OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE.

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ancestors, who had convinced themselves that chap.religion cannot abolish the unalienable rightsof human nature." Perhaps the patience of theprimitive church may be ascribed to its weak-ness, as well as to its virtue. A sect of un war-like plebeians, without leaders, without arms,without fortifications, must have encounteredinevitable destruction in a rash and fruitlessresistance to the master of the Roman legions.

But the Christians , when they deprecated thewrath of Diocletian , or solicited the favour ofConstantine , could allege, with truth and con-fidence, that they held the principle of passiveobedience, and that, in the space of three cen-turies, their conduct had always been conform-able to their principles. They might add, thatthe throne of the emperors would be establishedon a fixed and permanent basis, if all their sub-jects, embracing the Christian doctrine, shouldlearn to suffer and to obey.

In the general order of Providence, princes Divineand tyrants are considered as the ministers ofconJtaLheaven, appointed to rule or to chastise the na- tine -tions of the earth. But sacred history affordsmany illustrious examples of the more imme-diate interposition of the deity in the govern-ment of his chosen people. The sceptre andthe sword were committed to the hands ofMoses , of Joshua, of Gideon, of David, of theMaccabees ; the virtues of those heroes were

u Buchanan is the earliest, or at least the most celebrated, of the re-formers, who has justified the theory of resistance. See his Dialogne,de Jure Regni apud Scotos, tom. ii, p. 28 30, edit, fol, Ruddiman.