Romans 13

Romans 13:1

Then for the judicial laws, that great supreme one ought to be taken into special care of all Christians—that of obedience to the supreme powers rightly established and constituted, although they be not Jews but Romans. Nothing in Christianity ought to be pretended or made use of to give any man immunity from obedience, which from all subjects, of what quality soever, apostles, teachers, &c., is due to those to whom allegiance belongs, (contrary to the Gnostics’ doctrine and practice, Jude 8;) but on the contrary, every person under government, of what rank soever he be, is to yield subjection to the supreme governor legally placed in that kingdom, as to him which hath commission from God, as every supreme magistrate must be resolved to have, though he be an heathen.

[a] higher powers] What ἰξουσία, power, here signifies will appear sufficiently by the οἱ γὰρ ἄρχοντες, for the rulers, &c. ver. 3, for the γὰρ, for, being a rational or causal particle, applies the speech to that which had gone before, and so expresses the ἰξουσίαι, powers, ver. 1, to be the ἄρχοντες, rulers, ver. 3, and so again the annexing of ἰξουσίων, power, ver. 3, doth confirm the same. Nor indeed can the power, abstracted from the person of the magistrate, be able to do what is here said of ἰξουσία, viz. commend or encourage, ver. 3, avenge and punish, ver. 4. And the matter is clear, for, ver. 3, φοβεῖσθαι ἰξουσίων, the powers being feared, is all one with ἄρχοντες εἰσι φόβος, the rulers are a fear or terror, in the beginning of the verse; and ver. 4, immediately upon the mention of the power and the praise which they that do well shall have ἰξ αὐτῆς, ver. 3, from the power, it is added, Θεοῦ γὰρ διάκονός ἐστι σοι, for he (that must needs be the person of the magistrate) is a minister of God to thee for good; and, He bears not the sword in vain, or for no end, for he is the minister of God, an avenger of wrath, &c. Thus is ἰξουσίαι and ἀρχαί used Luke xii. 11, when the disciples are said to be brought before principalities and powers, that is, without question, princes and men in authority, and so are κυριότητες, dominions, 2 Pet. ii. 10, all that are in authority; and so in this Epistle, ch. viii. 38, ἀρχαί and ἰξουσίαι, principalities and powers, are certainly persons (heathen magistrates) who persecute Christians; and so Ephes. iii. 11, ἀρχαί and ἰξουσίαι are persons to whom somewhat was to be made

[a] disputations] Διαλογισμός here seems to signify the arguings or reasonings, and consequently resolutions of men concerning themselves, to the managing their whole course of life, what is lawful or unlawful for them, and particularly here (as the context enforceth it) the reasonings and resolutions of those, that from the liberty of disusing the Mosaical law given by Christ, conclude the lawfulness of eating any thing, ver. 2. A fuller instance or example of this notion of the word I have not met with than in Epicurus’s Epistle to Idomeneus, speaking of the torments he was then under ready to die, as great as were imaginable, Ἀντιπαρετάτετο δὲ πᾶσι τούτοις τὸ κατὰ ψυχὴν χαῖρον ἐπὶ τῇ τῶν γεγονότων ἡμῖν διαλογισμῶν μνήμῃ. “The joy that he had in his mind, upon the remembrance of the reasonings which he had in his lifetime, stood in battle array against all those torments of the strangury,” &c. What those διαλογισμοί, or reasonings of Epicurus were, appears in his Epistle to Menaceus in Diog. Laert., wherein, as in an apology for himself, and a declaration of the truth of his opinions, he confesses it is not eating or drinking, or any other of the sensualities of the world put together, that beget a pleasant life, ἀλλὰ νήφων λογισμὸς, καὶ τὰς οἴτιας ἐξερευνῶν πάσης αἱρίσεως καὶ φυγῆς, καὶ τὰς δόξας ἐξελαύνων, ἀφ’ ὧν πλείστος τὰς ψυχὰς καταλαμβάνει θόρυβος, “but a sober discourse or reasoning, and such as searches out the causes of all choice or aversation, and drives away those false opinions, from which the greatest perturbation that seizeth on our mind doth proceed.” This νήφων λογισμὸς, &c.,

h Curcul. act. 1. scen. 1.

Romans 13:2

From which divine commission it is directly consequent, that he that makes any violent resistance or opposition to the supreme magistrate, opposes that violence to God’s commission, and shall accordingly receive that punishment which belongs to so sacrilegious a contumacy, the wrath and judgment of God belongs to him.

[b] damnation] The word κρίμα, according to its literal importance, signifies judgment, and no more, and is applied to human judgments sometimes, either going to law, contentiones in foro, 1 Cor. vi. 7, or else sentences of temporal punishments on malefactors. So Luke xxiii. 40, where one thief saith to the other, Σὺ ἐν αὐτῷ κρίματι εἶ, Thou art in the same judgment or sentence of death, capital punishment, called κρίμα θανάτου, ch. xxiv. 20, judgment of death temporal. Otherwhere it as clearly signifies divine, and that eternal punishment; as Acts xxiv. 25, τοῦ κρίματος τοῦ μέλλοντος ἴσεσθαι, judgment to come, that is, cer-

Romans 13:3

And certainly if thou hast not some wicked purposes in thine heart, thou wilt never be tempted to do this; for they that do not design any ill, have little reason to be afraid of magistrates; or consequently to desire to prevent their ill usage of them by taking up arms against them. For though it be possible governors may be tyrants, yet this possible fear is not in any reason to move any to certain sin; but on the other side, every one is to look on the magistrate as God’s officer, and to trust himself in God’s protection, and count that princes do not use to punish men for doing well, but for doing ill; for

¹ supreme. ² from, ἀνδ. ³ by, ὑνδ. ⁴ from it, ἐξ αὐτῆς.

Romans 13:4

For that is as considerable a part of the magistrate’s office, (to which he is designed by God, and for which thou art to count thyself happy in him, to assist, and not resist him,) that God hath set him over thee, to secure and defend thee, and help thee to a peaceable possession of all God’s other benefits, which are all worth nothing to thee, if thou mayest not enjoy them peaceably. And that is a reasonable consideration to move thee to adventure the hazard of being injured by magistrates, and not to cast off their yoke on every remoter fear of it, but to take the possible dangers and certain benefits together, and from thence to conclude, that it is for the subjects’ good that princes are set over them. And generally it is our own fault if there be any thing formidable in them. In that case, indeed, the magistrate hath a sword put in his hands by God, and it is his office to be God’s executioner of punishment on malefactors, and he is obliged to do so by conscience toward God, whose officer and commissioner he is.

Romans 13:5

And consequently our obedience is due to him, not only for fear of punishment from the magistrate, for it is possible a cunning or a prosperous offender or rebel may avoid that, but in obedience to the constitution of God, whose officer he is, and to the command of honouring and paying subjection, &c. to him.

Romans 13:6

For this is the distinct reason why tributes and customs are paid to kings; viz. because they are commissioners sent from God; who having full power over all we have, as the free donor of all, may assign his commissioners what proportion he please, and that a liberal one, as he did the double portion to the elder brother; and this but very reasonable, seeing, in the discharge of their office, they spend themselves with an unwearied patience and constancy attending on it, as the hardest and heaviest task that any man in a kingdom undergoes, and is therefore in proportion the most richly to be rewarded of any.

Romans 13:7

This therefore lays all obligation on you to render to princes (as a debt due from subjects) all extraordinary or ordinary payments, as also that reverence and honour which by the law of God belongs to them, as well as obedience and diligent subjection, ver. 1.

Romans 13:8

For ye Christians must not think that your Christian liberty will free or disoblige you from the discharge of any debt or duty to any man, inferior or superior, that is, either of justice to ordinary men, or subjection to those whom God hath set over you: one debt only ye must owe all, (and yet pay that too as oft as occasions are presented,) that of charity, which must be so paid that it be always owing; and if this be discharged as Christ requires, not only to friends, but to all, even those that have behaved themselves as enemies to us, the persecuting heathen emperors, &c., this is that perfection of the law which Christ requires, Matt. ix. 48.

Romans 13:9

For all the six commandments of the second table, the five here named, and the sixth that hath all this while been insisted on, that of honour thy parents, kings, &c. ver. 1, all these, I say, are but parts of that great duty of charity, or loving thy neighbour, &c. so strictly now commanded by Christ, and so far from being now evacuated or abrogated, that it is rather heightened in each branch, and improved by the gospel, and consequently every of those six, and particularly that of duty to kings, is still required under Christianity, let the Gnostics’ advocates, and patrons of liberty (or rather licentiousness) under that pretence, teach what they please to the contrary.

Romans 13:10

That charity that is required of us Christians is so far from depriving any other of his right, that it gives rules of all abundance of mercy and goodness to all, for in that consists that perfection of the law which Christ requires, Matt. v. (see note [e] Matt. xii.)

Romans 13:11

And that exhortation to keep close to all Christ’s precepts, to discharge to all men that duty which Christ requires by prescribing us charity, ver. 18, is now the rather to be pressed, because of the particularity of time, which should make us watchful to the performance of all duties, the time of our de-

[c] salvation] What σωτηρία, salvation or deliverance, here signifies, (somewhat different from the notion of it, chap. x. note [a]), may be guessed by what hath been oft mentioned of the word σωζόμενοι and σώζεσθαι in the Gospels, Matt. x. note [h], Luke xiii. note [b], &c., the deliverance of the believing Jews or Christians out of persecutions, which (after the example of Christ) befell them in the first age, and from which they were delivered partly by the great act of vengeance from Christ upon the Jews, the crucifiers of him, and persecutors of his followers, (see Luke xxi. 28.) and partly by their departing generally out of Judæa before that destruction befell the Jews, (see Rev. vii. notes [d e],) and partly by the halcyonian days, which under Vespasian were allowed the Christians after this time in all places. The approaching of this is everywhere used, as an antidote or cordial consideration, to arm them in time of affliction; and so here the considering that this is now nearer than when they first embraced the faith, and that therefore now it were unreasonable to fall off, and lose all their past faith and sufferings, when now a little while more will land them safe at their expected haven, the deliverance so promised. This probably is the meaning of the phrase, 1 Pet. i. 5, σωτηρία ἑτοίμη ἀποκαλυφθῆναι ἐν καιρῷ ἑσχάτῳ, deliverance ready to be revealed in the last time, and perhaps σωτηρία ψυχῶν, ver. 9, the saving of their lives, (antecedent to that of their souls,) the delivering them from those imminent dangers that the Christians were under from the Jews, till that their destruction, (for that that is the meaning of σώζειν ψυχὴν, Matt. xvi. 15, Mark viii. 35, Luke ix. 24, saving or finding his life, see those places, and note [e] on 2 Pet. i.) That it is there to be thus understood may be probable by ver. 10, where, saith he, the prophets inquired concerning this σωτηρία, salvation or deliverance, what time it was likely to come, ver. 11, which seems to confine it to some eminent event or passage in this world, and that, it seems, now ready to fall out in that present age, ver. 12. So 2 Pet. iii. 15, where he bids them count the longanimity of God, (that is, his sparing or deferring the punishment of the Jews so long,) σωτηρίαν, deliverance, viz. that the Jews might come in to the faith, and all the believing Jews might have time to go out of Jerusalem, (see note [g] on Matt. xxiv.) and so be rescued out of that common destruction. To this, I conceive, belong these words in the Epistle of Barnabas, p. 227, Ἐν τῇ βασιλείᾳ αὐτοῦ ἡμέραι ἑσονται πονηραι καὶ ῥύπαραι, ἐν αἴς ἡμεῖς σωθησόμεθα, “In his” (that is, Christ’s) “kingdom there shall be evil and foul days, in which we shall be saved or escape;” and that which follows, “γενόμενα ἡμῖν ἐστι φανερὰ, ἐκεῖνοις δὲ σκοτεινὰ,” to us there shall be lightsome, but to them dark black events." This is set down most plainly, 2 Pet. ii. 6, 7, 9, by the example of Sodom and Lot; Sodom destroyed, and Lot and his family preserved; and so also of the old world, ver. 5, when Noah and seven more were preserved, where ῥύεσθαι is all one with σώζεσθαι. And it

Romans 13:12

[d] the day is at hand] Ἡ ἡμέρα ἤγγικεν, the day draweth nigh, is all one with ἐγγίζουσαν τὴν ἡμέραν, the day approaching, Heb. x. 25, and shall there be explained, which that it may belong to the destruction of the Jews, and whatever inseparable attendants of that, may appear Ezek. vii. 10. Behold the day, behold it is come, the morning is gone forth; which is clearly the approaching of this day, (and so other of the phrases used in the New Testament for that destruction are to be met with in that chapter, An end, the end, &c. ver. 2, 3. 6.) and yet more perfectly, ver. 12, The time is come, the day draweth near, and these spoken clearly (as that whole chapter) of the final destruction of that whole people. The approach of which being here mentioned as a motive to encourage the Christian Jews to hold out, and not to fall off to the Gnostics’ impure courses, (who, by helping them to escape persecutions, corrupted and inveigled many,) this phrase is here by way of accommodation applied to that time, as a time of light, unfit for the works of darkness. See note [a] on Heb. x. and Luke xxi. 34.

Romans 13:13

[e] rioting] What κῶμος signifies is not so commonly observed. Theophylact defines it τὰ μετὰ μίθης καὶ ὕβρεως ἄσματα, “songs with drunkenness and contumely.” In which definition, as the word ὕβρις, contumely, is oft used in an impure sense, to denote unlawful loves and pursuits, so in all probability doth it there, for the night-amorous revels are they that are peculiarly signified by κῶμοι. So Wisd. xiv. 23, where speaking of the heathens κρύφια μυστήρια, secret mysteries, he joins with them ἐμμανείς κώμους, mad revels; and as the effects thereof, adds, οὔτε βίους, οὔτε γάμους καθαρούς φυλάσσουσι, they keep neither lives nor marriages pure. So 2 Macc. vi. 4, when he saith the temple was filled ἀσωτίας καὶ κώμων, he adds, ῥαθυμούντων μεθ’ ἐταίρων, dallying with harlots, γυναιξὶ πλησιαζόντων—And he that doth this is in Theocritus

Romans 13:15

[c] Rejoice with them that do—] This verse seems to refer to the two gates of the temple, one called the gate of the bridegroom, and the other of the mourners, into which two sorts of men all kinds of persons are divided: under the first are contained all those that continue unblemished members of the church, under no kind of censure; under the other are the excommunicate of any the lowest kind, those under nidui, which though they might come into the temple, yet were to come in at that door of mourners, with some difference upon them, and discrimination from other men, that they that saw them might pray for them in this form, Qui inhabitat domum hanc consoletur te, indatique animo tuo ut obtemperes, “He that dwells in this house comfort thee, and give thee a heart to obey.” See 1 Cor. v. 2. note [c] and vii. 30. and 2 Cor. ii. 1. and vii. 8. and xii. 21. And accordingly the exhortation is to have affections Christianly disposed toward all men, to be very much afflicted, which, 2 Cor. xii. 21, is called πενθειν, mourning or bewailing such as are (for their faults) justly fallen under the censures of the church, and to do the utmost we can toward their recovery; and on the other side, to rejoice at the spiritual good and proficiency of all others.

Romans 13:21

Let not another man’s injustice to thee bring thee to that vileness of doing the like to him, for then hath he conquered the most divine precious part of thee, enslaved thy soul to so vile a sin; but let thy way be (that which of all others is most likely to thrive) by doing good to him, by fair words and deeds to overcome him.

LET every soul be subject unto the ¹[a] higher powers. For there is no power but ²of God: the powers that be are ordained ³of God.