Chalmers on Government

The shadowy figure known simply as `The Librarian' brought to my attention the following thoughts of the Scottish theologian and churchman, Thomas Chalmers, on Romans 13.   In an era when it is seemingly more and more acceptable to be a social gospeller,  to identify Christianity with political positions (thereby committing that most basic of errors -- the confusion of law and gospel) providing that one is on the right of the spectrum, and where this sanctifies all manner of extreme language when applied to those with whom one disagrees politically, even those who hold office in God-ordained government, his words seem apposite:

"Let my conscience be clear on the matter of what I owe to civil governments. Have I never - and more especially in the agitation of our recent controversy- never felt or uttered myself contemptuously toward them? Let me put a guard over both my heart and my lips. I may never have resisted the powers that be; but have I never transgressed what is said in the law -that thou shalt not speak evil of the ruler of thy people?"

 

Horae Biblicae Sabbaticae: Sabbath Scripture Readings by the Late Thomas Chalmers, DD LLD in two volumes. Edinburgh: Thomas Constable, 1852, v. 1, p. 207.