The Presbyterian system of church government is organized very similarly to the federal republic of the United States with its states and counties. Why did Calvin prefer this governmental system? What is its biblical support as opposed to the bishop form or congregational form of government?
Calvin and Representative Government
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Knight
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I believe 1 Timothy and Titus outline the Elder/Deacon form of church government for the local church.
As for the denominational government... I would imagine it just makes good sense to adopt the kind they have.
But, then again, I'm not PCA.........
As for the denominational government... I would imagine it just makes good sense to adopt the kind they have.
But, then again, I'm not PCA.........
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Gabriel
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It seems to work very well, indeed. It creates a greater accountability for the pastor and the church leadership. Nothing is controlled by one single person so abuses are far less frequent. Also, the members nominate and vote for their choice of Elders and Deacons. The extensive training and Session interviews help to weed out those members who may have been nominated due to popularity but who are lacking in Biblical knowledge or those who fall short of the biblical requirements for church office.
This creates a Session made of strong, biblical men who are in touch with the needs, strengths and weaknesses of the congregation. Also, it creates a force of several men who are able to take part in pastoral duties, allowing our Pastor to remain effective and not become overwhelmed or over worked.
This creates a Session made of strong, biblical men who are in touch with the needs, strengths and weaknesses of the congregation. Also, it creates a force of several men who are able to take part in pastoral duties, allowing our Pastor to remain effective and not become overwhelmed or over worked.
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rmwilliamsll
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There are several very interesting threads of reasoning that distinguish presbyterian from hierarchical governmental systems.
The one piece i am interested in is the problem of peers.
Simply put, the congregational system lacks accountability and systematic peer review because no one is the peer to the pastor-teacher. For he is the only one paid to work in the church. The fulltime, paid, educated in theology makes him vulnerable to wandering because he is not in contact with peers.
In the presbyterian system the pastor-teacher actually belongs to prebytery as his church body. This allows/requires an interaction on a regular basis with people just like him-paid, seminary educated, teachers, preachers etc ....
Don't underestimate the value of this, just a moment comparision with institutional science will yield that this insight drives study, discipline, etc.
by contrast in a hierarchical system the levels themselves will begin to divide information from responsibility, as is seen in economic institutions. or better yet in military with fine graduations of ranking.
neat stuff.
The one piece i am interested in is the problem of peers.
Simply put, the congregational system lacks accountability and systematic peer review because no one is the peer to the pastor-teacher. For he is the only one paid to work in the church. The fulltime, paid, educated in theology makes him vulnerable to wandering because he is not in contact with peers.
In the presbyterian system the pastor-teacher actually belongs to prebytery as his church body. This allows/requires an interaction on a regular basis with people just like him-paid, seminary educated, teachers, preachers etc ....
Don't underestimate the value of this, just a moment comparision with institutional science will yield that this insight drives study, discipline, etc.
by contrast in a hierarchical system the levels themselves will begin to divide information from responsibility, as is seen in economic institutions. or better yet in military with fine graduations of ranking.
neat stuff.
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Knight
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I wouldn't call it an election but whenever a prospective elder is coming up for ordination (don't know what else to call it) an elder evaluation form os circulated throughout the congregation for the prospective elder. All forms are considered prior to confirming the elder.
Deacons are a little different at our church. Each prospective deacon is interviewed by the elders before he is made a full deacon. (deacon-in-training prior to that) I sometimes wonder if we shouldn't be using an evaluation system like we use for elders.
Not my call though......
Deacons are a little different at our church. Each prospective deacon is interviewed by the elders before he is made a full deacon. (deacon-in-training prior to that) I sometimes wonder if we shouldn't be using an evaluation system like we use for elders.
Not my call though......
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Gabriel
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It seems that Knight agrees with you on this one. Additionally, God has raised up a group of men in my church who balance each other out well. While some of us are hardcore, there are those among us with a softer approach. All, of course, are in bondage to the Word.Bulldog said:
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You're exactly right. As King James said to the Presbyterians, "No Bishop, no king!" He recognized that representative government under presbyterianism meant the end of monarchy and that the bishop hierarchy form of church government best represented and supported the monarchy form of government.Donny_B said:
Calvin believed, and I think correctly, that the Hebrew nation was set up by God to be a republic (also see EW Vines "Hebrew Republic"). He used the following verses to support his position. This is a paper I did awhile back to teach my children history. I am sorry it's so long.
Calvinisms Influence on American Government
John Calvin wrote a famous set of volumes called the Institutes of the Christian Religion. Calvins Institutes exerted a tremendous influence on the Founders of the United States. Many of them acquired their worldview from the Bible in one hand and Calvins Institutes in the other. Calvins theology profoundly affected John Witherspoon, John Hancock, Benjamin Rush, Samuel Adams, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sherman, John Trumbull, Paul Revere, Alexander Hamilton (Hamilton was a Calvinist and a student of a Presbyterian clergyman Hugh Knox, who was a Princeton graduate), and James Madison. Calvins theology also had a profound impact on the key political thinkers who influenced Americas Founders, like Johannes Althusius, Hugo Grotius, Samuel Pufendorf, Algernon Sidney, Samuel Rutherford, all of whom were explicitly orthodox protestants, and John Locke whose early immersion in Calvins theology is well documented. Through their political writings, Calvins ideas shaped the Founders political views.
Calvins influence on establishing Geneva as a Republic is well documented in history. Geneva is still the oldest continuous republic in the world. Although much of his influence was indirect, this city on a hill would become a pattern for American Puritans, leading many to associate Geneva with the origin of Puritanism. The Genevan Republic formally began in 1526 through an alliance of Geneva with the neighboring cities of Bern and Fribourgwhich had been free since 1499. After repudiating the rule of the Duke of Savoy and a Roman bishop, the citizens of Geneva established several councils. The Petit Conseil, consisting of 25 elected officials, served as an executive committee, and the Conseil Generale had 200 elected legislators. See John B. Roney and Martin I. Klauber, The Identity of Geneva: The ChristianCommonwealth, 1564-1864 (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1998), 2-3.
Joseph Gattas explains: Three democratically elected bodies ruled the Genevan city-statethe council of 200, the council of 60, and the council of 25, or small council. The lower council was popularly elected. The lower council elected the council of 60 and the council of 60 elected the small council, which possessed executive power to punish the impenitent. The small council sentenced people to fines, the stocks, imprisonment, banishment, or capital punishment, as a last resort.
The American colonists had numerous theological treatises on the role of governmentdating from Moses to Aquinas to Calvinfrom which to draw. And draw from these they did. The theology tested in the laboratory of the Genevan Reformation had a powerful influence on early America. Early American political discourse reverberated with the echoes of the ideas of Bucer, Calvin, Beza, Knox, Althusius, and others highlighted by this study. It is almost as if the teachings of those theologians had so saturated the culture that even the common man understood and embraced that world view. Consequently, some go so far as to consider Calvin the ideological father of the American Republic.http://www.christianforums.com/newreply.php?do=newreply&p=7847563#_edn1 Alice M. Baldwin put it this way: To the men of New England who had been nourished from their youth on the elections sermons and who had been thoroughly enlightened by their pastors in theoretical and practical politics, it was but natural to turn to the ministers when they needed someone to express their ideas of government . . . . Thus the clergy had an immense opportunity to push home their cherished convictions and to help in forming the new political institutions.[ii]
John Calvin promoted political liberty by teaching the following truths:
- The Sovereignty of God
- The equality of common men and rulers under God
- Government is ordained by God not men
- Rulers rule by the consent and free election of the ruled
- Separation of Church and State
- Separation of Powers
- Unjust rulers should be resisted
- Government being ordained by God should by obeyed
- Government is limited
- Presbyterian church government reflects a republic
- Republican form of government
- Constitutionalism
- Man is depraved and cannot be trusted
- The inviolability of private property
The Sovereignty of God
The teachings of predestination and Gods sovereignty over all life in Calvinism are biblical truths, which had a huge political impact over the world. If God created man and gave him freedom to live with responsibility for all his actions then men cannot take these rights and freedoms away. They are inalienable! Pagan Rome and Greece and other imitations of true republics believed these rights came from the state and therefore the state could take them away.
The equality of common men and rulers under God
Calvinism taught that all men were equal under God and His law and that God showed no partiality towards men, rich or poor, educated or illiterate. This destroyed the absolute and divine rights of kings, which had permeated the world prior to and at the time of Calvin.
Calvin also expressed his approval of classical republican traditions: In as much as God had given them the use of the franchise (election), the best way to preserve their liberty for ever was by maintaining a condition of rough equality, lest a few persons of immense wealth should oppress the general body. Since, therefore, the rich, if they had been permitted constantly to increase their wealth, would have tyrannized over the rest, God put a restraint on immoderate power by means of this law.[iii]
Rulers rule by the consent and free election of the ruled
Calvin emphasized the importance of the Old Testament and its continual applicability to New Testament times. The biblical truths of Deuteronomy and Exodus were revealed from heaven and therefore eternal and always applicable. Political truths such as the free election of rulers was taught to Israel by Moses in the following verses:
DEU 1:13 'Choose wise and discerning and experienced men from your tribes, and I will appoint them as your heads.'
DEU 1:15 "So I took the heads of your tribes, wise and experienced men, and appointed them heads over you, leaders of thousands and of hundreds, of fifties and of tens, and officers for your tribes.
EXO 18:21 "Furthermore, you shall select out of all the people able men who fear God, men of truth, those who hate dishonest gain; and you shall place these over them as leaders of thousands, of hundreds, of fifties and of tens.
This of course was a major departure from the ancient Graeco-Roman doctrine of the Divine Rights of Kings that had dominated the world from the fall of the Hebrew Republic up to the days of Calvin. Samuel Rutherford, the Scottish Presbyterian Calvinist theologian, in his book Lex Rex, brought out this teaching of Calvin or the Law is King, which specifically refuted the Divine Rights of Kings theory that Charles I was propagating in his kingdom.
MIC 5:5 And this man shall be the peace, when the Assyrian shall come into our land: and when he shall tread in our palaces, then shall we raise against him seven shepherds, and eight principal men.
Calvin takes the term shepherds in the above verse in the sense of civil authorities, and notes:
For the condition of the people most to be desired is that in which they create their shepherds by general vote (communibus suffragus). For when anyone by force usurps the supreme power, that is tyranny. And where men are born to kingship, this does not seem to be in accordance with liberty. Hence the prophet says: we shall set up princes for ourselves; that is, the Lord will not only give the Church freedom to breathe, but also to institute a definite and well-ordered government, and establish this upon the common suffrage of all. [iv] (Corpus Reformatorum XLIII, 374, as quoted in J.T. McNeills introduction to John Calvin, On God and Political Duty, Library of Liberal Arts, volume 23, 1956). This election by common suffrage is advocated elsewhere when Calvin recognized, it is tyrannous if any one man appoint or make ministers at his pleasure. Election by members adequately balanced the mean between tyranny and chaotic liberty.[v]
Calvin pursues this theme in his sermon on 1Samuel 8:11-22, where he discusses at length the utter foolishness of the Israelites in rejecting decentralized government by patriarchal elders for a hereditary monarchy: Well, a formerly free people who sought royal dominance and subjected themselves willingly to it and thus gave up their liberty really deserves no better. (Trans. Kelly and Raynal, eds., Calvin Studies Colloquium, p.67)
Calvins desire for an elective, representative, republican type of government, was certainly influenced by his many years of writing and preaching on the Old Testament. The regular practice (especially in the Northern Kingdom) of popular elections and deposition of kings in view of a higher covenant with God defined, bound, and limited civil power and human relationships within the theocratic, Israelite community. Local Old Testament rule by councils of patriarchal elders sitting in the village gate, as well as the prototypical council of seventy elders raised up to help Moses in the wilderness, undoubtedly entered Calvins thought about proper civil polity.
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Calvin also expressed his approval of classical republican traditions: In as much as God had given them the use of the franchise (election), the best way to preserve their liberty for ever was by maintaining a condition of rough equality, lest a few persons of immense wealth should oppress the general body. Since, therefore, the rich, if they had been permitted constantly to increase their wealth, would have tyrannized over the rest, God put a restraint on immoderate power by means of this law.[vi]
Rutherford wrote Lex Rex at Westminster Abbey in London only a few years before John Locke was a high school student there. Lockes father was a member of the Puritan forces that fought against King Charles I. Whats more Lockes father was a personal acquaintance of Rutherford. The Locke family knew Rutherfords thinking intimately, and given the similarity with Lockes writings, it is reasonable to suppose that Rutherfords ideas were planted in young Lockes mind and became the seed for his political theories.
This Calvinistic doctrine was also adhered too by our Pilgrim fathers who upon settling in America made compacts and covenants throughout the colonies. Starting with the Mayflower Compact and throughout the settling of New England, the Calvinistic Puritans were unanimous on the point that governments foundation is in the voluntary submission of the people. Thomas Hooker, the founder of Connecticut, claimed that to have a legitimate government, there must of necessity be a mutual engagement, each of the other, by their free consent. John Winthrop, the founder of Boston, concurred: the essentiall forme of a common weale or body politic I conceive to be thisThe consent of a certaine companie of people, to cohabit together, under one government for their mutual safety and welfare.
Perry Miller, the celebrated twentieth century historian of the Puritans, states the case plainly:
The Puritans maintained that government originated in the consent of the people because they did not believe that any society, civil or ecclesiastical, into which men did not enter of themselves was worthy of the name. Consequently, the social theory of Puritanism, based upon the law of God, was posited also upon the voluntary submission of the citizens. (Perry Miller and Thomas H. Johnson, ed., The Puritans, 1963)
The Puritan commitment to free consent of the governed played a crucial role in Americas founding. Indeed, the United States was explicitly founded on this principle. Although Enlightenment thinkers adopted this principle, they hardly originated it. The Calvinistic Puritans had embraced it before Locke or the French philosopher Rousseau ever picked up a pen. Stanton Evans rightly observes: The chronological factor is decisive; the evidence cited here not only predates the Second Treatise (of GovernmentLocke), most of it predates the existence of Locke himself. (Medford Stanton Evans, The Theme is Freedom Washington, D.C. 1994)
Separation of Church and State
Calvin had the same view as Luther on the classic Christian teaching on the creator-redeemer distinction. This view meant that the spiritual kingdom of Christ and the civil jurisdiction of the state have a completely different nature and were two separate spheres. The political sphere deals with a persons physical life in society as he or she interacts with other human beings and the world at large. This part of a persons life relates to God as creator, who has made universal laws for ordering the world and our place in it. The other sphere deals with a persons spiritual life that needing redemption relates to God as redeemer, who through Christ brings salvation from sin.
This teaching explains how God governs both spheres differently. God governs one sphere through the law of creation, the other through the law of redemption. The law of creation, or what is sometimes referred to as the law of nature, denotes how God created the universe and intends it to operate. It includes not only physical laws (like the laws of physics and chemistry), but also moral laws. For instance, within politics Gods laws of creation requires rulers to protect the people and not to exploit them. The law of redemption on the other hand, specifies how people come to salvation.
Christianitys new approach to social order meant all people are creatures of God and are required to obey Gods moral laws. But since Christians also embrace God as redeemer they are also called to obey Gods law of redemption. The state, however, has no authority where the law of redemption is concerned; redemption is outside the states jurisdiction.
This is of course very consistent with the first teaching of separation of Church and State in the Old Testament with the separation of the Levites (the Church) from the other 11 tribes and Moses who was head of State.
Although there was a deliberate separation of jurisdictions, the Calvinist reformers did not think it was healthy for the leading spheres of influence, church and state, to operate in isolation. The Genevan Senate (the Council of Twenty-Five or the Small Council) and the Council of Two Hundred frequently consulted with the Genevan pastors. At times, the pastors suggested legislation or due processes that were approved by the civil council. While each power was to have autonomy of function, the relationship envisaged was one of harmony in which church and state cooperated fruitfully with each other to the glory of God.[vii]
Separation of Powers-Checks and Balances
Owing, therefore, to the vices or defects of men, it is safer and more tolerable when several bear rule, that they may thus mutually assist, instruct, and admonish each other, and should any one be disposed to go too far, the others are censors and masters to curb his excess.
One of the procedural safeguards of Calvins assistance in Genevas 1543 reform was that the various governmental councils could no longer act autonomously, hence, at least two councils had to approve measures before ratification. This early mechanism, which prevented consolidation of all governmental power into a single body of leaders, predated Montesquieus separation of powers doctrine by over two centuries. This kind of thinking, already incorporated into Genevas ecclesiastical federalism and essentially derived from biblical sources, anticipated many later advances in political federalism. The structure of Genevan Presbyterianism began to influence Genevan politics and that also furthered the separation of powers and protection from oligarchy.
In 2 Thessalonians 3:15;
2TH 3:14 ¶ If anyone does not obey our instruction in this letter, take special note of that person and do not associate with him, so that he will be put to shame.
2TH 3:15 Yet do not regard him as an enemy, but admonish him as a brother.
Calvin found evidence of the virtue of fraternal correction. In Calvins thinking, J. T. McNeill pointed out, mutual admonition provides checks and balances against arrogance. . . . He [Calvin] has fraternal correction incorporated into the constitution of the church at Geneva. So saying, in 1557 Calvin influenced the Little Council, the chief deliberative body for civil government, to admonish the recalcitrant in secret fraternal charity sessions which met quarterly.[viii] Clearly, then, Calvin found checks and balances helpful to church and state alike.
Rutherford wrote Lex Rex at Westminster Abbey in London only a few years before John Locke was a high school student there. Lockes father was a member of the Puritan forces that fought against King Charles I. Whats more Lockes father was a personal acquaintance of Rutherford. The Locke family knew Rutherfords thinking intimately, and given the similarity with Lockes writings, it is reasonable to suppose that Rutherfords ideas were planted in young Lockes mind and became the seed for his political theories.
This Calvinistic doctrine was also adhered too by our Pilgrim fathers who upon settling in America made compacts and covenants throughout the colonies. Starting with the Mayflower Compact and throughout the settling of New England, the Calvinistic Puritans were unanimous on the point that governments foundation is in the voluntary submission of the people. Thomas Hooker, the founder of Connecticut, claimed that to have a legitimate government, there must of necessity be a mutual engagement, each of the other, by their free consent. John Winthrop, the founder of Boston, concurred: the essentiall forme of a common weale or body politic I conceive to be thisThe consent of a certaine companie of people, to cohabit together, under one government for their mutual safety and welfare.
Perry Miller, the celebrated twentieth century historian of the Puritans, states the case plainly:
The Puritans maintained that government originated in the consent of the people because they did not believe that any society, civil or ecclesiastical, into which men did not enter of themselves was worthy of the name. Consequently, the social theory of Puritanism, based upon the law of God, was posited also upon the voluntary submission of the citizens. (Perry Miller and Thomas H. Johnson, ed., The Puritans, 1963)
The Puritan commitment to free consent of the governed played a crucial role in Americas founding. Indeed, the United States was explicitly founded on this principle. Although Enlightenment thinkers adopted this principle, they hardly originated it. The Calvinistic Puritans had embraced it before Locke or the French philosopher Rousseau ever picked up a pen. Stanton Evans rightly observes: The chronological factor is decisive; the evidence cited here not only predates the Second Treatise (of GovernmentLocke), most of it predates the existence of Locke himself. (Medford Stanton Evans, The Theme is Freedom Washington, D.C. 1994)
Separation of Church and State
Calvin had the same view as Luther on the classic Christian teaching on the creator-redeemer distinction. This view meant that the spiritual kingdom of Christ and the civil jurisdiction of the state have a completely different nature and were two separate spheres. The political sphere deals with a persons physical life in society as he or she interacts with other human beings and the world at large. This part of a persons life relates to God as creator, who has made universal laws for ordering the world and our place in it. The other sphere deals with a persons spiritual life that needing redemption relates to God as redeemer, who through Christ brings salvation from sin.
This teaching explains how God governs both spheres differently. God governs one sphere through the law of creation, the other through the law of redemption. The law of creation, or what is sometimes referred to as the law of nature, denotes how God created the universe and intends it to operate. It includes not only physical laws (like the laws of physics and chemistry), but also moral laws. For instance, within politics Gods laws of creation requires rulers to protect the people and not to exploit them. The law of redemption on the other hand, specifies how people come to salvation.
Christianitys new approach to social order meant all people are creatures of God and are required to obey Gods moral laws. But since Christians also embrace God as redeemer they are also called to obey Gods law of redemption. The state, however, has no authority where the law of redemption is concerned; redemption is outside the states jurisdiction.
This is of course very consistent with the first teaching of separation of Church and State in the Old Testament with the separation of the Levites (the Church) from the other 11 tribes and Moses who was head of State.
Although there was a deliberate separation of jurisdictions, the Calvinist reformers did not think it was healthy for the leading spheres of influence, church and state, to operate in isolation. The Genevan Senate (the Council of Twenty-Five or the Small Council) and the Council of Two Hundred frequently consulted with the Genevan pastors. At times, the pastors suggested legislation or due processes that were approved by the civil council. While each power was to have autonomy of function, the relationship envisaged was one of harmony in which church and state cooperated fruitfully with each other to the glory of God.[vii]
Separation of Powers-Checks and Balances
Owing, therefore, to the vices or defects of men, it is safer and more tolerable when several bear rule, that they may thus mutually assist, instruct, and admonish each other, and should any one be disposed to go too far, the others are censors and masters to curb his excess.
One of the procedural safeguards of Calvins assistance in Genevas 1543 reform was that the various governmental councils could no longer act autonomously, hence, at least two councils had to approve measures before ratification. This early mechanism, which prevented consolidation of all governmental power into a single body of leaders, predated Montesquieus separation of powers doctrine by over two centuries. This kind of thinking, already incorporated into Genevas ecclesiastical federalism and essentially derived from biblical sources, anticipated many later advances in political federalism. The structure of Genevan Presbyterianism began to influence Genevan politics and that also furthered the separation of powers and protection from oligarchy.
Calvin advocated in Chapter 20 of his Institutes a system compounded of aristocracy and democracy. He also saw a legitimate place for checks and balances, seeing the need for censors and masters to restrain his [the monarchs] willfulness. Mens vices and inadequacies make it safer and better that the many hold sway. In this way may rulers help each other, teach and admonish one another, and if one asserts himself unfairly, they may act in concert to censure, repressing his willfulness.
In 2 Thessalonians 3:15;
2TH 3:14 ¶ If anyone does not obey our instruction in this letter, take special note of that person and do not associate with him, so that he will be put to shame.
2TH 3:15 Yet do not regard him as an enemy, but admonish him as a brother.
Calvin found evidence of the virtue of fraternal correction. In Calvins thinking, J. T. McNeill pointed out, mutual admonition provides checks and balances against arrogance. . . . He [Calvin] has fraternal correction incorporated into the constitution of the church at Geneva. So saying, in 1557 Calvin influenced the Little Council, the chief deliberative body for civil government, to admonish the recalcitrant in secret fraternal charity sessions which met quarterly.[viii] Clearly, then, Calvin found checks and balances helpful to church and state alike.
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Harro Hopfl identifies these signatures of political Calvinism:
· Calvin detested as much as anything rulers who acted as if their will made right (sic volo sic iubeo).
· Because no single individual possessed power and breadth of vision enough to govern unilaterally, a council was needed.
· Even in a monarchy, a council was required.
· Tyranny was exhibited in a rulers unwillingness to tolerate restraint or live within the law. Any ruler should be sub Deo et sub lege (under God and under law).[ix]
Calvin viewed Samuels Old Testament sermon against Israel choosing a monarchy over a republic as applicable in all ages. He maintained: This indeed is the outcome of all human plans which rest not on reason, but on impulse alone and on violent desires: immense unhappiness. . . . It is clear from this thatonce men have turned away from the right way, they make no end of sinning and are carried on to an even worse state, because they create destruction for themselves and are carried away, since they are ruled by the depraved counsels of their own passionate drives. Original sin in human beings led Calvin to call for appropriate safeguards: Since it is this way, we must use protective remedies and measures lest we be unexpectedly overwhelmed. Experience surely teaches that this people rushed to an ever worse condition, and erred more and more from the way of righteousness, and provoked vehemently the wrath of God against themselves from having willingly repudiated the counsel of God.
Unjust rulers should be resisted
The final pages of Calvins Institutes are extremely important for Americas birth. Citing the example of Daniels disobedience to the Persian kings edict, Calvin says humans must disobey ungodly magistrates: If they [political authorities] command anything against Him [God], let it go unesteemed. And here let us not be concerned about all the dignity which the magistrates possess.
Calvins writings on the role and limit of civil government sparked a long debate and spawned an enormous amount of literature throughout the next two centuries leading up to the founding of the United States.
And as I willingly admit that there is no kind of government happier than where liberty is framed with becoming moderation, and duly constituted so as to be durable, so I deem those very happy who are permitted to enjoy that form, and I admit that they do nothing at variance with their duty when they strenuously and constantly labor to preserve and maintain it. Nay, even magistrates ought to do their utmost to prevent the liberty, of which they have been appointed guardians, from being impaired, far less violated. If in this they are sluggish or little careful, they are perfidious traitors to their office and their country. But should those to whom the Lord has assigned one form of government, take it upon them anxiously to long for a change, the wish would not only be foolish and superfluous, but very pernicious. (Calvin Institutes 4:20.8)
Calvin also appealed to the private-law theory of resisting civil governments, which held that an individual could resist the civil magistrate.
But in that obedience which we hold to be due to the commands of rulers, we must always make the exception, nay, must be particularly careful that it is not incompatible with obedience to Him to whose will the wishes of all kings should be subject, to whose decrees their commands must yield, to whose majesty their scepters must bow. And, indeed, how preposterous were it, in pleasing men, to incur the offence of Him for whose sake you obey men! The Lord, therefore, is King of kings. When he opens his sacred mouth, he alone is to be heard, instead of all and above all. We are subject to the men who rule over us, but subject only in the Lord. If they command anything against Him let us not pay the least regard to it, nor be moved by all the dignity, which they possess as magistratesa dignity to which no injury is done when it is subordinated to the special and truly supreme power of God. On this ground Daniel denies that he had sinned in any respect against the king when he refused to obey his impious decree (Dan. 6:22), because the king had exceeded his limits, and not only been injurious to men, but, by raising his horn against God, had virtually abrogated his own power. On the other hand, the Israelites are condemned for having too readily obeyed the impious edict of the king. For, when Jeroboam made the golden calf, they forsook the temple of God, and, in submissiveness to him, revolted to new superstitions (1 Kings 12:28). With the same facility posterity had bowed before the decrees of their kings. For this they are severely upbraided by the Prophet (Hosea 5:11). So far is the praise of modesty from being due to that pretence by which flattering courtiers cloak themselves, and deceive the simple, when they deny the lawfulness of declining anything imposed by their kings, as if the Lord had resigned his own rights to mortals by appointing them to rule over their fellows, or as if earthly power were diminished when it is subjected to its author, before whom even the principalities of heaven tremble as suppliants. I know the imminent peril to which subjects expose themselves by this firmness, kings being most indignant when they are contemned. As Solomon says, The wrath of a king is as messengers of death (Prov. 16:14). But since Peter, one of heavens heralds, has published the edict, We ought to obey God rather than men (Acts 5:29), let us console ourselves with the thought, that we are rendering the obedience which the Lord requires, when we endure anything rather than turn aside from piety. And that our courage may not fail, Paul stimulates us by the additional consideration (1 Cor. 7:23), that we were redeemed by Christ at the great price which our redemption cost him, in order that we might not yield a slavish obedience to the depraved wishes of men, far less do homage to their impiety. (Calvins Institutes 4:20.32)
However, at the same time Calvin taught that the private individual could not resist a tyrant for just being a tyrant. Calvin wrote in his Institutes 20:31:
Although, the Lord takes vengeance on unbridled domination, let us not therefore suppose that that that vengeance is committed to us, to whom no command has been given but to obey and suffer. I speak only of private men. For when popular magistrates have been appointed to curb the tyranny of kings So far am I from forbidding these officially to check the undue license of kings, that if they connive at kings they fraudulently betray the liberty of the people
Another famous Calvinistic work was the French Calvinist Huguenot Vindiciae Contra Tyrannos. It is very interesting to note that John Adams encouraged all Americans to read Vindiciae Contra Tyrannos or A Defense of Liberty Against Tyrants as the Revolution approached. This was a pamphlet written by Philippe Duplessis-Mornay (1549-1623) and Hubert Languet (1518-1581). These authors were French Huguenot Calvinists who were writing in protest to the French Catholic King who, under the guise of Absolute Power, was attempting to drive the French Huguenots out of France. This Calvinistic work was written to encourage Christians to resist tyranny in France and it is supported throughout the document with voluminous biblical references supporting democratic/republican principles and biblical resistance taught by John Calvin.
The Vindiciae set forth an idea which was to become the bedrock of American political theory, namely, the social contract: There is ever, and in all places, a mutual and reciprocal obligation between the people and the prince .If the prince fail in his promise, the people are exempt from obedience, the contract is made void, the rights of obligation of no force-(Vindiciae Contra Tyrannos) Few contemporary historians identify the religious roots of the social contract theory
Other Christian thinkers elaborated Calvins political views. John Knox, a disciple of Calvin who founded the Scottish Presbyterian Church, argued on Christian principles for rebellion against, overthrow of, and execution of an unrighteous monarch. Calvins views inspired John Ponet, a bishop of the Church of England in the 1550s, to write a document titled A Short Treatise of Politike Power. The text justified, on Christian grounds, the right of resistance to tyrannical kings. According to President John Adams, Ponets work contained all the essential principles of liberty, which were afterward dilated by Sidney and Locke.
In 1558 Christopher Goodman followed up with a book called How Superior Powers Ought to be Obeyed, which straightforwardly defended the right of revolution. In 1618 the Dutch Calvinist Johannes Althusius echoed Calvin and Vindiciae when he wrote on Tyranny and Its Remedies. John Milton, the prominent Puritan poet, defended the execution of Charles I, King of England. The Westminster Confession of Faith (1646), the central creed of English Calvinists known as Puritans, affirmed a Christians right to wage war upon just and necessary occasions.
In 1640s Samuel Rutherford, the Scottish Presbyterian Calvinist theologian, adopted Calvins resistance theory to defend the peoples rejection of King Charles I. In the 1680s, appealing to Rutherford and other Christian scholars, Algernon Sidney and John Locke in turn defended the peoples rejection of King James II. From there we find Sidney and Locke influencing Thomas Jefferson and his colleagues as they defended the American peoples rejection of King George III in 1776. The American Revolution has clear roots in Calvins resistance works.
· Calvin detested as much as anything rulers who acted as if their will made right (sic volo sic iubeo).
· Because no single individual possessed power and breadth of vision enough to govern unilaterally, a council was needed.
· Even in a monarchy, a council was required.
· Tyranny was exhibited in a rulers unwillingness to tolerate restraint or live within the law. Any ruler should be sub Deo et sub lege (under God and under law).[ix]
Calvin viewed Samuels Old Testament sermon against Israel choosing a monarchy over a republic as applicable in all ages. He maintained: This indeed is the outcome of all human plans which rest not on reason, but on impulse alone and on violent desires: immense unhappiness. . . . It is clear from this thatonce men have turned away from the right way, they make no end of sinning and are carried on to an even worse state, because they create destruction for themselves and are carried away, since they are ruled by the depraved counsels of their own passionate drives. Original sin in human beings led Calvin to call for appropriate safeguards: Since it is this way, we must use protective remedies and measures lest we be unexpectedly overwhelmed. Experience surely teaches that this people rushed to an ever worse condition, and erred more and more from the way of righteousness, and provoked vehemently the wrath of God against themselves from having willingly repudiated the counsel of God.
Unjust rulers should be resisted
The final pages of Calvins Institutes are extremely important for Americas birth. Citing the example of Daniels disobedience to the Persian kings edict, Calvin says humans must disobey ungodly magistrates: If they [political authorities] command anything against Him [God], let it go unesteemed. And here let us not be concerned about all the dignity which the magistrates possess.
Calvins writings on the role and limit of civil government sparked a long debate and spawned an enormous amount of literature throughout the next two centuries leading up to the founding of the United States.
And as I willingly admit that there is no kind of government happier than where liberty is framed with becoming moderation, and duly constituted so as to be durable, so I deem those very happy who are permitted to enjoy that form, and I admit that they do nothing at variance with their duty when they strenuously and constantly labor to preserve and maintain it. Nay, even magistrates ought to do their utmost to prevent the liberty, of which they have been appointed guardians, from being impaired, far less violated. If in this they are sluggish or little careful, they are perfidious traitors to their office and their country. But should those to whom the Lord has assigned one form of government, take it upon them anxiously to long for a change, the wish would not only be foolish and superfluous, but very pernicious. (Calvin Institutes 4:20.8)
Calvin also appealed to the private-law theory of resisting civil governments, which held that an individual could resist the civil magistrate.
But in that obedience which we hold to be due to the commands of rulers, we must always make the exception, nay, must be particularly careful that it is not incompatible with obedience to Him to whose will the wishes of all kings should be subject, to whose decrees their commands must yield, to whose majesty their scepters must bow. And, indeed, how preposterous were it, in pleasing men, to incur the offence of Him for whose sake you obey men! The Lord, therefore, is King of kings. When he opens his sacred mouth, he alone is to be heard, instead of all and above all. We are subject to the men who rule over us, but subject only in the Lord. If they command anything against Him let us not pay the least regard to it, nor be moved by all the dignity, which they possess as magistratesa dignity to which no injury is done when it is subordinated to the special and truly supreme power of God. On this ground Daniel denies that he had sinned in any respect against the king when he refused to obey his impious decree (Dan. 6:22), because the king had exceeded his limits, and not only been injurious to men, but, by raising his horn against God, had virtually abrogated his own power. On the other hand, the Israelites are condemned for having too readily obeyed the impious edict of the king. For, when Jeroboam made the golden calf, they forsook the temple of God, and, in submissiveness to him, revolted to new superstitions (1 Kings 12:28). With the same facility posterity had bowed before the decrees of their kings. For this they are severely upbraided by the Prophet (Hosea 5:11). So far is the praise of modesty from being due to that pretence by which flattering courtiers cloak themselves, and deceive the simple, when they deny the lawfulness of declining anything imposed by their kings, as if the Lord had resigned his own rights to mortals by appointing them to rule over their fellows, or as if earthly power were diminished when it is subjected to its author, before whom even the principalities of heaven tremble as suppliants. I know the imminent peril to which subjects expose themselves by this firmness, kings being most indignant when they are contemned. As Solomon says, The wrath of a king is as messengers of death (Prov. 16:14). But since Peter, one of heavens heralds, has published the edict, We ought to obey God rather than men (Acts 5:29), let us console ourselves with the thought, that we are rendering the obedience which the Lord requires, when we endure anything rather than turn aside from piety. And that our courage may not fail, Paul stimulates us by the additional consideration (1 Cor. 7:23), that we were redeemed by Christ at the great price which our redemption cost him, in order that we might not yield a slavish obedience to the depraved wishes of men, far less do homage to their impiety. (Calvins Institutes 4:20.32)
However, at the same time Calvin taught that the private individual could not resist a tyrant for just being a tyrant. Calvin wrote in his Institutes 20:31:
Although, the Lord takes vengeance on unbridled domination, let us not therefore suppose that that that vengeance is committed to us, to whom no command has been given but to obey and suffer. I speak only of private men. For when popular magistrates have been appointed to curb the tyranny of kings So far am I from forbidding these officially to check the undue license of kings, that if they connive at kings they fraudulently betray the liberty of the people
Another famous Calvinistic work was the French Calvinist Huguenot Vindiciae Contra Tyrannos. It is very interesting to note that John Adams encouraged all Americans to read Vindiciae Contra Tyrannos or A Defense of Liberty Against Tyrants as the Revolution approached. This was a pamphlet written by Philippe Duplessis-Mornay (1549-1623) and Hubert Languet (1518-1581). These authors were French Huguenot Calvinists who were writing in protest to the French Catholic King who, under the guise of Absolute Power, was attempting to drive the French Huguenots out of France. This Calvinistic work was written to encourage Christians to resist tyranny in France and it is supported throughout the document with voluminous biblical references supporting democratic/republican principles and biblical resistance taught by John Calvin.
The Vindiciae set forth an idea which was to become the bedrock of American political theory, namely, the social contract: There is ever, and in all places, a mutual and reciprocal obligation between the people and the prince .If the prince fail in his promise, the people are exempt from obedience, the contract is made void, the rights of obligation of no force-(Vindiciae Contra Tyrannos) Few contemporary historians identify the religious roots of the social contract theory
Other Christian thinkers elaborated Calvins political views. John Knox, a disciple of Calvin who founded the Scottish Presbyterian Church, argued on Christian principles for rebellion against, overthrow of, and execution of an unrighteous monarch. Calvins views inspired John Ponet, a bishop of the Church of England in the 1550s, to write a document titled A Short Treatise of Politike Power. The text justified, on Christian grounds, the right of resistance to tyrannical kings. According to President John Adams, Ponets work contained all the essential principles of liberty, which were afterward dilated by Sidney and Locke.
In 1558 Christopher Goodman followed up with a book called How Superior Powers Ought to be Obeyed, which straightforwardly defended the right of revolution. In 1618 the Dutch Calvinist Johannes Althusius echoed Calvin and Vindiciae when he wrote on Tyranny and Its Remedies. John Milton, the prominent Puritan poet, defended the execution of Charles I, King of England. The Westminster Confession of Faith (1646), the central creed of English Calvinists known as Puritans, affirmed a Christians right to wage war upon just and necessary occasions.
In 1640s Samuel Rutherford, the Scottish Presbyterian Calvinist theologian, adopted Calvins resistance theory to defend the peoples rejection of King Charles I. In the 1680s, appealing to Rutherford and other Christian scholars, Algernon Sidney and John Locke in turn defended the peoples rejection of King James II. From there we find Sidney and Locke influencing Thomas Jefferson and his colleagues as they defended the American peoples rejection of King George III in 1776. The American Revolution has clear roots in Calvins resistance works.
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John Adams was close to the tradition of Vindiciae Contra Tyrannos, Rutherford's Lex Rex and Ponet. He followed the thinkers of the English Civil War and their contract theory much more than he did Rousseau's Social Contract or the writings of Montesquieu. Adams' social contract, based upon the tradition of the Calvinist covenant-compact, was familiar in New England
Selected Excerpts From John Adams Favorite Vindiciae contra tyrannos or A Defense of Liberty Against Tyrants written 1500s
The elders of Israel, who represented the whole body of the people (elders are understood to be the captains, the centurions, commanders over fifties and tens, judges, provosts, but principally the chiefest of tribes) came to meet Samuel in Ramah, and not being willing longer to endure the government of the sons of Samuel, whose ill management had justly drawn on them the people's dislike, and also persuading themselves that they had found the means to make their wars hereafter with more advantage, they demanded a king of Samuel. Samuel asked counsel of the Lord, who made known that He had chosen Saul for the governor of His people. Then Samuel anointed Saul, and performed all those rights, which belong to the election of a king required by the people. Now this might, perhaps, have seemed sufficient, if Samuel had presented to the people the king who was chosen by God, and had admonished them all to become good and obedient subjects.
Notwithstanding, to the end that the king might know that the people established him, Samuel appointed the elders to meet at Mizpah, where they assembled as if the business of choosing a king had yet to begin, and nothing had already been done, in other words, as if the election of Saul hadn't happened yet. (1 Sam. 10:17) The lot was cast and fell on the tribe of Benjamin, then on the family of Matri, and lastly on Saul, born of that family, the same man whom God had chosen. Then by the consent of all the people Saul was declared king. Finally, so that neither Saul nor any other might attribute the aforesaid business to chance or lot, Saul then made some proof of his valor in raising the siege of the Ammonites in Jabish Gilead (1 Sam. 11). At the urging of the people, he was again confirmed king in a full assembly at Gilgal. You see that he whom God had chosen, and the lot had separated from all the rest, is established king by the support of the people.
1SA 10:17 ¶ Thereafter Samuel called the people together to the Lord at Mizpah;
1SA 10:18 and he said to the sons of Israel, "Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, 'I brought Israel up from Egypt, and I delivered you from the hand of the Egyptians and from the power of all the kingdoms that were oppressing you.'
1SA 10:19 "But you have today rejected your God, who delivers you from all your calamities and your distresses; yet you have said, 'No, but set a king over us!' Now therefore, present yourselves before the Lord by your tribes and by your clans."
1SA 10:20 ¶ Thus Samuel brought all the tribes of Israel near, and the tribe of Benjamin was taken by lot.
1SA 10:21 Then he brought the tribe of Benjamin near by its families, and the Matrite family was taken. And Saul the son of Kish was taken; but when they looked for him, he could not be found.
1SA 10:22 Therefore they inquired further of the Lord, "Has the man come here yet?" So the Lord said, "Behold, he is hiding himself by the baggage."
1SA 10:23 So they ran and took him from there, and when he stood among the people, he was taller than any of the people from his shoulders upward.
1SA 10:24 Samuel said to all the people, "Do you see him whom the Lord has chosen? Surely there is no one like him among all the people." So all the people shouted and said, "Long live the king!"
1SA 11:14 ¶ Then Samuel said to the people, "Come and let us go to Gilgal and renew the kingdom there."
1SA 11:15 So all the people went to Gilgal, and there they made Saul king before the Lord in Gilgal. There they also offered sacrifices of peace offerings before the Lord; and there Saul and all the men of Israel rejoiced greatly.
And for David, by the commandment of God, and in a manner more evident than the former, after the rejection of Saul, Samuel anointed for king over Israel, David, chosen by the Lord. (1 Sam. 16:13). After that, the Spirit of the Lord left Saul, and instead worked in a special manner in David. But David, despite all this, did not reign, but was compelled to save himself in deserts and rocks, often coming close to the very brink of destruction. In fact, he never reigned as king until after the death of Saul, for then by the acclamation of all the people of Judah, he was first chosen king of Judah, (2SA 2:4 Then the men of Judah came and there anointed David king over the house of Judah )." and seven years later by the consent of all Israel, he was inaugurated king of Israel in Hebron. So then, he is first anointed by the prophet at the commandment of God, as a token he was chosen.
Secondly, by the commandment of the people when he was established king. And so that kings may always remember that it is from God, but by the people, and for the people's sake that they reign, and that in their glory they don't say (as is their custom) they hold their kingdom only by God and their sword, but also add that it was the people who first gave them that sword. The same order offered in Solomon. Although he was the king's son, God had chosen Solomon to sit upon the throne of his kingdom, and by explicit words had promised David to be with him and assist him as a father his son. David had with his own mouth designated Solomon to be successor to his crown in the presence of some of the principal men of his court.
But this was not enough, and therefore David assembled at Jerusalem the princes of Israel, the heads of the tribes, the captains of the soldiers, and ordinance officers of the kings, the centurions and other magistrates of towns, together with his sons, the noblemen and worthiest personages of the kingdom, to consult and resolve upon the election. In this assembly, after they had called upon the name of God, Solomon, by the consent of the whole congregation, was proclaimed and anointed as king, and sat upon the throne of Israel. (1 Chr. 28-29)
1CH 28:1 Now David assembled at Jerusalem all the officials of Israel, the princes of the tribes, and the commanders of the divisions that served the king, and the commanders of thousands, and the commanders of hundreds, and the overseers of all the property and livestock belonging to the king and his sons, with the officials and the mighty men, even all the valiant men.
1CH 29:22 So they ate and drank that day before the Lord with great gladness. ¶ And they made Solomon the son of David king a second time, and they anointed him as ruler for the Lord and Zadok as priest.
Then, and not before, the princes, the noblemen, his brothers themselves do him homage, and take the oath of allegiance. And so that it may not be said that that was only done to avoid the disputes, which might arise amongst the brothers and sons of David about the succession, we read that the other following kings have, in the same manner, been established in their places. It is said, that after the death of Solomon, the people assembled to create his son Rehoboam king. (1 Ki. 12) After Amaziah was killed, (2 Chr. 25:25) Azariah, his only son, was chosen king by all the people, (2 Chr. 26:1) Ahaziah after Jehoram, Jehoahaz, the son of Josiah, after the decease of his father, whose piety might well seem to require that without any other solemnity, both he and the other were chosen and invested into the royal throne by the support of the people.
To which also belongs, that which Hushai said to Absolom: "Nay, but whom the Lord and His people, and all the men of Israel chose, his will I be, and with him will I abide" (2 Sam. 16:18). This is just like saying, "I will follow the king lawfully established, and according to the accustomed order." Thus, although God had promised to His people a perpetual lamp (that is, a king) and a continual successor of the line of David, and that the successor of the kings of this people were approved by the Word of God Himself, despite this, we see that the kings of Israel did not reign before the people had ordained and installed them with the necessary ceremonies. It may be concluded from this that the kingdom of Israel was not a hereditary monarchy, if we consider David and the promise made to him, and that it was wholly elective, if we regard the particular persons. But it is apparent that the election is only mentioned so that the kings might always remember that the people raised them to their high office, and therefore they should never forget during life what a strict bound of observance they are tied to with those from whom they have received all their greatness. We read that the kings of the heathen have been established also by the people; for when they had either troubles at home, or wars abroad, someone, in whose ready valor and discreet integrity the people did principally rely and rest their greatest confidence, him they presently, with universal consent, established as king.
I Samuel 8
Calvin began his sermon on 1 Samuel 8[x] by asserting that the people of Israel were, even at the last minute prior to electing a king, still free to change their minds aboutseeking a king. Then Samuel warned them that the king who will reign over them will take their sons for his own purposes and will cause much plundering and robbery. In this sermon, Calvin inferred from that circumstance that the Lord does not give kings the right to use their power to subject the people to tyranny. Indeed, when the liberty to resist tyranny seems to be taken away by princes who have taken over, one can justly ask this question: since kings and princes are bound by covenant to the people, to administer the law in truest equality, sincerity, and integrity; if they break faith and usurp tyrannical power by which they allow themselves everything they want: is it not possible for the people to consider together taking measures in order to remedy the evil?
Calvin acknowledged the complexity and unpopularity of that question. He was careful to distance himself from the Anabaptist[xi] revolutionaries (who went too far in agitating and overthrowing powers and authorities) of the day. Yet, he clung to the scriptural teaching, i.e., that God certainly punishes those who do not merit a good government by leading them into tyranny under bad princes.
He then distinguished between resistance to thieves and the situation of leaders and superior dignitaries to whom God wills the subjects to be obedient. Calvin preached that there are limits prescribed by God to their power, within which they ought to be satisfied: namely, to work for the common good and to govern and direct the people in truest fairness and justice; not to be puffed up with their own importance, but to remember that they also are subjects of God. Leaders were always to keep in mind the purpose (the glory of God) for which they had been providentially appointed.
Samuel, said Calvin, warned citizens about the royal domination they will have to bear, and that their necks will have to be patiently submitted to his yoke. Calvin inferred something very significant from this: that intervening magistrates, not citizens themselves, should seek to correct abuses and tyranny. His doctrine was that there are legitimate remedies against such tyranny, such as when there are other magistrates and official institutions to whom the care of the republic is committed, who will be able to restrict the prince to his proper authority so that if the prince attempts wrong action, they may hold him down. He counseled that, if the intervening magistrates did not free the people from tyranny, perhaps the people were being disciplined by Gods providence.
Selected Excerpts From John Adams Favorite Vindiciae contra tyrannos or A Defense of Liberty Against Tyrants written 1500s
The elders of Israel, who represented the whole body of the people (elders are understood to be the captains, the centurions, commanders over fifties and tens, judges, provosts, but principally the chiefest of tribes) came to meet Samuel in Ramah, and not being willing longer to endure the government of the sons of Samuel, whose ill management had justly drawn on them the people's dislike, and also persuading themselves that they had found the means to make their wars hereafter with more advantage, they demanded a king of Samuel. Samuel asked counsel of the Lord, who made known that He had chosen Saul for the governor of His people. Then Samuel anointed Saul, and performed all those rights, which belong to the election of a king required by the people. Now this might, perhaps, have seemed sufficient, if Samuel had presented to the people the king who was chosen by God, and had admonished them all to become good and obedient subjects.
Notwithstanding, to the end that the king might know that the people established him, Samuel appointed the elders to meet at Mizpah, where they assembled as if the business of choosing a king had yet to begin, and nothing had already been done, in other words, as if the election of Saul hadn't happened yet. (1 Sam. 10:17) The lot was cast and fell on the tribe of Benjamin, then on the family of Matri, and lastly on Saul, born of that family, the same man whom God had chosen. Then by the consent of all the people Saul was declared king. Finally, so that neither Saul nor any other might attribute the aforesaid business to chance or lot, Saul then made some proof of his valor in raising the siege of the Ammonites in Jabish Gilead (1 Sam. 11). At the urging of the people, he was again confirmed king in a full assembly at Gilgal. You see that he whom God had chosen, and the lot had separated from all the rest, is established king by the support of the people.
1SA 10:17 ¶ Thereafter Samuel called the people together to the Lord at Mizpah;
1SA 10:18 and he said to the sons of Israel, "Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, 'I brought Israel up from Egypt, and I delivered you from the hand of the Egyptians and from the power of all the kingdoms that were oppressing you.'
1SA 10:19 "But you have today rejected your God, who delivers you from all your calamities and your distresses; yet you have said, 'No, but set a king over us!' Now therefore, present yourselves before the Lord by your tribes and by your clans."
1SA 10:20 ¶ Thus Samuel brought all the tribes of Israel near, and the tribe of Benjamin was taken by lot.
1SA 10:21 Then he brought the tribe of Benjamin near by its families, and the Matrite family was taken. And Saul the son of Kish was taken; but when they looked for him, he could not be found.
1SA 10:22 Therefore they inquired further of the Lord, "Has the man come here yet?" So the Lord said, "Behold, he is hiding himself by the baggage."
1SA 10:23 So they ran and took him from there, and when he stood among the people, he was taller than any of the people from his shoulders upward.
1SA 10:24 Samuel said to all the people, "Do you see him whom the Lord has chosen? Surely there is no one like him among all the people." So all the people shouted and said, "Long live the king!"
1SA 11:14 ¶ Then Samuel said to the people, "Come and let us go to Gilgal and renew the kingdom there."
1SA 11:15 So all the people went to Gilgal, and there they made Saul king before the Lord in Gilgal. There they also offered sacrifices of peace offerings before the Lord; and there Saul and all the men of Israel rejoiced greatly.
And for David, by the commandment of God, and in a manner more evident than the former, after the rejection of Saul, Samuel anointed for king over Israel, David, chosen by the Lord. (1 Sam. 16:13). After that, the Spirit of the Lord left Saul, and instead worked in a special manner in David. But David, despite all this, did not reign, but was compelled to save himself in deserts and rocks, often coming close to the very brink of destruction. In fact, he never reigned as king until after the death of Saul, for then by the acclamation of all the people of Judah, he was first chosen king of Judah, (2SA 2:4 Then the men of Judah came and there anointed David king over the house of Judah )." and seven years later by the consent of all Israel, he was inaugurated king of Israel in Hebron. So then, he is first anointed by the prophet at the commandment of God, as a token he was chosen.
Secondly, by the commandment of the people when he was established king. And so that kings may always remember that it is from God, but by the people, and for the people's sake that they reign, and that in their glory they don't say (as is their custom) they hold their kingdom only by God and their sword, but also add that it was the people who first gave them that sword. The same order offered in Solomon. Although he was the king's son, God had chosen Solomon to sit upon the throne of his kingdom, and by explicit words had promised David to be with him and assist him as a father his son. David had with his own mouth designated Solomon to be successor to his crown in the presence of some of the principal men of his court.
But this was not enough, and therefore David assembled at Jerusalem the princes of Israel, the heads of the tribes, the captains of the soldiers, and ordinance officers of the kings, the centurions and other magistrates of towns, together with his sons, the noblemen and worthiest personages of the kingdom, to consult and resolve upon the election. In this assembly, after they had called upon the name of God, Solomon, by the consent of the whole congregation, was proclaimed and anointed as king, and sat upon the throne of Israel. (1 Chr. 28-29)
1CH 28:1 Now David assembled at Jerusalem all the officials of Israel, the princes of the tribes, and the commanders of the divisions that served the king, and the commanders of thousands, and the commanders of hundreds, and the overseers of all the property and livestock belonging to the king and his sons, with the officials and the mighty men, even all the valiant men.
1CH 29:22 So they ate and drank that day before the Lord with great gladness. ¶ And they made Solomon the son of David king a second time, and they anointed him as ruler for the Lord and Zadok as priest.
Then, and not before, the princes, the noblemen, his brothers themselves do him homage, and take the oath of allegiance. And so that it may not be said that that was only done to avoid the disputes, which might arise amongst the brothers and sons of David about the succession, we read that the other following kings have, in the same manner, been established in their places. It is said, that after the death of Solomon, the people assembled to create his son Rehoboam king. (1 Ki. 12) After Amaziah was killed, (2 Chr. 25:25) Azariah, his only son, was chosen king by all the people, (2 Chr. 26:1) Ahaziah after Jehoram, Jehoahaz, the son of Josiah, after the decease of his father, whose piety might well seem to require that without any other solemnity, both he and the other were chosen and invested into the royal throne by the support of the people.
To which also belongs, that which Hushai said to Absolom: "Nay, but whom the Lord and His people, and all the men of Israel chose, his will I be, and with him will I abide" (2 Sam. 16:18). This is just like saying, "I will follow the king lawfully established, and according to the accustomed order." Thus, although God had promised to His people a perpetual lamp (that is, a king) and a continual successor of the line of David, and that the successor of the kings of this people were approved by the Word of God Himself, despite this, we see that the kings of Israel did not reign before the people had ordained and installed them with the necessary ceremonies. It may be concluded from this that the kingdom of Israel was not a hereditary monarchy, if we consider David and the promise made to him, and that it was wholly elective, if we regard the particular persons. But it is apparent that the election is only mentioned so that the kings might always remember that the people raised them to their high office, and therefore they should never forget during life what a strict bound of observance they are tied to with those from whom they have received all their greatness. We read that the kings of the heathen have been established also by the people; for when they had either troubles at home, or wars abroad, someone, in whose ready valor and discreet integrity the people did principally rely and rest their greatest confidence, him they presently, with universal consent, established as king.
I Samuel 8
Calvin began his sermon on 1 Samuel 8[x] by asserting that the people of Israel were, even at the last minute prior to electing a king, still free to change their minds aboutseeking a king. Then Samuel warned them that the king who will reign over them will take their sons for his own purposes and will cause much plundering and robbery. In this sermon, Calvin inferred from that circumstance that the Lord does not give kings the right to use their power to subject the people to tyranny. Indeed, when the liberty to resist tyranny seems to be taken away by princes who have taken over, one can justly ask this question: since kings and princes are bound by covenant to the people, to administer the law in truest equality, sincerity, and integrity; if they break faith and usurp tyrannical power by which they allow themselves everything they want: is it not possible for the people to consider together taking measures in order to remedy the evil?
Calvin acknowledged the complexity and unpopularity of that question. He was careful to distance himself from the Anabaptist[xi] revolutionaries (who went too far in agitating and overthrowing powers and authorities) of the day. Yet, he clung to the scriptural teaching, i.e., that God certainly punishes those who do not merit a good government by leading them into tyranny under bad princes.
He then distinguished between resistance to thieves and the situation of leaders and superior dignitaries to whom God wills the subjects to be obedient. Calvin preached that there are limits prescribed by God to their power, within which they ought to be satisfied: namely, to work for the common good and to govern and direct the people in truest fairness and justice; not to be puffed up with their own importance, but to remember that they also are subjects of God. Leaders were always to keep in mind the purpose (the glory of God) for which they had been providentially appointed.
Samuel, said Calvin, warned citizens about the royal domination they will have to bear, and that their necks will have to be patiently submitted to his yoke. Calvin inferred something very significant from this: that intervening magistrates, not citizens themselves, should seek to correct abuses and tyranny. His doctrine was that there are legitimate remedies against such tyranny, such as when there are other magistrates and official institutions to whom the care of the republic is committed, who will be able to restrict the prince to his proper authority so that if the prince attempts wrong action, they may hold him down. He counseled that, if the intervening magistrates did not free the people from tyranny, perhaps the people were being disciplined by Gods providence.
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Calvin exposed tyranny and recommended liberty as its antidote. He praised the great gift [of] liberty, and howkindly God deals with those peoples upon whom it is poured out, where the magistrates are submitted to his laws and undertake nothing by themselves, but govern affairs by reason and counsel, for which they will at length make returns.
This Genevan beacon, whose sermonic ideas later reached the shores of America, enumerated the ways kings abuse their power from the Samuel narrative, and he distinguished a tyrant from a legitimate prince in these words: a tyrant rules only by his own will and lust, whereas legitimate magistrates rule by counsel and by reason so as to determine how to bring about the greatest public welfare and benefit. The kings ministers or cabinet were judged by the same standard. Calvin decried the oppressive custom of magistrates taking part in the plundering to enrich themselves off the poor.
In this sermon, Calvin forewarned about the price associated with hierarchical government and warned that if political consequences resulted from poor political choices, perhaps that was an instance of Gods judging a nation. If the people persisted in rejecting good government, Calvin cautioned:
Neither did Calvin view Samuels Old Testament sermon as isolated in application. Rather, he maintained: This indeed is the outcome of all human plans which rest not on reason, but on impulse alone and on violent desires: immense unhappiness. . . . It is clear from this thatonce men have turned away from the right way, they make no end of sinning and are carried on to an even worse state, because they create destruction for themselves and are carried away, since they are ruled by the depraved counsels of their own passionate drives. Original sin in human beings led Calvin to call for appropriate safeguards: Since it is this way, we must use protective remedies and measures lest we be unexpectedly overwhelmed. Experience surely teaches that this people rushed to an ever worse condition, and erred more and more from the way of righteousness, and provoked vehemently the wrath of God against themselves from having willingly repudiated the counsel of God.
Other applicable bible verses supporting resistance include the following:
ACT 5:29 Then Peter and the other apostles answered and said, We ought to obey God rather than men.
DAN 3:16 Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, answered and said to the king, O Nebuchadnezzar, we are not careful to answer thee in this matter.
DAN 3:17 If it be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of thine hand, O king.
DAN 3:18 But if not, be it known unto thee, O king, that we will not serve thy gods, nor worship the golden image which thou hast set up.
DAN 6:10 Now when Daniel knew that the writing was signed, he went into his house; and his windows being open in his chamber toward Jerusalem, he kneeled upon his knees three times a day, and prayed, and gave thanks before his God, as he did aforetime.
Government being ordained by God should by obeyed
Calvin taught that Government was ordained by God for the good of the people and should be obeyed unless it required direct disobedience to God. If government became so ungodly that it needed to be overthrown Calvin taught that this was only to be permitted by lesser magistrates and not private individuals.
Applicable verses include the following:
ROM 13:1 Every person is to be in subjection to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those which exist are established by God.
ROM 13:2 Therefore whoever resists authority has opposed the ordinance of God; and they who have opposed will receive condemnation upon themselves.
ROM 13:3 For rulers are not a cause of fear for good behavior, but for evil. Do you want to have no fear of authority? Do what is good and you will have praise from the same;
ROM 13:4 for it is a minister of God to you for good. But if you do what is evil, be afraid; for it does not bear the sword for nothing; for it is a minister of God, an avenger who brings wrath on the one who practices evil.
Calvin taught that it was biblical to consider tyrannical rule to be from God and for people to pray and repent of their sins. God would then raise up godly magistrates who would lawfully resist the tyrant(s) and if God willing succeed.
Government is limited
Those same verses in Romans 13 were Calvins support for teaching the limitation of government. Calvin taught, as he had learned from Augustine, that government was limited to the constraints of Romans 13 which included, punish those who practice evil and praise those who do good. For these limited ordained functions we are to pay taxes, customs, fear, and honor. Therefore government was not ordained by God to infringe upon matters of private conscience and was never intended to regulate such. Calvin had read Augustine on this subject and he learned well. Augustine wrote in City of God:
But if the prince is unjust or a tyrant, or if the aristocrats are unjust (in which case their group is merely a faction), or if the people themselves are unjust (and must be called, for lack of a better word, a tyrant also), then the commonwealth is not merely bad but is no commonwealth at all. The reason for that is that there is no longer the welfare of the people, once a tyrant or faction seizes it.
Augustine is plainly teaching that government has its limits. This doctrine was later reemphasized in the Magana Carta and by Calvin in his Institutes. In Chapter 20:31 and 32 of The Institutes Calvin writes:
32: We are subject to the men who rule over us, but subject only in the Lord. If they command anything against Him let us not pay the least regard to it,..
31: Although, the Lord takes vengeance on unbridled domination, let us not therefore suppose that that that vengeance is committed to us, to whom no command has been given but to obey and suffer. I speak only of private men. For when popular magistrates have been appointed to curb the tyranny of kings So far am I from forbidding these officially to check the undue license of kings, that if they connive at kings they fraudulently betray the liberty of the people
Calvin also wrote in his Commentary on Romans:
Magistrates may hence learn what their vocation is, for they are not to rule for their own interest, but for the public good; nor are they endued with unbridled power, but what is restricted to the well-being of their subjects; in short, they are responsible to God and to men in the exercise of their power. For as they are deputed by God and do his business, they must give an account to him: and then the ministration which God has committed to them has a regard to the subjects, they are therefore debtors to them.
Presbyterian church government reflects a republic
The Presbyterian Church was for three-quarters of a century the sole representative upon the continent of republican government as now organized in the nation. (Address on, The Westminster Standards and the formation of the AmericanRepublic by Dr. W. H. Roberts)
The society of Christians who gathered in Geneva, Switzerland under the leadership of John Calvin were often called Presbyterians. Presby is Greek for elder and Calvin had established a church order after the order of the New Testament church with elected elders. Calvin also saw this church government portrayed in the Old Testament. The people elected elders to lead the church and these elders were also responsible to represent the people in the General Synod with all the other local congregations. The General Assembly was responsible for doctrine and the mission of the denomination at large.
In this ecclesiastical republic can be easily seen the beginnings of the American Republic.
The Presbyterian republican form of government is heavily reflected in the Westminster Confession of Faith (1640s) (WCF) which the Presbyterians used and still use as their Federalist Papers to their Constitution the Bible. In addition to providing republican church government the WCF also called for separation of Church and State.
A century later this reformed position of separation of Church and State became firmly implanted in the mind of James Madison. As a divinity student at Princeton, he studied the WCF closely. Madison was the chief architect of the U.S. Constitution, including the First Amendment, which states that our government shall not establish or prohibit the exercise of religion. The WCF contains and illuminates many of the ideals upon which our nation was established. Its influence during the formative years of our nation was vast.
Second only to the Bible, the Sorter Catechism (SC) of the WCF was the most widely published piece of literature in the pre-Revolutionary era in America. It is estimated that some five million copies were available in the colonies. With a total population of only four million people in America at the time of the Revolution that number is astonishing!
The SC was a central part of colonial education. In New England learning it was required by law. Each town employed an officer to visit homes and hear children recite the catechism. The primary schoolbook for children, the New England Primer, included the catechism.
This Genevan beacon, whose sermonic ideas later reached the shores of America, enumerated the ways kings abuse their power from the Samuel narrative, and he distinguished a tyrant from a legitimate prince in these words: a tyrant rules only by his own will and lust, whereas legitimate magistrates rule by counsel and by reason so as to determine how to bring about the greatest public welfare and benefit. The kings ministers or cabinet were judged by the same standard. Calvin decried the oppressive custom of magistrates taking part in the plundering to enrich themselves off the poor.
In this sermon, Calvin forewarned about the price associated with hierarchical government and warned that if political consequences resulted from poor political choices, perhaps that was an instance of Gods judging a nation. If the people persisted in rejecting good government, Calvin cautioned:
God can in his own just judgment make us blind and let us crash downwards, when we indulge our depraved and foolish desires beyond reason. . . . For it is generally the case that when we reach the stage of impudence where we prefer to follow what our own reason and lust have dictated, we will never be dissuaded from our intention by any amount of reasons, not even if we are gazing upon death itself. Such is the obstinacy of the human mind that it yields to no amount of reasoning, but with greatest arrogance sticks to its own opinion.
Neither did Calvin view Samuels Old Testament sermon as isolated in application. Rather, he maintained: This indeed is the outcome of all human plans which rest not on reason, but on impulse alone and on violent desires: immense unhappiness. . . . It is clear from this thatonce men have turned away from the right way, they make no end of sinning and are carried on to an even worse state, because they create destruction for themselves and are carried away, since they are ruled by the depraved counsels of their own passionate drives. Original sin in human beings led Calvin to call for appropriate safeguards: Since it is this way, we must use protective remedies and measures lest we be unexpectedly overwhelmed. Experience surely teaches that this people rushed to an ever worse condition, and erred more and more from the way of righteousness, and provoked vehemently the wrath of God against themselves from having willingly repudiated the counsel of God.
Other applicable bible verses supporting resistance include the following:
ACT 5:29 Then Peter and the other apostles answered and said, We ought to obey God rather than men.
DAN 3:16 Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, answered and said to the king, O Nebuchadnezzar, we are not careful to answer thee in this matter.
DAN 3:17 If it be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of thine hand, O king.
DAN 3:18 But if not, be it known unto thee, O king, that we will not serve thy gods, nor worship the golden image which thou hast set up.
DAN 6:10 Now when Daniel knew that the writing was signed, he went into his house; and his windows being open in his chamber toward Jerusalem, he kneeled upon his knees three times a day, and prayed, and gave thanks before his God, as he did aforetime.
Government being ordained by God should by obeyed
Calvin taught that Government was ordained by God for the good of the people and should be obeyed unless it required direct disobedience to God. If government became so ungodly that it needed to be overthrown Calvin taught that this was only to be permitted by lesser magistrates and not private individuals.
Applicable verses include the following:
ROM 13:1 Every person is to be in subjection to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those which exist are established by God.
ROM 13:2 Therefore whoever resists authority has opposed the ordinance of God; and they who have opposed will receive condemnation upon themselves.
ROM 13:3 For rulers are not a cause of fear for good behavior, but for evil. Do you want to have no fear of authority? Do what is good and you will have praise from the same;
ROM 13:4 for it is a minister of God to you for good. But if you do what is evil, be afraid; for it does not bear the sword for nothing; for it is a minister of God, an avenger who brings wrath on the one who practices evil.
Calvin taught that it was biblical to consider tyrannical rule to be from God and for people to pray and repent of their sins. God would then raise up godly magistrates who would lawfully resist the tyrant(s) and if God willing succeed.
Government is limited
Those same verses in Romans 13 were Calvins support for teaching the limitation of government. Calvin taught, as he had learned from Augustine, that government was limited to the constraints of Romans 13 which included, punish those who practice evil and praise those who do good. For these limited ordained functions we are to pay taxes, customs, fear, and honor. Therefore government was not ordained by God to infringe upon matters of private conscience and was never intended to regulate such. Calvin had read Augustine on this subject and he learned well. Augustine wrote in City of God:
But if the prince is unjust or a tyrant, or if the aristocrats are unjust (in which case their group is merely a faction), or if the people themselves are unjust (and must be called, for lack of a better word, a tyrant also), then the commonwealth is not merely bad but is no commonwealth at all. The reason for that is that there is no longer the welfare of the people, once a tyrant or faction seizes it.
Augustine is plainly teaching that government has its limits. This doctrine was later reemphasized in the Magana Carta and by Calvin in his Institutes. In Chapter 20:31 and 32 of The Institutes Calvin writes:
32: We are subject to the men who rule over us, but subject only in the Lord. If they command anything against Him let us not pay the least regard to it,..
31: Although, the Lord takes vengeance on unbridled domination, let us not therefore suppose that that that vengeance is committed to us, to whom no command has been given but to obey and suffer. I speak only of private men. For when popular magistrates have been appointed to curb the tyranny of kings So far am I from forbidding these officially to check the undue license of kings, that if they connive at kings they fraudulently betray the liberty of the people
Calvin also wrote in his Commentary on Romans:
Magistrates may hence learn what their vocation is, for they are not to rule for their own interest, but for the public good; nor are they endued with unbridled power, but what is restricted to the well-being of their subjects; in short, they are responsible to God and to men in the exercise of their power. For as they are deputed by God and do his business, they must give an account to him: and then the ministration which God has committed to them has a regard to the subjects, they are therefore debtors to them.
Presbyterian church government reflects a republic
The Presbyterian Church was for three-quarters of a century the sole representative upon the continent of republican government as now organized in the nation. (Address on, The Westminster Standards and the formation of the AmericanRepublic by Dr. W. H. Roberts)
The society of Christians who gathered in Geneva, Switzerland under the leadership of John Calvin were often called Presbyterians. Presby is Greek for elder and Calvin had established a church order after the order of the New Testament church with elected elders. Calvin also saw this church government portrayed in the Old Testament. The people elected elders to lead the church and these elders were also responsible to represent the people in the General Synod with all the other local congregations. The General Assembly was responsible for doctrine and the mission of the denomination at large.
In this ecclesiastical republic can be easily seen the beginnings of the American Republic.
The Presbyterian republican form of government is heavily reflected in the Westminster Confession of Faith (1640s) (WCF) which the Presbyterians used and still use as their Federalist Papers to their Constitution the Bible. In addition to providing republican church government the WCF also called for separation of Church and State.
A century later this reformed position of separation of Church and State became firmly implanted in the mind of James Madison. As a divinity student at Princeton, he studied the WCF closely. Madison was the chief architect of the U.S. Constitution, including the First Amendment, which states that our government shall not establish or prohibit the exercise of religion. The WCF contains and illuminates many of the ideals upon which our nation was established. Its influence during the formative years of our nation was vast.
Second only to the Bible, the Sorter Catechism (SC) of the WCF was the most widely published piece of literature in the pre-Revolutionary era in America. It is estimated that some five million copies were available in the colonies. With a total population of only four million people in America at the time of the Revolution that number is astonishing!
The SC was a central part of colonial education. In New England learning it was required by law. Each town employed an officer to visit homes and hear children recite the catechism. The primary schoolbook for children, the New England Primer, included the catechism.
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Assent to the WCF was an admission requirement at Harvard, Yale and Princeton. Daily recitations of it were required at these schools. The curriculum included memorization of the WCF and the Westminster Larger Catechism (LC). There was not a person at Independence Hall in 1776 who had not been exposed to the WCF and its two catechisms.
In its first fifty years, the WCF went through forty separate printed editions, its impact was immense. Benjamin Franklin, who became very wealthy through the printing press, owed much of his success to the sale of his 1745 edition of the WCF. Massachusetts and Connecticut adopted the WCF as their official statement of faith. Although slightly altered and called by different names, it became the basic statement of faith for Congregationalist, Baptist, and Presbyterian churches throughout the English-speaking world.
The Westminster Assembly, unapproved by the king, became the working model for the unapproved assemblies held throughout the colonies in the eighteenth century. The Continental Congress in particular followed its pattern. Even the format of many colonial positions statements, including the U.S. Constitution, resembles the Westminster Confessions organization into chapters and articles.
Republican Form of Government
In his comments on Genesis 49, Calvin noted: In order to make the distinction between a legitimate government and tyranny, I acknowledge that counselors were joined with the king, who should administer public affairs in a just and orderly manner.[xii]
Exodus 18
As clearly as any of his writings, Calvins commentary on Exodus 18 exhibits his appreciation of the Hebrew contributions to republicanism.[xiii] From the earliest human history until Moses day, patriarchs or elders governed small social units. As time and culture progressed, and as human leaders began to aspire to higher levels of power, the earliest nations came into existence. These early nations adopted a convention that both has value and also contains great potential for abuse: monarchy. Algernon Sidney suggested that Nimrod[xiv] was the first monarch, beginning a tradition of violence and arrogance. In between Nimrod and Moses, the notion of a republic vanished or seemed unknown. The donation of a republican structure to the world would await divine revelation through a non-Israeli, Moses father-in-law, Jethro. Calvin realized that, prior to Moses, most governments were either small tribal units or monarchies. Egyptian culture saw monarch follow monarch in dynastic succession. The great PharaohsRameses, Thutmoses, and Tutankhamenwere authoritarian monarchs, pure and simple. In the half-century preceding Moses, there were no senates, councils, nor other checking branches of government. Absolute power was located in the monarch, both in the Middle East and the Far East.
All that the people of Israel had known was the monarchical design of government. They had no other patterns or notions about government except the extant hierarchical forms. Other schemes were forgotten, unknown, or at least not practiced nearby. Thus, the republican-type plan suggested by Jethro appears as an innovation that did not originate in the mind of man, thought Calvin.
Jethro informed Moses that acting as the sole ruler, even though well intentioned, was not right. He eventually convinced Moses to be the peoples representative before God and bring their disputes to him. He was also to recruit other capable leaders who hated dishonest gain, and appoint them as officials over thousands, hundreds, fifties, and tens. Have them serve as judges for the people at all times, but have them bring every difficult case to you; the simple cases they can decide themselves. . . . If you do this and God so commands, you will be able to stand the strain, and all these people will go home satisfied.[xv]
Rather than instituting either a democracy or a monarchy, the people of Moses favored a plurality of prudent representative leaders who were to have wisdom, the fear of the Lord, trustworthiness, and a hatred of graft (Exodus 18:21).[xvi] In place of the predominating monarchical pattern of the time, Moses instituted a graduated series of administrations with greater and lesser magistrates. This early republican pattern permitted problems to be handled first by those closest to the issues. Then, if the results were not satisfactory, the problems were referred to the next level of administration (that is, were appealed). This federal structure preserved a blend of grass-rooted ness while also preserving civic unity. Calvin asserted that the earliest Hebrew republican form of government devolved from the mind of God long before the Golden Age of Greco-Roman governance, the Enlightenment, or modern revolutions.
In its first fifty years, the WCF went through forty separate printed editions, its impact was immense. Benjamin Franklin, who became very wealthy through the printing press, owed much of his success to the sale of his 1745 edition of the WCF. Massachusetts and Connecticut adopted the WCF as their official statement of faith. Although slightly altered and called by different names, it became the basic statement of faith for Congregationalist, Baptist, and Presbyterian churches throughout the English-speaking world.
The Westminster Assembly, unapproved by the king, became the working model for the unapproved assemblies held throughout the colonies in the eighteenth century. The Continental Congress in particular followed its pattern. Even the format of many colonial positions statements, including the U.S. Constitution, resembles the Westminster Confessions organization into chapters and articles.
Republican Form of Government
In his comments on Genesis 49, Calvin noted: In order to make the distinction between a legitimate government and tyranny, I acknowledge that counselors were joined with the king, who should administer public affairs in a just and orderly manner.[xii]
Exodus 18
As clearly as any of his writings, Calvins commentary on Exodus 18 exhibits his appreciation of the Hebrew contributions to republicanism.[xiii] From the earliest human history until Moses day, patriarchs or elders governed small social units. As time and culture progressed, and as human leaders began to aspire to higher levels of power, the earliest nations came into existence. These early nations adopted a convention that both has value and also contains great potential for abuse: monarchy. Algernon Sidney suggested that Nimrod[xiv] was the first monarch, beginning a tradition of violence and arrogance. In between Nimrod and Moses, the notion of a republic vanished or seemed unknown. The donation of a republican structure to the world would await divine revelation through a non-Israeli, Moses father-in-law, Jethro. Calvin realized that, prior to Moses, most governments were either small tribal units or monarchies. Egyptian culture saw monarch follow monarch in dynastic succession. The great PharaohsRameses, Thutmoses, and Tutankhamenwere authoritarian monarchs, pure and simple. In the half-century preceding Moses, there were no senates, councils, nor other checking branches of government. Absolute power was located in the monarch, both in the Middle East and the Far East.
All that the people of Israel had known was the monarchical design of government. They had no other patterns or notions about government except the extant hierarchical forms. Other schemes were forgotten, unknown, or at least not practiced nearby. Thus, the republican-type plan suggested by Jethro appears as an innovation that did not originate in the mind of man, thought Calvin.
Jethro informed Moses that acting as the sole ruler, even though well intentioned, was not right. He eventually convinced Moses to be the peoples representative before God and bring their disputes to him. He was also to recruit other capable leaders who hated dishonest gain, and appoint them as officials over thousands, hundreds, fifties, and tens. Have them serve as judges for the people at all times, but have them bring every difficult case to you; the simple cases they can decide themselves. . . . If you do this and God so commands, you will be able to stand the strain, and all these people will go home satisfied.[xv]
Rather than instituting either a democracy or a monarchy, the people of Moses favored a plurality of prudent representative leaders who were to have wisdom, the fear of the Lord, trustworthiness, and a hatred of graft (Exodus 18:21).[xvi] In place of the predominating monarchical pattern of the time, Moses instituted a graduated series of administrations with greater and lesser magistrates. This early republican pattern permitted problems to be handled first by those closest to the issues. Then, if the results were not satisfactory, the problems were referred to the next level of administration (that is, were appealed). This federal structure preserved a blend of grass-rooted ness while also preserving civic unity. Calvin asserted that the earliest Hebrew republican form of government devolved from the mind of God long before the Golden Age of Greco-Roman governance, the Enlightenment, or modern revolutions.
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In fact, a sermon preached in 1788 had the ratification of the U.S. Constitution in mind: The Republic of the Israelites An Example to the American States by Samuel Langdon. Langdon was prominent in securing the adoption of the Constitution as a delegate to the New Hampshire state convention in 1788. Also, Thomas Hooker, founder of Connecticut, in his sermon to the General Court, May 31, 1638, said, "The foundation of authority is laid in the free consent of the people...the choice of public magistrates belongs unto the people by God's own allowance...they who have power to appoint officers and magistrates have the right also to set the bounds and limitations of the power and place unto which they call them."
The plan adopted in Exodus 18 seemed, to Calvin and his followers, to be republicanism. Other commentators, ranging from Aquinas and Machiavellian to Althusius and Ponet, viewed Jethros advice as a pristine example of federalism or republicanism. Commenting on a similar passage in Deuteronomy 1:14-16, Calvin stated: Hence it more plainly appears that those who were to preside in judgment were not appointed only by the will of Moses, but elected by the votes of the people. And this is the most desirable kind of liberty, that we should not be compelled to obey every person who may be tyrannically put over our heads; but which allows of election, so that no one should rule except he be approved by us. And this is further confirmed in the next verse, wherein Moses recounts that he awaited the consent of the people, and that nothing was attempted which did not please them all. Thus, Calvin viewed Exodus 18 as a representative republican form.[xvii]
Later, Calvinist Johannes Althusius (1557-1638) agreed, writing: I consider that no polity from the beginning of the world has been more wisely and perfectly constructed than the polity of the Jews. We err, I believe, whenever in similar circumstances we depart from it. Part of what he believed was unimprovable was an early form of republican-federal government. As Doumergue noted, Calvin was the founder of stable and powerful democracies, a defender not of egalitarianism, but of equality before the law.[xviii] Whether Calvin was the founder of modern democracy or not, as Doumergue suggested, his sermons on these passages from the Pentateuch illustrated Gods inestimable gift to the Jewish commonwealth, specifically the freedom to elect judges and magistrates.
A century after Calvin, Samuel Rutherford used this same Mosaic pattern in his 1644 Lex Rex to argue for a republican or at least an anti-monarchical form of civil polity. Indeed, most of the Reformation era political tracts (e.g., by Calvin, Beza, Bucer, Knox, Buchanan, Ponet, Althusius, etc.) devoted extensive commentary to the Old Testament patterns of government. These reformers viewed Old Testament precedents as applicable to the politics of their own settings, and these same ideas were drawn upon later by an American tradition that nourished its founders.
Constitutionalism
For as Scripture teaches us, a well-constituted republic is a singular benefit of God, while on the other hand, a disordered state with wicked rulers and perverters of law is a sign of divine wrath against us Thus even though the world today is inundated with a flood of impiety and iniquity, let us not wonder if we see so much plundering and robbery of people everywhere, and kings and princes thinking they deserve everything they want, simply because no one opposes them. (Calvins Sermon XXIX on 1 Samuel 8:11-22.)
1SA 10:25 ¶ Then Samuel told the people the ordinances of the kingdom, and wrote them in the book and placed it before the Lord. And Samuel sent all the people away, each one to his house.
Calvin taught that this scripture revealed an excellent example of a Constitutional form of government. This form of government was revealed from heaven as a government of laws and not men. This was a model from which Calvin, the Reformers, the Puritans, the Separatists and our Founding Fathers used to model church and civil governments, in that exact historical and political order. Other related Constitutional scriptural model verses included:
DEU 17:18 ¶ "Now it shall come about when he sits on the throne of his kingdom, he shall write for himself a copy of this law on a scroll in the presence of the Levitical priests.
DEU 17:19 "It shall be with him and he shall read it all the days of his life, that he may learn to fear the Lord his God, by carefully observing all the words of this law and these statutes,
DEU 17:20 that his heart may not be lifted up above his countrymen and that he may not turn aside from the commandment, to the right or the left, so that he and his sons may continue long in his kingdom in the midst of Israel.
DEU 31:26 "Take this book of the law and place it beside the ark of the covenant of the Lord your God, that it may remain there as a witness against you.
JOS 1:1 Now it came about after the death of Moses the servant of the Lord, that the Lord spoke to Joshua the son of Nun, Moses' servant, saying,
JOS 1:7 "Only be strong and very courageous; be careful to do according to all the law which Moses My servant commanded you; do not turn from it to the right or to the left, so that you may have success wherever you go.
JOS 1:8 "This book of the law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it; for then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have success.
These constitutional evidences were directly opposed to monarchy as Calvin explains in his sermons on II Samuel. In Sermon XIV, he states, concerning Davids many wives: Beyond the fact that he committed adultery for its own sake, was the customary attitude of princes that they ought to be privileged to do wrong above everyone else. Sermon XVIII says, Pride blinds [princes] so totally that they think they ought to be put in the rank of God.
The law was separate branch of government as a check on rulers. This is the origin of separation of powers.
To the Puritans, all of Gods dealings with humanity occurred through covenants. The first covenant was Gods covenant with nature, reaching back to the beginning of time at which each participant was expected to do certain things. Those expectations had the force of law and, if broken, entailed certain consequences. A covenant created a binding relationship between the contracting parties that passed from generation to generation.
The early New England constitutions were covenants, as described in the preceding section Rulers rule by the consent and free election of the ruled. These covenants clearly foreshadowed the United States Constitution, starting with the Mayflower Compact, then Winthrops Massachusetts, and Hookers Connecticut
Man is depraved and cannot be trusted
This basic Christian truth is closely related to the prior necessity of Constitutional government. Government and laws must be founded on laws and not the whims of man that change as often as the weather. The reason is man is basically evil and must be entirely born again before he can begin to do good, and even then he will continue to sin even when he doesnt want to sin. This is the T in the Calvinistic Tulip which stands for Total Depravity.
The scriptural truths are taught in the following verses:
ROM 3:12 All have turned aside, together they have become useless; There is none who does good, There is not even one."
PSA 53:2 God has looked down from heaven upon the sons of men To see if there is anyone who understands, Who seeks after God.
PSA 53:3 Every one of them has turned aside; together they have become corrupt; There is no one who does good, not even one.
ROM 7:19 For the good that I want, I do not do, but I practice the very evil that I do not want.
ROM 7:20 But if I am doing the very thing I do not want, I am no longer the one doing it, but sin which dwells in me.
ROM 7:21 ¶ I find then the principle that evil is present in me, the one who wants to do good.
ROM 7:23 but I see a different law in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin which is in my members.
ROM 7:24 Wretched man that I am! Who will set me free from the body of this death?
For this reason man cannot be left alone to be trusted in civil government. As our Founders taught, man must be checked in government with counter balancing forces. This doctrine is the reason why our Founders designed checks and balances. Only the Lord could function in all three branches of government unchecked;
ISA 33:22 For the Lord is our judge, The Lord is our lawgiver, The Lord is our king; He will save us
The inviolability of private property
Calvin of course taught biblical principles which included hard work, private ownership of property
EXO 20:15 ¶ "You shall not steal.
DEU 5:19 ¶ 'You shall not steal.
GEN 36:7 For their property had become too great for them to live together, and the land where they sojourned could not sustain them because of their livestock.
GEN 47:27 ¶ Now Israel lived in the land of Egypt, in Goshen, and they acquired property in it and were fruitful and became very numerous.
LEV 25:13 ¶ 'On this year of jubilee each of you shall return to his own property.
LEV 25:25 ¶ 'If a fellow countryman of yours becomes so poor he has to sell part of his property, then his nearest kinsman is to come and buy back what his relative has sold.
The plan adopted in Exodus 18 seemed, to Calvin and his followers, to be republicanism. Other commentators, ranging from Aquinas and Machiavellian to Althusius and Ponet, viewed Jethros advice as a pristine example of federalism or republicanism. Commenting on a similar passage in Deuteronomy 1:14-16, Calvin stated: Hence it more plainly appears that those who were to preside in judgment were not appointed only by the will of Moses, but elected by the votes of the people. And this is the most desirable kind of liberty, that we should not be compelled to obey every person who may be tyrannically put over our heads; but which allows of election, so that no one should rule except he be approved by us. And this is further confirmed in the next verse, wherein Moses recounts that he awaited the consent of the people, and that nothing was attempted which did not please them all. Thus, Calvin viewed Exodus 18 as a representative republican form.[xvii]
Later, Calvinist Johannes Althusius (1557-1638) agreed, writing: I consider that no polity from the beginning of the world has been more wisely and perfectly constructed than the polity of the Jews. We err, I believe, whenever in similar circumstances we depart from it. Part of what he believed was unimprovable was an early form of republican-federal government. As Doumergue noted, Calvin was the founder of stable and powerful democracies, a defender not of egalitarianism, but of equality before the law.[xviii] Whether Calvin was the founder of modern democracy or not, as Doumergue suggested, his sermons on these passages from the Pentateuch illustrated Gods inestimable gift to the Jewish commonwealth, specifically the freedom to elect judges and magistrates.
A century after Calvin, Samuel Rutherford used this same Mosaic pattern in his 1644 Lex Rex to argue for a republican or at least an anti-monarchical form of civil polity. Indeed, most of the Reformation era political tracts (e.g., by Calvin, Beza, Bucer, Knox, Buchanan, Ponet, Althusius, etc.) devoted extensive commentary to the Old Testament patterns of government. These reformers viewed Old Testament precedents as applicable to the politics of their own settings, and these same ideas were drawn upon later by an American tradition that nourished its founders.
Constitutionalism
For as Scripture teaches us, a well-constituted republic is a singular benefit of God, while on the other hand, a disordered state with wicked rulers and perverters of law is a sign of divine wrath against us Thus even though the world today is inundated with a flood of impiety and iniquity, let us not wonder if we see so much plundering and robbery of people everywhere, and kings and princes thinking they deserve everything they want, simply because no one opposes them. (Calvins Sermon XXIX on 1 Samuel 8:11-22.)
1SA 10:25 ¶ Then Samuel told the people the ordinances of the kingdom, and wrote them in the book and placed it before the Lord. And Samuel sent all the people away, each one to his house.
Calvin taught that this scripture revealed an excellent example of a Constitutional form of government. This form of government was revealed from heaven as a government of laws and not men. This was a model from which Calvin, the Reformers, the Puritans, the Separatists and our Founding Fathers used to model church and civil governments, in that exact historical and political order. Other related Constitutional scriptural model verses included:
DEU 17:18 ¶ "Now it shall come about when he sits on the throne of his kingdom, he shall write for himself a copy of this law on a scroll in the presence of the Levitical priests.
DEU 17:19 "It shall be with him and he shall read it all the days of his life, that he may learn to fear the Lord his God, by carefully observing all the words of this law and these statutes,
DEU 17:20 that his heart may not be lifted up above his countrymen and that he may not turn aside from the commandment, to the right or the left, so that he and his sons may continue long in his kingdom in the midst of Israel.
DEU 31:26 "Take this book of the law and place it beside the ark of the covenant of the Lord your God, that it may remain there as a witness against you.
JOS 1:1 Now it came about after the death of Moses the servant of the Lord, that the Lord spoke to Joshua the son of Nun, Moses' servant, saying,
JOS 1:7 "Only be strong and very courageous; be careful to do according to all the law which Moses My servant commanded you; do not turn from it to the right or to the left, so that you may have success wherever you go.
JOS 1:8 "This book of the law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it; for then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have success.
These constitutional evidences were directly opposed to monarchy as Calvin explains in his sermons on II Samuel. In Sermon XIV, he states, concerning Davids many wives: Beyond the fact that he committed adultery for its own sake, was the customary attitude of princes that they ought to be privileged to do wrong above everyone else. Sermon XVIII says, Pride blinds [princes] so totally that they think they ought to be put in the rank of God.
The law was separate branch of government as a check on rulers. This is the origin of separation of powers.
To the Puritans, all of Gods dealings with humanity occurred through covenants. The first covenant was Gods covenant with nature, reaching back to the beginning of time at which each participant was expected to do certain things. Those expectations had the force of law and, if broken, entailed certain consequences. A covenant created a binding relationship between the contracting parties that passed from generation to generation.
The early New England constitutions were covenants, as described in the preceding section Rulers rule by the consent and free election of the ruled. These covenants clearly foreshadowed the United States Constitution, starting with the Mayflower Compact, then Winthrops Massachusetts, and Hookers Connecticut
Man is depraved and cannot be trusted
This basic Christian truth is closely related to the prior necessity of Constitutional government. Government and laws must be founded on laws and not the whims of man that change as often as the weather. The reason is man is basically evil and must be entirely born again before he can begin to do good, and even then he will continue to sin even when he doesnt want to sin. This is the T in the Calvinistic Tulip which stands for Total Depravity.
The scriptural truths are taught in the following verses:
ROM 3:12 All have turned aside, together they have become useless; There is none who does good, There is not even one."
PSA 53:2 God has looked down from heaven upon the sons of men To see if there is anyone who understands, Who seeks after God.
PSA 53:3 Every one of them has turned aside; together they have become corrupt; There is no one who does good, not even one.
ROM 7:19 For the good that I want, I do not do, but I practice the very evil that I do not want.
ROM 7:20 But if I am doing the very thing I do not want, I am no longer the one doing it, but sin which dwells in me.
ROM 7:21 ¶ I find then the principle that evil is present in me, the one who wants to do good.
ROM 7:23 but I see a different law in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin which is in my members.
ROM 7:24 Wretched man that I am! Who will set me free from the body of this death?
For this reason man cannot be left alone to be trusted in civil government. As our Founders taught, man must be checked in government with counter balancing forces. This doctrine is the reason why our Founders designed checks and balances. Only the Lord could function in all three branches of government unchecked;
ISA 33:22 For the Lord is our judge, The Lord is our lawgiver, The Lord is our king; He will save us
The inviolability of private property
Calvin of course taught biblical principles which included hard work, private ownership of property
EXO 20:15 ¶ "You shall not steal.
DEU 5:19 ¶ 'You shall not steal.
GEN 36:7 For their property had become too great for them to live together, and the land where they sojourned could not sustain them because of their livestock.
GEN 47:27 ¶ Now Israel lived in the land of Egypt, in Goshen, and they acquired property in it and were fruitful and became very numerous.
LEV 25:13 ¶ 'On this year of jubilee each of you shall return to his own property.
LEV 25:25 ¶ 'If a fellow countryman of yours becomes so poor he has to sell part of his property, then his nearest kinsman is to come and buy back what his relative has sold.
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The Lord encouraged hard work and private property and the inviolability of that property. It is against Gods laws for man or government to take away private property. That is stealing.
2TH 3:10 For even when we were with you, this we commanded you, that if any would not work, neither should he eat.
In his first edition of The Institutes, Calvin commented on taxation: Taxes are not so much private revenues as the treasury of the whole people, or rather the blood of the people and aids of public necessity; to burden the people with which without cause would be tyrannical rapacity. Cited in Collected Papers of Herbert D. Foster (privately printed, 1929), 70.
http://www.christianforums.com/newreply.php?do=newreply&p=7847563#_ednref1 See David W. Hall, Savior or Servant?: Putting Government in Its Place (Oak Ridge, TN: Kuyper Institute, 1996), ii.
[ii] Alice M. Baldwin, The New England Clergy and the American Revolution (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1928), 134.
[iii]John Calvin, Harmony of Moses (Edinburgh: Calvin Translation Society, 1843-59), vol. 3, 154.
[iv] John Calvin, Calvins Commentary on Micah (Grand Rapids: Baker Bookhouse, 1979), vol. xiv, 309-310.
[v] John Calvin, Calvins Commentary on Acts (Grand Rapids: Baker Bookhouse, 1979), vol. xviii, 233.
[vi]John Calvin, Harmony of Moses (Edinburgh: Calvin Translation Society, 1843-59), vol. 3, 154.
[vii] Philip E. Hughes, ed., The Register of the Company of Pastors in the Time of Calvin (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1966), 7.
[viii]See John T. McNeill, Calvin and Civil Government, in Donald McKim, ed., Readings in Calvins Theology (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1984), 272.
[ix] Harro Hopfl, The Christian Polity of John Calvin (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982), 112, 162, 164, 165, 166.
[x] Quotations in this section are from the translation of Calvins Sermon on 1 Samuel 8 by Douglas Kelly. Copyright: Calvin Studies Colloquium (Davidson, NC: Davidson College Presbyterian Church, 1982), Charles Raynal and John Leith, eds. Used with permission.
[xi] The Anabaptists of Calvins and Luthers time were frequently associated with an anti-intellectual bent. They were not the spiritual parents of Baptists but were more organically related to Quakers, Mennonites, and some Pentecostals. They initially embarrassed the Protestant movement with their fanatical Peasants Rebellion in Germany in 1525. Luther and Calvin were both overtly critical of this movement.
[xii] Harro Hopfl, The Christian Polity of John Calvin (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982), 162.
[xiii] See Daniel Elazar, Covenant and Polity in Biblical Israel (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 1998), vol. 1, 437-447 for a full treatment of the progressive and enduring features of the early Israeli republic.
[xiv] Even rior to Algernon Sidney, Lambert Daneau called Nimrod, a character from Genesis 10, the first true monarch.
[xv] Exodus 18:17-25.
[xvi] For an example of early American exposition on the character needed for office holders, complete with a discussion similar to Calvins on this Exodus passage, see Simeon Howards 1780 Election Sermon (forthcoming, Sermons for Election Days, David W. Hall, ed. (Oak Ridge, TN: Kuyper Institute, 2002). Charles Chauncy addressed the requisite character of civil rulers in his 1747 election day sermon (contained in Election Day Sermons [Oak Ridge, TN: Kuyper Institute, 1996], 143-168. T. H. Breen provides one of the most thorough studies of American expectations for civil rulers in The Character of the Good Ruler: A Study of Puritan Political Ideas in New England, 1630-1730 (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1970).
[xvii] For more support, see my Government by Moses and One Greater Than Moses, Election Day Sermons (Oak Ridge, TN: Kuyper Institute, 1996).
[xviii] Cited by Ralph C. Hancock, Calvin and the Foundation of Modern Politics (Ithaca: Cornell University Press), 1989, 66.
See also Kelly's "The Emergence of Liberty in the Modern World" and David Hall's new book "The Genevan Reformation and the American Founding."
2TH 3:10 For even when we were with you, this we commanded you, that if any would not work, neither should he eat.
In his first edition of The Institutes, Calvin commented on taxation: Taxes are not so much private revenues as the treasury of the whole people, or rather the blood of the people and aids of public necessity; to burden the people with which without cause would be tyrannical rapacity. Cited in Collected Papers of Herbert D. Foster (privately printed, 1929), 70.
http://www.christianforums.com/newreply.php?do=newreply&p=7847563#_ednref1 See David W. Hall, Savior or Servant?: Putting Government in Its Place (Oak Ridge, TN: Kuyper Institute, 1996), ii.
[ii] Alice M. Baldwin, The New England Clergy and the American Revolution (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1928), 134.
[iii]John Calvin, Harmony of Moses (Edinburgh: Calvin Translation Society, 1843-59), vol. 3, 154.
[iv] John Calvin, Calvins Commentary on Micah (Grand Rapids: Baker Bookhouse, 1979), vol. xiv, 309-310.
[v] John Calvin, Calvins Commentary on Acts (Grand Rapids: Baker Bookhouse, 1979), vol. xviii, 233.
[vi]John Calvin, Harmony of Moses (Edinburgh: Calvin Translation Society, 1843-59), vol. 3, 154.
[vii] Philip E. Hughes, ed., The Register of the Company of Pastors in the Time of Calvin (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1966), 7.
[viii]See John T. McNeill, Calvin and Civil Government, in Donald McKim, ed., Readings in Calvins Theology (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1984), 272.
[ix] Harro Hopfl, The Christian Polity of John Calvin (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982), 112, 162, 164, 165, 166.
[x] Quotations in this section are from the translation of Calvins Sermon on 1 Samuel 8 by Douglas Kelly. Copyright: Calvin Studies Colloquium (Davidson, NC: Davidson College Presbyterian Church, 1982), Charles Raynal and John Leith, eds. Used with permission.
[xi] The Anabaptists of Calvins and Luthers time were frequently associated with an anti-intellectual bent. They were not the spiritual parents of Baptists but were more organically related to Quakers, Mennonites, and some Pentecostals. They initially embarrassed the Protestant movement with their fanatical Peasants Rebellion in Germany in 1525. Luther and Calvin were both overtly critical of this movement.
[xii] Harro Hopfl, The Christian Polity of John Calvin (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982), 162.
[xiii] See Daniel Elazar, Covenant and Polity in Biblical Israel (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 1998), vol. 1, 437-447 for a full treatment of the progressive and enduring features of the early Israeli republic.
[xiv] Even rior to Algernon Sidney, Lambert Daneau called Nimrod, a character from Genesis 10, the first true monarch.
[xv] Exodus 18:17-25.
[xvi] For an example of early American exposition on the character needed for office holders, complete with a discussion similar to Calvins on this Exodus passage, see Simeon Howards 1780 Election Sermon (forthcoming, Sermons for Election Days, David W. Hall, ed. (Oak Ridge, TN: Kuyper Institute, 2002). Charles Chauncy addressed the requisite character of civil rulers in his 1747 election day sermon (contained in Election Day Sermons [Oak Ridge, TN: Kuyper Institute, 1996], 143-168. T. H. Breen provides one of the most thorough studies of American expectations for civil rulers in The Character of the Good Ruler: A Study of Puritan Political Ideas in New England, 1630-1730 (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1970).
[xvii] For more support, see my Government by Moses and One Greater Than Moses, Election Day Sermons (Oak Ridge, TN: Kuyper Institute, 1996).
[xviii] Cited by Ralph C. Hancock, Calvin and the Foundation of Modern Politics (Ithaca: Cornell University Press), 1989, 66.
See also Kelly's "The Emergence of Liberty in the Modern World" and David Hall's new book "The Genevan Reformation and the American Founding."
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Excellent paper, Cal, thanks for sharing!
There are now 7? or so Presbyterian denominations now in the US, but there is still 1 United States. Certainly that is one of the outcomes of the American Civil War. If South Carolina and the southern states had successfully seceeded, could we have as many nations comprising America today?
There are now 7? or so Presbyterian denominations now in the US, but there is still 1 United States. Certainly that is one of the outcomes of the American Civil War. If South Carolina and the southern states had successfully seceeded, could we have as many nations comprising America today?
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