Charting a Course Through Political Particulars
Last year, I published an article, arguing that Baptists need not, in principle, reject the establishment of their own denomination, and that, therefore, the Reformed political tradition is not contrary to Baptistism and may be embraced by us. I wrote the article with American Reformer’s audience in mind and so freely assumed broad familiarity with the tradition. The majority of the feedback I have received since has been surprisingly positive, but realized that I had not explicated certain assumptions from the tradition which might make my article more understandable. In this essay, I will consider some broader political principles upon which my prior argument rests.
Before that, a word on application. What could a Christian establishment look like today in America? On the national level, we would need a broader toleration beyond even what the Savoy Confession sets out, a toleration more along the lines that Althusius permitted insofar as, at present, toleration of various religions is required for the sake of preserving the commonwealth. Ideally, we would work toward a Savoy-esque pan-Protestant America on the federal level and return to allowing each state to choose a particular established church according to preference. Established state churches could involve state funding. Recall that, as James Renihan notes, “[Hanserd] Knollys’s congregation sent [Thomas] Tillam to Hexham supported by funds from the state.” Or an establishment could require that state officials be members of the established denomination, support of theological universities, enact certain moral and religious censorship, and so on. This, I think, would be the correct application of the following principles that I will soon address to the present circumstances in America, and I hope this explication makes things more concrete and understandable. But, again, my main concern is to establish the rules of the discipline and then let the particulars determine what ought to be done.
First, we must distinguish between what the magistrate can do in principle versus what he ought to do in any given situation. All of my arguments in my previous article were constructed to demonstrate what the magistrate can do in principle. This was intentional because this is the only way that a difference in principles between Baptists and the Reformed may be established or denied. The power of the civil magistrate is vast. It is the highest power on earth and in that respect, he comes closest to God out of all human offices. However, simply because the magistrate can do something in principle does not mean he must do so in practice.
On the contrary, many things that he can do in principle, he cannot do in practice since such things would upset the well-being and common good of the commonwealth. This is the basis upon which I argued that the English Congregationalists were justified in their disestablishment position while at the same time recognizing that, in a different context, the American Congregationalists were justified in their establishment. Just as the civil magistrate has the right to punish murder for instance, so also he may, in principle, punish gluttony by which men slowly kill their own bodies. But this is not to say that the civil magistrate must punish gluttony or that it would ordinarily be prudent to do so at any given time. The civil magistrate has a duty to uphold the good name, honor, and reputation of its citizens and so it may punish defamation, but he also, in principle, may punish the insult you hurl at your neighbor on your morning walk, if there is sufficient reason to do so. But the entire ability for the civil magistrate to do so rests precisely in that final clause, if there is sufficient reason to do so. If the civil magistrate lacks sufficient natural warrant—if something is not sufficiently detrimental to the well-being of society, or if the act of punishing such a thing is itself detrimental to the well-being of society since it would do more harm than good—then the government should not, in the concrete circumstances, do such a thing.
A Baptist establishment—or an establishment of any one denomination, for that matter— with penal backing in our present time and place is much more akin what was just described. An establishment need not include penalties against dissent and can amount to something simple as financial support, which would be much more viable in our time. In other words, promotion and demotion are separable and need not accompany one another. Stated differently, an establishment as such does not require punishment of dissent but does require promotion of the preferred religion.
Many errors in worship are not sufficiently scandalous to the public peace and well-being of the nation. At the moment, this can be applied to all manner of false worship and, of course, the English Puritans themselves recognized this and were willing to tolerate many miscarriages in worship since they were not sufficiently scandalous or damaging to the well-being of the nation to justify any laws against them. Of course, if and when any laws against miscarriages are put in place, they should be proportional to the effect that such miscarriages have on the commonwealth. This is how you get to the particularism that I have argued for since, in this way, what might be justified in one place and at one time is not so justified at another place and in another time since the rationale has changed with the particular circumstances, experiences, expectations, and etc.
With that, we come to the difference between the natural law and the human law. Thomas Aquinas explains that,
“Human law is framed for a number of human beings, the majority of whom are not perfect in virtue. Wherefore human laws do not forbid all vices, from which the virtuous abstain, but only the more grievous vices, from which it is possible for the majority to abstain; and chiefly those that are to the hurt of others, without the prohibition of which human society could not be maintained: thus human law prohibits murder, theft and such like.”
It is absurd to think, and indeed, no one among the Reformed has thought, that all evil outward works must be punished by the civil magistrate. Often, people critique the historic Reformed position as if this is what their principles would lead to. Human law particularizes and applies the natural law so that society might be preserved, lest the vast majority of a commonwealth constantly be under civil sanction.
The laws of each particular nation must be fitted to the virtue (or lack thereof) and customs of the peoples. It is precisely because of this, there are many things that the civil government could almost never do in practice that it could in fact do in principle. Or there are many things that a government is able to do with one group of people that it would not be able to do with another. Again, there are many things that a government is able to tolerate among one people that it ought not, in ordinary circumstances, to tolerate among another. In his excellent work, Irenicum, Jeremiah Burroughs contends that,
“[T]he rules by which the judges go, must be the rules of common equity and justice, that all men may understand. Beyond what these rules will reach to, the civil state is not to punish—not everything that men of deep judgements and strong parts may apprehend to be evil.”
Human law necessarily limits and contracts natural law to the majority of the population not only because of the sinfulness of man’s will, but also because of the darkness of his intellect. Burroughs explains,
“[W]hat men cannot see reason for, even though they bend their understandings and strength to the uttermost—yea, what the generality of mankind, and of that community of which a man is, cannot possibly see reason for. It is impossible for the generality of mankind and the community of any church or state, though they should be never so diligent to find out what is good and what is evil, yet to be able to understand everything that is evil to be so.”
This is evident because
“Those who give power [i.e. the people, as the instruments of God, consenting to be governed], may limit power; they may give part to one, part to another; they may limit the matter about which the power shall be exercised, it shall go so far, and no further; the utmost limits cannot go beyond these rules of Justice which they are capable to understand.”
Thomas Aquinas defended the toleration of whore-houses on the following basis,
“Human government is derived from the Divine government, and should imitate it. Now although God is all-powerful and supremely good, nevertheless He allows certain evils to take place in the universe, which He might prevent, lest, without them, greater goods might be forfeited, or greater evils ensue. Accordingly in human government also, those who are in authority, rightly tolerate certain evils, lest certain goods be lost, or certain greater evils be incurred: thus, Augustine says (De Ordine ii, 4): ‘If you do away with harlots, the world will be convulsed with lust.’”
As a historical point, the Reformed, at least for their time and circumstances, disagreed with Thomas’s application here, but the principle that he argues this upon is sound. Indeed, he sounds very much like Althusius:
“The magistrate who is not able, without peril to the commonwealth, to change or overcome the discrepancy in religion and creed ought to tolerate the dissenters for the sake of public peace and tranquility, blinking his eyes and permitting them to exercise unapproved religion, lest the entire realm, and with it the household of the church, be overthrown. He shall therefore tolerate the practice of diverse religions as a skilled navigator bears with diverse and conflicting winds and clashing waves. Just as amidst these winds and waves the navigator brings his ship safely into the harbor, so the magistrate directs the commonwealth in a manner that keeps it free from ruin for the welfare of the church.”
Gisbertus Voetius likewise writes that there are cases where toleration is necessary, such as,
“When the faction and power of the heterodox are so great that the Magistrate cannot deny them liberty without the imminent danger and fear of the overthrow of the Republic, or at least its most grievous disturbance; or without civil wars, with the consequences of war; or without many seditions, massacres, and plunderings. Here the Magistrate must act wisely when he sees that men can neither be bent nor broken without harm to religion and the pious, the devastation of the fatherland, and the ruin of the Republic.”
This rule could, at least in principle, be applied to any crime, though of course we can think of some crimes to which it hardly ever could be ordinarily applied in practice (i.e. murder). But even then, we can consider the contemporary example of abortion. On the one hand, recognizing this principle ought not to make one lax or unwilling to suffer some civil unrest in hope of change. Vermigli, considering the pure worship of God says that
“Wherefore for as much as the one or the other is to be chosen, the whole and uncorrupted worshipping of God ought rather to be wished for than the commodity of outward peace. For the end of cities and public-wealths is to obey God and rightly to worship God, that is by his word and prescribed rule. For to have a city or public-wealth quiet and peaceable, is not by itself necessary, but to obey God, to believe his word, and to worship him as he hath prescribed is the sum and end of all human things, and therefore it is to be preferred above all good things.”
The former principle that Thomas has touched on ought not to be used to stifle the will for change when such things are possible and prudent, but on the other hand, you have issues to be considered which are similar to concerns raised relation to abolitionism, for example, where seeking to outlaw what ought, in ordinary circumstances, to be outlawed might not actually be for the well-being of society at this particular point in time since passing such laws would lead to the destruction of society and so seeking further civil reformation in such matters would actually be doing something wrong. If passing a law, however righteous the intent might be, will cause the destruction of your nation, you have done something wrong. The common good of the civil community is the supreme and all-controlling factor in the discipline of politics. Thus, one may, at times, even have a duty to uphold the toleration of evil.
Now, which approach is the correct one at this or that particular point in time in this and in this or that particular place requires a great deal of prudence. And I must say that I am not quite sure that evangelicals are yet ready to think this way as the mere suggestion that it might not actually have been prudent to e.g. abolish slavery at a certain point in time tends to provoke quite a reaction. My point here is merely that it can (and even often does) happen that even very heinous crimes must be tolerated by a civil government in order to uphold the well-being of society (we can surely think of polygamy or rampant idolatry here). And if this is so, then we can easily see how a Savoy-esque toleration will, ordinarily, be the “ideal” in Protestant nations, while at the same time recognizing that it is not the only way. Toleration is a matter of degree, not of kind. The formal reason (i.e. scandal) which justifies legislation against “heavier” matters is the same which justifies legislation against “lesser” matters, and so no principle can be established by which one must, in principle, be tolerated and the other must, in principle, not be tolerated; but rather each error must be tolerated or borne with in accordance with what is best for the well-being & common good of each particular state at each particular time. As Voetius puts it, “not every form of liberty, permission, or coercion concerning religions and religious dissenters is simply and absolutely either lawful or unlawful.”
Furthermore, we must remember that there is often a trade-off that happens in politics where you allow certain vices a degree of liberty in order to foster other virtues (e.g. clemency) and I think Gillespie even speaks this way in Wholesome Severity when he talks about how a magistrate might “in Christian pity and moderation, he forbeareth so far as may not be destructive to the peace and right government of the Church, using his coercive power with such mixture of mercy as createth no mischief to the rest of the Church. I speak not only of bearing with those who are weak in the faith, Rom. 15.1, but of sparing even those who have perverted the faith.”
Somewhat similarly, Voetius writes that “it is not absolutely and simply illicit to permit to subjects who are purely schismatics, or even those in error, the liberty of a lesser or greater exercise, more lax or more strict, even when the power and ability to prevent it are present—I say, to those erring regarding ecclesiastical polity, or rites and ceremonies, or even concerning the head or some points of doctrine, but not fundamentally.”
To briefly return to the argument of my first article, as Junius explains, speaking on the material cause of human law, “there is no human thing that human laws are unable to provide for” Any material human action may, in principle, be legislated for or against. A given human action might be, in genera, indifferent. But in species—i.e. when considered as a concrete action clothed with all its accidental and individuated circumstances, no human action can be formally indifferent.
Likewise, human laws, though considered in the abstract may be indifferent in genera, yet considered in species, they are always for better or for worse and may be either necessary to or detrimental to a given community. One instance in which certain actions become necessary to legislate is that of scandal. As I explained in my previous article, drawing especially from Samuel Rutherford, it is upon grounds of scandal and upon those grounds alone that the Reformed ever grounded their legislation heresy or false worship. Not one Reformed divine ever advanced the position that one could enforce special revelation qua special revelation and punish false worship qua false worship.
Thus, for instance, while they believed Sunday was the instituted day of rest from special revelation, Sabbath-breaking was never formally legislated as divinely revealed, but only, as Rutherford so clearly puts it, “in so farre as these acts come out to the eyes of men and are destructive to the souls of these in a Christian society; Tis even so (& not otherwise punishable by the Magistrate).” Even present-day blue laws (wherever they actually exist nowadays) are operating on this exact same principle. No things of grace were ever legislated by the Reformed as things of grace. Material acts or omissions of those acts, formally considered as offensive to men, were. No confusion between the two kingdoms ever resulted. Things of grace were never formally enforced as such. The Papists made this error, but the Reformed would be justifiably offended by the slanderous accusation that they themselves were guilty of this. And it’s very, very hard to miss this point if you read their writings on this.
This principle, strictly speaking, does not even apply only to Christian establishments. Jeremiah Burroughs, writing of the Jerusalem Council of Acts 15, says that the Apostles delivered their determinations, “about some things, in themselves indifferent, but as clothed with those circumstances that caused them to become things necessary. They determined that these things must be done from the reason of the things, not from their authority. Those things were duties before they decreed them, and would have been had they never decreed them. Even forbearing the eating of blood was a duty in case of offense, even if their decree had never been given, and otherwise it would have been no duty, notwithstanding their decree; for afterward Paul said that whatsoever is sold in the market they might eat of it, asking no question for conscience’ sake. And Paul also said that every creature of God is good if it is received with thanksgiving.”
It is easy to imagine then, why a magistrate, even a Christian one, presiding over an Islamic nation in the Middle East would want to legislate against the eating of pork, for instance. Indeed, if the scandal brought by eating pork is sufficiently scandalous to the commonwealth, it is his duty in those concrete circumstances to outlaw the eating of pork, as it is then no longer an indifferent matter. Thus, it is just and prudent for a magistrate in a Muslim-majority nation to outlaw pork; for a magistrate in a Jewish-majority nation to outlaw shellfish; and for a magistrate in a Christian-majority nation to outlaw Sabbath breaking.
With all of that said, I think we might consider a test-case to explain what I have been saying. When I tweeted out my article, I linked to Timon Cline’s article on the 1596 True Confession, one which charges the magistrate with the duty to “root out…false ministries, voluntarie Religions, and counterfeit worship of God…Images…Altars, Vestments, and all other monuments of Idolatrie and superstition.” This, of course, includes precisely the sort of legislation in secondary matters that I argued is not in principle inconsistent with Baptistism. The men who wrote this Confession argued for laws against these smaller points of practice (e.g. vestments), and not simply against the gross idolatry of the Papists. If we are to consider what is going on in this legislation, observe: 1) such legislation could be passed because such things were extremely offensive and scandalous to the Puritans at the time and comprise false worship, which is able to be rooted out, it not being from God and thus having no inherent right to civil protection. 2) nevertheless, even while the men who wrote this confession were arguing against toleration in these specific secondary errors, they were not against tolerating other errors in other secondary matters (episcopacy, Presbyterianism) since such could be borne with since they do not do sufficient harm to the well-being of the commonwealth (and/or, put another way, because such things could not be legislated against without harming the well-being of the commonwealth). They were able to outlaw the first, but not the second, and they did not sin by doing the first nor by not doing the second.
Politics is not hard because its principles are difficult to know. Politics is hard because it deals with an unwieldy number of variables, never exactly replicable, on a grand scale that have to be put into a practical syllogism in order to be applied. As Bartholomew Keckermann says, “Political Discipline moves from the universal to the particular much more than any other discipline. Hence, political matters are more numerous and abundant, and the method of this discipline is more difficult than that of all others.”[1] Once this is grasped, you can see why such universalizing, such in-principle disallowance, such never-ing with regard to a Baptist establishment sounds quite confused and naive to my ears. And this, by the way, is the reason I think that churches ought to mostly stay out of politics. They are very ill-equipped to deal in this discipline and do not even realize how ill-equipped they actually are.
The upshot of this political particularism I have outlined above is that one can begin to approach those across space and time with a posture of “innocent until proven guilty.” You can affirm that much of the laws of other nations are indifferent in genera and thus perhaps obligatory in individual species and so accepted by God. In this way, we avoid passing unnecessary judgment upon others, illegitimately binding where God has not bound, and we exercise charity towards men both living and dead. What Burroughs wrote in his Irenicum about the conduct of others applies also to the realm of politics,
“This is far enough for you to go in judging your brother: “Were I in his condition, should I do as he does, I should go against my light. I should act against my conscience.” But therefore to conclude that he goes against his light, and acts dishonorably, is very sinful. Many carnal men think that if they should make such a show of religion, if they should do such things as such and such men do, it would be hypocrisy in them; and they judge truly because their principle would not bear out their practice. But therefore to judge all who do such things to be hypocrites, we account to be a very wicked thing. If you had any spirit of humility or wisdom in you, you would rather think, “It may be that he sees what I do not. I am to look to my own heart and ways, by what principles I guide myself.” Men who are weak and can see but a little way into things must take heed they censure not others who know how to manage business better than themselves. Some may do things that are acceptable to God that you could not do without an evil conscience. The same honesty and sincerity may continue in a man, though in true wisdom and discretion he applies himself differently, according as the occasions may differ. The hand remains the same, whether closed into a fist, or extended abroad, or bent this way or that way as occasion serves.”
The essence of political liberalism, I have come to see, consists in the principalizing of context-specific, prudential conclusions. It essentially takes the conclusion of a practical syllogism and turns it into a major premise applicable to all societies despite their individual circumstances. Not only is it an abuse of reason and of the discipline of politics, but worse, it is inherently contrary to charity. We ought to make sure that we are not passing judgment on one whom God has accepted simply because their laws and their way of life differ from our own. Something may be a sin for me which is a duty for another. Likewise, a law may be unjust here and now, but necessary then and there.
William Ames, giving a general direction in the evaluation of laws, tells us that “in all doubtful cases, we must presume upon the justice and equity of the law, and the moderate intention thereof, or else upon the obliging force it bears.” If this advice holds good in our case, how much more should we bring it to bear upon our evaluation of the laws of nations hundreds of miles away and hundreds of years apart? Political particularism is the way forward, not only because it is better able to advance the common good of each individual community, but also because it is able to recognize the relative good of other communities according to their own particular circumstances.
Image: A Iewes Prophecy, or, Newes from Rome (1607).
[1] Translation from Bartholomew Keckermann’s System of Political Discipline provided to me by Jonathan Tomes.
