Note 266 — THE BIBLE ARGUMENT ON SLAVERY.

It need hardly be remarked, that the command to obey magistrates, as given in Rom. xiii: 1-3, is subject to the limitation stated above. They are to be obeyed as magistrates; precisely as parents are to be obeyed as parents, husbands as husbands. The command of obedience is expressed as generally, in the last two cases, as in the first. A magistrate beyond the limits of his lawful authority (whatever that may be), has, in virtue of this text, no more claim to obedience, than a parent who, on the strength of the passage "Children, obey your parents in all things," should command his son to obey him as a monarch or a pope.