XVI.  OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT.—­In like manner they assert and maintain, that God Almighty, the Sovereign Lord of all things, and special protector and preserver of his professed subjects in this lower world, hath for his own glory and the public good, authorized and instituted in his word the office and ordinance of civil government and governors, for the preservation of external peace and concord, administration of justice, defense and encouragement of such as are, and do good, and punishment of evil doers, who transgress either table of the law.  For all which ends, subordinate unto that of his own glory, God, the alone supreme fountain of all power, has instituted and appointed this ordinance.  And further they maintain, that a due measure of those qualifications which God, the great lawgiver requires in his word, together with what other stipulations according to the same unerring rule, a Christian people, who are blessed with the light of divine revelation, have made the fundamental conditions of civil government among them, are essentially necessary to the constitution and investiture of lawful authority over such a people.  No other but such a constitution and investiture, can either be approven of by God, or answer the ends, ultimate or subordinate, of this ordinance, unto the honor of the great institutor, as appears from Prov. viii, 15, 16; Psa. cxlvii, 19, 20, and cxlix, G, 7, 8, 9; Isa. xlix, 23; Rom. xiii, 1, 2, 3, 4; Deut. xvii, 14, 15; 2 Sam. xxiii, 2, 3, 4; Exod. xviii, 21.  Confess, chap. 23, Sec. 1.  Seasonable warning by the general assembly, July 27, 1649.  Act 15, Sess. 2, Parl. 1, 1640.

They further assert and maintain, that the constituting of the relation betwixt rulers and ruled, is voluntary and mutual; and that the lawful constitution of civil magistrates, is, by the mutual election of the people (in whom is the radical right, or intermediate voice of God, of choosing and appointing such as are to sway the scepter of government over them) and consent of those who are elected and chosen for the exercise of that office, with certain stipulations according to scripture and right reason, obliging each other unto the duty of their different stations and relations.  And further they affirm that when magistrates are so constituted, Christians are bound by the law of God to pray for the divine blessing upon their persons and government, reverence and highly esteem them, yield a conscientious subjection and obedience to their lawful commands, defend and support them in the due exercise of their power; which power magistrates are especially to exert for the outward defense of the church of God, against all her external enemies, restraining or otherwise punishing, as the case may require, all open blasphemers, idolaters, false-worshipers, heretics, with all avowed contemners of the worship and discipline of the house of God; and by his civil sanction to corroborate all the laws and ordinances of Christ’s house, providing and enjoining that