The first, that, if the just powers of government come from the people, so, also, do they come from God; and, therefore, that in all legislation in a Christian state, the introduction, for any purpose of expediency, or in compliance with blind popular passion, of that which opposes morality and the Divine law, is obnoxious to the Divine Governor, and must eventually bring down upon it the repugnance of thinking men. The ruler, therefore, who would give dignity to the governmental regimen of his country, must, like such a man as Sir Matthew Hale, remember that nations are governed by those bright statutes which are inscribed upon the broad bosom of Jehovah, as well as by the codes and constitutions of states, So, also, the other larger truth is to be remembered by rulers and officers, and especially by those who take here, on earth, the "mimic seat" of "awful justice throned on high,"—the truth, contained in the majestic words of Hooker,—that "Of law there can be no less acknowledged than that her seat is the bosom of God, her voice the harmony of the world: all things in heaven and earth do her homage, the very least as feeling her care, and the greatest as not exempted from her power. Both angels, and men, and creatures, of what condition soever, though each in different sort and manner, yet all with uniform consent, admiring her as the mother of their peace and joy."[1]
These remembrances on the part of people and rulers will ever give the check, on the one hand, to wild Radicalism, to which, as one of the trials of states, all Governments are called; and, on the other,
- ↑ Ec. Polity, B. 3.
