Page:St. Paul's behaviour towards the civil magistrate.pdf/9

 persons might perhaps call a stubborn behaviour) to bring the magistrates themselves to a sense of that invasion they had made upon the rights and privileges of Roman subjects; and this, though the invasion appears to have been made merely through an hasty mistake. Of so great consequence did he think it to oppose one single instance of illegal oppression!

Thus have I given you a true account of the most remarkable passages recorded concerning St. Paul’s behaviour with respect to his civil privileges, and to those magistrates before whom he had occasion to appear. If any one say, all this relates only to deputed or inferior magistrates, not to the supreme; I answer, that it cannot relate to one without relating to the other, because government cannot be managed in the world but by deputed and inferior officers; because if every one of them may be thus used by subjects in any case, it is to little purpose to exempt the supreme from the like usages, since the same sort of disturbances, and evil consequences, will follow as if the supreme might be treated after the same manner; because the christian religion (as St. Peter testifieth) commands the obedience required in it, with respect to both; because otherwise the argument urged by some for the magistrate’s uncontroulable authority drawn from our Lord's