2. Secondly, all Christians are subject likewise, as all men in general, to the Temporal Power, in the respective country in which they live, so far as the domain of that Temporal Power extends, which even more than the Spiritual has its limits. The Spiritual Power has itself laid down in absolute terms the obligation of this obedience and the ground on which it rests. "Let every soul be subject to higher powers, for there is no power but from God, and the powers which are have been ordained by God. So that he who resists the power, resists the ordinance of God, and they that resist purchase to themselves condemnation, for the power is God's minister to thee for good." And again, "Be subject to every human creature for God's sake, whether it be to the king as excelling, or to governors as sent by him for the punishment of evil-doers, and for the praise of the good; for so is the will of God." This may be termed the comment of the two chief apostles, Peter and Paul, upon the words of their Lord, "Render to Cæsar the things which are Cæsar's," which is followed by the limitation, "and to God the things which are God's." Temporal government is herein declared to be the vicegerent of God; to have been such from the beginning of the world; to continue to be such to the end of it. The statement that authority, as such, is the minister of God to man for good applies, of course, not to any particular form of temporal government, as emperor, king, or republic, in which the government is administered in the persons of many or few, and in various degrees of delegation, but to temporal government in itself, in the principle of its authority. And being spoken by the highest Christian authority in regard of what was actually a heathen government, it manifestly belongs not only to Christians under Christian governments but to the subjects of civil power in all times and conditions of things. And, further, it is remarkable that our Lord and His apostles, who so strongly recognise civil government as the ordinance of God, "as the minister of God for good," themselves suffered the loss of their lives in obedience to it, by an unrighteous judgment. We have, then, the two Powers set forth as two Vicegerences of God, in the government of His human world: the temporal Vicegerency belonging to each sovereignty for the country which it rules, so far as the sphere of that sovereignty extends; the Spiritual Vicegerency belonging to His one spiritual kingdom in all times and places in the sphere of its sovereignty.