How far the power of religion in the magistrate doth extend

Musculus on "How farre forth the authoritie of the Magistrate serueth in Religion"

“Hytherto we haue declared, that true Religion doth principally apperteine unto the charge and power of the Magistrate: now wee muste consequently consider this also, how farre this power of his dothe extende.”

The “Popes men” insist that the magistrate has no role “to make and set forth any ecclesiasticall lawes” but only to back the “policie of the church.” But, says Musculus, “I canot lyke their opinion.”

After recounting the familiar examples of reformer kings in Old Testament Israel, Musculus states “our opinion” plainly.

“Like was the superior power and charge of religion is in the magistrate [see the last post], so it is in him also to ordaine ecclesiasticall lawes, [and] also to reforme suche as bee dekeyed [decayed] in religion. For the very nature of making lawes doth not beare, that thei should charge and establish lawes, which haue not the authroitie and power to maintaine and defend lawes, and to take reuenge of the reprobate.”

This is clearly Erastian (and conforms to my working thesis that the Reformed tradition was basically Erastian until the mid-to-late seventeenth-century when Catholic theories regained traction amongst English Presbyterians in particular, and this for both theoretical and practical reasons, a legacy of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, really— read Marsilius of Padua and the conciliarists). The nature of law is coercive within this paradigm and only the temporal power is capable of, and charged with, coercion (or force), and, therefore, only the temporal can promulgate laws proper.

More:

“[I]t doth appertaine to the Magistrate to punishe the transgressors, not onely of his owne [laws], but of Gods commandments also.” And this is because God is above the magistrate in the hierarchy of authority. But “There is no reason in that, that they which be in a lower authoritie, should make lawes in the church, for the superior powers to mainetaine and defende…. none can appoint them but superiors, by whose authoritie the inferiors be bounde to obey, and who haue power geuen [given] them from God to punish the disobedient.”

Accordingly, who can promulgate laws ecclesiastical (Musculus does not limit this simply to adiaphora) but he who has the duty and ability to enforce them? Musculus has no time for inferiors suggesting laws to superiors which superiors must then be bound to enforce. For this would be to make “lawgyuers of subiects and subiects of lawgiuers.”

The visible church is within the temporal order and Musculus maintains that only the temporal power can make real law for said order. For “there was neuer ani power give[n] to the church to make lawes.” Indeed, the “Popes men” at the time argued that the Church’s Matthew 16-18 authority (power of the keys) implied lawmaking authority. Here, again, Musculus returns to his earlier argument, viz., that no Christian magistrates in that time of the early church existed.

“The Churches of God were at that time destitute of a godly and faithfull Magistrate: and therefore the iudgementes and quarelles betwixte the brethren in the congregation of the Churche, were taken up by the elders… But it farith farre otherwise with those Churches, whyche by the goodness of the Lorde haue gotten Christian Princes and Magistrates” who possess “the power [of] lawgeuynge and gouernaunce, not onely in prophane and worldlye, but in holye and Religiouse matters also.”

He declares it a “Poisonsome errour, whan men dooe make no more of the Christian Magistrate than of a prophane, and worldly ruler, as if the power shoulde bee acknowledged onely in prophane and wordlye [i.e., secular and material] matters.”

And again, “We must make a difference betwixt they estate of the churches which than were, and that which nowe is.”

He adds that

“[I]t is the lawe, right, and reason of the Church to obey them which be set ouer them by God, and to be contented to be instructed, led and gouerned by them as the body is by the head, whom it is under and subiecte unto.”

And this includes, for Musculus, ecclesiastical court or intramural controversies, the judgments “betwixed brother and brother.”

In case Musculus was not plain before,

“We do earnestly stande to this, that all that power, whereby any authentical lawes be made, binding the consciences of the subiectes, whether that they be ciuill or ecclesiasticall, do belonge nother to the churche, that is to say, the multitiude of the faithfull and subiectes, nother unto the ministers thereof in Gods word, but peculiarly unto the Magistrate only… and therefore they be called in Scriptures, Gods, which do beare the office of the Magistrate, which name of honour wee doe neuere reade giuen unto priests.”

Futher,

“And the very reason, kinde and nature of gouernaunce, can not beare, that there should be two contrarie authenticall authorities and powers in one people, two divers and sundry lawgeuinges, and goernaunces, unless they bee one under the other, no more than there may be two heads to one bodie.”

This argument is, again, plainly Erastian, at least as it would develop (n.b. Musculus cites no one for the conclusions). It is the same stance that Thomas Coleman (1597-1646) would later take over and against George Gillespie (1613-1648). The idea of two coordinate, mutually diaconal, sovereign powers within one state defied logic to the more hierarchically minded Erastians. So too did Coleman and William Prynne (1600-1669) affirm what Musculus does on the nature of law, viz., that law is inherently coercive (whatever its object) and only the temporal sword can coerce; the spiritual sword can only persuade. Hence, in part, why the Erastians so detested ecclesial excommunication as a form of church discipline.

Musculus has already charged his clerical, high church opponents with papism, but now he equivocates between their position and pagans. He argues that only non-Christians, with an improper view of vocation strictly bifurcate the sacred and the secular. If, in fact, all of life in a Christian polity is properly oriented to the glory of God and worship of the same, then the Christian magistrate, as a “god,” is given purview over all these things, the sacred as much as the secular, even as he does not violate the role of the clergy—this inquiry simply pertains to instilling order by law.

“[H]owe bee they prophane than, fi they bee made and placed by the Magistrate [?]” That is, just because the magistrate excommunicates or established laws of church order does not alter the nature of the thing itself. To put it crudely, if there be no clear division between sacred and secular in the Christian life, why does it matter if the magistrate or the clergy perform these functions? Musculus is not seeking to usurp clerical responsibilities or confounded the distribution of labor between to two powers. Rather, he is following a Reformational doctrine of vocation, elevating “secular” life, and acknowledging the important exegetical point that only magistrates are declared “gods” to men, not clergy. Although, Musculus does seem to be extending beyond one magisterial impulse to recover the Gelasian formula proper by restoring the magistrate to his proper, but distinct, parity with ecclesiastical authority according to juridical competency. Musculus does not necessarily violate that distinction regarding competency, but he is working in a decidedly Erastian vein, as said already. (Again, my working, not yet proven thesis that the Reformed tradition was majority Erastian until the mid-to-late seventeenth century is furthered by Musculus.)

Key quote from Musculus:

“The Christian people is holy in al pointes, and consecrated unto the name and glory of Christ, not only in temples and ecclesiastical ceremonies, but in al their life also in all places, at all times, and in all things, so they according unto the advice of Paul: whether he eate or drinke, or whatsoeuer he doe, hee doth it unto the glory of God… Wherefore this distinction of ecclesiasticall and prophane lawes, can take no place amongst Christians. Forasmuch, as there is no prophane thing in them, but their endeauor always is to bee a holy people unto their Lord God. And the Magistrate himself is holy also and not prophane, and his power holy, his lawes holy, his sworde holy, which is the reuenger of the reprobate and wicked, in seruing the most high Lord and lawgiuer iudge and revenger of al euill, our verie bodies be the members of Christ, and our members also be the temple of the holy Spirite, and we be commanded to glorifie God, not only in spirit, but in our body also.”

Above comments notwithstanding, Musculus does signal a return to nothing more but the Constantinian order, albeit his interpretation of the same may differ from others:

“Thus we haue somewhat with the largest answered them which doe deny that the establishment of ecclesiasticall lawes doth belong to the Magistrate. Let them at the leaste waye looke upon the constitutions of Christian Emperors, and see whether that many of them be not ecclesiasticall, in which there be commandments touching the holy Trinitee, and the catholyke faith, and restraints that no man striue or contende openly thereupon: they do also determine, for not iterating of Baptisme: for postatures and ymages, for holy daies, for the number of clerkes, both of the greater and of other churches, for the tithes and goodes of the church: for holy ministeries, for praieng places, and suche other like matters pertaining altogether unto Religion and to the Churche.”

Next, having provided a survey of examples, Musculus delves into “what matters of our religion the Magistrate ought to take order.” Again, this is not pure adiaphora, but laws that touch doctrine, though not directly so to the extent that formulation of dogma would be implied. As strong as Musculus is on this front he does not go that far, as we will see.