Question 1: Obeying God Before Rulers
At first glance, this question may seem entirely unnecessary. It appears to cast doubt on a principle Christians have always held to be certain, confirmed by many passages of Scripture, by historical examples from every age, and by the deaths of all the holy martyrs. Why did Christians endure so much suffering, if not because they were always convinced that God must be obeyed absolutely and without qualification, while kings must be obeyed only when their commands do not contradict the law of God? Why else would the Apostles have answered that God must be obeyed rather than men? (Acts 4:19). Since God’s will alone is always just, while human will can be, and often is, unjust, who can doubt that we must obey God’s commands without exception, and human commands only within limits?
Yet many princes today who call themselves Christians arrogantly claim unlimited power, over which even God himself has no command. They have no shortage of flatterers who worship them as gods on earth. Many others, whether out of fear or compulsion, either seem to believe or actually believe that princes must be obeyed in all things and by all people. These times are so unhappy that nothing is so firm, certain, or pure that it escapes being shaken, discredited, or corrupted. I fear that anyone who considers these things closely and thoroughly will acknowledge that this question is not only useful but, given the times, necessary.
When I consider the cause of the many disasters that have afflicted Christendom in recent years, I cannot help remembering the words of the prophet Hosea: “The Princes of Judah were like them that remove the bounds: wherefore I will pour out myself like water. Ephraim is oppressed, and broken in judgment, because he willingly walked after the Commandments” (Hos 5:10-11).
Here you see the sins of princes and people set out in these two statements. The princes overstep their boundaries. Not content with the authority that almighty and wholly good God has given them, they seek to usurp the sovereignty he has reserved for himself over all humanity. Not satisfied with commanding their subjects’ bodies and property at will, they presume to coerce their consciences, which belong above all to Jesus Christ. Finding the earth too small for their ambition, they would climb up and conquer heaven itself.
The people, on the other hand, walk after the commandment when they yield to the wishes of princes who command what is against the law of God. They burn incense, as it were, to these earthly gods and worship them. Instead of resisting them when they have the means and opportunity, they allow them to usurp God’s place, without any scruple about giving Caesar what belongs properly and exclusively to God.
Who does not see what happens? If someone disobeys a prince who commands something wicked and unlawful, he is immediately branded a rebel, a traitor, and guilty of high treason. Our Savior Christ, the Apostles, and all the Christians of the early church faced these slanders. If anyone, following the example of Ezra and Nehemiah, sets himself to building the Temple of the Lord, he will be accused of aspiring to the crown, plotting political upheaval, and seeking the state’s ruin (Ezra 4; Neh 5:7). A million royal favorites and flatterers will immediately tickle the princes’ ears with the notion that, if they once allow this Temple to be rebuilt, they can bid their kingdoms farewell and never expect to collect duties or taxes from these people.
But what madness is this? The only states that deserve to be considered firm and stable are those in which God’s Temple is built, and which are themselves that Temple. We can rightly call those rulers kings who reign with God, since it is through him alone that kings reign. What brutish foolishness, on the contrary, to imagine that a state and kingdom cannot survive unless almighty God is excluded and his Temple demolished! This produces so many tyrannical schemes, so many unhappy and tragic deaths of kings, and so much ruin for their peoples.
If these flatterers understood the difference between God and Caesar, between the King of Kings and a mere king, between the lord and the vassal, they would understand what tribute this Lord requires from his subjects and what authority he gives kings over those same subjects. Surely so many princes would then cease striving to disturb God’s kingdom. We would not see some of them hurled from their thrones by the Almighty’s just action, as he takes vengeance on them at the height of their strength. Nor would the people be so plundered, pillaged, and trampled down.
Princes must therefore know how far their authority extends, and subjects must know in what matters they may obey them. Otherwise, rulers who encroach on a jurisdiction that does not belong to them, and subjects who obey someone who commands beyond his authority, will both be punished when they give their account before another Judge.
The question before us, which Holy Scripture will principally answer, is this: are subjects bound to obey kings when they command something against the law of God? In other words, which of the two must we obey, God or the king? Once the question has been settled concerning the king, to whom absolute power is attributed, the question concerning other magistrates will also be settled.
First, Holy Scripture teaches that God reigns by his own inherent authority, while kings reign by authority derived from him. God’s authority comes from himself; kings’ authority comes from God. God has jurisdiction in his own right; kings are his delegates (Prov 8; Job 12; Wis 6:3). It follows that God’s jurisdiction has no limits, while that of kings is bounded. God’s power is infinite, while that of kings is confined. God’s kingdom extends everywhere; the kingdoms of kings are restricted within the borders of particular countries.
God created both heaven and earth out of nothing, and so he is rightfully their Lord and true owner. All the earth’s inhabitants hold what they have from him and are merely his tenants and farmers. All the world’s princes and governors serve in his pay as his vassals. They must receive their investiture from him and acknowledge him as its source.
God alone is the owner and Lord. All people, whatever their rank or status, are his servants, farmers, officers, and vassals. They owe him an account and acknowledgment for whatever he has entrusted to their management. The higher their position, the greater the account they must give. They must answer before his divine majesty according to the ranks to which he has raised them. Holy Scripture teaches this in countless places, and all the faithful, as well as the wisest among the pagans, have always acknowledged it.
“The earth is the Lord’s, and the fullness thereof,” as King David says. So that people will not worship their own industry, the earth yields no increase without the dew of heaven. God therefore commanded his people to offer him the firstfruits of their harvest. Even the pagans consecrated the same to their gods, so that God might be acknowledged as Lord, and they as his farmers and vineyard keepers.
“The heaven is the throne of the Lord, and the earth his footstool.” Since all the world’s kings are under his feet, it is no wonder that God is called the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. All kings are called his ministers, appointed to judge rightly and govern the world justly as his deputies. “By me,” says divine Wisdom, “Kings reign, and the Princes judge the earth.” If they fail to do so, “he looseth the Bonds of Kings, and grideth their loins with a girdle.” It is as if he said, “It is in my power to establish kings on their thrones or to cast them down.”
References accompanying the preceding quotations and discussion (exact connections uncertain): (Ps 14; Isa 66:1; 1 Kgs 1:8; Prov 8:15; Job 12:18; Dan 2:21).
For this reason, the throne of kings is called the throne of God. “Blessed be the Lord thy God,” says the Queen of Sheba to King Solomon, “which delighted in thee to set thee on his Throne to be King for the Lord thy God, to do judgment and justice” (2 Chr 9:8). Similarly, we read elsewhere that “Solomon sat on the Throne of the Lord,” or “on the Throne of the Lord’s Kingdom” (2 Chr 29:13).
By the same reasoning, the people are always called the Lord’s people and the Lord’s inheritance. Kings are called governors of this inheritance and leaders of God’s people (1 Sam 9:16; 1 Sam 10:1). This title is given to David, Solomon, Hezekiah, and other good princes. When a covenant is made between God and the king, it is on the condition that the people are, and always remain, God’s people (2 Sam 6:21; 2 Kgs 20:5; 2 Chr 1:9; 2 Kgs 11; 2 Chr 33:16).
This shows that God will never surrender his ownership and possession when he grants kings the government of the people. He appoints them to care for his people and treat them well, just as someone who chooses a shepherd to tend his flocks nevertheless remains their master and owner.
The good kings David, Solomon, Jehoshaphat, and others always understood this. They acknowledged God as the Lord of their kingdoms and nations, yet lost none of the privileges that rightfully belong to royal power. Indeed, they reigned much more happily because they served God cheerfully and obeyed his commands (2 Chr 20:6).
Even Nebuchadnezar, though a pagan and a mighty emperor, acknowledged this in the end. Daniel had called him the king of kings, to whom the King of Heaven had granted power and royal majesty above all others. Yet Nebuchadnezar, in turn, said, “Thy God O Daniel is truly the God of Gods, and Lord of Lords giving Kingdoms to whom he pleaseth,” even to the most wretched people in the world (Dan 2:37; Dan 4:14). For this reason, Xenophon said at Cyrus’s coronation, “Let us sacrifice to God.” Secular writers, too, in many places magnify God as the mightiest and sovereign King.
To this day, at the inauguration of Christian kings and princes, they are called God’s servants, appointed to govern his people. Kings are only God’s deputies, established on God’s throne by the Lord God himself, and the people are God’s people. The honor shown to these deputies proceeds from reverence for the one who sent them to this service. It necessarily follows that kings must be obeyed for God’s sake, and not against God; when they serve and obey God, and not otherwise.
Court flatterers may reply that God has handed his power over to kings, reserving heaven for himself and allowing them the earth, to reign and govern there as they please. In short, they would say, the world’s great rulers share a divided empire with God himself. As the verse puts it, “Caesar shares the empire with Jupiter.”
This is an argument fit for that shameless villain Cleon, Alexander’s flatterer, or for the poet Martial, who was not ashamed to call Domitian’s edicts the ordinances of the Lord God. It is worthy of that execrable Domitian who, as Suetonius recounts, wanted to be called God and Lord. But it is altogether unworthy of a Christian prince’s ears or good subjects’ mouths.
God Almighty’s declaration must always remain irrevocably true: “I will not give my glory to any other” (Isa 48:11). That is, no one will have such absolute authority that God ceases to remain sovereign. God never divests himself of his power. In one hand he holds a scepter to repress and quell the audacious boldness of princes who rebel against him. In the other he holds a balance to hold accountable those who fail to administer justice with equity as they should. No more certain marks of sovereign command can be expressed (Ps 2:9; Wis 6:4).
An emperor who creates a king always reserves imperial sovereignty to himself. A king, such as the king of France, who grants the government or possession of a province to a foreigner, or even to his brother or son, always reserves the right to hear appeals and decide matters that belong to royal sovereignty. These rights are understood to be excepted even if entirely omitted from the grant of investiture and the promised allegiance. With far greater reason, then, God should have sovereign power and command over all kings, who are his servants and officers. Scripture tells us in many places that he will call them to account and punish them if they fail to discharge their duties faithfully.
All kings, therefore, are vassals of the King of Kings. They are invested in their office by the sword, the emblem of their royal authority, so that with it they may uphold God’s law, defend the good, and punish the wicked. In the same way, we commonly see a sovereign lord put his vassals in possession of their fiefs by girding them with a sword and giving them a shield and a standard. The condition is that they will fight for him with those arms when the occasion arises.
If we consider the duties of vassals, we will find that what may be said of them applies directly to kings. The vassal receives his fief from his lord, with the right to administer justice and the duty to serve him in war. The king is established by the Lord God, the King of Kings, to administer justice to his people and defend them against all their enemies (1 Sam 8; 1 Sam 9:20).
The vassal receives laws and conditions from his sovereign. God commands the king to observe his laws and keep them always before his eyes. He promises that the king and his successors will possess the kingdom for a long time if they are obedient. Conversely, their reign will be short if they rebel against their sovereign King. The vassal binds himself to his lord by oath, swearing to be faithful and obedient. In the same way, the king solemnly promises to rule according to God’s express law (Deut 17 [the verse number is uncertain, possibly 19]).
Finally, the vassal loses his fief if he commits felony, and by law forfeits all his privileges. In the same way, the king loses his right, and often his realm as well, if he despises God, plots with God’s enemies, or commits felony against that royal majesty. This will become clearer when we consider the covenant contracted between God and the king, for God does his servants the honor of calling them his confederates.
We read of two kinds of covenants at the inauguration of kings. The first is between God, the king, and the people, so that the people may be God’s people. The second is between the king and the people, so that the people will obey faithfully and the king will rule justly. We will discuss the second later and now speak of the first.
When King Joash was crowned, we read that a covenant was made between God, the king, and the people, or, as another passage puts it, between Jehoiada the high priest, all the people, and the king, “That God should be their Lord” (2 Kgs 11; 2 Chr 22:16). Similarly, we read that Josiah and all the people entered into covenants with the Lord (2 Kgs 23).
From these accounts, we can conclude that, in making these covenants, the high priest expressly covenanted in God’s name that the king and the people would ensure that God was served purely and according to his will throughout the kingdom of Judah. The king would reign so that the people were allowed to serve God and were kept obedient to his law. The people would obey the king with their obedience directed above all toward God. Thus the king and the people were jointly bound by promise and solemn oath to serve God before everything else. Indeed, immediately after swearing the covenant, Josiah and Joash destroyed the idolatry of Baal and restored the pure worship of God. The principal commitments of these covenants were these.
The king himself and all the people were to honor and serve God according to his will revealed in his word. If they did so, God would assist them and preserve their states; if they did the opposite, he would abandon and destroy them. Comparing several passages of Scripture makes this plain. Shortly before his death, Moses laid these covenant conditions before all the people. At the same time, he commanded that the Law, consisting of the precepts given by the Lord, be kept in trust in the Ark of the Covenant (Deut 29; Deut 30; Deut 31; Deut 31:26).
After Moses died, Joshua was appointed captain and leader of God’s people. The Lord himself warned him that, if he wanted success in his affairs, he must never depart from the Law (Josh 1). Joshua, for his part, wanted the Israelites to understand the conditions on which God had given them the land of Canaan. As soon as they entered it, after the proper sacrifices had been offered, he read the Law before all the people. In the Lord’s name, he promised them every good thing if they remained obedient and threatened them with every evil if they willfully tolerated disobedience (Deut 27:25; Josh 5; Josh 24). In short, he assured them of every prosperity if they kept the Law, and expressly declared that, if they did the opposite, they would be utterly destroyed. Whenever they abandoned God’s service, they were delivered into the hands of the Canaanites and reduced to slavery under their tyranny.
This covenant between God and the people, which was in force during the time of the judges, remained binding during the time of the kings and was made with them as well. After Saul had been anointed, chosen, and fully established as king, Samuel addressed the people in these words: “Behold the King whom you have demanded and chosen, God hath established him King over you, obey you therefore and serve the Lord, as well you, as your King which is established over you, otherwise you and your King shall perish” (2 Sam 12).
It was as though Samuel said: “You wanted a king, and God has given you this one. Nevertheless, do not think that God will allow any encroachment on his rights. Know that the king is as bound to observe the Law as you are. If he fails, his offense will be punished as severely as yours. In short, Saul has been given to you as king, as you desired, to lead you in war, but on the condition that he himself follow God’s Law.”
After Saul was rejected because he had not kept his promise, David was established as king on the same condition, as was his son Solomon. For the Lord said, “If thou keep my Law, I will confirm with thee the Covenant which I contracted with David” (2 Kgs 2:4; 2 Kgs 6:12). This covenant is recorded in the second book of Chronicles as follows: “There shall not fail thee a man in my sight, to sit upon the Throne of Israel: yet so that thy children take heed to their way to walk in my Law, as thou hast walked before me. But if they serve Idols, I will drive them from the Land whereof I have given them possession” (2 Chr 6:16; 2 Chr 7:17).
This is why the book of the Law was called the book of the covenant of the Lord, who commanded the priests to give it to the king. Accordingly, Samuel placed it in Saul’s hands, and under its terms Josiah acknowledged himself as bound to the Lord by tenure and obligation, and as his vassal (2 Kgs 33:2; Deut 17:18; 1 Sam 10:25). The Law kept in the Ark is also called the covenant of the Lord with the children of Israel (2 Chr 6:11). Finally, the people delivered from captivity in Babylon renewed the covenant with God. Throughout that chapter, they acknowledged that they had deserved all those punishments for breaking their promise to him (Neh 9:38).
It is clear, then, that kings swear as vassals to observe the Law of God, whom they acknowledge as sovereign Lord over all. As we have already said, if they violate their oath and transgress the Law, they forfeit their kingdom, just as vassals forfeit their estates by committing felony.
We have said that the covenant between God and the kings of Judah was the same as the earlier covenant between God and the people in the times of Joshua and the judges. We see in many places that, when the people despised the Law or made covenants with Baal, God delivered them into the hands of Eglon, Jabin, and other Canaanite kings (Judg 2:24; Judg 4:2, etc.; Judg 9:33). Since the covenant is one and the same, those who break it receive the same punishment.
Saul was bold enough to offer sacrifice in violation of God’s Law, and afterward spared the life of Agag, king of the Amalekites, against God’s express command. For this, Samuel called him a rebel, and he was finally punished for his rebellion (1 Sam 13:13; 1 Sam 15:26). “Thou hast sacrificed,” Samuel said, “but thou hadst done better to obey God, for, obedience is more worthy than sacrifice. Thou hast neglected the Lord thy God, he also hath rejected thee, that thou Reign no more over Israel.”
The Lord enforced this so firmly that even Saul’s children were deprived of their paternal inheritance. By committing high treason, Saul had incurred the punishment of tyrants who seek a kingdom that does not belong to them. Not only kings, but their children and successors as well, have been deprived of the kingdom for such felony.
Solomon turned away from God to worship idols. The prophet Abijah immediately foretold that the kingdom would be divided under his son Rehoboam. The Lord’s word was fulfilled: ten tribes, which made up the greater part of the kingdom, abandoned Rehoboam and joined his servant Jeroboam. Why? “For so much,” says the Lord, “that they have left me to go after [name uncertain], the God of the Sidonians and Chamos the God of the Moabites, etc. I will also break in pieces their Kingdom.”
It was as though God said: “They have violated the covenant and broken their promise. I am therefore no longer bound to them. They would diminish my majesty, and I will diminish their kingdom. Although they are my servants, they would drive me out of my kingdom. But I will drive them out instead, through Jeroboam, who is their servant.”
Furthermore, Jeroboam feared that the ten tribes might return to Jerusalem for religious reasons. He therefore set up calves in Bethel and led Israel into sin, drawing the people far from God. What was the punishment of so ungrateful a vassal and so wicked a traitor against his Lord? First, his son died. In the end, his entire line, down to the last male, was wiped from the face of the earth by the sword of Baasha. This fulfilled the judgment pronounced against him by the prophet because he had revolted against obedience to the Lord God.
This, then, is a sufficient and often stated reason for God to take a king’s estate from him: the king opposes God’s Law and turns away from him to follow his enemies, namely idols. Since like crimes deserve like punishments, we read in the sacred histories that kings of Israel and Judah who forgot themselves in this way eventually perished miserably.
Now, although the form of both the church and the Jewish kingdom has changed, what was once confined within the narrow borders of Judea has now spread throughout the world. Nevertheless, the same things may be said of Christian kings. The Gospel has succeeded the Law, and Christian princes stand in the place of those of Judah. The covenant is the same, the conditions are the same, and the punishments are the same. If they fail to fulfill their obligations, the same almighty God avenges every faithless betrayal. Just as the former kings were bound to keep the Law, Christian kings are bound to uphold the teaching of the Gospel. At their anointing and reception as kings, they promise to devote all their resources to its advancement.
Herod feared Christ, whose reign he should instead have welcomed, and sought to kill him as though Christ sought a kingdom in this world. Herod himself perished miserably and lost his kingdom. Julian the Apostate abandoned Christ Jesus to embrace the impiety and idolatry of the pagans. But before long, to his ruin, he fell under the power of Christ’s arm, though he had mockingly called Christ “the Galilean.”
Ancient histories are full of such examples, and the histories of our own time offer no shortage of them. In recent years, various kings, drunk on the liquor offered them by the Whore of Babylon, have taken up arms. Out of love for the wolf and for Antichrist, they have made war against the Lamb of God, who is Christ Jesus. Some of them continue in that cause even today. We have seen some destroyed in the very act, in the midst of their wickedness, and others carried from their triumphs to their graves. Those who survive and follow the same course have little reason to expect a better outcome from their wicked schemes.
This judgment remains certain: though all the kings of the earth join in conspiracy against Christ and try to cut our Lamb to pieces, in the end they will give way. Despite themselves, they will confess that this Lamb is the King of Kings and Lord of Lords (Ps 2:2; Ps 110:2; Rev 19:16).
But what shall we say of pagan kings? Certainly, although they are not anointed and consecrated by God, they are his vassals and have received their power from him, whether they were chosen by lot or by any other means. If they were chosen by the votes of an assembly, we say that God governs the human heart and directs everyone’s thoughts and intentions wherever he pleases. If by lot, “the lot is cast in the lap,” says the wise man, “but the whole disposing thereof is of the Lord” (Prov 16:33).
God alone, in every age, establishes and removes kings, confirms and overthrows them according to his good pleasure. For this reason, Isaiah calls Cyrus the Lord’s anointed (Isa 45:1). Daniel says that Nebuchadnezzar and others received their kingdoms from God (Dan 2:21; Dan 4:24). Paul likewise maintains that all magistrates received their authority from him (Rom 13:1).
Although God has not expressly commanded pagans to obey him as he has commanded those who know him, pagans must still acknowledge that they reign through the sovereign God. Therefore, if they will not render the tribute they themselves owe God, they should at least refrain from attempting to hinder the Sovereign from collecting what is due from the people under their rule. Nor should they encroach on or claim for themselves divine jurisdiction over those people. That is the crime of high treason and true tyranny, for which the Lord has severely punished even pagan kings.
Princes who wish to avoid so enormous an evil must carefully distinguish their jurisdiction from God’s. They must be all the more careful because God and the prince have authority over the same land, the same person, and the same thing. A human being is composed of body and soul. God formed the body and infused the soul into it. To him alone, then, belongs command over both body and soul.
If, out of his sheer grace and favor, God has allowed kings to make use of their subjects’ bodies and goods, he has done so on the condition that they protect and defend those subjects. Kings must understand that, although the use of this authority is permitted, its abuse is absolutely forbidden. First, those who acknowledge, as they ought, that they hold their souls and lives from God have no right to impose any tribute on souls.
The king takes tribute and customs duties from the body and from what is acquired or earned through bodily labor. God chiefly claims his due from the soul, which also carries out some of its functions through the body. The king’s tribute includes the fruits of the earth, monetary contributions, and other charges on property and persons. God’s tribute consists of prayers, sacraments, and the preaching of God’s pure word. In short, it includes everything called divine service, both private and public.
These two tributes are so distinct that neither harms the other. God’s treasury takes nothing from Caesar’s; each has its own clearly separate right. In a word, whoever confuses these things throws heaven and earth together and tries to reduce them to their original chaos or final confusion.
David distinguished these matters excellently, appointing officers to oversee God’s rights and others to oversee the king’s (1 Chr 26:29). Jehoshaphat followed the same course. He appointed some to judge matters belonging to the Almighty and others to administer the king’s justice: the former to maintain God’s pure worship, the latter to preserve the king’s rights (2 Chr 19:11).
But if a prince usurps God’s rights and pushes forward like the Giants to scale the heavens, he is no less guilty of high treason against his Sovereign, and commits felony just as a vassal does by seizing the rights of his lord’s crown. He puts himself in clear danger of being stripped of his estates, and all the more justly because there is no proportion between God and an earthly king, between the Almighty and a mortal man. Between a lord and a vassal, however, there is some proportion.
Whenever a prince so far forgets himself as to say insolently in his heart, “I will ascend into Heaven, I will exalt my Throne above the Stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation in the sides of the North; I will ascend above the heights of the Clouds, I will be like the most high” (Isa 14:13-14), the Almighty will answer him instead: “I will rise higher still. I will set myself against you. I will wipe out your name and all your descendants. Your plans will vanish into smoke, but what I have once determined will stand firm and never be destroyed.”
The Lord said to Pharaoh, “Let my people go, that they may serve me, and offer sacrifice unto me” (Exod 5; Exod 8, etc.). Because this proud man answered that he did not know the God of the Hebrews, he was soon afterward miserably destroyed.
Nebuchadnezzar commanded that his statue be worshipped and demanded to be honored as God (Dan 3:5; Dan 4:25, etc.). But before long, the true God justly punished his reckless arrogance. Wishing to be regarded as God, he became a brute beast, wandering through desolate places like a wild donkey. (Dan 5:2; connection uncertain.) This continued until, as the prophet says, he acknowledged the God of Israel as sovereign Lord over all.
His son Belshazzar abused the holy vessels of the Temple in Jerusalem, using them for his excess and drunkenness. Because he gave no glory to the one who held both his soul and his counsels in his hands, he lost his kingdom and was killed that very night of his feast.
Alexander the Great delighted in the lies of his flatterers, who called him the son of Jupiter. He not only approved of his own worship but arranged for it. Yet a sudden death brought those triumphs to a sad end. (1 Macc 1:45; connection uncertain.)
[The passage describes someone blinded by excessive conquests and beginning to take excessive delight, but its subject, object, and connection to Antiochus are unclear.] Under the pretext of pacifying and uniting his subjects, Antiochus commanded all men to abandon God’s laws and submit to his own. He desecrated the Temple of the Jews and polluted their altars. But after various disasters, defeats, and lost battles, stripped of his possessions and disgraced, he died of grief. He confessed that he deserved those miseries because he had sought to force the Jews to abandon their religion (1 Macc 6:12-13).
Consider the death of Nero, that inhuman butcher of Christians. He unjustly accused them of burning Rome, though that abhorrent act was his own detestable deed. Consider also the end of Caligula, who had himself worshipped; of Domitian, who demanded to be called Lord and God; of Commodus; and of various others who claimed the honors due to God alone. We shall find that they all invariably perished miserably in keeping with their deceits. By contrast, Trajan, Hadrian, Antonius the courteous, and others ended their days in peace. Although they did not know the true God, they allowed Christians to practice their religion.
In short, rebellious vassals who try to seize the kingdom commit felony according to every law and deserve to be rooted out. Those who refuse to observe the divine law, to which everyone without exception owes obedience, are just as guilty. So are those who persecute people who wish to conform to it, without hearing their just defenses.
Now, since we see that God invests kings with their kingdoms almost as a sovereign invests vassals with their estates, we must conclude that kings are God’s vassals. If they commit felony, they deserve to lose the benefit they receive from their Lord, just as rebellious vassals deserve to lose their estates.
With these premises established, the question is easily resolved. If God holds the place of sovereign Lord and the king is his vassal, who would dare deny that we must obey the sovereign rather than the vassal? If God commands one thing and the king commands the opposite, what arrogant person would call someone a rebel for refusing to obey the king when obedience would require disobeying God? On the contrary, the person who neglects to obey God, or obeys the king when the king forbids obedience to God, should be condemned as truly rebellious.
If God calls us on one side to enroll in his service and the king calls us on the other, is anyone so lacking in reason that he would not say we must leave the king and give ourselves to God’s service? Far from being bound to obey a king who commands something contrary to God’s law, we become rebels against God by obeying him in such a case. We would likewise regard a countryman as a rebel if, out of love for some wealthy and ancient inferior lord, he took up arms against the sovereign prince. The same applies to someone who prefers the writs of a lower judge to those of a higher one, the commands of a provincial lieutenant to those of a prince, or an officer’s directions to the king’s express ordinances. In doing this, we rightly incur the curse of the prophet Micah, who in God’s name denounces and curses everyone who obeys the wicked and perverse ordinances of kings (Mic 6:16).
By God’s law we mean the two tables given to Moses. These set immovable boundaries within which the authority of all princes must remain. The first contains what we owe to God; the second, what we must do for our neighbors. Together they contain piety and justice joined with charity. The preaching of the gospel does not detract from these but rather authorizes and confirms them. The first table takes precedence, both in order and in dignity.
If a prince commands someone to cut an innocent person’s throat, to pillage, or to commit extortion, no one with any sense of conscience would carry out such a command. If a prince has committed a crime, such as adultery, the murder of a parent, or some other wickedness, consider an example even among the pagans. The learned lawyer Papinian rebukes Caracalla to his face and would rather die than obey when his cruel prince commands him to lie and cover up his offense. Even under threat of a terrible death, he refuses to bear false witness.
What then should we do if a prince commands us to become idolaters, to crucify Christ Jesus again, to blaspheme and insult God, and, if it were possible, to drive him out of heaven? Is there not still more reason to disobey him than to submit to such outrageous commands?
We must go further. It is not enough to abstain from evil; we must also do good. Instead of worshiping idols, we must adore and serve the true God as he has commanded us. Instead of bending our knees before Baal, we must give the Lord the honor and service he requires of us. We are bound to serve God for his own sake alone. But we honor our prince and love our neighbor because of God and for love of him.
If it is wrong to offend our neighbor, and a capital crime to rise against our prince, what shall we call those who rebel against the majesty of the sovereign Lord of all mankind? It is far more serious to offend the Creator than the creature, or a person than the image that represents him. Likewise, in law, someone who wounds the king himself is far more culpable than someone who merely breaks a statue erected in his memory. There is therefore no question that a much more terrible punishment awaits those who violate the first table of the law than those who sin only against the second, although one depends on the other. It follows, comparatively speaking, that we must take greater care to observe the first than the second.
The examples of our forebears can also teach us the rule to follow in this matter. At his wife Jezebel’s instigation, King Ahab killed all the prophets and servants of God who could be captured. Nevertheless, Obadiah, the steward of Ahab’s household, hid and fed a hundred prophets in a cave (1 Kgs 18:4). His justification is readily available: every obligation, however binding, must make an exception for the divine Majesty.
The same Ahab commanded everyone to sacrifice to Baal. Instead of backing down or relenting, Elijah rebuked the king and all the people more freely, exposed the impiety of Baal’s priests, and had them executed. Then, despite that wicked and furious Jezebel and that king who was so ruled by his wife, he restored and reformed the worship of the true God with divine and powerful effort (1 Kgs 18:17).
Ahab accused Elijah of troubling Israel and of being rebellious and seditious, just as the princes of our own time do. Such charges are routinely brought against people who are entirely innocent of them. Elijah answered, “Nay, but it is thou thyself which by thy apostasy hath troubled Israel, which hath left the Lord the true God, to acquaint thyself with strange gods his enemies.”
In the same manner, and led and directed by the same spirit, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego refused to obey Nebuchadnezzar, Daniel refused to obey Darius, Eleazar refused to obey Antiochus, and countless others did likewise (Dan 3:18; 6:10, 13). After Jesus Christ’s coming, when the apostles were forbidden to preach the gospel, they said, “Judge ye whether it be reasonable as in the sight of God to obey men, rather than God” (Acts 4:19). Accordingly, disregarding the intentions and designs of the powerful of this world, the apostles readily undertook what their master Jesus Christ had commanded them.
(Related authorities, with uncertain connections: Philo Judeus; Ambrose.)
The Jews themselves would not permit the silver eagle or Caligula’s statue to be set up in the temple at Jerusalem. What did Ambrose do when Emperor Valentinian commanded him to hand over the church at Milan to the Arians? “Your counselors and captains are come to me,” he said, “to make me speedily deliver the temple, saying it was done by the authority and command of the emperor, and that all things are in his power. I answered to it that if he demanded that which is mine, namely, my inheritance, my money, I would not in any way refuse it him, although all my goods belong properly to the poor; but the things divine are not in subjection to the power of the emperor.”
What do we think this holy man would have answered if he had been asked whether the Lord’s living temple should be enslaved to idols? These examples, and the constancy of a million martyrs who died gloriously for refusing obedience in such matters, may sufficiently serve as an express law in this case. The church histories, full of such examples, bear witness to them.
But we are not without a previously written law. Whenever the apostles urge Christians to obey kings and magistrates, they first exhort everyone, as if giving counsel, to submit likewise to God and to obey him before anyone else, even against anyone else. Nowhere in their writings is there the slightest passage supporting the unlimited obedience that flatterers of princes demand from people of little understanding.
“Let every soul,” says Saint Paul, “be subject to the higher powers, for there is no power but of God” (Rom 13:1). He mentions every soul so that no one may think he exempts anyone from this subjection. From various such statements we can readily gather that we must obey God rather than the king. For if we obey the king because of God and for love of him, that obedience certainly cannot be a conspiracy against God.
The apostle removes all ambiguity by adding that the prince is God’s servant for our good, namely, to do justice. This necessarily yields the conclusion we have just discussed: we must obey God rather than his servant. Paul is still not satisfied, for he adds at the end, “Give tribute, honor, and fear to whom they appertain.” It is as if he were repeating Christ’s words: “Give to Caesar that which is Caesar’s, and to God that which is God’s” (Matt 22:21). To Caesar, tribute and honor; to God, fear.
Saint Peter says the same: “Fear God, honor the king; Servants obey your masters not only the good and kind, but also the rigorous” (1 Pet 2:17-18). We must practice these precepts in the order in which they are set down. Servants are not bound to obey their masters if their masters command something against the laws and ordinances of kings. In the same way, subjects owe no obedience to kings who would make them violate God’s law.
Objection 1: Certain wicked men argue that we must obey kings even in matters of conscience. They are shameless enough to cite the apostles Saint Peter and Saint Paul as witnesses to so wicked an opinion. From this they conclude that we must obey everything the king orders, even embracing without objection whatever superstition he chooses to establish.
But no one is so utterly without sense as to miss these men’s impiety. We reply that Saint Paul expressly says we must be subject to princes, “not only for wrath, but also for conscience sake.” (Romans; chapter and verse uncertain.) By setting conscience against wrath, the apostle is effectively saying that the obedience he describes should arise from love of God and reverence for his word, rather than fear of punishment.
In the same sense, Saint Paul instructs servants to obey their masters “not with eye service for fear of stripes, but in singleness of heart, fearing God” (Col 3:22). They are not merely to seek the favor of people whom they can deceive, but to bear the burden laid on their shoulders by him whom no one can deceive.
There is a clear difference between obeying for conscience’s sake and obeying in matters of conscience. Otherwise, those who would far rather lose their lives under endless torments than obey princes commanding things contrary to God’s will would have taught us the very obedience these men now urge upon us.
Objection 2: They are no less shameless in the objection they habitually raise against those less able to answer them: “Obedience is better than sacrifice” (1 Sam 15:22). No passage in Holy Scripture more clearly refutes them than this one. It comes from Samuel’s rebuke of King Saul for disobeying God’s command by offering an improper sacrifice. If Saul, though a king, was bound to obey God, it follows that subjects are not bound to obey their king by offending God.
Those who follow the barbarous custom of the men of Calicut seek to make God’s worship necessarily dependent on the will of a changeable man, and religion dependent on the king’s pleasure, as if he were some god on earth. They plainly place little value on the testimony of Holy Scripture. But let them at least learn from the pagan orator Cicero: “In every public state, there are certain degrees of duty for those that converse and live in it, by which may appear wherein the one are obliged to the other. The first part of this duty belongs to the immortal God, the second concerns the country, which is their common mother, the third, those which are of our blood, the other parts leading us step by step to our other neighbors.”
“Now although the crime of high treason be very heinous, yet according to the civil lawyers, it always follows after sacrilege, an offense which properly pertains to the Lord God and his service, so much so that they confidently affirm that the robbing of a church is by their rules esteemed a greater crime than to conspire against the life of a prince.”
So much for this first question. We trust that anyone who is not utterly without the fear of God may find satisfaction in it.
