Job 31: 26; idolatry
” Vs. 26. // / have looked to the Sun, or moon, when they shined, and my heart hath been secretly enticed or my mouth hath kissed my hand. He gives two reasons why he would riot do this.
[1] Because it is a heinous sin; for as little as folks think of false worship or idolatry; yea, an iniquity to be punished by the judge. Job was not of their religion that plead for toleration. He knew that God’s law gave warrant to them then (and it gives also warrant to us now) to punish idolaters, and the judge ought to do it.”
James Durham 1622 – 1658, Lectures on Job. Edt. by C. Coldwell. (Dallas, Texas; Naphtali Press,1995) p.170.
Note that Durham declares the death penalty decreed by Deut.22:22 to be a moral law. 90 ibid., p. 172
Judicial Law and equity
” And, as for the judicial law, forasmuch as there are some of them made in regard of the region where they were given, and of the people to whom they were given, the prince and the magistrate, keeping the substance and equity of them ( as it were the marrow), may change the circumstance of them, as the times and places and manners of the people shall require. But to say that any magistrate can save the life of blasphemers contemptuous and stubborn idolaters, murderers, adulterers, incestuous persons, and such like, which God by his judicial law hath commanded to be put to death, I do utterly deny, and am ready to prove, if that pertained to this question “.
Thomas Cartwright 1535-1603
“SecondReply” 1575 cited in Worksof John Whitgift,1.270. ParkerSoc. 1851
Note in Cartwright’s quote he appeals to the idea of equity. This is important for many of the R2Kt virus types have suggested that general equity does not allow for the idea of taking the civil law in the OT and making it the norm for today’s magistrates. Cartwright would not have gone for that argument.
Example 3. Hee that blasphemeth the name of God, shall bee put to death, Leuv.24.16. Understand this law of manifest and notorious blasphemies, that pearce through God, as the words import: and then it is a maine fence to the third commaundement. For Gods name may in no wise be abused, and troad under foot: and therefore blasphemers pearcing God, are to be cut off. This is the very law of nature, as appeares by Nabuchadnezzar , who gave in commandement to his people, that whosoever blasphemed the name of the true God should be put to death, Dan.3.29. Here note, that manifest and convicted Atheists, if they bee put to death, have but their deserts.
William Perkins: A Commentarie upon the Epistle to the Galatians. Lon.1617 [ Pilgrim Press, 1989] pp. 202-204.
Note that Perkins connects the first table with the second table all caught up in the ‘very law of nature.’ Even were Perkins to have taught Natural Law he would have insisted that both tables are proclaimed in Natural law and that the magistrate is responsible to enforce both tables.
“This is important for many of the R2Kt virus types have suggested that general equity does not allow for the idea of taking the civil law in the OT and making it the norm for today’s magistrates. Cartwright would not have gone for that argument.”
I dare say that Cartwright wouldn’t have gone for that argument because it simply isn’t one. Personally, I run into this frequently and it needs to be exposed as a “leading” or “beggin the question” type of situation. One must expose the assumptions in such a statement, meaning that we must ultimately pull our definitions from Scripture rather than importing such foreign concepts into the Word. Such an argument boils down to “well, I don’t like that”. And, of course, such an argument isn’t one at all.
I love “preachin” to the choir – Excellent post and keep ’em coming.