but the subordination of a lower to a higher fear— the fear of him who was able to kill the body, to the fear of Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in Hell. They did not resist the inflictions of the earthly power on their persons and properties, and all on earth which belonged to them. These they submitted to the absolute disposal of the rulers of this world; and it may serve perhaps the object of a right discrimination in this matter of resistance-if in the following verse where the term is introduced, it be considered what precisely that was which Christians are there spoken of as resisting. The apostle in the Hebrews tells his disciples that they had not yet" resisted unto blood, striving against sin." This was wholly different from the resistance of war, when the soldier strives against those who are seeking after his blood; and, for the deliverence of his own life, would embrue his hand in the blood of an enemy. This is one way of resisting unto blood; but it is altogether distinct from, nay opposite to, the resistance unto blood which Christians were often called to in these days. The object of their resistance was not to save their own blood by shedding the blood of their enemies. It was not against this that they strove, or against their enemies that they strove. The precise object of their striving was against sin-the sin of renouncing their profession, and thus denying the Lord who bought them. This at all hazards they behoved to resist. Against this, and

this alone, they strove: and as to their lordly per

secutors, instead of striving against them they placidly and submissively gave themselves up unto their hands.

And thus too at this moment, the Church of Scotland-submitting to the civil power in all that is civil; and only refusing her obedience, when that power assumes an authority over things sacred. Many are not able, perhaps not willing, to discriminate in this matter; and so, at. their hand, she suffers the obloquy of being a rebel against the laws -and this because one of the subordinate courts in our realm, has transgressed her own limits, even as the sanhedrim or supreme court of Judea did theirs, when they forbade the apostles to preach any more in the name of Jesus. It is a great and a vital cause; and has led to a contest which is not yet terminated, and perhaps only begun. Heaven grant an apostolic wisdom, as well as an apostolic boldness, on the part of her ministers-that they may acquit themselves rightly of all which they owe both to God and to Cesar; and so that, while faithful to their Master in heaven their loyalty to the powers which be on earth may, in all that is possible, and as far as lieth in them, become patent and palpable to all men. Meanwhile, in the eyes of some she may wear the aspect of a refractory member in the body politic, more especially in an age when the principles are forgotten on which our Non-erastion Church is based-principles which at one time the sustained and at length triumphant controversy of several generations, had made as

familiar as household words, even to the peasantry of our land. O Lord, may Thy grace and Thy guidance be with the present majority of our Church-so that whether they shall achieve a victory or sustain a defeat, Wisdom may yet be justified of all her children. If theirs be the victory, let it become manifest, O God, that a rightly administered, and withal an established church, in the full possession of her spiritual independence, is the great palladium, not of freedom alone, but of stability and good order in the commonwealth. But if it seem good unto Thee that it shall be otherwise, and that defeat and disappointment shall be theirs -we will not let go our confidence in the final and everlasting establishment of Thine own divine supremacy over the nations-when, after it may be the fearful period of a wasteful and wide-spread anarchy, the kingdoms of this world shall have become the kingdoms of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.

314

LECTURE XCIII.

ROMANS, xiii, 8-10.

"Owe no man any thing, but to love one another: for he that loveth another hath fulfilled the law. For this, Thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shalt not kill, Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not bear false witness, Thou shalt not covet; and if there be any other commandment, it is briefly comprehended in this saying, namely, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. Love worketh no ill to his neighbour: therefore love is the fulfilling of the law."

'OWE no man any thing.' This precept of the apostle, limited within these few words, may signify one or other of these two things-either to leave not our debts unpaid; or, higher, and many would say more scrupulous still, never get into debt. The clause now quoted of our present verse may be looked too as a repetition of the clause in that verse which goes immediately before it"Render unto all their dues"-what is due, (debitum, debt,) being the same with what is owing. And in this form too it admits of both the interpretations now given-either let every debt be at length cancelled, or let no debt ever be contracted. Never let it become a debt-Be in no man's books. If he be an individual with whom you are dealing, pay the moment that you buy. Or if it be the government, and so the liability is not a price but a tax,

According

pay on the day that it becomes due. to the usages of society, the injunction in this latter or more rigorous meaning of it is far from being generally adhered to. Perhaps it may not at all times suit the conveniences or even the possibilities of business, that each single transaction should be what in familiar phrase is termed a ready-money transaction. Perhaps even in the matters of family expenditure, it might save trouble, instead of paying daily and in detail, to pay at certain terms; and so with the consent, nay even the preference of both parties, is there often a running of accounts, and a discharge or settlement of these periodically. We shall not therefore insist very resolutely or dogmatically on this rule of the apostle, in the literal or extreme sense of it. Perhaps it were an over-sensitive casuistry, a sort of ultraism in morals, to urge the unexcepted observance of our text in the very terms of this its second interpretation. There can be no doubt, however, that in the first interpretation of it, it is a matter of absolute and universal obligation. Though we cannot just say with full and perfect assurance, that a man should never in any circumstances get into debt-we can feel no hesitation in saying, that, once in, he should labour most strenuously and with all his might, to get out of it. I will not therefore be so altogether intolerant and peremptory, as to give it forth in the style of an aphorism or dictation-that he should never become a debtor to any man, be it for a single month or even a single day. Yet ill we proclaim