⌛ Civil & Last Things · Magistrate's Role

Mixed-Care-Without-Coercion

Affirms the magistrate's care for true religion but restricts instruments to non-coercive means.

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.

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. Protective-Not-Directive (1788) Magistrate protects the church from violence and danger without preferring one denomination — the American 1788 revision aligning with disestablishment. Erastian-Magistrate-Over-Church Magistrate holds ultimate ecclesiastical authority — Selden and Lightfoot's Assembly position rejected by XXX.1.

Cite this position

Study Reformed, “Mixed-Care-Without-Coercion” (Position), Westminster Standards Atlas, version 79a5f9880ac1, https://studyreformed.com/atlas/cite/position/civil_last_things/magistrate_role/mixed/.

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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.