Alright, we're continuing our study of the Westminster Confession of Faith. More recently, we looked at the Christians' Freedom, Religious Worship, and the Sabbath Day, and now we're going to be considering a specific type of worship in Chapter 22, Lawful Oaths and Vows, and then we'll look at the Civil Magistrate in Chapter 23. Paragraph 1 of Chapter 22 of Lawful Oaths and Vows. A lawful oath is a part of religious worship wherein, upon just occasion, the person swearing solemnly calleth God to witness what he asserteth or promiseth, and to judge him according to the truth or falsehood of what he sweareth. So here, first primary doctrine is that lawful oaths are part of God's worship. And we saw this actually in the section on worship, the paragraph on worship, where it named various occasional acts of worship, and oaths and vows were some of those. The second primary doctrine is that there are lawful occasions to swear. Hebrews talks about how when there's a controversy that can't be settled by other means, often an oath interposes to end all controversies. But there are times and occasions when God and His Word and the law recognizes that there are times people would make vows to Him or oaths to one another. So there are lawful occasions. And it has to do with asserting or promising things, saying that something is the case or promising to do this or that. And then third primary doctrine is that God is the witness and judge of oaths. God is the witness and the judge of oaths. And we see this, the apostle Paul will talk about God is my record, or the spirit bears witness, various types of records that are called upon for God to judge. If a person violates their oath, God is the one who will interpose to judge them. Okay, paragraph two. The name of God only is that by which men ought to swear. and therein it is to be used with all holy fear and reverence, therefore to swear vainly or rashly by that glorious and dreadful name, or to swear at all by any other thing is sinful, and to be abhorred. Yet as, in matters of wait and moment, an oath is warranted by the word of God under the New Testament as well as under the Old, so a lawful oath being duly imposed by lawful authority in such matters ought to be taken. So the primary doctrine here is that God's name is the only name by which men may swear. God's name is the only name by which men may swear." And it doesn't specifically cite this passage in the Confession of Faith, but you'll recall when we studied in the Old Testament book of Zephaniah, where it talked about the people swearing to God, but then also swearing by Malcolm, their false god. So they were not completely reformed and repentant because even though they took a covenant vow to God, they still swore by creatures. And we also see this where Jesus forbids in the New Testament not to swear by heaven or by the temple or by your hair. Not by creatures, in other words. That's the consistent teaching of the Bible. You don't swear by creatures. Jeremiah talks about that in one of the passages cited here, that we're to swear by the name of God only. And so that's the first doctrine is only by God and by his name. And then second primary doctrine, swearing must be in the fear of God and not rashly or vainly. Swearing must be in the fear of God. and not rashly or vainly. Now, rash oath is where a person doesn't give due consideration and they go quickly into something. And vain is where the oath actually doesn't have any significance. People take oaths like this all the time and they'll call on God to, I swear to God, people will say. And then they say something that's Ridiculous doesn't who cares it's not it's vain. There's nothing there's no weight to what you're talking about It's just to assert as the Jews of old did they would swear to assert things that were meaningless and pointless You should just say yes or no, and that's that's Jesus point don't take rash or vain oaths Don't use God's name as a witness to things that are stupid much less things that are false or evil. I And so that's the idea of a vein or an empty oath and rash being rushing into it. And then the third primary doctrine is swearing is an act of worship under both Testaments. Swearing is an act of worship under both the Old and New Testament. And we see that in various ways. One is that Of course, though Christ and James both prohibit swearing, they say swear not at all, We do find that oaths are taken by the apostles even under divine inspiration where the apostle Paul will swear by God in the middle of writing the scriptures. So obviously that wouldn't be a sinful action if somehow the Holy Spirit were guiding a person who's speaking God's word to violate his law. That's not how that works. God is speaking through the apostle and the apostle takes an oath. So swearing is an act of worship under both testaments. Third paragraph. Whosoever taketh an oath ought duly to consider the weightiness of so solemn an act, and therein to avouch nothing but what he is fully persuaded is the truth. Neither may any man bind himself by oath to anything but what is good and just, and what he believeth so to be, and what he is able and resolved to perform. Yet it is a sin to refuse an oath touching anything that is good and just, being imposed by lawful authority. So the first part of this, the first doctrine, oaths must be good, both in substance and form. So an oath must be good both in the substance and in the form. The substance of an oath is what is the thing that you're saying? Is this to a good end? Are you avouching truth so far as you know it to be? And you can't bind yourself to do evil by an oath. So the substance of the oath can't be to commit some act of sin or to lessen your duty to God. Oh, I take this promissory oath that I will commit adultery. Well, that's an invalid oath. You can't do that. because adultery is forbidden by God. So you can't, in the substance of your oath, you can't sin or promise to sin or promise that you won't do what's right. But on the other side, there's the form of the oath. It's to be taken with the subjective state of mind that what I'm saying is true, that I actually intend to do the thing. If you make a promise to do a thing, you have a resolution and you have the ability to do so. This is a very important consideration that we'll look at in a little bit. Not swearing to things you cannot actually perform. And then the imposition of an oath as Nehemiah, we saw in Nehemiah 5, he imposed an oath on the people. And also Asa in the time of the Reformation under the king Asa, he commanded the people and required that they swear to the covenant or that they stand to the covenant. In other words, he made them promise to God. So that's a vow, not just a human oath. He made them promise directly to God. And then also the form of it is the weightiness, the solemnity of it, the fear of God in which a person enters into it. And then, just that second, real quickly, oaths may be imposed by lawful authority. And that would be in your family, that would be your parents, for example, or in the church. Elders can require an oath, or in the state, the magistrate can require an oath. Again, for good and just reasons. You can't refuse that. And this actually is very important because there are certain people who set the Old Testament against the New Testament. And they say that these are two different religions, two different gods is the theology behind it. And they'll say, see, Jesus here says, swear not at all. James says the same thing. Well, in the Old Testament, they said you could swear. So it's obviously two different ethics, two different moral systems. Whereas correctly understood, Christ is not abolishing the law or the prophets. He's not saying you shouldn't swear ever. He's saying you shouldn't swear vainly, which is the same teaching as Moses. And you should not swear by creatures. Those are two things taught in the Old Testament. Don't swear vainly. And don't swear for falsehood, certainly, but don't swear by creatures. And that's exactly the Old Testament teaching on an oath. So they'll tend to set these things against each other that should be set together. All right. Paragraph four of chapter 22. An oath is to be taken in the plain and common sense of the words, without equivocation or mental reservation. It cannot oblige to sin, but in anything not sinful being taken, it binds to performance, although to a man's own hurt. Nor is it to be violated, although made to heretics or infidels." Now, infidel is one who does not believe the Christian religion. Muslims, Jews, atheists, people like that. Okay, so, when we take an oath, Where to communicate with the common, ordinary usage of language. This is extremely important. No equivocation, primary doctrine number one. No equivocation or mental reservation. None. And the equivocation is where a person uses a term that they intend to not have one meaning, but several meanings could be ascribed to the word. And the sin in that is that people should understand what you're saying, generally speaking. As much as lies within you, you should make common the thought of your head with the words on your tongue. What you're thinking should be what you're saying. Equivocation is where a person will say something with the intention of deceiving or misleading the other party or not conveying the whole truth. So the kids have a book about Athanasius in which Romans were persecuting and hunting him down. He was in a boat and the Roman soldiers were in another boat and the boats are passing by and they say, do you know where Athanasius is? The Roman soldiers say this to Athanasius and he says, yes, I think he's near at hand. That's an equivocation. Is he near in hand? Yes, he's right there. He's actually speaking to them. So that's an equivocation where the phrase or the word could have different meanings and he doesn't tell them, yeah, I'm right here, but he tells them he's near. which is true, but not actually what they're asking. And to preserve his life, I suppose you could say, well, what are you going to do? Here, come kill me. So in this sense, when we're taking an oath, though, we're not allowed in these matters. It's not like you're saving your life from a persecutor. It's that you're refusing to actually say what you mean. You're not using the words in the ordinary sense And that is extremely sinful to equivocate when you take an oath. Then the other thing is mental reservation. I promise to be faithful to you. And then in the back of your mind, you say, until it's really hard. That's a mental reservation. I'll be faithful to you. Assuming it's not that hard, I'll be faithful. That's how most people get married, actually. When they take their oath, till death do us part, what they mean is till it's really hard. At which point, you know, it's like I'm psychologically dying. Words are violence. Oh, I need to get out of this. So this is the idea of mental reservation. I'm going to hold in my head a reservation about the words that I'm speaking so that you think I'm taking the oath that you're hearing, but I'm actually thinking something else. And the Roman Catholics said that this was OK, especially the Jesuits. That if you took an oath to a Protestant or a Protestant magistrate, you could say things that you didn't actually believe by making sure you used the appropriate set of words and thinking in your head something different. And that was allowable to them. The Muslims believe the same thing. The Jews, the Muslims, and the Papists all believe the same thing. You can take an oath. and you can hold in your head a different thought than what you express with your lips. The Bible has no place for this at all. It says that you should swear in truth and that the words that you speak, like Jesus says, your yea should be yea and your nay should be nay. You should not bear false witness. You should not mislead your neighbor. You should not think one thing and say something else with mental reservation. Second thing, oaths may be for lawful things and are to be kept if for such things. Oaths may only be for lawful things and are to be kept if for such things. So once you have sworn, You must do it. It's not optional at that point. Before a person takes an oath, it's optional whether they will do it or not. As soon as they make the promise, it's too late. You're now obliged to do that specific thing. Unless that thing was sinful, and then it's a sin to make the oath and would be a second sin to keep it. But if it's not sinful, then it must be done. Even as the Bible says, it's to your own hurt. Psalm 15, for the righteous man sweareth to his own hurt and changeth not, means he's said he's going to do something by an oath. He now realizes it's going to cost him a lot. He's going to be in a lot of pain or suffering because he has to keep his oath. but he won't change his oath because of the consequences. It's part of doing your duty and leaving the results to God, that Psalm 15, four refers to. Now, an interesting instance here is they cite Joshua nine, where you have these men come to Israel and lie to them. And the Gibeonites, I think, the inhabitants of Gibeon, I don't remember. But they come and they tell them, we're from a far country, and they have fake moldy bread, and they have raggedy old clothes that they just put on to make it look like they've come on a long journey. And they lie to Israel and say, we'll be your servants. Take us in with you, and we'll be your slaves forever. And Israel, being deceived by them, swore to them and entered into an oath with them that they would take them as slaves. and that they would protect them. They'd have a paternal protection for them. Well, Saul didn't observe that. And so there had to be judgment against his house. And we see that 2 Samuel 21, when there were plagues and famine, I think, in the days of David and God revealed through an oracle that it was for the sin of Saul who attacked these people. Instead of keeping the oath made hundreds of years before, he violated that promise. So he should have kept it because before you make the promise, you're free to do it or not. And Joshua and the men should have consulted the Lord and said, should we do this? Are they actually, are they deceiving us? But they didn't. They rationally entered into an oath and then they were obliged to keep it. And when they didn't, it meant death for the descendants of Saul. So all that to say, If it's for a lawful thing, you're going to protect these people and they're going to be your slaves, then you have to do that. You have to protect them. That's the illustration that they give there. And a very good illustration of that. All right. Any questions so far on page 38? No? Okay. Paragraph 5. A vow is of the like nature with a promissory oath and not to be made with the like religious care and to be performed with the like faithfulness. Okay, so primary doctrine, vows are like oaths to be faithfully and religiously performed. Pretty straightforward. Paragraph six, again referring to vow, it is not to be made to any creature but to God alone. And that it may be accepted, it is to be made voluntarily, out of faith and conscience of duty, in way of thankfulness for mercy received, or for the obtaining of what we want, whereby we more strictly bind ourselves to necessary duties, or to other things, so far and so long as they may fitly conduce thereunto. Okay, so the primary doctrines here first, vows are only to God and are voluntary of faith and conscience. So vows are only to God, are voluntary and of faith and conscience. Now, an oath you can make to a creature, another living being, A vow you can only make to God. Vows are always God word in scripture. And people talk about their marriage vows. If they're talking about to each other, that would be idolatry of the first commandment. If they're talking about to God concerning other people, then that's fine. But often people don't think about that. They think of their vows as just what they say to each other. And that's not biblical, that's idolatrous. So if you're taking marriage vows, They better be to God and not to a creature, because only God in Scripture is the one we vow to. Now, they're to be done voluntarily, meaning you choose of your own will. You can't say, well, I won't keep the Ten Commandments until I make a vow to keep the Ten Commandments. No, you have a moral obligation to keep the law. You can't promise God, well, now I'll keep your law. You can more strictly bind yourself to something that's already your duty, but you can't say, well, I'm not going to keep the commandments of God until I vow to Him. So that's necessary to keep the moral law. It's not voluntary. Voluntary is something you could do or not do. You could vow or not vow. You must keep the moral law. You should do so willingly, of course, but it's not voluntary. It's not free to you. You are obliged to do these things that God says or to refrain from doing specific things that he forbids. In any case, vows are to be voluntary and they're to be of faith and conscience. And then second primary doctrine, there are various types of occasions and motives that move people to vow. And it refers us to the vow of, I believe it's Jacob's vow, where he says that if the Lord keeps me, when I get back from Paddan Aram and God keeps me that whole way, I'll give him a tenth of everything that I make. Now, a tithe is a moral obligation. It's written in the conscience of man. You see it before the Mosaic Law, at the Mosaic Law, and after the Mosaic Law. You see it all throughout Scripture. People are tithing. Because the principle is, God owns all that I have, all that I receive. and therefore I ought to give a portion of that. But Jacob specifically vows that with his tithe he will support a house for God, Bethel, and that he will build God an altar there. and that that's where he'll worship God once he returns. So he's vowing to a specific application concerning the tithes that he would otherwise be obliged to use. So it's for a lawful thing, but it's also voluntary because there's no requirement that he build a house at Bethel. There's no requirement that he take it and use it in such and such a way, but he vows to do that. Now what's interesting is you don't see Jacob keep the vow after he comes back from Paddan Aram until the trouble with Dinah. After Dinah goes out and sees the women of the land and gets raped by Shechem and then the brothers of Dinah come and destroy the inhabitants of Shechem after they've been deceived into getting circumcised. Once all that mess happens, Jacob wakes up and thinks, oh yeah, I had a vow and I didn't keep it. And then he repents. And he makes sure everybody sanctifies themselves, and they go back to Bethel, and they build the house. It was voluntary. He didn't have to promise to God he would build this house, but having done it, he brought judgments against his household and made them all stink in the nostrils of the Canaanites. And he thought they were all going to come and kill him. And then his conscience condemned him. Oh, I haven't kept my vow. Vows are extremely important. They must be kept, and they must be faithfully performed, and they're out of conscience of duty. Okay, now, paragraph seven. No man may vow to do anything forbidden in the word of God, or what would hinder any duty therein commanded, or which is not in his own power, and for the performance whereof he hath no promise or ability from God, in which respect popish monastical vows of perpetual single life, professed poverty, regular obedience, are so far from being degrees of higher perfection that they are superstitious and sinful snares in which no Christian may entangle himself." OK, so there are a couple of things here. The first primary doctrine vows that hinder duty or contradict scripture or are impossible are unlawful. Vows that hinder duty, contradict scripture, or are impossible are unlawful. If I were to vow to always obey God in every way till the end of my life, I would be vowing sinfully. I cannot do that. There is no promise, God says, that He can make me sinlessly perfect. So if I were to vow that in this life I will be sinlessly perfect, I would be vowing to a thing impossible. That is in itself a sin, because it's rash. It's presuming that somehow God will do something He never promised that He would do, and I just think I'm so special He'll do it for me, certainly. That would be wicked. So they can't be for things impossible, and they can't be to diminish the duties that you owe to God. Now, let's talk about what they say here, the monastic vows. So that's our second doctrine. Monastic vows are superstitious and sinful snares, not higher perfection. Monastic vows are superstitious and sinful snares, not higher perfection. Now, it was interesting in my studies in preparation for last Sabbath, 1 Corinthians 7, I read some Roman Catholic authors, especially Aquinas and his commentary on 1 Corinthians 7, a little bit of Jerome, tried to get a flavor for what these guys thought about 1 Corinthians 7. And what they say is, if a person retains their virginity for life, it's like gold. And if a person has to get married, it's like silver. So for them, the level of perfection to which a Christian arrives depends on whether they get married or not, at least in that specific way. So if you stay unmarried your whole life, then you are the golden believer. And if you're so carnal that you can't do anything else, then you're a silver class believer. That's literally what Aquinas says. So they believed that the monastic life, where a person vows to God that I will be single the rest of my life, that that vow is a higher degree of perfection for a Christian if you make that promise to God. Now, as we saw from 1 Corinthians 7, Paul says there is one solution to fornication, and he does make no mention of a vow of perpetual singleness, you'll notice. He says marriage. Because of fornication, or for the cause of fornication, let each man have his own wife, and let each woman have her own husband. That is the biblical solution. If a person is built in such a way that they have no need of marriage, born a eunuch, Well, what can you say? They don't have to get married. They probably shouldn't. They should probably use their time in a different way. But be that as it may, the ordinary person should get married because the moral duty of God is not to fornicate. And therefore, because your body is set up in such a way that you have ordinary human desires, you would be ensnaring yourself to take a vow that I will never get married. You see, it's a hindrance of duty. God made no promise to people who have ordinary physical desire, I'm going to help you as long as you make a vow. He never said that. So there's no scripture warrant on which you can found such a thing. And there's a scripture truth that you'd be contradicting, which is, if you don't have the gift of singleness, you should get married. That's the only lawful solution. So the idea was, well, let's tell people that they could be a better Christian, they'll be a gold class Christian instead of a silver class Christian, if they say, I'll never get married. They promise that they will never get married. Now this, by the way, at the time of the Reformation, this principle was extremely important because there were thousands of people across Europe who now embrace the teaching of scripture over the traditions of the church. But they had already taken a vow that said, I will be in poverty and chastity and in ignorance. Actually, it was obedience. But I will vow to do these things. And they'd already taken the vows early on in their life often. So they had a conscience problem. I promised God that I will do these things, but now I see that the promise was not biblical. What do I do? And there was very heart-wrenching soul-searching people had to do. Should I keep the vow or not? As God says, if you make a vow, you better keep it. But the solution is this. If you make an unlawful vow, it's a sin, because you're presuming on God and taking His name in vain. If you keep an unlawful vow, you've sinned twice instead of just once. So the solution was repent of your unlawful vow. You made a vow to promise to be single. You don't have the power to keep it. You have no promise from God that you'll be able to keep it. Therefore, you must not keep it. And then they would release their conscience and get married. And that was the proper solution. That was the right thing to do. Now, the history of monasticism is one filled with gay men and lesbians and sex perverts. That's a fact. The monasteries became like brothels. And if you had a cleric who had taken a monastic or a vow of singleness, they would be with, you know, eight different wives, wives and lots of what they called nephews in the Middle Ages, which are the the kids that he has spawned with all these different women, many of whom also took vows of singleness. In fact, in Scotland, the Reformation took hold because the common people realized that the ministers of the Scottish Reformation were actually normal people. They weren't sex perverts, in other words, like the priests were. They actually had wives, and they actually cared about their wives, and actually lived with their wives, and they only had children from one woman. And that moral power of a married man swayed the whole nation because in every village of Scotland you'd have dozens of children from the parish priest. And he had never married any of the women that he had spawned children through. And it's because they had taken a vow to ensnare their souls and to ensure their damnation because they promised that they wouldn't do something that God hadn't given them the ability to actually do. So that's why this is so important. This is why they point this out, is that when we make a vow, as Jephthah, he makes a vow that the first thing that comes out of his house will be a burnt offering to God. His daughter is the first thing that comes out of his house. And there's no indication he didn't do this. It seems that he actually offered his daughter as a human sacrifice. So it was a sinful vow, it was a rash vow to say it in the first place, because you don't know what's going to come out of your house. Second thing is to sin twice in fulfilling the vow. And every man in Israel did whatever was right in his own eyes. That's the refrain of the book of Judges. So not only does he make a rash vow, he keeps a sinful vow. All right, any questions about 5, 6, or 7? Chapter 23 of the Civil Magistrate, paragraph 1. God, the Supreme Lord and King of all the world, hath ordained civil magistrates to be under him, over the people, for his own glory and the public good. And to this end hath armed them with the power of the sword for the defense and encouragement of them that are good and for the punishment of evildoers. Okay, so the first primary doctrine here, civil magistrates are God's ordinance under him and over the people. Civil magistrates are God's ordinance under him and over the people. This, by the way, is just the basic teaching of Romans 13. These powers are ordained of God or under God, literally. They're under him. But they're over the people. They're to be submitted to and honored for that reason. And then the second primary doctrine is the purpose. purpose is God's glory and the public good by the punishment of evil and the encouragement of good. Now, a secular civil government or our modern notions of democracy is directly contrary to the fundamental purpose of civil government, the glory of God. All of human existence, all human activity, Every institution among men has the basic purpose to glorify God. Because men are part of those institutions, therefore because man's chief end is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever, therefore the purpose of every institution man inhabits or uses or is part of is to glorify God. That's the basic fundamental purpose of everything, including civil government. So if we say civil government exists merely for the rights of the people, We've actually gutted civil government of the fundamental purpose for its existence. Magistrates who don't believe that their primary purpose is God's glory are actually attacking the rights of the people. And that's not the reason why it's so bad, but it's a fact. Because if you don't glorify God, you will not protect those who bear his image. If you don't have God's rights in the first table as the first part of civil government, you will never have man's rights in the second table of the law having anything more than a nominal interest for the civil government. So atheistic civil government, in other words, is not civil government. It's tyranny because it destroys the rights of the people and it takes away the glory of God. So that's important. Now one thing just to note, there is a group of people who believe that the civil magistrate is under the kingship of Christ directly as the mediator. They call this mediatorial kingship. That Christ is the mediatorial king over all the nations of the earth. You could or could not make a case for that based off of exegesis, but it's not the Confessions position, just to let you know this. There are the Cameroonians, the Reformed Presbyterian Church of North America, and others like that. They believe that the civil government is under Christ as the mediator God-man. This says, God, the supreme Lord and King of all the world, hath ordained civil magistrates. So this is saying, not under Christ as the mediatorial King, but as the whole Trinity in their natural capacity as God. That's what this is saying. So just something to keep in mind. If you ever happen to talk to a person, you can point out, well, that's not the Confession's position for these reasons. And actually, it's important to recognize that in Romans 13, it doesn't mention Christ at all, nor in 1 Peter 2. It doesn't say anything about Christ as the head of the civil magistrates. It merely says that they're ordained of God or under God. So that's an important distinction. All right, paragraph 2. It is lawful for Christians to accept and execute the office of a magistrate when called thereunto, in the managing whereof, as they ought especially to maintain piety, justice, and peace according to the wholesome laws of each commonwealth, so for that end they may lawfully, now under the New Testament, wage war upon just and necessary occasion. Okay, this first primary doctrine here is that Christians may be magistrates, and especially to keep both tables of the law. Christians may be magistrates, especially to keep both tables of the law. Now in Timothy, he tells us to pray for our magistrates, 1 Timothy 2.2. the purpose for the prayer that they would be converted is so that we may lead a quiet life in all godliness and honesty. That means that if you have wicked magistrates that's going to be more difficult. That's going to be maybe impossible to lead a quiet life in all godliness and honesty. If you have wicked people their line being placed over the righteous, you're going to have trouble with that. And so we're to pray to that end. And we see this theme throughout the Bible, that magistrates, if they're not godly and pious, then they won't generally keep peace. They'll bring judgments, Psalm 2, which is cited here. God will bring his judgment against wicked nations. But Christians may be magistrates. This is contrary to the Anabaptists who say that civil government is a necessary evil. Well, the Bible asserts, no, it's not. It's actually glorifying to God. They're called ministers of God in Romans 13. They're called his servants and his deacons and his liturgoi is the Greek word, which means someone who leads in worship, especially like public worship. But here, notice in our confession, we say what the scripture says. that Christians may take this office and they ought to especially maintain piety, justice, and peace. Piety is the first table of the law, the fear of God. And then justice is the second table of the law, where men receive what is their due. And then peace is the result of that. If you have piety and justice, you'll have peace in the land, no doubt, because God will bless you with peace. He promises, if you fear me, if you call upon me, blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord, it'll cause them to prosper. Okay, so Christians may take it, but especially to focus on the two tables of the law. And then the second primary doctrine is that magistrates are to enforce wholesome laws of each commonwealth, and they may wage just war. So magistrates are to enforce the wholesome laws of each commonwealth, and they may wage just war. Some people believe that there is a regulative principle of civil government. That is, if God doesn't command magistrates, then they may not do it. This is not that position. This is saying that each commonwealth has its own legislative power. It can make its own laws. And so long as they're wholesome, meaning they don't violate any moral principle, then they're to be enforced by Christian magistrates, those wholesome laws of each commonwealth. This is also contrary to what is sometimes called theonomy, which is the notion, in some people's minds at least, that all of the Old Testament laws are to be copied and pasted into Gentile nations. Well, that's not what this is saying. You could, again, you might make an exegetical case here, look at this passage and look at this passage, and this is why this is the case, but it's not the position of the Westminster Confession of Faith, which recognizes that each nation has wholesome laws. And we actually see this within the New Testament. When you have the various nations that the apostles interact with or Christ interacts with, they have a general recognition of the legitimacy of those civil governments. You also see this in the Old Testament after the time of the captivity, when the people of God are being brought back into the land, their interactions with their magistrates are very respectful and the magistrates make good decisions. And they don't complain, wait a second, you know, there's nothing in the law of Moses that says you can turn somebody's house into a dunghill. Because that's one of the penalties that's issued if people won't do according to the laws of God, and the God of Daniel, is that we're going to take your house, and we're going to take all the posts out of your house, and we're going to make it into a big pile of crap. That's what we're going to do to your house if you don't listen to God. There's no Mosaic sanction about that, but it's a wholesome law. And so they praise it and say, this is great. Look what God did through our magistrate, our heathen magistrate. They said, we're going to do this, this, this, and this if you don't listen to the Lord. So that's a wholesome law of that particular commonwealth. So even outside of Israel, the scriptures recognize that there were wholesome laws that they had made and that those should be enforced. All right, and then just war just being when God approves of a war. Generally, those are defensive wars where you're defending your own soil and interests and ownership and people, as opposed to aggressive wars where you go out and pick fights with people. We're going to go beat up our neighbors because I know they're going to come over here sometime and try to steal stuff. That's like George W. Bush. We're going to go fight the Iraqis because they might have weapons. We're just going to go beat them up just in case. We'll go and, you know, give them a black eye so that they never come onto our soil. Well, that's unjust. Okay, paragraph three. The civil magistrate may not assume to himself the administration of the word and sacraments or the powers of the keys of the kingdom of heaven. Yet he hath authority, and it is his duty, to take order that unity and peace be preserved in the church, and that the truth of God be kept pure and entire, that all blasphemies and heresies be suppressed, all corruptions and abuses in worship and discipline prevented or reformed, and all the ordinances of God duly settled, administered, and observed. For the better affecting whereof he hath power to call synods, and to be present at them, and to provide that whatsoever is transacted in them be according to the mind of God. OK, this is hotly disputed among modern theologians because the Enlightenment notion of separation of church and state interposes itself between them and the text of scripture, something that did not interpose itself between our forebears and the scriptures. So one thing, first thing here in the primary doctrines, magistrates have no power In Sakra is a phrase we use. In Sakra. That means in the holy things themselves. They have no power as magistrates. You might have a man who could be a magistrate at one time and a pastor at another. That's different. But as a magistrate, no man has power in holy things. Can't go and be a pastor, preach the word, administer the sacraments. But the second primary doctrine is magistrates have power circa sacra, which means around the holy things and the external part of it. In other words, not in the internal part, but the external part. Constantine referred to himself as a bishop of the church and the external affairs of the church. Whereas the pastors, he said, you're the bishops on the inside, I'm the bishop on the outside. So I'm here to make sure that in the calling of the Council of Nicaea, I'm here to make sure that things are transacted according to the word of God. So he called a synod for that purpose. Now, very important. We see this from Genesis to Revelation, especially in the Mosaic law, that there is a distinction between the civil and the ecclesiastical authority. In fact, there's a really good book. It's one of the required readings for ministers in our denomination. It's called Aaron's Rod Blossoming. And you'll remember that there was a challenge of Aaron's authority by some of the civil authorities in Israel. And they said, you take too much upon yourself, Aaron and Moses. You think you're something special. You know, all God's people are holy. Why are you saying Aaron is the only one who should be ministering here? And so they all took censers. Contrary to God's institution, they did their own thing. And they were destroyed by fire. And then there was a test where all the tribes would take a rod and God would cause one of them to blossom. and the one that blossomed was Aaron's rod. And what God was saying is, you have the civil magistrate and his powers and what he does, and then you have the ecclesiastical magistrate and his powers and what he does. And these two are not to be confused. You're not to say, because I'm a civil magistrate, I can therefore burn incense, which was the duty of the priesthood. You can't say that now, because I'm a holy person and God loves me, I can therefore do whatever I want. No, that's not right. So the two jurisdictions were recognized by God and clearly delineated, so much so, George Gillespie is the guy who wrote that book, he makes the point that there were two Sanhedrins. There was an ecclesiastical Sanhedrin, and there was a civil Sanhedrin. And then it makes a lot of sense when you think about the passages that talk about the priests and the judges, or the priests and the elders. It's talking about the two great Sanhedrins. The great Sanhedrin is when they all come together to judge a case. That's what happened when Jesus was tried. Both Sanhedrins came together to try him, both the civil and the ecclesiastical. But in the Old Testament, you see this, there is a civil judgment and there's an ecclesiastical judgment. There's a civil government. So Moses as a magistrate and a prophet is not necessarily, he was also a Levite, so it's a little blurry. But if you look at the kings, for example, when they try to go into the temple and perform the office and function of a priest, One of them is struck with leprosy because it doesn't pertain to him. And the priest told him that. Get out. This is not your place. You don't have in-sacra power. You have circa-sacra. And that is a well-established fact as well. Throughout the whole books of the kings, first and second kings, what do you find? Who are the people who are taking responsibility to see that the worship of God is conducted properly, that the doctrines of the faith are taught properly? Who's doing that? Well, it's the magistrates. There's occasions where a priest interposes. There's a lot of prophetic, but when the actual reformation of the house of God, the funding of the external business of the church, and the reading of scripture, and the appointment of Levites to teach, who's doing it? Magistrates are doing it. So as reformed believers, we don't have a problem with that because we recognize that the chief duty of man is to glorify God. So if he's a civil magistrate, he's still a man, right? So therefore his chief duty is to glorify God and to see the worship of God and to see that things are done properly. Now there's a boundary mark that says, not in Sakra, but circa Sakra, around the holy things, he may do all these. We also pray for, you'll notice I'll pray for the church to be maintained, countenanced and maintained by the civil magistrate. Well, that means circa sacra. That's what I'm praying there. That God would cause the magistrates in our land to actually care about the church, to make sure that it doesn't fail, to make sure that it's not divided into a thousand little groups, which is exactly what Satan wants. He wants there to be a thousand little groups so that he can come in and divide everybody up and sow confusion. In any case, no in-sakra, but sirka-sakra. And then third, magistrates have power to call synods and to be present at them. Magistrates have power to call synods and to be present at them. And again, you see this in the Old Testament as well as in the Gospel of Matthew, they cite there. Even if he did it for a wicked reason, it was a good thing to do. Call together the teachers and doctors of the church and ask them a question about scripture so that they can answer it. That's what he does. That's what Herod does. Also in Chronicles, we see the same thing. Magistrates calling for assemblies to resolve disputes and matters by churchmen. All right, paragraph four. It is the duty of people to pray for magistrates, to honor their persons, to pay them tribute and other dues, to obey their lawful commands, and to be subject to their authority for conscience sake. Infidelity or difference in religion does not make void the magistrate's just and legal authority, nor free the people from their due obedience to him, from which ecclesiastical persons are not exempted. Much less hath the Pope any power or jurisdiction over them and their dominions, or over any of their people, and least of all to deprive them of their dominions or lives, if he shall judge them to be heretics, or upon any pretense whatsoever." Okay, so a couple things here. First, primary doctrine. People have religious and civil duties to their magistrates. People have religious and civil duties to their magistrates or with reference to their magistrates. They don't have religious duties to them, but they're to pray for them. We're to pray for our magistrates. That's a religious duty that we owe to God. And he says, pray for them. And then civil duties are things like it mentions honor, tribute, dues. obedience to lawful commands, subjection to their authority. These are all duties that we owe to our magistrates. And then the second primary doctrine is that infidelity or difference of religion doesn't make their legal and just authority void. So infidelity, they're not a believer, they don't believe in the Christian religion. Or difference in religion, maybe you're Reformed and you live in a Lutheran land or you're Presbyterian and live in an Episcopal land or whatever, that happened in the history of mankind. A difference of religion, it doesn't make their authority void. Oh well, you're a Roman Catholic magistrate, therefore I don't have to submit to you. That's not actually true. There could be unlawful commands such as go in procession and bow before this image. Okay, well, no, I'm not going to do that because that's not within your power to command. You can't command the conscience to commit idolatry, for example. But it doesn't mean that all their authority is void. It means that that command is void. That command. If there's a repeated pattern of tyrannical commands like that, then I would say it collapses into tyranny rather than legitimate civil government. But that's not what it's talking about. It's talking about when a person says, well, this person's not of my religion, therefore I don't have to obey anything they say. That's not true. you have a duty to that magistrate because God has ordained them for the punishment of them that do evil and the praise of them that do well. No magistrate is perfect. And so if they issue a lawful command, you must obey it. All right. And then the third thing is that the Antichrist has no jurisdiction over civil magistrates. Now that was a huge deal for the Popes. They thought that they were the king and head of the nations of the earth. They literally thought that. And if you've ever seen the royal throne of the Pope, he's got two keys. One represents the key of ecclesiastical government, and the other represents the key to civil government. And it's the traditional papal view, not of the, there's like a low papal view, a conciliar view. And then there's the ultra papal view, which is embodied in the, the Synod at Trent. So the Tridentine doctrine is that the Pope is the king of the earth. He is both a civil and ecclesiastical Lord, and he's Christ's representative on the earth. That's literally what Antichrist means. Ante is in the place of, and Christos, Christ. So an Antichrist is someone who says, I sit in the seat of Christ, I rule over the church, I rule over all things. So they said that if you don't do what the Pope says, we can take away the obedience of all your subjects. In fact, what was it? King John had to bow before the Pope Hildebrand to get his civil government back. He had to basically make a pilgrimage from England to Rome to beg his spiritual Lord, his civil Lord, the Pope, he had to beg him to please give me my country back. And this is what the Popes would do when the Protestant Reformation was happening. And before that, they would put an interdict on the whole government and tell all the people you have no duty to obey your magistrates until he does what I say. which means the Pope is a civil magistrate above your monarch. And if your monarchs don't obey the Pope, he can tell you, you don't have to obey your magistrates. So this is called interdiction. No sacraments, no burials, no baptisms, no weddings. That's what they would say. The Popes would say this. And so all your people are going to be illegitimate. They won't get to be buried. No baptisms. Your kids are all going to hell. Unless you do what the Pope says. So this was a very big controversy, probably from about the 11th century with Hildebrand until you get to probably about the 19th century and then the papacy starts to chill out a little bit. Not because in principle they disagree with this, because they still maintain the two keys, but because they really didn't have the teeth to affect it any longer. They had lost their grip on many of the nations that they once had absolute sway over. So the point that they're making here is that even ecclesiastical persons are to be subject to the authority of civil magistrates. Paul is subject to the Roman authorities, for example. Christ is subject to the Roman authorities. So if the apostles and Christ himself are subject to these imperfect human authorities, What are we going to say? Well, I'm an ecclesiastical person. I don't have to listen to the government. In fact, this is why you have all these pervert priests running around, is because they think they don't have to listen to the civil government. So what the Pope will do is if one of them is a sodomite and molests a little boy, they'll move him to another parish. They'll hide him. They'll move him around. And they won't allow anybody to say anything about it. They'll tell everybody, hush, hush, don't talk about this. And they'll move him from place to place, sometimes out of the country, sometimes within the country, because they don't think that they have an obligation to the civil government to be punished for the crimes that they've committed because we're church people, we're governed only by the Pope, we don't need you. And so that is a wicked and pernicious doctrine. All right, any questions before we close? Okay, let's pray.