Men are gods, or, The dignity of magistracy, and the duty of the magistrate…

2. Order and Superiority are needful to them that are in a state of Apostasy; the more wild man is, the more need he hath of a yoke; the more heady our Horses are, the more we curb them: Unruly persons for their own good as well as for others, require restraint.

2. Order and Superiority are needful to them that are in a state of Apostacy; the more wild man is, the more need he hath of a yoak; the more heady our Horses are, the more we curb them: Unruly persons for their own good as well as for others, require restraint.

The hearts of wicked men are like the Sea which cannot rest, but is ever casting up mire and dirt;¹ Now what a deluge would the boisterous waves of their unsanctified wills and affections cause, if there were no banks of Magistracy to bound them and keep them in. If some men were not Gods to others, most men would be Devils to others.

1. 1Augustine thinketh that all civil subjection of one man to another came in by sin, though not all natural subjection of children to parents. De civit. Dei, lib. 19.

Sin must be discouraged; evil doers must be punished; humane Society must be preserved; the good must be protected; our liberties and properties must be defended; justice must be executed; the poor must be relieved; wholesome laws must be maintained; and how can either of these be done without Magistrates: Many fear not sin, nor the God of Heaven, and if it were not for suffering from the Gods on earth, their lusts should be their law, and they would deprive the innocent of their liberties, estates, and lives, and turn the places where they live into Aceldama's fields of blood; nay make the earth worse in some respects then hell;