For so is the will of God
Which refers not so much to what goes before; though it is a
truth, that it is the will of God that men should be subject to
magistrates, and that magistrates should encourage virtue, and
discourage vice, reward the obedient, and punish delinquents; but
to what follows:
that with well doing;
by doing good works, and those well; by living soberly,
righteously, and godly; by having the conversation honest among
the Gentiles, agreeably to the law of God, and as becomes the
Gospel of Christ; particularly, by living according to the laws
of civil society, so far as is consistent with, and not contrary
to the commands of God; and by being subject to every civil
magistrate, and ordinance of man:
ye may put to silence the ignorance of foolish
men:
or, as the Syriac version renders it, "that ye may stop the
mouths of those foolish men who know not God"; or, as the
Ethiopic version has it, "who know not these things"; who are
ignorant of God, of his righteousness, of his law, his Gospel,
and ordinances. The Gentiles were very ignorant of these things,
and very foolish in their imaginations about religious affairs;
and from this their ignorance and folly arose calumnies,
reflections, and censures upon the people of God; they neither
knew God, nor them, nor true religion, and reproached what they
understood not, and for want of knowing it: now the apostle
signified, that it was the declared will of God that his people
should so behave in civil life, that their enemies should be
entirely confounded, and silenced, and have nothing to say
against them; the word signifies to be muzzled, to have the mouth
shut up, as with a bit or bridle; it is used in ( Matthew
22:12 ) ( 1
Corinthians 9:9 ) .