Page:St. Paul's behaviour towards the civil magistrate.pdf/15

 his behaviour speaks it aloud; for he never would have acted the part which he did, could he have thought it more for public good that subjects should give up all their judgements to the determination of their magistrates, than that they should judge concerning the violation of their common rights after the best manner they could. Let not men therefore forget modesty so much as to laugh out of countenance this right of judging in subjects, which St. Paul himself claimed merely as he was a subject.

4. Let those learn it from St. Paul who will not bear it from others, that rights and privileges, liberty and property, and the like, are not words fitted only to raise the spirits of the people, and to foment disturbances in society; but that they are things worth contending for. Some may think (unless respect to an apostle a little divert them from it) what great matter if St. Paul had borne a little scourging? or why could not he pass over the injuries suffered him by his governors? To which I know no better answer than this, that his behaviour was what it was, merely because they were magistrates, that is, because it was a case not of concern to himself only, but to human society. For he could bear, and pass by injuries as well as any man and had they been private persons who had