I do not propose to argue the question of the nature of civil government. I will not undertake to show that the theory of a social compact--the theory that all just powers of government are derived from the people, who voluntarily yield them up and consent to their exercise--that this theory is false. Enough for me--enough for you, 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.