“And so Calvin didn’t have Servetus burned; the city council had him burned, on the request of the whole Protestant movement. He was going to be burned by the Roman Inquisition, but escaped. So everybody wanted Servetus burned. Now, having said that, you could almost exonerate Calvin from that part, but not what came afterwards. Calvin then wrote a treatise defending—under the guise of defending the doctrine—the idea; he was really defending his action there and the action of the city council. He wrote a treatise on the necessity of corporal punishment for those who deny the Trinity.”
Mike Horton
White Horse Inn
Horton is R2K. As such most of what Mike Horton says when it comes to Church and State matters is just ridiculous and is a matter of providing cover for his classical Liberal worldview. This is a worldview, that by presupposition, will not allow the Magistrate to enforce the first table of God’s law. It is a worldview that remains in contradiction, not only to the revised Belgic Confession 36, but in extremis to the original Belgic Confession 36 which some church bodies still confess. (You really should read the original Belgic 36.)
So, Mike goes all apoplectic that Calvin (who was not R2K) would write a treatise on the necessity of corporal punishment for those who deny the Trinity. Keep in mind that inasmuch as Mike takes up this position Mike is saying that a social order can be just when there are no consequences for those who deny the trinity. Also, keep in mind that in the OT the penalty for blasphemy was death. Clearly, a denial of the Trinity is blasphemy.
But of course, for Mike, and all his R2K buds, the OT has been dispensationalized. They are, in essence, Baptistic New Testament Christians. (It is interesting here that Baptists also swear allegiance to the necessity of a separation of Church and State that Mike champions.)
All this to say that Horton is not classically Reformed on this issue. It is altogether fitting, proper, and just that the Magistrate visit the denial of the Trinity with capital punishment. It is only Mike’s being beholden to the Spirit of the age (he is a man of his times) that finds him rejecting what so many of the Reformers embraced. Horton, later will plead that we must be guided by the confessions here and not any one Reformed voice from the past and yet, as we said earlier, the original Belgic 36 is still followed by some.
Still, here are just a few voices (I could provide many more) that agreed with Calvin on the necessity of the Magistrate to enforce both tables of God’s law;
“The law of Christ, when perfectly executed, teaches most rightfully how every injustice must be extirpated from the commonwealth, and how those offending against the law should be chastised.”
John Wycliffe
“Kings are not as lords and rulers over the word and laws of God; but are, as subjects, to be judged by God by the word, as they ought to rule and govern all things according to the rule of His word and commandment.”
Heinrich Bullinger
“Kings then have not absolute power to do in their regiment what pleaseth them; but their power is limited by God’s Word. So that if they strike where God commandeth not, they are but murderers; and if they spare were God commandeth to strike they and their throne are criminal, and guilty of wickedness that aboundeth upon the face of the earth for their lack of punishment.”
John Knox
These Reformed chaps from history, and many many more like them would have abominated Mike Horton’s idea that the Magistrate should not enforce both tables of God’s law. They would have agreed with Calvin, as the original Belgic 36 does, that;
“Whoever shall now contend that it is unjust to put heretics and blasphemers to death will knowingly and willingly incur their very guilt. This is not laid down on human authority; it is God who speaks and prescribes a perpetual rule for his Church. It is not in vain that he banishes all those human affections which soften our hearts; that he commands paternal love and all the benevolent feelings between brothers, relations, and friends to cease; in a word, that he almost deprives men of their nature in order that nothing may hinder their holy zeal. Why is so implacable a severity exacted but that we may know that God is defrauded of his honor, unless the piety that is due to him be preferred to all human duties, and that when his glory is to be asserted, humanity must be almost obliterated from our memories? . . .”
Calvin’s work against Servetus
So, we see in this post that Horton is merely serving up to us Baptistic separation of Church and State pig slop, as well as a dispensational type hermeneutic and because of that the man, along with his R2K tribe, should be abominated. If we lived in orthodox times R2K would be ruled as outside the boundaries of the Reformed faith.
Horton is done yet though … he presses on with his inanities;
“But you couldn’t live in Geneva if you were an Anabaptist. You couldn’t live in Geneva if you were a witch. Calvin’s own stepdaughter was a prostitute and she couldn’t live in Geneva. But that was true in Wittenberg; that was true anywhere in Christendom at that time.
It’s horrible, what Calvin wrote. You know, we talk about Luther—Luther, those horrible things that he said…
BLMc responds,
In the first paragraph above Horton is trying to exonerate Calvin from being a tyrant because he didn’t pursue having the Magistrates bring the death penalty for Anabaptists, Witches, and Prostitutes. However, there is also a tone of lament here that the Reformers were so uptight that they would use God’s law to achieve the disallowing of Anabaptists, witches, and prostitutes to live in Christian society. Of course, Horton doesn’t believe Christian society is possible, so that accounts for why Horton would say we should allow Anabaptists, witches and prostitutes to live in our Natural law governed societies.
Notice the recoiling and reviling of Horton over what Calvin wrote… over what the Church embraced for thousands of years until the rise of the Anabaptists.
Mike says… “It’s horrible what Calvin wrote.”
More horrible than a million abortions a year? More horrible than doctors cutting genitals off of healthy children? More horrible than Canada’s MAIDS program?
In indicting both Calvin and Luther for those “horrible things they wrote,” we see Mike Horton as a man of his times.
Mike isn’t quite yet finished;
Well, I think that we can’t just say, “Well, they are people of their time, they’re people of their age.” There were plenty of people, including Reformed theologians, who lamented Calvin’s defense of executing anti-Trinitarian heretics: “Isn’t it time to stop doing this? I thought we had a Reformation so that we only used the word of God and not the sword!” There were people of Calvin’s day—highly respected people: Martin Bucer, his mentor, for example—who didn’t agree with it. And so there were plenty of people of Calvin’s day who did not share Calvin’s view. And it’s a blot on his career. And I think it’s so helpful to study the history because you know a little bit more.
Bret responds,
Perhaps we should agree with Mike here and not be allowed to say that “Mike is just a man of his time,” because there are plenty of people, including Reformed theologians, who lament Horton’s R2K. An R2K which disallows the Magistrate from enforcing God’s law. The original Belgic 36 certainly allows the enforcing of God’s law. The quotes from Reformed chaps throughout history allowed for it;
“Though we have clear and full scriptures in the New Testament of the abolishing the ceremonial law, yet we no where read in all the New Testament of the abolishing of the judicial law, so far as it did concern the punishing of sins against the moral law, of which heresy and seducing of souls is one, and a great one. Once God did reveal his will for punishing those sins by such and such punishments. He who will hold that the Christian Magistrate is not bound to inflict such punishments for such sins, is bound to prove that those former laws of God are abolished, and show some Scripture for it.”
George Gillespie — Westminster Divine
Wholesome Severity Reconciled With Christian Liberty
Accordingly, in every state sanctified to God capital punishment must be ordered for all who have dared to injure religion, either by introducing a false and impious doctrine about the Worship of God or by calling people away from the true worship of God (Dt. 13:6-10, and 17:2-5); for all who blaspheme the name of God and his solemn services (Lv. 24:15-16); who violate the Sabbath (Ex. 31:14-15, and 35:2; Num. 15:32-36); who rebelliously despise authority of parents and live their own life wickedly (Dt. 21:18-21); who are unwilling to submit to the sentence of supreme tribunal (Dt. 17:8-12); who have committed bloodshed (Ex. 21:12; Lv. 24:17, Dt. 19:11-13), adultery (Lv. 20:10), rape (Dt. 22:20-25), kidnapping (Dt. 24:17); who have given false testimony in a capital case (Dt. 19:16-21).”
Martin Bucer
16th century Magisterial Reformer
Mike has a number of realities that are blots on his career including his R2K “atheism for the public square” theology. In studying the history we see that Mike is the aberration and not Calvin.
