Say they in the
fore-quoted pamphlet, page 80th, "It is manifest, that 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." How easy is it here to turn their own artillery
against themselves, and split their argument with a wedge of its own
timber? For if, as is granted, scriptural qualifications are essential
to the usefulness of the magistrate's office, they must also be
necessary to the being thereof, otherwise it is in itself quite useless.
And if in itself useless, with respect to the great ends thereof,
without the due measure of scriptural qualifications, it cannot then be
the ordinance of God, in regard it must not be supposed, that a God of
infinite wisdom and goodness, who does nothing in vain, has instituted
an ordinance for the good of his people, in subserviency to his glory,
which yet, in itself (as to its being and essence), is useless, and of
no profit nor advantage to them.
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