Quotes on Christ’s Kingship Over the Nations

This page is to be regularly updated with new quotes that we come across by the Puritans and others on Christ’s Kingship over the Nations. Please note that the newest quotes will be added at the top of this page so you can easily tell if it has been updated since your last visit.

N.B. Not all the Authors quoted below are endorsed

A Robber

“He who does not make his reign subservient to the divine glory, acts the part not of a King but a robber.”

John Calvin {Reformer}, Institutes Vol. 1, p.5

Using the Sword

“It is taught in Scripture, and clearly laid down in the Westminster Confession of Faith, (1) the Christian Civil Magistrate is bound to make God‘s glory and the public good the objects of his administration; that (2) his authority extends to both Tables of the Divine Law; and that (3) he ought…to restrain and punish gross flagrant violations of the First Table as well as of the Second.”

The Historical testimony of the Reformed Presbyterian Church of Ireland (1939), p.106

It’s Not Converting By the Sword

‘For neither under Moses more than now, could the sword convert men to the true Religion, yet bodily death was to be inflicted on the suducer, then, as now.’

Samuel Rutherford {Covenanter}, A Free Disputation Against Pretended Liberty of Conscience, p.55

Religion and Politics

“I long for the day when the precepts of the Christian religion shall be the rule among all classes of men, in all transactions. I often hear it said, ‘Do not bring religion into politics.’ This is precisely where it ought to be brought, and set there in the face of all men as on a candlestick.”

C. H. Spurgeon, The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, vol. 27, p.225.

Female Magistrates

“To promote a woman to bear rule, superiority, dominion, or empire above any realm, nation, or city, is repugnant to nature, contumely [an insult] to God, a thing most contrary to his revealed will and approved ordinance, and finally, it is the subversion of good order, of all equity and justice.”

John Know {Reformer}, The First Blast of the Trumpet, p.?

Godly Rulers

“As the power of the magistrate is not an absolute power which he is at liberty to employ as he chooses, so neither is the right of the elector an absolute right which he is at liberty to exercise as he chooses. Both the one and the other are placed under the limiting control of Divine Law; and it is only when they are used in accordance to this law that they are used aright… [Magistrates] are required to be men of good abilities, of unimpeachable character, and of sound piety… God has given [subjects] in his Word a supreme rule of direction, in which the character of civil rulers is described, and only such as seem to be possessed of this character are they at liberty to appoint.”

William Symington, Messiah the Prince, p.243-5

Both Tables

“I heartily yield that a lawful magistrate, whether Christian or heathen, ought to be a keeper or guardian of both tables; and, as God’s vicegerent, hath authority to punish henious sins against either table, by civil or corporal punishments, which proves nothing against a distinct church government for keeping pure the ordinances of Christ.”

George Gillespie {Covenanter or ‘Scottish Puritan’}, Aaron’s Rod Blossoming, p.67

Owning the King

“Not an establishment are [magistrates] at liberty to set up; not a law are they entitled to pass; not a step are they free to take; not an alliance are they permitted to form, without having supreme regard to this high and glorious end.” And what end is that? Well, as he tells us on the previous page, “It is the duty of nations and their rulers, to have respect to the glory of Christ in all their institutions and transactions… It is vain to plead exemption from moral responsibility for bodies politic, or civil office-bearers, as such. Associations, composed of such as are individually, morally responsible, must be morally responsible collectively. An aggregate of moral subjects must itself possess a moral character.”

William Symington, Messiah the Prince, pp.230-3

King Over the State

“To suppose that men, as individuals, are under the moral government of the Almighty, and bound to regulate their conduct by his law, but that, as societies, they are exempted from all such control, is to maintain what involves the most absurd and pernicious consequences.”

William Symington, Messiah the Prince, p.97

Covenanting to God as a Nation

“To swear to the true religion, the defence and maintenance thereof is a lawful oath; as to swear to any thing that is lawful, and to lay a new band on our souls to perform holy duties, where we fear a breach, and find by experience there hath been a breach, is also a duty of moral and perpetual equity; therefore such a sworn covenant is lawful.”

Samuel Rutherford {Covenanter}, The Due Right Of Presbyteries, p. 134

Two Kingdoms

“Sir, there are two kings and two kingdoms in Scotland: there is King James, the head of this commonwealth, and there is Christ Jesus, the King of the Church, whose subject James the sixth is, and of whose kingdome he is not a king, nor a lord, nor a head, but a member.”

Andrew Melville {Covenanter} to James VI {King of Scotland; Later James I of England}

Nursing Fathers and Nursing Mothers to the Church

“Yet civil government has as its appointed end, so long as we live among men, to cherish and protect the outward worship of God, to defend sound doctrine of piety and the position of the church, to adjust our life to the society of men, to form our social behavior to civil righteousness, to reconcile us with one another, and to promote general peace and tranquility.”

Calvin {Reformer}, Institutes, IV, XX, 2, p.1487

Head Over All for the Church

“The whole course of affairs in the world is steered by providence in reference to the good of Salem.”

John Owen {Puritan}, Unknown

Unqualified

“No manifest idolater, nor notorious transgressor of God’s holy precepts, ought to be promoted to any public regiment [government], honour, or dignity, in any realm, province, or city that has subjected itself to his blessed evangel.”

John Knox {Reformer}, Part of his Summary of the Proposed Second Blast of the Trumpet, Part 2

Ordained But Not Approved Of

“All power is ordained of God, by his provident will, but every power assumed by man is not so by his approbative and preceptive will.”

Alexander Shields {Covenanter}, in The Scots Worthies by John Howie, p.?