For the Lord Jesus Christ, who was
crucified and rose again the third day, He, and not the emperor of
Rome at all, is the Lord and King of the whole earth, and of our
bodies and souls; and we must obey Him before we obey anyone else.
Power and authority come not from the emperor of Rome, but from the
Lord Jesus Christ; and the emperor is only His servant and steward,
and must obey Him just as much as we, or the Lord will punish him as
surely and easily as He will the meanest slave. For God has
delivered all things, and the emperor of Rome among the rest, into
the hand of His Son Jesus Christ, who sits a King over all, God
blessed for ever." That was confessing Christ.
And to that the heathen judges used to make but one answer--for there
was but one to make. Those heathen judges' guilty consciences, as
well as their worldly cunning, told them plainly enough exactly what
St. Paul told the Christians; that those Christians, by confessing
Christ, were not fighting against flesh and blood, and setting up
their selfish interests against other people's selfish interests:
but that the battle they were fighting was a much deeper and more
terrible one; that by saying that One who had walked the earth as a
poor man, and yet a perfectly righteous and loving man, doing nothing
but good, and sacrificing Himself utterly for poor fallen creatures,
they were fighting against the whole state of things all over the
world; against the government, and principles, and religion of that
whole unjust and tyrannical Roman empire, and all its rulers, and
generals, and judges; against principalities, against powers, against
the world-rulers of the darkness of those times; against spiritual
wickedness in heavenly things.
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