Romans, Chapter 13, verse 3-4
3 For rulers are not a cause of fear
to good conduct, but to evil.
Do you wish to have no fear of
authority? Then do what is good and you will receive approval from it, 4for it is a
servant of God for your good. But if you do evil, be afraid, for it does not
bear the sword without purpose; it is the servant of God to inflict wrath on
the evildoer.
(Novena to the Holy Spirit)
(Novena to the Holy Spirit)
What
we are talking about here is blind obedience or loyalty. Paul concludes that
believers are to render obedience to governing authorities and by doing so they
render obedience to God from whose power all authority comes. Paul deduces that
kings and magistrates rule by consent of God, but it is the responsibility of
these authorities to make just ordinances and to enact laws that support decency.
Caesar is not entitled to obedience when such obedience would nullify
God’s prior claim to the believer’s morality.
We hold these truths to be self-evident:
That
all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain
unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of
happiness; that, to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men,
deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; that whenever any
form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the
people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its
foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to
them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence,
indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed
for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown that
mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right
themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a
long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object,
evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it
is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for
their future security.
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