of Daniel," &c., Dan.
vi. 26, 27.

And as he strengthens the laws and ordinances of God by his civil
authority, so he ratifies and establishes within his dominions the just
and necessary decrees of the Church in synods and councils (which are
agreeable to God's word) by his civil sanction.

4. Judges and determines definitively with a consequent political
judgment, or judgment of political discretion, concerning the things
judged and determined antecedently by the Church, in reference to his
own act. Whether he will approve such ecclesiasticals or not; and in
what manner he will so approve, or do otherwise by his public authority;
for he is not a brutish agent, (as papists would have him,) to do
whatsoever the Church enjoins him unto blind obedience, but is to act
prudently and knowingly in all his office; and therefore the judgment of
discerning (which belongs to every Christian, for the well-ordering of
his own act) cannot be denied to the Christian magistrate, in respect of
his office.

5. Takes care politically, that even matters and ordinances merely and
formally ecclesiastical, be duly managed by ecclesiastical persons
orderly called thereto. Thus Hezekiah commanded the priests and Levites
to do their duties, 2 Chron. xxix. 5, 24, and the people to do theirs, 2
Chron. xxx. 1; and for this he is commended, that therein he did cleave
unto the Lord, and observed his precepts which he had commanded Moses, 2
Kings xviii. 6. Thus when the king is commanded to observe and do all
the precepts of the law, the Lord (as orthodox divines do judge)
intended that he should keep them, not only as a private man, but as a
king, by using all care and endeavor that all his subjects with him
perform all duties to God and man, Deut. xvii. 18-20.

6. A compulsive, coactive, punitive, or corrective power, formally
political, is also granted to the political magistrate in matters of
religion, in reference to all sorts of persons and things under his
jurisdiction. He may politically compel the outward man of all persons,
church officers, or others under his dominions, unto external
performance of their respective duties, and offices in matters of
religion, punishing them, if either they neglect to do their duty at
all, or do it corruptly, not only against equity and sobriety, contrary
to the second table, but against truth and piety, contrary to the first
table of the decalogue. We have sufficient intimation of the
magistrate's puni