ou, I
presume,--that it is unscriptural and infidel. Enough for us that the
Scriptures say, "The powers that be are ordained of God," and the
civil ruler is "the minister of God." I do not deny,--the Scriptures
do not deny--the distinction between things _civil_ and things
_religious_. The Christian does not demand that the State shall be a
theocracy. The State and the Church has each its appropriate end and
sphere. The prime end of the State is the dispensing of justice, the
protecting of its citizens, and the securing by agriculture and
commerce and the arts, and by the intelligence and virtue of its
citizens, of the general welfare. The prime end of the Church, so far
as man is concerned, is the promotion of his spiritual and eternal
good, through the agency of the Scriptures of revealed truth. The
sphere of the one is the affairs of this life,--that of the other, the
affairs of the life to come. Yet the State and the Church are not
wholly separated and absolutely independent; and neither is
independent of God.

Again: Man in his entirety, is a religious being, and must carry his
religion with him into all his relations. He is a religious citizen;
so that not only is government instituted by God and to be
administered in his name, and is therefore religious, but being
administered by men and upon men, who themselves are under
responsibility to God, it is therefore again religious.

And again: Although the prime end of the State be the promotion of
man's temporal welfare, and that of the Church, the promotion of his
spiritual welfare, and although the prime sphere of the State be the
things of the present life, and that of the Church those of the life
to come, yet things temporal and things spiritual, and the things of
the present life and those of the life to come, have most intimate and
important connections. The spiritual welfare tells upon the temporal,
and the life to come is but the issue and result of the present life.
Here, once more, is the State seen to have a religious character. All
this admits of abundant proof and illustration.

The State, then, has a character directly religious, due to its origin
and nature, as instituted by God for doing his ministry with men.
Hence, its laws should be founded on the highest views of the divine
will ascertainable. It should enact that alone to be crime which God
pronounces to be sin. And again, the State has a character indirectly
religious, in view of the fact, t