But what if the laws are not only unfair and partial, but also unjust and wrong? Are we to obey them then? Obey them still, says St. Paul. Of course, if they command you to do a clearly wrong thing; if, for instance, the law commanded you to worship idols, or to commit adultery, there is no question then; such laws cannot be God’s ordinance. The laws can only be God’s ordinance as far as they agree with what we know of God’s will written in our hearts, and written in His holy Bible. Then a man must resist the law to the death, if need be, as the old martyrs did, dying as witnesses for God’s righteous and eternal law, against man’s false and unrighteous law. It is a very difficult thing, no doubt, to tell where to draw the line in such matters. But we, thank God, here in England now, have no need to puzzle our heads with such questions. Every man’s conscience is free here, and he has full liberty to worship God as he thinks best, provided that by so doing he does not interfere with his neighbour’s character, or property, or comfort. There is no single law in England now, that I know of, which a man has any need to refuse to obey, let his conscience be as tender as it may. And as for laws which we think hurtful to the country, or hurtful to any particular class in the country, our thinking them hurtful is no reason that we should not obey them. As long as they are law, they are God’s ordinance, and we have no right to break them. They may be useful after all. Or even if they are hurtful in some way, still God may be bringing good out of them in some other way, of which we little dream, as He has often done out of laws and customs which seem at first sight most foolish and hurtful, and yet which He endured and winked at, for the sake of bringing good out of evil. At all events, whatsoever laws are here in England, are made by the men whom we English have chosen, as the men most fit and wise to make them, and we are bound to abide by them. If Parliament is not wise enough to make perfectly good laws, that is no one’s fault but our own; for if we were wise, we should choose wise law-makers, and we must be filled with the fruit of our own devices. As long as these laws have been made and passed, by Commons, Lords, and Queen, according to the ancient forms and constitution which God has taught our forefathers from time to time for more than a thousand years, and which have had God’s blessing and favour on them, and made us, from the least of all nations, the greatest nation on the earth; in short, as long as those laws are made according to law, so long we are bound to believe them to be God’s ordinance, and obey them. But understand; that is no reason why we should not try to get them improved; for when they are changed and done away according to the same law which made them, that will be a sign that they are God’s ordinances no longer; that God thinks we have no more need for them, and does not require us to keep them.