beauty of nature, of things celestial and things terrestrial, and observes, that there is an order analogous to it established in the church, a spiritual order pervading, cementing, and adorning the whole, from the first Great Spirit to the last resurrection. There is God all in all-there is a Son subject unto him—there is a second Adam, the head of a new world, in which every man is placed in his own order-Christ the first fruits; afterward they that are Christ's at his coming. In the twelfth chapter of the same epistle, he treats of moral order directed by christian doctrine, under the beautiful similitude of a natural body governed by reason, in which the eye cannot say unto the hand, I have no need of thee, nor again the head to the feet, I have no need of you. In this chapter he speaks of civil order, the arrangement of human societies, and, agreeably to his general favourite notion of analogy, calls it an ordinance of God, by which he means to affirm, that civil government is founded on the nature of things, and that there is a fitness between that and those abilities and dispositions, which the Creator hath formed in mankind. Were the world all innocent, civil government would naturally rise out of eminent abilities and virtues (for there might be degrecs of excellence where all were good.) If the world were all vicious, government (such as it would be) would necessarily rise out of dread of injury. The world in its present state is both strengthened by virtue and endangered by vice, and both render government necessary. Here are

black crimes, producing great injuries; it is natural for the defenceless to desire protection from these, and it is just, and therefore an institute of God, that the strong should defend the weak, Here are small degrees of intelligence and virtue wishing to be directed and emboldened to excel, and here are superior abilities and qualities ready to direct and improve them. He, therefore, that resisteth civil government, resisteth the manifest design of God, which is to gratify the lawful wishes of all mankind, to intimidate vice, to cherish virtue, and so to produce social felicity.

What! do all civil governments produce these effects? And does St. Paul mean to affirm, that any sort of polity renders society happy? Our answer will be contained in the second proposition, to which let us proceed.

II. The apostle speaks in the text of a GOOD civil government. The proofs of this lie in the text, and the least attentive may perceive them. St. Paul's powers are of God. Did God ever commission vice, and give legal powers to illegal actions? The apostle's rulers are not a terror to good works, but to the evil: ministers of God to us for good: and to these we are to be subject for conscience sake. It must therefore be a good government, of which he speaks; for the conscience of a christian can never be bound over to vice and misery.

Two questions naturally arise here, first, what is a good civil government? next, who is to judge when a civil government is good?

In answer to the first we beg leave to observe, that we are not now to treat of this question in a political but in a moral view. They, who investigate the subject as politicians, compare monarchy with aristocracy, and both with a democratical government, and determine for one in preference to the other two: but a christian view of government regards less the mode of administration, than the order administered. In this view we affirm a monarchy is a good government, and it is not; an aristocracy is a good government, and it is not; and so of the last, for each may produce social happiness, and either may destroy it.

In general the goodness of a government depends on two things-the good principles, which constitute it and the proper powers, that realize these principles, and reduce them to practice in actual administration. Mankind have certain native inherent rights, securities of these rights are the first principles of a good constitution: but as the best constitution, like every thing human, may degenerate, a government is only good, when it retains power to reduce its principles to practice.

To be more particular. That we call a good government, which places the person of each individual in security. This article includes the life and limbs, the health and reputation of every innocent member of society. Powers, that preserve all these, are of God, for these are his gifts, and they are the natural rights of all mankind.

Again, that is a good civil government, which

insures to the citizen his personal liberty, and subjects none to the fear of arbitrary imprisonment or exile. How miserable are those countries, in which innocent subjects may be instantly deprived of their liberty, rent from their families, and driven either to perish in a dungeon, or to quit their native soil, at the despotical mandate of a passionate ruler!

A good civil government protects each individual in the absolute enjoyment and disposal of his property. Property is the ground of power, and power will always follow property. A people, who would enjoy freedom, can never be too cautious in disposing of their property. While they hold it themselves, they hold the golden sceptre of government: when they transfer it to their rulers, and alienate it from themselves, they exchange that sceptre of gold for a rod of iron, which, not unfrequently, smites and punishes them for their folly.

That is a good civil government, which allows and protects the rights of conscience. This is one of the dearest rights of an intelligent being, and the fullest enjoyment of it cannot, in a well ordered state, include any civil disability; on the contrary, a good conscience is the best qualification of a magistrate. Nothing can contribute more to the moral good of a nation than freeing conscience from all human restraints, and it may justly be questioned, whether the sad want of religious principle, and the consequent depravity of manners, of which some whole nations complain, be not in a

great measure owing to arbitrary impositions on conscience, the setting of human authority in this throne of Almighty God.

That we rightly deem a good civil government, which renders justice cheap to the poor, easy to the illiterate, accessible to all. No government can be good, unless it includes an universal responsibility, and provides for the display of pub-lick-virtue, or the detection of publick iniquity, by subjecting all to account for the wealth, the power, and the trust committed to them for the general good. Government is so far perfect or imperfect as it renders the calling of administrators to account easy or difficult.

These are a few outlines of such a government as St. Paul meant in the text. To such a government and to no other do his propositions agree. Let us suppose a state the reverse of all this, and let us see how little like a man, a christian, or an apostle, St. Paul would seem, were he to speak thus. The powers that be are ordained of God to imprison, to banish, and to kill the citizens. Whosoever resisteth the power, that oppresseth the consciences, and wastes the property of the people, resisteth the ordinance of God. Let every soul be so subject to these higher powers, as to place them above the reach of law, beyond the power of all human restraint.

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Alas! how little must they know the apostle, who imagine he taught such a doctrine as this! His gospel would then have been yea, and his politicks nay, that is, the one would have consisted