1. Civil government is a divine institution, i. e. it is the will of God that it should exist, and be respected and obeyed, v. 2.
2. While ' government is of God, the form is of men.' God has never enjoined any one form obligatory on all communities; but has simply laid down certain principles, applicable to rulers and subjects, undei every form in which governments exist, vs. 1 — 7.
3. The obedience which the Scriptures command us to render to our rulers is not unlimited ; there are cases in which disobedience is a duty. This is evident, first, from the very nature of the case. The command to obey magistrates is, from its nature, a command to obey them as ma- gistrates in the exercise of their rightful authority. They are not to be obeyed as priests or as parents, but as civil rulers. No one doubts that the precept, " Children, obey your parents in all things," is a command to obey them in the exercise of their rightful parental authority, and im- poses no obligation to implicit and passive obedience. A parent who should claim the power of a sovereign over his children, would have no right to their obedience. The case is still plainer with regard to the command, " Wives, submit to your own husbands." Secondly, from the fact that the same inspired men who enjoin, in such general terms, obedience to rulers, themselves uniformly and openly disobeyed them whenever their commands were inconsistent with other and higher obli- gations. "We ought to obey God rather than men," was the principle which the early Christians avowed, and on which they acted. They
isobeyed the Jewish and heathen authorities whenever they required