The sum of their principles anent civil magistracy,
may be collected from these few passages, to be found in a print
entitled, _Answers by the Associate Presbytery to reasons of dissent,
&c.--Page_ 70. "This divine law, not only endows men in their present
state with a natural inclination to civil society and government, but it
presents unto them an indispensable necessity of erecting the same into
some form, as a moral duty, the obligation and benefit whereof no
wickedness in them can lose or forfeit.--_Page_ 74. Whatever magistrates
any civil state acknowledged, were to be subjected to throughout the
same.--_Page_ 50. Such a measure of these qualifications (viz.,
scriptural) and duties cannot be required for the being of the lawful
magistrate's office, either as essential to it, or a condition of it
_sine qua non_: I. It cannot be required as essential thereunto; for
then it would be the same thing with magistracy, which is grossly
absurd, and big with absurdities. In the _next_ place, it cannot be a
condition of it _sine qua non_, or, without which one is not really a
magistrate, however far sustained as such by civil society; for then no
person could be a magistrate, unless he were so faultlessly.
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