8. To go on now, following the guidance of the holy Scripture; the same _covenant_ was renewed (Gen. xxvi. 3, 4) with Isaac; and (Gen. xxviii. 13, 14) with Jacob; where God styles himself not simply God, whom nature doth dictate him to be, but distinctly the _God of Abraham and Isaac_. Afterward being about to renew the same _covenant_ by Moses with the whole people of Israel, (Exod. iii. 6): _I am_, saith he, _the God of thy Father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob._ Afterward, when that people, not only the freest, but also the greatest enemy to human subjection, by reason of the fresh memory of their Egyptian bondage, abode in the wilderness near mount Sinai, that _ancient covenant_ was propounded to them all to be renewed in this manner (Exod. xix. 5, 6): _Therefore if ye will obey my voice indeed, and keep my covenant_, (to wit, that covenant which was made with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob); _then shall ye be a peculiar treasure unto me, above all people; for all the earth is mine, and ye shall be to me a kingdom of priests, and an holy nation. And all the people answered together, and said_, (verse 8) _All that the Lord hath spoken, will we do._ [Sidenote: From thence God’s government was called a kingdom.] 9. In this covenant, among other things, we must consider well the appellation of _kingdom_, not used before. For although God, both by _nature_ and by _covenant_ made with Abraham, was their king, yet owed they him an obedience and worship only natural, as being his subjects; and religious, such as Abraham instituted, as being the subjects of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, their natural princes. For they had received no _word of God_ beside the natural word of right reason; neither had any _covenant_ passed between God and them, otherwise than as their wills were included in the will of Abraham, as their _prince_. But now by the covenant made at Mount Sinai, the consent of each man being had, there becomes an _institutive kingdom of God_ over them. That _kingdom of God_, so renowned in Scriptures and writings of divines, took its beginning from this time; and hither tends that which God said to Samuel, when the Israelites asked a king (1 Sam. viii. 7): _They have not rejected thee, but they have rejected me, that I should not reign over them_; and that which Samuel told the Israelites (1 Sam. xii. 12): _Ye said unto me, nay, but a king shall reign over us, when the Lord your God was your king_; and that which is said, Jer. xxxi. 31: _I will make a new covenant_, &c. _although I was an husband unto them_; and the doctrine also of Judas Galilæus, where mention is made in _Josephus’ Antiq. of the Jews_, (Book xviii. chap. 2), in these words: _But Judas Galilæus was the first author of this fourth way of those who followed the study of wisdom. These agree in all the rest with the Pharisees, excepting that they burn with a most constant desire of liberty; believing God alone to be held for their Lord and prince;