son
against God. We have already remarked that the scriptural doctrine is
opposed to every one of these principles. The Bible does not prescribe
any one form of government; it does not determine who shall be
depositories of civil power; and it clearly recognizes the right of
revolution. In asserting, therefore, the divine right of rulers, we are
not asserting any doctrine repudiated by our forefathers, or
inconsistent with civil liberty in its widest rational extent.

Such, as we understand it, is the true nature of civil government. It is
a divine institution and not a mere voluntary compact. Obedience to the
magistrate and laws is a religious duty; and disobedience is a sin
against God. This is true of all forms of government. Men living under
the Turkish Sultan are bound to recognize his authority, as much as the
subjects of a constitutional monarch, or the fellow-citizens of an
elective president, are bound to recognize their respective rulers. All
power is of God, and the powers that be are ordained of God, in such
sense that all magistrates are to be regarded as his ministers, acting
in his name and with his authority, each within his legitimate sphere;
beyond which he ceases to be a magistrate.

That this is the doctrine of the Scriptures on this subject can hardly
be doubted. The Bible never refers to the consent of the governed, the
superiority of the rulers, or to the general principles of expediency,
as the ground of our obligation to the higher powers. The obedience
which slaves owe their masters, children their parents, wives their
husbands, people their rulers, is always made to rest on the divine will
as its ultimate foundation. It is part of the service which we owe to
God. We are required to act, in all these relations, not as
men-pleasers, but as the servants of God. All such obedience terminates
on our Master who is in heaven. This gives the sublimity of spiritual
freedom even to the service of a slave. It is not in the power of man to
reduce to bondage those who serve God, in all the service they render
their fellow-men. The will of God, therefore, is the foundation of our
obligation to obey the laws of the land. His will, however, is not an
arbitrary determination; it is the expression of infinite intelligence
and love. There is the most perfect agreement between all the precepts
of the Bible and the highest dictates of reason. There is no command in
the word of God of permanent and universal oblig