They likewise testify against, and reject that equally absurd opinion,
as a stream flowing from the foresaid corrupt fountain, that the office,
authority, and constitution of lawful magistrates, does not solely
belong to professing Christians, in a Christian reformed land, but that
the election and choice of any one whosoever, made by the civil body
(whether Pagan, Papist, Atheist, Deist, or other enemy to God, to man,
and to true religion), makes up the whole of what is essential to the
constitution of a lawful magistrate according to God's ordinance. A
tenet contrary to the light and dictates both of reason and scripture.
And they hereby also disclaim that corrupt notion, that all providential
magistrates, who are, and while they are acknowledged by any civil
society especially in an apostate backsliding land and people from the
scriptural standard (in respect of the origin of their office), are also
preceptive; and that the office and authority of all so constituted and
acknowledged, in itself considered, does equally arise from, and agree
unto the preceptive will of God, contrary to scriptural precepts, Deut.
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