But he held that rulers, supreme as well as subordinate, were invested with authority for the public good; that obedience was not due to them in any thing contrary to the divine law, natural or revealed; that, in every free and well‑constituted government, the law of the land was superior to the will of the prince; that inferior magistrates and subjects might restrain the supreme magistrate from particular illegal acts, without throwing off their allegiance, or being guilty of rebellion; that no class of men have an original, inherent, and indefeasible right to rule over a people, independently of their will and consent; that every nation is entitled to provide and require that they shall be ruled by laws which are agreeable to the divine law, and calculated to promote theirwelfare; that there is a mutual compact, tacit and implied, if not formal and explicit, between rulers and their subjects; and, if the former shall flagrantly violate this, employ that power for the destruction of the commonwealth which was committed to them for its preservation and benefit, or, in one word, if they shall become habitual tyrants and notorious oppressors, that the people are absolved from allegiance, and have a right to resist them, formally to depose them from their place, and to elect others in their room.
The real power of the Scottish kings was, indeed, always limited, and there are in our history, previous to the era of the Reformation, many instances of resistance to their authority. But, though these were pleaded as precedents on this occasion, it must be confessed that we cannot trace them to the principles of genuine liberty. They were the effects of sudden resentment on account of some extraordinary act of male‑administration, or of the ambition of some powerful baron, or of the jealousy with which the feudal aristocracy watched over the privileges of their own order. The people who followed the standards of their chiefs had little interest in the struggle, and derived no benefit from the limitations which were imposed upon the sovereign. But, at this time, more just and enlarged sentiments were diffused through the nation, and the idea of a commonwealth, including the mass of the people as well as the privileged orders, began to be entertained. Our Reformer, whose notions of hereditary right, whether in kings ornobles, were not exalted, studied to repress the insolence and oppression of the nobility.He reminded them of the original equality of men, and the ends for which some were raised above others; and he taught the people that they had rights to preserve, as well as duties to perform. With respect to female government, he never moved any question among his countrymen, nor attempted to gain proselytes to his opinion.[458]
Such, in substance, were the political sentiments which were inculcated by our Reformer, and which were more than once acted upon in Scotland during his lifetime. That in an age when the principles of political liberty were only beginning to be understood, such sentiments should have been regarded with a suspicious eye by some of the learned who had not yet thrown off common prejudices, and that they should have exposed those who maintained them to a charge of treason from despotical rulers and their numerous satellites, is far from being matter of wonder. But it must excite both surprise and indignation, to find writers in the present enlightened age, and under the sunshine of British liberty, (if our sun is not fast going down,) expressing their abhorrence of these principles, and exhausting upon their authors all the invective and virulence of the former anti‑monarcho‑machi, and advocates of passive obedience. They are essentially the principles upon which thefree constitution of Britain rests; and the most obnoxious of them were reduced to practice at the memorable era of the Revolution, when the necessity of employing them was not more urgent or unquestionable, than it was at the suspension of the queen regent of Scotland, and the subsequent deposition of her daughter.
I have said essentially: for I would not be understood as meaning to say, that every proposition advanced by Knox, on this subject, is expressed in the most guarded and unexceptionable manner, or that all the cases in which he was led to vindicate forcible resistance to rulers, were such as rendered it necessary, and as may be pleaded as precedents in modern times. The political doctrines maintained at that period received a tincture from the spirit of the age, and were accommodated to a state of society and government comparatively rude and unsettled. The checks which have since been introduced into the constitution, and the influence which public opinion, expressed by the organ of a free press, has upon the conduct of rulers, are sufficient, in ordinary cases, to restrain dangerous encroachments, or to afford the means of correcting them in a peaceable way; and have thus happily superseded the necessity of having recourse to those desperate but decisive remedies which were formerly applied by an oppressed and indignant people. But if ever the time come when these principles shall be generally abjured or forgotten, the extinction of the boasted liberty of Britain will not be far off.
There are objections against our Reformer’s political principles which demand consideration, from the authority to which they appeal, and the influence which they may have on pious minds. “The doctrine of resistance to civil rulers,” it is alleged, “is repugnant to the express directions of the New Testament, which repeatedly enjoin Christians to be subject to ‘the powers that be,’ and denounce damnation against such as disobey or resist them on any pretext whatever. With the literal and strict import of these precepts the example of the primitive Christians agreed; for, even after they became very numerous, so as to be capable of opposing the government under which they lived, they never attempted to shake off the authority of the Roman emperors, or to employ force to protect themselves from the tyranny and persecutions to which they were exposed. Besides, granting that it is lawful for subjects to vindicate their civil rights and privileges by resisting arbitrary rulers, to have recourse to forcible measures for promoting Christianity, is diametrically opposite to the genius of that religion, which was propagated at first, and is still to be defended, not by arms and violence, but by teaching and suffering.”
These objections are more specious than solid. The directions and precepts on this subject, which are contained in the New Testament, must not be stretched beyond their evident scope and proper import. They do not give greater power to magistrates than they formerly possessed, nor do they supersede any of the rights or privileges to which subjects wereentitled, by the common law of nature, or by the particular statutes of any country.The New Testament does not give directions to communities respecting the original formation or subsequent improvement of their civil constitutions, nor prescribe the course which ought to be pursued in certain extraordinary cases, when rulers abuse the power with which they are invested, and convert their legitimate authority into an engine of despotism and oppression.[459] It supposes magistrates to be acting within the proper line of their office, and discharging its duties to the advantage of the society over which they are placed. And it teaches Christians, that the liberty which Christ purchased, and to the enjoyment of which they are called by the gospel, does not exempt them from subjection and obedience to civil authority, which is a divine ordinance for the good of mankind; that they are bound to obey existing rulers, although they should be of a different religion from themselves; and that Christianity, so far from setting them freefrom obligations to this or any other relative duty, strengthens these obligations, and requires them to discharge their duties for conscience‑sake, with fidelity, cheerfulness, patience, long‑suffering, and singleness of heart. Viewed in this light, nothing can be more reasonable in its own nature, or more honourable to the gospel, than the directions which it gives on this subject; and we must perceive a peculiar propriety in the frequency and earnestness with which they are urged, when we consider the danger in which the primitive christians were of supposing, that they were liberated from the ordinary restraints of the rest of mankind. But if we shall go beyond this, and assert that the scriptures have prohibited resistance to rulers in every case, and that the great body of a nation consisting of christians, in attempting to curb the fury of their rulers, or to deprive them of the power which they have grossly abused, are guilty of that crime against which the apostle denounces damnation, we represent the beneficent religion of Jesus as sanctioning despotism, and entailing all the evils of political bondage upon mankind; and we tread in the steps of those enemies to christianity, who, under the colour of paying a compliment to its pacific, submissive, tolerant, and self‑denying maxims, have represented it as calculated to produce a passive, servile spirit, and to extinguish courage, patriotism, the love of civil liberty, the desire of self‑preservation, and every kind of disposition to repel injuries, or to obtain the redress of the most intolerable grievances.
The example of the primitive christians is not binding upon others any farther than it is conformable to the scriptures; and the circumstances in which they were placed were totally different from those of the protestants in Scotland, and in other countries, at the time of the Reformation. The fathers often indulge in oratorical exaggerations when speaking of the numbers of the christians; nor is there any satisfactory evidence that they ever approached near to a majority of the Roman empire, during the time that they were exposed to persecution.
“If thou mayst be made free, use it rather,” says the Apostle; a maxim which is applicable, by just analogy, to political as well as domestic freedom. The christian religion natively tends to cherish and diffuse a spirit favourable to civil liberty, and this, in its turn, has the most happy influence upon christianity, which never flourished extensively, and for a long period, in any country where despotism prevailed. It must therefore be the duty of every christian to exert himself for the acquisition and defence of this invaluable blessing. Christianity ought not to be propagated by force of arms; but the external liberty of professing it may be vindicated in that way both against foreign invaders and against domestic tyrants. If the free exercise of their religion, or their right to remove religious abuses, enter into the grounds of the struggle which a nation maintains against oppressive rulers, the cause becomes of vastly more importance, its justice is more unquestionable, and it is still more worthy,not only of their prayers and petitions, but of their blood and treasure, than if it had been maintained solely for the purpose of securing their fortunes, or of acquiring some mere worldly privilege. And to those whose minds are not warped by prejudice, and who do not labour under a confusion of ideas on the subject, it must surely appear paradoxical to assert, that, while God has granted to subjects a right to take the sword of just defence for securing objects of a temporary and inferior nature, he has prohibited them from using this remedy, and left them at the mercy of every lawless despot, with respect to a concern the most important of all, whether it be viewed as relating to his own honour, or to the welfare of mankind.
Those who judge of the propriety of any measure from the success with which it is accompanied, will be disposed to condemn the suspension of the queen regent. Soon after this step was taken, the affairs of the Congregation began to wear a gloomy aspect. The messenger whom they sent to Berwick to receive a remittance from the English court, was intercepted on his return, and rifled of the treasure; their soldiers mutinied for want of pay; they were repulsed in a premature assault upon the fortifications of Leith, and worsted in a skirmish with the French troops; the secret emissaries of the regent were too successful among them; their numbers daily decreased; and the remainder, disunited, dispirited and dismayed, came to the resolution of abandoning Edinburgh onthe evening of the 5th of November, and retreated with precipitation and disgrace to Stirling.