of Manasseh_ (these were the rest of Israel that dwelt beyond Jordan) _for every matter pertaining to God, and affairs of the king_. Is not this full power, both _temporal_ and _spiritual_, as they call it that would divide it? To conclude; from the first institution of God’s kingdom, to the captivity, the supremacy of religion was in the same hand with that of the civil sovereignty; and the priest’s office after the election of Saul, was not magisterial, but ministerial. [Sidenote: The practice of supremacy in religion was not, in the time of the kings, according to the right thereof.] Notwithstanding the government both in policy and religion, were joined, first in the high-priests, and afterwards in the kings, so far forth as concerned the right; yet it appeareth by the same holy history, that the people understood it not: but there being amongst them a great part, and probably the greatest part, that no longer than they saw great miracles, or, what is equivalent to a miracle, great abilities, or great felicity in the enterprises of their governors, gave sufficient credit either to the fame of Moses or to the colloquies between God and the priests; they took occasion, as oft as their governors displeased them, by blaming sometimes the policy, sometimes the religion, to change the government or revolt from their obedience at their pleasure: and from thence proceeded from time to time the civil troubles, divisions, and calamities of the nation. As for example, after the death of Eleazar and Joshua, the next generation which had not seen the wonders of God, but were left to their own weak reason, not knowing themselves obliged by the covenant of a sacerdotal kingdom, regarded no more the commandment of the priest nor any law of Moses, but did every man that which was right in his own eyes, and obeyed in civil affairs such men, as from time to time they thought able to deliver them from the neighbour nations that oppressed them; and consulted not with God, as they ought to do, but with such men or women, as they guessed to be prophets by their predictions of things to come; and though they had an idol in their chapel, yet if they had a Levite for their chaplain, they made account they worshipped the God of Israel.