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The due
measure and performance of scriptural qualifications and duties belong
not to the being and validity of the magistrate's office, but to the
well-being and usefulness thereof.--_P._ 87. The precepts, already
explained, are a rule of duty toward any who are, and while they are
acknowledged as magistrates by the civil society. Nothing needs be added
for the clearing of this, but the overthrow of a distinction that has
been made of those that are acknowledged as magistrates by the civil
society, into such as are so by the preceptive will of God, and such as
are so by his providential will only; which distinction is altogether
groundless and absurd: All providential magistrates are also preceptive,
and that equally in the above respect (viz., as to the origin of their
office) the office and authority of them all, in itself considered, does
equally arise from, and agree unto the preceptive will of God.--_P._
88. The precepts already explained (_Prov._ xxiv, 21; _Eccl._ x, 4;
_Luke_ xx, 25; _Rom._ xiii, 1-8; _Tit.


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