(,224 ) -fuch other wants and defe&s alto, as will weaken any Ob- ligation unto compleat and conftant Communionwith them. I (hall give one only Inftance hereof. The Peo- ples free choice ofall their Officers, Bi(hops, Elders, Pa- ftors, 6,c. is in our Judgement ofDivine Inftitution, by vertue of Apoftolical Example and Directions. It is allo fo fuitable unto the Light of Nature, namely, that in a Society abfolutely founded in thevoluntary confent of themwho enter into it, and doth actually exift there- by, without any Neceffity impofed on them from Pre- fcription, former Llfage, or the ftate of being born in and under fuch Rules and Laws, as it is with men in their Political Societies, the People fhould have the &aion ofthemwho are to Rule among them and over them ; there being no Provifion ofa Right unto a fuc- ceffive Impofition ofany fuch Rulers on them, without their own confent, that nothing can rationally be plead- ed againft it. And therefore whereas in all ordinarily fettled Governments in the World, Petting afide the con- fufion oftheir Originals, by War and Conquefts, the Succeffïon of`Rulers is either by natural Generation, the Rulebeiug confinedunto fuch a Line, or by a Popular eleelion, or by a Temperature ofboth; there hath been a new way invented forthe Communication ofTower and Rule in Churches, never exemplified in any Political Society; namely, that it fhall neither be Succeffave, as it was under the Old Teftament, nor EleClive, nor by any Temperature of thefe two ways in one, but by a ftrange kind offlux of it, through the hands of men who pretend to have fo received it themfelves from o- thers. But whether hereon the People ofthe Church, can have that refpect and Devotion unto them, as they would have unto hereditary Nulers, (long Succellion in Rulers,
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