ss, for example, were to pass a bill creating an order
of nobility, or an established church, or to change the religion of the
land, or to enforce a sumptuary code, it would have no more virtue and
be entitled to no more deference than a similar enactment intended to
bind the whole country passed by a town council. This we presume will
not be denied. God has committed unlimited power to no man and to no set
of men, and the limitation which he has assigned to the power conferred,
is to be found in the design for which it was given. That design is
determined in the case of the family, the church and the state, by the
nature of these institutions, by the general precepts of the Bible, or
by the providence of God determining the peculiar constitution under
which these organizations are called to act. The power of a parent was
greater under the old dispensation than it is now; the legitimate
authority of the church is greater under some modes of organization than
under others; and the power of the state as represented in its
constituted authorities is far more extensive in some countries than in
others. The theory of the British government is that the parliament is
the whole state in convention, and therefore it exercises powers which
do not belong to our Congress, which represents the state only for
certain specified purposes. These diversities, however, do not alter the
general principle, which is, that rulers are to be obeyed in the
exercise of their legitimate authority; that their commmands or
requirements beyond their appropriate spheres are void of all binding
force. This is a principle which no one can dispute.

A second principle is no less plain. No human authority can make it
obligatory on us to commit sin. If all power is of God it can not be
legitimately used against God. This is a dictate of natural conscience,
and is authenticated by the clearest teachings of the word of God. The
apostles when commanded to abstain from preaching Christ refused to
obey, and said: "Whether it be right in the sight of God to hearken unto
you more than unto God, judge ye." No human law could make it binding on
the ministers of the gospel, in our day, to withhold the message of
salvation from their fellow-men. It requires no argument to prove that
men can not make it right to worship idols, to blaspheme God, to deny
Christ. It is sheer fanaticism thus to exalt the power of the government
above the authority of God. This would be to