Page:The collected works of Theodore Parker volume 8.djvu/61

Rh appointment. It would be thought ridiculous for a British farmer to claim Divinity for Tusser's “Five Hundred Points of Good Husbandry;” but it is just as absurd for a British politician to claim Divinity for the British Constitution, or the statutes of the realm. Rules for farming the land and rules for farming the people are alike and equally the work of men.

Still further, it is said that human officers to execute the statutes, administer the government, and sustain society, are also of Divine appointment; and hence we are morally bound to employ, honour, and obey them. If this means, that at a certain stage of man's social, political, and legal development, it is necessary to have certain persons whose official business it shall be to execute those statutes, then it is true, and human officers are of Divine appointment. But it is just as necessary to have certain persons, whose official business it shall be to execute the rules for farming the land; and so the agricultural officers are just as much of Divine appointment as the political. But it does not follow that ploughman Keith and reaper Gibson are such by the grace of God, and therefore we are morally bound to employ, honour, and obey them; and it no more follows that King Ferdinand or President Fillmore are such by the grace of God, and we morally bound to employ, honour, and obey them. It would be thought ridiculous for Keith and Gibson to claim Divinity for their function of ploughman or reaper; but it is equally absurd for Fillmore and Ferdinand to claim Divinity for their function of president or king. The farm office and the State office are alike and equally the work of men.

Yet it is often taught that society, government, statutes, and officers, are peculiarly and especially of Divine appointment, in a very different sense from that mentioned just now; and therefore you and I are morally bound to respect all the four. We are told this by men who would be astonished if any one should claim Divine appointment for farm-fences, rules of husbandry, for ploughmen and reapers. This is sometimes done by persons who know no better.

In conformity with that fourfold claim of Divinity for things of human appointment, we are told that the great safeguard of man's social welfare is this: entire subordi-