This is track four of A Reputation of Religious Pluralism by John Brown of Haddington. This work is published by Gospel Covenant Publications. Gospel Covenant Publications' website is www.gcpublications.com. They may be reached by email at info at gcpublications.com and by phone, area code 208-553-5296. We resume reading the sub points that Brown had under answer number six. And answer six states the following. Though the powers of civil and ecclesiastical government be coordinate, each standing on its own proper basis, and the right exercise of church power contributing mightily to the welfare of the state and of civil power to the advancement of the church, yet they are not collateral, inseparable from, or dependent upon each other, but are altogether distinct from and different in many respects. Civil and ecclesiastical power differ in their form. Though magistrates be the ministers of God for good to men, their power over their subjects is of a lordly nature. They are lordly fathers who, by making and enforcing civil laws, can compel the disobedient. In this view, if they establish anything pertaining to the Church, they establish it as a means of honoring God their superior in the advancement of the welfare of the Commonwealth. If they punish faults, they consider them as crimes, injurious to the happiness of the state, dishonoring God as supreme governor, and provoking His wrath against it. And they punish those crimes only on the outward man, by fining, imprisonment, death, and so forth. But church power is altogether ministerial, distributing to men reproofs, admonitions, and other ordinances according to the inspired prescriptions of Christ. Matthew 16.19, 18.18, 1 Corinthians 4.1.2 Christ being her alone Lord, church rulers have no power to make any laws properly so-called." Isaiah 33, 22, James 4, 12. In dealing with offenders, they consider faults, even oppression, tyranny, sinful wars and leagues, perversion of judgment, bribery or the like, and magistrates who are members, not as crimes, but merely as scandals, defiling and ruining men's souls, plaguing the church, and dishonoring and provoking Christ and His Father in Him against it. They have no compulsory power, can punish no man either in his person or as external property, can use no weapons but such as are spiritual, mighty through God, administering church censures not as punishments but as spiritual privileges and divinely instituted means of bringing offenders to a thorough repentance of their sins to the eternal salvation of their souls. And this whole power must be used only in the name of Jesus Christ as head of his church. 2 Corinthians 1.24 10, 4-5, 8, 13, 8, 10, 2, 6-10, 1 Corinthians 5, 4. 4. Civil and ecclesiastical power differ in their proper end. The formal end of magistratical power is to advance the glory of God, the King of Nations, in promoting the welfare of the Commonwealth, and the establishment of the true religion and care to promote the prosperity and propagation of the Church are used as eminent means of gaining that end. Or, the good of the Church may also be considered as an accessory end of civil administration. As the better civil justice be executed, open outbreakings restrained, and virtue encouraged by the magistrate, the fewer will probably be the scandals, and the greater the purity and the prosperity of the Church. Nay, though the advancement of the Church's welfare be not the formal end of the magistracy, yet as Christ is made head over all things to His Church, Every magistrate who professes the true Christian religion ought to pursue the formal end of his office as subordinated to his Christian end of promoting the glory of God in the welfare of the Church and eternal salvation of men. But the formal end of all Church power is the glorifying of God in Christ by promoting the spiritual conviction, conversion, and edification of men's souls, and the welfare of nations is but an accessory or subordinate end at which Church rulers, as subjects in the State, ought always to aim. As the better they prosecute and obtain the end of their office, the fewer will be the crimes, the better both subjects and magistrates, and the more numerous and valuable the blessings of God on the nation. 5. Civil and ecclesiastical power differ in their proper effects. The proper effect of magistratical power, rightly exercised, is the good of the Commonwealth, in their commodious enjoyment of civil privileges, in a manner mightily calculated to promote the honor of God as the most high over all the earth. And the purity, peace, and prosperity of the Church, arising from the right administration of justice, discouragement of evildoers, and praise of them that do well, is but an accessory effect. But the proper effect of Church power, rightly exercised, is the conversion of men to Jesus Christ, fellowship with Him, and growth in grace and good works, to the praise of His glory. and the advantage accruing to cities or nations by the virtuous lives and fervent prayers of church members is but an accessory effect of it. 6. Civil and ecclesiastical power differ in their subjects of residence. No ecclesiastical power can reside in a heathen, a woman, or a child, and no power of jurisdiction in a single person, as a civil power often may or does, nor can one ecclesiastic officer delegate his power to another. 7. They differ in their formal consideration of the persons upon whom they are exercised. A magistrate's power extends over all powers resident in his territory, be their moral character what it will, Jews, heathens, and so on, Romans 13.1. But church power extends only to the professed members of Christ's mystical body, the church, 1 Corinthians 5, 12, and 13. 8. Civil and ecclesiastical power differ in respect of their divided exercise. The one may and ought to be exercised, whether the other be so or not. The end of church censure, being to gain sinners to repentance and salvation, scandalous persons appearing penitent, ought to be seasonably absolved from it and restored to communion with the church in sealing ordinances. But the end of civil punishment, being the satisfaction of the law and the deterring of others from the like faults, criminals, however penitent and fully restored to church fellowship, may, as the nature of their crime demands, be punished even unto death. And suppose a church member should have satisfied the demands of the civil law for a crime, he ought to be prosecuted and censured for it as a scandal by the ecclesiastical courts, till he appears duly penitent. Not only ought church rulers to censure scandalous persons, when magistrates take no notice of their faults, but even to censure magistrates who are church members for what wickedness they commit under color of countenance from the civil law. And where magistrates punish and church rulers censure the same persons for the same faults, the processes ought to be kept entirely distinct from, and independent of, each other. Though, to prevent unnecessarily swearing, the proof taken in one court may sometimes be produced and judged of also in the other. Objection 22. Magistrates not being proper judges of the doctrines of revelation cannot be capable to judge concerning religious matters and particularly to determine who are heretics, blasphemers, or idolaters. Answer 1. That they have a right to judge in these matters has already been established. 2. God, who knows all things, admits private Christians to be capable of judging what is heresy, blasphemy, and idolatry, and who are heretics, blasphemers, and idolaters. and hence commands them to keep themselves from these sins and to avoid such seducers and to bar them from their houses. Now what hinders Christian magistrates to have as much good sense and as much capacity of judging in these matters as common Christians? The gross errors, blasphemies, and idolatries which magistrates ought to restrain, and suitably and seasonably punish, are so plainly condemned by the word of God, which magistrates ought carefully to search, under the direction of the Holy Spirit, that any unbiased person of common capacity may easily discern them. 4. The advice of faithful ministers, and the common consent of Christian churches, may assist magistrates in discerning from the word of God. What is gross or damnable heresy, blasphemy, idolatry? Objection 23. If magistrates as such have a power of judging in religious matters, then heathen magistrates must also be allowed to make laws concerning religion and the Church, while in the meantime they cannot be censured by the Church if they do amiss. Answer 1. What could you gain if I should plead that it is the magistrates' Christianity requiring them to execute their office in subordination to it that is the immediate origin of their power about the matters of religion, even as it is parents' Christianity that warrants them to receive baptism for their infants. But, two, heathen magistrates with God's direction and approbation have made laws respecting religion. Ezra 7, 13-28, 6, 1-14, 1, 1-3, Daniel 3, 29, 6, 26, Jonah 3. Dare you condemn the Almighty? Heathen magistrates have the same power as Christian magistrates, but are less capable to use it or write, even as heathen parents and masters have the same power over their children and servants as Christians, but are less qualified to discern and perform their duty. 4. Neither heathen nor Christian magistrates have any power at all against the truth, but for the truth, any power for the destruction of the Church, but for her edification. 2 Corinthians 13, 8 and 10. 5. Heed and magistrates therefore ought carefully to improve what assistance they have by the light of nature and works of creation and providence, or by any revelation from God to which they have access, always taking heed to make no laws but such as they certainly know to be agreeable to the law of God. It is not to be expected that civil laws can forbid every fault and require everything good and externals, but they ought never to encourage sin or discourage duty. Objection 24. To allow magistrates a power of judging about the matters of religion will make them church rulers. Answer 1. No more than it made Nebuchadnezzar, Cyrus, Darius, and Artaxerxes, and the king at Nineveh, church rulers. 2. No more than church rulers taking cognizance of murder, adultery, incest, theft, robbery, or even of the conduct of Christian magistrates relative to administration of justice, wars, alliances, and so forth, will make them magistrates. 3. How often must you be told that church rulers judge how such profession or practice ought to stand connected with ecclesiastical encouragements, discouragements, or censures, but magistrates judge how such profession or practice ought to be connected with civil encouragements or discouragements. Church rulers warn against and censure men's public faults only as scandals, disgraceful and hurtful to the church. Magistrates judge of and punish them only as crimes. hurtful to the prosperity of the state. In church courts, matters are considered as the matters of the Lord. In civil courts, they are considered as matters of the King, 2 Chronicles 19, 8-11. Ministers, as the deputies of Christ, require magistrates to execute their office for the honor of Christ and welfare of His Church, and censure them, if Church members, if they do not. Magistrates, as vicegerents of God, the King of nations, require ministers faithfully to execute their office, particularly as stated by the laws of the land, in order to promote virtue and happiness among the subjects, and draw the blessing of God upon them. And they punish them as undutiful subjects, if they notoriously transgress 1 Kings 2.26. Magistrates have no ecclesiastical power at all. They have no power to restrain or hinder the free and full exercise of church power. But, by giving full opportunity, encouragement, and excitement to church officers, they have power to provide that church power be freely and faithfully exercised in their dominions. They have no power to transact anything ecclesiastical, as in admission of members into the church, or to the seals of God's covenant, no power to choose or ordain church officers, no power to preach the gospel, dispense the sacrament, inflict censures, or absolve from them, They have no power to prescribe or enact any ecclesiastical laws, but they have power to adopt such lawful and expedient constitutions as have been made by the church courts into their civil code by a legal ratification, and power to enact such political laws as are necessary for the more advantageous execution of these ecclesiastical constitutions. They have no power to frame a religion for their subjects or ratify a false religion already received or framed, or to establish anything in religion which is not founded in the word of God. But they have a power to adopt the law of God and the religion prescribed by it as a part of their civil law in order to promote the glory of God in the welfare of the nation. The more public church courts be, and the more extensive his influence upon his subjects and the welfare of the nation, the more right has the civil magistrate to exercise his political power about them. the Church having an intrinsic right and power from Christ to call synods for government whenever her circumstances require it, the magistrate has no power to deprive her of this right. But while the Church calls them as courts of Christ, constituted of Church rulers appointed by Him to act in His name, the magistrate may call them as courts established by the civil law, and necessary to promote the peace, order, and piety and so the prosperity of his subjects as courts, which consist of his principal subjects, and to which place of protection must be given in his dominions. The magistrate has no power of deputing to synods such members as he pleases, Acts 15, 2 Chronicles 8.18, or to hinder or recall those whom the Church has deputed, unless the safety of the State plainly require it. But he may compel members and parties who have cause before the Court to attend, if the case of the Church requires it, as a means of repressing a malicious and turbulent faction who have or may hurt the State. It is not necessary that either the magistrate or his commissioner attend ecclesiastical synods, though to secure their protection, curb unruly troublers of the court, and to witness the propriety of their procedure, he may attend. If he attend, he has a power to judge for himself how matters are ecclesiastically transacted, a power politically to provide that the members meddle with no political affairs which do not belong to them as a court of Christ, and to take care that members and others present observe that due decency in reasoning, voting, submitting, or hearing, which the nature of the court requires. If any cause be partly civil and partly ecclesiastical, he is to judge the civil part himself, and leave the ecclesiastical to the church court. Even in ecclesiastical causes he may give his advice, nay, he may propose and require synods to examine and decide concerning points of doctrine or practice, if necessary for the satisfaction of his own conscience, or the instruction and edification of his subjects, in order to promote the welfare of the state, in subordination to the glory of God. But he has no power to hinder others to propose their difficulties or grievances before the synod for satisfaction or redress. unless the cause be partly of a political nature, a synodical decision of which at that time endangers the State. He has no power to preside in the Synod, or to give his decisive vote in any of their transactions. But as a man and a Christian, he has a right to a judgment of discretion, whether their decisions be according to the law of God or not, and as a magistrate he has a power of political judgment by which he does not properly judge whether these decisions be true or false, good or bad in themselves, but whether and how far they ought to be ratified, and as it were adopted into the laws of the state and connected with civil rewards, forbearance, or punishments. Thus the power of the magistrate in nothing interferes with the power of the synod. Nothing is done by the one as a magistrate that the other can do as a court of Christ. And as the decisions of synods are supreme in the ecclesiastic order, from which there is no appeal but to Jesus Christ, by remonstrating as a church member and commanding them as their king, the magistrate may cause the synod to reconsider its own deeds, but he cannot reverse them himself. So the magistrate's deed concerning the civil ratification of church deeds is supreme in its kind, from which there is no appeal but to God himself. The synod may require him as a church member, and as subjects they may remonstrate and supplicate his reconsideration of his own deed, but they cannot reverse it themselves. Objection 25. To allow magistrates to judge in matters of religion for others, and to restrain and punish corruptions in it, is to render them lords of men's faith and conscience, a power which even the inspired apostles disclaimed. For if magistrates impose any religion at all upon their subjects, it must be what their own conscience dictates, and then what shall become of the private rights of conscience among their subjects? 1. Did then God, who of old commanded magistrates to judge about matters of religion, and to restrain and punish blasphemers, idolaters, seducers, profaners of the Sabbath? Deuteronomy 13, 9, 10, 17, 5, 7, Leviticus 24, 11-14, Numbers 15, 32-36. Command them to lord it over men's conscience? If it was not so then, it cannot be so now, as conscience, tyranny, and murder are the same in every age. 2. The objection strikes with equal force against all ecclesiastical establishment of the true religion, and against all creeds and confessions of faith, and against all ecclesiastical judging and censuring of men for heresy, blasphemy, or idolatry, contrary to Revelation 2.20, Titus 3.10, Galatians 5.10 and 11, as against magistrates judging about establishing religion or punishing the public consulters of it. 3. Magistrates act in this matter as his ministers and vicegerents, by virtue of his commandments, who is alone the Lord of the conscience, and restrain or punish nothing but what men under any proper influence of faith and conscience would abstain from as forbidden by the Lord of conscience, who is to be their future judge, and has appointed magistrates as his substitutes to avenge the open injuries done to him in this world. And if men persist in sins plainly forbidden in his law, he holds them as sinners against and condemned by their conscience. The absurdity of men's consciences being sustained as a standard as well as the proper method of magistrates making laws relative to religion has been already manifested. Magistrates' consciences have no more just claim to Godhead than those of their meanest subjects. Not, therefore, magistrates' pretenses to conscience, but plain and evident marks of the authority of God manifested in and from the Scriptures. must determine their subjects to receive a religion in obedience to the authority of God, the Most High, superior of both. Objection 26. In Romans 13, where the power of magistrates is more fully described than anywhere else in the New Testament, only the commands of the second table of the moral law are subjoined, to mark that it only extends to the concerns of men one with another. Answer 1. who authorized the objector to put asunder the two testaments and the two tables which God has joined, or to separate the first part of that chapter from the last, which certainly relates to religion any more than from verse 9. 2. The magistrate's character, minister of God for good, terror to and revenger of evildoers, and his duty to love his neighbors as himself, there hinted, cannot admit of his having no care about religion and the first table of the moral law. Objection 27. If we allow magistrates any power at all about religious matters, we must plunge ourselves into inextricable difficulties, as the precise limits of civil and ecclesiastical power can never be fixed, and every small mistake in religious opinions or neglect of religious duties must bring men to the gibbet, that is, the gallows, as these draw down the wrath of God on nations, as well as blasphemy and idolatry do. Answer 1. There is no more difficulty in limiting the power of magistrates about either religion or virtue than in fixing the precise limits to the power of church rulers relative to those matters. Do you fix precise limits to church power according to the word of God? And I shall next moment fix as precise limits for the power of the magistrate. If you limit the exercise of church power to duties required and sins forbidden in the first table of the moral law, you naturally leave the care of the duties required in the second table to the magistrate. But then, whether a church of Christ, having no care or power about morality toward men, or a deputed kingdom of God without any care or power about anything relating to the honour of God, be most absurd and devilish, I know not. If you aver that the power of church rulers extends to the external obedience or disobedience of church members to both tables of God's law, not as civil, but as spiritual conduct, tending to the spiritual advantage or hurt of the church, and therefore connected with the spiritual encouragements or frowns of Christ's visible church, and that they meddle not with sins against the second table as crimes against men's person or property, but as scandals against the spiritual edification of the Church and the glory of Jesus Christ therein concerned, I immediately reply that precisely in like manner the power of magistrates extends to the external obedience or disobedience of civil subjects as such, to both tables of God's law, not as it is of a spiritual nature, but as it affects the civil welfare or hurt of the nation or honor of God as the king of it, and so ought to stand connected with civil encouragements or discouragements. If you pretend that it will still be hard to show how far magistrates may, in that view, proceed in matters of the first table, particularly with respect to offending clergymen, I answer that it is not one whit harder than to show how far church courts may proceed in matters of the second table, particularly with respect to offensive magistratical administrations. Your pretense, that if magistrates punish any faults in religion, they must punish all known faults in the same form and degree, is but a deceitful insult of the Most High, who, in His word, appointed the capital punishment of idolaters and blasphemers, and yet never warranted the punishment of many faults relative to religion in like manner. Nay, for aught I see has not required magistrates at all to punish anything but the most atrocious faults in it. If you insult Christ, who has not commanded any false but atrocious ones obstinately continued in, to be censured with excommunication, and has never commanded many lesser neglects and infirmities of Church members to be censured at all, it is an insult on common sense. Would you or any man in his wits either censure or punish men as severely for a simple neglect of a religious duty as for an open and blasphemous insulting of religion? Would you censure or punish the stealing of a single straw as severely as the stealing of man or woman? Would you censure or punish a prick with a pin as severely as the cutting of a man's throat, or the ripping up of a woman with child? Objection 28. Either every error in doctrine and mistake in worship must be punished by the magistrate, or only that which is more glaring and notorious. If it is only the latter, how are the limits of what is punishable and what is not and the degree of punishment proper for each to be precisely fixed. Answer 1. If every species of duty must be neglected and the contrary sin allowed, where it is difficult to fix the precise boundaries of sin or duty, or where it is difficult to fix the precise degrees of encouragement to be given to such obedience, or of censure or punishment due to such sin, men must be left to live like absolute atheists in both church and state every man doing that which is right in his own eyes. 2. Unless you prove that every insult of, and outrage against God and His religion ought to pass unpunished, and even be licensed and authorized, yourself must be equally embarrassed in fixing what is punishable and what is not, and what must be the form and degree of punishment annexed to each punishable fault. 3. Nay, unless you prove that all deeds, however horrid, ought to be tolerated in both church and state, how are you to fix precisely what deeds are censurable or punishable and what not, and what form and degree of censure or punishment is proper for each in every particular form and circumstance? A man may as really, and for aught men can prove against him, as justly pretend conscience for his wicked deeds of treason, murder, robbery, and so forth, as for his damnable heresies, blasphemies, and idolatrous worship. Wicked deeds, if God be true, are the native fruits of gross errors and idolatrous worship. A conscience which, under the clear light of Scripture revelation, approves the whole system of potpourri or Socinianism, may as reasonably dictate the murder of saints, dethronement of lawful sovereigns, community of women and goods, and so forth. Let once the plea of conscience be admitted in the case of treason, theft, robbery, murder, and the like, and I will undertake, It shall be as commonly pled as in the case of gross heresy, blasphemy, and idolatry, and it will be as impossible for judges to disprove it in the one case as in the other. Nothing, therefore, will truly answer your tolerant scheme but that every man be allowed to profess, worship, and act as he pleases. 4. Let therefore magistrates, as well as church rulers, in their punishing and censuring work, make God's word their rule, and if they do not perceive from it clearly the proper degrees of punishment and censure, let them rather err on the charitable side than in approaches to severity. Objection 29. But how are heretics, blasphemers, and idolaters to be got judged in order to punishment? They must be judged only by their peers, by persons of the same station as themselves, quite impartial and no wise attached to the contrary sentiments or practices. Answer 1. But, how can you prove from Scripture a reason that such criminals must be judged only by their peers, or that there is a nation under heaven in which criminals are judged by such peers as you mention? 2. Allowing that our juries consist of the proper peers of the criminals, yet they judge not concerning the relevancy of the crime, or the form or degree of punishments, but of the proof of the fact, which in the case of heresy, blasphemy, or idolatry, is ordinarily no more difficult than in the case of adultery, incest, theft, murder, and so on. 3. Nothing can be more absurd than to pretend that men's detestation of heresy, blasphemy, and idolatry disqualifies them from judging heretics, blasphemers, and idolaters. What, does men's abhorrence of theft, murder, adultery disqualify them to judge of and punish those crimes? Do God's infinite holiness and equity disqualify him from judging of sinners? Objection 30. If heretics, blasphemers, and idolaters be punishable, Orthodox magistrates, who happen to become governors of heretical, blasphemous, and idolatrous nations, must kill the most of their subjects. Answer 1. We hold none punishable, especially in any severe manner, till they appear openly obstinate in it, notwithstanding sufficient means of conviction, which these subjects are not supposed to have had. and so are not punishable at all by magistrates. 2. Nothing, and particularly the infliction of punishment, ought to be done merely because it is lawful, till it also become expedient. 1 Corinthians 6.12, 10.23, Ecclesiastes 3.1, 11. Now it would be highly inexpedient to proceed to extremities against the greater part of a society. Nay, in the case supposed, they would prove a barbarously sinful means of prejudicing men against the gospel of Christ. 3. Great difference ought to be made between such as were never reformed from a false religion, and those who obstinately apostatize from the true religion to a false one. Between such as live in a nation generally corrupted with a false religion, and those who live in a nation generally enlightened and reformed by the gospel of Christ, and between such as are only seduced, and those who exert themselves to seduce others. Much more forbearance is due to the former than to the latter, 4. However, peremptorily, the Jews were commanded by God to punish even unto death the obstinate false prophets, idolaters, and blasphemers of their own church or nation. They were never required to punish their idolatrous tributaries in their conquered countries of Syria, Philistia, Edom, Ammon, or Moab. And, meanwhile, were they never allowed, and never did grant them, any legal establishment or authoritative toleration of their idolatry. 5. Even God Himself, for the ends of His glory, exercises much forbearance towards heretics, blasphemers, and idolaters, but never grants them any legal establishment or authoritative toleration, securing them of protection in their wickedness. Let magistrates, who are His ministers for good to men, go and do so likewise. Objection 31. The Christian law of doing to others that which we would have them do to us demands that we should allow every man to think, profess, and act in religion as he pleases. If we think men heretics, blasphemers, or idolaters, our proper method is to manifest the utmost kindness and familiarity to them that we may gain them to the truth. Every other method is no less dangerous than uncharitable. If Orthodox Christian magistrates restrain and punish the spreading of heathen, Mohammedan, and Popish errors or worship, heathen Mohammedan and Popish princes will be thereby tempted to restrain and punish the spread of gospel truth in their dominions, and complete the very same right for their conduct. Answer 1. Strange did not God know the meaning of his own law of equity and kindness between man and man, and the true method of securing or propagating his own religion, when he made or encouraged the laws against seducers, idolaters, and blasphemers above mentioned, when he commanded his people to avoid false teachers and not so much as to lodge them in their houses? 2. With all your pretended benevolence, would you familiarly lodge in your family a notorious pickpocket or a harlot, along with your own children, in order to gain them to the ways of piety and virtue? You would not. Why, then, in direct contradiction to the command of God, do you plead for familiarity with robbers of God, defilers, or murderers of souls? 3. The Christian law of kindness and equity requires me to do all that for the real welfare of my neighbor, in subordination to the glory of God, which I could lawfully with him, in like circumstances, to do for me. But must I do evil that good may come, rendering my damnation just? Must I procure my just liberty to believe and serve God according to his own appointment, by granting my neighbor an unjust and unauthoritative license to insult and blaspheme God and worship the devil in his stead? Because I wish my neighbor to be helpful to me in honoring God and in laboring to render myself and others happy in time and in eternity, must I assist and encourage them in horribly dishonoring God and destroying themselves and others? None but an atheist who believes no real difference between moral good and evil can pretend it. 4. When and where have faithful adherents to gospel truth got much liberty and safety by means of their friends encouraging and protecting gross heresy, blasphemy, and idolatry? Since Protestants became so kind to Papists in their dominions, have not the Popish powers in return cruelly murdered, banished, or oppressed their Protestant subjects in Hungary, Poland, Germany, France, and so forth, till they have left few of them remaining? While Britons were lavishly expending their blood and treasure in support of the Popish House of Austria about 1709 and 1741, She returned our kindness in the most villainous destruction of about 230 congregations of our Protestant brethren in Cilicia and Hungary." Footnote. A historical region of Central Europe, that is, Cilicia, located mostly in present-day Poland, with parts in the Czech Republic and Germany. 5. Ought Elijah to have spared, nay, protected and encouraged the prophets of Baal as a means of securing for himself the protection of Ahab and Jezebel, or, because she was disposed to avenge their death, Must thieves and robbers be benevolently used, that is, treated, protected, and suffered to pass unpunished for fear of provoking their associates to revenge the just severities used toward them? Let magistrates do their duty and leave the events to God. 6. Till you honestly profess yourself an atheist who believes no intrinsical difference between moral good and evil, never pretend that magistrates, who have their whole power from God, have any power against the truth, or have a right to exercise that power derived from God for the good of mankind, to his dishonor and to the hurt of mankind. Astonishing! Because a power originated from God may be rightly exercised in promoting his declarative glory, the spreader protection of his gospel, and the happiness of mankind, may it, must it, therefore, in the hand of other magistrates, be rightfully exercised in promoting blasphemy and robbery of God and worshipping of devils? Because it may be rightfully exercised in punishing obstinate and notorious heretics, blasphemers and idolaters, may it, must it, therefore, be rightfully exercised in persecuting and murdering the faithful preachers and professors of gospel truths and worshippers of the true God? Because magistrates in Britain have a right to punish thieves and murderers, must these in France have as good a right to use or treat almsgivers and skillful and diligent physicians in the same manner? Because that which tends to the highest honor of God and temporal and eternal happiness of mankind ought to be authoritatively tolerated, nay established, everywhere, may, must, that which tends to his highest dishonor and the most dreadful temporal and eternal ruin of mankind, be everywhere in like manner tolerated or established. Because in a dearth benevolent persons may be tolerated, nay highly encouraged, in freely distributing wholesome provisions to the poor and needy, May or must malicious murderers be therefore tolerated and encouraged in distributing their poisoned morsels, especially if abundantly sweetened, among the unwary infants or others? 7. The restraint or suitable and seasonable punishment of that which is contrary to God's law, being commanded by himself, can never have any tendency to introduce corruptions in religion or persecution for an adherence to gospel truth. And if some will abuse their power, that must not hinder others, either in church or state, to use theirs aright. Objection 32. If infidelity and difference in religion do not make void magistrates' rights to govern nations, much less can heresy, idolatry, or blasphemy invalidate subjects' right to protection, or of admission to all the privileges of other subjects. And the objector here is referring to the language of the Westminster Confession of Faith in the chapter on civil magistrates. Answer 1. In almost every case, the restraint or punishment of superiors is more difficult than that of inferiors. 2. If the professors of the true religion be the minority in number and power, both scripture and reason demand their subjection to their common rulers in all their lawful commands. till they become manifest tyrants and providence afford a proper opportunity of shaking off their yoke. But if the professors of the true religion be the majority in a nation or society, both scripture and reason forbid their setting up a magistrate of a false religion or a wicked practice, and allow that, if after his advancement he apostatize and obstinately attempt to promote a false religion or notoriously wicked practice, He may be deposed and even punished, as far as the general welfare of the society in subordination to the glory of God can admit. Psalm 15, 4. 3. Do you pretend to be wiser than God Himself? Without any apprehended inconsistency, He commands the Jews not authoritatively to tolerate, protect, and encourage, but to punish blasphemers, profaners of the Sabbath, idolaters, and false prophets. Leviticus 24, 15, and 16. Numbers 15, 35, and 36, Deuteronomy 14, Deuteronomy 17, Zechariah 13, 2-6, and yet commanded them when they were the small minority in the Chaldean Empire to serve the heathen king of Babylon, Jeremiah 27, 17, and 29, 7. Objection 33. Unlimited tolerations in the state ought not to be granted. In Protestant countries, papists ought not to be tolerated, as they are subject to the foreign power of the Pope as their head, and cannot be supposed faithful subjects to, or to keep faith with, such as they pretend to be heretics. Atheists ought not to be tolerated, as they cannot be bound by any oath. Such as are against tolerating others ought not to be tolerated, as they will kindle strife. And in churches there ought to be no toleration at all. Answer 1. then it seems Christ and his Father must be excluded from all share in the toleration you plead for on account of their intolerant disposition unless they be infinitely altered from what they were in ancient times. 2. You have already given up all your care for procuring the favor of the Popish powers to your Protestant brethren abroad by means of tolerating Papists. 3. Never pretend zeal against atheism till you be able to maintain your tolerant scheme upon other than the atheistical principles mentioned near the beginning of this missive, that is, letter, and to which you have repeated recourse in your objections, until you allow men's rights or pretenses of conscience to warrant them to defame, abuse, rob, and murder yourself as you allow with respect to God. 4. Your present objection is partly founded in atheism. Papists are excluded from toleration, not at all as notorious blasphemers and idolaters, but merely as not very like to prove faithful subjects to Protestant magistrates. Atheists are excluded, not as daring blasphemers or intentionally malicious murderers of Jehovah, but merely because they cannot give proper security for their good behavior to magistrates and fellow subjects. Thus no more regard is showed to God, the King of nations, than might be expected among a nation of atheists, and the interests of men are altogether, I might say, infinitely preferred to his. 5. How are you to fix the precise limits who are to be accounted under foreign heads, who are to be accounted papists and atheists, or who are to be held to give sufficient security by oath, whether profane swearers, Quakers, Socinians, notorious violators of baptismal engagements, solemn subscribers of, and engagers to creeds and confessions of faith which they believe not, and so forth. If, contrary to the light of nature and revelation, men zealously propagate the doctrines of devils, and do worship them in idols, and follow the pernicious practices above mentioned, as the native consequences of error and idolatry, are not they plainly subject to another head, even the God of this world, who is not much more friendly to magistrates and nations than the Romish If men have conscience, villainously to rest the Scriptures to prove that Christ was originally a mere man, a mere creature, and has now made God, what more security can we have by their oath than if they were professed atheists? 6. None who plead for the authoritative toleration of heretics, blasphemers, and idolaters by the State can, with any self-consistent candor, disallow of all toleration in the Church. God the King of Nations hates these abominations as much as Christ, the head of the Church. Church rulers have no other infallible rule to direct them in their decisions than magistrates have. They are as unfit to judge of more refined errors as magistrates are to judge of gross errors, blasphemies, idolatries. They have as little allowance from Christ to lord over men's consciences, or to impose their own opinions for articles of faith or rules of duty, as magistrates have from God. It is as difficult to fix precisely what is censurable and what not, and the proper degree of censure answerable to every scandal, in every circumstance, as to fix precisely what and how crimes ought to be punished by the magistrate. Unrighteous censures for an adherence to truth and duty are as real and more severe persecution than unrighteous punishments. Articles and confessions of faith imposed by ecclesiastical authority as much cramp Christian liberty as if they were established by the Clergymen have as often abused their power about religion as ever statesmen did. Their constitutions and councils have done as much hurt to it as these of magistrates ever did. If it be difficult to get gross heretics, blasphemers, and idolaters judged, restrained, or punished by the state, it will be found as hard to get all errors and all practical mistakes censured by the church. Nay, for once that magistrates have erred in punishing heretics, blasphemers, and idolaters, I believe clergymen have erred ten, if not a hundred times, in their censures. And seldom have ever magistrates persecuted men for righteousness' sake but when they were instigated to it by some clergyman. Objection 34. No carnal influence of magistrates relative to religion is consistent with the spiritual nature of the kingdom of Christ, which is not of this world. John 18.36. The apostles used no carnal weapons of warfare in promoting 2 Corinthians 10, 4 and 5. Answer 1. Why do you not state precisely what you mean by the spiritual nature of Christ's kingdom and its not being of this world? Is it so spiritual that the members and subordinate rulers in it are not at the same time members in a civil state and interested in the welfare or herd of it? Is it so spiritual that it has no manner of connection or fellowship with the kingdom of God or with the nation in which it resides, and neither gives nor receives from it any more helpfulness than from the kingdom of Belial? Is it so spiritual that the power of it cannot touch any part of men's conduct toward one another, or even the magistratical administrations of its members? Is it so spiritual as to exclude the Most High, King of Nations, and his deputed vicegerents from all regard to the honour of God and His religion, and the welfare of the state is connected therewith, leaving them no more concerned therewith than if nations were herds of swine? The question under consideration is not concerning the nature of Christ's kingdom, of which the civil magistrate is not a ruler of any kind, as has been already manifested, but whether all care about the Church and her religion as tending to promote the welfare of nations ought to be excluded from God's kingdom as the sovereign of nations. and he and his vicegerents obliged to manage that department as if there were no God in the earth. 2. Had Christ no spiritual kingdom in the days of Moses and the prophets, when God required magistrates to take care about religion and to restrain and punish the public atrocious insulters of it? Had he no spiritual kingdom, not of this world, when he repeatedly drove the buyers and sellers out of the temple? that the spiritual nature of Christ's kingdom rendered it perfectly consistent with the full exercise of the magistratical power in the Roman Empire or any other state, which is what he meant in his answer to Pilate, we readily grant. But the inspired promises which have been repeatedly quoted, Isaiah 49, 23, 60, 3, 10, and 16, Psalm 2, 8, 10-12, 72, 10, and 11, Revelation 11, 15, 17, 16, and 21, 24, sufficiently prove that the spiritual nature of Christ's kingdom does not exclude magistrates' helpfulness to the truth in authorizing the profession and practice of it by their civil laws, and in restraining the open and insolent blasphemers of it. 4. Though the weapons of ministers' warfare in propagating the gospel be not carnal, what is that to the case of magistrates? And as the spiritual weapons of church officers reach as much to sins against the second table of the moral law as to those against the first, they no more exclude the use of magistrates' carnal weapons against the atrocious sins against the first table than with respect to those against the second. 2 Corinthians 10.6, 1 Corinthians 5.2-5. 5. Magistratical influence cannot set up Christ's kingdom in men's hearts. or oblige men's conscience to obey His laws in an acceptable manner, but it can remove many external hindrances and afford many external opportunities of His own setting up by means of His Word and Spirit. It can restrain burning of Bibles or abusing and murdering of preachers and hearers of the Gospel. It can spread the Scriptures and protect preachers of the truths contained in them, and by command, example, and otherwise encourage the subjects to search the Scriptures and to hear, learn, profess, and practice the plain doctrines of the gospel. In thus endeavoring to make their subjects attend on, receive, and observe the doctrines of the gospel, all appearance of force should be carefully avoided, as that is apt to provoke a dislike rather than to promote a cheerful embracement of them. But force may be used to restrain or duly and seasonably punish the insolent opposers and revilers of the true religion which is established. and, on no account, ought such plagues of nations, as well as of churches, to receive any authoritative license to commit such wickedness. Objection 35. The annexing of temporal encouragements to the profession and practice of the Christian religion, or external discouragements to the profession or practice of such opinions in worship as are contrary to it, tends to render men hypocrites and their religion merely carnal, in obedience to civil authority, and influenced by mere carnal motives. It makes men trample on and debauch their conscience, and so sap the foundation of all true piety and virtue. Answer 1. God, who well knows the true nature of religious worship and obedience, and highly regards the candor and purity of conscience, excited the Israelites to it, partly by external encouragements, restraints, and terrors, Deuteronomy 4-8, and 27 through 32, Leviticus 18 through 20, and 26, and by each of his prophets, Isaiah 1 through Malachi 4. And even under the gospel, godliness has the promises of this life as well as of that which is to come, 1 Timothy 4.8, 1 Peter 3.13. Did you mean to blaspheme his conduct as absolutely devilish? 2. With God's approbation, David, Nehemiah, and others, by familiar intimacy, and by preferring them to posts of honor, encouraged such as appeared eminent in the profession and practice of revealed religion, and they excluded such as appeared notoriously wicked. Psalm 119.63, 101.6 and 7, Nehemiah 7.2 and 13.28. Nay, David beforehand publicly intimated his resolution to prefer only pious and faithful men. And why not, when such bid Ferris to be eminently useful officers in the state? Why may not men, even by external advantages, be encouraged to an external attendance upon gospel ordinances, which, by the blessing of God and the working of His Spirit, may issue in rendering them eminently useful subjects, and in their external salvation, even as children may be hired to that reading of their Bible and learning of their catechism, which may issue in their conversion and everlasting life? Regard to the command of parents, masters, magistrates, and ministers all at once in our religious profession and practice is in no way inconsistent with, but may be delightfully subordinated to, a supreme regard to the authority of God in them. 5. Do you really think that those who believe neither a God nor a heaven nor a hell ought, under pretense of civil right, to be as readily admitted to places of power and trust in civil governments as the most pious? Nay, are not even a profession and practice of the Christian religion much more profitable in a nation than open blasphemy, impiety and idolatry, which we have heard from God's own word exceedingly corrupt men's morals and pull down the wrath of God and the society? 6. If such things only be restrained and punished as are plainly contrary to the law of God and a right conscience, and never punished till after sufficient means of conviction have been afforded and trampled on, How can that make men dissemble with or sin against their conscience any more than the punishment of theft, murder, incest, or the like can do it? Objection 36. The abolishment of all civil establishments of revealed religion would have a remarkable tendency to render men truly pious, truly sincere in their faith, profession, and worship, and to render them excellent subjects, candid, peaceable, and affectionate lovers of one another. It would effectually root out potpourri and everything similar. Answer 1. Just as remarkable a tendency as the leaving of children to themselves has to render them truly virtuous and a distinguished honor to their parents, Proverbs 29.15, 1 Samuel 3.13, as remarkable a tendency as the abolishment of all ecclesiastical establishments of it would have to render men perfect saints. It is plain that God, when he fixed the civil establishment of revealed religion, and when he represented as above heresy, blasphemy, and idolatry, as rendering men monsters of all manner of wickedness, instead of good subjects, neighbors, or Christians, thought otherwise. Are you wiser than he? 3. Never that I know of was there a nation or numerous society on earth in which there was less of a religious establishment, good or bad, than among the Ismailians of Iraq and Syria The Ismailians were a Muslim sect which maintained that Ismail, and not Musa, ought to be Imam. In the 10th century they formed a secret society from which sprang the Assassins, that's an editor's note, back to the text, and the Giagas of Africa, and they were a tribe in Central Africa. What were the noted virtues which flourished among them? Murders, assassinations, which cannot be read or heard without horror. Under the protection of an extensive toleration, how did England, about 130 years ago, swarm with sectarian errors, blasphemies, confusions? And what has either the peace of the State or the orthodoxy and holiness of our Church gained by our last-scotch toleration? Repeated attempts in 1715 and 1745 to unhinge our civil establishment and dethrone our lawful sovereigns in favor of popish pretenders are the noted advantages which have accrued to our State, and an alarming increase of infidelity, profaneness and potpourri to our Church. Instead of scarce six hundred Papists, which was once all that could be reckoned in Scotland, their number now may amount to about thirty thousand. In about a dozen of parishes in the North, they have above twenty congregations, several of them pretty large, and a college and an academy for training up priests. How quickly these, with the Scotch colleges abroad, may furnish converters for the whole nation, God only knows. In the parish of South Uist there are 2,300 Papists and 300 Protestants. In Bara, 1,250 Papists and 50 Protestants. In Ardnamirkan, 1,950 Papists and 17 Protestants. In Kirkmichael and its neighboring parish, 1,520 Papists. in Kilmanavag, 1600, and in Glenelg, 1340. Objection 37. All civil laws establishing revealed religion must necessarily land magistrates in persecuting their subjects, for if these civil laws be contemned and violated, the breakers must be punished. Answer 1. For this reason, no superior, parent, master, minister, or magistrate must make any appointment relative to religious matters, because if it be disregarded, punishment or censure must be inflicted, and that will amount to persecution in the sense of the objection. No duty must ever be attempted, lest some perplexing consequence should attend it. 2. Though evildoers ordinarily reckon restraints of iniquity, persecution, the Scripture allows nothing to be persecution but unjust severities exercised against the profession or practice of gospel truth. at least against innocence or virtue. Punishments of men for what is plainly contrary to the word of God is no persecution for conscience sake, but a proper correction of them for trampling on and murdering their conscience. 3. If by the blessing of God parents can do much to advance religion in their families without any furious or hurtful beating of their children, and ministers do much to promote it in their congregations without proceeding, perhaps once in their life, to the higher excommunication. And if both may do much to render their children and people useful members of the Commonwealth, without having power to fine, imprison, or kill them, why may not magistrates, by their appointments, encouragements, and example, much promote the profession and practice of revealed religion, without proceeding, unless very rarely, to any disagreeable severities? The point we attempted directly to establish is that magistrates ought never to grant an authoritative toleration to gross heresy, blasphemy, idolatry. You therefore act uncandidly in perpetually hailing in the affair of punishments, even capital ones, just as your tolerant friends the ancient remonstrants perpetually hailed in the doctrine of reprobation in order to render the sovereignty of God's grace odious to the people. If magistrates take heed never to punish on the head of religious matters, but when the crime is plainly relevant and manifest, plainly contrary to the laws of God, as well as to those of the land, and that the punishment be suitable and seasonable, circumstantially calculated to promote the real welfare of the commonwealth, why should they be charged with persecution for prudently supporting their most important laws, and yet held innocent if not virtuous in supporting their comparatively insignificant laws relative to fishing, fouling, hunting, or the like. Objection 38. Let things be reduced to practice. What could be done just now in Britain without an authoritative toleration of the different parties in religion? Answer. 1. No difficulty of the performance of duties can be a sufficient reason for the neglect of them. No difficulty of rectifying what is in disorder can be a proof that it is not duty to attempt it. Because I find it so hard work to keep my heart with all diligence, and often know not how to get its sinful disorders rectified, it will not follow that to obtain inward quietness I should, in God's name, give an authoritative toleration to my several lusts, except perhaps the grosser ones of malice, whoredom, drunkenness. 2. The rules of rectifying what pertains to religion in Britain is plain. Let magistrates and subjects impartially and earnestly search the oracles of God, depending on the illuminating influence of His Spirit. Let everything not contained in the Scripture be thrown out of both civil and ecclesiastical establishments of religion, and everything plainly appointed therein for the gospel church be authorized. Let the whole administration of government and church and state, and subjection to it, be regulated by the law of God. Let every prudent and winning method be taken to promote and universally cheerful compliance. If any continue to dissent, let every degree and form of tender forbearance be exercised towards them which the express laws of God will permit, especially if by a circumspect life they manifest themselves persons of a truly tender conscience with respect to what they apprehend. If all will not concur in these measures, let particular persons in their several stations Act as becomes the gospel of Christ, obeying God rather than man, and doing all that he has commanded, without turning aside to the right hand or the left. And, if need be, let them take up their cross and patiently follow Christ, counting nothing too dear unto them, if they may uprightly finish their course with joy. Upon trial it would be found as easy for magistrates to rectify the disorders in their department, relative to religion, as it would be for church rulers in Britain to rectify what pertains to theirs, in which you just now pled that there should never be any toleration at all. Objection 39. The great Dr. Owen, that is, John Owen, zealously pled for authoritative toleration, and that magistrates ought not to interfere with religious matters. Answer 1. We call no man master. One is our master, even Christ. Dr. Owen's authority would be too light to balance that of many thousands of Protestant divines. But let us hear his judgment, for aught I know his final judgment, in his sermon before the English Parliament, October 13th, 1652. And he's now going to quote extensively different excerpts from that sermon. Quote, The civil powers shall be disposed of into such a useful subserviency to the interest, power, and kingdom of Jesus Christ Hence they are said to be His kingdoms, Revelation 11, 15. Judges and rulers as such must kiss the Son and own His scepter and advance His ways. Some think, if you are well settled, you ought not, as rulers of the nations, to put forth your power for the interest of Christ. The good Lord keep your hearts from that apprehension. It is the duty of magistrates to seek the good, peace, and prosperity of the people committed to their charge. and to prevent and remove everything that will bring confusion, destruction and desolation upon them. Esther 10.3 Psalm 101 Magistrates are the ministers of God for good, universal good of them to whom they are given. Romans 13.4 And are to watch and apply themselves to this very thing. Verse 6 It is incumbent on them to act, even as kings and men in authority, that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty, and all may come to the knowledge of the truth. 1 Timothy 2, 1-4. They are to feed the people committed to their charge with all their might unto universal peace and welfare. The things opposite to the good of any nation and people are of two sorts. 1. Such as are really, directly, and immediately opposed to that state wherein they close together and find prosperity. Seditions, tumults, disorders, violent or fraudulent breaking in upon the privileges and enjoyments of singular persons without any consideration of him who rules all things. Such evils as these, nations and rulers, supposed to be atheists, would, with all their strength, labor to prevent. 2. Such as are morally and meritoriously opposed to their good and welfare, in that they will certainly pluck down the judgments and wrath of God upon that nation where they are practiced and allowed. Shall he be thought a magistrate to bear out the name, authority, and presence of God to men, that, so he and his people have present peace like a herd of swine, cares not, though such things as will certainly devour their strength, and then utterly consume them, do pass current? Seeing they that rule over men must be just, ruling in the fear of the Lord. The sole reason why they sheathe the sword of justice in the bowels of thieves, murderers, and adulterers is not because their outward peace is actually disturbed by them, but principally because he in whose stead they stand and minister is provoked by such wickedness to destroy both the one and the other. And if there be the same reason concerning other things, they also call for the same procedure. To gather up now what has been spoken, Considering the Gospel's right to be propagated with all its concernments in every nation under heaven, and the blessings, peace, prosperity and protection wherewith it is attended, when and where received, and the certain destruction which accompanies the rejection and contempt of it. Considering the duty that by God's appointment is incumbent on them that rule over men, that in the fear of the Lord they ought to seek the good, peace and prosperity of them that are committed to their charge, and to prevent, obviate, that is, eliminate, remove and revenge that which tends to their hurt, perturbation, that is, mental agitation, destruction, immediate from heaven or from the hand of men, and in their whole administration to take care that the worshippers of God in Christ may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty. Let anyone who has the least sense of the account which he must make to the great King and Judge of the world of the authority and power wherewith he was entrusted determine whether it be not incumbent on him by all the protection he can afford, by all the privileges he can indulge, by all the support he can grant, by all that encouragement he is required or allowed to give to any person whatsoever, to further the propagation of the gospel, which upon the matter is the only thing of concernment as well unto this life as unto that which is to come. And if anything be allowed in a nation which in God's esteem may amount to a contempt and despising thereof, men may be taught by sad experience what will be the issue of such allowance. Although the institutions and examples of the Old Testament, of the duty of magistrates in things about the worship of God, are not, in their whole latitude and extent, to be drawn into rules obligatory to all magistrates now under the Gospel, yet doubtless there is something moral in these institutions, subduct, that is, subtract, from these administrations what was proper to the church and nation of the Jews, and what remains upon the general account of a church and nation, must be everlastingly binding. And this amounts, thus far at least, that judges, rulers, and magistrates, which are promised under the New Testament to be given in mercy, and to be of singular usefulness as the judges were under the old, are to take care that the gospel church may, in its concernments as such, be supported and promoted and the truth propagated wherewith they are entrusted. Know that error and falsehood have no right or title, either from God or men, unto any privilege, protection, advantage, liberty, or any good thing you are entrusted with all. To dispose that unto a lie, which is the right of and due to truth, is to deal treacherously with him by whom you are employed. Know that in the things of practice so of persuasion, that are impious and wicked, either in themselves or natural consequences, the plea of conscience is an aggravation of the crime. If men's conscience be seared and themselves given up to a reprobate mind, to do those things that are not convenient, there is no doubt that they ought to suffer such things as are assigned and appointed by God to such practices." A truly golden speech, in which nothing but the deepest conviction of its truth could have drawn from an independent in his then circumstances. Upon the whole, sir, I readily grant that a multitude of cavils may be started against the magistrate's power about religious matters mentioned in our excellent standards, as may be against every divine truth, the most fundamental not accepted, and that the proper application of it to practice may be, in some circumstances, not a little difficult. But not cavils, however specious, nor difficulty of upright performance of duty, But demonstrative arguments of its sinfulness will warrant my renouncing a principle which I have so solemnly espoused in ordination vows and covenants with God, and far less to admit that men's conscience and magistrates ought, in the name of God, to warrant, encourage, and protect men in gross heresy, blasphemy, and idolatry, though they cannot warrant, encourage, or protect them in doing any civil injury to men. Perhaps Tyndall alone has raised as many shrewd objections against the divine authority of our Bible as have or can be raised against that power of magistrates mentioned in our standards. And yet, woe, woe, woe forever to my soul if, on that account, I renounce it as an imposture of Satan. You've reached the end of track four of A Refutation of Religious Pluralism by John Brown of Haddington. This work is published by Gospel Covenant Publications. Gospel Covenant Publications website is www.gcpublications.com. They may be reached by email at info at gcpublications.com and by phone, area code 208-553-5296. Please continue listening at track 5.