when Athaliah had not only the countenance of providence, but the consent of the people, in the possession of the kingdom; 2 Chron. xxii, 10, 12.  Again, the practice of nations, in owning those for their lawful sovereigns, who, by providence, were put from the actual exercise of their rule and authority, contributes to confute this absurd notion.  Thus, the people of Israel, who had risen up for Absalom, do even, when David was out of the land, own him for their king.  So, during the Babylonish captivity, there are several persons noted as princes of Judah, whom the people owned, as having the right of government over them.  With a variety of other instances, all discovering, in opposition to their anarchical system, that it is not by the dispensations of providence, that the right and title of the lawful magistrate is to be determined.  Moreover, as the Associate Presbytery have so barefacedly belied the scriptures of truth, as to assert that there cannot be so much as an instance found in all the history of the Old Testament, of any civil members refusing, either by word or deed, an acknowledgment of, or subjection unto the authority of any magistrate actually in office, by the will of the civil body:  besides what have been already adduced, take these few following examples of many.  After that Saul, by his disobedience to the commandment of the Lord, had forfeited his title to the kingdom, he was no more honored as king, by Samuel, the prophet; but, on the contrary, he openly testified to his face, that the Lord had rejected him from being king; 1 Sam. xv, 26-35.  Though he mourned over him as one rejected, yet he no more acknowledged him as clothed with the authority as a lawful king; nay, the Lord having rejected him, reproves his prophet for mourning for him, 1 Sam. xvi, 1.  From which, and the command he received to anoint David in his stead, and that even while the civil society did acknowledge, and was subject unto Saul, it appears, that the throne of Israel was then regarded, both by the Lord and his prophet, as vacant, until David was annointed; from which time, in the eye of the divine law, he was the rightful king, and ought, in consequence of the public intimation made by the prophet of Saul’s rejection, to have been acknowledged as the Lord’s Anointed by the whole kingdom of Israel.  In agreeableness whereto, the scripture informs, that not only David in expectation of the Lord’s promise, resisted Saul as an unjust usurper, but many among the tribes of Israel, whom the Spirit of God honorably mentions, rejected the government of Saul, and joined themselves to him that was really anointed of the Lord; 1 Chron. xii, 1-23.  Now, if the Lord did command, under pain of damnation, to give loyal obedience to all in the place of supreme authority, however wicked, while acknowledged by the body politic, he would not