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son against God. We have already remarked that the scriptural doctrine is opposed to every one of these principles. The Bible does not prescribe any one form of government; it does not determine who shall be depositories of civil power; and it clearly recognizes the right of revolution. In asserting, therefore, the divine right of rulers, we are not asserting any doctrine repudiated by our forefathers, or inconsistent with civil liberty in its widest rational extent. Such, as we understand it, is the true nature of civil government. It is a divine institution and not a mere voluntary compact. Obedience to the magistrate and laws is a religious duty; and disobedience is a sin against God. This is true of all forms of government. Men living under the Turkish Sultan are bound to recognize his authority, as much as the subjects of a constitutional monarch, or the fellow-citizens of an elective president, are bound to recognize their respective rulers. All power is of God, and the powers that be are ordained of God, in such sense that all magistrates are to be regarded as his ministers, acting in his name and with his authority, each within his legitimate sphere; beyond which he ceases to be a magistrate. That this is the doctrine of the Scriptures on this subject can hardly be doubted. The Bible never refers to the consent of the governed, the superiority of the rulers, or to the general principles of expediency, as the ground of our obligation to the higher powers. The obedience which slaves owe their masters, children their parents, wives their husbands, people their rulers, is always made to rest on the divine will as its ultimate foundation. It is part of the service which we owe to God. We are required to act, in all these relations, not as men-pleasers, but as the servants of God. All such obedience terminates on our Master who is in heaven. This gives the sublimity of spiritual freedom even to the service of a slave. It is not in the power of man to reduce to bondage those who serve God, in all the service they render their fellow-men. The will of God, therefore, is the foundation of our obligation to obey the laws of the land. His will, however, is not an arbitrary determination; it is the expression of infinite intelligence and love. There is the most perfect agreement between all the precepts of the Bible and the highest dictates of reason. There is no command in the word of God of permanent and universal oblig
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