"The nations are bound to recognize the Bible as the supreme law of the land; as the standard of civil legislation. God's law as recorded in the Bible, reaches all the possible relations of humanity; extends to every duty that can be performed, and fastens its claims on associated bodies of men, as well as upon individual persons.Were this not true, we should have this monstrous anomaly in Jehovah's government, that while men, as individuals, are bound by the laws recorded in the Bible, in their congregated capacities, they may set these laws at defiance, and even contemn as citizens, what as Christians they are bound to honor and obey. ... The nations are bound to evince their subjection to the Son of God, by filling all their official stations with upright, godly and able men. ... In all their political institutions the nations are bound to subserve the interests of the church of God, and promote, truth and godliness. ... In all their civil, criminal, and international concerns, the kingdoms should have a supreme regard to the glory of God." - The Subjection of Kings and Nations to Messiah (1820) by James R. Willson (emphases added) on the Puritan Hard Drive
"And he hath on his vesture and on his thigh a name written, KING OF KINGS, AND LORD OF LORDS." - Revelation 19:16 (KJV).
"Reformation is desperately needed in our languishing nations. In the past, not only did biblical reformation sweep the church in doctrine, worship, and government, but also reformation of biblical Christianity was promoted and accelerated by Christian magistrates who wholeheartedly supported and defended the ministry of the reformed churches. Reformation is never easy. The truth is no more fashionable today than it was at the time of our reformed and covenanted forefathers. If we would see reformation we must return to the old paths of our God and of our forefathers. What is presented in the following pages is not a novel view of civil magistracy, but one which is believed to be both biblical and representative of our reformed and presbyterian forefathers from the covenanted reformation at the time of the Westminster Assembly. Civil magistracy is a blessed ordinance of the living God, given to the human family in order that it might reflect the order in which God so much delights ("For God is not the author of confusion, but of peace" 1 Cor. 14:33). This ordinance should be so cherished by God's people that when the ruling civil magistrate cannot be owned as "the ordinance of God" within a nation, the hearts of God's people both sadly bemoan that fact and earnestly pray that God would in His mercy remove His righteous anger from the land and grant nursing fathers to the church. May God be pleased to open the eyes of His people to the need for reformation in the divine ordinance of civil magistracy." - Greg Price, Biblical Civil Government Versus the Beast; and, The Basis For Civil Resistance (free online)
The establishmentarianism of the Reformation was not limited to just individual divines, "Dr. M'Crie in his STATEMENT OF THE DIFFERENCE (which is on the Puritan Hard Drive), shows that all the Confessions of the Protestant and Presbyterian Churches of the Reformation, both in Britain and on the Continent of Europe, held and maintained the Establishment Principle." M'Crie goes on give extracts from THE CONFESSION OF HELVETIA; THE CONFESSION OF BOHEMIA, called the CONFESSION OF THE WALDENSES; THE CONFESSION OF SAXONY; THE FRENCH CONFESSION; THE BELGIC OR DUTCH CONFESSION; THE CONFESSION OF THE ENGLISH CONGREGATION IN GENEVA; THE SCOTS CONFESSION and THE WESTMINSTER CONFESSION, all proving that "these confessions harmoniously agree in declaring as with one mouth that civil authority is not limited to the secular affairs of men, and the public care and advancement of religion is a principle part of the official duty of magistrates." See our publication of Theodore Beza's (Calvin's successor in Geneva) HARMONY OF THE PROTESTANT CONFESSIONS (section 19, "Of the Civil Magistrate" [on the Puritan Hard Drive]) and the Westminster Confession of Faith (chapter 23) to confirm M'Crie's findings. M'Crie, in opposition to Tangelder, then rightly concludes, "Such is the harmony of doctrine in the Protestant churches on this head, expressed in their confessions and public formularies drawn from the word of God; a harmony which deserves great attention, and from which none should rashly depart." The only so-called Protestant group that generally opposed establishments was the anti-covenantal, anabaptists. (Dr. Reg Barrow,Reg Barrow's Reply to Christian Renewal Regarding Their Review of Mike Wagner's Presbyterian Political Manifesto, on the Puritan Hard Drive)
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