“And agreeably to this supposition, we find that Paul argues the usefulness of the civil government in general, its agreeableness to the will and purpose of God, who is over all, and so deduces from hence the obligation of submission to it. But it will not follow that because civil government is, in general, a good institution, necessary to the peace and happiness of human society, therefore there are no supposable cases in which resistance to it can be innocent. So the duty of unlimited obedience, whether active or passive, can be argued neither from the manner of expression here (I Peter 2:13, Romans 13:1-7) nor from the general scope or design of the passage.
And if we attend to the nature of the argument with which the apostles enforces the duty of submission to the higher powers, we shall find it to be such a one as concludes not in favor of submission to all who bear the title of rulers in common, but only those who actually preform the duty of rulers by exercising a reasonable and just authority for the good of human society. This is a point which it will be proper to enlarge upon, because the question before us turns very much upon the truth or falsehood of this position. It is obvious, then, in general that the civil rulers whom the apostle here speaks of, and the obedience to whom he presses upon Christians as a duty, are good rulers, such as are, in the exercise of their office and power, benefactors to society. Such they are described throughout this passage. Thus it is said that they are not a ‘terror to good works, but to the evil;’ that ‘they are God’s ministers for good, revengers to execute wrath upon him that does evil;’ and that ‘they attend continually upon this very thing.’ St. Peter give the same account of rulers: They are ‘for a praise to them that do well, and the punishment of evildoers’ (I Peter 2:14). It is manifest that this character and description of rulers agrees only to such as are rulers in fact as well as in name: to such as govern well and act agreeably to their office. And the Apostle’s argument for submission to rulers is wholly built and grounded upon a presumption that they do in fact answer this character, and is of no force at all upon supposition of the contrary. If ‘rulers are a terror to good works, and not to evil’; if they are not ‘ministers for good to society,’ but for evil and distress, by violence and oppression; if they execute wrath upon sober, peaceable persons who do their duty as members of society, and suffer rich and honorable knaves to escape with impunity; if, instead of attending continually upon the good work of advancing the public welfare, they attend only upon the gratification of their own lust and pride and ambition, to the destruction of the public welfare — if this is the case, it is plain that the apostle’s argument for submission does not reach them; they are not the same, but different persons from those whom he characterizes and must be obeyed according to his reasoning….
If those who bear the title of civil rulers do no preform the duty of civil rulers, but act directly counter to the sole end and design of their office, if they injure and oppress their subjects instead of defending their rights and doing them good, they have not the least pretense to be honored, obeyed and rewarded, according to the apostle’s argument. For his reasoning, in order to show the duty of subjection to the higher powers, is, as was before observed, built wholly upon the supposition that they do in fact perform the duty of rulers….
Rulers have no authority from God to do mischief. They are not God’s ordinance or God’s minsters in any other sense than as it is by his permission and providence that they are exalted to bear rule, and as magistracy duly exercised and authority rightly applied in the enacting and executing good laws. Laws tempered and accommodated to the common welfare of the subjects must be supposed to be agreeable to the will of the beneficent author and supreme Lord of the universe, whose ‘Kingdom rules over all’ (Ps. 103:19) and whose ‘tender mercies are all over His works’ (Ps. 145:9). It is blasphemy to call tyrants and oppressors God’s ministers. They are more properly called ‘the messengers of Satan to buffet us’ (II Cor. 12:7). No rulers are properly God’s ministers but such as are ‘just, ruling in the fear of God’ (II Sam. 23:3).When once magistrates act contrary to their office and the end of their institution, when they rob and ruin in the public instead of being guardians of its peace and welfare, they immediately cease to be the ordinance and ministers of God and no more deserve that glorious character than common pirates and highwaymen. So that whenever that argument for submission fails, which is grounded upon the usefulness of magistracy to civil society (as it always does when magistrates do hurt to society instead of good), the other argument, which is taken from their being the ordinance of God, must necessarily fail also, no person or civil character being God’s minister, in the sense of the apostle, any further than he performs God’s will by exercising a just and reasonable authority and ruling for the good of the subject.”
Jonathan Mayhew — Reformed Minister
Discourse Concerning Unlimited Submission and Non-Resistance to the Higher Powers
