Before I leave this, I must ask how our author knows that “whensoever God makes choice of any special person to be king, he intends that the issue should have the benefit thereof.” Does God by the law of nature or revelation say so? By the same law also he must say, which of his issue must enjoy the crown in succession, and so point out the heir, or else leave his issue to divide or scramble for the government: both alike absurd, and such as will destroy the benefit of such grant to the issue. When any such declaration of God’s intention is produced, it will be our duty to believe God intends it so; but till that be done, our author must show us some better warrant before we shall be obliged to receive him as the authentic revealer of God’s intentions.

“The issue,” says our author, “is comprehended sufficiently in the person of the father, although the father only was named in the grant”: and yet God, when he gave the land of Canaan to Abraham, Gen.