Political Antinomianism
Or: one-dimensional reformation
I’ve inveighed against political (or public) atheism before. More prevalent and destructive amongst Evangelicals, however, is what we might call political antinomianism. This includes, perhaps especially, Evangelicals that have, or think they have, an operative political theology. Meaning, they are more interested than the average Evangelical in these things, or, at least, interested in denouncing whatever threatens their feeble but tireless appeal to the status quo. Even this unenviable position requires some ideas, most of which amount to little more than reactions to intramural theological squabbles now thirty years (or more) past. Mustering the interest to identify and refute all of them is arduous—it’s all very tedious and boring.
But here’s one of the big ones:
Calls for the reformist magistrate to attend to the health and order of religion and govern according to both tables of the law are wrong because such actions are hypocritical, will induce nominalism and false conversions, and encroach the gospel ministry which alone can change hearts. Outward conformity absent internal obedience is a lie and because outward, external measures cannot produce or guarantee inward conviction, they are per se wrongheaded, a violation of the conscience. Real conviction can only come from the persuading power of the gospel. The secular power, therefore, has no business in promoting and protecting true religion from heresy, blasphemy, or other encroachments. Neither can the secular power care for the external conditions of true religion and worship.
Something like that. Nevermind that persuasion itself is an external measure, as are all means (in themselves) employed by pastors (ecclesial and civil), but I digress.
As it turns out, this is not new. Many such cases. There are no novel opinions, no improvements, no objections unaddressed. Fukuyama was too late. History ended in the seventeenth century.
William Dell (1607-1669) was an antinomian radical, or, at least played with such ideas publicly—antinomianism, like any ism, is difficult to pin down, hence, parliament’s inability to definitively deal with it. (Surprisingly, Dell has a Wikipedia entry and it’s not bad even if it relies solely on Christopher Hill.)
On my reading, Dell fit the bill, albeit not to the same extent that someone like Robert Towne did. Like many libertines of his day, he condemned civil moral reform. Like John Saltmarsh, another notorious antinomian, he was an army chaplain. The army was a breeding ground for extreme innovations, though, of course, antinomianism had begun with John Eaton’s truly wild hermeneutics much earlier. No sign of Dell’s ecumenical, levelling spirit in the father of English antinomianism, however.
In any case, it is not exactly antinomianism proper in Dell that interests us now. Rather, it is his political antinomianism vis a vis national ecclesial reform that provides the illustrative parallel we need.
In 1646, Dell preached to the House of Commons (Right Reformation). Its printed form apparently included some shots at Christopher Love (1618-1651) to which Love then replied in 1647 (Short and plaine animadversions). (Love also has Wikipedia. Banner day!)
It is this text that interests us because it summarizes Dell’s position and provides ready retort. (H/T to Michael Lynch for pointing me to the Love response.) And it is Love’s breakdown of Dell’s sermon that is our focus; his treatment of Dell’s direct attacks is not in view. Love claims that Dell’s printed sermon left out the most offensive stuff, so Love fills in the gaps. See if any of this sounds familiar…
Love reports that Dell’s denied that “secular powers cannot reform the hearts of men, Christ alone must do that.” True reformation is of the heart, of the conscience. It is internal. Love rhetorically questions why Dell is making such a big deal of this. Who disagrees? But what Dell really means, by extension, is that “the Civil Magistrate, seeing he cannot reform the heart, he must not restrain men’s exorbitant practices.”
Dell demands much, too much, of external measures (law). He demands perfection. If law cannot save, if it cannot perfect the consciences of men before God, if it cannot justify, then its use if for naught. Worse, its use is a mockery of the Gospel. Dell intends this to apply to the moral law, but also human laws that pertain to religion and, to some extent, morality. Certainly, human laws that enforce the moral law (i.e., both table of the Decalogue) fall into this category. Or at least this is what Love thinks Dell is saying (as did others). For Dell, there is a necessary order between internal and external conformity—the former must always precede the latter. Operative in Dell’s paradigm is also a stark divide between the Old Testament and the time of Gospel reformation.
Love:
“[I]f he says that he means such Laws and Ordinances of men, whereby the Civil Magistrate gives his civil sanction, to confirm and establish certain Laws and Constitutions for external conformity, in outward duties of outward worship and government.”
As to not be misunderstood, Love makes clear that 1) people cannot be forcibly converted, that the “coactive power” is not the means by which God establishes true religion in an otherwise heathen nation, and that the magistrate cannot directly compel internal acts. But 2) “here is a great deal of difference twixt an affirmative compulsion, to say I’ll make you bee of my mind; and a negative compulsion, which saith you shall not spread, propagate this Heresy and Blasphemy.”
“Master Dell knows no other Gospel Reformation besides heart Reformation.” (Just to make sure you’re following: this is the Evangelical position.)
If this be the case, then the Solemn League and Covenant was an abomination, or at least superfluous… and Dell, like any antinomian, begins to sound a little seditious—clearly Love’s intent (“Take notice he is not only an enemy to our government, but to the confession of faith…”) Says Love, “Surely both Kingdoms did not take this upon them, as if they could reform the hearts of men, (this they know is Christ work, not theirs) but another kind of Reformation in Ecclesiastical discipline, which hath been corrupted by the Prelates.”
Again,
“none of a Presbyterian judgement holds that the making of certain laws for conformity in duties of outward worship backed by the civil sanction of the Christian Magistrate to be heart-Reformation: but they say only this, that a visible Church is then in a good readiness for reformation, when there is an external conformity in duties of outward worship and government.”
Dell confuses the internal and external, that’s the ironic bottom line. He insists that reformation is one-dimensional. “He condemns Ecclesiastical-Reformation, because it busieth itself in Reforming the outward man, when it cannot reform the heart.”
Love musters the usual evidence against Dell and for the necessity of secular exercise of coactive power for the sake of external, outward duties and practice (i.e., civil reformation).
Darius in Daniel 6; Nehemiah, Josiah, Asa, Hezekiah, etc. (He actually skimps a bit. No king of Nineveh? No Cyrus?) Love’s reasons are also typical. The magistrate receives power from God not just to observe the law himself but to proliferate and protect it, and this means both tables—where is the bifurcation proof text? The magistrate is entrusted with care of the commonwealth. Is he really supposed to be “an indifferent spectator, not caring what Religion they be of”?
Like our Evangelicals, Dell equates external coaction with forced conversion.
“If by forcible Reformation he means that a Christian Magistrate should not force by fire and sword, an heathen people to embrace the faith, I shall not contend with him; but if he means that Magistrates must not among people professing the faith, put forth their power to suppress Heresies, and punish the divulgers thereof, this is not unbeseeming the Gospel, but most consonant unto it.”
Love cites Zanchi and Bullinger.
We also must adjust our conception of liberty here; calibrate it to the communal and against license.
The “humane institutions” established by secular power circa sacra are "a prop to God’s worship.” That is, they supply the requisite conditions for true free exercise.
Most important of all: “If Ecclesiastical Reformation brings men into blind obedience [as Dell claimed], this is but an accidental effect, the fault lies not in the Reformation, but in the ignorance of a mans own mind, or perverseness of will, that will not know or learn.”
The same objection could be made to all manner of outward accompaniments to our weekly worship. If a Sabbath or blasphemy law creates a false convert (however that would work) it is not to blame. How exactly would the magistrate’s defense of true religion against open revilement spawn a disingenuous Christian anyway? Where’s the causality. Doubt and false assurance alike are perennial.
It is a matter of justice and duty that God and true religion be honored. And where great evils are openly propagated and practiced, secular authority is complicit and derelict in duty. But what is evident is the duty itself; leave the tracing of causality and internal guilt to God (just like we do with the preaching of the Gospel—use the means faithfully according to duty).
Love exposes other antinomian (and Socinian—”as if the Spirit did not accompany the Ministery of Moses”) tendencies in Dell’s sermon, viz., his confusion on the nature of salvation under the law of Moses. But the central point for us is the political application of Dell contra secular maintenance of national, public religion.
To reiterate, the irony in Dell’s case (and that of our Evangelicals) is that he confuses the internal and external, and, to use a nifty term I’ve heard lately, sacralizes the secular (temporal) power to such a degree that it cannot succeed at “reformation” and must, therefore, be reduced to irreligion. Or, we should say, political antinomianism.
N.b. I don’t count Doug Wilson a political antinomian, but there’s some parallel in the above to my friendly response to him here (pulling from Bucer’s essential De Regno Christi) regarding his comments last year (since moderated) that there is no political solution to national moral decay. To put it simply, I share with our forebears the confidence in and enthusiasm for external helps. Law prepares, custom conditions, stigma restrains. Moreover, it is a matter of duty for the magistrate encoded into his office. The relative effectiveness of external directives on the internal life of man is for God alone to know, just as the decidedly external actions of preaching and sacraments are. Special revelation instills confidence in the latter, natural revelation instills confidence in the former. In other words, this is how people (and all societies) work.