Called Unto Liberty, Benjamin Colman, Founding Era Sermons
GOD hath set: As well in the nature of things, as in his word. Government is not a creature of man’s lust and will, but of divine constitution, and from a necessity in the nature of things. The very being and weal of society depends thereon.
Government was not in the original of it assumed or usurped by any one man. For instance, not by Lamech before the Flood, nor by Nimrod after it. Indeed the spirit of tyranny, and the lust of dominion, seem to have began in them; but order & rule was before them. Mankind naturally went into that, and these were the men who made the first breaches on it; the one being of the race of Cain, the other of Ham; who have had some of their likeness in every place, and thro’ all generations; that would turn the world upside down and overthrow the foundations which GOD has laid.
Source: Benjamin Colman, “Government the Pillar of the Earth,” 1730.
