1.  Contrary to the very nature of magistracy, as described in the scriptures of truth, where we are taught, that all authority to be acknowledged of men, must be of God, and ordained of God.  The divine ordination of magistracy is the alone formal reason of subjection thereto, and that which makes it a damnable sin to resist.  So the apostle teacheth, Rom. xiii, 1, &c.:  “There is no power but of God; the powers that be, are ordained of God.”  Not only is it the current sentiment of orthodox divines upon the place, but the text and context make it undeniably evident, that by power here, is understood, not a natural, but a moral power, consisting not only in an ability, but in a right to command.  Which power is said to be ordained of God, as importing, not merely the proceeding of the thing from God providentially, but such a being from God, as carries in it his instituting or appointing thereof, by the warrant of his word, law, or precept.  So that that power which is to be owned as of God, includes these two particulars, without which, no authority can be acknowledged as God’s ordinance, viz., institution and constitution, so as to possess him, who is God’s minister, with a moral power.  In the divine institution of magistracy is contained, not only the appointment of it, but the defining the office in its qualifications and form, in a moral sense, prescribing what shall be the end, and what the measure of its authority, and how the supreme power shall rule and be obeyed.  Again, the constitution of the power, or the determination of the form, and investiture of the particular person with the government, is of God:  hence our Savior, John x, 35, in his application of these words in the Psalms, “I said, ye are gods,” to magistrates, shows how they were gods, “because unto them the word of God came;” that is, by his word and warrant he authorized them; his constitution is passed upon them, who are advanced by men, according to his law in his word.  When therefore a nation acts according to divine rule, in the molding of government, and advancing of persons to the exercise of it; there the government and governors may be said to be ordained of God.  But that government that is not consonant to the divine institution, and those governors, that are not advanced to the place of supreme rule, in a Christian land, by the people, regulating themselves by the divine law, cannot be said to be the powers ordained of God.  It is not merely the conveying the imperial dignity by men unto any particular person, that constitutes the power to be of God; but because, and in so far as this is done by virtue of a warrant from God and in agreeableness to his law that the action has the authority of God upon it.