Devotional 126: The Duty of the People: To Pray for and Obey the Magistrate

The Confession Read

It is the duty of people to pray for magistrates, to honor their persons, to pay them tribute or other dues, to obey their lawful commands, and to be subject to their authority, for conscience' sake. Infidelity, or difference in religion, doth not make void the magistrates' just and legal authority, nor free the people from their due obedience to them: from which ecclesiastical persons are not exempted, much less hath the pope any power and jurisdiction over them in their dominions, or over any of their people; and, least of all, to deprive them of their dominions, or lives, if he shall judge them to be heretics, or upon any other pretense whatsoever.

— Westminster Confession of Faith, Chapter 23, Section 4

Introduction

Of all the duties that Scripture lays upon the Christian in relation to civil government, the first in order is also the hardest to perform. The apostle does not begin with honour, or tribute, or lawful obedience — though all these follow. He begins with prayer. Before the magistrate is a recipient of our taxes he is to be the subject of our intercessions; before we render to him what is owed in coin we are to render what is owed on our knees. This order is deliberate, and it exposes a temptation that attends every generation of believers: the temptation to resent, to grumble, to mock, or simply to ignore those whom God has placed in authority over us, and to forget that the first and most Christian act toward any ruler is not a political one but a priestly one. Our age has not invented political discontent, though it has furnished it with new instruments of expression. The first-century Christian who heard Paul's command to pray "for kings, and for all that are in authority" lived under a man whose name was synonymous with cruelty. The command was not conditional. It did not read, "Pray for magistrates, provided they govern well," or "Pray for magistrates, if they share your convictions." It simply read: pray. And in that simplicity the apostle planted a seed that would, in time, transform the way the church understood its relationship to the powers of the world — not by revolution, not by withdrawal, but by bringing those powers steadily before the throne of grace. The fourth section of the Confession's chapter on the civil magistrate completes the architecture the Divines have been building. They have told us whence the magistrate comes: from the hand of God, armed with the sword for the public good. They have told us that Christians may hold the office and wage just war in its exercise. They have told us what the magistrate may not do: he may not preach, administer the sacraments, or wield the keys of the kingdom, though as a nursing father he must protect the church's liberty. Now they turn from the magistrate's duties to the people's duties, and what they give us is at once practical and theological: a fivefold cord of obligation: prayer, honour, tribute, obedience, subjection, bound together by the remarkable phrase "for conscience' sake." And then, with a sharp turn that may startle the modern reader, they add a clause aimed squarely at the most ambitious jurisdictional claim in the history of Christendom: the pope, they declare, has no power or jurisdiction over magistrates in their dominions, over any of their people, and least of all to deprive them of dominions or lives upon any pretense whatever.

Scripture Foundation

The biblical ground beneath Section 4 is broad and deep. Paul's epistle to the Romans supplies the central text, but the teaching is woven through the whole of Scripture from the exile in Babylon to the apostolic letters, from the law of Moses to the words of Christ himself. The primary passage is Romans 13:5-7, where Paul draws the believer's duty toward civil authority to its innermost motive: "Wherefore ye must needs be subject, not only for wrath, but also for conscience sake. For for this cause pay ye tribute also: for they are God's ministers, attending continually upon this very thing. Render therefore to all their dues: tribute to whom tribute is due; custom to whom custom; fear to whom fear; honour to whom honour." Here are four words that map the full range of what we owe. The first two are financial: tribute translates the Greek phoros, the direct tax paid by a subject people to their governing power, while custom renders telos, the indirect tax or duty collected on goods and trade — what we might call a tariff or toll. Together they cover every kind of payment the state may lawfully require, and Paul's logic is striking: because the magistrate is God's minister, the tax we pay to support his work is, in a real sense, rendered to God. The second pair moves from the pocket to the heart. Fear — the Greek phobos — is not servile terror but the sober reverence owed to one who bears an office instituted by God. It is the recognition that authority, even when exercised imperfectly, carries a weight that mere power does not. And honour — timē — is the esteem and respect that treats the office with dignity regardless of our assessment of the office-holder's character. Paul surrounds these four duties with the phrase "for conscience' sake," which translates dia tēn suneidēsin: not merely to avoid punishment, not merely because it is prudent, but because the conscience, bound by the Word of God, recognises the magistrate's divine institution and responds in obedient faith. The same fourfold pattern appears, remarkably, in 1 Peter 2:17: "Honour all men. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honour the king." Peter writes to Christians scattered through the provinces of Asia Minor, subjects of the very empire that would soon, under Nero, soak the earth with their blood. And yet the command is unqualified: "Honour the king." The apostle does not say "the good king," or "the Christian king," or "the king who protects your liberties." He says "the king" — the one who sits on the throne now, whatever his character, whatever his creed. The honour rendered to the magistrate is not a reward for virtue but a recognition of office, and it stands between the love owed to the brotherhood and the fear owed to God alone, a middle term in a sacred hierarchy of duties that stretches from the common honour due to every human being to the supreme reverence reserved for the Almighty. Our Lord himself addressed this question with characteristic clarity and depth. In Matthew 22:19-21, when the Pharisees and Herodians sought to entangle him in the controversy over Roman taxation, he asked for a penny and inquired, "Whose is this image and superscription?" When they answered "Caesar's," he gave his reply: "Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's; and unto God the things that are God's." The coin bore Caesar's image, and therefore belonged to Caesar — but man bears God's image, and therefore belongs to God. What Christ positively affirmed is less often noticed: that there are things which are Caesar's. The pagan emperor, the occupying power, the regime that would one day destroy Jerusalem and its temple — this Caesar had legitimate claims. The coin in the hand of the Son of God testified that civil authority, even when wielded by a Roman, was real authority with real prerogatives. Christ did not abolish tribute; he authorised it. To these New Testament foundations the Old Testament adds a witness that is no less instructive. When the people of Judah were carried into exile, dragged from their homeland to the banks of the Euphrates, the temptation to despise their captors must have been overwhelming. Nebuchadnezzar had burned the temple, shattered the kingdom, and deported the covenant people. Every instinct would have told the exiles to curse Babylon and pray for its destruction. But God, through the prophet Jeremiah, gave them a command that must have fallen on their ears like a thunderbolt: "Seek the peace of the city whither I have caused you to be carried away captives, and pray unto the LORD for it: for in the peace thereof shall ye have peace" (Jeremiah 29:7). Pray for Babylon. Pray for the pagan empire that destroyed your home. Pray for the king who sits on David's stolen throne. This was not a counsel of political quietism but an act of profound theological realism: the God who had used Babylon as the rod of his chastisement was also the God who commanded his people to seek its welfare, because the peace of the city was bound up with their own peace. Here, centuries before Paul wrote to the Romans, the duty to pray for magistrates was laid upon the people of God with startling specificity. One more Old Testament narrative deserves attention, for it supplies the clearest instance of honour rendered to an unworthy magistrate by a man who had every earthly reason to withhold it. David's relationship with Saul is the great biblical case study in the honouring of authority. Saul had been rejected by God, tormented by an evil spirit, and had made David's life a desperate flight through wilderness and cave. Twice David had Saul within his power to kill. Twice he refused, and on the second occasion, in the darkness of the cave at En-gedi, he spoke words that have echoed through the ages: "The LORD forbid that I should do this thing unto my master, the LORD's anointed, to stretch forth mine hand against him, seeing he is the anointed of the LORD" (1 Samuel 24:6). Saul was a reprobate king. He was murderous, irrational, and — most significantly — no longer the bearer of God's favour. And yet David still called him "my master" and "the LORD's anointed." The office remained sacred even when the man had forfeited every claim to personal respect. David's conscience, bound by the knowledge that God had placed Saul upon the throne, would not permit him to touch the Lord's anointed, and in that restraint we see the seed of the very principle the Confession would codify twenty-five centuries later: honour the magistrate not because he is good, but because his office is God's.

What the Divines Meant

When the Westminster Divines gathered in the Jerusalem Chamber to frame this section of the Confession, they were not writing in abstraction. They were men who had lived through civil war, who had seen a king executed and a commonwealth rise and fall, who had known what it was to suffer under magistrates who despised their faith and to enjoy the protection of magistrates who shared it. And they were men who had watched, for generations, as the bishop of Rome claimed a jurisdiction that reached into the throne rooms of Europe and asserted the power to depose princes, absolve subjects of their allegiance, and hand kingdoms to whom he would. The structure of Section 4 reflects these twin concerns. The first sentence sets forth the people's positive duties toward the civil magistrate, rooting them in conscience rather than mere prudence. The second sentence addresses two related errors: the error of those who would use religious difference as a pretext for rebellion, and the far greater error of the papal claim to temporal supremacy. The five duties listed in the opening clause form a logical and spiritual sequence. Prayer stands first, for it is the fountain from which all the others flow. A people who pray for their magistrates will find it increasingly difficult to despise them, for it is hard to mock the man for whom you have just interceded and harder still to curse the woman you have carried before the mercy seat. Honour follows prayer, for prayer acknowledges the magistrate's need of God's grace and wisdom, and such acknowledgement cannot coexist with contempt. Tribute and other dues follow honour, for the material support of government is a tangible expression of the respect we profess. Obedience to lawful commands and subjection to authority bring up the rear, the outward and visible signs of an inward disposition shaped by prayer, honour, and the willing payment of what is owed. The phrase "for conscience' sake" is the theological keystone of the entire section. It reaches back to Romans 13:5, where Paul uses the identical logic: the believer's subjection to the magistrate is not a matter of political calculation or fear of punishment but of conscience before God. The magistrate is God's minister, and to resist the magistrate in the sphere of his lawful authority is to resist the God who appointed him. This does not mean blind obedience; the Confession has already affirmed, in its third section, the limits of civil authority over faith and conscience, and the apostles themselves declared "We ought to obey God rather than men." But within the sphere of the magistrate's lawful jurisdiction, the Christian obeys not because the magistrate is wise, or just, or likeable, but because God has commanded it and the conscience cannot excuse itself from what God has bound. The second sentence of the section addresses a question that may seem distant to modern readers but was burning in the seventeenth century and, in certain respects, burns still wherever ecclesiastical authority claims supremacy over civil government. "Infidelity, or difference in religion, doth not make void the magistrates' just and legal authority." This was aimed in one direction at the radical sects that had emerged during the upheavals of the Reformation — groups that argued that no unbelieving magistrate could hold legitimate authority over Christian people, and that believers were therefore free to disregard or overthrow rulers who did not share their faith. The Divines answered with an emphatic negative: the magistrate's authority derives from God's ordinance, not from his personal orthodoxy. A pagan emperor, a Muslim sultan, an atheist president — all hold authority from God by virtue of their office, and difference in religion severs neither the chain of command nor the duty of obedience in lawful things. But the sentence had a second and more specific target, and the Confession names it plainly: "much less hath the pope any power and jurisdiction over them in their dominions." The papal claim to depose temporal rulers — the so-called potestas indirecta in temporalibus, the indirect power in temporal matters — had been asserted with increasing boldness through the medieval period. Pope Gregory VII had humbled the Emperor Henry IV at Canossa. Pope Innocent III had declared that he could depose princes and release subjects from their oaths of allegiance. Pope Boniface VIII, in the bull Unam Sanctam, had proclaimed that "it is altogether necessary to salvation for every human creature to be subject to the Roman Pontiff." The claim reached its most concentrated expression in the doctrine that the pope, by virtue of his spiritual office, held a deposing power over kings — that if he judged a ruler to be a heretic, he could absolve that ruler's subjects of their duty of obedience and, in extreme cases, authorise the taking of the ruler's life. The Westminster Divines, standing in the tradition of the English Reformation and the Scottish Covenant, rejected this claim in the strongest possible terms. They denied the pope's jurisdiction over magistrates in their own dominions — that is, within the territories over which those magistrates legitimately ruled. They denied his jurisdiction over the people of those dominions. And with the phrase "least of all" they denied, with particular vehemence, the claim to deprive magistrates of their dominions or their lives on any pretense whatever. The "least of all" is telling: it signals that, of all the papal claims the Divines rejected, the claim to exercise the power of life and death over civil rulers — to be, in effect, a super-magistrate over magistrates — was the most offensive, the most dangerous, and the most clearly contrary to the Word of God. Yet we should not read this passage as a mere piece of anti-Roman polemic, a relic of seventeenth-century controversy with no relevance to our own day. The principle it defends is a permanent one: no ecclesiastical authority, whether a pope or a council or a denominational bureaucracy, possesses jurisdiction over the civil magistrate in the exercise of his lawful office. The two powers — spiritual and temporal — are distinct in their origin, their instruments, and their ends. When the church forgets this and reaches for the sword, it corrupts both itself and the state. The Confession's anti-papal clause is not merely a historical footnote; it is a standing guard against the ancient and recurring temptation of ecclesiastical power to clothe itself in civil force.

Theological Depth

The duty of subjects toward their magistrates has engaged the finest minds of the Reformed tradition, not because it is obscure but because it is difficult — difficult to define, difficult to limit, and most difficult of all to maintain when the magistrate is unjust or hostile to the faith. Calvin, in the final chapter of the Institutes, devotes sustained attention to the question of tribute and the conscience. He observes that Paul's command to pay taxes is grounded in the magistrate's character as God's minister, and he draws a conclusion that many find uncomfortable: "If we are defrauded of any part of our property by the publicans, when through injustice they prey upon the common people, or by soldiers when they make plunder of our possessions, or by princes when through excessive exaction they drain our means — let us remember that these things are not done without the Lord's will." This is a hard saying, and Calvin does not pretend otherwise, but his point is theological rather than political: the magistrate, even when he sins in the execution of his office, does not thereby cease to be the magistrate. The remedy for unjust taxation is not rebellion but the same recourse the believer has in every other trial: patient endurance, lawful appeal, and prayer to the God who holds the hearts of kings in his hand. What Calvin refuses to allow is the argument that a bad magistrate is no magistrate at all, for that argument leads not to liberty but to anarchy, and anarchy is no friend to the gospel. The phrase "for conscience' sake" received particularly careful treatment from William Ames, whose Marrow of Sacred Divinity was studied by generations of Puritans. Ames distinguished between the obedience that springs from fear of punishment and the obedience that springs from conscience before God. The former, he argued, is merely prudential — the kind of obedience a slave renders to a master. The latter is moral and spiritual — the obedience of a free man who recognises in the magistrate a divine ordinance and submits not to power but to God through the power. This distinction is vital, for it means that the Christian's civil obedience is an act of worship. When I pay my taxes, I am not merely complying with the revenue code; I am honouring the God who established civil government. When I rise in a courtroom as the judge enters, I am not merely observing a custom; I am acknowledging that the authority that judge wields is derivative from the authority of the Most High. The conscience, Ames insisted, is bound only by God, and the magistrate binds the conscience only because and only insofar as God has delegated to him the authority to do so. The anti-papal clause of the Confession finds its most vigorous theological defense in the writings of Samuel Rutherford, the Scottish commissioner to the Westminster Assembly whose Lex, Rex had laid the axe to the root of royal absolutism. Rutherford argued that the pope's claim to a deposing power over kings was not merely a political error but a theological blasphemy, for it set a mere man in the place that belongs to Christ alone. Christ is the only King and Head of the Church; no bishop, however exalted, shares that crown. When the pope claims the power to transfer kingdoms, to release subjects from their oaths of allegiance, and to authorise the killing of rulers, he claims a jurisdiction that belongs only to the One before whom "every knee shall bow." Rutherford's argument was not that the pope lacked sufficient earthly power to enforce such claims — though by the mid-seventeenth century that was increasingly true — but that the claims themselves were a usurpation of Christ's prerogatives, a practical denial of the very doctrine of Christ's kingship that the Reformation had recovered. If Rutherford supplied the theological refutation of the papal claims, John Owen supplied the pastoral wisdom for those who lived under them. Owen, who had seen the Stuart kings attempt to impose episcopacy on the Scottish church and who had preached before Parliament during the Commonwealth, understood that the conflict between civil and ecclesiastical authority was not a matter of abstract theory but of life and death for ordinary believers. In his writings on toleration and the limits of the magistrate's power, Owen insisted that the immunity of the civil ruler from ecclesiastical deposition was the necessary corollary of the church's immunity from civil control. The same principle that forbids the magistrate to administer the sacraments also forbids the pope to depose the magistrate. Both powers are from God; both are limited; neither may invade the other's sphere without sin. Owen's practical counsel to Christians living under hostile magistrates was the same as Paul's: pray, honour, pay what is owed, and obey in all things lawful, leaving the vindication of the church to its true Head. To this chorus of Reformed voices we may add one from the early church, whose witness to the duty of praying for magistrates is striking because it was given in an age of persecution. Tertullian, writing his Apology around AD 197, described the prayers of the church for the Roman emperor in terms that would have astonished his pagan readers: "We pray for all the emperors, a long life for them, a safe dynasty, a brave army, a faithful senate, a virtuous people — the whole world at peace." And he added a reason that reaches the heart of the matter: "We pray for the emperors because we know that it is God alone who dispenses the empire." The Christians Tertullian described did not pray for deliverance from the empire — though they might have done so with ample cause — but for the welfare of the empire, because they understood that the emperor, for all his hostility to the faith, held his office by the will of the same God they worshipped. This ancient witness reminds us that the Confession's command to pray for magistrates is not a novel invention of Reformed orthodoxy but the settled practice of the church from her earliest days.

Puritan Application

First, praying for magistrates is not an optional exercise for the spiritually ambitious but a duty binding on every Christian, and it must be specific. General prayers for "the authorities" cost nothing and accomplish little. The apostle's language in 1 Timothy 2 is particular: "for kings, and for all that are in authority." Name your rulers before the throne of grace. Pray for the prime minister by name, for the president, for the governor, for the mayor, for the judge who sits in your local court. Pray for their wisdom in deliberation, their integrity in office, their courage in the face of pressure, their humility under the weight of power, and — hardest of all — their salvation. A church that never names its rulers in prayer has not yet begun to take the apostle's command seriously, and a church that prays for its rulers only when they belong to its own political party has not yet understood the nature of Christian intercession. The Babylonian exiles prayed for Nebuchadnezzar. The apostolic church prayed for Nero. Whom are we praying for? Second, honouring the person of the magistrate means more than the outward forms of respect, though it does not mean less. It means refusing to participate in the culture of mockery and contempt that disfigures modern political discourse. The Christian may disagree with the magistrate's policies, may oppose his decisions through every lawful means, may speak the truth about injustice and press for reform with all the vigour that conscience demands — but he may not mock. He may not reduce the image-bearer who occupies high office to a caricature, a punchline, a meme. David spoke of Saul as "the LORD's anointed" even when Saul was hunting him like a partridge on the mountains. That example sets the bar impossibly high — unless we remember that the Spirit who enabled David's reverence is the same Spirit who dwells in every believer, and that the grace that restrains the tongue is among the hardest and most necessary fruits of that Spirit's work. Third, the payment of tribute and other dues is a matter of conscience, not convenience. The Christian who cheats on his taxes, who conceals income, who pads deductions, who treats the revenue code as a game to be beaten rather than a lawful command to be obeyed — that Christian has forgotten Romans 13. Paul does not say, "Pay your taxes if the rate seems reasonable." He does not say, "Pay your taxes if you approve of how the money is spent." He says, "Render therefore to all their dues," and he grounds that command in the magistrate's divine commission. The tax form that sits on the kitchen table is, in a sense, an altar — a place where we acknowledge that the civil authority under which we live is God's minister for our good. To cheat the tax collector is to cheat God, not because the state is divine, but because the state's legitimate authority is delegated by the One who is. Fourth, obedience to lawful commands and subjection to authority "for conscience' sake" requires the believer to distinguish carefully between what is merely disagreeable and what is actually unlawful. The magistrate commands many things that are burdensome, inefficient, unwise, or personally costly. These commands are not thereby sinful, and the Christian's duty in such cases is clear: obey, and if the law provides for it, work peaceably through lawful channels for change. The line is crossed only when the magistrate commands what God forbids or forbids what God commands. At that point — and only at that point — the apostolic principle applies: "We ought to obey God rather than men." But we should be honest about how often we reach that threshold. Most of what we chafe against in civil government is not a matter of conscience but of comfort, and to invoke the apostles' defiance of the Sanhedrin over a parking citation or a zoning regulation is to trivialise the very real cost at which that defiance was maintained. Fifth, the anti-papal clause of the Confession, far from being a museum piece, guards a principle that every generation of Christians must reaffirm: the church may not wield the sword, and the magistrate may not wield the keys. When ecclesiastical authorities, whether a medieval pope, a modern denominational bureaucracy, or a politically mobilised religious movement, claim the power to depose civil rulers, to direct the affairs of state, or to compel conscience by civil penalty, they repeat the very usurpation the Westminster Divines condemned. The integrity of the gospel depends on the distinction between the two powers. When the church grasps for political power, it loses its prophetic voice; when the state commands what belongs to faith, it exceeds its commission. The Confession's energetic denial of papal jurisdiction is, at bottom, a defense of the liberty of both church and state under their common Lord, who alone holds the scepter of universal dominion and before whom every earthly authority, pope and prince alike, must one day give account.

Prayer

Almighty God, who rulest over the kingdoms of men and givest them to whomsoever Thou wilt, we bring before Thee the rulers and magistrates whom Thou hast set over us. Thou hast commanded us to pray for them, and we would not neglect this duty, though our hearts are often slow to obey. Grant to all who bear the sword of civil authority wisdom from above, that they may judge righteously and govern justly; integrity in the face of temptation, that they may serve the public good and not their private interest; and the knowledge of Thy Son Jesus Christ, in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. We pray for their persons, that Thou wouldst protect them from the designs of wicked men; for their households, that they may know the peace of families governed by Thy fear; and for their souls, that in the great day of account they may find mercy at the throne of the Judge who cannot be deceived. Teach us, O Lord, to honour those whom Thou hast placed in authority over us, to speak of them with the respect that their office deserves, and to resist the temptation to mockery and contempt that so easily besets us. Grant us the honesty to render what is owed in tribute and custom, not grudgingly but as unto Thee. Give us the wisdom to distinguish between what is merely burdensome and what is truly unlawful, that we may obey with a quiet conscience in all things not contrary to Thy Word, and that we may stand with the courage of the apostles when obedience to man would mean disobedience to Thee. And guard Thy church, we beseech Thee, from the ancient and recurring temptation to seize the sword that Thou hast not given her, remembering that the weapons of her warfare are not carnal but mighty through Thee to the pulling down of strongholds. We ask all this in the name of Him who is King of kings and Lord of lords, Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.