with the supreme authority, and act as God’s immediate vicegerents in the world, are the persons in respect of whom this injunction was particularly given, but it may very fairly be extended likewise, under due restrictions, to all that are commissioned under it and have any share of the authority delegated to them. Such then is the doctrine of the Christian religion, as taught by the Great Author and Founder of it, Jesus Christ Himself. And His apostles, who followed Him in the uniform practice of all those virtues by which societies subsist, have both by their precept and example taught us the same thing. St. Paul in his epistle to the Romans, speaking of a Christian’s duty to the civil magistrate, commands that “every soul be subject to the higher powers”; and deduces our obligation to this duty from these two considerations: first, that it is the will of God--for “there is no power”, he tells us, “but of God”. The powers in being are ordained of Him: it must therefore, as he then concludes, be the indispensable duty of all subjects to obey; because if they resist, they “resist the ordinance of God”. The other consideration is taken from the general design of government, which shews it to be our interest, as well as duty, to be obedient subjects; that “he is the minister of God to us for good”; and that therefore in regard to ourselves we should submit to his authority, “not only from wrath, but also for conscience sake”; as being truly sensible of the advantages of government, that it is the ordinance of God, for the good of mankind. As an explication of this duty of subjection to the higher powers, and to teach us the extent of our obedience to it, St. Peter requires our submission, not only to the supreme magistrate himself, but also to all, in their degree and proportion, who are invested with public authority. “Submit yourselves”, says he, “to every ordinance of man for the Lord’s sake, whether it be to the king as supreme, or unto governors, as unto them that are sent by Him for the punishment of evil doers, and for the praise of them that do well”. Now these scriptures, as they instruct us in our behaviour towards the persons of magistrates, so do they teach us likewise the great expediency and usefulness of magistracy itself, and shew us the grounds and reasons of its institution. They inform us that magistrates were appointed to be the guardians of the public quiet, and had the sword of justice put into their hands for this very purpose, “to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil”. And it is a melancholy truth, which I can only publish and lament, that never was the vigilance and courage of the civil magistrate more necessary than in these evil days into which we are fallen; when to say nothing of the private vices that abound amongst us, an almost general licentiousness is practised throughout the kingdom, against both the common reason and the common interest of mankind, and in defiance of all authority, whether sacred or civil.