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CHAP. III. The Government of a KING is most Ancient.
THat it is most Ancient, I think none are so sottish as to de∣ny it, and therefore there needs but little to be said in it. Yet for satisfaction to some that are beating the Bush to start something from the Form of a new government; this much I shall insert, that Melchisedec, who is recorded in the Scripture without Father, without Mother, without descent, having neither beginning of day, nor end of life, was constituted a King on Earth, and exercised a Kingly Power and Government over the faithfull Servants of God then living; to whom and to whose Government, even Abraham (whom the holy Ghost stiles the Father of the faithful) did most gladly submit. This was the first Form of Government that the people of God, Gods cho∣sen people were subject to, and under which they first received a blessing. And whereas it is written that Melchisedec was with∣out beginning of days, or end of life: so also his Government (I mean a Kingly Government) had no beginning, and shall have no end, because it came forth from, and was founded in the eter∣nal God, and unto him shall return again, and have its center for ever in him. Alas, the Government of a Free-State (as some cail it) is a new thing (or there is no such thing) having not one sentence in the Book of God that testifies any such thing (ex∣cept Corah, Dathan and Abiram, and the two hundred and fif∣ty principal men of the Congregation, did intend to establish such a Government, when they told Moses that he took too much upon him to list up himself above the Congregation of the Lord) and is therefore both invaluable, and inconsiderable to a Kingly Government, having nothing of the Image, or Superscription of the King of Kings engraven upon it; nor so much as the shadow of Antiquity to countenance it.