'We, a poor company of persecuted, reproached, and despised Christians; who indeed have not many wise men among us after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, but are a few foolish, weak, base, and despised nothings in the world; yet having this ambition to be his called chosen; and faithful soldiers, who is King of glory, King of heaven, King of saints, King of nations, King of kings, whose kingdom is everlasting and universal; considering the many insolent indignities, affronts, and reproaches cast upon his name and glory, and the many usurpations, encroachments, and invasions made upon his crown and dignity, by a pestilent generation of his atheistical, papistical, prelatical, and tyrannical enemies, who have rebelled against him, and have renounced, corrupted, and subverted his royal government, both in the church and in the world, both in his kingdom of grace and of power: do bear witness and testimony against these rebels, from the highest to the lowest: and assert the interest and title of our princely Master, and own allegiance and absolute obedience to him and his government, to which he hath undoubted right; an essential right by his eternal Godhead, being the everlasting Father, whose goings forth have been of old from everlasting; a covenant-right by compact with the Father, to bear the glory and rule upon his throne, by virtue of the council of peace between them both; a donative right by the Father's right of delegation, by which he hath all power given to him in heaven and in earth, and all authority, even because he is the Son of man; an institute right by the Father's inauguration, which hath set him as King in Zion; an acquisite right by his own purchase, by which he hath merited and obtained not only subjects to govern, but the glory of the sole sovereignty over them in that relation, a name above every name; a bellical right by conquest, making the people fall under him, and be willing in the day of his power, and overcoming those that make war with him; an hereditary right by proximity of blood and primogeniture, being the first born, higher than the kings of the earth, and the first born from the dead, that in all things he might have the pre-eminence; an electing right by his people's choice and surrender, a crown wherewith his mother crowned him in the day of his espousals. In a humble recognizance of all which rights, we own and avouch, that he hath that incommunicable prerogative of sole sovereignty over his visible kingdom, as well as invisible, without a co-partner or competitor, either co-ordinate or subordinate; in prescribing laws, by no human authority to be reversed; in appointing ordinances immutable, without addition or diminution, for matter or manner; instituting a