Paul's Passing Thoughts

Originally published August 31, 2013

You can’t separate the gospel of the Reformation from New Calvinism, and you can’t separate that gospel from its practice. Part and parcel with the Reformation gospel is the insistence that church and state be united for the purpose of purifying “the realm.” The church is over the spiritual and the sacraments, and the civil magistrate should enforce the edicts of the church. The civil authorities may have oversight of practical matters, but to not enforce the edicts of the church in spiritual matters is to override God’s “power of the keys.” Ultimately, the state is the servant of the church. Be sure of this: the present-day New Calvinist movement sees America as a rogue government unwilling to submit to the power of the keys. They will gravitate towards any party willing to get in bed with the church as opposed to a government that is contra principles of persecution. The Reformation was predicated on principles of persecution.

What we need to understand in situations like the SGM class action lawsuit is that Mahaney et al think they are being subjected to authority that God has not approved. They will improvise as much as possible in creating a persecuting sub-culture while working to bring America into the beginnings of a church/state government, and any kind of ugliness thereof would be better than what we have now. Also, the outright rejection of an idea that the New Calvinist tsunami is a segue to remarriage with Rome and the prophesied coming super church/state empire of the antichrist is a naïve out of hand dismissal.

The persecuting principles of the Reformers were its first cries coming forth from the womb; specifically, in Scotland where the Reformation first found formidable life. This series of posts are based on William Marshall’s The Principles of the Westminster Standards Persecuting (William Marshall, D.D., Coupar – Angus. Edinburgh: William Oliphant & Co. 1873).

The book’s inside cover quotes contemporaries of the Reformation to frame the thesis of the book:

Persecution is the deadly sin of the Reformed churches, that which cools every honest man’s zeal for their cause, in proportion as his reading becomes more extensive—Hallam.

In regard to this thesis, every holocaust has had its cowardly bystanders wearing the uniform of the prosecutors while raising a safe objection. The following statement by John Owen exemplifies such:

I know the usual pretenses for persecution. “Such a thing is blasphemy,” but search the Scriptures, look at the definitions of divines, and you will find heresy, in what head of religion soever be, and blasphemy very different. “To spread such errors will be destructive to souls.” So are many things which yet are not punishable with death. Let him who thinks so go kill Pagans and Mahometans. “Such a heresy is a canker,” but is a spiritual one, let it be prevented by spiritual means; cutting off men’s heads is no proper remedy for it. If state physicians think otherwise, I say no more, but I am not of that college—Owen.

So, I disagree, but if the state agrees with the church, well, then I have to bow to their authority, but I disagree. And such will be the commentary of some New Calvinists if they ever obtain force from the state which apparently makes the sin sanctified—the fact that there are some goodhearted souls within the movement. Good men should keep their peace while heads roll because to label the movement as tyranny would be a “generalization.” The ideology is not to blame, only the men who don’t see things exactly the way we see them. The persecuted should also understand this and shrug their shoulders in agreement while gladly placing the noose around their own neck voluntarily.

In regard to the Scottish Reformers, Marshall stated the following:

The Protestant Reformers in leaving Rome did not leave all Romanism behind them. In particular, they brought with them the prosecuting principles of Rome, and worked them freely and vigorously in support of the Reformed faith. They changed the Pope but not the popedom,

And….

Rightfully and nobly did the Protestant Reformers claim religious liberty for themselves; but they resolutely refused to concede it to others.

John Knox, the vaunted Scottish Reformer, though primarily concerned with Catholicism, made it clear that no aberration of Reformed doctrine should be tolerated by the state. According to Marshall:

Knox, the father of the Scottish Reformation, and the presiding genius of it, brought with him to his native country the Geneva theocracy; and it was copied as closely as the differences between the Swiss republic and the Scottish monarchy would permit….Such was the Church and State system of the Scottish Reformers in those days; and hence the melancholy selections from their history which I have now to offer.

The first Parliament, in which the Reformers became ascendant, was held in 1560. It adopted a Protestant Confession; a “summary of tenets constituting the essence of the Reformed religion;” one of the “tenets” being the theocratic one, “that to kings and rulers it belongs to reform and purify religion.”

Marshall continued to state that the same Confession prohibited the practice of Catholicism or any other aberration of the Reformed gospel, and such violations would entail confiscation of goods for the first offence, “suffering” and “banishment” for the second, and “death” for the third violation. Marshall then concludes:

Thus the very first legislation of the Scottish Reformers was deeply tainted with persecution.

Marshall continues:

The same year [1561] the First Book of Discipline was framed by a Committee of the Kirk, of which John Knox was a leading member….”Seeing that Christ Jesus is He whom God the Father hath commanded onely to be heard and followed of His sheepe, we judge it necessary that His gospell be truly and openly preached in every church and assembly of this realme; and that all doctrine repugnant to the same be utterly repressed, as damnable to men’s salvation….that the obstinate maintainers and teachers of such abominations ought not to escape the punishment of the civill magistrate….We dare not prescribe unto you what penalties shall be required of such, but this we fear not to affirm, that the one and the other deserve death.”

Apart from this committee, according to Marshall, Knox stated the following in a public sermon:

None provoking the people to idolatry ought to be exempted from the punishment of death.

I will conclude this first part with Marshall’s assessment of how the Scottish Reformers took control of the Scottish press:

Our early Reformers claimed like control over the press. “Immediately after the Reformation, the General Assembly took particular notice of the four printing presses then in Scotland, and they were careful that nothing should be published, at least by ministers, till it was communicated to the brethren, and revised by persons appointed by them.”

Marshall’s book is widely available and cites extensive sources. It should have its own place on every Christian’s bookshelf. In part two, we will look at Marshall’s assessment of persecuting principles found in the Westminster Confession.

paul

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