unto, and founded upon his righteous law.
And sure, by the same reason, that man may take a liberty to dispense
with the authority of God, in one point of his commanding will; he may
also in another, until at last every part of it is rejected. It is but a
contempt of the same authority, and he that offends in one point, is
guilty of all. Such are the absurdities that this their scheme leads to,
though it is hoped the authors do not intend so. It may here be only
necessary further to observe, that among the other desperate shifts
_Seceders_ are driven to in defense of their favorite notion, they say,
that scriptural qualifications cannot be essential to God's ordinance of
magistracy, or necessarily required as a condition of it _sine qua non_;
for then it would be the same thing with magistracy; nor can these
qualifications be the condition (_sine qua non_, or), without which one
could not be a magistrate; for then it would be necessary, that every
one were possessed of them faultlessly, before he could be owned as a
lawful magistrate; either of which they allege would be grossly absurd.
But this plausible and fair-set argument of theirs, if it prove any
thing, will prove more than it is supposed they themselves will grant,
and consequently proves nothing at all. For the same gross absurdity
may, with equal reason, be inferred from a maintaining, that a due
measure and performance of scripture qualifications and duties are
essential to any other of God's ordinances, and so that these are the
ordinance itself. For instance, they might as well reason (as some have
justly observed already), that scriptural qualifications are not
essential to a lawful gospel minister, for then it would be the same
thing with the ministry, itself; nor can it be a condition, without
which one is not really a minister, unless he were so faultlessly. And
thus they have at once stripped, not only all of the race of _Adam_,
that ever exercised that office, but themselves also, of any real
mission, as ministers, unless they have assumed the Pope's
infallibility, and are advanced to the _Moravian_ perfection. So,
although the scripture declares it essential to the true church, that
she hold the head, yet by their childish reasoning, this would infer a
conclusion big with absurdities, even that this qualification of a true
church, is the church itself. And, in like manner, it can no longer be
admitted, that faith in Christ, and holiness, are essential