Thoughts on Civil Polity (Excerpts, headings added)
Attachment to Government
[The Complete Works of Andrew Fuller: Expositions—Miscellaneous. J. Belcher, Ed., Vol. 3, (Harrisonburg, VA: Sprinkle Publications, 1988), 670-674.] The question proposed for discussion is, It certainly does not include attachment to anything but what is declared to be “an ordinance of God;” nor to any person or persons, but as officers executing that ordinance. It does not necessarily include an attachment to the constitution of a country, which, when compared with others, may be very oppressive and unjust; nor to particular measures, which may be equally so. But even in such cases there is an “honor” due to government, which in its worst forms is preferable to anarchy; and which, notwithstanding the most unjust procedures, is still in itself the ordinance of God. It is thus in parental authority. The duty of a child to obey a parent who may be harsh and unkind is not obliterated; nor is it enough for him to yield the obedience of fear, out of regard to his own interest. He ought to do it from a conscientious regard to the will of God, who has made him his parent. A violent father once fell foul upon his son, a young man about twenty years of age. The son made no other resistance than to ward off the blows, and said, “I could do what I please with you; but you are my father!” Such is the spirit which ought to be cherished towards the worst civil government. The young man not only conformed to those orders which his father might give him, but felt an attachment to him as a father; and was not to be driven from his duty because the other had forgotten his. All this proceeds upon the supposition of our living under the worst of governments, which is so far from being the truth that almost any one would think it the best in Europe, if not in the world. A large proportion, of those who have left their country, under a contrary impression, have seen cause to repent of their folly and ingratitude. The civil liberty contained in the British government is the very cause of its being worse thought of and spoken against, by one part of its subjects, than that of any other country. Were one of these in France, and even a member of the legislature, he must not open his mouth in the manner he does in England. It is a part of our civil constitution to admit of free debate; and an opposition to the administration of the day, though generally conducted on mere party principles, is considered upon the whole as a salutary check on men in power. It is a mode of balancing evils, by suffering one set of them to weigh against another. Oh but, says one, we are going fast to ruin! Provisions rise, farms let for double and treble what they did, and taxes are enormous. And what does the rise of provisions and of land prove, except that the country is full of money? All buying and selling is only an exchange of commodities; and according to the quantity and demand for any article such is the price. To say that provisions are dear is only saying that money is cheap. Oh, but it is not money, it is paper. So long however as the nation is solvent, and can pay its debts, paper is the same as money. With respect to the amount of taxes, it is not of much account so long as we have the means of paying them. A London tradesman might say, My rent and taxes are so high in the city, I’ll go and take a farm or a house in the woodlands! Such in effect has been the reasoning of some of our emigrants. Yet, it may be asked, do we not live better, wear better clothes, and occupy more comfortable dwellings than our forefathers did? and whether, where one fortune was gained a century ago, there be not six or seven now? These things may seem nothing to those who are complainers by profession; for if God should have determined for our ingratitude and other sins to bring us under a foreign yoke, as he has brought the continent of Europe, we shall then know our present advantages by the loss of them. If I am attached to government as government, irrespective of the men who administer it, I shall be willing to find their measures right, and unwilling to find them otherwise, unless compelled so to think by evidence. I shall never take pleasure in traducing it, nor in hearing it traduced. If in any case I think it in the wrong, I shall speak of it, if at all, with regret. But if I choose to enlist under the banners of a systematic opposition, and to learn all that occurs from their report, I shall presently enter into their prejudices, and become their dupe. They are fighting for a substance indeed, but I for a phantom. So when these patriots get into power, I wonder and admire, and am then attached to government, not because the New Testament enjoins it, but because my favorites bear rule; and thus, both when they are out of office and when they are in, I am out of the way of Christian obedience. How can I be said to honor magistrates, while I view all their actions through the representations of men whose interest it is to supplant them; discrediting everything good, and believing everything evil? Government may have done wrong in pursuing certain measures, but it is not from their being accused of it by interested men that we ought to believe it. Those who are now in power were lately in opposition, and then they were patriots, and everything was going to ruin. There never was a period in British history when, in the opinion of what is called the opposition, let that opposition be on which side it might, the nation was not going to ruin; and when its humble adherents did not think so. The New Testament tells us, “they are God’s ministers, attending continually upon this very thing.” Now a small acquaintance with things will enable us to perceive that they who attend continually to one thing may in a hundred instances have reasons for their conduct of which those who only attend to it as an occasional amusement are very incompetent to judge. Let a disaffected member of a Christian church judge of the measures of its officers, and he will find them all wrong. Should he also be desirous of gaining an ascendency, and can persuade a few others to judge of those measures through the medium of his representations, it is easy to imagine what sort of treatment the pastor and his colleagues would be likely to receive at their hands. The minister might feel indignant, and say to his friends, This man wants to be in power, and the rest are his dupes. We attend continually upon this very thing, and do to the best of our ability. But these men neither know our reasons, nor wish to know them; but, having set us down as bad, conclude that nothing we do can be right. What is that “honour” and “obedience” due to government, and that prayer to God “for all who are in authority,” which the Scriptures enjoin, (Rom. 13:1–7; 1 Tim. 2:1, 2; Tit. 3:1; 1 Pet. 2:13–17,) but an attachment to them as magistrates, irrespective of their party? We cannot pray for them as we ought, unless we feel a sincere attachment. There needs not a greater proof of this than the base perversions of God’s word which have been made on this subject by some disaffected men. I pray for kings and rulers as men, says one, the same as I pray for other men. Yes, but you are required to pray for them as men in authority. Well, says another, I can pray that God would restrain their iniquity, and prevent their doing mischief, that good people may lead quiet and peaceable lives, in all godliness and honesty. Would you then presume thus to pervert the oracles of God? Can you say that the exhortation in 1 Tim. 2:2, proceeds on the supposition that civil governors are the parties which you are to pray God to restrain? Does it not rather suppose, what is manifestly true, that the great body of wicked men around you would persecute and destroy you as Christians, were they not prevented by the civil power? The exhortation is to intercede for kings, and for all that are in authority; but this would be interceding against them. Without attachment there is no such thing as obedience, whether to parents, husbands, masters, ministers, magistrates, or to God. A disaffected person may abstain from conspiracies and seditious conversation from mere prudential motives; but in all this there is not a grain of honor or obedience. He who thinks otherwise, and imagines that an outward compliance with the laws is all that ought to be required of him, only proves himself to be given up in a great degree to a mind void of judgment. Let such a one ask himself as a father, a husband, a master, or a minister, whether a mere outward compliance with his directions would satisfy him. By the same means he may find an answer to all his other objections. What! says an undutiful child, you think, I suppose, everything is right that my father does.—No, you reply, your father is a man like other men, and has his faults; but it is not for you to expose them. He is your father, and you are commanded of God to honor and obey him in all his lawful commands.Attachment to Civil Government
Thankful for Civil Liberty
We are Always Going Fast to Ruin …!
Be Attached to Government as Government
Our Leaders are God’s Ministers
A Sincere Attachment Leads to Prayer
Pray for Our Leaders, Not Against Them