For the conscience is not affected by every particular law; yet we are bound by the general command of God, which establishes the authority of magistrates. And this is the hinge upon which Paul’s argument turns, that magistrates are to be honoured because they are “ordained of God.” [Rom. xiii. 1.] At the same time he is far from insinuating that the laws enacted by them have any thing to do with the internal government of the soul; for he every where extols the service of God and the spiritual rule of a holy life, above all the statutes and decrees of men.
