Page:Fugitive slave law. The religious duty of obedience to law- a sermon, preached in the Second Presbyterian Church in Brooklyn, Nov. 24, 1850 (IA fugitiveslave00spencer).pdf/12

 namely, man's wisdom can reach farther in ascertaining what is fit or right betwixt him and his fellow-man, than in ascertaining what is fit or right betwixt him and his God: and consequently, man can legislate in respect to property, and other matters of human right, but not in respect to prayer, and other matters of the first class of duties. Moreover, in respect to worship, God is himself one of the parties. The parties are not man and man, as they are in all social duties; but they are man and God:―and therefore, it would seem but fit and natural, that God should legislate exclusively in respect to the duties which we owe to Him, and more specifically, than in respect to the duties which we owe to one another. Hence, we find it so. Explicit divine law regulates all the particulars of the one class of duties; the particulars of the other class of duties are left to human law, or the regulations of human society.

But this latter class of duties, that is, our social duties, are not left to the individual judgement of independent choice of men, in such a sense, that they may obey or disobey human government just as they please. Not in the least. Human government is by the divine will. Obedience to it is obligatory upon men, by the will and law of God. St. Paul directing Titus how to preach,(and therefore directing all ministers of the gospel who come after him,) says to him, "Put them in mind to be subject to principalities and powers, to obey magistrate:" and I am doing it in this sermon. Human government is of divine authority, not the kind, but the fact. And consequently, our action about human government, our obedience to it, and our dis-