of our worship Weakness will be of no force against Custome universal When the decency of our Ceremonies is so plainly visible to all the innocency of them so fully vindicated the absolute indifferency of them in themselves so loudly profess'd and acknowledged by the Church Whereby all fear of Superstition as they call it or placing a Holiness in them is quite taken away He that still quarrels at our worship does not quarrel at it but at the Church shews himself contentious and must not by so doing acquit himself in the least from the observation of it Much less when all these exceptions against Doctrines and Worship do not own their original from Ignorance and Weakness which might colour for an excuse but professedly from a greater Knowledge and stronger estate in Christanity For upon that account it is that they are rejected now and laid aside and an Extraordinary warrant and an extraordinary spirit brought up in the stead of them And as to the building and maintaining of Babel which you object I shall onely ask whether setting men loose from all Laws and Religion be not a fairer groundwork for Babel i. e. Confusion than by drawing men into a Communion with one mind and with one mouth to glorify the God of our Fathers The extraordinary spirit in Christ was to gather together into one as many as were scatter'd abroad The extraordinary spirit in the time of the Apostles had no other end but this in it To plant a Church to prescribe Laws and to regulate Communions And therefore was it self subject to the laws it had prescribed The spirit of the Prophets is subject to the Prophets How extraordinary then or extravagant rather shall we call this spirit of yours from the spirit of Christ and his Apostles whose work it is onely to dissolve and to destroy Communions to set every man by himself to profess a spirit of Independency or unsubjection to the spirit of the Prophets to cry down laws and all prescribed worship not because they are bad but because they are laws because they are prescribed And upon that one head viz. The obliging men to some certain measures of Doctrine and Worship fathering as you do all the ignorance and formality that is found in the Christian world Whereto therefore S. Paul in his Charge to men that they teach no other Doctrine And so in his ordering the Christian men of Corinth to be bareheaded in their Worship c. For what is this but obliging men to some certain measures of Doctrine and Worship must be thought in the first place and most fouly accessary That some Churches have indeed taken advantage from hence to dogmatize teaching for Doctrines the Commandments of men afterwards instilling them into their very Worship will no more take away the power of the Church in laying this obligation and the necessary good which does generally arise from it than Civil Government because some Fathers or some Sovereign Rulers do enact unjust and inconvenient laws we should presently disclaim all Sonship and subjection and revenge this miscarriage of theirs upon all of the same rank and dominion how guiltless and innocent soever By declaiming against Government reviling of Order setting it up as the mark for our 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and even naming it Confusion Which yet both by God and Man it is especially and expresly designed against Without a Corporation and embodying together in the State we have no security of our lives And without a Communion and consent in the Church without a confessed obligation to some certain measures of Doctrines and Worship we can have no hope that Religion will be long-liv'd among us When this Obligation the Staff of Bands is once broken The Church and Religion which yet had lasted for some time without the Staff of Beauty as we may observe in the eleventh Chapter of Zachary streight falls to the ground What other can me expect here where the onely Prop lent to sustain it is instead of a staff a reed the Old Testament spirit which eo nomine as St. Paul argues against it by name will presently expire Now that which decayeth and waxeth old is ready to vanish away And none sooner than this particular spirit wherein you instance the spirit of Jael Which of all appearances in the Old Testament puts the fairest for Babel and enclines most in the way you urge it to ruine and confusion as being utterly destructive to all society and commerce to all manner of agreement and accord in Civil or Sacred employments For that spirit being supposable onely since we are so loudly declared already Sisera's and Canaanites I demand with what manner of trust can we rely upon your promises and invitations upon your acts and articles When we are charmed by these into sleep and security the spirit of Jael comes upon you and the nail is driven into our temples And if this be enough to supersede the Old spirit from being of force among us I shall need add but little to what I have already said to justify the New from ever countenancing or giving encouragement to such actions For you cannot but see and acknowledge that the spirit of Christ in the Gospel has reveal'd to us Precepts quite contrary to any such practice We have an Administration there that does wholly sentense and condemn this kind of doing A spirit that is absolutely opposed to any such spirit And if we or an Angel from Heaven preach any other doctrine the Scripture has said it let him be accursed And then consider I beseech you that place of St. Paul Let us doe evil that good may come whose Damnation is just And if for the abounding of God's Grace we are not to continue in sin which St. Paul startles at and casts from him you may remember with a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 God forbid when it was falsely father'd upon him and his Gospel then certainly no New Testament spirit no Charity and Love to God for that was the supposition purely Our love to God and the greater manifestation of his Grace That Grace may abound nothing of selfishness or particular Interest but as it is in you at the best for the propagation of the Gospel and pulling down of Antichrist Suppose it true and real I say can justify you in the commitment or continuance of the least sin whatsoever But is give me leave to assure you the most killing blasphemy that can be darted against God and the foulest Opprobium and reproach that can be spit upon the Gospel If it be still urg'd That though to continue in sin were indeed damnable upon any terms yet that where such a spirit or principle leads us on to the work there can be no continuance in sin what ways and steps soever we tread in for the accomplishing of it Why then this it must be considered does quite enervate St. Paul's supposition who supposes us led by such a gracious spirit mov'd
what Revelations from Heaven between God and his own Soul the secret whisperings of a private spirit to impower him in it For besides that a man 's own ambition will easily whisper and prompt him to such motions God's own secret and immediate way is not so very secret and immediate And upon this reason because Power and authority being a relative to obedience the Power of the King to the obedience of the people if it were thus privately and secretly conveyed to him onely whose interest and advantage it is to pretend it how could this draw after it the subjection and obedience of the people unless we should resolve quite contrary to David's Omnis homo mendax All men are liars that every man speaks right and truth in his own cause Which principle as soon as ever it could be taken up must necessarily be proved false by so many pretenders as would arise under the favour of it one against another And therefore the revelation in this case must be to the People as well as to the Prince or as God has better design'd it to a Prophet known and acknowledged by all Otherwise if God should secretly call him to be the Prince or Protector yet where has the People by this any call or warrant to be his subjects If he have a revelation to be our Sovreign yet we have no revelation to be his subjects And how is he a Prince then that has no People Let the Prince therefore that pretends this tenure produce his Prophet and the Prophet produce his Commission Which if he can confirm with no better miracle than that lying wonder of success and causing Fire to come down from Heaven killing and slaying as many as will not receive him he proves himself but a false Prophet by all this As appears Rev. 13.13 And he and the Beast which he worships the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 shall both be cast alive says God into a lake of fire burning with brimstone But indeed whatsoever is said this immediate way and call could onely be expected when God was pleas'd to govern immediately by a voice and revelation from Heaven as among the Jews But for the generality of mankind and the rest of the world he has left them as the Wise man tells us in the hands of their own counsels Christ's Kingdom is not of this world Nor has he ever been known from the first day of his Incarnation to call or consecrate any man to Power and Dominion merely Secular by any of his Apostles or Prophets in an extraordinary way All that he does peculiarly in this matter is by giving laws to hold us fast to duty and Allegiance confirm and ratify the Covenants we have made and the Oaths we have taken impower the Person whom the Law has appointed for our Prince over-rule all the actions and counsels both of Prince and People as seems best to his divine Wisedom and for the good of his Church And lastly when he pleases to alter the Government not by permission barely which wicked and unreasonable men may extort from him but by his own act and approbation he so disposes and orders affairs and Persons that by the laws and rights among men it is transferred to another Think not that I am come to destroy the Law I am not come to destroy but to fulfill This though spoken by our Saviour in relation to the Mosaical law is verified likewise of him in relation to the law of Nature and of Nations and the Municipal laws of every particular Kingdom so far as they are not repugnant to that Supreme Law of his laid down in the Holy Scripture He comes not to destroy but to fulfill them not to supersede or evacuate them but to hold us the faster and the closer to them to make us the more dutifull and observant to them in our several places and relations whether of Nature Nations or those of our own Land And this the Apostle has plainly intimated When as a motive of all chearfull ready obedience of wives to their Husbands of children to their Parents of servants to their Masters and so of subjects to their Sovreigns he tell us that in obeying them we obey not men but God even the Lord Christ Whereby it appears that their laws are not their laws but Christ's And that he dictates to us by their mouths this being that which as it preserves peace and a decent Subordination among men does admirably set forth the Excellency of Christ's Oeconomy and Government of the world with such a power of Wisedom as becomes him that is the Wisedom of the Father as without making use of the strength of his arm or doing every thing by mere force he does yet effect and bring to pass what alterations he pleases in the world by his wonderfull and wise disposing the counsels and affairs of men to his designed issue Attingit à fine usque ad finem fortiter says the Wiseman disponit omnia suaviter Wisedom reacheth from one end to another mightily and sweetly does she order all things Fortiter suaviter mightily and sweetly And therefore supposing onely Paternal power or the authority of Parents over their children immediately from God and wherein the child to be under obedience was never askt his I or No to assent or differ The mediate or more remote way I shall grant to be in our own choice and Election Which yet after we have determined and bound our selves boared our selves as it were through the Ear by entring into Oaths and promise of Obedience those two 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Heb. 6. we are then as fast and as irreversibly bound for so long as we have bound our selves as if we were bound immediately by God and a voice from Heaven And as it was with the servant boared through the Ear there is no Jubilee to set us free Consider the case of Ananias's sacrilege Acts 5. The same sin as Achan's Josh 7. And both punished with death though Achan's was in stealing part of that which God had immediately and by himself consecrated to himself The wedge of Gold and the Babilonish garment Ananias's in detaining part of that which he himself of himself had dedicated to God's service Which to shew it was by this promise and consecration of his as holy now and irrevocable as if God had immediately consecrated it himself St. Peter tells him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Thou hast not lyed unto or cheated men but God So to whom we give our lawfull promise of subjection and obedience thereby discriminating that Person from the rest of the lump setting him up in a peculiar reference to God Almighty to whom all our obedience and subjection is especially due which is the proper notion of Consecration He is then as truely sacred and to be used cum discrimine with respect and reverence by us as if God had plac'd
were brought by Christianity into principles and practices where they were not onely to forget what they had been formerly taught and brought up in and wherein they had liv'd but utterly to condemn it and themselves for it All the divine Mysteries and Rites whereby they were accepted by their Gods admired in the world made auspicious and lucky in their several undertakings were now to be mortifi'd as so many beastly and unnatural lusts Their noblest and most Heroical Vertues as Ambition Pride Revenge and the like instantly metamorphosed into so many horrid vices Their Heaven turned into Hell and their Gods not to be rejected barely as no Gods but to be hated and abominated by them as down-right Devils And in lieu of all these to take upon them the Doctrine of the Cross and the Worship of a Crucified Jesus And what wonder if in this hasty flight from royal Sodom to little Zoar there be some lookings back if in this Violent change from the extremity of Cold to extreme Heat there is some doubtings and Deliquiums Which yet it is very observable were not at all indulg'd to by Christ or his Apostles Heathenism it self being a sin together with the Rites and Appendages of it However they had bound it to themselves with long custome an early Education and strong perswasions this gains them no Privilege or Toleration no not for an hour All the Allowances and Indulgences the Forbearings and Compliances were upon the Jewish stock and interest God had deceived them as the Prophet speaks and they were deceived And so the weakness being in some sense His the weakness of his Law to which they had been obliged they were for some time indulged by him in it but this onely till they could be instructed in the perishing nature of those legal Ceremonies and Services and the abolition made plain to them from the same authority as had before established them And when this is once done then at their own peril be it if they still continue them Their weakness of Conscience will no longer be of force to plead for them S. Paul who had before in compliance with their weakness been the Authour of Circumcision to Timothy becomes soon after as severe a Preacher against it If ye be circumcis'd Christ shall profit you nothing And so having been a Catechist for some time to the Hebrews and employed himself in laying down and expounding to them the principles of Christian Religion at last without considering the growth of their spirits nay considering clearly that they were not grown That whereas for the time they ought to be Teachers they had need to be taught again their Old Lesson even the first principles of Christianity What Does he think it necessary to comply with their weakness To suit himself still to their dulness No. Their weakness and dulness was utterly their own fault For the time they ought to be Teachers Therefore leaving says he the principles let us go on unto perfection not laying again the foundation c. And as in Doctrines thus he deals likewise in Ceremonies or a Form of Worship In his first Epistle to the Corinthians he declares how fit and decent and orderly it was for men to worship God bareheaded and women covered And this he proves by several Mediums and from several Topicks And when that is done doth he make provision for tender Consciences or such as should be scandalized at it Does he consider the several growths of the spirits he had to deal with in this matter Nothing less He had declared plainly the matter as it was had said enough to satisfy fully every meek and peaceable spirit as the spirit of God is questionless in all its growths And if any man seem to be contentious says he as he must needs do that will still oppose and pretend scruple universal custome and practice must silence him whom Reason cannot we have no such custome nor the Churches of God From hence then it will appear First wherein this weakness is allowable and to be born with and Secondly how long First not in disobedience to any practical law of Christ Let every one that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity The weakest and most infant Christian that names but that holy name and professes himself a Disciple of that Master must frame his actions in some kind of equity and agreeableness to the law of his Master St. Paul the great indulger of his brothers weakness is yet sufficiently severe against all offenders in this matter No Whoremonger nor Idolater nor Adulterer shall inherit the Kingdom of God And again says he Let every soul be Subject to the higher powers No exemption of any person no excuse upon any pretence whatsoever They that resist shall receive to themselves damnation And the reason is because these Laws being imprinted in our very nature and a part of our selves are onely reduced and brought back by Christianity and recover'd from those blots and stains which were cast upon them by our sins and the contrary customs of a wicked world And therefore all ignorance and scruple here gains no more benefit of Toleration than in Heathenism it did Whereas several Credenda there are and doctrinal verities which as they are not so plainly and expresly laid down but they must be drawn out by referring to several and distant places of Scripture and therefore not discernible at one view So when they are presented to us there are scarce any footsteps or former impressions of them on our spirits to work their admittance Many of them being above reason and the reach of a man's understanding Which therefore God is pleased to sink into us by degrees not to press them upon us in gross but here a little and there a little as we are able to bear them Humane reason being the same to us as the Law was to the Jews Both written by the Finger of God neither of them contrary yet both much weaker and far inferiour to the Doctrine of Christ And therefore though there might be some time of Indulgence upon that account as the Jewish law was allow'd of for some years Yet this onely till the same Authority could be made known for the one as for the other That the God of our reason is he who does require us to an assent of these things above our reason and then our reason becomes instantly engaged in the work All excuses are taken away and it is most unreasonable not to assent to them He that is a Jew still is not to be look'd upon as a weak Brother And after God by his Church has declared and set forth these Doctrines for so long together we that live in the Fifteenth or Sixteenth Century can be little benefited by the pleading of Ignorance For the time we ought to be Teachers and thereby the Church is fully impower'd to exact and require them of us And so in the form and manner
however it may be reproached for Babel which it partakes in common with all Government yet while it is confess'd to be the best and strongest the most opposed to confusion and aptest for Unity and Peace to which all Government is designed and upon which the life of the Community doth immediately depend and wherein every good man's interest is especially concern'd we have little reason to look upon them as good Patriots or good Christians lovers of Christ or of their Countrey who unhinged us from this frame and invited us into sidings upon pretentions of being better rivited and united in a popular way But then for the Babel which is still affixed to this absolute Form as how highly soever it pretends yet falling short of its end and necessarily admitting it is said in some cases those very Ataxies and Confusions we would labour to prevent Est aliquid prodire tenus Surely that some cases onely one or two possible supposals as that wherein you instance of the Monarch's being lunatick or an Idiot may bring it to this will cast no dirt nor blemish at all upon our Building while it stands firm and fair being compar'd with other Edifices Which not onely these extraordinary and prodigious events which like an Earthquake and general Inundation of the Sea may seem to bear down all before them and against which men in very prudence have not meditated of any fence but far lesser force and more ordinary Occurrences as of a land-floud or stormy night levels with the ground That some Out-let there is in Monarchy for affairs to run in a Popular or Parliament chanel will onely prove it to be of the same piece with our selves and to suffer Quid humanum There being a mixture perhaps of infirmity and imperfection in the perfectest good we here enjoy And therefore to quarrel it off upon this argument will be with the same breath to renounce all that is sacred And certainly a most stupendious madness and partiality when in lieu and exchange of it we must take in that which is confessedly worse A project and contrivance that proclaims the Designers 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and has no other president in Story than that of Medea Video meliora probóque Deteriora sequor I see what 's better and approve it so Yet eagerly pursue what 's worse I know Thus far upon your own grounds and supposing the mischief unavoidable in the case assign'd viz. That consiedring the King may be either a Fool or mad or otherwise distemper'd so as to command those things which are absolutely destructive to that Society which he is bound to preserve there must in that case be some Counsel or some single Person to govern in his stead who must also judge when he is in such a condition and not he himself And so there must be something still like King and Parliament to give occasion for the like differences But that of otherwise destemper'd so as to command things destructive c. is a Clause of so much latitude as cannot be supposed consistent with any Monarchy much less an absolute one as we now speak of For whatever may be said of a mad man or an Idiot where the Case is evident and open to all eyes as the Sun that shines and so needs no disquisition nor can be impos'd upon any that really is not so Yet the commands and Policies of a Prince are not so discernable but liable to many great mistakes and misconstructions And ordinarily so much the more by how much the better they are And the deeper his counsels are laid much less by them who being as much out of kenn have yet an Interest always bribing them to find fault and defame his actions whereby to settle themselves in his Throne and get the Authority into their own hands Success is that onely which makes any counsels or proceedings good in the popular esteem What ends unluckily was begun say they unwarrantably And he that will be content to have the people for his judge must be sure to have good fortune his Advocate and Friend to plead for him And then for a single person and supposing in that Case such an One to be appointed the Judge and to determine upon the actions of his Sovereign that is still more unreasonable than the former as whereby we are conjur'd into a Circle Nam Quis custodiet custodem What better security have we of this Judge than we had before of the King Or why may not he be as ruinous and destructive to the Kingdom in such his sentence as the King may be fear'd to be in his designs and Machinations But that which gives a full answer to the Case propounded is this That indeed it needs no answer at all For that it manifestly implies a Contradiction and so can have no possibility of truth in it For to be an absolute Monarch and yet to be liable at the same time to be dethroned by those over whom he is and wherein he is thus Absolute does necessarily suppose him at the same time and in the same respect a King and a Subject or Absolute and not Absolute Which manifestly contradicts its self and carries its own condemnation along with it 'T is true a Governour may be Absolute in some respects barely and such an One may be call'd a King but that 's abusively onely and is the same as we understand by a mixt Monarch But a King or Monarch properly taken or as in the Case propounded an Absolute Monarch must be such an One to be sure who is set free from the power and penalty of the laws who ruling by a paternal right over the subjects in his Kingdom as the sons and children of his Family is not accountable or to be judged by them whom yet under God he is bound to provide for Or suppose him to come in by Compact Yet to make him Absolute and a Monarch he must be free and absolv'd if not from the observation and directive power of the Law yet from the Coercive and condemning power of it if not from pecuniary Mulcts yet from Capital sentence or whereby he is in danger to be depriv'd of that wherein he is absolute his Kingship or Monarchy For that is the minimum quod sic the least part that can possibly be assign'd him of Freedom and Absolution And therefore is eminently necessary not onely to an Absolute but even to a mixt Monarch The contrary to this being the very Characteristick of servitude and subjection And therefore now to untye this stubborn knot which through too much eagerness and impatience you have thought necessary to break with violence and sunder with the sword If the supposed distemper arise to a Crisis of Frenzy and impotency of mind why then falling in with that of a Fool or Madman 't will be but one and the same Case manifest and apparent to all eyes discernible in all his actions and then to set up another is not at all
an evident mark of God's Ordination whereby this Power is convey'd to a Person and how we shall know it God's Lordship and Sovreignty over us does originally arise from the right of a Creatour In that he is the cause and authour of our being he must necessarily have an absolute dominion over us who are produced and created by him It is he that hath made us and not we our selves says the Psalmist And then it follows regularly in the next words We are his people c. And as he was pleas'd not to produce all men as he did Adam solely and immediately by Himself though he had the residue of the Spirit as the Prophet speaks but to take in man as a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and Copartner with him in the production of the rest deriving them by Generation one from another He has hereby admitted man likewise into a partnership of his Sovreignty made him naturally a Sovreign over those who receive their being and production from him And thus Parents are petty gods in relation to their children And children have the obligation of creatures upon them in respect unto their Parents And this not onely to their next and immediate parents who beget them but upon the same Tenure for Causa causae est causa causati to their Parent 's Parents Avus Proavus Tritavus Grandfather Great-grandfather and so upwards Every one in the whole Category and Succession of them being a Subalternum genus That is to say a Power in respect of those under them but a Species and Subject still in respect of the Summum Genus the Supreme Parent from whom they flow and by whom they are sent And thus a Family becomes a Kingdom and the King or Pater patriae Father of the Countrey is the very Paterfamilias Master of the Family And as Noah if he were still alive would certainly be Rex Catholicus not in Title onely but in Truth the Catholick or Universal Monarch of the whole World as being the Father of all the Families and Kingdoms now in being So this Universal Monarchy must necessarily expire upon his death and become divided as it was between his three Sons Shem Ham and Japhet None of them being a Father and therefore not a King over the other but every one a Father and absolute in his own Family Shem the elder brother being still but a Brother and so though he had many privileges and priorities even a double portion above the rest as due by his Birthright Yet not necessarily or by the law of Nature to succeed into a paternal power over his brethren no more than he could be a natural Father to them And as here began the distinction of Kings and Kingdoms in these three Brethren and their Families So they all multiplying into many Sons and those Sons into many more who were all after their Fathers deaths as their Fathers before them had been absolute and Independent Monarchs over their respective children Every Family being still a several Kingdom it must needs be that in process of time among so many Kings and Kingdoms all absolute and independent from one another there could not but fall matter of continual and endless Controversie Every lesser Family oppress'd by the greater Every difference with a Neighbour being onely determinable by the sword and to be managed by a bloudy war For the avoiding of which great inconvenience manifestly arising from the multiplicity of Kings and Kingdoms we must suppose That either admonished by God or prompted by right Reason these several Fathers of Families so many of them as were adjoyn'd by any nearness of place and Kindred meeting together in one body and others in another and so of the rest did give up this their absolute power which they had severally before over their own Families into the hands of some one person incorporating themselves and their Families into his Family adopting themselves his children and by uniting their several paternal powers in him alone did thereby make and acknowledge him the common Father of them all And that not personally onely or with limitation to his particular self For then at his death they must have return'd to the same inconveniences as before Which by the greater increase of Families would then become much greater and which therefore they were concern'd the rather and with greater diligence to prevent but to his Heirs after him So making his Family to be a Family of Fathers in their several generations to them and their Families for ever And that this is indeed the true original of Kings and Monarchs all particular paternal powers being really transferr'd and united in them is very evident as Mr. Diggs observes Because else we should be bound to obey our Fathers commands before those of the Kings For divine precept stands in full force Honour thy Father c. Which being as St. Paul says the first commandment with promise and the first in the second Table does certainly in its own weight and obligation and so ought to do in our value and observance out-strip all other after Commandments of the same Nature with it or relating to Man And were not therefore to be set lower in the least by honouring and obeying the King before our Father if it were not certain that the King is more our Father than our Father that does beget us Tam pater nemo est in terris No man is so much our Father as the King And to whom therefore the honour enjoyn'd us towards our Father does most eminently and in the first place upon that very account belong But if this derivation of Kingly Power should not become perhaps so plain and intelligible to ordinary apprehensions as too far removed out of their sight I shall endeavour in a new draught to bring it nearer and by clear and evident instances to facilitate the understanding of it God doth impower a Person or call and ordain him to power by two manner of ways Either mediately or immediately Immediately and by himself so he called Aaron to the Priesthood Saul and after him David to the Kingdom mediately or by right from these as Eleazar and his Sons after him succeeded to Aaron So Solomon and his Sons after him succeeded David in the Kingdom Though all these may be rather said to be immediately call'd by God in as much as in the first investiture and conferring authority on Aaron and David the promise and so the Power was made to them and their seeds for ever Which yet while it was immediately done by God was never so immediately done by him as not to take in the Ministery of men for the doing of it even some known authentick Prophet to convey this message to call and consecrate the person to this authority Thus Moses by God's appointment settles the Priesthood upon Aaron and Samuel the Kingdom upon David And whoever will derive from this claim even this immediate call from God must not pretend I know not