XVI. OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT.--In like manner they assert and maintain, that
God Almighty, the Sovereign Lord of all things, and special protector
and preserver of his professed subjects in this lower world, hath for
his own glory and the public good, authorized and instituted in his word
the office and ordinance of civil government and governors, for the
preservation of external peace and concord, administration of justice,
defense and encouragement of such as are, and do good, and punishment of
evil doers, who transgress either table of the law. For all which ends,
subordinate unto that of his own glory, God, the alone supreme fountain
of all power, has instituted and appointed this ordinance. And further
they maintain, that a due measure of those qualifications which God, the
great lawgiver requires in his word, together with what other
stipulations according to the same unerring rule, a Christian people,
who are blessed with the light of divine revelation, have made the
fundamental conditions of civil government among them, are essentially
necessary to the constitution and investiture of lawful authority over
such a people.
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