I. I am to endeavour to shew the nature of the duty enjoined in the text, "Submit yourselves to every ordinance of man." We must understand, then, first, _What is meant by every ordinance of man_; and this the Apostle himself explains to us in the following words: "Whether to the king as supreme, or unto governors, as unto them that are sent by him." From which it is plain, that every ordinance of man, means all that are entrusted with the government of the place or country in which we live. To all these the duty enjoined in the text refers. And we should observe, that it refers to them without any allusion to their respective _characters_. The command does not say, submit to the king, as _good_, and _wise_, and _mild_ in his government; neither does it say, submit to the magistrate as being _equal_ in their administration of justice; but it says, submit "to the king as supreme," that is, as deriving his authority not from man, but from God; and, therefore, as responsible to God alone, for the manner in which he exercises it. And again, submit to the magistrates or to governors, as those that are sent by the king, and therefore, as answerable to the king alone, or to those whom he may appoint to judge them, either for the right or wrong administration of justice. What, then, it may perhaps be asked, is a wicked king, or are unjust governors to be submitted to, in the same way that those that are good and just are? Is their character and conduct to make no difference in the submission due to them? The Apostle, in the text, makes no difference whatever. It belongs to God to punish a wicked king, because it is from God the authority he abuses, by his wickedness, is derived: "By me," he says, "kings reign;"[3] and it belongs to the king, in a similar way, to punish unjust magistrates, because "by him they are sent for the punishment of evil-doers, and for the praise of them that do well." Hence, then, whatever be the character of the king, and of the governors sent by him, the submission due to them from the people is the same. This, too, is remarkably confirmed by the conduct of the Apostle Peter himself, and of the early Christians in general. At the time when the Apostle wrote the Epistle from which the text is taken, one of the most wicked and cruel tyrants that the world perhaps has ever seen, was upon the throne of the Roman empire. Not only was he avowedly, in common with the rest of the then known world, (except Judea,) a heathen, but he was one of the worst, and most degraded of them, abandoned to the lowest vices, and taking delight in the sufferings of his people. You may judge a little of his character, when I tell you that he is related to have set on fire the capital city of his dominions, and afterwards charged the Christians resident in it with his own crime, and caused as many of them as could be seized, to be put to death. And still later in his reign, both St. Peter and St. Paul suffered martyrdom by his orders. And