Pay tribute and customs to princes according to the laws, and maintenance to thy parents according to their necessity, and honourable support to the clergy according to the dignity of the work and the customs of the place. And although we usually all them just princes who administer their laws exactly to the people, because the actions are in the manner of justice, yet in propriety of speech, they are rather to be called pious and religious. He that despiseth you, despiseth me. No man shall ever be fit to govern others that knows not first how to obey. There is no sin in the world which God hath punished with so great severity and high detestation as this of disobedience.
Obedience is a complicated act of virtue, and many graces are exercised in one act of obedience.
It is an act of humility, of mortification and self denial, of charity to God, of care of the public, of order and charity to ourselves and all our society, and a great instance of a victory over the most refractory and unruly passions. He, therefore, is an ungrateful person that will press the scales down with a voluntary load, and, by disobedience, put more thorns into the crown or mitre of his superior. For if we begin with ourselves, whatsoever seems good in our eyes is most commonly displeasing in the eyes of God. The sin of rebellion, though it be a spiritual sin, and imitable by devils, yet it is of that disorder, unreasonableness, and impossibility, amongst intelligent spirits, that they never murmured or mutinied in their lower stations against their superiors. Nay, the good angels of an inferior order durst not revile a devil of a higher order.