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Franciscus Junius on Ministers & Magistrates Addressing the General Nature of the Moral Law



Junius Max-ing here, from his preface in the Mosaic Polity. He does a great job detailing the place for magistrates and ministers, each in their own callings, to address the general nature of the moral law:


"For my part, I am not ignorant of those boundaries that God has placed around my office as a theologian, or of the examples that the orthodox fathers supplied to the church of God, or of the authority that God has granted in this matter to prudent jurists and just magistrates, and I am thus free from audacious and gladiatorial feelings. Yet on this question, in my opinion, anyone who would judge with a just balance its nature, mode, and goal would judge that even some parts of this task are ours. As a matter of fact, the nature of this question has both a common part and a particular part.


Its mode is such that a theologian describes part of its rules, and the magistrate applies his authority and force to his part of the rules. Finally, the theologian sets forth the goal for the communion of saints and for the conscience of anyone in this communion. The magistrate sets forth this very necessary human society and the order in that society. Whoever orders the theologian to be silent about matters relating to the communion of saints, rejects theology. If any theologian labors concerning the matters relating to the ordering of human society, he wastes himself and does the most serious injury to the God who calls him, to the church for whose sake he has been called, and to her calling, by being a busybody and meddling in others' business, which is insatiable ambition. They are the kind of people who are pleased by impudent bribery, never withdrawing their hands from doing these things unless, as Cicero says, their legs are broken. I wish that such people, so that the punishment would be equal to the crime (as once was stipulated by the Twelve Tables), would be condemned to an uninterrupted vacation!


But on account of such errors, would it be just for good men, who are skilled in their vocation and who limit themselves to religious matters, to withdraw from their duty or to hide those things that God commanded to be revealed to the communion of saints by his servants? Should the nature, method, and goal be neglected when they are most closely conjoined to a holy calling? Should the tranquility of weak consciences (as they are commonly called) be neglected?


And, in fact, we have said that the nature of this question is partly common and partly particular because, first, it pertains commonly to all human beings as human beings and it pertains to all those who are in authority as they have been called to public office, and second, it does indeed have a certain particular rationale, because the latter specifically pertains to a politician and the former to a theologian. As a matter of fact, according to the principles and reason common to all, whether formed naturally in anyone or formed graciously in the saints and the pious, this question and its investigation pertains to all in some measure. There is no human being in general, in the church, and still less among those who are in authority, whether lawyers or theologians, for whom it is not necessary to be imbued with these principles and this rationale.


It is proper for each of us to have the heart of a human being, not the hide of an elephant, so that we may perceive those common notions, and not be stupefied as senseless persons. If a theologian is ignorant of these principles, how can he teach the conclusions drawn from them? These principles, by communion of nature, are common to all human beings."



There's much more gold, even just in the preface, on this topic, and on other topics, such as those who veered to theonomy in Junius' day, and those who denied the use/general equity of the judicial laws of Moses altogether, even as many still do today also.

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