For nearly two centuries the most popular and
influential writers on government have rejected the divine origin
and ground of civil authority, and excluded God from the state.
They have refused to look beyond second causes, and have labored
to derive authority from man alone. They have not only separated
the state from the church as an external corporation, but from
God as its internal lawgiver, and by so doing have deprived the
state of her sacredness, inviolability, or hold on the conscience,
scoffed at loyalty as a superstition, and consecrated not civil
authority, but what is called "the right of insurrection." Under
their teaching the age sympathizes not with authority in its
efforts to sustain itself and protect society, but with those who
conspire against it--the insurgents, rebels, revolutionists
seeking its destruction. The established government that seeks
to enforce respect for its legitimate authority and compel
obedience to the laws, is held to be despotic, tyrannical,
oppressive, and resistance to it to be obedience to God, and a
wild howl rings through Christendom against the prince that will
not stand still and permit the conspirators to cut his throat.
There is hardly a government now in the civilized world that can
sustain itself for a moment without an armed force sufficient to
overawe or crush the party or parties in permanent conspiracy
against it.
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