and the people who yield are culpable. It is
true, that bad laws should be changed: but most erroneous, that till
they be regularly removed they should be obeyed. "It is criminal
voluntarily to support, _for a single hour_, laws which are immoral,
unscriptural, and anti-christian; and an oath promising such support
cannot but be sinful. It is a grievous error to maintain, that it is a
duty to obey and support any law, however wicked, so long as it remains
in the statute-book. There is a law above all the laws of men, the
authority of which remains for ever unchangeable; and when any _human
laws_ are in opposition to the _divine_, it is our duty to obey God
rather than man. Laws framed by men in opposition to the will of God,
ought to receive no countenance or support, in any form whatever, from
the followers of the Lamb."[279] There is the same reason for
discontinuing to obey a bad law as there is for annulling it and
substituting for it a better. Difficulties that might arise in
consequence of a people refusing to obey an evil law before its
abolition, afford no reason why it should be observed till removed in
what is termed a constitutional way, but are chargeable on those who
made it and gave it scope.

To promote the real welfare of the civil communities to which they
belong, is the duty of all. Those who wink at the evils connected with
them do not do so. Those who obey their unjust laws do not do so. Those
who do not take means to reform them do not do so. Those who would seek
to overthrow their good institutions are malignant enemies not merely of
their country, but also of all mankind. Those who, from revenge, or
envy, or selfishness, or any other evil principle, or all combined,
would attempt to change their institutions, are the bane of society, and
a curse to their race. Only those who fear God are the true friends of
civil society. Those are called, and feel urged, in greater or less
measure according to their attainments, to many varied duties, all of
which tend to the one end of improving it. The diffusion of information
regarding, the scriptural constitution of civil society, the duties of
all ranks within it to God and to one another, the qualifications of
rulers, and the obligation of the law of Christ in regard to all its
concerns; the protection of its good institutions at once from the
effects of tyranny and anarchy, whether from within or from without; the
resistance of its laws that may be in oppo