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| Chapter LXV
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Chapter LXV.
Moreover, we are to despise ingratiating ourselves
with kings or any other men, not only if their favour is to be won by
murders, licentiousness, or deeds of cruelty, but even if it involves
impiety towards God, or any servile expressions of flattery and
obsequiousness, which things are unworthy of brave and high-principled
men, who aim at joining with their other virtues that highest of
virtues, patience and fortitude. But whilst we do nothing which
is contrary to the law and word of God, we are not so mad as to stir up
against us the wrath of kings and princes, which will bring upon us
sufferings and tortures, or even death. For we read:
“Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. For
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.”4959
These words
we have in our exposition of the Epistle to the Romans, to the best of
our ability, explained at length, and with various applications; but
for the present we have taken them in their more obvious and generally
received acceptation, to meet the saying of Celsus, that “it is
not without the power of demons that kings have been raised to their
regal dignity.” Here much might be said on the constitution
of kings and rulers, for the subject is a wide one, embracing such
rulers as reign cruelly and tyrannically, and such as make the kingly
office the means of indulging in luxury and sinful pleasures. We
shall therefore, for the present, pass over the full consideration of
this subject. We will, however, never swear by “the fortune
of the king,” nor by ought else that is considered equivalent to
God. For if the word “fortune” is nothing but an
expression for the uncertain course of events, as some say, although
they seem not to be agreed, we do not swear by that as God which has no
existence, as though it did really exist and was able to do something,
lest we should bind ourselves by an oath to things which have no
existence. If, on the other hand (as is thought by others, who
say that to swear by the fortune of the king of the Romans is to swear
by his demon), what is called the fortune of the king is in the power
of demons, then in that case we must die sooner than swear by a wicked
and treacherous demon, that ofttimes sins along with the man of whom it
gains possession, and sins even more than he.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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