I.
THE relation that ought to subsist between the State and the Church has been a subject of controversy since the time of the Emperor Constantine (died A.D. 337). The questions at issue are not merely theoretical or unimportant, but are at once practical and of far-reaching importance. The leading positions maintained in regard to the above relationship may be set forth under four heads:—
First, Hildebrandianism,
or the position held by the Church of Rome. According to this view the Church is supreme, and the State is in subjection to it. It receives its distinctive name from Pope Gregory VII. (Hildebrand), whose thoroughgoing ecclesiastical despotism marked his pontificate as an epoch in the development of Papal claims.
Secondly, the opposite extreme is Erastianism,
so named after Erastus, a celebrated physician, and professor at Heidelberg about 1580. It maintains that the State is supreme, and that the Church is subject to the State. This view came into special prominence during the meetings of the Westminster Assembly by the advocacy of the learned Erastians, Selden, Lightfoot, and Coleman, and the controversy has produced a literature of first-rate importance. Among the treatises dealing with the subject may be mentioned Gillespie’s “Aaron’s Rod Blossoming,” and Rutherford’s “Divine Right of Church Government.” Dr Bannerman thus characterises Gillespie’s notable treatise:—”This famous treatise is unquestionably the most able, learned, systematic, and complete work on the Erastian controversy in existence. It deserves, and will repay, the most careful study” (“Church of Christ,” II. 432). Erastianism came under review again at the Disruption, and the powerful logic of Principal Cunningham gave it as severe a hammering as ever it received in Scotland. No more able arguments against this view in modern writings can be found than in his “Historical Theology” (I. 397), and “Discussions on Church Principles” (pp. 196, 211). In this connection, Dr Bannerman’s “Church of Christ” (Vol. I.), should also be mentioned.
Thirdly, another view is that popularly known as Voluntaryism.
It is of a late date, and it appeared in Scotland as a disturber of the ecclesiastical peace. Whatever may have been its history in other countries, it has anything but an enviable reputation in Scotland, from its first appearance in the Secession Churches, which it broke up into Old Lights and New Lights, until its latest church wrecking exploits under the worldly-wise policy of Principal Rainy in the once powerful Free Church of Scotland. The Secession Old Light and New Light controversy among the Anti-burghers, however, had one redeeming feature, in that Dr MacCrie’s “Statement” was produced. Thoroughgoing Voluntaryism maintains that the Church and State are distinct, and that the State has nothing to do with religion at all. To quote Dr Wardlaw, “The true and legitimate province of the civil magistrate in regard to religion is to have no province at all.” It would banish religion from our State schools, not because of the fear of the kind of religion that would be taught there, but because the State ought to have nothing to do in thus recognising religion. It would refuse anything from the State in support of religion, and some of its votaries in the United Free Church found it very difficult to reconcile their “hirplin practice wi’ their creed,” when Parliament handed back the property they had forfeited by the law of the land. Concerning Voluntaryism, Dr Cunningham, in dealing with the different views of the relation of Church and State, says:—”We shall begin with the newest or most modern, because it is also in some respects the simplest and most sweeping. It is what has assumed to itself, though inaccurately and unwarrantably, the name of the Voluntary system—a name derived from a partial representation of one of the views to which the principle leads, and not in any respect fairly descriptive of the principle itself. It amounts in substance to this—that the only relation that ought to subsist between the State and the Church—between civil government and religion—is that of entire separation; or, in other words, its advocates maintain that nations, as such, and civil rulers in their official capacity, not only are not bound, but are not at liberty to interfere in any religious matters, or to seek to promote the welfare of the Church of Christ as such” (Historical Theology, I. 391). Voluntaryism is a very different thing to the opposition that may be legitimately offered to a Church established by the State which is corrupt in doctrine and unscriptural in discipline. In its very nature Voluntaryism will have no religion recognised by the State, however pure it is. The theory has been ably dealt with by Dr Cunningham in his “Historical Theology” (Vol. I.), and Dr Bannerman in his “Church of Christ” (II. 137-162). The latter gives a “Note on the History of Voluntaryism” in the same work (II. 354).
The fourth view held as to the relation between the Church and the State is that which is known as the National Recognition of Religion or the Establishment Principle. This view maintains that the Church and State are two co-equal independent powers, each supreme in its own distinct province, and neither having any authoritative control over the other. According to this view, the civil magistrate is bound, in the exercise of his proper authority, to aim at the promotion of religion and the welfare of the Church. But though this obligation brings the Church within the scope of the State’s care, it does not bring it within the sphere of its jurisdiction. This is the doctrine set forth in the Westminster Confession of Faith, and held by the Free Presbyterian Church as a scriptural doctrine. It is the view that will be set forth in this series of articles dealing with the subject of National Religion. The term “magistrate” or “civil magistrate” which meets us so often in dealing with the above, is used to designate the authority possessed by the supreme civil power, and entitled to frame the laws, and to regulate the whole proceedings of a nation.
Lose not your Master, Christ, in the throng of this great market. Let Christ know how heavy you and your cases, burdens, crosses, and sins are, and He will bear all. Dry wells send us to the Fountain.—Rutherford.
* Dr Bannerman, though writing in defence of the National Recognition of Religion, was an advocate for union with the United Presbyterian Church.