8. It will be yielded very readily by us, that a magistrate is not to be disowned, merely for his differing in religion from us: yea, though he were a heathen. We do not disown our pretended rulers merely upon that account, but cheerfully do grant and subscribe to that truth in our Confession of Faith, chap. xxiii. sect. 4. That infidelity, or difference in religion, doth not make void the magistrate's just and legal authority, nor free the people from their due obedience to him: on which our adversaries have insulted, as if our principle and practice were thereby disproved. But it is easy to answer, 1. Let the words be considered, and we are confident, 'That no sober man will think, the acknowledgement of just and legal authority, and due obedience a rational ground to infer, that tyranny is thereby either allowed or privileged,' Napht. p. 60 prior edition. 2. Though infidelity or difference of religion, does not make void authority, where it is lawfully invested; yet it may incapacitate a person, and lawfully seclude him from authority, both by the word of God, which expressly forbids to set a stranger over, who is not our brother, Deut. xvii. 15. which includes as well a stranger of a strange religion, as one of a strange country, and by the laws of the land, which do incapacitate a papist of all authority, supreme or subordinate. And so, if this James VII. II. had been king before he was a Roman Catholic, if we had no more to object, we should not have quarrelled his succession. 3. We both give and grant all that is the confession, to wit, that dominion is not founded in grace: yet this remains evident, that a prince, who not only is of another religion, but an avowed enemy to, and overturner of the religion established by law, and intending and endeavouring to introduce a false, heretical, blasphemous and idolatrous religion, can claim no just and legal authority, but in this case the people may very lawfully decline his pretended authority; nay, they are betrayers of their country and posterity, if they give not a timeous and effectual check to his usurpings, and make him sensible that he hath no such authority. Can we imagine, that men in the whole of that blessed work so remarkably led of God, being convocate by a parliament of the wisest and worthiest men that ever were in England, whom they did encourage, by writing and preaching, and every way to stand fast in their opposition to the then king displaying a banner for his prerogative (a court dream) against religion and liberty, should be so far left, as to drop that as a principle and part of our religion, which would sacrifice religion itself to the lust of a raging tyrant? Must we believe, that a religion destroying tyrant is a righteous ruler? And must we own him to be a nursing father to the church? Shall we conclude, that the common bounds and limits, whereby the Almighty hath bounded and limited mankind, are