the will of the people.  Nothing is more evident than this, that if the inclinations of the people, exclusive of all other qualifications, constitute a lawful magistrate, then (though he rules ever so agreeable to God’s preceptive will), so soon as this body (though in a most unjust and tyrannical manner) casts him off, he that moment for ever loses all title and claim to the office, and can no longer be regarded as a lawful magistrate.  A principle that in its nature and tendency is introductive of all anarchy and confusion, and with the greatest propriety deserves the encomium of the anti-government scheme.

7.  This anarchical system of principles, which destroys the above just and necessary distinction, is directly in opposition to the laudable and almost universal practice of all nations, in ordaining and enacting certain fundamental laws, constitutions and provisos, whereby the throne is fenced, the way to it limited, and the property thereof predisposed.  The Scripture sufficiently discovers those restrictions and rules, which God himself has prescribed and laid down, for directing and determining of his people’s procedure about the erection of magistrates.  And profane history abounds in discovering certain fundamental laws and conditions to take place, almost in every nation, without conforming to which, none can be admitted to that dignity over them.  But to what purpose are any such laws and constitutions, if this vague principle is once admitted, which cancels and disannuls all such provisos and acts?  Why should Moses have been so solicitous about his successor in the government of Israel, Numb. xxvii, 15-17, if God had ordained the inclinations of the people alone should determine?  Or to what purpose did Israel, after the death of Joshua, ask of God, who should be their leader, if their own inclinations alone were sufficient to determine it?  If God has declared, that the corrupt will of the people is the alone basis of civil power, then, not only are all state constitutions and fundamental laws useless, because, on every vacancy of the throne, they not only must all give place to the superior obligation, the incontrollable law, of the uncertain inclinations of the body politic, but they are in their nature unlawful; their proper use in every nation being to prevent all invasion upon the government by unqualified persons, and to illegitimate it, if at any time done.  So that, if the consent of civil society is the only essential condition of government which God has authorized, not only are all scriptural conditions and qualifications useless and unlawful, but also all human securities, either from intruders or for lawful governors, are unlawful, in regard the very design of them all is to oppose this grand foundation principle, the jure-divinity of which Seceders have found out, and do confidently maintain.  And thus, by the seceding scheme, is condemned, not only the practice of almost all other