Digest of Biblical Civil Law

The king is from the people, and not only and immediately from God: The Bible expressly says that the people made the king, though under God: Judg. 9:6; 1 Sam. 11:15; 2 Ki. 10:5; 1 Ch. 12:38. Today God does not immediately designate a king through prophetic unction, but He does mark the one out to the people who is most able to perform the duties of the office and meets the standards of God’s law: Exo. 18:21; Deut. 1:16-17; Deut. 17. Saul was not only anointed with oil first privately by Samuel, (1 Sam. 10:1,2) but also at two other times before the people—once at Mizpeh, and later at Gilgal, by a parliament and a convention of the states. Samuel judged the voices of the people so essential to make a king that Samuel does not acknowledge him as formal king, (1 Sam. 10:7, 8, 17, 18, 19,) though he honored him because he was to be king (1 Sam. 9:23, 24). The people make the king, but according to God’s law as in 1 Sam. 10:21. Saul is chosen from among their own, not from strangers. The Lord disclosed the man, by name, Saul the son of Kish, when he did hide himself among the stuff, that the people might do their part in the creating of the king. Because some of the states of parliament did not choose him, but despised him (v. 27,) therefore after king Saul, by that victory over the Ammonites, had conquered the affections of all the people fully, (v. 10, 11,) Samuel had Saul’s coronation and election by the estates of parliament renewed at Gilgal by all the people, (v. 14, 15, [cf. 1 Sam. 11:12-15]) to establish him king.
- Samuel Rutherford, Lex, Rex, Question 4 (1644), at http://www.constitution.org/sr/q04.txt.