and the Powers that be are ordained of God And therefore if we be truly Christs Servants we shall be as truly the Kings Subjects and faithfully perform the Dutys of such because Christ hath so commanded us 2. By the Higher Powers you are not to understand any thing distinct from the Persons in Power but the Persons in Power themselves This is evident from the Context for the Higher Powers in the Text are no other then the Ruders in the 3d. vers which Rulers are called in the same verse the Powers Besides Power and Authority abstracted from the Persons in whom it is cannot be said to do what the Power or Powers are said to do viz. to commend or encourage aveng or punish Add to this that the Apostle having mentioned the Power vers the 3. and the Praise which they that do well have from it he adds immediately vers the 4th For he that must needs be the Person in Power is the Minister of God to thee for good and he bears not the Sword in vain c. Nor can we think this use of the word strange because 't is thus used more than once in the Holy Scriptures See Luke 12. vers 11. and Chapter 8. of this Epistle verse 38. when the Principality and Powers mentioned are certainly the the Princes and Men in Power which should permute Christs Disciples for their Faith and because 't is thus used frequently in Human Authors as might easily be shewed you if I did think it necessary And indeed Common Reason will teach us thus to interpret it for Power separated from the Person in whom it is is but a Chimera or figment of the Brain and serves to no purpose at all in the lives of men In Notion as we say they are distinct and may be considered assunder but indeed they are one and the same and cannot possibly be divided And therefore they that resist the Persons of them that are in Power resist their Power and Authority too The King of Syria that commanded his Captains to sight neither with small nor great 1 King ult v. 31. 2 Sam. 17.1 2. 1 Sam. 24.4 but against Ahab did bid them fight against the King of Israel And Achitophels Counsel was not only against David but against the King also And when David cut off the Skirts of Saul's Garment his heart told him that he had injured the King the Anointed of the Lord. To say that Ahab Saul or David could be touched wounded slain and their Power or Authority not violated is to speak superfine nice and to use the common phrase of of some men unscriptural Nonscence to mince and distinguish things into just nothing the Power and the Person in whom 't is Seated being inseparable And this I have noted for the Condemnation of those who were the Authors of that Distinction betwixt Power and Person as if one might fight against the one and not against the other And much more of those who could not only distinguish betwixt the Power and the Person but could Arm the Authority or Power against the Person that bare it For so in the late damnable Rebellion the Commons that raised it did pretend the Kings Authority to take Arms against Himself and though they took his Person Prisoner and cut off his Head yet they pretended that they did not design to hurt the King A most Hellish Device and beyond any of old Achitophels framed on purpose to overturn all setled Goverments and to bring Confusion and destruction upon all Human Society Against which our Laws have since very well provided requiring all persons admitted to Offices and Places of trust to abjure or renounce upon Oath the Trayterous position of taking Arms by the Kings Authority against his Person Indeed 't is hard to imagine that any rational People should ever entertain such a Trayterous Position the Authority which is for the safety of Subjects being manifestly much more for the safety of the Sovereign But what the Devil can do in the world by Gods permission and what power he has over men even wise men in wordly matters that love not the Truth in sincerity but hold it in unrighteousness is plain as in other things so in the prevalence of this senceless Doctrine in the late Times and by the backwardness of many to renounce it even in ours 3. When the Apostle saith that every Soul must be subject to the Higher Powers we must not understand it as if he meant that we must be subject to all the Powers that are in any part of the world and may take upon them to command us for what have we to do with the Powers of France or Spain or any other Countrey and what have they to do with us but we must understand it of our own Higher Powers i. e. of those whom God hath set over us and are his Ministers to us for our good Other Powers have their people and subjects and they and their Bounds are known They are concerned only to command their own Subjects and their Subjects are concerned to obey them only And let them see to the Practise of their Duty They have nothing to do with us nor we with them but as we have Powers or Governors of our own so we must be subject to them and them only If therefore any Foreign Prince or Potentate shall take upon him to command us we may we must slight his commands and resist his Forces if he uses any to compel us that we may discharge or Duty to our own King and Governor God has not commanded us to Serve several Masters of different interest and designs nay he has forbidden it in that he has set One over us and commanded us to be subject unto him And this is the more to be remembred by us because of the Popes claim what Power and Authority not only over us but over those Powers also which are set over us by Almighty God Believe the Pope and you must believe that we are his subjects and that the King is so likewise that he can depose him and give his Crown and Kingdom to another if he sees cause that he can loose the Bond of our Allegiance and empower us to fight against him and cast him out of his Throne This Power the Popes of Rome have claimed but as we are sure Christ never gave it them so we cannot own any such Power in them but we must be guilty of the breach of our Duty towards the King And against the owning of any such Power the Oath of Supremacy is a necessary and wise Caution 4. By the Higher Powers we must understand not only the Highest Power in the Kingdom i. e. the King but the Powers also that are subordinate to him and commissionated by him 'T is not said the Highest Power or Higher Power but the Higher Powers 'T is not to one only but to many that we must be subject but to those many not as Coordinate for
Power is greater than theirs we must do it I say we must do it because when the Laws may be obeyed without sin our disobedience is a sin and our suffering the penalty doth not remove the sin nor free us from the Judgment of God And this I have said to shew you the ill use that is commonly made of a Distinction currant among us of Active and Passive Obedience as if men might break the just Laws of the King and yet be good Subjects and not break this Commandment of God because they suffer the penalty when they cannot avoid it And so by the help of this Distinction which is none of the best those that least respect Authority would be thought as Dutiful and Obedient Subjects as they that are most observant of the Laws But as Almighty God the Supreme Ruler and Governor of the World when he gave Laws to mankind did not intend that they should break them and dye so the Powers that he hath set over us have not made Laws that men may be punished for breaking them but that they may observe them for their own and the publick Good And unless it be equally good to the King that his Subjects obey or be punished unless it be all one to him whether they be benefitted by the Laws or made miserable it cannot be thought that the Law is satisfied in its main Intention when the Subject is punished for the breach of it It is very true that when any Law is contrary to any Command of God Subjects are not bound to Active obedience for God must be obeyed rather than men and then the Passive Obedience or Submission to the Punishment is Sufficient but when the Law of the King is not contrary to any Command of God the chusing of Passive Obedience before Active is a real Contempt and Scandal 4. Our Purses and Estates must be so far subject to the Higher Powers as the paying of Taxes Tributes and Customs according as the Laws do require When the Question was proposed to our blessed Saviour by some Jews whether it were lawful to pay Tribute to Caesar or not He answered Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesars Math. 22.21 Customs and Tributes are Caesars therefore Caesar must have them And the Apostle here mentions it as an Instance of our subjection to the Higher Powers That we pay them Tribute vers 7. Render to all their Dues Tribute to whom Tribute is due Custom to whom Custom And due they are to the Higher Powers both in Justice and Gratitude for they are at the cost of our Defence and Protection and the Benefits we partake of by their care and pains are innumerable and invaluable They are Gods Ministers attending continually upon this very thing 5. We ought to be subject in undertaking such Offices as the Higher Powers shall call us to and in discharging them faithfully for their honour and the publick good Kings cannot do all things themselves in their own Persons but must make use of others in several employments and who can they better make use of then their own subjects and who are obliged to undertake them but they To those offices or employments that are mean and inferior the Dignity of Kings is not to condescend in those that are dangerous the safety of their Persons is not to be hazarded The People of Israel would not consent that David their King should go out with them to Battle for fear of quenching their light and they looked upon him as worth many Thousands of them The People are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they are to assist their Prince with their bodys and their Purses in the service of War 6. We must be so subject to all their censures and punishments as in no case to resist them If they lay heavy burdens upon us oppress and wrong us yea persecute us even to death we must not tumultuate and rebel against them There is no Power saith the Apostle here but is of God and the Powers that be are ordained of God They have their Authority from God and not from us and they are over us by Gods appointment as his Ministers and though God gave them their Power for their subjects good yet if they will abuse it they are responsible to God for it and not to us he has Power to punish them but we have none and he will do it when and in what manner he sees good and it is better for us to leave him to do it who hath said Vengeance is mine and I will repay then to take upon us to do it our selves and if we do so we are sure of a sufficient reward for our patient submission but if we resist them the Apostle tells us we resist the Ordinance of God we are Rebellious not only against our King but against God himself and therefore our resistance is highly finful and damnable for They that resist shall receive to themselves Damnation To which let me add the words of St. Peter 1 Epist 2.20 Where resistance is plainly forbidden even to an innocent Person For what glory is it if when ye be buffeted for your Faults ye shall take it patiently but if when ye do well and suffer for it ye shall take it patiently this is acceptable with God for even hereunto were ye called because Christ also suffered for us leaving us an example that ye should follow his steps who did no sin neither was Guile found in his Mouth who when he was reviled reviled not again when he suffered he threatned not but committed himself or his cause to him that judgeth righteously This Doctrine the Apostles of our Lord taught and the example of their Lord and ours they followed and so did all Christians for above six hundred years after Christ not only not Rebelling or Caballing or Conspiring against the Higher Powers when they were most of all tempted to it when they were persecuted and oppressed killed and tormented spoyled of their goods and every way most dispightfully used but also professing it to be unlawful And therefore if any be not convinced that this is their Duty if any do believe and will take upon them to maintain that they may lawfully in any case or for any cause suppose it be for Religion Rebel against or in any tumultuous and violent ways resist the Higher Powers they ought to be looked upon as wretched Apostates from one of the most considerable points of the Christian Doctrine as the maintainers of one of the most pernicious and damnable Heresies that ever was brought into the world Now in the practice of these Dutys does our subjection to the Higher Powers mainly consist and shew it self and if we will observe this precept of the Apostle it behoves us to take care that we be not wanting in any one of them III. I proceed now to shew you what is meant by every Soul or who are the Persons who are bound to be subject to the Higher Powers
they have their Authority from God and are his Ministers And if this be his meaning have we not good reason to believe that if we dispise them we despise God if we reproach and speak evil of them we reproach and blaspheme God if we disobey their just Laws we disobey God if we murmur resist rebel against the King we murmur and rebel against God And can we think that they can escape the Judgment of God who do so Can we have such thoughts of God as to imagine that he is not concerned in a special manner for the safety the Rights and Interests of his own Vicegerents and the Defence and Maintenance of his own Authority in them for the Government of the world Are we yet to learn what the miserable Ends of Seditious trayterous and Rebellious Persons usually are Has Liberty Peace and Plenty made us so wanton for I am sure we yet have suffered no Oppression to make us mad nor any want but what our own Prodigality idleness and viciousness have brought upon us that we care not what we do to bring confusion upon us Are we such Sots and Fools as to listen to the cursed whisperings of every Achitophel and to dance after the Pipe of every Shebah that shall be so mad as to blow a Trumpet in Israel and say we have no part in David nor Inheritance in the Son of Jesse Can we propose any thing so good to our selves by overturning the Present Goverment as to resolve to endure all the miseries of War and to march through a Sea of Blood for the compassing of it Are not all our Interests more safe and secure in the bosom of the Divine Providence whilst we continue quiet in our several Places and study to do our own Business then they would be under the Shields and Bucklers of the most famous Warriors in the ways of Treason and Rebellion Is the Author and Protector of our most holy Religion become so careless of it or so weak and feeble that we must needs sly to the Devil to support it shall we turn the Religion of the Cross in to a Religion of the Sword and change our Bibles for the Alchoran Were all the holy men of old who could not fight for their Religion even when they might have overcome so great were their numbers and their Resolution but could dye for it such fools that we think it madness to follow their Example Have we been reproaching the Church of Rome for so many years and that justly with their Trayterous and Rebellious Principles and Practises and shall we now lick up their Vomit and justify all their Treasons and Rebellions by treading in their steps Is it the way to render our Profession lovely in the eyes of the world and to endear to it our Governors to do thus And can we hope to engage Almighty God to take care of its preservation by the worst practises we dare be Guilty of against his Vicegerent In one word can we take it to be the way to Heaven to break the Order of the Divine Providence in the Government of the World to set at naught so many plain and express Commands from Christ and dispising all the Blessings of Peace to endeavour all the ways we can after confusion and destruction we cannot surely be so unreasonable Let us therefore I beseech you shew our selves Men and Christians Christians of the Communion of the best Church in the World a Church built upon a Rock that can never fall if we do not overthrow it our selves by our abuse of the Gospel and all those Excellent means of Piety and Vertue which we pertake of in it Let us fear the Lord and the King and not meddle with them that are given to change And being stedfastly perswaded that Almighty God is King over all that He standeth in the Congregation of the Mighty and is Judg among the Gods that he will not only execute Judgment in another world but doth Govern this and consequently will either Protect us from Violence and Persecution or crown our Patience and avenge our Cause let us always shew our selves good Christians by being Loyal Subjects And to the constant Practise of all that hath been now taught let us add our dayly Prayers to God in the behalf of our present Sovereign That it may please God so to bless and preserve him that he may rule over us many years in the Fear of God the constant exercise of Piety Justice and Mercy and in Prosperity and Peace That he may continue to deserve the Hearts of all his Subjects and ever have them That he may never give them any just cause for Jealousys and Suspicions and they never entertain any without Cause That he may be happy by our constant Practise of true Christian Loyalty and we be so likewise by his constant and effectual Care to maintain and promote the true Profession and Practise of Religion and the welfare of the Church of God Amen FINIS