law, and every man is bound to submit or conform to reason.

That legitimate governments are instituted under the natural law
is frankly conceded, but this is by no means the concession of
government as a natural development. The reason and will of
which the natural law is the expression are the reason and will
of God. The natural law is the divine law as much as the
revealed law itself, and equally obligatory. It is not a natural
force developing itself in nature, like the law of generation,
for instance, and therefore proceeding from God as first cause,
but it proceeds from God as final cause, and is, therefore,
theological, and strictly a moral law, founding moral rights and
duties. Of course, all morality and all legitimate government
rest on this law, or, if you will, originate in it. But not
therefore in nature, but in the Author of nature. The authority
is not the authority of nature, but of Him who holds nature in
the hollow of His hand.

V. In the seventeenth century a class of political writers who
very well understood that no creature, no man, no number of men,
not even, nature herself, can be inherently sovereign, defended
the opinion that governments are founded, constituted, and
clothed with their authority by the direct and express
appointment of God himself. They denied that rulers hold their
power from the nation; that, however oppressive may be their
rule, that they are justiciable by any human tribunal, or that
power, except by the direct judgment of God, is amissible. Their
doctrine is known in history as the doctrine of "the divine right
of kings, and passive obedience." All power, says St. Paul, is
from God, and the powers that be are ordained of God, and to