and determining its civil effects. It is,
however, none the less an ordinance of God. The vows it includes are
made to God; its sanction is found in his law; and its violation is not
a mere breach of contract or disobedience to the civil law, but a sin
against God. So with regard to the church, it is in one sense a
voluntary society. No man can be forced by other men to join its
communion. If done at all it must be done with his own consent, yet
every man is under the strongest moral obligation to enter its fold. And
when enrolled in the number of its members his obligation to obedience
does not rest on his consent; it does not cease should that consent be
withdrawn. It rests on the authority of the church as a divine
institution. This is an authority no man can throw off. It presses him
everywhere and at all times with the weight of a moral obligation. In a
sense analogous to this the state is a divine institution. Men are bound
to organize themselves into a civil government. Their obligation to obey
its laws does not rest upon their compact in this case, any more than in
the others above referred to. It is enjoined by God. It is a religious
duty, and disobedience is a direct offense against him. The people have
indeed the right to determine the form of the government under which
they are to live, and to modify it from time to time to suit their
changing condition. So, though to a less extent, or within narrower
limits, they have a right to modify the form of their ecclesiastical
governments, a right which every church has exercised, but the ground
and nature of the obligation to obedience remains unchanged. This is not
a matter of mere theory. It is of primary practical importance and has
an all-pervading influence on national character. Every thing indeed
connected with this subject depends on the answer to the question, Why
are we obliged to obey the laws? If we answer because we made them; or
because we assent to them, or framed the government which enacts them;
or because the good of society enjoins obedience, or reason dictates it,
then the state is a human institution; it has no religious sanction; it
is founded on the sand; it ceases to have a hold on the conscience and
to commend itself as a revelation of God to be reverenced and obeyed as
a manifestation of his presence and will. But, on the other hand, if we
place the state in the same category with the family and the church, and
regard it as an institution o