That it is the office and duty of princes and magistrates,¹ who by the ordinance of God are supreme governors under Him over all persons and causes within their realms and dominions, to² suppress and root out by their authority all false ministries, voluntary religions and counterfeit worship of God, to abolish and destroy the idol temples, images, altars, vestments, and all other monuments of idolatry and superstition and to take and convert to their own civil uses not only the benefit of all such idolatrous buildings and monuments, but also the revenues, demeanes, lordships, possessions, gleabes³ and maintenance of any false ministries and unlawful ecclesiastical functions whatsoever within their dominions. And on the other hands to establish and maintain by their laws every part of God’s Word His pure religion and true ministry to cherish and protect all such as are careful to worship God according to His Word, and to lead a godly life in all peace and loyalty; yea to enforce all their subjects whether ecclesiastical or civil, to do their duties to God and men, protecting and maintaining the good, punishing and restraining the evil according as God has commanded, whose lieutenants they are here on earth.⁴

1. Judges 17:5–6; 2 Chronicles 19:4ff.; 29;34; Matthew 22:21; Romans 13:3–4; Titus 3:1; 1 Peter 2:3, 14 ↩︎
2. Deuteronomy 12:2–3 with 17:14, 18–20; 2 Kings 10:26–28; 23:5ff.; 2 Chronicles 17:6; Psalm 110; Proverbs 16:12; 25:2–5; Acts 19:27; Revelation 17:16 ↩︎
3. a portion of land within a parish used to support a parish priest. ↩︎
4. Deuteronomy 17:14, 18–20; Joshua 1:7–8; 2 Chronicles 17:4, 7–9; 19:4ff.; 29–30; Ezra 7:26; Psalms 2:10–12; 72:1ff.; Isaiah 49:23; Daniel 6:25–26; Revelation 21:24 ↩︎