2. But let us next consider what is comprehended in the ordination of that authority which is to be owned as of God: and it may be demonstrated, there are two things in it, without which no authority can be owned as of God, viz. institution and constitution so as to give him, whom we must own as God's minister, authority both in the abstract and concrete, that is, that he should have magistracy by God's ordination, and be a magistrate by and according to the will of God. All acknowledge that magistracy hath God's institution, for the powers that be are ordained of God: which contains not only the appointment of it, but the qualification and form of it. That government is appointed by divine precept all agree, but whether the precept be moral natural, or moral positive, whether it was appointed in the state of innocency, or since disorder came into the world, whether it be primario or secundario, from the law of nature, is not agreed upon. It may possibly be all these ways; government in the general may be from the law and light of nature appointed in innocency, because all its relative duties are enjoined in the fifth command, and all nations naturally have an esteem of it, without which there could be no order, distinction, or communion in human societies but the specification or individuation may be by a postnate, positive and secondary law, yet natural too, for though there be no reason in nature why any man should be king and lord over another, being in some sense all naturally free, but as they yield themselves under jurisdiction the exalting of David over Israel is not ascribed to nature, but to an act of divine bounty, which took him from following the ewes, and made him feeder of the people of Israel, Psal. lxxviii. 70, 71. yet nature teacheth, that Israel and other people should have a government, and that this should be subjected to. Next, not only is it appointed to be, but qualified by institution, and the office is defined, the end prescribed, and the measures and boundaries thereof are limited, as we shall hear. 'Again, the forms of it though politically, they are not stinted, that people should have such a form and not another; yet morally, at least negatively, whatever be the form it is limited to the rules of equity and justice, and must be none other than what hath the Lord's mould and sanction. But there is no institution any of these ways for tyranny. Hence, that power hath no institution from God, cannot be owned as his ordinance; but the power of tyrants is that power, being contrary in every respect to God's institution, and a mere deviation from it, and eversion of it: Ergo--To the minor it may be replied; though the power which tyrants may exercise, and usurpers assume, may be in concrete contrary to God's institution, and so not to be owned; yet, in the abstract, it may be acknowledged of God. It is but the abuse of the power, and that does not take away the use. We may own