https://americanreformer.org/2023/03/the-case-for-the-laws-first-table/
In this case the American Reformer's Timon Cline is appealing to the example and legacy of George Gillespie (1613-1648) who during the course of his short life and near its conclusion helped to draft the Westminster Confession of Faith - the standard upheld by historic Presbyterianism.
This debate more or less operates within the circle of assumption laid out by Westminster with regard to the law and in particular the so-called Moral Law. Westminster divides the Old Testament Law into three categories - moral, civil, and ceremonial and then argues that the civil and ceremonial have been fulfilled, but the moral (which is equated with the Ten Commandments) continues into the New Covenant age. At that point given that Westminster argues for a Christian magistrate that supports the faith, suppresses heresy, and even calls synods, the question is which law does it enforce or use as this basis for its legislation?
The problem here could be described as begging the question on an epic scale. The threefold division is without exegetical warrant. Additionally, the Ten Commandments cannot be the eternal 'Moral Law' and the Presbyterian posture on this question is riddled with inconsistency and contradiction. And if that weren't enough, Westminster's views regarding the civil magistrate are completely at odds with New Testament teaching.
The Decalogue is given in a specific redemptive-historical context, and the New Covenant contrasts itself with this Exodus-Mosaic narrative. It specifically says it's not according to Moses. The standard in the New Covenant is in fact higher and not limited to a series of 'Thou shalt not' commandments. And of course Presbyterians are completely inconsistent on the Sabbath as they change not only the day but the meaning and there is no basis for this in the New Testament. The Lord's Day is not the Sabbath and there's even Early Church testimony to this fact - and warnings against such Judaizing. The substance of the Decalogue (which was a preamble to the Mosaic covenant) lives on but not in that form. The expectations are in fact of a higher order. Individual commandments can be invoked but not because the Decalogue persists as the Decalogue but because those commandments reflect (in part) a wider body of Divine imperatives. To call the Decalogue 'the' moral law is to embrace reductionism. Westminster aims too low and is myopic in its grasp of Divine Law.
As such, we are not impressed with Cline's tale of Littlejohn vs. Leeman the Baptist - in this case a stand-in for social pluralism. The whole thing is akin to a comedy of errors. The dilemma is presented by Cline:
This, it seems to me, is the fundamental divide within American Protestantism on this question. Will it be the Baptist position or the Magisterial one?
The answer is simple - neither. The dilemma is a false one, the framing a case of fallacy.
At this point Cline appeals to Gillespie as a historic example of a Reformed divine that wrestled with this question.
The statement made by Gillespie (and quoted by Cline) is once again a case of begging the question. Far from profound, the only thing stirring about the Gillespie quote is the fact that this man (so esteemed by the Confessionalists) evidently had a very poor grasp of redemptive history.
What sort of American reform is Cline advocating? I find it strange that the magazine is meant (presumably) to appeal to patriots and yet in reality Gillespie's order is diametrically opposed to the system established by the American Founders. As such, the Gillespie programme championed by Cline is not one of reform but revolution (or one might say counter-revolution) - an explicit rejection of the Founder's revolutionary Liberalism.
Of course Gillespie's comrades in arms - the Scottish Presbyterians would have this same 'Christian Magistrate' turn against them in the form of the Stuarts and Oliver Cromwell. Who was right? None of them of course but these sorts of misguided and frankly unbiblical paradigms had another effect - they turned people away from the Christian religion. Because of the Gillespie paradigm, Scotland would ultimately give rise to men like David Hume and others.
This doesn't mean Gillespie was necessarily wrong but it's interesting to contemplate. But in fact he was wrong as is Cline's appeal to him.
We read of Gillespie:
The magistrate possesses and ought to exercise coercive power in suppressing heresy and schismatics with a level of discrepancy, discrimination, and prudence.
And where pray tell might we find this statement backed up in the New Testament?
The truth is there is not a single verse to support it and many to counter it. No doubt Cline et al. would argue with the premise of solely relying on the New Testament and this exposes one of the major errors within not just the Catholicism opposed by Gillespie, but the Magisterial Confessional tradition as well - their Judaizing tendency. Failing to grasp the nature of the New Covenant and its theology of fulfillment along with the final authority of the apostles, Gillespie and those like him would often allow the Old Testament to override and supersede the teaching of the New. The theology of the Westminster 'divines' was not Christocentric and failed to grasp that the New Testament is 'the' authoritative commentary on the Old. In fact as Christians we cannot, we dare not read the Old apart from the New and its lens of interpretation. Had Gillespie grasped this, he would have understood that his thinking was not just off, but fundamentally in error.
Sadly, nearly four hundred years after his death, his errors are being celebrated and perpetuated.
As far as the Confessional Consensus - what is that to the New Testament Christian? Is it a consensus patrum for Protestants? We can appreciate somewhat of these men or aspects of their lives and teaching but they were just men and they failed at key points in their lives, conduct, and understanding of Scripture. The Confessions are helpful documents but they're not deuterocanonical and they possess no authority. They are filled with a mixture of truth and error at best.
Appeals to Exodus only demonstrate a poor grasp of doctrinal fundamentals. The Decalogue is clearly and insolubly tied to the Mosaic Covenant - which both Paul and the author of Hebrews makes clear is no longer active, authoritative, or in effect. It is descriptive and as such possess a great value for us in studying redemptive-history and typology. But it is not prescriptive in the New Covenant context.
One need not be a Baptist to understand this and indeed much of the Calvinist or Reformed Baptist heritage has also failed miserably on these points of doctrine.
The invocation of the Matthew 5 and the Sermon on the Mount by Gillespie reminds me of the later errors of Greg Bahnsen (1948-1995) who as a Theonomist argued for a modified understanding of the Westminster Confession - conflating the so-called Civil and Moral portions of the Law in order to justify Mosaic penal sanctions and to universalize them and thus make them applicable to modern states.
I was wrestling seriously with Theonomy at the time of Bahnsen's death and struggled to answer its falsely framed arguments. But long hours of Scripture reading and study kept me from being taken in. For a long time I championed the Reformed line and as such viewed the Theonomists as infiltrators and corruptors.
In terms of New Testament doctrine this is certainly true, but in terms of the Reformed tradition, they are (despite their peculiarities) solidly within its spectrum. The debates are ultimately questions of nuance.
Over time I would abandon the Magisterial tradition as I began to fully grasp the scope of its errors and the way it mis-framed many questions and made wrong steps at the level of prolegomena.
These questions are further muddied by the 1789 American revision of the Westminster Confession - which removed the passages concerning the Christian Magistrate, the suppression of heresy, and the calling of synods. This was an improvement but only in part and now there are many 'Reformed' who conflate aspects of Classical Liberalism with their Confessionalism and yet insist they are in keeping with historic Reformed orthodoxy. The influence of Abraham Kuyper is worth mentioning at this point as all camps seem to claim him even though in many respects he too departed from Confessionalism. Sadly in his case this did not mean that he made a more Biblical turn in his thinking - quite the contrary.
The entire heritage is unfortunately in error and as such these arguments are a dead end because we argue not just against wrong doctrine but institutions, investment portfolios, and those invested with power. Jobs, health plans, and pensions are on the line. Too often I've known men that have given their all to the denominational scions of Magisterial Confessionalism. For them, there's no going back and they will not seriously entertain questions that might lead to them not just changing their minds and practice but could result in ejection, isolation, and an abandonment of security. Loyalty to tribe trumps truth - or even a willingness to question the system they've signed on to.
I had to chuckle when reading:
Those of Leeman’s persuasion demand a positive New Testament authorization for the Christian magistrate to act as his Old Testament counterpart did, but Gillespie insists, for good reason, that it is the other way round. This is not an argument from “autonomous reason” but one from Scripture. The example of Moses, Josiah, and the rest are not to be shunned as irrelevant or outdated unless the latter testament indicates as much—no such indication can be found.
I think they need to go back and read again. There are not just myriad verses that counter this line of thinking but entire epistles!
For all the emphasis on logic in both Gillespie and Cline, the essay exhibits countless cases of non sequitur - leaps in logic that do not follow. The conclusions they claim do not stand, their syllogisms are faulty and their system is as a result - a house of cards.
If the exegesis of Roger Williams was in error on these points, it was only because he allowed Gillespie's assumptions to stand and argued on his terms. There is no such thing as a Christian Magistrate. Gillespie and Cline can appeal to Romans 13 all they like, but they are poor exegetes if they fail to understand the dichotomy and contrast being made at the end of Romans 12 and the fact that 'chapter 13' is not a new section but part of the same flow of argument. 1 Corinthians 5 refutes this as does Christ's statements regarding Caesar's coin, and the Pauline statements regarding the soldier of Christ who does not entangle himself in the affairs of this world. And speaking of such, Christ explicitly taught His Kingdom is not of this world - not just in John 18, but throughout His ministry.
Gillespie's theology is fundamentally flawed - more akin to the Judaizers of Acts 15 then the doctrine of Paul and the other apostles. Gillespie is functionally arguing for a Galatian-error paradigm - not the circumcision bit, that is but incidental. The fundamental Judaizing nature of the error is in fact one and the same.
One must smile when reading Cline:
In any case, the arguments above have not been answered by those who argue that a new authorization for the use of force against violators of the first table is required in the new covenant. What, at first, appears to be Scriptural fealty is demonstrated by Gillespie to be hermeneutical negligence—if you want to get Biblicist about it, that is.
The arguments have been answered again and again. Even the assumptions in this declaration beg the question. Gillespie is shown to be the lacking exegete, the hermeneutical inadequate. The fact that he is esteemed by Cline's faction has no bearing on the real questions at stake. There are many older theologies that are also esteemed and yet also fail to stand up in the face of Scriptural examination. The fact that some esteem a document or body of theology as venerable should not intimidate or impress us. If it did, then the road to Rome or Constantinople is broad and easy to say the least. It's mostly rooted in a narrative regarding the Magisterial Reformation and its place in Church history. It's compelling but ultimately revealed as false - a story that cannot stand when examined vis-à-vis the historical record and most important of all, Scripture.
Whether mere cultural Christianity or nominalism are the result is not of the essence of the argument but it is telling that every place the theologians of Gillespie's stripe have had their way - Scotland, New England, or the Netherlands, the result is a godlessness and not just at turn away from Christianity but a real hostility to it.
The best they can hope for is the dictum of Cotton Mather - Better be ye hypocrites than profane. Somehow these fools thought they could legislate the gospel and sadly the fools of our day have learned nothing from their failures and errors.
The end result is the confused muddle and chaos represented by this article and the would-be cultural reformers that Cline associates with.