Although civil law is a sort of self-given human law—for the civil magistrate deliberates and determines it—the law still must be in accord with God’s immutable law, and every civil law is binding only if it is derived from God’s law and conduces to the end of that law. Hence, just civil law, even when determined by man, is both theonomic and, in a sense, autonomic. The magistrate enacts and enforces laws of his own design, though only as a mediator, a sort of vicar of divine civil rule.