Reformed Covenanter
Cancelled Commissioner
On this subject [of church-state relations] there are various and conflicting opinions. 1. One of these is opposed to all connection between Church and State; and this opinion is commonly defended on two separate grounds. First, it is alleged that because religion is a thing altogether personal, lying exclusively between a man and his Maker, therefore its support ought to depend on the voluntary contributions of professors. And secondly, it is argued that the State is properly little else than a national arbiter of party interests in things civil, and that it has absolutely nothing to do with religion. The latter of these is the more fundamental; and our objection to it is, that, so far as we can see, a nation acting on this principle must continue to be in all time coming essentially infidel.
Its people may, independently of this, be all of them professing members of the Church of Christ. But the nation itself, and in its corporate capacity, cannot, as we think, be other than unbelieving—making no profession of the faith of the gospel. And then we are at a loss to see how, in these circumstances, “the kingdoms of this world are to become the kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ;” how “kings are to be nursing fathers, and their queens nursing mothers,” of the Church; and still more, how, in accordance with this theory, it should be said that by Christ “kings reign and princes decree justice” — that by him “princes rule and nobles, even all the judges of the earth” — and farther, that he hath on his vesture and on his thigh a name written, “King of kings and Lord of lords” (Rev. xi. 15; Isa. xlix. 23; Prov. viii. 15, 16; Rev. xix. 16). ...
For more, see Duncan MacFarlan on the evil of an absolute separation between church and state.
Its people may, independently of this, be all of them professing members of the Church of Christ. But the nation itself, and in its corporate capacity, cannot, as we think, be other than unbelieving—making no profession of the faith of the gospel. And then we are at a loss to see how, in these circumstances, “the kingdoms of this world are to become the kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ;” how “kings are to be nursing fathers, and their queens nursing mothers,” of the Church; and still more, how, in accordance with this theory, it should be said that by Christ “kings reign and princes decree justice” — that by him “princes rule and nobles, even all the judges of the earth” — and farther, that he hath on his vesture and on his thigh a name written, “King of kings and Lord of lords” (Rev. xi. 15; Isa. xlix. 23; Prov. viii. 15, 16; Rev. xix. 16). ...
For more, see Duncan MacFarlan on the evil of an absolute separation between church and state.
