of the apostle, the same obedience for the same reason due to them as to any monarch.

The apostle, farther explaining himself, and shewing, who may be accounted a magistrate, and what the duty of such a one is, informs us, when we should fear, and on what account. "Rulers," says he, "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; for he is the minister of God, a revenger to execute wrath upon him that doth evil." He therefore is only the minister of God, who is not a terror to good works, but to evil; who executes wrath upon those that do evil, and is a praise to those that do well. And he who doth well, ought not to be afraid of the power; for he shall receive praise. Now if our author were alive, though he was a man of a hard forehead, I would ask him, whether in his conscience he believed, that Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius, Nero, and the rabble of succeding monsters, were a praise to those who did well, and a terror to those who did ill; and not the contrary, a praise to the worst, and a terror to the best men of the world? Or for what reason* Tacitus could say, that virtue brought men who lived under them to certain destruction, and recite so many examples of the brave and good, who were murdered by them for being so, unless they had endeavoured to extinguish all that was

• Ob virtutes certissimum exitium.

Hist. 1. i. c. 2.

good, and to tear up virtue by the roots? Why did he call Domitian an† enemy to virtue, if he was a terror only to those that did evil? If the world has hitherto been misled in these things, and given the name of virtue to vice, and of vice to virtue, then Germanicus, Valerius Asiaticus, Corbulo, Helvidius Priscus, Thraseas, Soranus, and others that resembled them, who fell under the rage of those beasts, nay, Paul himself, and his disciples, were evil doers; and Macro, Narcissus, Pallas, Vinnius, Laco, and Tigellinus, were virtuous and good men. If this be so, we are beholden to Filmer, for admonishing mankind of the error in which they had so long continued. If not, those who persecuted and murdered them for their virtues, were not a terror to such as did evil, and a praise to those who did well. The worst men had no need to fear them; but the best had, because they were the best. All princes, therefore, that have power, are not to be esteemed equally the ministers of God. They that are so, must receive their dignity from a title, that is not common to all, even from a just employment of their power, to the encouragement of virtue, and to the discouragement of vice. He that pretends to the veneration and obedience due to the ministers of God, must, by his actions, manifest that he is so. And though I am unwilling to advance a proposition that may sound harshly to tender years, I am inclined to believe, that the same rule, which obliges us to yield

* Ipsam exscindere virtutem.

+ Virtutibus infestum.

Ann. 1. xvi. c. 21.

obedience to the good magistrate, who is the minister of God, and assures us, that in obeying him we obey God, does equally oblige us not to obey those, who make themselves the ministers of the devil, lest in obeying them we obey the devil, whose works they do.

That none, but such as are wilfully ignorant, may mistake Paul's meaning, Peter, who was directed by the same spirit, says distinctly, "Submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord's sake." If, therefore, there be several ordinances of men tending to the same end, that is, the obtaining of justice, by being a terror to the evil, and a praise to the good, the like obedience is, for conscience sake, injoined to all, and upon the same condition. But, as no man dares to say, that Athens and Persia, Carthage and Egypt, Switzerland and France, Venice and Turky, were, and are, under the same government; the same obedience is due to the magistrate in every one of those places, and all others on the same account, whilst they continue to be the ministers of God.

But

If our author says, that Peter cannot comprehend kings under the name of human ordinances, since Paul says, they are the ordinances of God, I may as well say, that Paul cannot call that the ordinance of God, which Peter calls the ordinance of man. as it was said of Moses and Samuel, that they who spoke by the same spirit could not contradict each other, Peter and Paul, being full of wisdom and sanctity, and inspired by the same spirit, must needs

say the same thing; and Grotius shews, that they perfectly agree, though the one calls kings, rulers, and governors, the ordinance of man, and the other the ordinance of God; inasmuch as God having from the beginning ordained, that men should not live like wolves in woods, every man by himself, but together, in civil societies, left to every one a liberty of joining with that society which best pleased him, and to every society to create such magistrates, and frame such laws, as should seem most conducing to their own good, according to the measure of light and reason they might have. And every magistracy so instituted might rightly be called the ordinance of man, who was the instituter, and the ordinance of God, according to which it was instituted; "Because," says he, "God approved and ratified the salutary constitutions of government made by men."

But, says our author, Peter expounds his own words of the human ordinance to be the king, who is the "lex loquens ;" but he says no such thing, and I do not find that any such thought ever entered into the apostle's mind. The words are often found in the works of Plato and Aristotle: but applied only to such a man as is a king by nature, who is endowed with all the virtues that tend to the good of human societies in a greater measure than any, or all those, that compose them; which character, I think, will be

* Quia salubrem hominum constitutionem Deus probavit & sanxit. De jur. bel. & pac.

ill applied to all kings. And that this may appear to be true, I desire to know, whether it would well have agreed with Nero, Caligula, Domitian, or others like to them; and if not with them, then not with all, but only with those who are endowed with such virtues. But if the king be made by man, he must be such as man makes him to be: and if the power of a law had been given by any human sanction to the word of a foolish, mad, or wicked man, (which I hardly believe) it would be destroyed by its own iniquity and turpitude, and the people left under the obligation of rendering obedience to those who so use the sword, that the nations under them may live soberly, peaceably, and honestly.

This obliges me a little to examine what is meant by the sword. The Pope says, there are two swords, the one temporal, the other spiritual; and that both of them were given to Peter and his successors. Others more rightly understand the two swords to be that of war, and that of justice, which, according to several constitutions of governments, have been committed to several hands, under several conditions and limitations. The sword of justice comprehends the legislative and the executive power: the one is exercised in making laws, the other in judging controversies according to such as are made. The military sword is used by those magistrates who have it, in making war or peace, with whom they think fit; and sometimes by others who have it not, in pursuing such wars as are resolved upon by another power. The Jewish doctors generally agree, that