This designation of the person our author is more than ordinary obliged to take care of, because he, affirming that the “assignment of civil power is by divine institution,” hath made the conveyance as well as the power itself sacred: so that no consideration, no act or art of man, can divert it from that person, to whom, by this divine right, it is assigned; no necessity or contrivance can substitute another person in his room. For if the “assignment of civil power be by divine institution,” and Adam’s heir be he to whom it is thus assigned, as in the foregoing chapter our author tells us, it would be as much sacrilege for anyone to be king, who was not Adam’s heir, as it would have been amongst the Jews, for anyone to have been priest who had not been of Aaron’s posterity: for not only the priesthood “in general being by divine institution, but the assignment of it,” to the sole line and posterity of Aaron, made it impossible to be enjoyed or exercised by anyone but those persons who were the offspring of Aaron: whose succession therefore was carefully observed, and by that the persons who had a right to the priesthood certainly known.