"These are judgments which
Almighty God Himself spoke to Moses and commanded him to keep. Now, since the
Lord's only begotten Son our God and healing Christ has come to Middle Earth —
Martin Bucer (1491 - 1551)
"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 ... 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.” -Martin Bucer, De Regno Christi, 1550
John Knox (1514-1572)
"No man
denies, but that the sword is committed to the magistrate, to the end
that he should punish vice and maintain virtue. To punish vice, I
say: not only that which troubles the tranquillity and quiet estate
of the commonwealth (by adultery, theft, or murder committed), but
also such vices as openly impugn the glory of God, as idolatry,
blasphemy, and manifest heresy, taught and obstinately maintained, as
the histories and notable acts of Hezekiah, Jehoshaphat, and Josiah
do plainly teach us; whose study and care was not only to glorify God
in their own life and conversation, but also they unfeignedly did
travail to bring their subjects to the true worshipping and honoring
of God; and did destroy all monuments of idolatry, did punish to
death the teachers of it, and removed from office and honors such as
were maintainers of those abominations. Whereby, I suppose, that it
is evident, that the office of the king, or supreme magistrate, has
respect to the moral law, and to the conservation of both the
tables." - John Knox, The First Blast of the Trumpet Against the
Monstrous Regiment [government] of Women (1558).
In On Predestination John Knox supports the burning of
Servetus and Joan of Kent by the example of Moses putting the idolaters to
death in Leviticus 23. Should it be objected, says Knox, that this is
incompatible with the kingdom of Christ, ‘himself will answer, that he is not
come to break or destroy the law of his heavenly Father.’ Again: ‘That God has
appointed death by his law, without mercy, to be executed upon blasphemers is
evident by that which is written, Leviticus 24.’Note that Knox appeals to Matt.
5:17 to support the view that the penal sanctions remain binding. –Regarding
John Knox
“This one thing I add more; that
it is the duty of a christian magistrate, or at leastwise of a good
householder, to compel to amendment t
Henry Bullinger writing to John Calvin on the execution of Michael Servetus
"I
know that many have wished that you had not defended this principle;
but many also thank you, and among others our church. Urbanus Regius has
long ago proved, in a work of his own, and all the ministers of
Luneberg agree with him, that heretics, when they are blasphemers, ought
to be punished. There are also many other pious men who think the same,
and consider that such offenders ought not only to be silenced, but to
be put to death. Do not repent therefore of what you have done: the Lord
will uphold your righteous efforts. I know that your disposition is not
cruel, and that you will favour no barbarity. Who knows not, that a
boundary must be set to things of this kind? But how it could be
possible to spare such a man as Servetus, that serpent of all heresies,
that most obdurate of men, I see not."[1] [1] Cited in Paul Henry, The
Life and Times of John Calvin, the Great Reformer: Volume II, trans.
Henry Stebbing (London: Whittaker and Co., 1849), 234.
Thomas Cranmer (1489 - 1556)
"Your majesty is God's vicegerent, and Christ's vicar within your own dominions, and to see, with your predecessor Josiah, God truly worshipped, and idolatry destroyed; the tyranny of the bishops of Rome banished from your subjects, and images removed. These acts are signs of a second Josiah, who reformed the church of God in
his days. You are to reward virtue, to revenge sin, to justify the
innocent, to relieve the poor, to procure peace, to repress violence,
and to execute justice throughout your realms. For precedents on those
kings who performed not these things, the old law shows how the Lord
revenged his quarrel; and on those kings who fulfilled these things, he
poured forth his blessings in abundance. For example, it is written
of Josiah, in the book of the Kings, thus: '[And] Like unto him there
was no king [before him], that turned to the Lord with all his heart,
[and with all his soul, and with all his might,] according to all the
law of Moses; neither after him arose there any like him.' This was to that prince a perpetual fame of dignity, to remain to the end of days." Unknown author, Writings of Edward the Sixth, William Hugh, Queen Catherine Parr, Anne Askew, Lady Jane Grey, Hamilton, and Balnaves: Volume 3: of British reformers (London: The Religious Tract Society, 1836), 5, 6.
"The
judgments (judicial laws) 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.” -Henry Barrow (1550 – 1593)
“which law judicial standeth in force to the world’s end.” -Philip Stubbs (1555 – 1610)
"Those judicial laws of Moses, which are merely
politic, and without all mixture of Ceremonies, must remain; such as those
which hinder not the atonement of Jews and Gentiles with God, or of one of them
with another. Beside that, it being manifest that our Savior Christ came not to
dissolve any Good government of commonwealth, he can least of all be thought to
come to destroy that which himself had established." -Thomas Cartwright,
The Second Replie of Thomas Cartwright... (1575), 97.
“there are certein Judiciall lawes which can not be changed,
as that a blasphemer, contemptuous, and stubborne Idolater etc. ought to be put
to death.”-Thomas Cartwright, Second Replie, 98.
Laws without such sanctions would either be toothless, or
arbitrary and left to the caprice of the civil magistrate. When God’s sanctions
are ignored, nations are unfortunately, at the very best, left to the vagaries
of “mans reason” which in the words of Thomas Cartwright, “is even in this
behalffe, shrewdly wounded.”Cartwright, Second Replie, 97.
Judicials
of common [or general] equity are such as are made according to the law or
instinct of nature common to all men: and these in respect of their substance,
bind the consciences not only of the Jews but also of the Gentiles: for they
were not given to the Jews as they are Jews ... but they were given to them as
they were mortal men subject to the order and laws of nature as all other
nations are." William Perkins, A
Discourse of Conscience (Cambridge: John Legate, 1596), 17.
“Therefore
the judiciall lawes of Moses according to the substance and scope thereof must
be distinguished; in which respect they are of two sorts. Some of them are
lawes of particular equity, some of common equity.”William Perkins, A Discourse
of Conscience Cambridge: John Legate, 1596), 17.
“These
might be summarized as: 1. Laws of particular equity are laws which were only
equitable and binding under the special circumstances of the Jewish
commonwealth. 2.
Laws of common (or general) equity are laws which are equitable for Jew and
Gentile alike. These laws are grounded in the moral law and therefore
universally binding on the consciences of all men everywhere.”(William
Perkins, Ibid.,
17, 18)
“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.”
-Edwin Sandys wrote to Heinrich Bullinger in 1573 that this was the
position of presbyterian reformers in England.
"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). Johannes
Wollebius, (1586-1629) Continental Reformed
“Those Lawes therefore which are usually reckoned among the
Judiciall, and yet in their nature beare no singular respect to the condition
of the Jewes more than any other people. Those are all of the Morall and
Natural Law, which are common to all Nations.” “For God would have his Law
guarded with such kind of injunctions as with bounds to keepe men off from more
heynous sinnes. Now as the bounds and wall which defended the house was
reckon’d as one with the house, so these appendixes to the commandements make
but one Decalogue.” –William Ames, Conscience
with the Power and Cases Thereof (1639;
reprint, Puritan Reprints, 2010), 109. The first edition is understood to be
that of 1631 (in Latin).
"the judicial laws of the Old Testament are just as moral in basic character as the Decalogue, but they were revealed often in a particularly Jewish form or character." -William Ames, De Conscientia (1630)
"whether we as Christians or as a people of God are not
bound to establish laws and penalties set down in the Scripture as they
were given to the Jews,"
and then offers nine supporting reasons why the answer must be affirmative. " -John Cotton, "How Far Moses’ Judicials Bind Massachusetts," (1636)
"The more any Law smells of man the more unprofitable. ... If it was a part of the misery of gentiles to be aliens from the
commonwealth of Israel (Eph. 2:12), then it is a part of the happiness
of Christian nations that they are subject to the laws of that commonwealth of Israel….
Christ is king of church and commonwealth…. Christ is head of all
principalities and powers for the church, and he will subordinate all
kingdoms one day to the church.” -John Cotton, "How Far Moses’ Judicials Bind Massachusetts," (1636)
"With
respect to the Judicial Laws, we must observe, that these were
Appendices, partly of the Moral, partly of the Ceremonial Law: Now such
as, or so far as they are related to the Ceremonial, they are doubtless
Abolished with it. As, and as far as they bear respect to the Moral
Law, they do, eo Nomine, require Obedience perpetual, and are therefore
reducible to Moral Precepts." -Samuel Willard (1640-1707), Compleat Body
of Divinity
"And according to the fundamental agreement, made and published by full
and general consent…that the judicial law of God given by Moses and
expounded in other parts of Scripture, so far as it is a hedge and a fence to the moral law, and neither ceremonial nor typical nor had any reference to Canaan, hath an everlasting equity in it, and should be the rule of their proceedings." -New Haven Colony Records for 1641
It will be asked, "But how does it appear that these or
any other judicial laws of Moses do at all appertain to us, as rules to guide
us in like cases?" I shall wish him who scruples this, to read Piscator's
appendix to his observations upon the 21-23 chapters of Exodus, where he
excellently disputes this question, whether the Christian Magistrate is bound
to observe the judicial laws of Moses, as well as the Jewish Magistrate was. He
answers by the common distinction, he is obliged to those things in the
judicial law which are unchangeable, and common to all nations: but not to
those things which are mutable, or proper to the Jewish Republic. … things
immutable, and common to all nations, are the laws concerning moral trespass,
sins against the moral law, as murder, adultery, theft, enticing away from God,
blasphemy, striking of parents. Now that the Christian Magistrate is bound to
observe these judicial laws of Moses, which appoint the punishments of sins
against the moral law, he proves by these reasons etc. –George Gillespie, Wholesome Severity Reconciled with Christian Liberty (1644)
"Things immutable, and common to all Nations are the laws concerning Moral
trespasses, Sins against the Moral law, as murder, adultery, theft, enticing
away from God, blasphemy, striking of Parents. Now that the Christian Magistrate
is bound to observe these Judicial laws of Moses which appoint the
punishments of sins against the Moral law, he proveth by these reasons.
1. If it were not so, then it is free and arbitrary to
the Magistrate to appoint what punishments himself pleaseth. But this is
not arbitrary to him, for he is the Minister of God, Rom. 13.4.
and the judgment is the Lord's, Deut. 1.7; 2 Chron. 19.6.
And if the Magistrate be Keeper of both Tables, he must keep them
in such manner as God hath delivered them to him.
2. Christ's words, Matt. 5.17, Think not that
I am come to destroy the Law or the Prophets, I am not come to destroy,
but to fulfill, are comprehensive of the Judicial law, it being a part
of the law of Moses ...
3. If Christ in his Sermon, Matt. 5, would teach
that the Moral law belongeth to us Christians, insomuch as he vindicateth
it from the false glosses of the Scribes & Pharisees; then he meant
to hold forth the Judicial law concerning Moral trespasses as belonging
to us also: for he vindicateth and interpreteth the Judicial law, as well
as the Moral, Matt. 5.38, An eye for an eye, &c.
4. If God would have the Moral law transmitted from the
Jewish people to the Christian people; then he would also have the Judicial
law transmitted from the Jewish Magistrate to the Christian Magistrate:
There being the same reason of immutability in the punishments, which is
in the offences; Idolatry and Adultery displeaseth God now as much as then;
and Theft displeaseth God now no more than before." –George Gillespie, Wholesome Severity Reconciled with Christian Liberty (1644)
"Unto which I add, (1.) Though we have clear and full scriptures
in the New Testament for abolishing the Ceremonial law, yet we nowhere
read in all the new Testament of the abolishing of the Judicial law, so
far as it did concern the punishing of sins against the Moral law, of which
Heresy and seducing of souls is one, and a great one. Once God did reveal
his will for punishing those sins by such and such punishments. He who
will hold that the Christian Magistrate is not bound to inflict such punishments
for such sins, is bound to prove that those former laws of God are abolished,
and to shew some scripture for it."–George Gillespie, Wholesome Severity Reconciled with Christian Liberty (1644)
"Thesis 42. The Judicial laws, some of them being hedges and
fences to safeguard both moral and ceremonial precepts, their binding power was
therefore mixed and various, for those which did safeguard any moral law,
(which is perpetual,) whether by just punishments or otherwise, do still
morally bind all nations; for, as Piscator argues, a moral law is as good and
as precious now in these times as then, and there is as such need of the
preservation of these fences to preserve these laws in these times, and at all
times, as well as then, there being as much danger of the treading down of
those laws by the wild beasts of the world and brutish men (sometimes even in
churches) now as then; and hence God would have all nations preserve their
fences forever, as he would have that law preserved forever which these
safeguard; but, on the other side, these judicial which did safeguard
ceremonial laws which we know were not perpetual, but proper to that nation,
hence those judicial which compass these about are not perpetual nor universal;
the ceremonials being plucked up by their roots, to what purpose then should
their fences and hedges stand? As, on the contrary, the morals abiding, why
should not their judicial and fences remain? The learned generally doubt not to
affirm that Moses’ judicial bind all nations, so far forth as they contain any
moral equity in them, which moral equity doth appear not only in respect of the
end of the law, when it is ordered for common and universal good, but chiefly in respect of the law which
they safeguard and fence, which if it be moral, it is most just and equal, that
either the same or like judicial fence should preserve it still, because it is
but just and equal that a moral and universal law should be universally
preserved; from whence, by the way, the weakness of their reasonings may be
observed, who, that they may take away the power of the civil magistrate in
matters of the first table, … the duties of the first table being also as much moral as those of the second, to
the preserving of which latter from hurt and spoil in respect of their
morality, no wise man questions the extent of his power.” Theses Sabbathicae,
Thomas Shepard, 1649, pgs. 53-54
“There
were other branches of the judicial law which rested upon common equity and
were means of keeping the moral law: as putting to death idolaters and such as
enticed others thereunto; and witches, and wilful murderers, and other
notorious malefactors. So likewise laws against incest and incestuous
marriages; laws of reverencing and obeying superiors and governors; and of
dealing justly in borrowing, restoring, buying, selling, and all manner of
contracts, Exod. Xxii. 20; Deut. xiii. 9; Exod. xx. 18; Num. xxxv. 30; Lev. xx.
11, &c., xix. 32, 35… 2.” - William Gouge, A Learned Commentary on the Whole Epistle to
the Hebrews (London: A. M., T. W. and S. G. for Joshua Kirton, 1655), 2nd part,
p. 171.)
"Moreover
we declare, that those men whom we shall set over us, shall be engaged
to govern us principally by that civil and judicial law (we think none
will be so ignorant as to think, by the judicial law we mean that which
is ceremonial or typical) given by God to his people of Israel, no man,
we think, doubting, but it must be the best so far as it goes, being
given by God." -Covenanter Donald Cargill, Queensferry Paper, 1680
“showes, in which cases when the spiritualis fulfilled
eminently, the literal is not abolished… I might give many instances, but shall
onely name one… Deut. 25. 4. Thou shalt not muzzle the mouth of the Oxe which
treadeth out the Corne. Now though the spiritual sense… be the not muzling the
mouth of Ministers who labour in the Gospel 1 Cor. 9. 9. yet the litteral sense
holds stil that a man should forbeare to muzzle the mouth of the Oxe which
treadeth out the Corne, or at least tis not unlawful to forbeare.” - John Weems (Puritan Divine) in his Christian Synagogue
“We answer, the laws of the Jewish church, whether
Ceremonial or Judicial, so far forth are in force, even at this day, as they
were grounded upon common equity, the principles of reason and nature, and were
serving to the maintenance of the Moral Law… The Jewish polity is only
abrogated in regard of what was in it of particular right [first category], not
of common right [second category]: so far as there was in their Laws either a
typology proper to their church, or a peculiarity respecting their state in
that land of promise given unto them. Whatsoever was in their laws of Moral
concern or general equity, is still obliging…” Daniel Hall, Jus Divinum, 240.
“That which is perpetually morall, and one act of Justice at
all times and places, must oblige us Christians, and the Christian Magistrate,
as well as the Jewish Rulers…” –Samuel Rutherford, Free Disputation, 311.
“That which is morall, and cannot be determined by the wisdome and
will of man, must be determined by the revealed will of God in his word; but
the punishment of a seducing Prophet… is morall and cannot be determined by the
wisdome and will of man: Ergo, such a punishing of a seducing Prophet, must be
by therevealed will of God in his word. The Proposition is proved 1. Because
God only, not Moses, nor any other law-giver under him, taketh on him to
determine death to be the adulterer’s punishment, Levit. 20. 10. And the same
he determineth to be the punishment of willful murther [murder], Exod. 21. 12.
of smiting of the Father or Mother, v. 15. of Man-stealing, vers. 16. of
Sorcery, Exod. 22. 18. of Bestiality. 19. Of sacrificing to a strange God,
vers. 10. And upon the same reason, God only, not any mortal man, must
determine the punishment due to such as seduce soules to eternal perdition…”
–Samuel Rutherford Ibid., 309.
"Argument 4. What the Magistrate is fore-prophesied to be
under the New Testament, that he must discharge with all the power God hath
given him, and that perpetually, and not by the tie of a judicial and temporary
law, which binds for a time only. But the Magistrate is fore-prophesied Isa.
49. 23. and 60. 10 Rev. 21. 26. to be a Nurse-father to the Church under the
New Testament, to keep and guard both Tables of the Law, and to see that
Pastors do their duty, to minister to the Church by his royal power, yea when
the fountain shall be opened in David's house, that is under the New Testament,
he shall thrust through the false Prophet that speaketh lies in the Name of the
Lord, Zach. 13. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6." Samuel Rutherford
“If the command be pure and simple the thing is evident, where
moral it binds, where ceremoniall or judiciall it binds not. But if it bee mixt
of judicial, ceremoniall and morall, the morall remains in force… for whats
morall in Deut. 13. abides, and yet
whats properly judiciall and ceremonial is taken away.” –Thomas Edwards, 87.
Thomas Edwards, for
example, cites Matt. 5:17 as tying the judicial law to the moral:“he came not to destroy the Law but to fulfill it; which words are
comprehensive of the Judiciall Law… (the Judicial being indeed an Appendix and
a more particular explication of that part of the Morall Law concerning matters
of Justice and judgement)…” Edwards, 55, 56.
I"n the precept there is the rule of man’s duty, in the sanction
the rule of God’s judgment or judiciary proceedings with him. And wherever this
law is set up, there God is said to ‘judge the people righteously, and govern
the nations upon earth,’ Ps. lxvii. 4; that is, to set up holy and righteous
decrees, fitted for the benefit of mankind.” -Thomas Manton, The Complete Works
of Thomas Manton, D.D., 22 vols. London: James Nisbet, 1870-1875), 20:217.
"That part which is of common and general equity remains
still in force. It is a common maxim: those judgments which are common and
natural are moral and perpetual." -Samuel Bolton, The True Bounds of
Christian Freedom (Edinburgh: The Banner of Truth Trust, 2001), 56.
"As for the judicial law, which was an appendix to the second table, it
was an ordinance containing precepts concerning the government of the
people in things civil, and it served three purposes: it gave the people
a rule of common and public equity,
it distinguished them from other peoples, and it gave them a type of
the government of Christ. That part of the judicial law which was
typical of Christ’s government has ceased, but that part which is of common and general equity remains still in force." -Samuel Bolton, True Bounds of Christian Freedom, (1606 -1654)
Paul Bayne (or Baynes) who succeeded Perkins at
St. Andrews, Cambridge also tells us in his commentary on Ephesians that the
Old Testament penalties are still in force. Speaking of capital offenses he
wrote: “Now these are not to be altered in the general, -Paul Bayne, An Entire
Commentary upon the Whole Epistle of St Paul to the Ephesians (Edinburgh: James
Nichol, 1866), 162.
Francis
Turretin makes a distinction within the civil law between laws that were
particular to the Jewish time and place, which he says have been abrogated, and
those civil laws that, "were a common and universal right, founded upon
the law of nature common to all (such as the laws concerning trials and the
punishment of crimes...)" which he
says are still applicable. –Francis Turretin, (Vol. II, pg. 166)
“Every Law of God though but Positive, which is
Substantially-profitable for all men in all Ages to be obliged unto is Moral,
that is, Universal and Perpetual, unless a clear and certain repeal of it can
be showed in Scripture.” - As extracted from: Daniel Cawdrey and Herbert
Palmer, Sabbatum Redivivum: or the Christian Sabbath vindicated (1645)
“All divine lawes which concern the punishment of Morall transgressions,
are of perpetuall obligation and therefore still remaine in force according to
their substance and generall equity, abstracted from speciall circumstances,
Typicall Accessories, and the old formes of Mosaicall Politie, For 1. These
divine Lawes are not expired in their own nature. 2. They are not repealed by
God. 3. The authority of the Law-giver is the same under both administrations,
old and new… 4. The matter of the Lawes is Morall… 5. The reason of these
divine Lawes is immutable… 6. These divine Lawes are Independent on the will of
Man…” - Francis Cheynell, The Divine Triunity of the Father, Son and Holy
Spirit London: Printed by T.K. and E.M. for Samuel Gellibrand, 1650), 473, 474.
Indeed,
there is not a single hint given, in all the New Testament, that the judicial
laws and judicial decisions under the Mosaic dispensations were not to be
referred to as examples for imitation in the Christian economy, when a
similarity of circumstances might render such reference justifiable; nor that
the laws against heresy, idolatry, blasphemy, sabbath profanation, &c., are
repealed, any more than those concerning robbery or murder. Innovators who
assert that those laws are abrogated, or have lost their commanding influence,
under the New Testament dispensation, must produce some plausible proof of this
before their assetations are entitled to any credit. By setting up the New
Testament in opposition to the Old, they throw manifest discredit on both. -Covenanter, Aug. 1831, pp 274-5.
Donald Cargill, who in the
Queensferry Paper called for Scotland to be governed chiefly by “the judicial
law of Moses”.
Alexander Shields - who said that
the penal sanctions had not been abolished because they were part of the moral
law.
Regarding
the law of Incest, “We hold that this law, although found in the Hebrew code,
has not passed away; because neither ceremonial nor typical.... We argue also, presumptively, that if this
law is a dead one, then the Scriptures contain nowhere a distinct legislation
against this great crime of incest."
The same would be true of bestiality and other crimes.” R. L. Dabney, Lectures in
Systematic Theology, p. 412, re: Lev. 18 law against incest.
James R. Willson (1809-1838)
"Everyone knows
that the Old Testament abounds with such penalties.
Such are all the
laws respecting theft, damage, gross idolatry, blasphemy, the
desecration of the Sabbath, rape, incest, adultery, assaults and
batteries, manslaughters, and murders. That these penalties remain
under the New Testament in full force is evident; for they were
neither ceremonial nor judicial; they were no better adapted to
Israel than to other nations; they do not expire by their own
limitation; the crimes against which they were enacted are as
aggravated now and as mischievous to society as of old, and men are
now as prone to commit them as they were in Judea." -James R. Willson,
Political Danger: Essays on the Mediatorial Kingship of Christ over
nations and their political institutions 1809-1838, ed. Gordon J.
Keddie (Pittsburgh PA: Crown & Covenant, 2009), 422-23."
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