an government is susceptible.

Again, as no one form of government is prescribed, so neither has God
determined preceptively who are to exercise civil power. He has not
said that such power must be hereditary, and descend on the principle of
primogeniture. He has not determined whether it shall be confined to
males to the exclusion of females; or whether all offices shall be
elective. These are not matters of divine appointment, and are not
included in the proposition that all power is of God. Neither is it
included in this proposition that government is in such a sense ordained
of God that the people have no control in the matter. The doctrine of
the Bible is not inconsistent with the right of the people, as we shall
endeavor to show in the sequel, to determine their own form of
government and to select their own rulers.

When it is said government is of God, we understand the Scriptures to
mean, first, that it is a divine institution and not a mere social
compact. It does not belong to the category of voluntary associations
such as men form for literary, benevolent, or commercial purposes. It is
not optional with men whether government shall exist. It is a divine
appointment, in the same sense as marriage and the church are divine
institutions. The former of these is not a mere civil contract, nor is
the church as a visible spiritual community a mere voluntary society.
Men are under obligation to recognize its existence, to join its ranks
and submit to its laws. In like manner it is the will of God that civil
government should exist. Men are bound by his authority to have civil
rulers for the punishment of evil doers, and for the praise of them that
do well. This is the scriptural doctrine, as opposed to the deistical
theory of a social compact as the ultimate ground of all human
governments.

It follows from this view of the subject that obedience to the laws of
the land is a religious duty, and that disobedience is of the specific
nature of sin; this is a principle of vast importance. It is true that
the law of God is so broad that it binds a man to every thing that is
right, and forbids every thing that is wrong; and consequently that
every violation even of a voluntary engagement is of the nature of an
offense against God. Still there is a wide difference between
disobedience to an obligation voluntarily assumed, and which has no
other sanction than our own engagement, and disregard of an obligation
directly im