“If it be true, that ‘by him kings reign and princes decree justice, princes rule, and nobles, even all the judges of the earth’ [Prov. 8:15-16] — that, ‘all power in heaven and on earth is given to him, by the Father’ [Matt. 28:18] — that ‘God hath highly exalted him, and given him a name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, of things on earth, and of things under the earth’ [Phil. 2:9-10] —that ‘he is made head over all things to his body, the church’ [Eph. 1:22] — ‘that he alone (the Father) is excepted, who did wet put all things under him’ [1 Cor. 15:27] — that ‘he hath set him far above all principality and power, and might and dominion, and every name that is named’ [Eph. 1:21] — and that he is ‘to rule in the midst of his enemies’ [Ps. 110:2] — that ‘kings and judges of the earth are commanded to kiss the Son, whom God hath anointed;’ [Ps. 2:12] then assuredly it is the duty of every civil commonwealth, of every potentate, to swear allegiance to him who possesses, as Mediator, such a title to absolute and universal lordship over the nations. King and subject are correlates. When the Father, as a reward of the sufferings of his Son, gave into his hand the government of all principalities and powers, of all magistrates and kingdoms, he imposed upon them an obligation to acknowledge him explicitly as their sovereign. Such explicit acknowledgment is what we call national covenanting. On the supposition that Jesus is indeed their king, who can offer any reason that they should not so recognize him?” — James R. Willson, The Subjection of Kings and Nations to Messiah (1820), pp. 6-7