These Sections teach as follows :

1st. Civil government is a divine institution, and hence the duty of obedience to our legitimate rulers is a duty owed to God, as well as to our fellow-men. Some have supposed that the right or legitimate authority of human government has its foundation ultimately in "the consent of the governed," "the will of the majority," or in some imaginary " social compact" entered into by the forefathers of the race at the origin of social life. It is self-evident, however, that the divine will is

the source of all government, and the obligajion to obey that will resting upon all moral agents the ultimate ground of all obligation to obey human governments. This is ('.ertain — [a.) Because God is the Creator and absolute Possessor of all men. (6.) Because he has formed their constitution as intelligent, morally responsible free agents, and is the Lord of the conscience, (c.) Because he is the supreme moral Governor of all moral agents, and because his all-embracing moral law of absolute perfection requires all that is morally right of every kind, and forbids all that is morally wrong. Hence every moral obligation of every kind is a duty owed to God. (d.) Because God has constituted man a social being ii his creation, and has providentially organized him ii families and communities, and thus made civil govern • ment an absolute necessity, (e.) Because as a providential Ruler of the world God uses civil government as his instrument in promoting the great ends of redemption in the upbuilding of his kingdom in the world. (/.) This is explicitly affirmed in Scripture : " There is no power but of God ; the powers that be are ordained of God. Whosoever, therefore, resisteth the power resisteth the ordinance of God." Rom. xiii. 1, 2. To the good the magistrate is "a minister of God for good," and to the evil he is *'a minister of God, an avenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil." Rom. xiii. 4. Of course God has not prescribed for all men any particular form or order of succession of civil government. He has laid the general foundation both for the duty and necessity of government ;n the consciences and in the social natures of all men and in the circumstances of all communities, while he has left eveiy

people free to choose their o vn form of government in their own way, according to their various degrees of civilization, their social and political condition, their hi&*torical antecedents, and as they are instructed by his word and led and sustained by his providence.

In this sense God as Creator, as revealed in the light of nature, has established civil government among men from the beginning, and among all peoples and nations of all ages and generations. But in the development of the plan of redemption the God-man as mediatorial King has assumed the government of the universe. Matt, xxviii. 18; Phil. ii. 9-11; Eph. i. 17-23. As the universe constitutes one physical and moral system, it was necessary that his headship as Mediator should extend to the whole and to every department thereof, in order that all things should work together for good to his people and for his glory, that all his enemies should be subdued and finally judged and punished, and that all creatures should worship him, as his Father had determined. Rom. viii. 28; 1 Cor. xv. 25; Heb. x. 13; i. 6; Rev. v. 9-13. Hence the present providential Governor of the physical universe and *^ Ruler among the nations" is Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews, to whose will all law^s should be conformed, and whom all nations and all rulers of men should acknowledge and serve. " He hath on his vesture and on his thigh a name written, King of kings and Lord of v)rds." Rev. xix. 16.

2d. The proximate end for which God has ordained magistrates is the promotion of the public good, and the ultimate end is the promotion of his own glory. This evidently follows from the revealed fact that the

glory or manifested excellence of the Creator is the chief end he had in the general system of things, and hence the appointed chief end of each intelligent agent. Eom. ix. 22, 23 ; xi. 36 ; Col. i. 16 ; Eph. i. 5, 6 ; 1 Pet. iv. 11. If the glory of God is the chief end of every man, it must be the chief end equally of all nations and communities of men, and it ought to be made the governing purpose of every individual in all his relations and actions, public and official, as well as private and personal. And if the glory of God is his chief end, it is that to which all other objects and designs are subordinated as ends. The specific way in which the civil magistrate is to endeavour to advance the glory of God is through the promotion of the good of the community (Rom. xiii. 4) in temporal concerns, including education, morals, physical prosperity and the protection of life and property, and the preservation of order; and

3d. Christian magistrates should also seek in their influential positions to promote piety as well as order. 2 Tim. ii. 1. This they are to do, not by assuming the functions of the Church, nor by attempting by endowments officially to patronize or control the Church, but personally by their example, and officially by giving impartial protection and all due facility for the Church in its work, by. the explicit recognition of God and of Jesus Christ " as Rule» among the nations," and by the enactment and enforcement of all laws conceived in the true Spirit of the Gospel, touching all questions upon which the Scriptures indicate the will of God specifically or in general principle, and especially as touching questions of the Sabbath day, the oath, mar 'iage and divorce, capital punishments, etc., etc.

34 •»

402 CiONFESSION OF FAITH.

4th. It is lawful for Christians to accept ai d execute the office of a magistrate. This is evident enough. Indeed in the highest sense it is lawful for none other than Christians to be magistrates or anything else, since it is a violation of God's will that any man is not a Christian. And the greater the number and the importance of the relations a man assumes, the greater becomes his obligation to be a Christian, in order that he may be qualified to discharge them all for the glory of God and the good of all concerned.

5th. Christian magistrates may lawfully, under the New Testament, wage war upon just and necessary occasions. The right and duty of self-defence is established by the inalienable instincts of nature, by reason, conscience, the word of God and the universal consent of mankind. If it is right for an individual to take life in self-defence, it must be equally right for a community to do so on the same principle.

It is very difficult to decide in particular cases when it is right for a Christian nation to go to war, and it is not our place to consider such questions. But the following general j)rinciples are very plain and very certain. War is an incalculable evil, because of the lives it destroys, the misery it occasions and the moral degradation it infallibly works on all sides — upon the vanquished and the victor, the party originally in the right and the party in the wrong. Jn every war one party at least must be in the wrong, involved in the tremendous guilt of unjustifiable war, and in the vast majority of cases both parties are thus in the wrong. No plea of honour, glory or aggrandizement, policy or profit can excuse, much less justify, wai-; nothing short of necessity

THE CI\IL MAGISTRATE. 403

to the end of the preservation of national existence. In order to make a war right in God's sight, it is not on^y necessary that onr enemy should aim to do us a wrong, but also (a) that the wrong he attempts should directly or remotely threaten the national life, and (b) that war be the only means to avert it. Evetn in this case every other means of securing justice and maintaining national safety should be exhausted before recourse is had to this last resort. A war may be purely defensive in spirit and intent while it is aggressive in the manner in which it is conducted. The question of right depends upon the former, not the latter — upon the purpose for which, and not upon the mere order in which, or theatre upon which, the attack is made.