Church & State Intended to Mutually Uphold One Another

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In our Church Ed. classes we are going through the Westminster Confession. And last Sunday we looked at WCF 20.4, which states, “the powers [church & state] which God hath ordained, and the liberty which Christ hath purchased, are not intended by God to destroy, but mutually to uphold and preserve one another.”

And then this week I was reminded of this quote from a pastor during America’s founding:

The immediate ends of the magistracy and ministry are different, but not opposite: They mutually assist each other, and ultimately centre in the same point. The one has for its object the promotion of religion and the cause of Christ; the other immediately aims at the peace and order of mankind in this world: Without which, there could be no fixed means of religions; nor the church have a continuance on earth, but through the interposition of a miraculous providence, constantly displayed for its preservation. Hence the church of Christ will have no fixed residence, where there is no civil government, until he, whose right it is, shall take to himself his great power, and reign king of nations, even as he is king of saints.”

Elizur Goodrich, quoted in Stephen Wolfe, Case for Christian Nationalism, p. 288 n. 36

Grace Perfects, Restores Human Nature

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For to the extent that we may be Christians, we do not cease being humans, but we are Christian human beings. So also we must state that therefore we are bound by Christian laws, not that we are consequently released from human ones. For grace perfects nature; grace does not, however, abolish it. And therefore with respect to the laws by which nature itself is sustained and renewed, grace restores those that have been lost, renews those that have been corrupted, and teaches those that are unknown.

Franciscus Junius, The Mosaic Polity, 38 (1593).

Desecularization

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Alexis de Tocquevill:

Men cannot abandon their religious faith without a kind of aberration of intellect and a sort of violent distortion of their true nature; they are invincibly brought back to more pious sentiments. Unbelief is an accident, and faith is the only permanent state of mankind.