Posted on 05/23/2010 6:25:56 PM PDT by USALiberty
Taken from The Institutes of Biblical Law, pp. 448-452
Man was created in the image of God and commanded to subdue the earth and to have dominion over it (Gen. 1:26-27). Not only is it man's calling to exercise dominion, but it is also his nature to do so. Since God is the absolute and sovereign Lord and Creator, whose dominion is total and whose power is without limits, man, created in His image, shares in this communicable attribute of God. Man was created to exercise dominion under God and as God's appointed vicegerent over the earth. Dominion is thus a basic urge of man's nature.
As a result of the fall, however, man's urge to dominion is now a perverted one, no longer an exercise of power under God and to His glory, but a desire to be God. This was precisely the temptation of Satan, that every man should be his own god, deciding for himself what constitutes right and wrong (Gen. 3:5). The ultimacy of man in both law and power was asserted.
(Excerpt) Read more at chalcedon.edu ...
He was a genius. More should read and attempt to understand him.
The danger with such teachings is that the Bible is being used as a political manifesto. This was never the intention of Scriptures. St. Paul does write about the relationship of a Christian to the government in very broad terms. Theologians have written about different estates, such as family, state, and church. Some see the state as an expansion of the family. Christians do have a duty to the government and to the church. Render unto Caesar the things that belong to Caesar, and to God the things that belong to God. It is vitally important to keep these two estates separate. Once the line between the two is crossed, only bad things will follow.
Ping for later
Man was created in the image of God and commanded to subdue the earth and to have dominion over it (Gen. 1:26-27). Not only is it man's calling to exercise dominion, but it is also his nature to do so.
G. K. Beale, in his The Temple and the Church's Mission argues that the creational mandate was then a mandate to expand the original Edenic temple (as place of special presence of God) to fill the earth. That mandate remains post Fall, but modified by circumstances. He traces it through early episodes of sanctuary building, through the early tabernacle, later the fixed temple and finally to the church as (explicitly in the New Testament) body of Christ and temple of God.
(Recommended.)
Puritianism does not need a resurgence.
Man is GIVEN dominion the more he “picks up his cross, dies to self and follows Christ”, man does not demand or take dominion in the “name of God”. If we are faithful in small things, God will give us bigger things to be faithful with. But it is He that does the giving, not man taking things of this world in “”god's name”.
God's kingdom is not of this world.
Any study of dominion should not be confused with “dominionism” which is a terrible thing in modern Christianity.
“Puritanism does not need a resurgence.”
I am curious to know what your specific objections to Puritanism are.
I ask because Puritans are usually just insulted because of incorrect prejudices. Having read MANY of their writings, I find them to be excellent Christians. So I wonder what the issues are with you. What is it about Puritan practice or theology that offends you?
The problem I saw in Puritanism is that they did not use the Bible for discernment of spirits; i.e. they would not “test the spirits” by testing the teaching of something or someone and assumed or presumed that everyone was “Christian” by virtue of them being in their communities.
I think the Puritans were early versions of what we see now in Dominionism, or the NAR, where they are self proclaimed “prophets and apostles” who will accuse others of witchcraft and other sins in condemnation without the proper Matthew 18 authority of love that Christ calls us to in ‘forbidding what is forbidden in heaven” or “permitting what is permitted in heaven.” Matthew 18 done correctly is how Moses judged the people and how Peter judged A and Saphiras for lying to the Holy Spirit — and many were brought to Christ at this demonstration of the Holiness of God. I don’t see that type of discernment in the limited histories of the Puritans that I have read. I see rather a hotbed for freemasonry from the Puritan’s fruit.
I could be all wrong, correct me truly if I am.
Our authority on earth as a church body is based on this type of personal attention and relationship with one another. Leadership is given authority in so much as they use the Biblical standard of judgement within the body. False accusations seemed to typify the early Puritans manner of community — they did actually burn people at the stake for witchcraft — and I see this as being a nightmare to come of deluded counterfeit “Christians” who want to rule by the literal sword instead of the Sword of the Spirit.
The Lord reminds that unbelievers “shall know Him by our love for one another”...
Dominionism and false accusations are what I have seen typify the terribly hard lives of the early Puritans here. I believe they were trying to recreate the early church in their communities in the New World but left out a balanced Pentecostalism with their primitive abuse of the Word.
I once read up on all this stuff — and was shocked at the lovelessness and death rate among the early Puritans here. I could be all wrong but that is what my comment against Puritanism is about.
I think the Puritans were early versions of what we see now in Dominionism, or the NAR, where they are self proclaimed “prophets and apostles” who will accuse others of witchcraft and other sins in condemnation without the proper Matthew 18 authority of love that Christ calls us to in ‘forbidding what is forbidden in heaven” or “permitting what is permitted in heaven.” Matthew 18 done correctly is how Moses judged the people and how Peter judged A and Saphiras for lying to the Holy Spirit — and many were brought to Christ at this demonstration of the Holiness of God. I don’t see that type of discernment in the limited histories of the Puritans that I have read. I see rather a hotbed for freemasonry from the Puritan’s fruit.
I could be all wrong, correct me truly if I am.
The Puritans and the founding of America
Perhaps Puritans weren't all that bad
Who were the Puritans?
Bible Battles: King James vs. the Puritans
The Heirs of Puritanism: That's Us!
The real Puritan legacy
In Praise of a Puritan America
Are new 'Puritans' gaining?
Foundations of Faith [Harvard's "Memorial Church" and the university's Puritan roots]
Bounty of Freedom [Puritans, Yankees, the Constitution, and Libertarianism]
The Pilgrims and the founding of America
Thanking the Puritans on Thanksgiving: Pilgrims' politics and American virtue
New World, New Ideas: What the Pilgrims and Puritans believed, about God and man and giving thanks
Pilgrims in Providence
A time for thanks
Judge reminds: Faith ‘permeated our culture’ since the Pilgrims
In its 400th year, Jamestown aspires to Plymouth's prominence [huzzah for the Pilgrims!]
Rock of Ages and the rebel pilgrims [understanding the times re Augustus Toplady's famous hymn]
Thank you
Dominion theology is a perversion of the scriptures, I have read articles intended to slander the tea party as associated with this theology.. the object being a Christian country in the same sense that Saudi Arabia is a Muslim country.
That was ever Gods plan or expressed in scripture, this theology grows out of a post millennial theology.
One look around you and you can see the world is not getting better and better.. in fact it is just the opposite ..in the churches as well as society.
We need to only look at the time of Jesus to see that this theology was never His..
“My kingdom is not of this world”
Romans tells us to submit to the authority over us because all authority comes from God.
I do believe our rights as citizens is to work to keep the society peaceful and a safe place to raise a Christian family. and so to that end we participate in government . But we must always be mindful that all authority comes from God
They were ok when they weren’t killing each other. Mary Dyer no doubt held a dim view of puritans as she was hung for being a Quaker. Even less severe punishments give us a looking into puritan life. For all their piety, they sure seemed to be awash in sadism. No thanks.
“They were ok when they weren’t killing each other.”
Flipping through my “Meet the Puritans” book, a compendium of short biographies, I find Joseph Allein, a graduate of Oxford who devoted much time preaching to prisons in the county jail, visiting the sick, and ministering to the poor.
While imprisoned for preaching without permission, he continued to preach through the prison bars. He is well enough known for his “An Alarm to the Unconverted,” an evangelical classic the urged all souls to trust in Christ.
Died of broken health at the age of 34, following his multiple imprisonments. No record of his murdering anybody.
Random next: Thomas Brooks, whose 6 volume Works of Thomas Brooks is still a go-to commentary at most seminaries. No urging of murder in them! Nor did he ever kill anybody. He was also removed from the pulpit by the Act of Uniformity, and lived poor.
Random next: Thomas Doolittle, who left his work as an assistant to a lawyer when told he must work on Sundays. He was ordained a minister and stayed behind in Woodford Bridge during the Great Plague of 1665 to minister to the sick and dying. Fined several times for preaching without a license. Many of his books went through several printings. No recorded murders.
Random next: Jonathan Edwards. Need I say more? How can you indict this man?
Random next: William Gurnall, author of that Christian classic, The Christian in Complete Armour. Ministered faithfully despite ill health for 35 years. No murders recorded.
Random next: Thomas Watson, ejected from his pastorate by the Act of Uniformity, and so preached privately until the Declaration of 1672. No record of any murders.
Random next: brothers Ebenezer and Ralph Erskine, whose father refused to renounce the Solemn League and Covenant when they were under age 5. The whole family was exiled to England instead of imprisoned, due to their father’s ill health. He died a few years later. Both boys were ordained as ministers and served faithfully for over fifty years through various trials. They didn’t kill anybody.
Random next: Jean Taffin, chaplain to William of Orange. Author of “The Marks of God’s Children.” No recorded murders.
Need I mention the thousands of Puritans slaughtered by the French during the St. Valentine’s day masssacre?
And that most of the men above had beloved and good Puritan wives, many of them noted for their extreme piety and kindness?
Why would you vilify these people so? How can you?
Any of these biographies, as well as biographies of thousands of others, are available online.
Not to mention the prominence of Puritans in FOXE’S BOOK OF MARTYRS.
Do you know of the two Margarets? Slowly drowned by the dragoons?
The Puritans are and were some of the godliest people this earth has ever seen and deserve none of this vilification.
Some of the story of the two Margarets. May God rest their souls.
The three women (two, only girls), Agnes and the two Margarets, were required to swear this oath.(the oath of Abjuration). They refused to do this, for it had become a Shibboleth of orthodoxy.
On April 13, 1685 they were summoned before the commission. Several formal charges were brought against them: they had been, so it was charged, on the battlefield of Bothwell Bridge, a charge false on the face of it; they had attended field preaching and conventicles, almost certainly true.
However, since none of the charges could be proved, the three were once again required to take the oath of abjuration. Again they refused and a jury found them guilty of treason. Sentence was pronounced, and all three were ordered drowned in the Solway Firth. The date of execution was set at May 11.
The frantic father of Agnes and Margaret hurried to Edinburgh to see if he could possibly stir up in the authorities some sense of mercy and clemency which would save his daughters. All he succeeded in doing was to buy the freedom of his youngest daughter Agnes for £100; but Margaret he could not save.
When the awful day came, the two Margarets were led by soldiers in chains to the banks of the firth. It was low tide, deliberately chosen as the time for execution. Although the townsfolk pleaded with the two Margarets to save their lives by taking the oath, they steadfastly refused.
Margaret MacLachlan was tied first to a stake pounded into the sandy soil far out in the firth where the waters of the incoming tide would cover her. Margaret Wilson was tied to a similar stake closer into shore so that she could witness the death of her aged friend and fellow saint before the waters would bury her.
It seems as if the older Margaret, spent with the sufferings of many years, said not a word. One of her tormentors shouted: “It is needless to speak to that damned old bitch; let her go to hell.”
As the cold sea waters, gradually rising higher, engulfed the old saint, and as Margaret Wilson was forced to watch her drowning struggles, one of the soldiers mockingly said: “What do you think of her now.” Margaret responded: “Think! I see Christ wrestling there. Think ye that we are sufferers? No; it is Christ in us, for He sends none a warfare at their own charges (which they must fight alone).”
When the now limp form of the first Margaret was being tossed about by the swirling tide, the waters began to engulf Margaret Wilson. Her lips were not silent. First she sang the stirring words of Psalm 25.
My sins and faults of youth
Do thou, O Lord, forget:
After thy mercy think on me,
And for thy goodness great.
God good and upright is:
The way he’ll sinners show;
The meek in judgment he will guide
And make his path to know.
And, upon finishing this Psalm, she quoted the words of Romans 8: “Who shall separate us from the love of God . . .?”
When the waters had finally choked her, but she was not yet dead, the soldiers loosed her from her stake, dragged her to shore, revived her, and once again confronted her with the demand to pray for the king. All the villagers, eagerly wishing to see her spared, cried, “Pray for the king!” Her response was that she wished the salvation of all men and the damnation of none, and that, if God willed, He would save the king: “Lord, give him repentance, forgiveness, and salvation, if it be Thy holy will.”
But the soldiers were not content with that: “Damned bitch, we do not want such prayers.” So once again they attempted to force her to take the oath of abjuration. Her response was: “No! No! No sinful oaths for me. I am one of Christ’s children. Let me go.”
But it was not to be. They hurled her back into the waters of the firth, and there she drowned, to be brought through martyrdom into the company of just men made perfect.
The soldiers departed, congratulating themselves on a job well done; the townsfolk returned to their homes to try to pick up the threads of their lives; but two more saints sealed their confession with their blood.
So May Dyer wasn’t hanged? The surviving dockets that list crimes and punishments carried out are in err? Please do tell.
That’s interesting and probably true...
I think I read something about the Virginia colony? And how they ran it rather tyrannically? And that there was an early strain of Dominionism in it?
I know there is a resurgence and re examination of Puritianism it just seemed secondary to my research on Dominionism and a little connected. Wish I could find that article.
May Dyer was hanged. Lots of people were hanged. Lots of Puritans were hanged.
That certainly doesn’t mean that the Puritans were murderers.
In regards to Puritan theology and Dominionism, a quote from Samuel Rutherford, beloved Puritan:
“Build your nest upon no tree here; for you see God hath sold the forest to Death, and every tree whereon we would rest is ready to be cut down, to the end we may flee and mount up, and build upon the Rock, and dwell in the holes of the Rock.” Set not your heart on the flowers of this world; for they have all a canker in them. Prize the Rose of Sharon and the Lily of the Valley more than all; for He changeth not. Live nearer to Christ than to the saints, so that when they are taken from you, you may have Him to lean on still. “
This was an email from a Puritan friend of mine today! I thought it related well to your question.
Samuel Rutherford wrote “Lex Rex,” a TRULY seminal work on the law and the king, and the need for the civil magistrate to submit to God’s law rather than call upon some imagined divine right of kings. A basic text for the legal foundation of our nation, in my opinion.
Dominion theology has a few different definitions. If a desire to see’s God’s law rather than man’s as a basis for civil society makes a Dominionist, then I am a Dominionist.
Dominion theology as I understand it is best encapsulated in the works of R.J. Rushdoony and Greg Bahnsen. There is no advocacy for murder in any of their works that I am aware of. Rather there is a call to obey the law of God, not as a means of salvation, but as a blessing to ourselves and others.
I am not aware of any negative ramifications resulting from Dominion Theology. Nor am I aware of any adherents of Dominion Theology behaving in a way that would offend Christ.
If there are any, I would be glad for you to tell me of them. By their fruits ye shall know them, yes?
Yes, there is a new movement afoot you should be aware of.
Scary really. The NAR are dominionists and believe, ultimately, that they can take up the literal sword against unbelievers.
They are too ignorant to even contemplate some of the things you are discussing, but believe that in the End Times they will be literally, invincible, bulletproof and glow like Christ at the Transfiguration. Google “Manifest Sons of God” Doctrine or “Joel 2 Army”...
Scary signs and wonders deluded crowd.
What is the “NAR?”
They are the reconstituted believers of the “Latter Rain” and “Manifest Sons of God” heresies of the mid century.
Nutty, scary, actually demonized ‘prophets” and Apostles.
They believe they will BUILD THE TEMPLE OF THE NEW JERUSALEM
and they are gaining a huge following on GodTV.
So heretical, that even the AOG (Pentecostals) back in the day put out position papers on them explaining their heresy.
Now they are mainstream. Sarah Palin’s old AOG pastor is very very much into them. The Left has picked up on some of the weirdness but have no clue about the depths of deception there because there are satanic miracles happening. This is truly evil in the church itself. Oh, and Rick Warren calls C Peter Wagner his mentor.
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