Lex Rex | Navigating the Classics

Welcome to Navigating the Classics.

I'm John Snyder and with me today is Steve Crampton and Chris Green and some of

you if you've Watched some of our Whole Council podcast.

You'll be familiar with Steve.

He pitches in and helps a lot and Steve.

We're grateful for that.

You're very busy and Chris might be new to you.

So I'm going to ask Steve and Chris to introduce themselves and then with these special

podcast We're going to look at a book that may not normally be

looked at even by those that would normally read Puritan books, you know.

So if you have read some of Owen or you know, John Flavel, Richard Sibbes, Thomas Watson,

and you really appreciate them.

That's good.

But there there are older books Pre -reformation and there are some Puritan

books that are kind of a hard go.

So in Navigating the Classics we pick some of those and we try to give an overview.

What were the arguments in the book?

Why are they beneficial?

How are they beneficial?

What are some of the strengths and weaknesses of the book and today we're going to be looking at a book.

By one of my favorite authors, but this is not my favorite book of my favorite author.

All right.

This is my probably my this it's on the least side.

All right, it's on the it's down the list.

But it's an important book Lex Rex or the Law and the Prince by the Puritan

Samuel Rutherford.

So we'll get to that Rutherford and to this book in a minute.

So Steve Why don't you give us just a little introduction for those that have not met

you before?

Sure.

I mean primarily let me just say I practice public interest law for a Christian

firm basically.

Defending Christians and their civil rights in the context of government overreach.

So.

Unlike you perhaps Lex Rex kind of strikes too much of the core of

what I do professionally.

Chris we haven't met you before so tell us about yourself your you know.

Educational background.

What you do now and how'd you get to Christ Church?

Sure.

So I'm.

A law professor at Ole Miss University, Mississippi School of Law.

I've been there since 2006.

Have a law degree from Yale and a Philosophy PhD from Notre Dame.

So I came here after finishing the the PhD came to Mississippi.

I found Christ Church basically looking around for like -minded churches places that had

Reformed Baptist approach to the scriptures we were Had loved the kind of

preaching we had heard at a church In Indiana when we were going to grad school and

we really we just fell in love with your preaching John.

Is the reason we kept coming?

But but we've been you know coming here for 15 years, but on the on the board

of MG for Some number of years goes by in a blink, but

But I teach Teach the law.

I'm currently engaged in writing a book about the history of certain concepts in the 14th amendment from

1215 to present day.

So I've been digging digging through this stuff from Magna Carta in 1215 up through

currently digging through the War of the Roses in the 15th century, but But I the background

to to the reference stuff is very much in the in the top of my mind.

And I'm noticing all these precursors as I'm doing that work.

So it's it's really Historically, you know titanically important work and it's you know, if you're gonna

understand law you got to understand where America came from in America

was initially a Puritan settlement and Rutherford's thoughts were

really central to how they thought of themselves.

So as I teach American law Rutherford he's you know, you're not gonna tell, you know,

secular law students to read it, but it's gonna be in the background.

So it's it's been you know part of part of what I do as a law professor.

The the ideas in it have been there all along.

So Chris, when did you first come into contact with the book lecture X?

I think I first heard about it.

I was doing a year -long mission project after I graduated undergrad and I was planning to go to

law school and I we I was with a with a group and you had all kinds of theology that we were

reading and somebody had a reference saw a reference to Rutherford and Buddy of mine said Oh

Rutherford now, you know, that's your guy the Lex Rex guy.

Because he thought you're you're going to law school.

Surely you've read like Rex and that was the first time I'd heard about about Lex Rex but a few years

later, I Probably I think what I was in in law school.

I was Buying books at a terrifying pace and at some point I saw a

lecture X in a in a used bookstore and picked it up and and read through it at some point

and Later, you know looked at it in much more detail met You know met some more people who

were in a more fiercely Scottish Tradition people

who who toss around phrases like Lesser Magistrate all the time and

You realize I need to I really need to look at this careful if I'm gonna understand the my friends

Bonk thought a little bit better, but it really is is is a is a titanically

important work historically.

So it's so I've been Yeah, it's it, you know ever since I've started thinking seriously about

theology and about the law.

If you were to give us a one kind of one sentence summary of the

Content of Lex Rex. What would it be?

So Lex is the law.

Rex is the king.

The king is subject to the law and

in certain circumstances in principle.

Sometimes It's okay for other people besides

the king to Resist the king's unlawful actions.

That's what I would say.

May I throw in there to John the subtitle that we have in the common edition The

law and the prince is really I think a bit unfair as Chris Translated it just a minute.

We talk in the US Constantly about the rule of law Right meaning

that all men even our presidents and leaders and so forth are under law and it seems to me

Fundamentally, that's sort of the principle that Rutherford was trying to capture here in that title.

Oh, yeah.

And the reason that is such a common American phrase is really

it's not just Rutherford.

But it's a kind of the Rutherford Ian tradition has become just part of part of the air we breathe.

But it yeah, it has so it you know, it has a subtitle the law and the prince.

It's got a bunch of other subtitles to you know so Lex Rex or the

law and the prince a dispute for the just prerogative of King and people

containing the reasons and causes of the most necessary defensive wars of the Kingdom of

Scotland and of their Expedition for the aid and help of their dear brethren of England

in which their Innocency is asserted and a full answer is given to the seditious pamphlet

Entitled and then it goes and gives a whole bunch of details about this edition pamphlet.

Yeah, so It it is a very very specific context.

But the principles he talks about especially the biblical explanations that you're going through the biblical material

really have enduring significance, but There's no question there's a lot of context you can read just at the title,

by the way.

We don't do titles like that today.

Why is that?

You know, you know, I was thinking that's you know family worship for.

Elizabethan man, you know, that's really pretty exciting.

Well, I want to I want to give an introduction to who Rutherford was because I think that it's a good

safeguard When we when we look at Lex Rex.

There there are certain Personality types there are certain, you know intellectual types some

people love politics and love the principles and love history and.

So Lex Rex is just like, you know, it's like a drug.

Yeah, like this is right.

This is good thinking.

And then others are you know disinterested in that and I'm generally in that category where I think well

I appreciate that Rutherford wrote things that were helpful here, but I'm more interested in other areas.

But I think that if we understand a little bit of Rutherford though It's not always the

case that the character and experiences of an author You know affect how we approach

a book, you know, I've never read a mathematical book.

You know, I my algebra to book in high school.

I didn't know who wrote it.

I still don't know who I don't care.

Who wrote it, you know, it's just algebra but with a book like this I think it is

really beneficial for the believer to understand the Christocentric

Heart of this thinker and the the grip that

Christ's majesty has upon this man and the cost that he pays to honor the

Lord personally in his home.

Through tragedy in in his church and Even in the larger

national, you know down at Westminster with with the assembly.

When you see that love to Christ Constrains Rutherford in each of these areas

and through all these seasons of life.

Then when you read Lex Rex, it prevents us from becoming men who are enamored with

Certain legal principles, but without the king at the heart.

And I think that will hold us on balance as believers.

I'm speaking to a believer.

Obviously, you know the unbeliever may admire Lex Rex's principles, but they they don't

understand that at the heart.

There is a there is a person there is a king.

So let me give you just quick introduction.

I think it was probably 30 years ago that I Started noticing Rutherford's name and

I probably noticed it first with men like Spurgeon and Spurgeon sometimes I think he

was the you know.

He was the blurb writer for books before he was the grandfather of it.

You know, like this book is the greatest.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

It's like how many books did you recommend?

So I remember reading him and and there's a quote inside this is a copy of Banner of Truths

letters of Rutherford and Here's a quote from Spurgeon.

What a wealth of spiritual ravishment we have here Rutherford is beyond all

praise of men like a strong -winged eagle.

He soars into the highest heaven and with unblinked unblinking Eye, he looks

into the mystery of love divine.

There is to us.

Something.

Mysterious all creating and Superhuman about his letters.

So when I read that I'm like, well, I've got to go buy these letters and.

And I also noticed that other people were recommending Rutherford.

Particularly in their journals.

They were they were quoting him so these were people from other theological traditions Hudson Taylor

Amy Carmichael and when you find a person whose writings are quoted across denominational lines

and through the centuries and It's not just that someone's using him as an illustration, but in their personal

journals what he says about Christ sustains them.

Then I think well, okay, I want to know Why that man has an enduring quality in his voice?

And so I picked up these letters and I started to read him and I was

Unimpressed.

I thought well, these are letters and their letters, you know 400 years ago and he's writing to the the you know

The the Marquis of such -and -such and the lady so -and -so and I think you know I mean,

they're not terrible, but they're not second to Scripture, you know like some of the people said.

Then I read a biography now, this is an old copy, but this is my favorite biography for Rutherford it

was actually given to me by Anthony Mathenia and It it's

by it's the life of Sammy Rutherford by a man named Andrew Thompson.

I think the easiest way to get that now is print -on -demand.

I think it's out of print.

That I found to be the most helpful.

It's a simple biography, but at the last Quarter of the book he devotes to giving

significant quotes from Rutherford.

So not one -liners.

Which there are many Rutherford so quotable.

There are many Rutherford quote books the loveliness of Christ by banner of truth in that nice little like leather

soft red edition.

I give that to everybody.

I mean, it's just so helpful, but I like this because he gives paragraphs of

quotes and it kind of gives you more context when I read the life of Rutherford and Saw what he went through

and then when I read what he said about Christ after that.

Then I went back to the letters and I started with the letters where he's traveling from the

south of Scotland place called Anworth where he was pastoring up to Aberdeen and as

he travels he spends the night with Christian friends along the way and he's he's basically going to be put under house arrest

there for preaching and writing in a way that Offended the monarchy and the powers -that -be so as he's

making his way to jail and Leaving his people behind and a hireling is going

to be placed Behind him in his pulpit, which really bothers him.

He begins to write letters.

And these well, he's written before but these are the letters where I started.

Because it's when he realizes he's going to jail and then in the about two years that he's in

Jail in Aberdeen under house arrest.

These it's a season in Rutherford's life where God will not let him preach.

He's not allowed to preach but he can write letters so providentially.

He is allowed to express things about Christ that he's learning in an extraordinary season of suffering but also an

extraordinary season of grace.

Rutherford writes about this time and says The nearness of God at times was so great.

He had to ask God to restrain himself.

God I can't take any more then he writes and says I'm in danger of having two

Christ's there's Christ and Then I'm tempted to make a Jesus of the

experiences.

I'm having here.

They're so sweet and I don't want to do that.

You know, I don't want to idolize the gifts of God's nearness.

You know, and so he also describes it as being he said I'm in the suburbs of heaven.

He said I'm like a child, you know looking over a wall into the into the great.

You know the New Jerusalem Eternity and it's like I can peek and almost see

it.

He also said that if someone would have told me how much of Christ a man can Experience in this

life as a good Presbyterian.

He said I would have said they were crazy, but He said I have tasted this and he said

everything I experienced of Christ before prison.

It was like a child learning their ABCs.

So when you read his letters if you're having a tough go of them pick up

where you notice in the letters he leaves and with and he's on his way to jail and read the letters in prison and.

And you I think you'll find them particularly helpful.

Now.

Let me mention just a little bit about his ministry in 1627 he becomes pastor of this little

Country Church and in the south in the lowlands of Scotland a place called and with it's

picturesque and beautiful.

The ruins of the building are still there, you know I've walked everywhere I can there so that I know that I I stood

where Rutherford stood at some point.

Now it's just you know, there's no roof left.

It's just the stone walls and everything else is rotted away.

And now there's it's become kind of a cemetery where There's graves all through the church and all

around it.

Rutherford becomes pastor there and he's a very diligent pastor.

He mentions that he wakes generally at 3 a .m and in the first couple of hours of the day, he's reading

and worshiping and Praying and then the remainder of the morning.

He's studying and writing and then in the afternoon He begins his long journeys,

you know to the to the different members houses all around there.

It's a it's a rural area.

Long walks and one of my favorite quotes by Rutherford is he says these hills witness

To the fact that I labored in prayer as I walked I labored to bring on a fair

meeting betwixt Christ and my people.

So it's not just the brain of Rutherford.

It's that it's that sweet Dependence on Christ, you know as well as

being ruled by Christ heart and mind.

After about nine years of pastoring he so offends the political

powers that he is placed as I mentioned under house arrest and then he writes those letters and I think the

best edition of the letters is the one that Banner has put out and This is really the one that's most popular now and that is

put together by Andrew Bonar who also did the The memoir of McShane

because Bonar writes about a 40 page Sketch of his life and it's it's not academic, but

it sure is heartwarming and then he organizes the letters 365 letters you can read one a day.

Well, let's think a little bit about his ministry.

He was not considered a great orator.

His voice was not a beautiful voice he was not you know an impressive man to walk in and he's in

the Pulpit preaching and maybe like a Spurgeon you would immediately be thinking.

Wow.

This man is really gifted for this.

But his sermons were penetrating especially when he would turn to the topic of Christ himself a

famous English a famous quote is from an English merchant a businessman who's heard of

Rutherford.

He's doing business in Scotland.

And so he stops by to hear Rutherford preach and he hears Rutherford and two other Scottish puritans.

And this is how he describes him the first pastor.

He said showed me all my heart.

That's pretty classic Puritan, you know searching the soul.

The second showed me the majesty of God.

He said but Rutherford the third showed me the loveliness of Christ.

Rutherford did pass through terrible times of suffering in the first couple years of his ministry in Anwerth

he was often grieved at the cold -heartedness of the people and.

And as he's trying to minister to them, he also goes through a lot of suffering

personally he he talks about his his young wife and he they

have two children they both die and So they lose them to disease and then his

wife Enters into a long season of a painful slow death.

His mother moves in with him.

She has a painful slow death.

He talks about the fact that you know hearing his wife or his mother Groaning in pain through the night, you

know, they the doctors couldn't do anything more for them and he said life became bitter.

They die After they die.

He said he has one joy in life.

Children are dead.

My mother's dead.

My wife is dead.

My only joy is I do get to preach Christ and then he said Christ came.

I had a garden with one rose growing in it and Christ came and sent a winter blast that withered

my rose in other places, he said Christ came and cut my one

rose and took it and what he means is he was removed from being able to preach and

then moved to Aberdeen after about Two years in jail where

he writes these letters and providentially that's what he's known best for.

He returns to Anwerth to pastor.

He's so happy to do that.

And then the Scottish Church authorities say Actually, we want you somewhere

else and they put him at st. Andrews University St. Mary's College there and he becomes the

chair of theology.

He won't go there He says unless they promise that he can still pastor.

So he co -pastors with another Puritan named Robert Blair.

He's there for about five years and then the Westminster Assembly is a is called

together and The Scots are allowed to send Advisors not delegates.

They don't get to vote but they get to come and advise so he goes down and for about four years He's in London

and He's there.

He's writing and things.

He's remarried.

He and his wife have I think seven children.

Eventually that young wife dies all six six of the seven children died.

Rutherford goes back after four years down there and he and he returns to pastoring in st. Andrews.

He becomes the the head of the the university there what becomes what was combined and becomes

st. Andrews and Then he gets himself in trouble again as political Climate

changes.

He's the Puritans are out of favor again The Scots are out of favor and he gets in trouble with his

writings and he is told that he is being summoned to London to stand, you know as a

criminal for what he's written and He makes that famous statement, you know, go tell your king.

I won't be appearing in his court.

I'm dying.

I will soon appear at a higher court where few of his kind ever reach, you know

He's not going to heaven.

I'm going to see Christ and I'll be with him let me give you two quotes by Rutherford before we

jump into his book one is what he said about his church when he saw That there seemed to be a reluctance to

really grab hold of in the early days of the beauty of Christ.

He said this Christ Jesus so boundless so Incomparable

in his excellence and his sweetness and so few take him.

Oh You poor dry dead souls Why will you not come and bring your

empty vessels and your empty souls to this huge? fair deep

and sweet well of life When he was dying

After the after you know the his political opponents are sending him a police officer to say

basically you need to make the trip to London.

And.

Then he's visited by his pastoral friends and his fellow pastors come in, you know.

And they want to say goodbye to their friend and he says to them You know, the king

is coming.

Do all for the king preach for Christ pray for Christ labor for Christ.

And then he says this.

Now would to God that all cold -blooded Fainthearted soldiers of Christ would look

again to Jesus and his love and when they look I would have them look again and again and

fill themselves with the beauty of beholding Christ.

And I think that really sums him up and I think that that's why Lex Rex is so

extraordinary.

Because it's great political theory, but it's by a man whose Allegiance

rises higher than any earthly politics.

Well, Chris, why don't you just jump in there and take us through the the background and the

main points of Lex Rex.

Sure.

So, okay.

How you always have the question with background how far do you want to go back down so like, okay.

Well first there was the garden.

So one thing that's striking Is I've noticed as I've been doing reading

for my book.

Even though it's sort of a almost a Like a pun or a you know, a little mini poem the

words Lex and Rex rhyme there's this fellow Henry of Bracton and

So this is kind of the generation after Magna Carta.

This is somebody writing in the 13th century under Henry the third Henry the third

has this rebellion that leads to this Kind of first Constitution for England doesn't last too long called the

provisions of Oxford but around that time There are these people rebelling against

the king and their argument is the Kings acting unlawfully and Bracton.

Bracton's the no question the preeminent legal.

We have a better treat it we have a better understanding of 13th century law than we do of like succeeding centuries of the 14th 15th

century because Bracton exists and He has this statement that the power of the king is the power

of the law.

He's writing in Latin so and he makes a bunch of I'm told

by people who know the Latin better a bunch of sort of rimey a

poetic Statements about the the rhyming of Lex and Rex.

So this is 400 years before Rutherford, but people who know the tradition

of Once in a while the English will rise up against their king they're gonna know this pun so I think

there's no question that people are gonna recognize this is Bracton influence.

Bracton himself is Is kind of cagey about whether he supports the folks that that lead to the provisions of

Oxford or not.

But but it's in the in the intellectual environment Calvin

comes on the scene.

Of course, the Reformation comes on the scene in the 16th century and at the very end of Calvin's

Institutes Calvin has this description about law and the the Christian

and he has this phrase Obviously not English, but I think he writes in both French and

Latin, but the lesser magistrate and he says sometimes a Political community

will organize itself in a way that has some powers given to One person or one

group of people and other powers given to another so he looks back.

This is Reformation obviously Around that same time you have the

Renaissance much more interest in Classical influences they're

looking to places like Greece and Rome and he says well, you know, look at Sparta look at Rome.

Look at Athens Sparta.

They have a king of Sparta but they also have this office the

e4 and I have no idea what What the e4 does but it has some powers that the king doesn't have

Rome.

When it's a republic even even after it's an empire.

They sort of have retained some of these outward forms, but they've got the consul and the Tribune

Consul has certain powers and the tribunes have other powers.

Athens.

They have a Senate.

Doing certain kinds of things and the DMARC doing other kinds of things.

Calvin in in the Institutes looks back to those and he says

under certain circumstances.

Somebody who is not the top most prominent official in a government

Can nonetheless have power to resist?

The assertions of authority by the person who is the most prominent just because you're the most prominent doesn't mean you can tell

Everybody what to do in every circumstance, okay Calvin doesn't say a whole lot

In in that brief brief chapter the very it's the very last chapter of Calvin's Institute.

So if you got a copy you can you can go you find it very easily.

Chris let me just interject right there to somewhat like Rutherford it seems to me Calvin has

become so caricatured in history, right.

Both for his Reformed theology, but also in this context of the

Lesser Magistrates and when you read the Institutes in Context he goes to great

pains.

Somewhat like John your intro about Rutherford to set forth very carefully

the exposition of Romans 13 and how we owe obedience even to

Wicked rulers and so forth.

And this is kind of the last resort right before you get to the Lesser Magistrates.

So I just want to throw that out there that there's so much

misunderstanding in the history of resistance to lawful authority

and Calvin was such a warm -hearted Pastoral minded fellow.

And again you look at his own Historical experience in Geneva.

He was the last guy that would actually kind of take up arms and so forth.

He should also I think be considered in that context of God first, you know

resistance as a last resort.

Yeah, and he it is very clear.

If you just look at Calvin, it's very clear.

It is gonna depend.

So he's not saying as just a general matter any lesser magistrate just because you're

some kind of magistrate.

Therefore you have the authority to resist any unlawful exercise of power, you know a county

sheriff.

Can't just go under just any Circumstances where he thinks the the federal government's doing

something unlawful and I mean they do lots of stuff.

That's unlawful, but there are certain officials who have authority and certain other

officials who don't have authority under certain circumstances to resist it so that the Contingency extreme to

contingency of the political arrangement.

It's very obvious in Calvin himself.

He calls them but in the translation at least that I've got Constitutional defenders of freedom.

So again, like you say a limited class.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So, okay.

So Calvin is saying this he just saying saying a few things like that.

You have a fellow James Buchanan I mean one of probably I don't know if there's

millions of James Buchanan's in Scotland but there are there are quite a few and actually the addition

of Lex Rex that.

So we're I think all probably looking at a 1982 reprinting of it but that's

reprinting of a some sort of 19th century version that actually

includes a dialogue by Buchanan as an appendix, okay,

so James the sixth of Scotland when he was which he

was at the time.

Okay, so a lot of a lot of details about why on earth he's gonna come to

England, but Mary Queen of Scots is removed from being Queen when

James is very very young his father dies under somewhat mysterious

circumstances perhaps killed by people in league with his mother anyway.

Because of that because his father dies when he's very very young.

He has a very long Regency period long very long period where he's not in charge.

He's just a baby and then a boy.

His tutors have a huge amount of influence on his.

One of his tutors is this James Buchanan fellow who sets out the doctrine which

is I think fairly commonly Accepted among most Scots at the

time that under certain circumstances.

It's lawful or even required for Subjects or lower

officers in a in the Scottish government to resist their King.

James hears this and I mean he actually Disagrees with his tutor

a little bit like the tutor is telling him that's people are gonna be able to resist him.

So he comes up with the idea of the divine right of Kings.

This is during a during the Reformation you have lots of people who are reacting against the more

feisty Protestants with with similar kinds of doctrines.

There had always been people who Resisted

People resisting them by saying you should never ever rebel

against a duly constituted highest authority.

And James.

Develops, you know, he explains His view that he has authority

Directly from God.

Okay, so The big dispute that Rutherford is gonna have

with his opponents the first thing that he talks about I mean probably the first fourth of the

treatise.

Where does political authority come from.

Does it and of course everything everything we have comes Ultimately from God.

He's the primary cause of all events.

But we have secondary causes, okay, so we've got, you know, the secondary causes of physics that hold books together.

You got the secondary causes of you know, chemistry of biology secondary causes of sociology.

You have the secondary cause of law.

Okay James says he has authority Directly

from God.

God has told me that I'm a king and And all of you people

everybody else what they're supposed to do is just recognize that rather

than confer authority on the king.

So One of the first businesses of the treatise is going to be looking carefully at where

exactly authority comes from.

Okay.

So James the sixth of Scotland comes up with this this view and kind of reaction to his Tudor

Buchanan.

In 1603 James becomes James the

first of England when Elizabeth dies.

Okay, so he is.

You know suddenly, you know comes down to England.

England in the meantime has been coming up with Their version

of Protestantism, okay, so Henry the eighth rebels against Rome.

Edward the sixth comes up with a very fiercely Protestant Book of

Common Prayer and materials that that we would like a lot.

Mary then comes in as a Roman Catholic.

Burns all the initial reformers and then Elizabeth comes in and is is somewhere in the

middle.

Certainly closer to Edward than that her father Henry the eighth was.

But the Puritans, you know the term Puritan initially is.

What do they.

What do they want to purify.

They want to purify?

The Church of England purify the Book of Common Prayer.

Get rid of all the extra Roman Catholic errors that they

see still remaining, okay.

So.

James the first he when he's James the sixth of Scotland.

I mean still he's still James the sixth of Scotland after he comes down and becomes James the first of England, but

When he comes to England He begins to be so he's you know, that's the story of the Church of England.

The monarch is the head of the church.

Okay, so he's the head of the church.

He has this new theory that he's the Has divine right of Kings he's getting the kingship Directly from

God rather than through the people or through the law through through Parliament or anything like that.

He then Decides he has certain views about what the liturgy of the

Church of England should be.

1625 he dies and his son Charles the first has.

So Charles first always says I'm just trying to do what Elizabeth was doing I'm sure I'm just enforcing the

Elizabethan settlement and almost everybody else says no you're not you're doing you're doing this in a way more

Arminian way way more Including a lot of a lot of objectionable

Roman Catholic elements to it then.

Then then we think but Charles the first

He decides so he's got this this Church of England

Mechanism one of the so one of the things that the Church of England has is bishops.

Okay, so they got an archbishop of Canterbury who's kind of in charge of.

You know, he's under the king.

But you know kind of the king is ahead the archbishop is the main, you know kind of actual actual head of things and then he got all these

bishops and Eventually, so these guys are the stewards

so James the first Charles the first Charles the second James the second the four Stuart Kings of England and

The stewards decide we're gonna take this English system okay, so the England finds themselves with these

can't as king let's cut they've taken down from from Scotland and Scotland

then finds itself with this church hierarchy imposed on it by the English

people Under you know under the head of their supposedly Scottish King.

Okay, so Charles decides, you know, we're gonna send some bishops up to

we're gonna make sure that the Scottish Church has bishops too and The

Scots do not like that.

So no.

Bishops.

So may I interject here?

Okay, you've got that whole dynamic too.

It's really remarkable.

We could do this in I suppose several different podcasts because of the complexity of the history, but the Church of

Scotland Founded in simplistic terms with John Knox right and the whole

Presbyterian system Anti -roman Catholic in virtually every respect anti

-bishopric generally speaking and that whole unifying of Scotland and

England with James the first and James the sixth that you got these tenuous relationships.

Politically and again theologically, so there's such a dynamic here and I would

suggest it's no Surprise that Lex Rex is written by Rutherford a Scott.

Oh, yeah, as opposed to the Englishman.

So all that backdrop here with the interplay of Scotland and

its church system versus England and Anglicanism being somewhat of a hybrid to begin with, you

know.

A lot of folks would say it's kind of Roman Catholicism light and so forth.

It's playing into the the whole dynamic.

Yeah, so so Archbishop Laud comes in and he's a fierce Arminian.

One of the things he does under Charles the first is well, we got to get all these anti -arminian

Writings condemned and we got to give the people of wrote him locked up so because Rutherford had this

I mean just very fiercely everything he writes has a fierceness and Vividness to it.

He was a Scott I he and In the context of his letters from prison it gives it just a an

absolute intoxicating beauty and really spiritual helpfulness.

Some of his other writings are not as immediately spiritually helpful, but they you can tell it's definitely the same guy with the same same

fierceness.

It might be useful to the way.

I explain it to my kids kind of what what are these?

Ecclesiological differences.

So how should the church be organized?

How many levels of Office in the church.

Do you have besides elders?

Okay, so Beside, you know, what what our elders exactly that's a question.

But roughly speaking you've got the congregation lists who say we should have local elders in a

local assembly.

Exercising authority over just a group of people who can assemble together at the same time in the

same same place the Presbyterians add

Elders who have authority over a group of congregations locally.

Okay, so you got the congregation lists you got the Presbyterians and that's where Rutherford is.

That's where the Scots in general are the.

That's where Knox was lots of people end up in the Presbyterian camp the Anglican

Church as a level above the local elder

board of Bishops, okay, and then they also add an archbishop the Roman

Catholic Hierarchy has not just bishops but cardinals and the Pope

in Rome, of course, so You can kind of think of it as kind of four gradations of you know, how

many?

How many.

Levels of middle management.

Do you have do you have any middle management?

But but this is the this is the big dispute in and it comes to a head Rutherford's thrown in

jail, but in 1638 Charles says no, you know, there's

you know.

He initially is kind of hems and haws about whether how much he's going to impose on the Scots.

But in 1638, he says no, you've got to follow the Book of Common Prayer.

This is how it's gonna be there's a famous story about a he goes into do a

church and I Can't remember how old the girl was picks up a stool and yes

chucks it is.

You're not gonna Make me he listened to a to a Roman mass.

So the Scots at that point they say 1638 they say

so the Scottish Parliament they get together and they say Charles

We acknowledge you as our king.

We are not Attempting to depose you and and then ten years later, they're gonna be very

upset of the English when they do put him to death generally, but the

this stuff you're doing about Putting bishops in charge of our local congregations

Is illegal you're it's unlawful and you're not allowed to do it.

They get together and huge numbers of Scots Adopt this thing.

There's the Solemn League and Covenant 1638 and then they have a short

war that Basically Charles tries to win but doesn't the bishops war.

The first bishops first.

Yeah first bishops were there's you know, the first bishops were the second bishops were the first second and third English Civil

Wars.

Of.

Yeah, there's there's a lot of stuff, you know going on but basically

What Rutherford is doing in the book is saying that what we did in?

1638 was lawful, which by the way somewhat an example of the doctrine of the

lesser magistrates.

Here are these guys.

Respectfully as they would say anyway.

Checking the authority of the king who they say.

Overstepped his bounds.

Yeah, so so they say there were properly elected.

So lots of stuff at the end of the book is going to go into lots of details about

Exactly who is allowed to summon the Scottish Parliament?

How frequently they you know what they can do once they're summoned.

But basically 1638 you have have some Military defeats for the king.

The king realizes I'm gonna need some more money if I'm really gonna defeat these folks.

The king at this point has not convened a parliament in England

since 1629.

Okay, so this there's a bunch of history of what's going on with Charles first in England.

So he's only can't only becomes king in 1625.

So.

Parliament had gotten upset at James for a lot of things he had done.

But they get really upset at Charles and a lot of the things That Parliament has to do.

They do right at the beginning of someone's reign.

So they they vote them traditionally tonnage and poundage for life some all these

complicated names for taxes, but They don't do that and they say hey Charles, you

know.

You're gonna have to give us some concessions if you're gonna get enough money to govern the country.

1628 you have the petition of right but 1629 is the last Parliament for 11 years and then some

people got the 11 years tyranny.

By the way, it's a little bit contrary to our general approach in Congress and the president.

There's what they call the honeymoon period where you pretty much get almost anything you want as the new president

right and then the Contention begins but here it was quite the opposite.

Yeah, so so it's got it's one thing.

It's fascinating just in terms of history looking at looking at England versus versus France.

So France they have this gap in the meeting of their states general Essentially their Parliament

between like the 1610s and 1789.

Okay, so they're going for like a hundred and 170 some years between meetings of

Parliament.

Essentially, that's what happens between 1629 and 1640 the King says I don't have to have I don't have to call a

Parliament I can I can come up with other ways of getting money and then there's a bunch of legal disputes about you know Ship

money and the Knights case gonna just tell people to loan him money a bunch of bunch of disputes

eventually decides I've got to call Parliament in 1640.

So they have initially calls a Parliament called the short Parliament of 1640.

They don't do what he says.

So he says I you know heck with you, you know Dismisses them decide discovers he still

does need money a few years a few months later still 1640.

He calls the long Parliament.

Okay, and these these are gonna be the people 20 years later

the same people the same people elected in Parliament of 1640 are gonna be the people to call back

Charles the second and Leading to Basically the

unpleasantness at the very very end of Rutherford's life but Parliament

Comes in they are just as recalcitrant probably more recalcitrant than they even were in the 1620s.

Eventually, they decide hey King We're not gonna allow you to

have an army Through a bunch of political troubles.

Just it's not obvious in 1640 that there's gonna be a war but as the negotiations go on

War is gonna break out.

Okay.

Parliament is gonna decide we have the authority to come up with our own army.

So Parliament is assuming executive authority that never had so in 1644 so that's the

year that we're writing it.

They've decided we're gonna Reform the English Church along new lines.

They call in all the best minds to do this.

And I think there's no question Rutherford was was the top One of the probably the top Scottish

mind and certainly in thinking about a certain of these issues.

So he's in in London 1644.

The.

Westminster Assembly is starting its work of deciding what the Church of England is gonna look like.

The war is so there's armies in the field.

Okay, so Marston Moores is is I think a few months before this has a.

It's an important parliamentary victory.

It's not not final.

That's actually where

Cromwell starts becoming prominent as a leader of Calvary.

So so he has a huge Cavalry charge

and it shows a certain decisiveness in battle that is eventually gonna cause him to be able to

Win a whole bunch more military victories including over the Scots.

And and take over the government, but 1644 we got armies in the field.

Bunch of people saying This I should never have started and Rutherford says well Let me give you an explanation why we were

right six years ago when we resisted the king.

Let me throw in there Chris in this just an extraordinary time it seems to me in world events really.

So the king summons the Parliament because he needs money to fight the Scots.

But the Parliament basically throws in with the Scots and then it has them over.

For what is also I think just such an historic gathering right.

The Westminster Assembly and Rutherford is there and the Scots are working with Parliament now

basically against the king.

And you've got the outworkings of the whole Reformation mindset right.

Starting with the Revolutionary thinking about God and theology

and you know soteriology the whole thing is just so explosive really for world events.

So the outworkings of that in in my view You've got to we talk

in mediocrity about the fundamental work of rethinking God biblically.

Well, there's Rethinking the church biblically right.

The whole structure and so forth.

And that in itself almost Ineluctably works itself out in Rethinking civil

government biblically as well.

So there's such a mix of.

Deep.

Rethinking of everything in life that's going on here and Rutherford is right smack

in the center of it all.

Oh, yeah.

So.

Remarkable times to be writing a work like this and it's no field theoretical treatise.

This is his life his church his country at issue, right?

Absolutely. Absolutely.

So, you know in the meantime the 30 Years War is waging in Europe so

between you know, 1618 and the Peace of Westphalia in 1648 just massive massive bloodshed

between Protestant chunks of Europe and The

Roman Catholic chunks of Europe.

One of the big questions that people are fussing over.

It's actually the the issue that triggers the beginning of the 30 Years War.

In 1618 in Prague the Roman Catholic Pope deposes a ruler.

So they say So the Pope has Pope in 1215 and in the fourth Lateran Council has this

long description how I'm allowed to decide.

That.

Ruler isn't sufficiently Christian and call for subjects to rebel against against him.

1570 the Pope issues this edict saying I know all you people in England have sworn oaths to support

Elizabeth the first but you don't have to keep those you can go ahead and and rise up against against Elizabeth.

So there's there's all these questions about when is it licit for the people or for authorities like

like a church or the Roman Catholic Hierarchy to call for someone to be

overthrown.

One important name in the intellectual environment is this fellow Hugo Grotius and he's you

know.

This is somebody who is permanently important in the law so You know

the Supreme Court they'll quote him or cite him on international law quite regular regularly.

Basically invents international law in a treatise in 1625.

So this is seven years into The 30 Years War.

He has a doctrine That says it's never okay to

resist Constituted authority.

It's never okay to disagree With what the head of a local

Area has said and he's saying like look we've got to come up with he's a Protestant but he says we've got to come up

with some way to avoid constantly trying to overthrow each other

and Rutherford actually at some points he has he has a snarky side.

And if you put it lightly, yeah, so, you know, not as snarky as someone like Luther or something.

You know, you can get these Luther insult generators that you know has thousands of them.

You could go through and search for kind of snarky things.

He says about this Maxwell fella, but one of the things he says about Maxwell John Maxwell.

The he calls him the Popish prelate, although he's not Roman Catholic.

He's Protestant, but he that's that's the term he uses for Maxwell.

One of the snarky things he says well, he's just ripping off Grotius and as an intellectual.

With intellectual concern rather than kind of polemical concern.

I look at it and I think well.

Well, why didn't you just respond to Grotius?

The reason he didn't respond to Grotius just directly is Maxwell had just issued

in 1644 this treatise, you know, you know in English Telling every telling all the

people supporting Parliament.

Hey everything you've been doing since night since 1638 is just completely Contrary

to Romans 13 and 1st Peter 2 and the way monarchy was was seen in the in the Old

Testament.

So that was the treatise that everybody's reading and he goes through.

Just I mean point by point through through Maxwell's Max and I mean you

read his preface.

And I mean you really It is not a particularly appealing advertisement for reading the

rest of it.

Because I mean it's a list.

It's almost all of the preface.

Rutherford's preface is a list of 50 things that are Very very specific wrong about

Maxwell's treatise and you just you can kind of understand, you know.

His point with some of those but unless you have Maxwell's book right next to you.

But he's writing for people who do have Maxwell's book right next to them and he says, okay, you you know.

That's that was up here just now.

Here's the next thing, you know, set it set it side by side and and and go into those details, so he's.

Yeah, there's a lot of context that you gotta gotta dig through to get to.

One more thing with regard to that reference to Maxwell as the Popish prelate Obviously

intentional and meant to smear him, but it does seem to me to capture to Some of

what is going on in this whole cataclysmic time period where the Protestant

movement ultimately Certainly simplistically in the Roman Catholic view can be reduced

to the question of authority Right and the Roman Catholic view with their hierarchical system

just aligned.

Like a.

Glove fitting over the hand with the Monarchical.

The Pope is the ultimate authority for the Roman Catholics.

The King is the ultimate authority for Maxwell in England and they love a simple

monarchical one final word sort of system and the whole notion of Protestantism where

we step back and say wait.

It is not inappropriate to question and take everything back to scripture sort of thing.

So I don't think it's wholly unfair for him to refer to him in that way.

But it just casts the background right.

The backdrop for what he's arguing here is in I think Rutherford's view.

Fundamentally he sees the the danger of Roman Catholicism and really the attack

against the entire Reformation.

The whole body of thought that he's standing on is Embodied and encapsulated in

Maxwell's treatise.

Yeah, and he he wants to.

He wants to be consistent.

So he's taking certain things that the the Protestants had done and saying look if you really follow through on

these.

You're gonna have to do a lot a lot of additional things.

And really I mean, so I mean, we're we're all you know Baptists and we kind of we

think of what our position is even with respect to people like the the Presbyterians.

The Most common folks in Scotland say look if you really take seriously.

Yeah, you know the regulative principle that you're supposed to get rid of any kind of biblical.

Get a get rid of any kind of unbiblical office or unbiblical ceremony.

You're gonna have to get rid of.

The.

Infant baptism and you're gonna have to get rid of.

You know because it really doesn't seem you know.

The way the pastoral epistles treat eldership like.

You're gonna have more than just a congregation making Leadership decisions about about

about elders.

It's gonna be a.

Local.

Congregation.

So I mean we're all inconsistent to some extent but the the force of the argument is hey

Protestants, you know once you take certain steps And say you're not just completely subject to one

one ruler for the you know, all of Christendom.

You've already divided up power and if you're gonna divide up power in different countries.

Dividing a power within a single country is in principle.

No, not really any different.

Well with that background and all the complexity that's occurring both religious and

You know political power struggles, you know, we think of James's Statement

about divine right his son's Following kind of that trajectory but going further being more

offensive to Parliament politically as well as to the nation.

Religiously at times that the Puritan element, you know the idea of no bishops.

No king.

Hey, if we don't have a bishopric then the king how will he exercise?

You know, what will be the arm of the king in the significant arena of religion at that time?

Especially how will the king really rule if we don't have the church under control and the church

under control is going to require Bishops who are faithful to James or Charles?

So with all of that going on and understanding that background we need to jump into what are the main?

Thoughts and the main points of.

Lex -rex itself.

So, you know some people might think oh, you know Rutherford.

He's just he's never read Romans 13 or 1st Peter 2.

The very first page of the treatise he mentions mentions the two of those obviously

the submission to the authorities submission to the Emperor and minister sent by the Emperor

is very central to.

How he's going to think he's not gonna explain those passages themselves.

For a hundred pages or so.

Yeah.

What is he starting with?

He's starting with the rules for kingship under the Old Covenant.

And here it's very interesting.

The general hermeneutic or interpretive approach he takes.

I think it seems like it's common ground to both

Rutherford and his opponents.

That when we look at the way that Israel organized its kingship, we're supposed to

Extract the general principles of it.

So there's certain things that are clearly inapplicable.

From it's a Deuteronomy 17 is the most straightforward.

Teaching in the Old Covenant about you know, what they would do if they had a king.

So these are rules for a hypothetical Future kingship and that's one of the one of Rutherford's big

points is it is it is hypothetical.

But you know, for instance, one of the rules in it is you may not put a foreigner over you.

Who's not your brother.

Well.

Obviously the English aren't supposed to find you know some Israelite a

Jewish person to put on their own throne and you know, this isn't saying like oh, there's some sort of racial

Demand that every every nation had, you know, it find its its brother.

Not a not a not a foreigner what they're doing is Taking the civil law

and they're abstracting up to figure out what that civil law says.

About.

The enduring moral law so the way they're gonna say it in the

Westminster Convention in the 1640s is.

The moral law is continuing to be binding.

The ceremonial law is not.

Ceremonial law points forward to Christ.

And once Christ has come we don't have that.

So, you know mark 719 Jesus declares all foods clean.

Okay, and then the Westminster Convention talks about the judicial law.

I Think we would probably call the the civil law as well says the judicial law.

For the nation of Israel is not binding except insofar as

the general equity thereof basically the way I would understand that I

would say the general equity of the civil law is The information that the civil

law gives us about the moral law.

Yeah the application really of the moral law, right?

Right.

And so when we look at Deuteronomy 17, we're taking it very very seriously because

Obviously God would never tell Israel to do something that would violate the moral law.

The enduring moral law is gonna be Was applicable at the time of

Deuteronomy 17 and it's gonna be applicable 400 years later when they actually do have a king.

Okay, but You know, so, you know rather than Looking, you know,

you know just at Rutherford.

He's there's a lot of context, but he appeals over and over to Deuteronomy 17 I think it would make sense just a just a look at

Deuteronomy 17 itself.

When you come to the land that the Lord your God is giving you by the way, you're starting in verse 14 verse 14.

Yeah, Deuteronomy 17 14 FF following.

Okay, when you come to the land The Lord your God is giving you and you possess it and dwell in it and then say

I will set a king over me.

Like all the nations that are around me.

You may indeed set a king over you whom the Lord your God will choose.

Okay, so Just you know, just out of those two phrase You may

indeed set a king over you.

Whom the Lord your God will choose.

One of the big disputes that I mean lots and lots of discussion of the details of Exactly how those

two parts work together and how they work together with Saul and with David and

then I mean later there's a kind of a re -establishment under Joash following Athaliah's

takeover of power.

But you have these times where Kings are specifically set

over the nation of Israel the anointing of these people

Takes place at a different time.

Okay, so for you know, we were talking a minute ago during the break about

Charles the third he has this Coronation ceremony and there's one point where they have

an anointing of the king.

May I just say for those that that aren't familiar Charles the third being the current king.

Yeah current king of England current king of England.

He became king as soon as his mother died.

He wasn't Anointed to become king before then but he had been king and The

way that I think it's Alfred the Great put together all these ceremonies in the in the 8th century or whenever.

For the kingdom that became the king of England King the kingdom of England.

He put a put an anointing in it specifically in imitation of the way the

Israelite kingdom was was organized so one of one of Rutherford's big points

is the anointing itself.

When God picks David or picks Saul I mean picks David's David's house.

So Joe ashes, you know, everybody understands Joe ash is supposed to be the king but that's different from actually becoming

king.

And you can tell this really just looking at first Samuel the way that it works

with Saul you remember he's he's running off looking for his lost lost

sheep or goats or something and Runs into Samuel.

Well, they think oh, we're gonna find our sheep.

Like oh, there's a prophet Samuel.

Let's talk to Samuel they talked to Samuel and Samuel annoys him

and he doesn't say I hereby make you king.

He says you will be king.

Saul goes home and they say oh, you know, just anything interesting happened while you were off looking.

Oh, we met that we met a prophet.

Oh, what did the prophet say?

Well, he said the sheep had been found.

Okay.

He doesn't act as king at that point it's only later I mean, it's the next next scene in in

in first Samuel only later that he actually becomes king.

He only Exercises authority starts doing the things that he starts doing the job of the king, which is

I mean protecting and defending his people again and supplying public order

within within the nation David is of course as well.

It's a long gap.

Yeah, he's you know Saul is rejected as king, but he is still king.

So when David is anointed that's different from him actually receiving authority

as king to issue decrees and have people.

You know doing the job of a king which is defending Israel.

Defending defending the nation against outside, you know, all enemies foreign and domestic as it were It's the way the American

language would put it but defending Israel against foreign enemies and supplying public order within

Israel.

Which it's really a significant Distinction as we see in Rutherford,

but you know when you're just reading through scripture You don't stop and think too much about.

Well, wait a minute.

David anointed King.

But when does he really become king and exercise those royal prerogatives.

It but it is.

Enormously significant in the context of this kind of discussion right and outside of Israel.

We have examples like that, too.

We have a Jehu who's who's anointed Before he comes in and takes over the

northern kingdom.

We have a king of Syria that is anointed before he

Goes in and take over and that's that's different.

Those are you know, actually possessing authority and being told by God that he will

exercise authority are different things and this is a.

This is a bell that the Rutherford rings many many times.

And there is some repetition in there.

Yeah, but it's repetition, you know in different content it's you know one thing I mean it really

is a just a magisterial tour de force about Thinking very

thoroughly and Biblically as biblically as he can.

Given given his perspective given the the arguments that he has available to think through.

He really just wants to think through as many details as he possibly can.

Look at it.

Look at all the counter arguments that that he can.

From whatever perspective he can to make sure that he's considering.

You know.

He's squeezing the scriptures of every last drop of insight that he can about the nature of

political authority.

Let me just throw in there to Chris.

I mean you mentioned some of the critics as if maybe he hadn't considered some of these Seminal biblical

passages, but the truth is it is an extraordinary work in so far as

It's scholarship and the depth of his command not only of Scripture.

But it's written in four languages ultimately, right?

You've obviously got the English, but he's Always referring to Latin.

He goes to the Greek.

He goes to the Hebrew.

It's just remarkable.

What a Command he has.

Historically, I don't know of any authority that he overlooks and you know, he didn't have

Google at his fingertips and the resources that we have with the smartphones and devices.

It's just extraordinary by the way.

I mean among others, of course.

He cites Plato and Aristotle whom he calls somewhat in the Spurgeon esque way of describing Rutherford the

flower of nature's wit.

He actually cites One huge classical influence in the background here is Cicero.

Yes.

So Cicero has this phrase I'm gonna butcher the

Latin but Salus Populi supremo lex the welfare

of the people is the supreme law.

One point critical.

Yeah one point Rutherford says That this is part of the twelve tables of Roman law.

I think he's wrong historically about that, but it's a very well so basically the

European intellectual scene starts getting really obsessed about Cicero.

So Cicero is around the time of the fall of the Republic.

He's he opposes Caesar in certain ways and then gets anyway

a bunch of Ciceronian stuff, but this principle that What government is supposed to do is?

Promote the welfare of all people within the realm.

Everybody acknowledges that essentially what the what people like Charles were saying was well I get to decide

What's in the welfare of the people and he would use that kind of phrase as like?

Well, I get to override any positive law that Parliament isn't as established.

I said, well, you know You know Parliament says that but really the supreme law is the welfare of the people so I get to decide that.

But Rutherford, you know very much doesn't disagree with the welfare of the people being the supreme law and it's you know This

is all over really beginning of the late 1500s.

It's just just all over European intellectual thought.

So you've got classical influence you've got a very very detailed look at the at the at the Old Testament and you

know I you know, we'll get to the you know what he says about the the New Testament one very

important episode that Rutherford highlights is this episode with Uzziah

so we most I think most people remember Uzziah chiefly from

remembering when he died so Isaiah 6 Begins in the year that King

Uzziah died and you know, our study Bibles usually have a footnote saying okay.

This is BC 740.

So you got to anchor like okay This is 18 years before the northern kingdom is gonna be destroyed by the

Assyrians.

It's you know, a hundred and Sixty some years before the the southern kingdom is destroyed.

Uzziah is one of a series of kings Who are I think

usually classified as mostly good sometimes you'll you know Find the the list of the kings of Israel and Judah

in the back and they'll sometimes be indicated, you know.

Well, there's you know, there's Josiah at the very top.

There's Hezekiah right underneath that there's kind of Asa and Jehoshaphat who were.

Earlier.

Kind of below there and then there's this kind of next tier of mostly good kings.

Most of whom start out very well do some very important things and then end in

Ways that are quite unfortunate.

Okay, and one of those is Uzziah.

So what happens to Uzziah?

I think I'll just just read from this is 2nd Chronicles 26 16.

This just you know begins with a with a beautifully

concise warning.

When he was strong He grew proud to his destruction.

For so this is Uzziah.

He was unfaithful to the Lord as God and entered the temple of the Lord to burn

incense on the altar of incense.

But as Uriah the priest went in after him with 80 priests of the Lord who were men of valor.

And they withstood King Uzziah and said to him It's not for you Uzziah to burn

incense to the Lord.

But for the priests the sons of Aaron who are consecrated to burn incense go out of the sanctuary for you have done

wrong.

And it will bring you no honor from the Lord God.

Then Uzziah was angry now.

He had a censer in his hand to burn incense and when he became angry at the priests

Leprosy broke out on his forehead in the presence of the priests in the house of the Lord by the

altar of incense and Azariah the chief priests and all the priests looked at him and behold he was leprous in his forehead

and they rushed him out quickly and he himself hurried to go out because the Lord had struck him

and King Uzziah was a leper to the day of his death and being a leper lived in a separate house for he was excluded from

The house of the Lord and Jotham his son was over the king's household governing the people of the land

so one question Rutherford has is well if you took What Charles was

saying seriously took what Maxwell? Was saying seriously God

should have struck the priests with a plague because they were the ones the lesser magistrates as it were.

Telling the king this isn't this isn't for you to do.

So the Kingdom of Israel had a separation of powers within it.

It was very very different from the American separation of powers the English separation of powers.

But it was a separation of powers became between King and priest.

And of course, you know, we're looking at this not just to understand politics.

But Christ is both prophet priest and King.

He's the only one who has all of these Offices together.

He's the only one we can trust with having all these offices together.

Just because you're a king doesn't mean you can tell the priests or the prophets what to do.

So the the Uzziah episode is extremely Important basically what Rutherford

does he takes out of all of his all of his.

It takes the Deuteronomy 17.

He takes the the history of the the kingship.

When when Samuel makes Saul King he lists a number it gives a description of what the king

will do that the Maxwell grocious types they said oh

this is establishing a Normative guide right if the king wants to take all your sons and

daughters and have crazy high taxes.

He's allowed to do that.

He has a right to do so.

So, you know, that's that's one of the things but basically every every time he's coming up with these arguments.

He'll run through all of these and think well, what does that biblical passage say about

about that matter?

And he's you know, he's you know, I mean I Guess if we had a drinking game, it wouldn't

be with with anything serious if we had like a coffee drinking game you could have a.

Every time he says Uzziah take a sip of your espresso, but there's there's a lot of these.

So, I don't know we some folks are like yes, I want to have some stogies and beers.

Okay, but if you there's a there's an awful lot of references to a lot.

Yeah, I mean that repetition.

And if I can go back to Chris, I mean you started in Deuteronomy 17 I don't know if you want to return there or not but

and even if we don't but the examples of the anointing versus the

actual Empowerment and and vice versa where the

role of the people becomes such a critical question for Rutherford and He would elevate it and say you're

not a king until as with David you enter into a covenant with the people sort of thing.

And again Contextually, you've got the whole Scottish in English history

with its own constitutional background and that Fact that

the king doesn't just assume absolute power.

I mean, it's clear that he is limited in the English system,

right?

And it sort of begs the question Scripturally does he have to be or can he just assume as James

would have argued the divine right of kings?

That's right.

When David is anointed when Saul Is anointed but it's fine.

It's very clear with David.

David does not just walk in and assert his kingship directly, he's I mean very

Pointed prominently has the opportunity to okay.

So the way that lots of kings behave When they get the

Person they're trying to depose and their sites when they get the person they think that there are Properly

situated to replace in their sites.

They kill them.

Maybe a Jehu sort of.

Yeah, that's how Jehu does it.

That's how.

That's how William the Conqueror does it?

Killing Harold of the Battle of Hastings.

That's how Henry the seventh does it killing Richard the third?

That's how.

Countless numbers of.

If you look at the Northern Kingdom It's got ten separate dynasties every single one of which

was founded by somebody who killed the last.

King from the predecessor none of whom by the way are listed in those godly King.

Yeah.

Yeah, so there's you know, this is the southern kings of southern kingdom has some good kings of

various various levels of goodness some.

About half of them are terrible.

But the Northern Kingdom every single one of them is terrible including Jehu who's used by God as an

instrument to punish the house of Omri and Ahab.

But.

But it's just very clear from how David behaves.

That it is one thing to be told that you are the man for this job and another to actually assume it.

What is involved in assuming it it is not?

Perfectly clear.

What exactly the people have to do to make someone a king.

We don't want to read we don't so this is a 17th century document.

Rutherford is not a radical leveler.

So the levelers in the 1640s.

They come in and they say We need to have Suffrage we didn't have

voting that is complete, you know, it's much more widespread.

We shouldn't have any property requirements.

We shouldn't have any.

I mean, they're really they're trying to level a lot of distinctions.

They say, you know, they sound they sound a little bit like Americans of the 1820s what I'm

all power comes from the people and unless you get your power from a

vote a specific vote with ballots.

Telling you that you have authority you can't exercise authority.

We don't want to read Rutherford Anachronistically as some sort of radical proponent of

democracy he's not saying that the people have to vote for a king, but

the people are the ones over whom the king has authority and by

recognizing the king's authority by or giving the king authority by having that

relationship of.

So a lot a lot of times at the time they'll talk about the reciprocal Duties

of allegiance and protection by giving allegiance to the king.

They are become entitled to the king's protection and by protecting the people the king becomes

entitled to their allegiance.

And this is you know, when you know when Saul comes in and starts doing the job of the king

protecting them.

That's one people start having to obey him.

To the extent that he's not acting unlawfully and doing so willingly.

Yeah, they do so willingly right, right.

It's not not something so the world of the Old Testament.

Sometime, you know people who don't people who don't actually read it carefully might say well, it's just you know dog -eat

-dog and there's this famous line from the.

It's it's attributed to the Athenians going to Going to Sicily and they so there's

this line the strong do what they will and the weak endure what they must.

So you might think well, it's just this, you know barbaric Prehistoric Stone Age nonsense where people are just

fighting and just taking power.

That's not what's going on in the in the in the Old Testament.

That's never you know kings of England.

Sometimes they take power violently.

And illegitimately sometimes but they never on their face say Oh, yeah, what we're doing is just doing

the things we can do because we're strong might makes right might make yeah.

It's not a might makes right view of the world.

And it's not you know, it's also not the king just hearing from God or getting you know,

having a divine anointing.

That authorizes him just on that basis to go tell people what to do.

It's through lawful procedures lawful just the law of.

The people submitting to the king under certain circumstances, but not every circumstance.

I think that's exactly right and you know, John's been preaching through the primacy of the moral law one

might say In our own church services and it seems to me that that's another theme that sort of

pervades Romans 13 as well as the treatment here of The

King's the limits on the King's authority in both Old Testament and new although again, the examples are much

more poignant and and well drawn out in the Old Testament, but that that

There is a limit clearly, right if if all power Is from

God and the King's power is delegated.

Which clearly it is.

Then.

Implicitly that means there have to be limits, right?

So I think Rutherford's foundation here is so much stronger

than Maxwell's ultimately and the difficulty comes in my view How you

apply that and as you were saying to in the Old Testament examples.

It's far from really explicit in every point.

You just have to kind of infer a lot of.

Principles from what we have played out in the actual examples.

Yeah, that's right.

We don't we don't have any, you know.

Explicit it's not a black letters.

There's not a there's not an official pronouncement, right from God doesn't you know.

Send a prophet to say what my priest did here was proper and They have to

infer like well what's going on with this problem, you know, it's not a not a word.

It's just the leprosy that you Zaya gets but I think it would be good you know, let's we can look

at the New Testament.

The key to the two key a passage of course are Romans 13 and

First Peter 2 and see what his.

You know, what about those?

Rutherford and he's got the basic point that he makes it's pretty simple.

It's just difference between singular and plural.

So Romans 13 starting verse 1 let every person be subject to the governing.

Authorities, it's plural good.

Okay, for there's no authority except from God and those that exist have been instituted by God.

Those that exist have you know the plural.

Therefore whoever resists the authorities.

Resist what God has appointed and those who resist will incur judge.

Okay, now your translation in verse 2 is plural.

Mine is singular.

Oh my goodness.

So that ever resists authority, but it's still sort of a generic authority not the authority.

Okay.

Well, this is it.

So we should say you're you've got the NAS 95.

Is that the Certain people very concerned.

Different different Versions of the NAS.

This is the English Standard version.

Yeah, Rutherford does make the point about the plurality of the authorities and I I think rightly so and

yeah.

That becomes again another major Subtheme throughout this treatise, right?

Whether the king alone has that kind of authority from God or do the lesser magistrates the judges

and so forth.

Also enjoy that authority.

Yeah, I should say, you know, even if it is singular.

You can understand.

So if you know if you're if you're out, you know, you know, so you're in Rome and you're looking at.

The.

You know the authority around you.

Well in one sense you might say well who is the authority if you're looking for a person.

You might say well the authority is there is the the Emperor.

It's it's it's near it's it's that's a bad guy.

Okay.

In this in the 17th century People say like if you had a dime for every time these

Anglican folks Supporting the Stuarts mentioned that Romans 13 was written when

Nero was Emperor, you know, you could be rich.

But.

If you're looking at Authority around you just as a quality.

Well Nero has some of it his his officers have some of it.

And then you know later in the sentence, you know the plural I think thing comes in but his his point is well,

okay.

The people of Scotland are supposed to be subject to the governing authorities or the authority wherever however, it's

distributed.

Some of it is in this Stuart King and some of it is in the Scottish Parliament.

Exactly.

So the lesser magistrates have have An element of this as well.

And this is this is yeah, I mean even even clearer.

It's explicitly made in in first Peter 2.

So first Peter 2 this is

Verse 13 and following be subject for the Lord's sake to every human institution

whether it be to the Emperor as supreme or To governors as sent by him

to punish those who do good and to praise To punish those who do evil and to praise those who do good.

In Romans 13 it talks about the same thing.

You have this standard of good and evil Which Exists and the the secular

authorities are supposed to Supposed to enforce but it's very clear you

you know If the governor comes comes to you and says well, you know, it's time to pay your taxes.

The tax rate is this You're not supposed to resist that governor, but it's all the Emperor said it was seven and a half

percent not eight and a half percent, you know you have to obey the governors as well and

It you know if if the governors have authority to say that what the Emperor has actually said is unlawful.

Okay, it's gonna it's gonna also be.

It's gonna be a question.

It's gonna be a contingent question whether the most prominent person has in fact behaved Lawfully in

giving orders to subordinates, and of course, this is you know This is a world where you've got people, you know hundreds of

miles away.

It's gonna take a considerable amount of time for just for information right to get back.

So you've you haven't have an inherent plurality between London and Scotland you have the same

Obvious delay that is going to going to produce.

You have a multiplicity authority just by by technological imperative

as much as anything but basically Rutherford is gonna gonna give that explanation that

you have.

You have multiple authorities.

So if you're trying to explain why it's wrong for the Scottish Parliament to

disagree with King Charles in 1638 you're gonna have to do something other than just to put appeal to these things that explicitly have

references to multiple authorities.

One big Element of of how Rutherford thinks about the New

Testament is to talk about.

Flight from.

Authority.

So a point he makes over and over he says if the authorities tell you to turn yourself in.

And you say no.

But you know run somewhere else that's disobeying them and.

It's not.

Perfectly clear in Luke 13, but it you know, so Luke 13 Some people come to

Jesus.

So these are some Pharisees don't come out too well in in a lot of the New Testament, but these are

some these are some okay Pharisees some Pharisees.

So Luke 13 31 of that very hour some Pharisees came and said to Jesus get away from here for Herod wants

to kill you and He said to him go and tell that Fox Behold, I cast out demons and perform

cures today and tomorrow and the third day I finished my course.

Is he fleeing Herod like the Pharisees told him to do not perfectly obvious but in Nazareth, he's

A mob attempts to throw him off a brow.

Are they governing authorities?

Not perfectly clear, but he he does not have a problem with With leaving and in Matthew 10,

he says explicitly if they persecute you in one Town

flee to the next and then you have the example of Paul.

You know, so so Paul in Damascus He he goes and right after his conversion

and he he's The authorities in Damascus.

I think it actually says the governor of Damascus is looking for Paul.

And he sneaks out and is let out through a basket dramatic fashion.

Yeah, so It's obvious just looking at the New Testament.

What is their attitude toward the Roman Empire?

They're not running around attempting to overthrow it but they also

Are not afraid to disobey its commands In response

in obedience to the command to preach the gospel to every creature which which they're given in in Matthew 28

and also they're willing to Do so even though they don't have specific commands so

Sometimes Paul is very upfront.

He's like, yeah, you know arrest me but sometimes he's not that's right and he doesn't there's no

indication that has a specific command To you know to leave Damascus without

turning himself in.

Yeah, no indication.

Other than the general thing in Matthew 10, you know that they're supposed to leave particular cities and go particular places.

But the early church was was you know, didn't have a problem Saying I'm gonna flee this is

part of obeying The command in Acts 5 we must obey God rather

than men in certain circumstances didn't you take it?

Some of Maxwell's argument seems to have been Okay, you can flee but what

you can't do is actually take up arms and even you know we get into the defensive war kind of

Discussion here and so Rutherford goes the extra mile again in

looking for instance at David.

I mean taking Goliath's sword.

That isn't exactly just fleeing in and Taking no thought of a defensive

taking up of arms.

I mean literally it was taking up arms.

So there's that whole kind of sub.

Argument here, too.

Yeah, so there's yeah, there's a bunch of yeah a bunch of gradations that people might

try to make so.

Fleeing and prevent, you know doing things actively to prevent the government from doing things to you.

Yes.

Taking defensive, you know, so, you know if you flee, you know, what can you do?

Can you build yourself a fortress?

Okay, can you.

You know put sharp sticks on the outside so that if people try to attack you though, you know, they'll run it.

You know, so there's kind of you know defensive measures that are like just purely a barrier.

You know defensive measures that might be painful to overcome.

Defensive measures about.

You know picking up a sword, you know defensively.

And.

You know actually going out and and using it to you know, somebody comes to it to arrest you.

And picks up a sword.

Can you can you defend yourself?

These are these are questions that are still difficult.

Questions of self -defense in both Kind of domestic law just the law of self -defense and

also the law of international war, so it's a laws about preemptive

self -defense.

So there's a war raging in Israel right now a big huge question in 1967

the Six -Day War.

They know an attack is coming, but Israel preemptively does so there's all kinds of I mean.

It's a whole branch of ethics of.

You know, when exactly is preemptive war allowed?

When is defensive force allowed.

And.

Rutherford over and over again.

He says this is a defensive war.

Charles is the one who started it.

You started it.

Yeah.

Not withstanding that.

You're still Acting again when you're using force.

Really anytime you're using force.

You're using force to prevent somebody from attacking you.

It's not just to retaliate against an attack in the past and the illustration I always used to use

when I was explaining this in Frequently for in my

philosophy days.

Somebody who's run out of bullets.

Okay, so somebody who is shooting at you or maybe shooting shooting arrows at you

you see, you know somebody coming coming at you and He's got a bunch of arrows and

you've got a bunch of arrows, too.

He shoots an arrow and you're like, ah, he's attacking me.

He shoots another, ah.

And you think like I gotta you know, it's either kill or be killed here I can I can take an arrow and

I can take him down before he shoots another.

What if he's just shot his last arrow though?

So you've got an arrow coming at you.

And.

You you could shoot the guy at that point.

It's just retaliatory.

So if it's just based on what he's done in the if it's purely based on what he's done in the past.

It's not actually defensive force.

You're not preventing him from attacking you further.

You're just retaliating for what he's done in the past and there you know, there's rules about International law, but when retaliation

as such is is allowed but anytime you're using force.

You're acting in light of future things that somebody else might be doing so

if people from Scotland are going to prevent the English army from from you know.

Imposing their their bishops are doing whatever whatever they want to do.

They're acting against a future thing.

They're not merely acting in response to something in the past, so

Rutherford doesn't get you know into that a lot, but he does repeatedly emphasize.

This is a defensive war.

One thing to remember in general about Rutherford's treatise.

It's a limited very limited thesis.

He's not you know, so Calvin never said that just any lesser magistrate can at any time

resist any unlawful authority.

Rutherford is not saying that just any Scotsman or any person or any official.

Can resist any unlawful authority?

He's just just saying in principle.

It's possible for there be a situation where sometimes you can resist.

The the the authorities that are that are that are set above you.

You know whether the 1638 situation was a an instance of that.

You've got to get a whole bunch of Scottish history, which he will do at the end.

But it really it depends on the depends on the particulars.

What kinds of wars you can what kind of wars you can wage?

I.

Think you know I think the analogy that's implicit in a lot of the talk of defensive war is just

between boundaries between countries and boundaries inside a

country so.

You know if you're a king of England That doesn't give you authority to tell people in France what to do.

Nobody would think like you know people in Paris have a duty to obey The

king of England just because he's the governing authority.

He's the governing authority of a limited realm.

Okay.

Well the the Scots say You know I mean literally within within Britain.

There's a boundary between England and Scotland, but the Scottish and they say so yeah.

Yeah, he's the king of Scotland too, but within the sphere of governmental authority in Scotland.

There are these boundaries.

Okay, just as you know it's just as real.

A boundary might be a little harder to discern as the English Channel.

Okay, and if you step across a boundary illegally you're gonna subject yourself to

the permissibility of defensive force against that even if it means assembling an army

and in fact.

I think one of the principles again that kind of undergirds his argument is he refers basically to

natural law and the right of a man to protect himself and his family.

And when you're invading my sphere I Have every right

to resist at least in some comparable fashion as you say whether it's you know lethal force and so forth

but That is universally acknowledged at least at

Rutherford's time.

Today we we have disputes about natural law and so forth too, but it you know there's a

simplicity in that argument that sort of carries through and everybody will go well of course and he often

cites the extremes of Charles taking up the band of bloodthirsty Irishmen

that are coming and literally invading our People.

So there is as you say that theoretical side that he's talking about maybe someday on the other hand.

They're living through the actual war the English Civil War and so forth that is

waging and raging all around them.

That's right.

And they so everybody would acknowledge there's a natural right of self -defense if there is no government.

You're gonna have to do that yourself.

The question is the extent to which.

When you've got a government people have either explicitly or implicitly given up their

natural right of self -defense and the Stuart argument the Maxwell argument is You've given

it up to the extent the government says absolutely Yeah in terms of self -defense

against the government.

You've you've really given it given it up entirely and Rutherford's point is no.

There's nothing in the establishment of a government that has affected any kind of

alienation like that.

And he even goes so far as to say it is impossible for one to cede that absolute authority.

You know, it is.

Inherent in man to retain the right of self -defense.

Yeah, if the government is attacking you with sufficient illegality and sufficient

immorality, right.

They Simply in virtue of that fact have returned you to a state of nature.

So if you have the right of self -defense in a state of nature You would have it under the extreme

circumstances in which the government returns you to one.

I.

Don't know if there's anything else in the in the book itself that we want to want to get into.

I just want to mention I found it amusing one of the questions and I didn't write down which one it was.

About two -thirds of the way three -quarters of the way through asks the age -old.

Question what is the best form of government and one would think?

Rutherford being a Scotsman and all would say of course monarchy.

But he doesn't actually say that and so he is keenly aware of the limitations of the

monarchy.

Especially when they assume an absolutist sort of approach to rule.

And and brings in some of the principles again that our founders I think built off of and the

notion of checks and balances.

Obviously not his language, but the idea that one man, I think Calvin said something similar

vested with a more or less absolute authority as a sinful fallen creature

is a very dangerous thing and.

So there there's a lot of that.

Maybe we should.

This is a transition moment to talk about the legacy of Lex Rex and how others have

built on Rutherford's work.

One other thing.

I just want to say I Think this was somewhat historical contextual and and so

forth, but the fact is Lex Rex was never formally refuted right.

They wanted to burn it not actually answer his argument.

So it's a curious sort of.

Historical Oddity as it fell out.

That's right.

That's right.

So we can so, you know, this is 1644 We can kind of just you know, get a little more of the of the historical

narrative.

The English are that this point so in the subtitle it says, you know, are they are the Scots?

Justified in coming to the aid of their English English brothers and helping so the English and Scots work

together in the first English Civil War the Scots actually Capture the king

and then give the so this is Charles the first give the king over to Parliament.

Then some people in Scotland decide Wait a minute.

You're you've taken the king captive.

He's not gonna act as a free agent at all.

I thought what we were trying to do was get him to behave to be king in a proper manner

some Scots Fight on behalf of Charles the first in the second

English Civil War, I mean, I guess it's you know, there's it's Scots versus versus English then

then in 1649 The Parliament decides well, you know, we

think that Charles the first is guilty of treason.

He's guilty of high treason, which traditionally is treason against the king and a bunch of people say how can the king be

against himself?

So they say well and it also includes treason against the state the state so in 1649 they

put him to death and Parliament the English Parliament at that point says and you know what?

We don't we don't want to have a monarch anymore.

We find it's useful at certain times and This is no longer one of them rather when he

talks about what's the best form of government and he says sometimes it's monarchy sometimes it's not and the English

Parliament says We think it's it's it's Time for it not to be so if you

go around it, we our family visited England last summer of the year year and

a bit ago and you go to lots of places and They say oh, yeah, you know

in 1649.

They destroyed a bunch of basic You know basic artifacts of the monarchy

all the current stuff is just from 1660.

Okay.

So Charles is put to death then Charles II a bunch of Scots people Scotsman

say, oh well We you know, we've never wanted to get rid of it.

We never wanted to get rid of the king.

We've got a new king.

It's Charles II.

Charles II actually then fights alongside certain Scots

in the third English Civil War and If you look at

the the history of this the Scottish folks, I mean it is I

mean at a distance of.

Of.

Several hundred years.

It's perhaps more amusing than it was at the time.

But very very very sharp disputes a month.

So these are among people who all of whom want to fight on behalf of Charles II against the English.

But some of them say we should not have been fighting against the English

on behalf of Charles the first and all those people who did have got to be excluded from the army.

And Rutherford he's in the party at that point that wants to.

I'm in a bunch of all the Scots want to fight against English but he wants to do so without the assistance of the people who

fought on behalf of Charles the first so.

Yeah, it's the kind of kind of attitude that.

It's it's it makes it difficult to win a war when you when you're excluding people on these guns of ground.

But it absolutely fits with these.

Just just fierceness and Pursuing the right as as he sees sees

what the right thing to do is.

Short story about the the third English Civil War is.

Cromwell wins huge decisive victories.

Both on September 3rd, so September 3rd 1650.

September 3rd 1651.

And then unites all three.

Can you know, he's Cromwell's in charge.

He.

Works with with Parliament gets upset with Parliament not dissolving itself and calling another Parliament.

So leaves and then we have these other things these Cromwell Ian Parliament's and it

I mean, it's it's interesting Cromwell is I Was I was

in England one time just sitting there reading this massive Biography of Cromwell and somebody came up it is in

Cambridge where Cromwell was from.

He's got other you know, what other heroes like Oh Cromwell.

He's just you know, good guy a bit of a tyrant.

So I thought it was wonderfully charming that someone could be a bit of a tyrant.

But but but also be seen as a good guy religious a lot more religious liberty Under Cromwell than there is

at any other time Cromwell is.

He's an independent so a lot more like us than like the the Presbyterians.

But he is he's in charge he's a very decisive ruler, you know just he's able to

Set things that set things up and like yeah, you got religious liberty.

You can discuss discuss what you want, you know, as long as I'm perfectly confident that I can defeat you people

about it, which I am.

It's it's it's not gonna be Not gonna be a problem, but when he dies in 1658

leaves his son who is just just nowhere Near as able politically or

militarily.

He actually has a son -in -law Ireton who is really very

very talented that initially in the

1640s a lot of people think could succeed Cromwell.

He actually dies and I think 16 51 at some point during the the

Irish campaign during which of course Cromwell Does things that cause him to be

remembered quite quite quite quite poorly among the Irish.

But siege warfare was was was desperately brutal in the day at any rate

Cromwell dies and in 1658 There's no good solution about what to do next the army

tries to take over but that's not a good solution.

You don't have any good leader of the army.

Eventually The Scots say well, you know, we we were fighting for this Charles the second

person.

And.

Some remnants of the long Parliament.

They say well, let's let's pretend that all this stuff all these new parliaments.

Didn't didn't really happen.

Let's get the remaining members of the the Long Parliament to call back Charles the second

and Charles the second says, oh great.

Great.

Great.

I'd love to I'd love to be.

King makes a bunch of promises that end up not being Fulfilled to the likes of people like

Rutherford.

Yeah, so so Rutherford at this point.

And everybody knows that this book is the leading intellectual.

Justification for what kicked us all off in 1638.

Charles the second he Rounds up all the regicides from 1649 that he can a bunch of them run off to

America if you go to Yale a lot of the Tours like oh, these are where the regicides came and

what went that way and we named a road after him and one went this Other way we named a road after him.

So you got the the three regicides that came there.

They dig up Cromwell's bones and have you know and execute him saying he was he was

the traitor.

So they.

So.

When Charles the second comes back in in 1660 this becomes

a Public enemy number one.

Yeah public enemy number one Rutherford is dying and he he says I'm

going to meet going to meet my judge and It adds a little start.

Comment about I'm going to meet a judge.

I'm going to someplace meet someone that you're not gonna be it has this.

Kind of it's an odd cocktail of both is really I mean just sweet longing to be with Jesus

you read his letter I mean, he's just it's just so so beautiful.

So spiritually helpful, but then he adds in this little snark which is It was

part of the time that it was, you know.

They were fighting about things that they really cared about they cared about whether the gospel would be able to be preached in.

A.

Pure form without Distractions and without formalism that

caused people to have false assurance.

It was really it wasn't.

This is a deadly serious matter.

But.

Rutherford and off the scene and Everybody knows the ideas at this point very very

well.

So there's not there's just no hope of eradicating Rutherford ism no putting out of yeah genie back.

Yeah, but yeah.

But they certainly can get a you know, the bulk of the nation in the 1660s thinks yeah, we

really we were we went overboard in in trying to trying to completely run things on a

Kind of a fiercely biblical model.

There's just too much disagreement among the different parties that didn't like Charles to really have any consensus.

If Cromwell had somehow been able to live for 60 years past taking power He could have might have been able to establish a culture that would have

been stable.

But but he in five years was it was nowhere near enough and then in 1683 you've got

so Charles the second he has.

He has many children, but none of them with the Queen unfortunately, and his brother is set to

succeed him.

There's a big fight About so the Whigs so the Whigs are basically the the

Puritan party the Whigs and Tories Are the two big parties the Whigs attempt to get

James the second excluded from the succession but they fail and.

In.

1683.

With James the second about to it's clear Charles the second is not gonna

survive that much longer.

James second is getting ready.

So this is an explicit Roman Catholic getting ready to take the throne.

Charles the second is everybody agrees.

He's kind of a cryptographic.

He takes Catholic Rights on the on his deathbed

in 1685 from his from his brother.

That's when the last book burning happens in England and among the books that they cash into the flames is is

Lex Rex.

It's been illegal to have it, but they think oh, let's you know.

Let's see if we can find some people with copies and burn those.

The James second administration is terrified about the idea that if the king acts unlawfully

Sometimes it might be okay to to resist him.

So very much.

This is part of the idea I mean right off in 1685 you have an initial revolt against James the

second just saying he is an illegal King.

It's illegal to have anybody Who is submitted to Rome?

Administering a church that is founded on the principles that it is 1689

really 1688 Rutherford ism is very very big part of the

resistance to James once the Bunch of details

about 1688.

But you have a bunch of bishops who are told to read a statement they refuse to and then you have the trial of the bishops.

So it was June 30th 1688 the acquittal of the bishops and when

they they acquit the bishops a bunch of James the second's people's like, okay.

It looks like looks like the lesser magistrates are starting to speak let's

and there's.

For very very very complicated reasons James the second's daughter is married to this

fellow William of Orange who is In the Netherlands, so he's called the

shot holder.

And he is Interested in becoming King of England mostly so he can put together a

coalition to oppose Louis the 14th so whole bunch of very very very complicated politics,

but and double crossings, it's.

Actually, Winston Churchill has an ancestor the Duke of Marlborough that behaves

in I mean Churchill when he tells us his history.

He actually writes a biography of this this fellow and puts puts as.

Happy as.

Faces he cannot it but there's there's Double crossing it would you know wheels within wheels

within wheels of the double crossing.

But William the third comes in he comes actually lands on the fifth of November which is the anniversary of the Guy Fawkes

plot from from 1605, but but he comes in and

asserts authority to displace James II on the base of James II acting

unlawfully and Rutherford ism is a huge huge part about that.

So the Whig view of government really becomes the

established Doctrine in 1689.

So a lot, you know a lot of a lot of Reformed Baptist, of course, you think 16 and I remember that year.

You know if you're if you're going around to Reform Baptist churches and you see a four -digit key code around the back.

It no longer will work for our church, but but you your first try probably should be

1689 because.

When.

William the third comes in.

Suddenly you get a lot more religious liberty.

So the second, you know, Second London Baptist Convention.

It was written 1677 but it wasn't it wasn't safe to publish and you know put a

whole bunch of names subscribing to a confession in 1677.

You got to wait until.

You get.

William the third around he's not a Baptist, but he's allowing the Baptist to get together and that's when Rutherford

comes out and.

Hence the historical Term for that.

Ascension the Glorious Revolution.

Yeah.

Yeah, so the so the.

Yeah, you know so that gets established without any any fighting because James realizes he's not gonna fight he

heads off to Ireland and there are some battles, but.

Nowhere near as violent as the 1640s.

Yeah, but then you've got America.

Okay, so you've got.

So America, you know, what is America?

So a lot of these folks the basic political outlook of these folks.

At least I mean, there's different there's differences among different parts of America.

But especially the people who come to like Massachusetts in the 1620s.

What are they coming to Massachusetts to do?

They're trying to do in America what their friends were trying to do under the Stuarts.

And preventing trying to prevent further erosion in the Elizabethan settlement, but also saying oh, well if we go to

America we can really set up things in a fully fully biblical way where we're just

we're taking all of the practices of Rome or Rome's descendants

and Getting rid of them if they're unbiblical.

So.

In 1689, they're very happy.

So, you know in the 1640s when you know, you know, there's a bunch of people who you know in America.

They're paying attention.

There's a very big difference between Massachusetts and and Virginia.

So in the 1640s when the Puritans are on the ascendancy in England.

Whole bunches of people leave England and head to Virginia.

So Virginia, you know, they've.

Team mascot is the Cavaliers.

Well, those are the people fighting against the Puritans in England.

So you have a very different Mix of attitudes in

In Virginia and Massachusetts, but the the kind of general wiggery of

the of the of the English folks.

General wiggery in the future.

Yeah.

Really?

It's it spreads through through all of the American political culture.

So A lot of them call themselves American Whigs so and if you

look at the Declaration of Independence a Bunch of the stuff in it is basically

Rutherfordian.

So when they say so he has a statement It makes several times

all men are born free and what he means by that is people don't come out of the womb

Born to be king.

There are people who come out of the womb with a hereditary claim based on contingent Legal

arrangements with a claim to be king once their father dies, but there aren't people who are natural kings.

So when Jefferson says people are not born naturally wearing Saddles or spurs,

you know natural slave natural slaves to be ridden or spurs to be natural masters.

He's very it's very much very similar to to what what Rutherford is saying.

Of course Jefferson doesn't follow through on those principles.

Thomas Paine he's Not I would say not a friend of the of

our way of thinking.

I mean, he's a fiercely atheistic, but he one of the things he says he says in America the law is

king.

Not quite the same same thing that Rutherford but there's like people who heard that no question.

They would say ah America Lex Is there Rex is Lex?

Okay, we so he said we shouldn't have a king at all.

You know, the king should just be the law.

But lots of people take that view.

But the if you look at the argument of the Declaration of Independence All people are created equal ie the

king can't rule simply in virtue of being born a king, right?

The rest of the argument is Essentially the 18th century version of

Rutherford's argument from the 17th century and they make explicit what was implicit in.

Rutherford's teaching that the people in America have the right to alter or

abolish the government when it becomes.

Destructive of the ends of government.

That's right.

Right, right, right.

And really remarkable document.

Yeah, so if you if you if you really want to understand the Declaration of Independence You've got to understand at least

something of the Rutherford Ian Water in which everybody is

swimming at the time.

So, you know, so one question.

Sometimes our kids eyes.

Well, why was it?

Okay.

You know Romans do you read Romans 13 and you think why exactly was it?

Okay for us to revolt against King George.

The.

Declaration of Independence doesn't have scriptural citations for all these things doesn't go through lesser magistrates doesn't

go through all of All of the terminology, but if you know the better, you know

Rutherford the better you'll be able to understand the argument that Jefferson is putting together.

Jeffrey, you know Jefferson, you know, he comes up with a lot of beautiful language.

But really he's working in an environment where he knows he's got to tailor an argument to people who are far more biblically

committed.

Jefferson is so it really is a far more Rutherford Ian document then.

Probably Jefferson would have done himself.

I I'm not sure if you know, there's a bunch of Fascinating studies about his first draft and the final thing.

I don't know if you know, it's specifically there's there's elements.

But he's in the environment.

This is what Makes America and our current system our current constitutional

system where we've got Certain powers given to the executive legislative and judiciary certain powers given

to primary executive officers and subordinate executive offers Certain powers

given to the federal government certain powers giving to states and local governments.

That is Based on the reason that you have a system where one of those

authorities can legitimately claim To disagree with another without being without cutting

itself off from the system.

Yes.

It's a Rutherford Ian thought.

And you'll you'll find people in the 1790s just in the in the very first earliest cases of judicial review.

They say well in America.

We don't we don't believe in this passive obedience passive obedience was It's kind of a funny term to unpack.

But it's basically the the Stuart doctrine that everybody has to obey the king.

The king is the only one who gets to decide whether this is a Sufficiently unlawful

for you to rebel.

So we have judicial review.

Legislature passes a statute judges can say well, you know.

You might have thought it was constitutional, but it's it's contrary to our best view of what the Constitution means

that is a form of You know, I don't know if a lesser magistrate another magistrate

saying That you know in this circumstance we have authority to say

Say that you've acted illegally acted contrary to the Constitution.

And.

You know as in the 1640s, there's gonna be all kinds of contingent questions about exactly who has

jurisdiction over what?

Who is you know?

What what powers do we have how you know?

How clear a case does it have to be.

To say something's unconstitutional that kind of question exactly and if I may bring it up.

Right to the modern day, I mean.

Again in a lot of ways.

This is not so theoretical for me.

I have clients that are in jail right now for Opposing the laws

that permit the slaughter of Children in the womb, right?

I have others who have been penalized civilly not criminally for quoting

Romans 13 and then asserting a right to.

If.

Circumstances were such to take the law into their own hands when again, the government does not enforce

laws against murder.

And and then there's the other side as Romans 13 is So

explicit about the role of government right to reward the good and punish the evil.

Certainly a pretty compelling argument could be made today that our government does precisely the opposite

we reward the lawless and penalize the lawful.

And so the question sort of starts to take on some flesh and bones about

When if ever is it appropriate to Resist actively and

perhaps with force of arms a government that's out of control.

Steve I think that question is a great way for us to kind of Narrow our focus

some from the big picture of the historic and intellectual things that were occurring When Rutherford

wrote even then even the national and international application of those principles, which are all important.

But what about the believers and what about believers in our particular day?

And so I do want us to kind of bring it down into some more particular application.

And I think we have to be clear that just because our

authorities that are ruling over us at whatever level are Perhaps completely ignorant of the

fundamental principles that that Rutherford pressed.

I mean, obviously they probably not read Lex Rex.

They've not heard of Lex Rex, but they may be ignorant of the fundamental principles that they should not be ignorant of.

Just because of that ignorance that doesn't give us a right to To you know kind of mockingly reject their authority.

Even the fact that they are not believers doesn't give us a right to treat them with disdain and

rebel.

But there are times where the believer must through

Careful prayerful, you know Biblical wisdom must respond in

a way that the ruling Powers that be are going to find

it's a bit rebellious, you know.

And and of course there are thousands of ways to look at that.

So let's let's let's think of three areas that we can just kind of talk about in their application.

There's the civil response of the believers.

There is an individual or personal response of the believers and there's some overlap there

and there is what we might call an ecclesiological response of the churches in the land

so civil response your whole adult life has been

devoted to Believers being taking a stand in a way that gives push

back to Moral decay in a nation and we belong to a

nation which we're very grateful for that still allows.

They still offer us this means of in a sense

Standing against the rules or the choices of our leaders in a way that is appropriate

and Christians we feel should take that opportunity in the

right way of making a civil response to Unjust action.

So I mean, what would you say in that category?

You know, how do you explain that category to people that?

May not agree that exists.

You know one of the principles that I think overrides everything in our

lives is Loving our neighbors as ourselves, right?

Well, there's certainly that civic application of that principle in the context that we find ourselves in

America where Failure to speak out maybe to

Address your congressmen and women.

To even take cases to court where you're not doing it for selfish reasons.

But you're doing it because we were discussing in in the break how Paul would sometimes

Stand up for his rights sometimes not and and it's not easy to take a universal rule here.

But where to do so is to help your neighbor and re -establish

a principle a rule of law That will protect not just yourself in your

given particular circumstances, but others.

Classic example.

We just had lengthy discussion this week regarding street preachers and the the basic

right To proclaim the gospel in the public ways.

It's no surprise to you that worldwide you see a real kind of

wrenching of and Removal of that right.

And even in America more and more when you speak out and proclaim certain biblical truths They are

deemed absolutely off -limits offensive to the

sensitivities of our citizenry today.

And you're not even allowed to proclaim what the Bible says.

And so at the same time some of those folks are you know?

They're looking to be as offensive as they can precisely they think I want to be able to you know, assert my First Amendment.

Yes, or the thought that being offensive would be the kind of the most direct route to

effectiveness.

Yeah, it's it is it sometimes is the most direct route to a court case.

But that can't be our goal.

Yeah, and I think we have examples in Scripture there.

But so let's say one basic principle for app applying that is civil

civil response of rejecting, you know immoral laws or immoral

choices in our government local or national the civil

should Take I think one of the one of the driving motivations would be I am thinking of

someone other than just me.

So when you're pressing a case for a person who is presently in jail because of the way that

they Stood against you know abortion, which we feel is a very wicked

You know freedom in our country so you're pressing the case, but you're not just doing it

because Joe's in jail and Joe's not with his family and Joe's losing income and you know, and and

Joe's.

You know, it's not just Joe.

It's there there is a principle.

And and there there is something larger than the individual.

And so the civil response is is for an individual, but it's for something larger.

Exactly.

I think That's if we if we let's take it down to the personal level because you mentioned

Paul and I think there you know there We have a there's a blending at times between the two when we

think about personal responses to unjust authority or to.

Immoral.

Exercise of authority so this could be.

You know a president it could be the Congress.

It could be the judges.

It could be the local government.

It can be your employer your boss.

Yes, you know.

What do you do?

And I think there's you know, why we can't certainly give.

You know 100 things to 100 steps to take so we have to give principles.

I think one principle is the question what's really at stake here because

There there are some things that are that are at stake.

Which are of lesser importance or they at least they should be to us as believers.

And there are some things that are at stake which may not be easily recognizable immediately in the situation.

But if you'll calmly kind of step back and not have an emotional reaction to a situation.

Let's so let's say at work.

You know you step back in the authority at work has done something you step back from self.

And you look and say okay, what's at stake here?

If it's only my personal preferences, even if it's unjust treatment,

I May as a believer see that there is a larger thing at stake and that is

my opportunity to witness to a higher Governmental

authority Christ himself.

So I belong to the higher King.

My citizenship is in a kingdom that will never end.

I'm also an American and I'm also under this local employer or boss.

When the local employer or boss makes my life difficult, I can claim my rights.

You know, maybe I shoot above my local boss and I go to his boss and I get this taken care of.

But in doing so would I forfeit my opportunity to show people that while I do value

my personal rights in this situation I gladly lay them aside without complaint in order to show

that there's something so much greater than me getting treated rightly, I.

Think our sense of personal honor is a highly motivating

Factor and just just the outrage that we have or that everybody has when

they're insulted.

That's not something if you look at Paul, you look at the New Testament look at Acts.

Paul really, I mean, he just he delights in insults to the extent that allows him to have a platform to

explain the gospel.

I mean, he's like, yeah, everybody thinks this this gospel is offensive.

Of course, they're gonna gotta insult it if I've got a better platform.

I am just seeking not my honor.

I'm seeking the honor of King Jesus and.

But you look at oh my goodness what what will set things off.

In a workplace and I mean I I've I've experienced this myself.

I find myself far far more upset about somebody insulting me Than

doing things that you know, pragmatically might be far far more important.

So I think not being motivated by and I'm really just I've been talking about things that bad

motivations that I have personally.

Being motivated by anger being motivated by having been insulted.

That's a very very powerful, but those are motives that that shouldn't The

to the extent that we can mortify them that I can mortify them I've got to just extirpate them from

the way I think about relating to to authorities.

That's not to say the author.

I mean Authorities, you know should I mean showing honor to those whom honor is due?

That's one of the Romans 13 principles.

Yes, and I think there are lots of constitutional principles about Government

it's being a serious constitutional problem to dishonor people to insult people.

But to the extent that that's my personal motivation.

It is highly unlikely to do to do any good except insofar as God

draws straight lines with crooked sticks.

It's a way to be a crooked stick to.

Just be angry at things.

Yeah, I think that.

Let's think about Paul.

So Paul is a Roman citizen.

Paul is a Roman citizen by birth.

Even though he's Jewish he's not a Roman citizen by purchasing it as we see others are in the New

Testament and so, you know, he's a bit of a it's it's it's in a bit it's a bit of an elite

level in that Jewish world and Especially as he travels the Roman Empire taking the

gospel to these cities.

He has rights that not everybody has that he meets and He can

call upon those rights at any point.

But he so rarely does.

We might not even notice that he has these rights if it weren't for Philippi and then later in his life toward the end.

At Philippi he is unjustly grabbed and beaten and thrown into prison.

No due process.