Quotations from the Early Reformers
I am providing the quotes here with very little comment. Take note especially of the tems “equity, equitable, and judicial.” These are terms used in the Westminster Confession and without a proper understanding of their contemporary use, we tend to interpret the confession importing our modern usage of such terms.
16th Century
Martin Bucer in 1550, wrote his treatise on social ethics for Edward VI, entitled De Regno Christi. There he stated:
Since no one can describe an approach more equitable and wholesome to the commonwealth than that which God describes in his law, it is certainly the duty of all kings and princes who recognize that God has put them over his people that they follow most studiously his own method of punishing evildoers….Insofar as the substance and proper end of these [Mosaic] commandments are concerned, and especially those which enjoin the discipline that is necessary for the whole commonwealth, whoever does not reckon that such commandments are to be conscientiously observed is certainly not attributing to God either supreme wisdom or a righteous care for our salvation. And so whoever decides that these misdeeds of impiety and wickedness are to be kept out or driven from the commonwealth of Christians by more mitigated punishment than death necessarily makes himself wiser and more loving than God as regards the salvation of men.
“Your Majesty will prove his trust and zeal for governing the commonwealth in a holy way for Christ the Lord, our heavenly King, if for every single crime, misdeed, or offense he establishes and imposes those penalties which the Lord himself has sanctioned.”
Edwin Sandys the Anglican Bishop In 1573, wrote to Heinrich Bullinger that it was the position of presbyterian reformers in England that:
“The judicial laws of Moses are binding upon Christian princes, and they ought not in the slightest degree to depart from them….These good men are crying out that they have all the Reformed churches on their side.”
John Calvin
“This equity alone must be the goal and rule and limit of all laws,” so that in relation to the judicial laws of Moses, the laws of a modern nation may “indeed vary in form but have the same purpose” (Institutes of the Christian Religion 4:20:15-16).
Speaking of the extradecalogical laws of lending, he said: “The judicial law, however, which God prescribed to His ancient people, is only so far abrogated as that which charity dictates should remain” (Commentary at Exodus 22:25).
“Although the political laws of Moses are not now in operation, still the analogy is to be preserved, lest the condition of those who have been redeemed by Christ’s blood should be worse amongst us, than that of His ancient people of old” (Commentary at Leviticus 25:42).
Calvin’s endorsement of the authority of the judicial laws (as to their principial demand, a model of love) is quite clear in his treatment of the laws on incest in the Mosaic code. That they were judicial in character is an opinion he stiffly rebuked:
Absurd is the cleverness which some persons but little versed in Scripture pretend to, who assert that the Law being abrogated, the obligations under which Moses laid his countrymen are now dissolved; for it is to be inferred from the preface above expounded, that the instruction here given is not, nor ought to be accounted, merely political…. In short, the prohibition of incests here set forth, is by no means of the number of those laws which are commonly abrogated according to the circumstances of time and place, since it flows from the fountain of nature itself, and is founded on the general principle of all laws, which is perpetual and inviolable…. I do not see, that, under the pretext of its being a political Law/French: that the Law of Moses has ceased, the purity of nature is to be abolished (Commentary at Leviticus 28:6).
His attitude is captured in a remark made about two of the judicial laws of the Old Testament regarding the Sabbath:
“Who can deny that these two things apply as much to us as to the Jews?” (Institutes 2;8:32).
Heinrich Bullinger (1504-1575), In the Second Helvetic Confession, wrote that God’s entire will for every part of life was fully declared in the law, so that no departure from it was allowed (Xii). In the May 13, Decades he declared that, even though the outward or cultural form of the judicial laws may vary from nation to nation,
“the substance of God’s judicial laws is not taken away or abolished.”
In like manner, let him govern the people, committed to him of God, with good laws, made according to the Word of God in his hands, and look that nothing be taught contrary thereto…. Therefore let him draw forth this sword of God against all malefactors, seditious persons, thieves, murders, oppressors, blasphemers, perjured persons, and all those whom God has commanded him to punish or even to execute (XXX).
Johannes Wollebius, (1586-1629) Another Continental theologian of Reformed persuasion, wrote that
the judicial law is binding on us (harmonizing as it does with the moral law and ordinary justice), except “in those matters which were peculiar to that law and were prescribed for the promised land or the situation of the Jewish state” (Compendium of Christian Theology 14.6).
John Knox (1513-1572) said rulers as well as preachers were subject to church discipline, and
“discipline stands in the correction of those things that are contrary to God’s law” (IX)
In chapter one of the Second Book of Discipline (1578) we read:
This power and policy of the kirk should lean upon the word immediately, as the only ground thereof… being ruled by his [Christ's] laws…. So ought the person of the magistrate to be subject to the kirk spiritually…. The spiritual rulers should require the Christian magistrate to minister justice, and punish vice…. The ministers exercise not the civil jurisdiction, but teach the magistrate how it should be exercised according to the word (I.11, 14, 17, 21). 83
Thomas M’Crie, biographer of Knox, indicated that he [Knox] held the conviction
“that the judicial laws given to the Jewish nation were binding upon Christian nations, as to all offences against the moral law.”
Thomas Cartwright (1535 – 1603) (One of the top puritans of his day) said that
since some of the judicial laws were “made in regard of the region where they were given, and of the people to whom they were given,” those who keep “the substance and equity of them (as it were the marrow), may change the circumstances of them, as the times and places and manners of the people shall require.”
“But to say that any magistrate can save the life of blasphemers, contemptuous and stubborn idolaters, murders, adulterers, incestuous persons, and such like, which God by his judicial law hath commanded to be put to death, I do utterly deny, and am ready to prove, if that pertained to this question.”
William Perkins (1558–1602), addressing a question of civil ethics, spoke of
“the law of Moses, the equity whereof is perpetual”
Henry Barrow (1550 – 1593) spoke of God’s Old Testament “statutes and judgments,” saying that
they “endure forever” as “the true exposition and faithful execution of his moral law: which laws were not made for the Jews’ state only...but for all mankind, especially for all the Israel of God, from which laws it is not lawful in judgment to vary or decline either to the one hand or to the other.”
Philip Stubbs (1555 – 1610), the puritan pamphleteer, said Referring to one of the penal sanctions of the Old Testament law,
“which law judicial standeth in force to the world’s end.”
Summary
These are just a few quotes I gleaned from the articles I reference before supplied by Covenant Media Foundaion (http://www.cmfnow.com). Careful attention to reading these should bring to remembrance the Westminster Confession Paragraph 4 in Chapter 19. A familiarity with the language and quotations from the early reformers before the confession was written provides clarity to what the Westminster divines meant when they wrote WCF 19:4.
Next, I’ll post quotations from the 17th century.
You take Calvin out of context. If you read all of Inst 4:20:16, you will find that he is not advocating “equity” in the Theonomists’ sense (i.e. “equivalent to Moses”), but in the broader sense of equity=justice. Calvin is actually arguing that laws may be different than Moses:
Calvin then goes on to list specific allowable deviations from Mosaic penology for theft, adultery, and murder, and concludes:
I’ll respond to all of your comments together as a whole near the bottom. But I have a specific response to something you say here:
You say:
I now think I understand why all these years you have argued the way you do. The Theonomists’ sense is NOT “equivalent to Moses.” You’ve obviously been misunderstanding this all this time! In actuality, the Theonimists’ sense is actually “equity=justice.” Just look at my second sentence in this post,introducing these quotes: “Take note especially of the tems “equity, equitable, and judicial.”” I was roughly equating these terms, and always have in my writings.
Anyway, a more general response is to come.
kazoo
Same goes for Institutes 2:8:28-34 on the Sabbath. Calvin attributes to the commandment “three purposes”. In his writing about the first purpose he quotes the verses that establish the death penalty. And then the section you quote from begins:
I.e. the first purpose (the one with the death penalty attached) “ought to be classed with ancient shadows”. Calvin is explicitly NOT saying that the penology of the fourth commandment is equally applicable to us as to the Jews. What you are quoting is Calvin talking about “even though we understand that the civil penalty is abrogated, let’s still keep the moral part” (that’s not a real quote, just my paraphrase of Calvin’s intent).
Don’t make me break out my pile of Calvin quotes about the abrogation of the Sabbath…
Again, a response specific to this comment:
“Let’s keep the moral part” is the Theonomists’ position. Some might disagree with Calvin about the civil penalty, and others might not. That is actually the case in the Theonomist camp.
kazoo
And yet again! This quote establishes, rather than denies, abrogation. Calvin is saying, “yeah, we know the lending laws are abrogated, but let’s not go overboard. There’s still a law of charity (a moral law, a law to love your neighbor) that should prevent Christians from exploiting their neighbors”
And once again, what you’re pointing out is exactly what a Theonomist wants you to see. The point is that “There’s still a law of charity (a moral law, a law to love your neighbor)…”
kazoo
[...] Stogies: Open Mic Night about the historicity of Theonomist thought throughout the Reformation. The fourth and latest installment has quotes from Calvin, which made me think in a new way about the language of the [...]
Okay, so here is my general response to Rube’s 3 comments…
My quoting of Calvin along with all the others here is to help us all to understand the language and the intent of our forefathers when it comes to God’s law. The theonomist got their ethical framework from these very men. There is very little in them, including Calvin, that differs from a modern day theonomist. I don’t mean this sarcastically or in a demeaning way, but Rube seems to have finally learned what the basic principle of theonomy is without even realizing it! Equity = Justice = Moral. Simple as that.
Take another look at all these quotes and especially the terms and phrases I underlined. Equity, substance, “general principal,” etc. This is the hermeneutic of the theonomist as it plainly was in many or our reformed forefathers. This is why I’ve always pointed out that Bahnsen said his thesis was just the groundwork and there was a lot of hard work to do. What part of the case law was moral and what was ceremonial or judicial? That is where there can be much disagreement without hard study and exegesis.
kazoo
Wow, I feel like I’ve just watched a season-ending cliff-hanger: will kazoo continue his series? Will ruberad, echo, gabe and others continue to sharpen his iron? Did kazoo help ruberad (and others) see that perhaps they’ve been less at odds with him than they always assumed? And just who did shoot jr?
Now we wait see 10 months later for the next season to begin.
In all seriousness, I have like others been really impressed with the patient, even irenic nature of debate here. I do most heartily look forward to more, and hope that the Spirit may encourage and refresh you all to take it up again. Soli Deo Gloria!
Charlie,
I love it.
I am sorry I didn’t finish this. I have always had the intention to but life just keeps getting in the way. Now, if I have any time to devote to study, I am spending it preparing for a Sunday school class I will teach in the January quarter.
The next leg I need to post is going to require a little more from me than just gleaning already gleaned quotes. So, I haven’t killed it, but it will still probably be a long while. Sorry my man.
kazoo
Thanks, and understood. Your family (challenging your time before) and local church body (challenging it now) both clearly take priority over this. And having just taught a summer-long class Sunday school myself, I especially appreciate the latter!
Will pray for your encouragement in all three areas. Until again.
I am looking at a lifetime of sharpening Kazooless’ iron. There’s just so many rough edges I gotta keep working at!