Page:St. Paul's behaviour towards the civil magistrate.pdf/16

 offered him the same indignities, I doubt not, he had borne them without any return but that of forgiveness. But when the civil privileges of that society to which he belonged were invaded by those whose duty and profession it was to maintain them, he thought it a just occasion to shew his sense of so great an evil; though it immediately touched only himself. The consideration of the character and office of those who offered the injuries, was so far from determining him to pass them over with silence, (according to some men's way of arguing) that it was this very thing that made him look upon them not as private injuries, but with a resentment due to injuries of a public and universal concern. And however some may ridicule the liberties of subjects, St. Paul, it is plain, was for standing fast, not only in the liberty with which Christ had made him free from the Jewish law of ceremonies; but also in that liberty with which the laws of nature, and of the Roman state, had made him free from oppression and tyranny. For,

5. It is another observation which we may make from his example, that he thought the end of written laws to be the security of the subject against any arbitrary proceedings of the executive power; and that this could not be, unless the executive were