Page:St. Paul's behaviour towards the civil magistrate.pdf/8

 request of his supperiors. Yet this great apostle did not think it honourable to go away without expressing some resentment against the invasion of the privileges of the subject which the magistrates had been, guilty of; and without pleading the cause of injured inferiors. He continues resolute till these magistrates themselves had waited upon him, and desired him to depart out of the city, v. 39. And here again, how would some, who pretend to found their notions of these matters upon this very apostle, have reprehended any other man in the same circumstances? Answerest thou the vicegerents of God so? Where is the profound respect due to that order instituted by God himself? Where is the sense of the duty of subjects? Nay, where is government itself, if subjects may be allowed to judge of the invasion of their own privileges, and if law's must be placed above the determinations of the executive power? But above all, where can there be a stop, when obedience is refused to a lawful injunction of the magistrate, and to what might without sin be complied with? Whom therefore shall we follow? those who speak after this manner? or St. Paul, who knew as well as they the duty owing to magistrates, and yet gave not up his own judgement to them to but, though a subject, and acting the part of a subject, took upon him (by what these