But if this were the case that he was raised to the throne not properly by the king, his father, much less by the people, but by God himself, how comes it to be said here: ‘They made him king’? They, that is, all the congregation. Were they the king-makers then? Were they the original of regal power? Had they it first in themselves? Else how could they impart it? Toward the clearing of this, be pleased to compare the story of another king’s coronation in the Book of Kings with that self same story in the Book of Chronicles. And whereas in one place we read ‘the people anointed Joash’, we find in the other place that ‘Jehojadah, the High Priest, and his sons anointed him’, so not the people’s anointed but the Lord’s anointed. Only the people stood by, as they do here, and express their unanimous good will with such loud acclamations as you heard even now, not that we imagine our united voices contribute anything of right to our hereditary prince, but to show that if the kingdom were elective we think him most worthy to be king. But ’tis most plain and most evident that God by his special appointment set over his people the first three succeeding kings, Saul, David, and Solomon, and wherever ’tis said the people made them (or any other) kings, no more is meant but that the people owned them as kings of God’s making.
