man who hath done this most wicked deed. It utters the same voice of God which proclaimed, Numbers, 35: 33, "There can be no cleansing made for blood that is shed, but by the blood of him that shed it." How absurd to treat this and similar declarations as merely local and temporary statutes, and to talk of their being repealed! It is the declaration of a reason, a principle, which, if language can convey the impression, bears on its very face a universality and a permanence as wide and as immutable as the justice of God. There is nothing in the New Testament presenting more of these characteristics. The only question for any serious mind is-Was it really uttered by God.

But to return to the divine authority of the State and the magistrate; the argument under this head is direct and short. It consists in the plainest exegesis of one of the most significant

passages of the New Testament. 66 'Dearly beloved," says the Apostle (Rom. 12:19)" Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves (un avtovs indexovtes) for it is written, vengeance is mine:"-êμoì èxdixnois. Nothing can be more conclusive, say some, against your doctrine of retribution. How often, too, is this text quoted to show "the error of those, who," in the language of the writer in the Democratic Review, "would grasp the awful power of retributive justice, and drag it down from the high and holy sphere to which it belongs, into the lower regions of human polity-thereby giving to earthly rulers, under the notion of a divine right, not only to protect society, but also to punish what they may view as moral guilt." Truly it might seem so, even had the Apostle gone no farther; but how little is it generally adverted to, that closely following this, and in close and necessary connexion with it, is the very passage which most conclusively proves this very thing-namely, the divine and retributive authority of the magistrate as the minister of God. "Vengeance is the Lord's," says the Apostle; but then, after a brief exhortation to abstinence from individual righting of wrongs, and as a reason for it, he immediately proceeds exegetically to show how, and through what means, this vengeance of the Lord is exercised upon actual outward crimes upon the earth; as a part, though a far lower part, of that great administration of justice which embraces both worlds. "Let every soul," he immediately proceeds (Ch. 13), be subject to the powers that are over us—(¿ovolais VлɛɛZobσαιs). For the authority is not, except from God; and even the present existing authorities (at ovσai išovolai) are appointed of God. So that he that resisteth the authority, resisteth' the ordinance of God. For magistrates are not a terror to the good, but to the

1 The reference is not here to what may perhaps be rightful resistance (even though revolutionary) to an illegitimate law-lacking despotism, but to resistance to the lawful magistrate in the regular exercise of his power, under, and according to law. Neither is there reference here to the tyrannical Roman emperor, but to the magistrate generally, or to the magistracy, as an office then existing, and which, by God's appoin ment, always would exist in the world.

wicked. Wouldst thou then not be afraid of the authority, do that which is good, and thou shalt have praise of the same. For HE IS GOD'S MINISTER TO THEE. But if thou doest evil, be afraid, for he beareth not the sword in vain; for he is GOD'S MINISTER, an AVENGER (Exdixos) upon him that doeth evil."

Can there possibly be a doubt as to the true meaning and spirit of this passage? Would not the opposing school have said at once, that it preached the retributive doctrine, and would they not have unsparingly condemned it therefor as harsh and unevangelical, if, instead of being the language of the Apostle, it had been found in some modern production advocating the divine right of government? It is quite common, on questions of this kind, to set off the New Testament against the Old, but here both breathe the same spirit. In both, the divine authority of the lawful magistrate, as a minister of God, is not so much taught in the way of a new truth, as it is assumed as one long established and acknowledged. Among all nations, Gentile as well as Jewish, the judgeship has ever been esteemed a sacred office, and he who held it, as even ranking among the ministers of religion. Duis immortalibus proximi sunt magistratus, says Cicero. "And Jehoshaphat said unto the judges, Take heed what ye do; for ye judge not for man simply, but for THE LORD. And now let the FEAR OF GOD be upon you, for with the Lord your God there is no injustice."— 2d Chron., 19: 6, 7. The same idea is presented in the general directions given to magistrates, Deuteronomy, 1: 17. "Ye shall not respect persons in judgment; the cause of the small and the great alike shall ye hear; ye shall not be afraid of the face of man, for the judgment is God's."

It is not extravagant to suppose, that the Apostle had these and similar places of the Old Testament in view when he made the declaration on which we are commenting. This remarkable passage in Romans is introduced by him, both as a motive and as a reason for individual forbearance. It most certainly assumes to set forth the true power of the magistrate, the sanctions of his authority, and the grounds on which he is to be obeyed. He is the minister of God; and so, some would say, is everything in the natural world; but can we suppose that Paul made these solemn declarations, in the connexion in which they stand, with no higher sense than might be true of the wave that cast him on the shores of Melita? Can it be possible, that he would thus have trifled with his readers, by meaning no more than a physical power, when he calls it a "fear to the wicked, and a praise to those who do good?" The moral aspect pervades every part. The ideas of desert, and of moral guilt as the ground of punishment, meet us in almost every word. How little, on the other hand, does it savor of, or rather how utterly alien is the whole spirit of the passage to those ideas of expediency, of convenience, of the mere

ly economical authority of the magistrate as the majority's servant, to which some would give the chief place in criminal jurisprudence. "For he is the avenger" (exdixos), the same radical, which, in the verse introducing the whole passage (Rom. 12: 19), is applied to God-(uoi exdiznois) "Vengeance is mine." It is, therefore, the same vengeance, the same in kind, though lower in degree, and in application. It contains the same essential idea; an idea which is not in nature, nor in physical laws, nor in expediency. It is an idea which must belong to a true morality, and in whatever system it is not acknowledged, there this word has no real application. Such a system is merely physical, under whatever disguises it may seek to present the appearance of belonging to a higher department. The most rude and imperfect administration into which the idea of desert truly enters, is better entitled to the name, moral, than any scheme, however apparently refined and civilized that rejects it.

It is, in short, a power which is not in man, except as delegated to him from above. Is any one startled at this; he should rather feel that the authority of the true magistrate is a fearful thing, because connected with the fear of God; and therefore to be reverenced, not simply on the ground of expediency, but "for conscience sake"-did thy ovvεidnov (Rom. 13: 5). He should feel that law and the State are not those popular playthings which many are accustomed to regard them; that they are something more than the popular breath. He should examine carefully whether, through the prevalence of a false philosophy, his own ideas may not have fallen far below the real standard. It may not, after all, be the meek spirit of humility, but something of a very different nature, which prompts us to sever the connexion between divine and human justice, to talk about "erring mortals," and "usurping the high and holy prerogatives of Heaven." We are so made, and such is our moral nature, and such are our fearful relations to things above us, that, though unholy and imperfect we may be, we must exercise, and be affected by, high and holy responsibilities.

The then existing authorities spoken of in Romans 13, are doubtless those of the Roman Empire in its various departments. This fact is sometimes adduced in argument from two opposite motives. One class of writers would urge it in support of the higher sense; for the purpose of showing à fortiori, that the divine sanction was essential to the idea of present governments, because it had been declared to belong even to one of the worst of past times. If the Roman authorities were ordained of God, much more, would they say, should we regard in this light the magistracy of modern Christian countries. Others would contend, that the very fact of this being thus spoken of the wicked and corrupt Roman Powers, as they are pleased to style them, shows that

it was never intended to be taken in that higher sense which is maintained by the former class. Both we conceive, in certain respects, to be wrong. We do not think that the Apostle had in his mind the à fortiori view; and much less, that he meant to reason so absurdly, as by the particular instance to abate the force of his own general proposition. There is, besides, upon the minds. of many, a popular delusion in reference to the civil condition of the world at that time. The imagination is filled with the thoughts of Tiberius, and Caligula, and Nero; whereas, it was not so much Cæsar, as the Roman State and its collective authorities, to which allusion is made. This State and these authorities, imperfect as they might be, were the grand conservatories of the justice and order of the world. The city Rome, or the immediate contiguity of the palace, was the chief seat of those tyrannies and cruelties which stand out so prominently on the page of history. The great mass of the people, in the different departments of the Empire, were as well governed under a Nero as under a Vespasian, or a Trajan, or even an Antonine with all his stoical philosophy. The general and ordinary administration of justice was little affected by the personal wickedness of the Emperor. In the age in which St. Paul wrote, the Roman Empire was, in general, under a system of law administered on as pure principles as even now prevail in most parts of the civilized world. When the immediate passions and jealousies of the great were not concerned (which they, in general, gratified within the circle of their own aristocratic class), crime was, for the most part, impartially punished, and innocence protected in its rights. Indeed, in the abstract, the laws of the worst men, and even their abstract administration of justice, may be safely trusted, as being mainly founded on the sound principles of the moral sense, in all cases where individual feeling or interest does not control. If this had not been the case in the Roman Empire, the Apostle would never have thus spoken of the then magistracy, as "a terror to evil-doers, and a praise to them that do well." And so in almost all civilized communities, the criminal jurisprudence has been grounded and exercised on abstract principles far better than the personal character, either of the magistrates or of the people. In the abstract, all men love right and justice. There has been more good government in the world, and more righteous applications of the principles of justice to crime, than is generally allowed. The exceptions, in monarchical governments, have been of instances near the throne, and in democratic States, they have arisen in the midst of popular excitement ;-the reason in both cases being substantially the same, namely, that they have been brought, by peculiar circumstances, within the sphere of the personal and animal desire overpowering the abstract and rational will. Such examples, too,

it should be remembered, stand out prominently, because they have formed the special subjects of history.

Besides the Roman Empire was a collection of States, each of which retained, in a great measure, its own laws and its own system of jurisprudence, which had come down from the ancestral times. It is evident, then, that the Apostle had reference, not to Cæsar, but to something far higher, which no Cæsar and no people had ever created or could ever destroy-which lived on, and was destined to live on, amid all the convulsions of Roman despotism or of that Gothic turbulence by which it was to be succeeded.

We have here to do simply with the general position-the State as a Power ordained of God, without pretending to decide some difficult questions which grow out of it. We believe that there are extremes, which, although they may be called States and governments, are really not entitled to the name. The essential idea may be lost in two ways, namely, by substituting in place of true law, the unchecked will of a single despot, or the unrestrained passions of a mass or mob. But where the State practically ends, and what may be justly styled a mere aggregated mass begins, it does not belong to our present argument to decide; although we think there are certain principles on which this matter admits of a tolerably accurate determination. Neither would we meddle with the question of the right to revolutionize, or violently modify the forms of government. Even through all such changes, the State ever survives. The political life, which now flows in our own civil institutions, apparently so young in respect to their outward forms, may be shown to be older than the Norman conquest, and in some respects to have been derived even from the old Roman State. However this may be, it does not affect the position, that in all established governments based upon law, and carrying on a regular administration of justice under acknowledged religious sanctions,there is a branch,-it may be a very inferior and imperfect one, yet still a branch of the great law system of the Universeexercising a moral power, not given generally, like the laws of nature, but specially bestowed, as upon a divine institution; and that thus the magistrate is truly a minister of God, wielding a retributive power—ἔκδικος τῷ τὸ κακὸν πράσσοντι— “ an AVENGER upon him that doeth evil." In other words, he punishes crimes because they are wicked and wrong.

Does any one say that this is extreme doctrine; it may be well worth inquiring, whether it may not be safer than that other extreme, into which our own age, and especially our own country, is so inclined to run. An affected reverence, and an undisguised irreligion, are both striving to carry to the widest extent the separation between the human and divine, the moral and the economical, the political and the religious. The danger is increased by