Do not fret because of evildoers. Do not envy the wicked; for the evil have no future; the lamp of the wicked will go out.

PROVERBS 24:19

We grant that pastors and elders, whether they be considered distributively, or collectively in presbyteries and synods, being subjects and members of the commonwealth, ought to be subject and obedient in the Lord to the magistrate and to the law of the land; and, as in all other duties, so in civil subjection and obedience, they ought to be ensamples to the flock; and their trespasses against law are punishable as much, yea, more than the trespasses of other subjects.

George Gillespie, Aaron’s Rod Blossoming, 85.

The presbyterial government hath no such liberty or arbitrariness, as civil or military government hath, there being in all civil or temporal affairs a great deal of latitude left to those who manage the same, so that they command nor act nothing against the word of God. But presbyterial government is tied up to the rules of Scripture, in all such particulars as are properly spiritual and proper to the church, though, in other particulars, occasional circumstances of times, places, accommodations, and the like, the same light of nature and reason guideth both the church and state; yet in things properly spiritual and ecclesiastical, there is not near so much latitude left to the presbytery, as there is in civil affairs to the magistrate.

George Gillespie, Aaron’s Rod Blossoming, 84.

Presbyters and presbyteries are subject to the law of the land, and to the corrective power of the magistrate . . . In so far as the church is in the commonwealth, and a part of the commonwealth, not the commonwealth a part of the church . . . Ministers and elders are subjects and members of the commonwealth, and in that respect punishable by the magistrate if they transgress the law of the land. Yea, also as church officers they are to be kept with in the limits of their calling, and compelled (if need be) by the magistrate to do those duties which by the clear word of God and received principles of Christian religion, or by the received ecclesiastical constitutions of the church, they ought to do.

George Gillespie, Aaron’s Rod Blossoming, 82.

Presbyterial government is not despotical, but ministerial; it is not a dominion, but a service. . . . That power of government with which pastors and elders are invested, hath for the object of it, not the external man, but the inward man.

George Gillespie, Aaron’s Rod Blossoming; or, The Divine Ordinance of Church Government Vindicated, 81.