"
Now that St. Paul was right in this we may see from the Old
Testament. In the first lesson for this afternoon's service, we read
how Jeremiah was sent with the most awful warnings to the king, and
the queen, and the crown prince of his country. And why? Because
they had broken the laws; because, in a word, they had been
unfaithful stewards and ministers of the Lord God, who had given them
their power and kingdom, and would demand a strict account of all
which He had committed to their charge. But in the same book of the
prophet Jeremiah we read more than this; we read exactly what St.
Paul says about the heathen Roman governors: for the Lord God, who
is the Lord Jesus Christ, sent Jeremiah with a message to all the
heathen kings round about, to tell them that He was their Lord and
Master, that He had given them their power, heathens as they were,
because it seemed fit to Him, and that now, for their sins, He was
going to deliver them over into the hand of another heathen, His
servant Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon; and that whosoever would not
serve Nebuchadnezzar, the Lord God would punish him with sword, and
famine, and pestilence till he had consumed them. And the first four
chapters of the book of Daniel, noble and wonderful as they are, seem
to me to have been put into the Bible simply to teach us this one
thing, that heathen rulers, as well as Christians, are the Lord's
servants, and that their power is ordained by God.
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