The Divine Right of Church Government: Wherein it is proved that the Presbyterian government, by preaching and ruling elders, in sessional, Presbyterial and synodical assemblies, may lay the only lawful claim to a divine right, according to the Holy Scriptures
Religion
The Divine Right of Church Government: Wherein it is proved that the Presbyterian government, by preaching and ruling elders, in sessional, Presbyterial and synodical assemblies, may lay the only lawful claim to a divine right, according to the Holy Scriptures
Presbyterian Church -- Government
6. A compulsive, coactive, punitive, or corrective power, formally
political, is also granted to the political magistrate in matters of
religion, in reference to all sorts of persons and things under his
jurisdiction. He may politically compel the outward man of all persons,
church officers, or others under his dominions, unto external
performance of their respective duties, and offices in matters of
religion, punishing them, if either they neglect to do their duty at
all, or do it corruptly, not only against equity and sobriety, contrary
to the second table, but against truth and piety, contrary to the first
table of the decalogue. We have sufficient intimation of the
magistrate's punitive power in cases against the second table; as the
stubborn and rebellious, incorrigible son, that was a glutton and a
drunkard, sinning against the fifth commandment, was to be stoned to
death, Deut. xxi. 18-21. The murderer, sinning against the sixth
commandment, was to be punished with death, Gen. ix. 6; Numb. xxxv.
30-34; Deut. x. 11-13. The unclean person, sinning against the seventh
commandment, was to be punished with death, Lev. xx. 11, 12, 14, 17,
19-25; and before that, see Gen. xxxviii. 24. Yea, Job, who is thought
to live before Moses, and before this law was made, intimates that
adultery is a heinous crime, yea, it is an iniquity to be punished by
the judges, Job xxxi. 9,11. The thief, sinning against the eighth
commandment, was to be punished by restitution, Exod. xxii. 1, 15, &c.
The false witness, sinning against the ninth commandment, was to be
dealt withal as he would have had his brother dealt with, by the law of
retaliation, Deut. xix. 16, to the end of the chapter, &c. Yea, the
magistrate's punitive power is extended also to offences against the
first table; whether these offences be against the first commandment, by
false prophets teaching lies, errors, and heresies in the name of the
Lord, endeavoring to seduce people from the true God. "If there arise
among you a prophet, or a dreamer of dreams, that prophet, or that
dreamer of dreams shall be put to death, because he hath spoken to turn
you away from the Lord your God, which brought you out of the land of
Egypt," &c., Deut. xiii. 1-6. From which place Calvin notably asserts
the punitive power of magistrates against false prophets and impostors
that would draw God's people to a defection from the true God, showing
that this power also belongs to the Christian magistrate in like cases
now under the gospel.
Yea, in case of such seducement from God, though by nearest allies,
severe punishment was to be inflicted upon the seducer, Deut. xiii.
6-12. See also ver. 12, to the end of the chapter, how a city is to be
punished in the like case. And Mr. Burroughs,[27] in his Irenicum, shows
that this place of Deut. xiii. 6, &c., belongs even to us under the
gospel.
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