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Section VI
A specific statement of the duties of subjects and citizens
Thus far
the duty of subjection has been stated in general terms, and pressed upon
general considerations. The apostle now proceeds more
in detail.
1. The requisite
contributions are to be made for the maintenance of government.
“For
this cause pay ye tribute also: for they are God’s ministers, attending
continually upon this very thing.” Verse 6.
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The word
here rendered “tribute” 
signifies, literally —as does our word by
which it is rendered— the contributions levied upon a conquered state or
province. It also means any direct tax laid indiscriminately upon all citizens —such
as land tax, capitation tax, or a tax upon personal estate; and, even more
generally, any kind of levy by which national revenues are gathered, with the
exception of customs. This is its meaning here, and the payment of such taxes
is enforced by a three-fold argument —and, (1.) From the
nature, and ends, and benefits of civil rule. “For this cause pay ye
tribute.” Some expositors regard this clause as referring to the preceding
verse, and, consequently, as urging a conscientious response to the pecuniary
demands of government. To this interpretation there can be no doctrinal
objection. This is, in fact, the very gist of the precept contained in the
entire verse. It is better, however, to consider this clause as looking back to
the whole of the foregoing teachings of the apostle on the subject of civil
power and its exercise, with special reference to the great argument which lies
at the foundation of the general duty of subjection —the fact that civil
government is no mere human arrangement, but a divine institution. (2.) The
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apostle argues from the fact that magistrates are God’s “ministers.”
That they are so, has been previously stated, and the import of the term we
have attempted to explain, viz., that it designates civil rulers as the
servants of God, not in the general way in which all things, even inanimate,
serve Him, inasmuch as they are controlled by His power, and guided by His
hand, so that they are instruments of accomplishing his unalterable purposes;
but in a limited and specific sense, as they are employed in administering his
law, in administering authority which He has ordained, in executing functions
which he has prescribed. In other words, magistrates are God’s “ministers,” in
a sense analogous to that in which ecclesiastical functionaries are “ministers”
of Christ. This view is clearly expressed by the term here rendered “ministers.”
It is not the same with that used in the fourth verse. There it is 
here it is 
—a title given by the Athenians to those
employed by the state in particular offices by national appointment, and often
used by the inspired writers in the sense of holding a public office or
ministry. In Hebrews 10: 11, it denotes the exercise of the priestly office.
The occupant of civil power —by whatever form of lawful procedure invested with
power— is still the “minister” of
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God. To withhold such contributions as the exigencies of
the government require, is, consequently, a dishonor done to God, by whom the
magistrate has been appointed and his duties assigned. (3.) The payment of
taxes is a duty inasmuch as they are justly due —due upon the principle of work
done, and benefit conferred. “Attending continually upon this
very thing.” Not the collection of taxes merely. It is impossible that
this can be the apostle’s meaning. Civil rulers are not mere tax
gatherers. And those who are specially employed in this department are
principally of that class to whom, least of all, the passage refers. The
magistracy —a good magistracy, and the apostle speaks of no other —“attend” to
higher duties, to the advancement of the public weal, the promotion of peace,
of social and moral order, of religion, of the glory of God. On this ground,
then, it becomes a duty to contribute conscientiously to the national funds.
There is a service rendered —a work done —benefit received; and on the common
principles of equity which regulate all matters of a pecuniary kind in common
intercourse and business.
It may be
regarded as strange that this —as we would probably regard it —inferior civil
duty should thus be made to occupy the first place in the detailed exhibition
of what is comprehended in
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“subjection” to the “higher
powers.” Further reflection shows the wisdom of this arrangement; for while the
moral and industrious —good citizens— and such as are here mainly addressed,
though the duty of all is taught— will not be easily drawn into any course of
conduct adverse to social order, it is by no means so easy, even for such, to
bear in mind the fact that taxes are to be conscientiously paid —that to
defraud the public revenues, directly or indirectly, is to sin against God —not
only on the ground and for the reason that it is sin to withhold from any what
is their due, but also for the specific reason that the magistrate is God’s “minister,”
and that thence it is a kind of sacrilege to refuse to contribute to the public
treasury.
Having,
for some such reason as we have assigned, presented this duty, separately and
distinctly, Paul proceeds,
(2.) To
present, in one view, the whole range of duties owing to civil rulers.
“Render,
therefore, to all their duties; tribute to whom tribute; custom to whom custom;
fear to whom fear; honor to whom honor.” Verse 7.
The
Subject is still that of civil rule, and, hence, the first clause, which in its
terms admits of a wider extension, is limited to the general subject of the
passage: “Render to all” in authority “their
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dues;” for among the “higher powers” some are employed
particularly in one department, and some in another. Let each receive that sort
of subjection which his peculiar place renders especially imperative. And,
(1.) As
before, “Tribute to whom tribute.” (2.) “Custom to whom custom.” The rendering
here is literal and exact. The word used by the apostle 
has precisely the signification here given it.
It denotes that sort of revenues which is gathered by
impost laid upon property imported from other nations —as tribute 
comprehends all kinds of revenues raised
within the national boundaries. (3.) “Fear to whom fear;” meaning not a slavish
fear, but that awe which a righteous administration of power is designed and
calculated to awaken in the mind of the subject of civil rule; such an awe as
leads to a quiet and orderly obedience to the law and its appointed judges and
executors. (4.) “Honor to whom honor;” for the magistrate, worthy of the name,
deserves, “for his work’s sake,” as occupying a high place as God’s “minister,”
a peculiar esteem, regard, and homage. His person should be treated with
respect, and his faithful administration of law should secure to him the
unfeigned respect of the citizen and the Christian. And this, not only for his
office’ sake, or his
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work’s sake, but as essential to the due influence of his
authority in the restraint of the disobedient and the lawless. For, if “honor”
be not paid him —if his attempts to vindicate just law, and to advance the
public interests, be not sustained by the good opinion of the order-loving
portion of the community —if they indulge in contempt of his person, it is
evident his authority will be little feared by that class of the population
which especially requires the control of sound legislative and judicial action.
It was a precept of heavenly wisdom, “Thou shalt not speak evil of the ruler of
thy people.”
We have
said the magistrate “worthy of the name;” for neither reason nor scripture
demands or even justifies the rendering of honor to the tyrannical, the
immoral, the profane, the godless. Reason does not;
for this would tend to confound all moral distinction. To honor the undeserving
is contrary to every right feeling —to every intelligent conviction; for what
claim to “honor,” as “the minister of God,” has one like the present Emperor of
France —a licentious, godless adventurer, elected by craft and violence to his
seat of power; or a Pius IX the occupant of a blasphemous throne —the deceiver
and oppressor of his ruined States —the prime leader in Satan’s grand
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array against Christ and his gospel? Such may wear the
crown —they may shine in purple or in scarlet —they may receive the homage of
the pliant and interested tools of their base conspiracies against God and man,
—but right reason forbids us to regard them with that “honor” which the power “ordained
of God” may justly demand.
The
Scriptures most clearly sanction what in this matter reason teaches. Saul was
king of
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“Honor” is too precious to be
lavished upon the base, the godless, the cruel.
REMARKS
1. Common, everyday duties
are to be performed religiously. —This is clearly implied in the whole
strain of the verses before us. They embrace the discharge of all civil
duties, the whole subject of obedience to the law; and the motives by which
these are enforced are, throughout, religious. That is not true religion whose
practical influence extends no farther than acts of devotion, or to relations
merely domestic and ecclesiastical. Genuine piety and godliness are
all-pervading. The heart of the truly devout is, in every principle, in
every emotion, in every purpose, quickened and renovated by a new and energetic
life; a life possessed of such properties as necessarily constitute it a
universal principle of action. “If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature —old
things are passed away; behold, all things are become new,” (II
Corinthians 5: 17) Hence, even the making of pecuniary contributions for the
maintenance of government, is an act to be performed with an eye to the law and
authority of God, as the prime consideration. That sort of religion which
confines its guiding and restraining influence to any limited
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sphere should not merely be suspected but denounced. The
sincere Christian will be a Christian in the mart of business, in the hall of
legislation, in the seat of science, in the executive chair, and in the walks
of social intercourse. He stands ever in direct contrast with the godless —for “God
is in all his thoughts,” and he is bound by, and ought to feel the obligations
of the divine law and the responsibilities of the Christian character, in every
place, relation, and act, —and can, of course, no more sanction or do anything
to sustain error, heresy, or wrong, blasphemy, idolatry, or oppression,
Socinianism, popery, or slaveholding, when employed in civil or political
functions, than in the family, the sanctuary, or the court of ecclesiastical
judicature. Hence,
2. It
is equally clear that all civil duties are to be done with reference to Christ
as the administrator of the law of Heaven. —It is admitted that the passage
before us makes no direct allusion to Christ as the medium of all true and
acceptable obedience to God. But this is not the less implied. If magistrates
are to be “feared” and “honored” devoutly and religiously, it must be in
Christ. Moreover, we may and ought to compare Scripture with Scripture. One
passage —as this— enjoins duties, and states the general principles on which
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they are to be performed: other passages exhibit the
precise form in which the service is to be rendered. Turning to these we find
their light and teaching clear and explicit. The Master himself says: “No man
cometh to the Father but by me.” And again: “The Father judgeth no man, but
hath committed all judgment to the Son, that all men should honor the Son, even
as they honor the Father. He that honoreth not the Son honoreth not the Father
which hath sent him.” And finally, speaking by Paul: “And whatsoever ye do, do
it heartily as to the Lord, and not unto men, knowing that of the Lord ye shall
receive the reward of the inheritance, for ye serve the Lord Christ,” (John 14:
6;
3. The
Scriptures are a complete and perfect rule of obedience. —The main design,
indeed, of divine revelation is to teach men their condition and state before
God, and to lead them back, by the discoveries they make of the glory, majesty,
supremacy, holiness, and mercy of God, to Him as the fountain of life, the only
source of permanent blessedness. They also reveal the fact that in a future
state the common relations and occupations of the present state shall have no
place, and yet it is apparent in every part of the sacred volume that it is
designed to shed its light upon every one of
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these so long as they are to engage the attention of men,
and to enforce, even here, exclusive devotion of mind, heart and effort, to the
service of God. It is a plausible but very superficial view of the Book of God,
and its design, to imagine that it slights the affairs of time, as utterly
unworthy of its regard in comparison with things eternal. The truth is, the law
—the revealed will and law of God— covers the entire existence of man, and is
intended to furnish all the instruction requisite for the right exercise of
every faculty, the right use of every gift, in whatever condition and
circumstances, man, the creature of God, is placed by the hand of his Maker,
and also to enforce its instruction by the paramount authority of Him who is
the “only Potentate.”
So far
then is it from being true that the Christian is to disregard the movements of
society, or even what relates to matters of civil regimen, and human rights and
liberty, that the very opposite is a truth, and a most important one. The
Christian should, of all men, regard things like these with a constant and
active interest. So his Bible teaches him —for its pages abound in directions bearing
immediately upon them. So soon as he opens its pages, his eye lights upon some
truth, law, maxim, warning or example, which he may and should apply to the
ordinary interests of time. Hence,
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4. The
Bible is the great security of all social order. —The Bible, of course, read,
studied, believed, and made “the man of our counsel.” It must be so; for it
guards on the one hand, when fairly interpreted, the rights of the individual;
it allows of no tyrannical exercise of power, forbidding all oppression, and
elevating every human being to his true position of dignity and worth as
intelligent and immortal; bringing all down to the same level as guilty before
God, and utterly alienated from Him; raising again all the penitent and the
believing alike to the highest place of privilege and of hope. Consequently it
abases pride, restrains gross and vulgar ambition, teaches mutual esteem, and
enjoins mutual interest and good offices.
But on
the other hand, the Bible enforces with its sanctions a due arrangement,
connection and subordination in human society. Ever maintaining the
prerogatives of an enlightened conscience, it offers no toleration to the
vicious, the malevolent, the disorderly, the
seditious. It not only restrains them by clear discoveries of the wrath of God,
which inevitably attends and visits lawlessness and crime, but, in addition,
arms lawful authority with the right to inflict punishment proportioned to the
nature and circumstances of offenses against social order and moral law. It
establishes all just authority; parental, ecclesiastical and civil.
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These
properties of the Word of God, properly considered, enable us to see why it is
that tyrants fear it; that despotic governments oppose its free circulation. It
sets up a standard of judgment as the guide of human action infinitely above
the enactments of mere human power. It divests man of a superstitious and
debasing reverence for arbitrary rule. It exalts, as to the greatest and most
desirable issues, the poorest and humblest to a level with the highest. It
brings all alike before the same just and impartial tribunal. And, hence, a
community imbued with scriptural knowledge can never become the prey of
arbitrary power. Such a people will scorn and cast off the yoke of ignoble
bondage. But for the same reason, the Bible ever imparts an unshakable
stability to free and equitable social and political arrangements, for it
teaches men their several duties, discloses to them the beneficent ends of
governmental institutions, and endues them with the dispositions and sobriety
requisite to, and that go to make, a stable order of society. The free seek and
promote, as the best safeguard of liberty, the knowledge of that very Bible
which the aristocratic and selfish would put under restraint.
All
history confirms these views, and hence the instructive lesson: study, spread,
reverence the
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inspired volume, for in it we have this life, as well as life
eternal.
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