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LAW OF PASSIVE OBEDIENCE.
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the doctrine as I have already cited from the example of the apostle Paul, and even from that of our Lord himself.
And, therefore, though the apostle Peter adds,—"Honor all (men): love the brotherhood: fear God: honor "the king:" yet he must necessarily be understood to mean, with the apostle Paul, that we must render " honor to whom honor" is due, and not to honor such men and such kings as are unworthy of honor![1]
- ↑ To the example of the patriotic apostle, Paul, upon this point, I must now add that of another chosen vessel of Christ, the protomartyr Stephen: this excellent man, "full of the Holy Ghost and wisdom," (Acts vi. 3,) "full of faith and power," (v. 8,) "and whose wisdom and spirit none were able to resist:" (v. 10,)—This excellent man, I say, has left us by his own example an unquestionable precedent on record to demonstrate that honour is not due to the highest temporal authority on earth, not even to a great national council of rulers and elders, while they exercise their authority in unjust prosecutions, and abuse their power by enacting unreasonable and tyrannical ordinances. The great council of the Jewish state had been "straightly commanded" the apostles and disciples of Christ (as I have already remarked in a preceding note) "not to speak at all, nor teach in the name of Jesus;" which command, it seems, was given lest their preaching should " bring this man's blood" (said the high priest, meaning the blood of our Lord Jesus; "upon us:" but Stephen paid so little regard either to the unlawful command itself, or to the reason of it, that he afterwards publicly upbraided the whole council, with the high priest at the head of it, (in the most stimulating and unreserved terms,) as the betrayers and murderers of the just One!—"Ye stiff-necked, and uncircumcised in heart and ears," said he to their faces in the public assembly,) "ye do always resist the Holy Ghost: as your fathers (did,) so (do) ye. "Which of the prophets have not your fathers persecuted? And they have slain them which showed before of the coming of the just One, of whom ye have been now the betrayers and murderers," &c. (Acts vii. 51 and 52.) Words could not well be sharper than these, which is manifest from their effect; for the text testifies that "when they heard these things they were cut to the heart, and they gnashed on him with (their) teeth." (v. 54.) Thus it clearly appears that the holy, innocent and meek Stephen did not think himself bound (like our undistinguishing passive-obedience men) to "submit to every ordinance of man," &c. nor to "honor all men," without making reasonable and due exceptions! Nay, so far from honoring man "merely on account of their temporal dignity, it is manifest that he treated the whole body of rulers with the utmost sevrity and contempt, while he thought them unworthy of honor,
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