Romans 13:3 - Coke's Commentary on the Holy Bible

Rulers are not a terror to good works— To the well-doer, τω αγαθοεργω. See Junius in Wetstein. Heylin renders the passage,—to those who do well, but to those who do ill. If circumstances arise to which the argument in this verse is not applicable, it is reasonably to be taken for granted, that the Apostle did not intend here to pronounce concerning such cases. Nothing can be said for interpreting these passages in favour of unlimited passive obedience, which will not prove anyresistance of a private injury unlawful, by the limited authority of our Lord's decision, Matthew 5:39-40. This would subvert the great foundation of magistracy itself, which is appointed to ward off and prevent by force, or to avenge such injuries; but it was very prudent in the Apostle not to enter into any question relating to the right of resistance in some extraordinary cases; as those cases are comparatively few, and as the just decisions which couldhave been given on that subject might possibly have been misrepresented to his own detriment, and that of the Gospel. The general laws of benevolence to the whole, so strongly asserted in this context, are in particular cases to determine; and all particular precepts, in whatever universal terms they are delivered, are always to give way to them. See Doddridge, and Bishop Hoadley's "Measures of Submission."