,
nor amid the shouts of many who, praising civil power, and a Church so
degraded as to act as its creature, cry out in the spirit of the men of
Ephesus, who said, "Great is Diana of the Ephesians," would for a time
be not much heard through some portions of the land: yet by the blessing
of God it would be the means of exhibiting the nature of true
reformation, and, if accompanied by uprightness of deportment, would be
productive of benefits that should be enjoyed, when the works of the
abettors of tyranny would have for ever perished.

Rulers greatly miscalculate when they reckon as obedience the apparent
submission which without hypocrisy is given to their laws, by those who
deny their power to legislate to be of Divine authority. That quiescence
possesses neither of the features which together constitute an act an
offering of genuine obedience. It proceeds neither from wrath, that is,
from the fear of their wrath, nor from a conscientious sense of
obligation to obey them. To do what unqualified rulers command, is one
thing; to do that from a regard to their pretended authority may be
another. The sentiment is wrong, that a thing may be done for wrath,
which cannot be done for conscience' sake. The acts done under
incompetent rulers, by those who disapprove of their claims, come from
neither. Their observance of good laws administered by such rulers, is
not maintained either from a dread of the power of those to inflict a
penalty, or from an approving regard of their claims to authority, but
proceeds from the fear of the wrath of God, and from conscience of duty
to Him. Wicked commands cannot be obeyed at all. An act performed for
wrath, is not lawfully done if not done for conscience' sake also; and
no service that men do under an unlawful government should proceed from
either of these, in reference to those in power. Such rulers act as if
the doing of what they require were obedience to them; but, when their
demands are lawful in themselves, the performance of them should neither
be made nor received as obedience to them, but rendered as service to
God: when they are unlawful, they should be wholly disregarded.

The doctrine is evil, that so long as _any_ law exists, it ought to be
obeyed. If a law be good, what it requires ought certainly to be done.
But though rulers demand obedience to every existing law, whether it be
good or bad, yet when they give effect to those that are bad, they are
chargeable with crime,