holy One, as real as lust itself. No; put on, clothe and arm yourselves with, the Lord Jesus Christ, Himself the living sum and true meaning of all that can arm the soul; and for the flesh take no forethought lust-ward. As if, in euphemism, he would say, "Take all possible forethought against the life of self ( ???? ), with its lustful, self-willed gravitation away from God. And let that forethought be, to arm yourselves, as if never armed before, with Christ." How solemnly explicit he is, how plainspoken, about the temptations of the Roman Christian’s life! The men who were capable of the appeals and revelations of the first eight chapters yet needed to be told not to drink to intoxication, not to go near the house of ill fame, not to quarrel, not to grudge. But every modern missionary in heathendom will tell us that the like stern plainness is needed now among the new-converted faithful. And is it not needed among those who have professed the Pauline faith much longer, in the congregations of our older Christendom? It remains for our time, as truly as ever, a fact of religious life-this necessity to press it home upon the religious, as the religious, that they are called to a practical and detailed holiness; and that they are never to ignore the possibility of even the worst falls. So mysteriously can the subtle "flesh," in the believing receiver of the Gospel, becloud or distort the holy import of the thing received. So fatally easy it is "