An Inquiry into the Original, Nature, Institution, Power, Order, and Communion of Evangelical Churches

When any thing which is pleaded to belong unto religion or the worship
of God is proposed unto us, our first consideration of it ought to be
in that inquiry which our Lord Jesus Christ made of the Pharisees
concerning the baptism of John, "Whence is it? from heaven, or of men?"
He distributes all things which come under that plea or pretence into
two heads, as unto their original and efficient cause, -- namely,
"heaven" and "men." And these are not only different and distinct, but
so contradictory one unto another, that, as unto any thing wherein
religion or the worship of God is concerned, they cannot concur as
partial causes of the same effect. What is of men is not from heaven;
and what is from heaven is not of men. And hence is his determination
concerning both sorts of these things: "Every plant, which my heavenly
Father hath not planted, shall be rooted up," Matt. xv. 13.