And these sentiments were uttered when a Nero sat upon the throne—when Palestine was being crushed beneath the iron heel of despotism—when brave and patriotic men were struggling for freedom.
The Bible has ever been the bulwark of tyranny. When the oppressed millions of France were endeavoring to throw off their yoke—when the Washingtons, the Franklins, the Paines, and the Jeffersons were contending for American liberty—craven priests stood up in the pulpit, opened this book, and gravely read: “The powers that be are ordained of God; they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation.”
In the American Revolution every Tory was a Christian, and nearly every orthodox Christian was a Tory. Writing in 1777, John Wesley says:
“I have just received two letters from New York.... They inform me that all the Methodists there were firm for the government, and on that account persecuted by the rebels” (Wesley’s Miscellaneous Works, Vol. III., page 410).
Referring to our Revolutionary fathers, Robert Dale Owen says:
“I know not what the private opinions of those sturdy patriots were, who, in the old Philadelphia State House, appended their signatures to the immortal document. But this I do know, that when they did so, it was in defiance of the Bible; it was in direct violation of the law of the New Testament.
“If a Being who cannot lie penned the Bible, then George Washington and every soldier who drew sword in the Republic’s armies for liberty expiate, at this moment, in hell-fire, the punishment of their ungodly strife! There, too, John Hancock and every patriot whose name stands to America’s Title Deed, have taken their places with the devil and his angels! All resisted the power; all, unless God lie, have received to themselves damnation” (Bacheler-Owen Debate, Vol. II., page 230).
From the first century to the twentieth—from Paul to Leo—these Bible teachings have dominated the Christian world. Of the early Christian Fathers, Lecky writes:
“The teaching of the early Fathers on the subject is perfectly unanimous and unequivocal. Without a single exception, all who touched upon the subject pronounced active resistance to the established authorities to be under all circumstances sinful” (Rationalism in Europe, Vol. II., page 136).
Jeremy Taylor, one of the greatest of modern divines, speaking not for himself alone, but for all Christians, says: