An Annotated Bibliography --work in progress (updated August 2021)
also posted here: https://tinyurl.com/RefoPoliResistBib
1. (1550) Heinrich Bullinger, Decades
“So then, truly, we should at no time defend tyrannical power, and say that it is from God. For tyranny is not a divine, but a devilish kind of government; and tyrants themselves are properly the servants of the devil, and not of God.”
(from the Second Decade, sermon on the 6th commandment, You shall not murder, and on the magistrate)
https://www.monergism.com/decades-ebook
2. (1556) John Ponet, A Short Treatise on Political Power
“the political power or authority being the ordinance and good gift of God, one thing, and the person that executes the same (be he king or caesar) another thing. The ordinance being godly, the man may be evil and not of God, nor come there by God… [princes] commanding their subjects that is not godly, not just, not lawful, or hurtful to their country, ought not to be obeyed”
https://faculty.etsu.edu/history/documents/ponet.htm
3. (1558) John Goodman, How Superior Powers Ought to be Obeyed of their Subjects: and Wherein they may lawfully by Gods Word be disobeyed and resisted
“For though the Apostle says: There is no power but of God: yet does he here mean any other powers, but such as are orderly and lawfully instituted by God. …[E]lse should He approve all tyranny and oppression, which comes to any commonwealth by means of wicked and ungodly rulers, which are to be called rightly disorders, and subversions in commonwealths, and not God's ordinance. …[W]hen they are such, they are not God's ordinance. And in disobeying and resisting such, we do not resist God's ordinance, but Satan's, and our sin, which is the cause of such.”
https://defytyrants.com/01/superior-powers.pdf
https://constitution.org/1-Constitution/cmt/goodman/obeyed.htm
4. (c. 1564) John Knox, The Difference Between The Ordinance of God and Persons
[T]he plain words of the Apostle make the difference… the powers are ordained of God for the preservation of quiet and peaceable men, and for the punishment of malefactors. From this it is plain that the ordinance of God and the power given unto men is one thing, and the person clad with the power or with the authority is another… it is evident that the prince may be resisted, and yet the ordinance of God not violated… the power in that [Scripture passage] is not to be understood to be the unjust commandment of men… if men, in the fear of God, oppose themselves to the fury and blind rage of princes; in doing so, they do not resist God, but the Devil, who abuses the sword and authority of God.”
https://www.truecovenanter.com/knox/knox_history_magistracy.html
https://www.gutenberg.org/files/48250/48250-h/48250-h.htm#Page_318
5. (1574) Theodore Beza, Right of Magistrates
“as long as right and justice have prevailed no nation has either elected or approved kings without laying down specific conditions. And if those kings violate these the result is that those who had the power to confer this authority upon them have retained no less power again to divest them of that authority.
...the man who meets with highway robbers ...[may] resist them in just self-defense which incurs no blame because certainly no one has received a special command from God that he meekly allow himself to be slain by robbers. Our conviction is entirely the same about that regular defense against tyrants.”
https://www.yorku.ca/comninel/courses/3020pdf/Beza.pdf
6. (1579) Hubert Languet and Philippe du Plessis Mornay, Vindiciae, Contra Tyrannos, or, concerning the legitimate power of a prince over the people, and of the people over a prince
[written after the St. Bartholomew’s Day massacre of Huguenots; demonstrating just how far a tyranny might go if not resisted]
7. (1579) George Buchanan, De Jure Regni apud Scotos / The Law of Kings in Scotland
[(hated) tutor to young James VI of Scotland, son of Mary Queen of Scots]
8. (1603) Johannes Althusius, Politica Methodice Digesta
9. (1644) Samuel Rutherford, Lex, Rex, or The Law and the Prince; a Dispute for the Just Prerogative of King and People: containing the Reasons and Causes of the Most Necessary Defensive Wars of the Kingdom of Scotland
“That power which is contrary to law, and is evil and tyrannical, can tie none to subjection, but is a mere tyrannical power and unlawful; and if it tie not to subjection, it may lawfully be resisted.” https://books.google.com/books?id=SK8rAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA141#v=onepage&q&f=false
“But while king and parliament do acts of tyranny against God's law, and all good laws of men, they do not the things that appertain to their charge and the execution of their office; therefore, by our Confession, to resist them in tyrannical acts is not to resist the ordinance of God.”
https://books.google.com/books?id=SK8rAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA220#v=onepage&q&f=false
10. (1649; 1651) John Milton, (1649) The Tenure of Kings and Magistrates and (1651) A Defence of the People of England
11. (1659) Richard Baxter, A Holy Commonwealth
12. (1665) John Brown of Wamphray, An Apologetical Relation of the particular sufferings of the faithful Ministers & professors of the Church of Scotland, since August 1660.
“...God giveth no command to do evil, nor to tyrannize. He is not God's vicegerent when he playeth the tyrant, and therefore he may be resisted and opposed without any violence done to the office or ordinance of God. ...it is only powers that are ordained of God that must not be resisted; and tyrants, or magistrates turning tyrants, and exercising tyranny, cannot be called the ordinance of God --though the office, abstracted from the tyranny, be the ordinance of God.”
https://books.google.com/books?id=v_sQAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA86#v=onepage&q&f=false
(c.1665) An Exposition of the Epistle of the Apostle Paul to the Romans
“Tho' we ought and may yield passive obedience unto usurpers... yet we are not allowed to acknowledge such for our lawful magistrates and superiors, nor bound to subject ourselves unto them...; for it is only to such as the word termed powers does properly agree... a power that is from God's approbation and authorization... a power whose proper end is to be a terror to evil and not to good; and to be an encourager to good and not evil, which no ways can agree to an usurper.”
https://books.google.com/books?id=pS4PAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA504#v=onepage&q&f=false
13. (1667; 1669) James Stewart of Goodtrees, (1667) Naphtali, Or The Wrestlings of the Church of Scotland For the Kingdom of Christ and (1669) Jus Populi Vindicatum, Or The People’s Right, to defend themselves and their Covenanted Religion, vindicated
14. (1673) Samuel Pufendorf, On the Duty of Man and Citizen According to the Natural Law
15. (1687) Alexander Shields, A Hind Let Loose, or an historical Representation of the Testimonies of the Church of Scotland
16. (1690) John Locke, Two Treatises of Government
17. (1698) Algernon Sidney, Discourses Concerning Government
“He therefore is only the minister of God, who is not a terror to good works, but to evil; who executes wrath upon those that do evil, and is a praise to those that do well…. [T]he same rule, which obliges us to yield obedience to the good magistrate who is the minister of God, and assures us that in obeying him we obey God, does equally oblige us not to obey those who make themselves the ministers of the Devil, lest in obeying them we obey the Devil, whose works they do.”
https://oll.libertyfund.org/title/sidney-discourses-concerning-government
18. (1775) Jonathan Edwards, Submission To Rulers (‘sermon 14’)
"Upon the whole I think we may justly infer that the doctrines of passive obedience and non-resistance are not the doctrines of the Bible, and that non-resistance to the supreme powers is no more taught in the Scriptures, than non-resistance to our fellow men, and even to thieves, robbers, and those who use the most abusive violence... The truth is, and the whole spirit of Scripture sustains it, that rulers are bound to rule in the fear of God and for the good of the people; and if they do not, then in resisting them we are doing God service."
https://books.google.com/books?id=SWslNDthZKIC&pg=PA244#v=onepage&q&f=false
19. (1835) Charles Hodge, A Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans
“No command to do anything morally wrong can be binding nor can any which transcends the rightful authority of the power whence it emanates… The right of deciding on all these points, and determining where the obligation to obedience ceases, and the duty of resistance begins, must, from the nature of the case, rest with the subject, and not with the ruler.”
https://books.google.com/books?id=VpMXAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA533#v=onepage&q&f=false
20. (1845) Thomas Sproull, Letter on “The Higher Powers”
https://www.covenanter.org/reformed/2016/4/27/letter-on-the-higher-powers
21. (1850) James M. Willson, An Essay on Submission to the Powers That Be https://www.covenanter.org/reformed/2016/6/2/an-essay-on-submission-to-the-powers-that-be
and (1853) Civil Government: An Exposition of Romans 13
1-7
https://www.covenanter.org/reformed/2016/6/2/civil-government-an-eexposition-of-romans-xiii-1-7
22. (1851) Josiah Dodds, An Essay on Civil Government
https://www.covenanter.org/reformed/2017/3/22/an-essay-on-civil-government
23. (1873) William Milroy, The Honor to which Legitimate Civil Government is Entitled https://www.covenanter.org/reformed/2017/3/15/the-honor-to-which-legitimate-civil-government-is-entitled
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Even John Calvin, who is largely unreliable on this point, has to admit:
“[God] has appointed [civil powers] for the legitimate and just government of the world. For though tyrannies and unjust exercise of power, as they are full of disorder, are not an ordained government; yet the right of government is ordained by God for the wellbeing of mankind.”
(1539) from Commentary on Romans 13:2
https://books.google.com/books?id=YyJVAAAAYAAJ&pg=479#v=onepage
“Earthly princes lay aside all their power when they rise up against God, and are unworthy of being reckoned in the number of mankind. We ought rather utterly to defy than to obey them...”
(1561) from Commentary on Daniel 6:22
https://books.google.com/books?id=L2AzAQAAMAAJ&pg=382#v=onepage
(c.347-407) Chrysostom (and other Patristic writers) also held to the prescriptive/office view. God does not ‘ordain’ every de facto ruler, but has ordained (just) civil governance --the administration of civil justice, as such.
“What say you? it may be said; is every ruler then elected by God? This I do not say, he answers. Nor am I now speaking about individual rulers, but about the thing [ie, civil governance] in itself.”
https://ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf111.vii.xxv.html
