⌛ Civil & Last Things · Magistrate's Role

Protective-Not-Directive (1788)

Magistrate protects the church from violence and danger without preferring one denomination — the American 1788 revision aligning with disestablishment.

This is a contested or rejected alternative.

The Westminster baseline on Magistrate's Role is Custos-Utriusque-Tabulae (1646). Personas and schools listed below hold this alternative position instead — either because they argued for it at the Assembly (like the Erastians on polity) or because they represent a receiving tradition that departed from the Standards on this point.

Who holds this position

Schools (5)
The Savoy Declaration (1658) The Second London Confession (1689) The American Presbyterian Revision (1788) The Orthodox Presbyterian Church (1936) The Presbyterian Church in America (1973)

Cruxes on this attribute

The Assembly navigated 3 cruxes that bear directly on Magistrate's Role.

The Erastian Question July 1645 – November 1645 Does ecclesiastical jurisdiction belong to the church or to the civil magistrate? The Magistrate and the Two Tables 1646; revised 1788 Is the civil magistrate the keeper of both tables of the Decalogue? The 1788 American Revision 1787–1788 (post-Assembly) How the American Presbyterians rewrote the magistrate chapters for a disestablished republic.

Other positions on Magistrate's Role

Custos-Utriusque-Tabulae (1646) WCF Magistrate has duty toward both tables of the Decalogue — to suppress public heresy and blasphemy, to call synods (WCF XXIII.3, 1646 text) — the Solemn-League-and-Covenant settlement. Mixed-Care-Without-Coercion Affirms the magistrate's care for true religion but restricts instruments to non-coercive means. Erastian-Magistrate-Over-Church Magistrate holds ultimate ecclesiastical authority — Selden and Lightfoot's Assembly position rejected by XXX.1.
Cite this position

Study Reformed, “Protective-Not-Directive (1788)” (Position), Westminster Standards Atlas, version 79a5f9880ac1, https://studyreformed.com/atlas/cite/position/civil_last_things/magistrate_role/protective_not_directive/.

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Ontology version 79a5f9880ac1 — the state of the Atlas you are reading, so a citation stays checkable when the ontology is revised.