3.  Supports the laws of God with his secular authority, as a keeper of the tables, enjoining and commanding, under civil penalties, all under his dominion, strictly and inviolably to observe the same:  as “Josiah made all that were present in Israel to serve the Lord their God,” 2 Chron. xxxiv. 33.  Nehemiah made the sabbath to be sanctified, and strange wives to be put away, Neb. xii. 13, &c.  Yea, Nebuchadnezzar, a heathen king, decreed, that “Whosoever should speak amiss of the God of Shadrach,” &c., “should be cut in pieces, and their houses made a dunghill,” Dan. iii. 28, 29.  And Darius decreed, “That in every dominion of his kingdom men tremble and fear before the God of Daniel,” &c., Dan. vi. 26, 27.

And as he strengthens the laws and ordinances of God by his civil authority, so he ratifies and establishes within his dominions the just and necessary decrees of the Church in synods and councils (which are agreeable to God’s word) by his civil sanction.

4.  Judges and determines definitively with a consequent political judgment, or judgment of political discretion, concerning the things judged and determined antecedently by the Church, in reference to his own act.  Whether he will approve such ecclesiasticals or not; and in what manner he will so approve, or do otherwise by his public authority; for he is not a brutish agent, (as papists would have him,) to do whatsoever the Church enjoins him unto blind obedience, but is to act prudently and knowingly in all his office; and therefore the judgment of discerning (which belongs to every Christian, for the well-ordering of his own act) cannot be denied to the Christian magistrate, in respect of his office.

5.  Takes care politically, that even matters and ordinances merely and formally ecclesiastical, be duly managed by ecclesiastical persons orderly called thereto.  Thus Hezekiah commanded the priests and Levites to do their duties, 2 Chron. xxix. 5, 24, and the people to do theirs, 2 Chron. xxx. 1; and for this he is commended, that therein he did cleave unto the Lord, and observed his precepts which he had commanded Moses, 2 Kings xviii. 6.  Thus when the king is commanded to observe and do all the precepts of the law, the Lord (as orthodox divines do judge) intended that he should keep them, not only as a private man, but as a king, by using all care and endeavor that all his subjects with him perform all duties to God and man, Deut. xvii. 18-20.

6.  A compulsive, coactive, punitive, or corrective power, formally political, is also granted to the political magistrate in matters of religion, in reference to all sorts of persons and things under his jurisdiction.  He may politically compel the outward man of all persons, church officers, or others under his dominions, unto external performance of their respective duties, and offices in matters of religion, punishing them, if either they neglect to do their duty at all, or do it corruptly, not only against equity and sobriety,