to the being
of a true Christian; for that would be to make faith the same thing with
a Christian, and would infer, that as in heaven only holiness is in
perfection, so there alone Christians are to be found. Upon the whole,
as the Lord has given an indispensable law, respecting the constitution
of kings, showing what conditions and qualifications are required of
them; it undeniably follows, as an established truth, that Christianized
nations must invest none with that office, but in a way agreeable to
that law, and those alone according to scripture, are magistrates of
God's institution, who are in some measure possessed of these
qualifications. It is therefore an anti-scriptural tenet, that nothing
is requisite to constitute a lawful magistrate, but the inclinations and
choice of the civil society.

3. The Presbytery testify against this system of principles, because it
has a direct tendency to destroy the just and necessary distinction that
ought to be maintained between the perceptive and providential will of
God, and necessarily jumbles and confounds these together, in such a
manner, as a man is left at an utter uncertainty to know when he is
accepted and approven of God in his conduct, and when not. That this is
the scope of their principles, is confessed, p. 87, of their book of
principles: "Nothing needs be added [say they] for the clearing of this,
but the overthrow of a distinction that has been made of those who are
acknowledged as magistrates by civil society, into such as are so by the
preceptive will of God, and such are so by his providential will only;
which distinction is altogether groundless and absurd. It will not be
refused, that all such preceptive magistrates are also providential.
But, moreover, all such providential magistrates are also preceptive.
The office and authority of them all, in itself considered, does equally
arise from, and agrees to the preceptive will of God." A doctrine most
shocking in itself! How strange! that Christians, from any
consideration, will obstinately maintain a favorite opinion, which is
confessedly built upon, and cannot be established but at the expense of
blending and confounding the preceptive and providential will of God,
while the distinction thereof is clearly and inviolably established in
the word of God! Although divine providence, which is an unsearchable
depth, does many times, and, in many cases, serve as a commentary to
open up the hidden mysteries of s