Church as Kingdom, Kingdom as Church

Continuing my walkthrough (n.b. part of a larger project) of Richard Baxter’s view of church and state vis a vis his theory of a national church:

“Infidels and Heathens may be free Members of a Kingdom as a Kingdom, and in a Kingdom as Christians may be tolerated when they cannot be cured; And may be used as Inferior Officers in such secular affairs as they are capable of. But a Christian Kingdom and Church as such, consisteth of no Denisons, Burgesses or men free and empowered in matters of Religion, but only such as are Baptized or openly professed Christians (and their Children) and are not proved to have nullified that profession by Heresie or such sin as rendreth their profession incredible and invalid. And all these Baptized Visible Christians must be taken for such Members.”

Next, Baxter considers a perennial question, viz., “whether the Church be in the Common Wealth (or Kingdom) or the Common Wealth in the Church.” He says the former is the most common view. In Turretin fashion, Baxter distinguishes. If the king is an infidel or heathen and, therefore, not in the church, then the church is merely in the commonwealth. Likewise, if the king is a Christian but the populace comprehends “Pagans in Inferior Magistracy,” then the church is in the commonwealth but not as merely so, for then it is a constitutive part of the whole insofar as under a Christian king it possesses a public role. Conversely, if the commonwealth is truly Christian, top to bottom, then it is classified as a “National Church, and one is not the other, being but two Names for one thing.” (To understand what Baxter is doing on this point, see my earlier post, “Baxterian National Church.” In short, a national church and a Christian kingdom are synonymous.)

Baxter is perturbed by the insinuation that only the clergy, and not the laity, can be identified with the church or “the exercise of Christ’s Kingly Office,” and that a “National Church must be specified and unified by a Priestly Head… and that a King is not a person sacred enough to be the Supream [sic] Head in his own National Church; Nor the people Holy enough to be its Materials.” (Again, see the older post on Baxter’s definitions relevant to this discussion.)

To insist the above, he says, is to erroneously suggest that the temporal or civil power has no religious interest and are not to “meddle beyond Civil and Secular concerns.” Noted before is that Baxter (like Richard Hooker, Franciscus Junius, and a host of others) detests the secularization of the temporal power. Further, neither power is to command the other as such but both possess overlapping interests insofar as they both govern men qua men who are body and soul.

The practical implication of identifying the church with the community, and the kingdom itself as a Christian communion is that

“it is the duty of all its Members, to do their best to preserve them and promote their welfare as considered in that form; and not only to seek their own Salvation, or the prospering of their particular Churches or Parties, not only to seek the common good of Christians as such in Community; But to keep up the National Polity in all lawful things in the way of their several places and callings. For he is unworthy to be a Denison in any lawful Society, that promoteth not its well faring.”

What does all that entail, you ask?

“And the Peoples right is in general the common good and safety, and particularly to be defended, and their contracted form of Government not overthrown; nor the Kingdom to be given up to a Foreign Power, or any Usurper, much more that none that will execute such Papal Tyranny as is determined of in the General Council at Laterane sub Innoc. 3. to destroy or exterminate the Kingdom unless they would Damn their Souls by forsaking sound Religion; I say that no such be their King, or Potent Governour. Because re∣gere and perdere are inconsistent: And they who design it and profess their subjection to any Power or Law or Religion that obligeth to it, are to be supposed to be doing it: Especially if their preparations shew their purposes, and Magistrates be set in Power that are under the same Obligations: And though a party or person must fly or suffer rather than Embroil the Kingdom in War or Rebellion for their defence; Yet a whole Kingdom, cannot be deprived of the right of self defence, unless by Gods Sentence on their notorious forfeiture of Life.”

Yet again, Baxter does not miss an opportunity to criticize Richard Hooker as a purveyor of popular sovereignty.

“The People have no Jus regendi, Governing Authority to use themselves, or to give to others: So false is the Principle of Mr. Hooker and Laud, and many others, that make them the Fountain of Power. They have the Power called strength (in which a Horse excelleth a Man) but not Authority. If any Nation be Democratical it is not because men are born with any right to Political Government, but only to Private Selfgovernment. But because Contract hath so ordered the Form of Government. And indeed tho a City may be Democratically Governed, I know not how any great Nation can possibly be so: So that I think there is scarce any true Democracy in the World.

For to chuse Governours is not to Govern: And those that by the People are chosen are an Aristocracy. Rome was not all the Roman Empire: What right then had the Populus Romanus to Govern the Empire? This was not like Democracy, where the Majority of the whole body Governs.

The same I may say of Venice as they Govern all that are under them. It is truely an Aristocracy.”

And all this for obvious reasons:

“God is the prime Soveraign, from whom all Power is given. There is no Power but of God. 2. And God hath gone before man, and hath instituted Government himself, by the Law of Nature and of Scripture, and hath not staid for man to do it? How can man be the Fountain of that which God hath instituted before him? He hath not left man to his own choice whether he will have Government or not; but hath pre∣vented him by the obligations of Necessity and Command.”

God has not left it up to man whether he will be governed nor whether he will live with others in society, which, in turn, requires government. God has planted in man’s nature the desire for society, necessitated government by consequence of the first impulse, and further commanded the existence and purpose of government in his word. Both books of revelation confirm these things, and man himself does not possess or generate the power for government such that he could take it or leave it (or rescind it).

Is there, then, any role for the people? They’re the conduits of power, more or less, but not the originators of it. That’s the point. Therefore, the possibility of reversion is not theirs.

“the People are Proprietors, and may limit the Ruler in the dispose of their Propriety: And they have the choice of the Person, or Line, and Family that shall rule them; who it shall be, and whether One, or Many, or How many: For these and other circumstances God hath not previously determined [i.e., no particular form of government is ordained], (save that his Providence making some one by Conquest or strength to be only able to rule and protect them, imposeth on them a necessity of consenting to that One.) And in these things the Ruler is the Trustee of the People, but not in the former; so that in the prime essential parts of power the People are but the Objects, and the King is to them (in different degrees) the Trustee of God for the People, as the Shepherd is his Masters Trustee for the Sheep, and not the Trustee of the Sheep.”

And further, “The same I say of true Pastors of the Churches: God hath specified their Office, tho' the People may circumstantiate it.” More on that later.