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/18

 ed!―So important to us is the potential dominion and regular administration of Law.

Moreover our very rights in religion, our privilege to have the word of God and read it, to worship God according to the dictates of our own conscience, to preach the gospel and hear it, are rights and privileges, which, in this unjust world, we could not enjoy for a single year, aside from the protection and potential administration of human government.

If this human government, the government of Law, cannot be maintained, therefore, there is nothing on earth valuable to us, which is secure for a single hour! If the Law cannot be enforced, then government is at an end and anarchy reigns, and all is confusion, uncertainty, and violence! Order, civilization, Christianity is not safe!

There is indeed a limit to the obedience due to human government. Such government may become, and sometimes does become, so unjust, oppressive, tyrannical, and cruel, as not to answer the designed, and righteous, and beneficial purposes fo government for a whole people; and in such a case, it deserves no respect as an ordinance of God, for it is then acting contrary to the will og God and the necessity of society; and the injured and oppressed people may justly rise in rebellion against such a government, and overthrow it, if they can. But, let it be carefully remembered, that any violent resistance is positive rebellion against the government; and either that resistance must be crushed, or the government must be overturned. There is no middle way―there can be none. In such a case the