Samuel Rutherford And The Protection Of Religious Freedom In Early Seventeenth-Century Scotland

By Shaun de Freitas and Andries Raath

[Shaun A. de Freitas is Professor of Law at the University of the Free State, Bloemfontein, South Africa. Andries Raath is Emeritus Professor of Law and a Research Fellow in the Department of History at the University of the Free State. Their article emanates from an unpublished doctoral thesis by de Freitas titled, “Law and Federal-Republicanism: Samuel Rutherford’s Quest for a Constitutional Model” (2014), Faculty of Law, University of the Free State.]

I. Introduction

The constitutional concerns and implications pertaining to the nature of man—a being popularly referred to in a religious sense as a sinful being, or in a secular sense, a being who is susceptible to corruption and the abuse of power—were of major importance at the dawn of the Enlightenment. Emanating from views on the nature of man were implications for the relationship between church and state and the protection of religious rights and freedoms. During the first half of the seventeenth century in Scotland and England in particular there was, on the one hand, skepticism towards the idea of the believer having and maintaining a uniform biblical truth (as reflected in a formal and detailed confession of faith), and on the other hand, a skeptical view of the believer as the exclusive measure of what religious truth should be. Regarding the skeptical view of a uniform biblical truth, Anabaptists and Independents, for example, understood the sinful nature of man (and therefore also of the civil authorities) as reason to oppose subscription to a formal and uniform religious truth. Prominent theologians such as John Milton (1608–1674) and influential political theorists at the time such as Jean Bodin (1530–1596) and Hugo Grotius (1583–1645) also supported this skeptical approach to a uniform and formal religious truth. They played a major role in not only diminishing the idea of the Christian Republic in covenant with God, but also in promoting what eventually became the rigid separation of church and state in liberal Western societies.[1]

Followers of the Presbyterian faith in early seventeenth-century Scotland were confronted not only with this growing skepticism concerning religious truth, but also with the sharp rise of various denominations and sects as well as with the foreign teachings emanating from Catholicism and the English monarchy. Added to these views was the rising popularity of legal positivism (as opposed to the relevance of Divine Law) and the secular wearing away of the idea of the Christian Republic being in a covenantal relationship with God.

Bearing the above in mind, this article contends that the Scottish theologian and political theorist Samuel Rutherford (1600–1661) played a seminal role in arguing for the protection of the religious rights and freedoms of Presbyterians at the time. Consequently, this article begins by explaining the religious context of early seventeenth-century Scotland (and England), followed by insights related to the depravity of man, skepticism concerning biblical truth, and the parameters of toleration in religious matters. Rutherford’s views on the important role of the civil magistrate in the protection, maintenance, and furtherance of a uniform religion are then elaborated upon. In all of this a better understanding is attained in support of Rutherford’s quest towards the protection and maintenance of the religious rights and freedoms of the Presbyterians in early seventeenth-century Scotland. This finding is also in response to those modern-day critics of Rutherford, such as John Coffey, who depict Rutherford as an anti-tolerationist[2] and in the process overlook the value of Rutherford’s thinking against the background of the protection of the Presbyterian situation in early seventeenth-century Scotland.

II. The Religious Context Of Early Seventeenth-Century Scotland

Janet Ainsworth comments, “Just as fish always in the sea have no consciousness of being wet, scholars always immersed in the ocean of their own normative order may well be unaware that this order permeates the very conceptual tools that they use in attempting to understand one another.”[3] A comprehension of the metaphysical order in which a community is embodied provides more lucid understanding and sensitivity concerning the reasons why theorists say what they say within a specific historical period. This is important to bear in mind when looking at Rutherford’s concerns about the protection of the Presbyterian faith in Scotland. How we understand matters pertaining to the protection of “freedom” in general and, more specifically, “religious rights and freedoms” in early seventeenth-century Scotland requires careful analysis through a lens that is focused on the context of the period in question. The Presbyterian understanding of “freedom” at the time was inextricably connected to the moral freedom to do what God requires[4] and by implication was most relevant to matters pertaining to the risks posed as a result of the depravity of man and tolerance regarding religious matters. Liberty had as much to do with religion as with the material and physical welfare of the individual and the community. Efforts towards the attainment of the old Roman maxim of salus populi, suprema lex (the safety of the people is the supreme law) was to be understood in both a religious and material sense. Far from supporting the liberty of a person to act in an unlimited fashion on the pretext of a broad subjective appeal to individual conscience, Rutherford presents an understanding of freedom that is connected to the freedom achieved by the atoning work of Christ.[5] The legal outcome is that the believer is freed from guilt and condemnation, and the spiritual outcome is that the nature of the believer undergoes a radical transformation. While man was previously bound to transgress the Decalogue because of the fall, he is now imbued with the desire and the freedom to uphold the Decalogue with joyful obedience.[6] Included in this desire and freedom is the protection and maintenance of the true religion reflected in a uniform Christian confession of faith for the Christian Republic and, for purposes of this article, for Scotland at the dawn of the Enlightenment.

In early seventeenth-century Scotland, the Christian faith formed part and parcel of the community; this was a time when belief in judgment, hell, and eternal damnation was almost universal.[7] There were also the abuses exercised by the Roman Catholic Church, and in this regard Rutherford, in a letter to “the persecuted Church in Ireland,” clearly expresses his concern regarding the imposition in 1639 of the Black Oath that all Scottish residents in Ulster over the age of sixteen were required to take. Many who refused to take this oath were harshly punished.[8] In December 1636, Charles I ordered that The Scottish Book of Common Prayer be purchased and used throughout Scotland. This book, which had been driven by the Scottish and English bishops (especially by Archbishop Laud), was an attempt to bring about increased uniformity in church services in England and Scotland, but at the expense of the Reformed church in Scotland.[9] When the supplications by the many ministers to the king received no response from the latter, the National Covenant was established, which was subscribed to throughout Scotland. A revolution was in the making and, as J. H. S. Burleigh comments, “The Book of Common Prayer was the spark that kindled a consuming fire.”[10] The National Covenant of 1638 was a renewal of the “King’s Confession” of 1581 and reaffirmed the commitment of the people to God and the Covenant.[11] This covenantal paradigm, which was so inextricably connected to Presbyterianism during the Scottish and English Reformations, was confronted with the many challenges facing Presbyterianism at the time, namely “to purge the church of prelatical abuse, stop Laudian innovations in worship and canon law, unite the national churches of England and Scotland along Presbyterian lines, and prevent the spread of heresy and profanity.”[12]

Comparing the relevance of religion between England and Scotland, one finds that “whereas in England politics controlled religion, in Scotland religion controlled politics.”[13] The Scottish Reformation elevated the nation to a very high degree of religious, moral, and intellectual eminence. The people were converted to the Protestant faith before the civil power had moved a step in the cause, “and when the legislature became friendly to the Reformation, nothing remained for it to do but to ratify the profession which the nation had adopted.”[14] The Presbyterian quest to reform polity and worship was driven by a deep desire to save souls. They sought an all-inclusive national church, with uniformity and meaningful spiritual discipline in all spheres.[15] According to Rutherford, “self-preservation” was not just physical, but also spiritual; therefore, tyranny over the mind constituted a grave concern.[16]

During the 1640s, the Parliament at Westminster (in which Rutherford actively participated, together with the other Scottish Divines such as Alexander Henderson) had to choose either (i) to retain the Prelatic system with all the tyranny and oppression, which had become intolerable;[17] or (ii) to adopt the Presbyterian system; or (iii) to have no national church at all, with the imminent peril of national anarchy.[18] In the ordinance that called the Assembly, dated June 12, 1643, and issued by the English Parliament, the following reasons were formulated in order to establish the need for a reconstruction.

The present Church-government by archbishops, bishops, their chancellors, commissaries, deans, and chapters, archdeacons, and other ecclesiastical officers depending upon the hierarchy, is evil, and justly offensive and burdensome to the kingdom, a great impediment to reformation and growth of religion, and very prejudicial to the state and government of this kingdom.[19]

The proposal by the Scot Alexander Henderson regarding the importance of unity in religion (which disclaimed any intent to dictate to the English nation), received a favorable response from the House of Commons in that the latter thanked the Scots for such an expression of their desire for unity of religion. The House of Commons also assured the Scots that they intended to proceed with the reformation of the church in due course.[20] A material factor that would also cause the members of the Assembly to move more rapidly towards the Scots was the increasing number of sects in England. The toleration of groups such as Ranters, Seekers, Antinomians, and Socinians was unthinkable for the majority of serious people, and such toleration would have destroyed the medieval dream of unity sought after by the larger part of society.[21] Preachers in Rutherford’s time were interpreting the Bible without any regard for problems in translation and the need for historical understanding.[22] Rutherford’s fellow Scottish Divine George Gillespie (1613–1648) also saw clearly that once the principle of toleration was granted, there would be no logical way to stop short of absolute toleration of all opinion, religious and otherwise.[23] At the time, the establishment of religion was a universally accepted fact and posed nothing foreign. Wayne Spear states:

What William Haller says of the Elizabethan era was still applicable in the time of Charles I: “The continuance of ordered society was as yet inconceivable without the Christian church, and the church was inconceivable except as a single comprehensive institution uniform in faith and worship.” It did not occur to the Parliament to ask whether or not there should be an establishment of religion in England. The only question was regarding what form the establishment should take.[24]

Having thus briefly looked at the situation in Scotland during the first half of the seventeenth century against the background of the substantial loyalties to Presbyterianism—unease about the threats directed towards a continuation of Presbyterianism in Scotland, the concerns emanating from the Westminster Assembly, Presbyterian support of national covenanting, a strong sense of support pertaining to the inclusion of the protection of the spiritual (in addition to that of the physical) in Presbyterian circles—a more lucid understanding pertaining to the importance (and urgency) regarding the protection and maintenance of the Presbyterian faith in Scotland is confirmed. In furtherance of this understanding, it is necessary to delve a bit deeper into matters related to Rutherford’s contribution in this regard, within the context of “the depravity of man,” “toleration,” “skepticism in truth,” and “eschatology.”

III. Samuel Rutherford, The Depravity Of Man, Toleration, Skepticism, And Eschatology

According to Rutherford, there was no place for skepticism in religious truth.[25] Andrew Murphy refers to Rutherford’s Free Disputation Against Pretended Liberty of Conscience, the latter reflecting that opposition to toleration was in fact opposition to skepticism in truth.[26]As Murphy explains, “Scepticism purportedly fosters toleration in the following way: since we cannot be certain regarding our claims about truth, we are never justified in imposing our (possibly mistaken) notions on others.”[27] It can consequently be understood that the influences of skepticism became a serious matter for the Scottish Divines and those English Puritans concerned about the disintegration of a uniform religious society. This skepticism also fueled unlimited support for freedom of conscience, something that was of serious concern to Rutherford. Rutherford states that liberty of conscience “makes every man’s conscience his Bible and multiplies Bibles and sundry words of God and rules of faith.”[28] But how does Rutherford connect the view that there should not be skepticism in religious truth with the idea that man has a depraved nature?

Although man is sinful by nature there is, according to Rutherford, enough insight in man to exclude excuses for failing to know God and obey the law. Inextricably connected to this understanding is the insight that there exists sufficient ability to enable persons to construct an ordered society.[29] John Marshall also emphasizes the point that, according to Rutherford, the whole of Scripture plays an important role regarding the informing of the conscience. According to Rutherford, the dulling effect of sin upon the conscience necessitates a fuller source of knowledge of the natural law originally inscribed on the human heart, and Scripture serves as “the clearest record of that law.… Scripture is essential for conscience to become ‘a compleat intire thing’ namely a good conscience toward both God and man. Reason and conscience are not a ‘ruling rule’ but a ‘ruled rule’—Scripture is the perfect and complete source.”[30]

Rutherford begins his Free Disputation Against Pretended Liberty of Conscience with a critical view on Libertinism, which “savoureth rankly of wide, loose and bold Atheistical thoughts of the majesty of God, as if our conscience had a Prerogative Royal beside a rule.”[31] The conscience as the sole rule (or measure) is prone to sin, due to its sinful nature.[32] Rutherford is ironic regarding the position of the Independents and the sects by arguing that according to their belief,

you must believe it today to be a truth of God, tomorrow to be a lye, the third day a truth, the fourth day a lye, and so a circle till your doomsday come, so as you must ever believe and learne, never come to a settlement and establishing in the truth; but dye trying, dye doubting, dye with a trepidation and a reserve, and dye and live like a Scepticke.[33]

This understanding is similar to the view that assisted in the establishment of the Westminster Confession of Faith (towards the end of the first half of the seventeenth century), which proceeds from the principle that truth can be distinguished from error; that, although conscience cannot be compelled, it may be enlightened; and that while sinful, corrupt, and prone to licentiousness, men may be lawfully restrained from the commission of such excesses as are offensive to public feeling and injurious to the moral welfare of the community.[34]

William Hetherington observes that reflected in the Westminster Assembly was also the Presbyterian Divines’ clear support of a tolerant approach.[35] However, the fears of the Presbyterians that the position of the Independents would stimulate heresies through their pleas for toleration and that this would endanger the religious, political, and social fabric of the Commonwealth, were clearly reflected in their sermons and petitions from 1645.[36] Such fears were not without justification, because the writings of the Independents at the time undoubtedly widened the concept of toleration to include a greater variety of opinion.[37] There is reason to believe that the Presbyterians and the Independents of the Westminster Assembly misapprehended one another’s opinions on the subject of religious toleration. According to Hetherington, what the Presbyterians understood the Independents to mean by that term was what they called a “boundless toleration,” implying equal encouragement to all shades and kinds of religious opinions, however wild, extravagant, and pernicious in their principles. When the Presbyterians somewhat vehemently condemned such laxity and licentiousness, the Independents seemed to have thought that they intended or desired the forcible suppression of all opinions that differed from their own.[38] The Presbyterians wanted church government to be established in the first instance, and then some toleration be shown for tender consciences. The Independents, on the other hand, strove to obtain a legislative toleration first, and then it would have been a matter of time to determine which (or whether a) form of church government should be established.[39] The Presbyterians not only saw the Independent approach as a potential threat arising in the establishment of all the pernicious heresies that abounded in England at the time, but also as contrary to the purposes to which the Assembly subscribed, namely, the promotion of uniformity in religious matters.[40]

Rutherford’s view was that “the doctrine of toleration cultivates and emphasizes a sceptical spirit concerning the certainties of revealed truth. It questions the infallibility of the necessary truths with which God has endowed his Church. It destroys man’s faith in the Bible.”[41] What is also of importance is Rutherford’s concern that a broad approach to toleration could enthrone conscience as supreme over Scripture.[42] Not surprisingly therefore, toleration was viewed by Rutherford (and Presbyterianism in general) as a breaking of the covenant.[43] English elites also opposed toleration for fear that a substantial emphasis on toleration would disadvantage the unity they held to be an integral part of Christianity. It further threatened the institution of a unified church and weakened religious orthodoxy.[44]

The Scottish Reformation, among others, viewed the march of history essentially as a linear development, a gradual unfolding of God’s purpose for the world, while the humanists by contrast claimed that the course of human events can be shown to proceed in a series of recurring cycles.[45] The eschatological connotations provided the Christian community with a rational sense of purpose, hope, and worth, and consequently with an added sense of responsibility and accountability to a Supreme Being (in the most ultimate sense). Rutherford emphasizes that the defending of religion by the ruler is for the saving of souls.[46] According to Rutherford, failure in a nation to enshrine the true religion, once known in its political constitution, invites the most serious threat of all against its safety, namely, the wrath of God.[47] In modern liberal thinking, concepts such as the “highest good,” “public interest,” “common good,” and “the safety and preservation of society” are relied upon as the “final cause” of politics. Reformed political theory provides its own unique understanding with regard to this “final cause and purpose,” not limiting itself to the mere attainment of happiness and effective inter-relationships, but rather aspiring towards the attainment of God’s revealed will for the individual and society as reflected in the whole of Scripture, with happiness and social effectiveness as by-products. Consequently, the proximate end for which God has ordained magistrates is the promotion of the public good, and the ultimate end is the promotion of his own glory. Man is also ascribed soteriological hope in this regard. This evidently follows from the revealed fact that “the glory or manifested excellence of the Creator is the chief end He had in the general system of things; hence, the appointed chief-end of each intelligent agent.”[48] Implied in all of this is the importance of the protection and maintenance of a uniform religion reflected in a formal and informed confession of faith.

The importance of spiritual progress made the Puritans (including Rutherford) to conceive a society where the state was only a framework to protect the growing spontaneous life of the spirit.[49] The Reformation went further than postulating a limited idea of the ends of the community as shown in, for example, Aristotle’s polis (and later on, by Western liberal thinking) as a purely human creation designed to fulfil everyday ends.[50] Rutherford understands the individual and the collective as an active means to an end based on the covenant and the law in a theocentric sense, which differs from the anthropocentric view in support of the individual and the nation as the end. Rutherford’s emphasis on the important role of the law and politics for the attainment of divine purposes was the continuation of the medieval break from the approach by the church fathers, who viewed human institutions as never being able to become good, and understood the church as being supreme over political authority. In this regard, the state’s existence could be justified by protecting the peace and the church,[51] which implied the protection of a uniform religion perceived as reflecting the truth. Medieval thought understood political society and the state as having ceased to be institutions of sin; rather, they became the embodiment of moral purpose and instruments in the realization of justice and virtue.[52]

From the above, it is evident that the early seventeenth-century Presbyterian awareness of the depravity of man provides a sense of understanding the need for the protection and maintenance of a uniform Christian faith reflected in a formal and informed confession of faith which was to be in accordance with the whole of Scripture. This was in opposition to, firstly, a superficial Christian confession so devised as to try and appease each believer’s sense of the truth and, secondly, a limitless approach towards religious expression, which could only end in each person deciding for himself or herself what to believe in. In this regard, unlimited toleration had its risks. Also, to subscribe to the protection of Presbyterianism in early seventeenth-century Scotland was to support the covenantal and eschatological aim towards the salvation of man. This salvific concern had implications for the role of the civil authorities (in addition to that of the church) and connects to the understanding that man is sinful, which implies the relevance of an external medium to provide the protection and maintenance of the Presbyterian faith in accordance with the authority of the whole of Scripture.

IV. Samuel Rutherford On Magistracy And Religion

Flavius Josephus[53] highlights the “unity and identity of religious belief” and the “perfect uniformity in habits and customs” that characterized Israelite theocracy. Regarding the religious duties of the magistrate in the Hebrew Republic, in ancient Israel there was no clear separation between religion, morals, law, and politics; all were parts of one comprehensive system of norms.[54] The Mosaic Law regulated both what one would regard as civil matters and what one would regard as religious affairs—no distinction was drawn between them. The structure of the Israelite commonwealth was perfect, because God was its architect, and in such a commonwealth there was only one source of law (the civil sovereign) and only one jurisdiction (that of the civil magistrate). God therefore endorsed this arrangement and commended it to those who would pursue a godly politics.[55] Augustine understood that the state was a unitary Christian state, serving interests in which the spiritual was paramount and furthering the cause of salvation by protecting doctrinal purity.[56] According to Augustine, Constantine (AD 306–337) and Theodosius (AD 379–395) were exemplary in vigorously advancing the cause of the catholic faith, establishing churches and actively suppressing pagan rites and destroying images dedicated to pagan deities.[57] According to Augustine, the Christian ruler should place the resources of the state in the service of the church. This does not mean that government is subordinated to the church; only that the person of the ruler (as both Christian and ruler) exercises his prerogatives in the attainment of the highest ideal known to him, namely, the good of the church. To the extent that such a ruler is successful, the people of the “earthly city” are moved closer to the “City of God.”[58] Therefore, in Augustine, one already finds vestiges of support for the religious duties of the civil magistrate understood against the soteriological purposes of both church and state. Prominent Reformers such as John Calvin, Heinrich Bullinger, Johannes Althusius, and Theodore Beza as well as the Westminster Confession of Faith advocated state-supported religion.

In sixteenth-century Scotland, the Confession of Faith provided a clause acknowledging that magistrates were appointed for the “maintenance of the trew Religioun, and for suppressing of idolatrie and superstitioun.”[59] “High Presbyterians” (such as Rutherford) in the 1640s were like sixteenth-century Presbyterians; although they warned magistrates not to interfere in the church’s independent spiritual jurisdiction, they invited princes and parliaments to use their civil powers to defend the true church.[60] In sixteenth-century England, Presbyterians asked magistrates to reform the church by establishing “a right ministerie of God, & a right government of his church, according to the scriptures.”[61]

Rutherford’s political postulations were not a political tract in order to “establish” Christianity or of “compelling individuals to enter.” Rutherford makes it clear that religion cannot be compelled by the Magistrate.[62] Also, according to Rutherford “the king can force no man to the external profession and use of the ordinances of God, and not only kings, but all the people should be willing.”[63] This “willingness” by the people presupposes a Christian community. The magistrate only has a legal right to pass Christian laws in a Christian State “where a nation hath embraced the faith, and sworne thereunto in Baptisme.”[64] Rutherford’s Free Disputation Against Pretended Liberty of Conscience championed the cause for freedom of conscience and argued that neither the magistrate nor the church can force religion upon anyone, only by the spreading of the Word and by religious instruction under the leadership of the Holy Spirit. The duties of the magistracy in the external protection and maintenance of true religion are too often misinterpreted as forceful conversion—as violating the individual’s liberty of conscience. Rutherford makes it clear in A Survey of the Spiritual Antichrist that the sword cannot compel minds and convert souls to Christ. However, the magistrate provides the external means to protect true religion: “The Magistrate then defendeth only, and guardeth the Law of God and Church from pestilent heresie.”[65] Rutherford states in Examen Arminianismi that liberty of pure knowledge and opinion ought to be granted by the Magistrate to all people. “In this way the Magistrate should be able to compel no one to supposing or thinking this or that in Religion. Because acts of the mind since they are internal are not subject to the Authority of the Magistrate.”[66] However, this is not to say that the magistrate is entirely freed from responsibilities towards the external maintenance and protection of true religion. Rutherford states,

The Magistrate can command the information of the mind, through Teachers and Pastors, but not the opinion of the mind.… The power of the Magistrate directly and immediately upon the conscience is null; yet, indirectly and secondarily the power of the Magistrate upon the conscience is accumulative; because it can command that someone should anxiously and diligently give attention to Orthodoxy by all means. But there is no private power; because the King can not deprive a conscience in its liberty of thinking rightly about God, nor can a tyrant do so, nor any created power.[67]

According to Rutherford, there is a link between “conscience” and “knowledge”: “Conscience void of knowledge is void of goodness.”[68] This emphasizes the importance of the educative role, especially within the Christian Republic. The church as well as the state in the Christian Commonwealth has an interest in the public education, and the church and the state strive after the spiritual well-being of the people by means of education. Children are born to parents and upon the latter rests the responsibility, imposed by God, of their training and education. In this regard, the state should lend assistance to the parents in the fulfilment of their duty.[69] Fundamentals need to be strongly rooted in the believer.[70] It also does not make sense to use natural reason in order to determine certain truths. The only way to get to these truths is by Scripture,[71] which implies vigilance regarding the “self” as measure.[72] In this, Rutherford also warns against the absolute authority of natural law. Anything pretending to be moral has God for its author in either the first or the second table of the law.[73]

There has to be, says Rutherford, prayer for kings and all who are in authority, that with the sword they would guard religion and the church of God from wolves and false teachers, that a quiet and peaceful life in all godliness and honesty may be experienced.[74] The king “has the trust of preserving life and fostering religion, and has both Tables of the law in his custody, ex officio to see that other men than himself keep the law.”[75] Marshall states,

Rutherford believed that denying the civil arm a role in defending true religion was to fall back into the Manichean understanding of the use of means. As government is part of nature, it too must testify to the authority of God as he reveals himself. The insignia of government’s authority is the sword. Therefore government must use its God-ordained insignia to further true religion.[76]

There is also a convincing connotation of the magistrate’s duty towards the upkeep of religion reflected in Rutherford’s reference to the king as the “nurse-father” of the community. For example, Rutherford says: “… and that all judges, according to their places, be nurse-fathers to the church …”[77] and “The king hath a chief hand in church affairs, when he is a nurse-father, and beareth the royal sword to defend both the tables of the law.”[78] The “laws” as such, play a fundamental role in serving religion,[79] and the king is viewed as “feeder” and “watchman” over “life and religion.”[80] Also, “kings may, and do command synods to convene, and do their duty, and command many duties, never synodically decreed.”[81] The king’s accountability as a result of not having defended true religion also points to the role that the king has to play in maintaining and defending true religion.[82] Rutherford also speaks of the moral duties regarding religion (and justice) to be performed reciprocally between king and people.[83]

From the above it is clear that the civil authorities in the Christian Republic have an important role to play in the protection and maintenance of true religion, and this is what Rutherford aspired towards. Although church and state have their own unique duties to execute, there is also a margin of overlap between the two in this regard. Emanating from this understanding is the idea of the positive duty placed on government towards the protection of the religious rights and freedoms of Presbyterianism in early seventeenth-century Scotland, also bearing in mind that this did not mean the forcing of religion on a society. All of this is inextricably connected to the responsibilities placed on the Scottish authorities in the early seventeenth century to maintain and protect the religious rights and freedoms of the Scottish people. Scotland at the time was substantially Presbyterian and loyal to the national covenant, and therefore it was not about the forcing of Presbyterianism on the Scottish people but the furtherance of the protection and maintenance of their religious rights and freedoms.

V. Conclusion

This article confirms that Rutherford’s political and legal postulations should also be understood as a credible defense of Presbyterianism in early seventeenth-century Scotland. Rutherford presents one of the first explicit, coherent, and comprehensive forms of critical thought emanating from sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Western political and legal Reformed theory on the protection of religious rights and freedoms in the Christian Republic. Not even the renowned and influential sixteenth-century Reformed political theorist Johannes Althusius[84] contributed as much as Rutherford towards questions related to the protection of true religion in the context of the Christian Republic. According to Rutherford, there was a larger sense of communal identity under a more specific biblical confessional and normative content, which necessitated a defense against the risks in allowing the individual to have unfettered jurisdiction in determining right and wrong. This implied the importance of the external protection of a specific form of religious expression in which the civil authorities had an important role to play, also bearing in mind that the civil authorities may not force religion on the individual. All of this was based on the understanding of the depravity of man and the implications of it for determining the parameters of toleration, also in the context of a communal and political eschatological purpose of salvation. This understanding was also supported by many of the magisterial Reformers preceding Rutherford. Therefore, in Rutherford, and contrary to what his modern-day critics such as John Coffey say, we find a sound defense of religious rights and freedoms in the context of Presbyterianism in early seventeenth-century Scotland.

Notes

1. Even prior to this time, the Spanish Jesuit Francisco Suárez (1548-1617) had argued that the state is required to allow humans the freedom of working out their salvation, “the care of which ultimately belongs to individuals and their religious communities” (Jerome C. Foss, “Francisco Suárez and the Religious Basis for Toleration,” Perspectives on Political Science 42, no. 2 [2013]: 100). This tendency had already shown signs of life some centuries earlier in the nominalism of William of Ockham (1290-1350), which succeeded in emancipating the modern mind from the authority of the church and from the pope (D. F. M. Strauss, “The Mixed Legacy Underlying Rawls’ Theory of Justice,” Journal for Juridical Science 31, no. 1 [2006]: 67). Also see D. F. M. Strauss, “A History of Attempts to Delimit (State) Law,” Journal for Juridical Science 37, no. 2 (2012): 44. Strauss comments, “Nominalism denies any universality outside the human mind and, therefore, undermined the meaning of both law and morality, for ultimately it does not leave room for supra-individual (normative) standards of conduct” (pp. 44-45).
2. See John Coffey, Politics, Religion and the British Revolutions: The Mind of Samuel Rutherford (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 27, 255, 257; see also pp. 14, 184, 202, 219.
3. Janet E. Ainsworth, “Categories and Culture: On the ‘Rectification of Names’ in Comparative Law,” Cornell Law Review 82 (1996): 31.
4. See Greg L. Bahnsen, Theonomy in Christian Ethics (Nacogdoches, TX: Covenant Media Press, 2002), 467-68. In John Winthrop’s view, true moral freedom to do “that only which is good, just, and honest” is defined by reference to a biblical covenant between humankind and God. It consists of reciprocal duties and constitutive virtues based on divine commandment, first of all to love God, and then to love one’s neighbor as oneself (Steven M. Tipton, “Republic and Liberal State: The Place of Religion in an Ambiguous Polity,” Emory Law Journal 39 [Winter 1990]: 191).
5. Andrew Muttitt, “The Conception of Liberty in Samuel Rutherford’s Lex, Rex,” New Southern Presbyterian Review 3, no. 2 (2005): 41. In WCF 20.1, we find the basis for Christian liberty, which has been purchased for us by Christ under the gospel, and consists of freedom from sin and its consequences, the condemning wrath of God, and the curse of the moral law (Robert Letham, The Westminster Assembly: Reading Its Theology in Historical Context [Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian & Reformed, 2009], 298). Regarding WCF 20.2, the liberty Christ has won brings deliverance from bondage to man, and Christ alone has the right to determine what we should believe and how we should act; he alone is Lord of our conscience. In the words of Letham, “We are thus freed from anything that is contrary to his Word. In matters of faith and worship, we are also freed from the obligation to follow commands that are additional to what he has revealed in his Word. In the context of the Laudian repression, this was a powerfully liberating statement. Indeed, Christians are prohibited from yielding their consciences to the whims of man. No one has the right to require blind allegiance. Such demands are contrary, not only to conscience, but to reason” (p. 299). Letham also, against the background of WCF 21.1, states, “Bound in its worship to the direction of the Word of God alone, the church is freed from the dictates of man, whether these are contrary to the Word or simply additional to it. The yoke of imposition is lifted. The church is free from the dictatorial impositions of man and free to worship God, not as man himself may want, but as God requires, whether by express statements in the Scriptures or by good and necessary consequence from it. In this sense, WCF 21.1 must be read in conjunction with the entire section (Chapters 19-24) of which it is a central part, dealing with law and liberty, church and state” (p. 303).
6. Muttitt, “Conception of Liberty in Samuel Rutherford,” 41.
7. Coffey, Politics, Religion and the British Revolutions, 235.
8. Andrew Bonar, Letters of Samuel Rutherford (1891; repr., Colorado Springs, CO: Portage Publications, 2006), Letter 288 to the persecuted Church in Ireland, Anwoth, 1639. Kingsley Rendell refers to the materialization of an episcopal form of church government in Scotland from 1610, thereby giving power to the bishops, albeit the presbyteries still remaining in name. Such were the times in which Rutherford found himself, and he could not resist this challenge (Kingsley Rendell, Samuel Rutherford: A New Biography of the Man and His Ministry [Fearn, Ross-shire, Scotland: Christian Focus Publications, 2003], 16; see also pp. 59-60).
9. F. N. McCoy, Robert Baillie and the Second Scots Reformation (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1974), 11.
10. Cited in ibid., 11-12.
11. Kathleen Halecki, “Scottish Ministers, Covenant Theology, and the Idea of the Nation, 1560-1638” (PhD diss., Union Institute & University, 2012), 96; see also 1, 6, 17.
12. Julie Fann, “Stories of God and Gall: Presbyterian Polemic during the Conformity Wars of Mid-Seventeenth-Century England and Scotland” (PhD diss., University of North Carolina, 2012), 26. Also see William Hetherington, History of the Westminster Assembly of Divines, 3rd ed. (1843; repr., Edmonton, Alberta: Still Waters Revival Books, 1991), 103-4, 75-76. See also John Witte Jr., The Reformation of Rights: Law, Religion, and Human Rights in Early Modern Calvinism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 210; Paul J. Smith, “The Debates on Church Government at the Westminster Assembly of Divines (1643-1646)” (PhD diss., Boston University, 1975), 59; and S. A. Burrell, “The Apocalyptic Vision of the Early Covenanters,” Scottish Historical Review 43, no. 135 (1964): 1-24.
13. Thomas M’Crie, cited in David Estrada, “Samuel Rutherford as a Presbyterian Theologian and Political Thinker: The Question of Religious Tolerance,” Christianity & Society 13, no. 4 (2003): 4. Also see Muttitt, “Conception of Liberty in Samuel Rutherford,” 20.
14. Estrada, “Samuel Rutherford as Presbyterian Theologian and Political Thinker,” 4.
15. See Fann, “Stories of God and Gall,” 8.
16. John L. Marshall, “Natural Law and the Covenant: The Place of Natural Law in the Covenantal Framework of Samuel Rutherford’s Lex, Rex” (PhD diss., Westminster Theological Seminary, 1995), 220. Marshall confirms that, according to Rutherford, the old Roman maxim salus populi, suprema lex implies that “God is the author of civil laws and government, and his intention is therein the external peace, and quiet life, and godliness of his church and people” (p. 48; author’s emphasis). See also Omri K. Webb, “The Political Thought of Samuel Rutherford” (PhD diss., Duke University, 1963), 42; and David Field, “Put Not Your Trust in Princes: Samuel Rutherford, the Four Causes and the Limitation of Civil Government,” in Tales of Two Cities: Christianity and Politics, ed. Stephen Clark (Leicester: InterVarsity, 2005), 96; see also p. 95.
17. The seventeenth century in Europe was the century of the victories of the Counter-Reformation, led by Spain in the first half of the century and France in the second. Protestantism had to fight for its survival in this century. This was the context for fear of Catholicism in England, which found itself forced into the front line against the European Counter-Reformation advance (Jonathan Scott, England’s Troubles: Seventeenth-Century English Political Instability in European Context [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000], 30).
18. Hetherington, History of the Westminster Assembly, 100.
19. Wayne R. Spear, “Covenanted Uniformity in Religion: The Influence of the Scottish Commissioners upon the Ecclesiology of the Westminster Assembly” (PhD diss., University of Pittsburgh, 1976), 16. See also George Yule, Puritans in Politics: The Religious Legislation of the Long Parliament, 1640-1647 (Abingdon, UK: Sutton Courtenay Press, 1981), 106-7. Around 1687 Alexander Shields wrote, “This is the case of the sometimes renowned, famous, faithful, and fruitful, Reformed, Covenanted church of Scotland, famous for unity, faithful for verity, fruitful in the purity of doctrine, worship, discipline, and government; which now for these 27 years past, under the domination of the late Tyrant, and present usurper of Britain, hath been so wasted with oppression, wounded with persecution, rent with division, ruined with defection, and now she is as much despised, as there was before admired: and her witness and testimony for reformation, is now as far depressed, and suppressed in obscurity as it was formerly declared and depreciated in glory and honour” (Alexander Shields, preface to A Hind Let Loose, or An Historical Representation of the Testimonies of the Church of Scotland for the Interest of Christ [London, 1687], http://www.gutenberg.org/files/37137/37137-8.txt). It is precisely this state of affairs that Rutherford and the rest of the Scottish Divines were fearful of. See also David W. Hall, Windows on Westminster: A Look at the Men, the Work and the Enduring Results of the Westminster Assembly (1643-1648) (Norcross, GA: Great Commission Publications, 1993), 142.
20. Spear, “Covenanted Uniformity in Religion,” 40-41.
21. Robert Paul, The Assembly of the Lord: Politics and Religion in the Westminster Assembly and the ‘Grand Debate’ (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1985), 47. According to Paul, “The Scots had also received a letter from some London ministers indicating their desire to see Reformed churchmanship established in England and a form of church government uniform with that of the Scottish Church” (p. 66). The primary concern of the Puritan majority was the disintegration of orthodox religion in London and in the parts of the country under parliamentary control (p. 176; see also p. 75).
22. Marshall, “Natural Law and the Covenant,” 146; also see pp. 147, 152.
23. James K. Culberson, “For Reformation and Uniformity: George Gillespie (1613-1648) and the Scottish Covenanter Revolution” (PhD diss., University of North Texas, 2003), 165.
24. Spear, “Covenanted Uniformity in Religion,” 17. Rutherford also emphasized this understanding that perfect unity of religion is not possible and that what should be sought after is uniform conformity to religion “as far as is possible.” In A Free Disputation Against Pretended Liberty of Conscience Rutherford refers to the endeavor to reach “the nearest conjunction and uniformity in Religion,” and also declares “nor do we plead for absolute identity in doctrine and worship” (Samuel Rutherford, A Free Disputation Against Pretended Liberty of Conscience, Tending To Resolve Doubts Moved by Mr. John Goodwin, John Baptist, Dr. Jer. Taylor, The Belgic Arminians, Socinians, and other Authors contending for lawless Liberty or licentious Toleration of Sects and Heresies [London, 1649], 271, 256, http://reformedlayman.com/FreeDispHtml/ConvertedDisputation.htm [original version]).
25. See Coffey, Politics, Religion and the British Revolutions, 216-17.
26. Andrew R. Murphy, Conscience and Community: Revisiting Toleration and Religious Dissent in Early Modern England and America (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2001), 106.
27. Ibid., 76. Murphy further explains, “The sceptical tolerationist, we must remember, advances an argument consisting of two statements: (1) we know Truth only partially, and incompletely; therefore (2) we should tolerate” (p. 78).
28. Rutherford, Free Disputation, 408 (original version).
29. Marshall, “Natural Law and the Covenant,” 17. Marshall refers to Calvin’s acknowledgment that sin has not destroyed the instinct for social life and the ability to construct an ordered society: “When we so condemn human understanding for its perpetual blindness as to leave it no perception of any object whatsoever, we not only go against God’s Word, but also run counter to the experience of common sense” (Inst. 2.2.12, cited in “Natural Law and the Covenant,” 36). Rutherford states that sin does not efface the covenantal instinct in human nature which makes possible the creation of a stable social order, nor does it efface the power of human beings to participate actively in that order (see “Natural Law and the Covenant,” 71). One needs to distinguish between Rutherford’s view of “man as Fallen and Broken,” and “nature as unbroken and sinless.” Regarding the former, Marshall states that when Rutherford speaks of man as fallen and broken, he does so in an ethical sense, in connection with man in sin, the “natural” man (p. 115). Regarding “nature as unbroken and sinless,” Rutherford’s view is that nature has another visage, which is “unbroken and sinless.” This is nature considered in its metaphysical constitution; and it is synonymous with the goodness of creation, which sin has not destroyed (p. 117). “Because it is not sinful to be human, neither are the acts associated with humanness sinful, such as eating, sleeping, marrying, and participating in government. Sin has introduced corrupt attributes that adhere to these actions such as domination as a feature of governmental power and pride that refuses to acknowledge the glory of God as the true end of every act. But the corruptions are ‘unnatural’; they do not spring from nature itself” (p. 118). Marshall adds, “Nevertheless, Rutherford would insist that even nature unbroken and sinless needs grace to perfect it.” Rutherford understands this as a clear scriptural principle (p. 118).
30. Marshall, “Natural Law and the Covenant,” 165-66, 196. While every sin “is the natural man’s idol, to the extent that it dominates him, the mind itself is perhaps his chief idol.” This is especially so among the learned, where everyone admires what his own brain conceives, no matter how far-fetched. For example, “one could theorize the presence of ten new worlds in the moon or millions of worlds on the other side of this one; he would still count it an admirable thought. Everyone loves to be called Rabbi. The self-deification of reason is the greatest evidence of its corruption. It is our constant temptation to make reason the ethical norm, the ‘ruling rule’ that determines the morality of our actions. We are prone to think that moral evil is inconsistent with our rational nature, as though that were our rule” (cited on p. 137). In this regard see also Webb, “Political Thought of Samuel Rutherford,” 89. To Rutherford, “conscience was far too subjective a guide, since conscience, even when enlightened and activated by the Holy Spirit, is such a delicate mechanism. It is subjected to social pressures, and may well be fashioned by the thought and feeling of the age to which it belongs” (Rendell, Samuel Rutherford, 137).
31. Rutherford, A Free Disputation in Reformed Perspectives Magazine 9, no. 10 (2007): 2, http://thirdmill.org/newfiles/sam_rutherford/sam_rutherford.FreeDisputation.pdf (modern version).
32. Ibid., 161. Also see pp. 133, 165, 181-82. Rutherford also refers to the “erroneous conscience” (pp. 197-98, 318, 449, 473). Rutherford states that “men are more passive in receiving the impressions of error than truth” (Lex, Rex, or The Law and the Prince [Edinburgh: Robert Ogle and Oliver & Boyd, 1643], xxi). George Gillespie similarly states, “Men are sooner drawn from truth than from error” (cited in Culberson, “For Reformation and Uniformity,” 173).
33. Rutherford, Free Disputation, 79 (original version), cited in Crawford Gribben, “Samuel Rutherford and Liberty of Conscience,” WTJ 71 (2009): 365.
34. Hetherington, History of the Westminster Assembly, 356.
35. Ibid., 333.
36. Yule, Puritans in Politics, 216.
37. Ibid., 211-12. The Independents were in a manner compelled to become the head sectarian body and to defend not only their own religious liberties, “but also the liberty claimed by the most wild and monstrous sects to hold and to teach errors the most immoral and blasphemous,—of which they by no means approved, or rather, which they strongly condemned, but could not consistently oppose. They were thus led to advocate a toleration in theory which they never granted where their own power was predominant, as in New England” (Hetherington, History of the Westminster Assembly, 195). It is interesting to note that the Apologeticall Narration of 1643 (written by the Independents Thomas Goodwin, Jeremiah Burroughs, William Bridge, Philip Nye, and Sydrach Simpson) does not include one word promoting the toleration of serious error, let alone blasphemy. All they argue is that their churches be accommodated within any national church establishment—in fact, both Burroughs and Nye teach elsewhere that idolaters should die (Martin A. Foulner, “Goat Hunting with Samuel Rutherford: A Response to ‘Liberty of Conscience: A Problem for Theonomy,’ by Harold G. Cunningham,” Christianity and Society 8, no. 4 [1998]: 20). Rutherford knew that Independents agreed with him regarding the fact that Christ did not die to purchase liberty of conscience, so that men might be free to become Arians and deny the divinity of Christ, but that he died to purchase liberty from sin. Rutherford knew that the Independents “were as zealous to defend the authority of the first table of the law as he was. They knew that liberty of conscience as to any portion of the Decalogue was really liberty of sinning. Hence they too would recognize the dangerous implications of toleration” (Marshall, “Natural Law and the Covenant,” 210).
38. Hetherington, History of the Westminster Assembly, 331.
39. Ibid., 334. Commenting on the Scots’ viewpoint on toleration in the seventeenth century, George Yule states, “The issue was not just one of a tolerant as opposed to an intolerant spirit as we should tend to judge it with our twentieth century presuppositions. Those who opposed the granting of toleration were not necessarily intolerantly disposed in our modern sense, any more than those who favoured toleration were necessarily tolerantly disposed” (Yule, Puritans in Politics, 214-15).
40. Hetherington, History of the Westminster Assembly, 334. Andrew Murphy observes, “It is important to reiterate that anti-tolerationists often had good reasons for being concerned about the social and political consequences of toleration. These concerns might be based upon the past actions of those preaching toleration (rebellion and regicide), the examples of others in similar situations (the lack of reciprocal toleration for Anglicans, Quakers, or Presbyterians in New England or Pennsylvania), or the potential for religious dissent to begin a slide into anarchy or chaos (Muenster or, to some, the Interregnum). We should not lose sight of the radical nature of the measures tolerationists proposed. Proponents of religious liberty sought to dissociate two phenomena (civil and ecclesiastical power) that had been closely affiliated for centuries. Religious functions had long been assigned, without a great deal of controversy, to the civil magistrate, and anti-tolerationists found it difficult to comprehend how, if one might legitimately beg indulgence in religious matters, individuals would not claim conscientious objection to any laws they found inconvenient or simply unpleasant” (Murphy, Conscience and Community, 213).
41. Estrada, “Samuel Rutherford as a Presbyterian Theologian and Political Thinker,” 11.
42. Marshall, “Natural Law and the Covenant,” 209.
43. Gribben, “Samuel Rutherford and Liberty of Conscience,” 371.
44. Murphy, Conscience and Community, 80; see also pp. 102, 247.
45. Quentin Skinner, The Renaissance, vol. 1 of The Foundations of Modern Political Thought (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978), 109-10. The former view was similar to medieval thinking; see Marjorie Reeves, “History and Eschatology: Medieval and Early Protestant Thought in Some English and Scottish Writings,” Medievalia et Humanistica: Studies in Medieval and Renaissance Culture, n.s., 4 (1973): 101, 102-3.
46. Rutherford, Lex, Rex, 56(1), 70(1), 72(1), 105(1).
47. Marshall, “Natural Law and the Covenant,” 198; see also p. 261. Marshall observes that according to Rutherford, the magistrate must be the nurse-father to the true church (p. 203).
48. A. A. Hodge, The Confession of Faith (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1991), 295.
49. A. D. Lindsay, The Modern Democratic State (New York: Oxford University Press, 1943), 1:168.
50. See Skinner, Renaissance, 50.
51. Wolfgang G. Friedmann, Legal Theory, 5th ed. (London: Stevens & Sons, 1967), 104.
52. Ibid., 105.
53. Josephus was a wealthy Jew of the priestly class who defected to Rome during the Jewish War (AD 66-73), and then, as a favored member of the Flavian imperial household, attempted a series of works to explain his own people to the Hellenized world (Eric Nelson, The Hebrew Republic: Jewish Sources and the Transformation of European Political Thought [Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2010], 89).
54. Ze’ev W. Falk, “Religion and State in Ancient Israel,” in Politics and Theopolitics in the Bible and Postbiblical Literature, ed. Henning Graf Reventlow, Yair Hoffman, and Benjamin Uffenheimer, JSOTSup 171 (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 1994), 49; see also pp. 50-54.
55. Nelson, Hebrew Republic, 90-91.
56. Marshall, “Natural Law and the Covenant,” 255; see also pp. 256-59.
57. George J. Lavere, “The Influence of Saint Augustine on Early Medieval Political Theory,” AugStud 12 (1981): 7-8.
58. Ibid., 8.
59. Halecki, “Scottish Ministers, Covenant Theology,” 57; see also p. 58.
60. Fann, “Stories of God and Gall,” 70.
61. Ibid., 70.
62. Rutherford, Free Disputation, 90-91, 93, 96 (modern version). Rutherford insisted that adiaphora (things indifferent) constituted a sphere in which the consciences of individuals could not be bound by any external power, except where this interfered with the stability of civil society or contravened moral law. According to Rutherford, Christ’s rule over this faculty, which was widely conceived to be the spiritual deputy or lieutenant he placed in the soul of each believer, had to be direct and unmediated (Alexandra Walsham, Charitable Hatred: Tolerance and Intolerance in England, 1500-1700 [Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2006], 242). This was a basic understanding emanating from the Reformers. In this regard, and more specifically regarding Althusius’s view, see Frederick S. Carney, ed. and trans., The Politics of Johannes Althusius (London: Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1964), 167-68.
63. Rutherford, Lex, Rex, 214(1).
64. Samuel Rutherford, Due Right of Presbyteries (London, 1664), 354; cited in Chris Coldwell and Matthew Winzer, “The Westminster Assembly and the Judicial Law: A Chronological Compilation and Analysis, Part 2: Analysis,” Confessional Presbyterian 5 (2009): 79; see also p. 80.
65. Samuel Rutherford, A Survey of the Spiritual Antichrist (London, 1648), Part 2:261. See also Samuel Rutherford, The Divine Right of Church-Government and Excommunication (London, 1646), 499; see also pp. 509, 531-32, 546-47.
66. Guy M. Richard, “In Translatiōne: Samuel Rutherford, Of the Civil Magistrate, from Examen Arminianismi,” Confessional Presbyterian 4 (2008): 272. In his “A brotherly and free Epistle to the patrons and friends of pretended Liberty of Conscience,” in A Survey of the Spiritual Antichrist, Rutherford states, “As for the forcing of our opinions upon the consciences of any; It is a calumny refuted by our practice, and whole deportment since we came hither. Our witness is in heaven, it was not in our thoughts or intentions to obtrude by the sword and force of Arms, any Church-government at all on our brethren in England.”
67. Richard, “In Translatiōne: Samuel Rutherford,” 272; see also pp. 275-76.
68. Rutherford, Free Disputation, 33-34 (modern version).
69. Henry W. J. Thiersch, On Christian Commonwealth (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1877), 58.
70. Rutherford, Free Disputation, 131-32 (modern version).
71. Ibid., 36.
72. Ibid., 40.
73. Ibid., 309-10 (original version).
74. Ibid., 9 (original version). In The Divine Right of Church-Government, 592-93, Rutherford states, “The intrinsecall end of the Magistrate is a supernaturall good … the Prince punishing idolatry, may per accidens, and indirectly promote the salvation of the Church, by removing the temptations of Hereticks from the Church; but he doth that, not in order to the conscience of the Idolater, to gain his soul (for Pastors as Pastors do that) but to make the Church quiet, and peaceable in her journey to life eternall: but all this is but to act on the externall man by worldly power.” Rutherford distinguishes between the formal and material power to distinguish between the duties and responsibilities of the magistrate and of the church. Although the material duty of the magistrate is the furtherance of God’s kingdom and the protection of souls, the formal duty of the magistrate is limited to punishing heresies and false doctrine as they disturb the peace of the civil state (pp. 622-23; see also p. 624).
75. Rutherford, Lex, Rex, 72(1); author’s emphasis. See also Rutherford, Divine Right of Church-Government, 547, 600-601.
76. Marshall, “Natural Law and the Covenant,” 217. According to Rutherford, the civil ruler is to ensure that there are preachers of the gospel and that true religion is practiced, although the civil ruler must confine his concern to outward acts. Rutherford believed that the civil ruler may “censure ministers who preach error and must in turn submit to the Church’s rebuke. Rutherford believes that ecclesiastical discipline should be accompanied by civil penalties, although he insists that church and civil judicatures are to be totally separate.… Rutherford expects the civil ruler to test church decisions by Scripture, including matters of church discipline, and he may command the church to re-try a case if he disagrees with the verdict. All this while strictly maintaining separate jurisdictions” (W. D. J. McKay, “Samuel Rutherford on Civil Government,” Reformed Theological Journal [1988]: 58).
77. See, e.g., Rutherford, Lex, Rex, 105(2).
78. See, e.g., ibid., 215(2); see also pp. 100(1), 188(1), 219(2)–20(1), 222(1), 223(1), 105(1), 118(1), 121(1), 136(1), 199(1).
79. Ibid., 32(2).
80. Ibid., 72(1). Also, “The king must feed the Lord’s people” (199[2]).
81. Ibid., 215(2).
82. See, e.g., ibid., 56(1); see also p. 96(1).
83. Ibid., 230(1).
84. Althusius’s work Politica methodice digesta, atque exemplis sacris et profanis illustrata politics, also referred to as the Politics, remains a classical and foundational source to any study on federalism; see the preface to the first edition (1603) in Carney, Politics of Johannes Althusius, 1-7.