CHARLES WILLIAM STOCKER, D.D.

VICE-PRINCIPAL OF ST ALBAN HALL;

FORMERLY FELLOW OF ST JOHN'S COLLEGE, OXFORD, AND PRINCIPAL OF
ELIZABETH COLLEGE, GUERNSEY.

OXFORD,

PRINTED BY W. BAXTER:

SOLD BY J. H. PARKER, OXFORD; AND BY MESSRS. RIVINGTON,

LONDON.

ROMANS xiii. 3—5.

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: 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. Wherefore ye must needs be subject.

"RULERS (it is here said) are not a terror to good works, but to the evil." They are not, by God's institution, nor are they ordinarily; for evil (or crime), as being in its nature hostile to order and law, is generally, as such, the object of punishment, and good (or virtue), as being in its nature amicable to government, is generally, as such, taken under protection and made the object of favour: or, at any rate, (as Bishop Butler has observed,) "Good actions are never punished, considered as beneficial to society, nor ill actions rewarded under the view of their being hurtful to it"."

The declaration of what rulers are, indicates

Analogy, part I. ch. iii. § 3. p. 71. 8vo Oxford, 1807.

what they ought to be: it is the touchstone to which they must be brought for proof.

If "rulers are not a terror to good works, but to the evil," it seems to follow, that those who are "a terror to good works," but not "to the evil," are not rulers in the sense here used". If so, neither are they God's ministers or God's revengers, neither must we needs be subject to them. To settle this point, the sense of good and evil must be ascertained; as it is upon this, that the question of obedience ultimately hinges. It will be at once conceded, that what is good or evil morally speaking, and not theologically speaking, is here intended; that which is declared to be good or evil, not by the revealed word of God, but by the light of nature. At the same time, every moralist will maintain, that there is a natural, and not merely a legal, distinction between right and wrong; that certain actions are good, and certain other actions evil, not merely because the written law recognizes and pronounces them to be such, but antecedently to all human legislation a.

"He is no longer sovereign; they are no longer subjects." Burke's Works, vol. xiii. p. 170. Feb. 16, 1788.

The heretic Carpocrates maintained the contrary: A yaę, φησίν, οὐκ ἀληθείᾳ, τὰ μὲν τῶν πραγμάτων κακὰ εἶναι δοκεῖ, τὰ δὲ ἀγαθά. Theodoret. c. 5. In tantam insaniam effrænati sunt, uti et omnia quæcumque sunt irreligiosa et impia in potestate habere et operari se dicant: sola enim humana opinione negotia mala et bona dicunt. Iren. contra Hæres. lib. I. c. xxv.

§ 4.

Now, though there may be governments under which well-doers are punished and evil-doers rewarded; yet it would be only under the most corrupt tyranny (by which word I mean the lawless and capricious exercise of power, whether by one, by few, or by many) that vice would ever meet with reward, as vice, that virtue would ever meet with punishment, as virtue; and in such an extreme case the end of all government would be manifestly perverted. Indeed, the broad principle that all evil-doers ought to be punished, and all well-doers to be encouraged, is the universal assumption upon which the authority of government is based. In the signification, then, annexed to the terms, "evil-doers" and "well-doers," must lie the root of the fallacy; that is, in the definition of evil and good. The confusion arises from the specious artifices, by which these attributes can be interchanged; from the trickery, by which virtue and vice can be so disguised or decorated as to be taken and misnamed for each other from the fraud or delusion, by which men can call "evil good, and good evil; and put darkness for light, and light for darkness; and bitter for sweet, and sweet for bittere."

;

When Saul ordered Doeg to fall upon Ahimelech and the priests, it was on the plea, that they had conspired, with the son of Jesse, against their king. When Jezebel issued the secret

e Isaiah v. 20.

1 Samuel xxii.