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Samuel Rutherford on the two jurisdictions, the “two swords” of a Christian realm in his Due Right of Presbyteries (1644):
Christ hath provided an Ecclesiasticall power to remove scandals betwixt church and church; for the Magistrates power is civill, and put forth by the Sword, and by carnall weapons. Christs aime in this, Mat. 18.19. is to remove scandals, and gaine soules. v. 15. If he heare thee, thou hast gained thy Brother. The Sword of the Magistrate is not ordained to gaine soules to Repentance. That Lord who careth for the part of a visible church, doth he not far rather care, in a spirituall way, for the whole (310-311)?
The following is a lengthier passage addressing the particular issue of how a Christian magistrate may or may not use his power to “compell persons to a Church profession.”
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Quest. II. Whether the Magistrate hath power to compell persons to a Church profession?
Anent Magistrates sundry things are questioned to make presbyteriall government odious. And first our brethren complaine that our Churches are constituted by the authoritie of the Magistrate, (a) Robinson saith, it was a presumptuous enterprise, that people were haled against their will into covenant with God; to sweare obedience to the protestant Faith, being a profane multitude, living before in grosse idolatry, and that by the authority of the supreme magistrate; for the commandement of the magistrate (say they) can make no members of the visible Church, or of Christs body, because it is a voluntary act of obedience to Christ, that men adjoyne themselves to the visible Church. Ergo, none can be compelled thereunto by the authority of the Magistrate; faith may be compelled; it cannot bee compelled. For the clearing of this question, these considerations are to be weighed.
1. The Magistrate may compell to the meanes, and externall acts of worship, and to desisting from externall false worship of the false God, or of the true God worshipped in a false way, hee cannot compell to internall acts of faith, love, and such like, as having no power over the conscience.
2. There is one consideration of a Heathen or Pagan nation which never received Christianitie, and the true faith, and another consideration of a nation baptized and professing Christ.
3. A Magistrate may compell a heathen nation to the negative reverence of Christ in an indirect way, and that with the sword, though he cannot compell to the positive worshipping of him: if a Christian Prince subdue a Pagan nation, hee cannot force them with the Sword to a positive receiving of the doctrine of the Gospell, but if it bee a nation expresly blaspheming Christ, as the nation of the Jewes now do, hee may compell them to an abstinence from a professed blaspheming of Christ, because he is to use the sword against blasphemy.
4. The weapons of the Church as the Church are not carnall, but spirituall and mightie through God.
5. The compelling power of the Magistrate is terminated upon externall worship as abstracted from either hypocrisie or sinceritie in worship.
6. Though no man resist the Magistrate in a matter of religion, except in a hypocriticall way, (save onely he who thinketh hee hath reason to resist, and is led by the judgement and inditement of conscience to resist, yet is not the inditement of conscience, but onely the Word of God the rule of mans obedience, or resisting in actions, purposes & conversation.
1. Conclusion. Fire and sword, or warre, or the coactive power of a magistrate is not Gods way of planting the Gospell in a heathen nation, which never heard of the Gospell before. 1. Because the Apostles were commanded, by teaching the Gospell to all nations, Matth. 28.19, 20. Mark. 16.15. Act. 7.8. and not by warre, to spread the Gospell. 2. Because Christs Kingdome is not of this world, for then his servants would fight for him, Joh. 18.36. nor are the weapons of our warfare carnall, 2 Cor. 10.4. nor is Christs sword any other thing then the Word of God, Rev. 19.15. Gal. 6.17. And in this meaning, and with relation to the internall acts of sound beleeving, have the learned taught us, that, religio suaderi potest, cogi non potest: if these bee the constitutions of (a) Clemens, let it goe for a truth in this sense, that God hath given libertie of will to men, not punishing them with temporall deaths, but calleth them to give an account of their doings, in the life to come: which yet cannot be universally true; except that the Author with Anabaptists take away the power of the civill magistrate; and (b) Athanasius meaned with us, when hee citeth that, If any will come after me, let him take up his crosse; to prove that the will cannot be compelled; and that of (c) Lactantius is approved by all, defendenda tamen religio est, non occidendo, sed moriendo, non saevitia, sed sapientia, non scelere, sed fide; illa enim malorum sunt, haec bonorum; & necesse est bonum in religione versari, non malum: Nam si sanguine, si tormentis, si malo religionem defendere velis, jam non defendetur illa, sed polluetur, & violabitur. Nihil est tam voluntarium quam religio, in qua si animus sacrificantis est aversus, jam sublata, jam nulla est: all which tendeth to this, that religion is like free-will, and free-will like a Virgin which cannot bee ravished. Let that of (d) Tertullian stand, Lex nostra non se vindicat ultore gladio: (e) Procopius saith that Justinian was blamed, because hee compelled the Samaritans to imbrace the Christian faith.
2. Conclusion. A Christian Prince subduing a heathen Nation, may compell them to desist from a negative dishonouring of Christ, and from an externall false worship. Dan. 3.29. Therefore I make a Decree, that every People, Nation, and Language, which speake any thing amisse against the God of Sadrach and Abednego, shall be cut in peeces, and their houses shall be made a dunghill. 2. The Magistrate beareth not the sword for nothing, or in vaine, for he is the minister of God, a revenger to execute wrath on those who doe evill, Rom. 13.4. Therefore he should be Gods Minister to execute wrath on those who dishonour Christ. Nor must we approve of that of Tiberius, (f) that Gods take care of wrongs done to themselves: and that of the Emperour Alexander, (g) it’s sufficient that the breach of an oath hath God to be the revenger. Yet the Emperour (h) Constantine commanded all the Churches of the Pagan Gods to be closed up, and (i) Ambrose and (k) Augustine both commended the fact; and Ferdinand King of Spaine, commanded all the Jewes, who would not turne Christians, to remove out of Spaine.
3. Conclus. Where a Nation hath embraced the faith, and sworne thereunto in Baptisme, it is lawfull for the Magistrate to compell them to professe that truth to the which they have sworne in Baptisme. 1. Because the Magistrate is a keeper of both Tables of the Law. Ergo, he may take care that these who are baptized, and sworne to be followers of Christ, should professe what they have sworne to professe. 2. Because the Magistrate may compell, ad actus imperatos, non ad actus elicitos, commanded and externall acts of worship, though he have no power over the conscience to command the elicit acts of will and mind. 3. He may command to use the meanes of Religion, though he cannot force Religion it selfe: and this Jehoshaphat, Hezekiah, Asa, and Josiah, and other good Kings commanded, and in that are set forth to all Princes as patterns of zeale. 4. The most pungent argument of our brethren in the contrary is of no weight, because (say they) for one to adjoyne himselfe to the visible Church in a profession of the faith, it is a supernaturall worke of Grace, and must be voluntary, else the Magistrate should compell men to hypocrisie, yea and to hell. (saith (l) Gregorius de Valentia, following Cajetanus, indirectly concurre to sacriledge, to profane the holy things of God; and feare of punishment maketh an action against the will, secundum quid, in some respects, and for the point of supernaturality of professing is, (m) Durandus handleth it. Now (I say) that this is of no weight, because (as (n) Suarez saith) one may be compelled to heare the Word, who yet cannot be compelled to beleeve; so (say I) to make such a profession, as may constitute any one a member of the visible Church, is no supernaturall act, though there be a morall obligation tying the professours to the supernaturall sincerity of the act, yet there is no essentiall obligation, as touching the essence of a visible member tying him thereunto, and therefore the Magistrate may compell thereunto; and so (o) Antonius following (p) Gregorius doth teach that an indirect compulsion to the faith is lawfull; and the compelling power of the Magistrate is terminated upon the profession, not upon the hypocriticall profession; else it were as good an argument to prove that the Magistrate by the sword cannot compell subjects to abstaine from murther, forcery, perjury; because many in an hypocriticall and servile manner, for feare of the Magistrates wrath, not for feare of God, doe abstaine from these ills, nor is their abstinence from worshipping idols, a thing of it selfe, as the Magistrate commandeth it, supernaturall. Neither would men by the Covenant of the Lord, which King Asa did cause the people to sweare, to wit, that they should seeke the Lord God of their fathers, 2 Chron. 15.12. be compelled, so as their seeking of God should not be willingly performed. 5. This opinion is the way to Arminian liberty of conscience, that men in a Christian Common-wealth, may be of any Religion, and the Magistrate is to behold men as an indifferent spectator, not caring what religion they bee of, whether they be Papists, Jewes, Pagans, Anabaptists, Socinians, Macedonians, &c. which should inferre, that the Magistrate were no nurse-father of the true Church, nor yet a preserver of Religion, if men might be of any Religion. Neither is this the way (as saith (q) Robinson) to the Papists implicite faith, when men beleeveth, as the Church beleeveth, though they know not what it is: nor is it a compelling of men (as he saith) to blasphemy, and apparent wickednesse, because the Magistrate is not to compell to profession of the truth immediately, and without any foregoing information of the mind; for the Church is to teach and instruct in all the externall acts of worship, before the Magistrate doth compell to these acts; yea and the same (r) Robinson acknowledgeth that Jehoshaphat made compulsive lawes about Religion. Ergo, if he should execute these Lawes, he should compell to some acts of Religion, and should compell to hypocrisie, as the same Mr. Robinson argueth against us.
4. Conclus. It is one thing to command acts of divine worship, under the paine of civill punishment, and another thing to punish, or inflict civill punishment, when these commandements are transgressed, Christian Princes may doe both. And that they doe the latter by Gods commandement and warrant is cleare, in that Jehu destroyed all the house of Ahab for Idolatry, and killed Baals Priests. Good Josiah killed the Priests of the high places, and burnt their bones upon the Altar. Elias, when the Magistrate would not doe his duty, in an extraordinary way, killed Baals Priests; and if the Magistrate also in the New Testament have the sword given to him of God, for the punishing of evill doers, as Rom. 13. 4, 5. that same Law must now also have force, though in the use of the sword sundry hereticks are here to be distinguished, as 1. seducing hereticks, drawing others away, from the worship of the true God to idolatry, such are not to be pitied by the Magistrate, as Deut. 13. 5, 6, 7. Zech. 13. 4, 5, 6. whereas seduced, and drawne away soules, for simple heresie, cannot be put to death. 2. Hereticks falling away in many particulars from the faith to Popery, or other hereticall wayes, are more severely to be punished, then those who are hereticks in one or two fundamentall points onely. And those who are universall Apostates, and fall from the Christian faith to Judaisme and Paganisme, deserve no lesse then death. 3. Selfe-condemned hereticks, after sufficient information, and malicious opposers of the truth, deserve harder dealing, then simply seduced hereticks. 4. All who believe blasphemies to be truth, and hold them, are not to be reckoned amongst formall blasphemers, whose malice carrieth them on to raile upon the unspotted wayes of God. 5. No hereticks having false opinions of God, such as Antinomians and Libertines, who thinke that the regenerate cannot sinne, or that the worshipping of a creature is not idolatry, can be innocent, as if 1. simply acts of the judgement and mind not conforme to Gods will revealed in his word were not sinnes, (as Arminians teach) whereas all the faculties of the soule are under Gods Law. 2. Hardly doth the mind conceive false thoughts of God, or his worship, but there be wicked crookes in the will and affections inclining thereunto the mind, and smoaking the mind with will-guiltinesse.
6. Except God was too rigorous and cruell in the Old Testament (God avert such blasphemous thoughts) whatever punishment even to bloud and death was inflicted upon hereticks, seducing Prophets, Idolaters, Apostates, these same stande yet in the plenitude of morall obligation against such as offend in the New Testament, if the Magistrate beare the Lords sword, as he doth in the New Testament, Rom. 13.4, 5.
Mortuis the Anabaptist as (s) Beza saith, had no Scripture to say, because Christ is a meeke Saviour, all corporall punishment inflicted upon hereticks in the Old Testament, is turned over in spirituall punishment; onely our brethren who deny that the Magistrate can compell any to an externall profession of the Gospel, doe herein follow Arminians and Socinians. So the (t) Remonstrants, and (w) Episcopius deny that the Magistrate can use any bodily punishment against hereticks. The learned (x) Professors of Leiden observe that Arminians here teach that same with the Socinians, and the same is refuted well by (y) Vedelius, yea and Gerardus, and (z) Mersnerus, and other pretended Disciples of Luther in this side with Arminians and Socinians: and Socinians teach in this, 1. that Hereticks should not be molested nor punished with the sword. So (a) Socinus, (b) Theophilus Nicolaides, (c) Ostorodius, because the tares are not to be rooted out till harvest. 2. (d) Episcopius, (e) Slatius amongst Arminians, and (f) Ostorodius, and (g) the Catechise of Racovia teach farther, that the Magistrate may punish by fines and pecuniall mulcts, but he cannot shed bloud, or punish to death any murtherer, because the Commandement of our meeke Saviour doth not permit to take away any mans life; now it is certaine meeke Jesus, while hee was on earth, did neither fine nor imprison, more then put to death.
3. Socinians teach that all warres under the new Testament are unlawfull; for saith Smalcius, (b) warres cannot consist with the love of our enemies, commanded by Christ.
(i) Socinus and Ostorodius say it is an old precept not to shed bloud, and never reiterated in the New Testament, and God licenced it to the Jewes, because he promised to them an earthly kingdome, which hee hath not now promised under the New Testament. Our Divines hold ringleading and seducing hereticks are to bee punished to death, for so (k) Beza, (l) Junius, (m) Bucanus, (n) Zanchius, (o) Perkinsius, (p) Danaeus, (q) Bullingerus, (r) the Professors of Leiden teach.
All that can be said commeth to this, that Hereticks should not bee punished, 1. (s) Cyprian saith to Demetrius that hee was greater then his Gods, because he revenged the wrongs done to his Gods, and that it was a shame for him to hope for helpe from the Gods which hee behooved to defend.
Answ. This proveth that the false Gods of Demetrius were but false Gods, because they were not able to revenge the wrongs done to themselves, as the true God, who made the heaven and the earth, can doe, but nothing against the punishing of the Hereticks, for then it should follow, that blasphemy against the holy Ghost, and no sinnes should bee punished, for all sinnes are injuries done to God, and therefore neither Magistrates, nor parents, nor doctors, yea nor the Church should use any rod, either corporall or spirituall, against subjects, children, or scandalous persons, because God can revenge his owne quarrell; yea excommunication is a revenging of a wrong done to God. 2. They object the Apostles way was to watch against Hereticks, Act. 20.29, 31. and Rom. 16.17. to eschew them, 2 Tim. 2.25. the servant of the Lord must bee gentle.
Answ. This is objected by (t) Gerardus, as also because they may bee converted, Ergo, they are not to bee killed, Christ would not have fire comming downe from heaven to destroy the Samaritans, for afterward they were converted; but wee thinke not any should be put to death for simple heresie, as (u) Musculus and Whittaker teach, they are to bee instructed, censured, rebuked, eschewed, but though Ananias and Saphira might bee converted, Peter stroke them with death, and Paul did right in striking Elymas the Sorcerer with blindnesse, Act. 13. because he laboured to turne away Sergius Paulus from the faith, these were extraordinary judgements, but yet they doe well prove that where the Magistrate is armed with authority, hee ought to inflict bodily punishment upon the seducing hereticks, so it bee done as (y) Augustine saith, Animo corrigendi, non vindicandi. See (z) Beza, (a) Professors of Leyden, and what Elias did by an extraordinary power in killing Baals Priests, that Achab the then supreme Magistrate should have done.
3. They object that it is contrary to the meeke spirit of Christ in the New Testament, that any should bee punished for heresie, and that it is proper to enemies of the truth, and Antichrist so to doe, as their (b) practise declare. Nestorius, being made Archbishop of Constantinople, said to the Emperour, I will give thee heaven O Emperour, if thou wilt free the earth of hereticks. Dioscorus compelled, with armed souldiers, the Bishops to subscribe to the heresie of Eutyches; Eudoxius the Arrian obliged Valens the Arrian Emperour to root out all the orthodox professors. The Turke in his Alcoran commandeth to kill all who obey not his law.
Answ. The sword is expresly given by God, Rom. 13. to Christian Magistrates, and this is not against the meeknesse of Christ, no more nor to deliver to Satan, or to curse and excommunicate Apostats with that great curse called Anathema Maranatha, 1 Cor. 16.22. And though Hereticks and Mahomet teach that Hereticks, as also they teach that manslayers, adulterers, paricides should die the death, it followeth not that wee are not to teach the same. Fourthly, The parable of letting …the Tares grow, while the day of judgement is alleaged. It is true (c) Chrysostome saith that, many innocent persons are killed in the rooting out the tares by bloody warres; (d) Chrysologus saith, Neither Matthew the publican, nor Paul should have beene converted, if the Sword had beene used, and Augustine (e) seemeth to call the tares hereticorum falsitates, and (f) Theophylact, Zizania sunt haereses. But I answer, Christ exponeth the tares of wicked men, Beza, (g) filii illius improbi, (h) Erasmus diabuli, the children of the devill, and Theophylact addeth, Zizania sunt haereses, vel malae cogitationes, and Gerardus perverteth Theophylact, for he extendeth the tares not onely to Hereticks, but also to wicked men, to Matthew who was a publican, but not a Heretick properly. And first the field is the world of the visible Church, where the seed of the Word is sowne, and it must bee meant of all scandalous persons in Christs visible kingdome, so all shall bee spared, and there shall neither bee use of the Magistrates sword, nor of the Church discipline in the Church, as Anabaptists expone the place. 2. There should not so much as rebukes and threatenings beene used, but wicked men should bee permitted to grow, while the day of judgement, that the Angels root them out. Now it is knowne that the power of the word preached hath rooted out some tares, because it hath converted them. 3. Hereticks are not all things which offend; the incestuous Corinthian offended also. 2. Onely Hereticks are not such as worke iniquitie, there bee others also in the visible Church, as our brethren expone, Revel. 22.15. nor are onely hereticks to bee cast out in the furnace of fire, where there shall bee weeping and gnashing of teeth. 3. Nor are onely the good wheat those who are orthodox and opposite to hereticks, who shall shine as the Sunne in the kingdome of their father, v. 42, 43. except wee would say that all sound in the faith and holding no hereticall doctrine shall shine in the firmament as the Sun. 4. The casting out of Hereticks out of the visible Church by excommunication is a rooting of them out of the field of the visible Church; Let more of this bee seen and considered in those who have written thereof, as in Gerardus, loc. cit. Beza de puniend. Haeret. Bellarm. de laicis, c. 21. Costerus Enchirid. de moribus haereticor. Petr. Gregorius, lib. 12. de republ. c. 4. Suarez, de tripl. virtut. theolog. disp. 18. sect. 2. Gregorius de Valent. tom. 3. disp. 1. q. 10. n. 6. Jus Canonicum C. Quid autem, dist. 49. Mejer. lib. 4. de legibus, sect. 1. q. 10, 11, 12. Lipsius l. 4. politic. c. 2. Conrad Brunnus l. 3. de heretic. c. 13. Paulus Windeck lib. de exstirpandis haeretic.
Due Right, 352-361
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