He reasoned of righteousness first.  And this logic was all new to Felix, who had never thought of righteousness or justice as being the end and object of government.  Herod was a pretty fair specimen of those Roman rulers or kings as they were sometimes called, and the unrighteous cause for which he had the head of John the Baptist cut off manifests the measure of his regard for justice.  If history be correct, Felix was not much in advance of him in this respect.  He was governor of Samaria at this time, and his headquarters and home were at Cesarea on the coast of the Mediterranean Sea.  It was in this same city that Paul defended himself so heroically before Festus and Agrippa.  Paul is silent as to the course of reasoning employed in bringing his threefold subject to bear with a weight upon the mind of Felix.  We may reasonably conclude that his first point was the righteousness of civil government; contrasting the corrupt and perverted ideas of rulers as they then existed in their minds upon this feature, with what they ought rightfully to be.  In this connection he did not fail to make occasional home thrusts similar to the one made by Nathan when he said to David:  “Thou art the man.”

It is a newly-discovered truth that the Bible reveals the only true basis of civil government.  That basis, from its lowest bottom to its highest level, is love, or “good will toward men.”  Government founded upon any other basis is tyranny or despotism, the exact form being determined by the depth of bondage and slavery into which the governed are willing to be pressed down, and by the will of the rulers as to how low they are inclined to press them.  The Constitution of the Roman government contained no trace of love.  It was all force.  History abundantly shows this.  Neither justice in the administration of its laws, nor temperance in the demands and exaction of tributes, nor a judgment to come when accounts would be settled, was once thought of.  Those in power knew nothing and thought nothing about any day of final retribution.

It is not very probable that Felix was made to tremble by anything Paul may have said concerning civil government.  The mind of Felix was too firmly fixed in his own ideas of civil righteousness to be deeply moved or disturbed by anything a prisoner might say upon that point.  His execution of Roman law according to his views of righteousness in their administration was satisfactory to his sovereign at Rome; and to please him, and thereby secure perpetual tenure of office, was the height of his ambition.  The cause of his trembling must then be found in another quarter, or the adversary may say that Felix, just at that time, happened to be taken with an ague chill, which Paul mistook for the nervous agitation which he supposed to have been induced by the power of his discourse.