And, in like manner, it can no longer be
admitted, that faith in Christ, and holiness, are essential to the being
of a true Christian; for that would be to make faith the same thing with
a Christian, and would infer, that as in heaven only holiness is in
perfection, so there alone Christians are to be found. Upon the whole,
as the Lord has given an indispensable law, respecting the constitution
of kings, showing what conditions and qualifications are required of
them; it undeniably follows, as an established truth, that Christianized
nations must invest none with that office, but in a way agreeable to
that law, and those alone according to scripture, are magistrates of
God's institution, who are in some measure possessed of these
qualifications. It is therefore an anti-scriptural tenet, that nothing
is requisite to constitute a lawful magistrate, but the inclinations and
choice of the civil society.
3. The Presbytery testify against this system of principles, because it
has a direct tendency to destroy the just and necessary distinction that
ought to be maintained between the perceptive and providential will of
God, and necessarily jumbles and confounds these together, in such a
manner, as a man is left at an utter uncertainty to know when he is
accepted and approven of God in his conduct, and when not.
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