Samuel Rutherford on the role of the Civil Magistrate



From a sermon to the Westminster Assembly

Doctrine: All princes are obliged to govern and rule for the Lord and his honor.

1. So Scripture speaks, it shall be in the last days (Isa. 49:23; Ps. 72:10).

2. Princes are God's standard bearers; they bear his sword by office (Rom. 13:4), and they hold crown and scepter of him, as great Landlord of all powers.

3. In a special manner they are second gods (Ps. 82:6; 2 Chron. 19:12).  All rulers in the act of judging are God's deputies, even though their second calling is to be sent by a King, and therefore see what judgement God himself would pronounce, if he were on the bench, that same must they decree, except they would make the deputed mouth to belie the mind of the great Lord who sent them.  

4. The Lord has entrusted Christian rulers with the most precious thing he has on earth; he has given his bride and spouse to their tutorage and faith.

A. Use One.  You are entrusted by God, with an honorable virgin, a King's daughter (Ps. 45:9).

Now then for her Fathers' sake, and for her Father's blessing, deal kindly with her.  As you love the Bridegroom, take care of the Bride.  You have now amongst your hands, Christ, his crown, his Israel, his glory (Isa. 46:13), his prerogative royal; be faithful tutors and active actors for the privileges, laws, and liberties of the high court of heaven.

B. Use Two. If this is the place and relation that princes have to Christ and his church, then can the Lord have given no power to any ruler to waste and destroy the mountain of the Lord.  

For (1), all royal power given of God (Deut. 17:18-20), in the first molding of royal highness, was a power to rule according to that which is written in the Book of the Law, and so there can be no royal power to the contrary, truly royal.

(2) That power cannot be from God as a lawful power, the exercise and acts whereof are sinful.  I speak of a lawful moral power.

(3) If such an incontrollable power as cannot be resisted, is of God, then are princes given to the churches and people of God, as judgments of God...


From Lex, Rex, or the Law and the Prince

"So if the king be a living law by office, and the law put in execution which God hath commanded, then, as the moral law is by divine institution, so must the officer of God be, who is custos et vindex legis divine, the keeper, preserver, and avenger of God's law... By their office they are feeders of the Lord's people, the shields of the earth, nursing fathers of the church, captains over the Lord's people."

"If the king be viceregent of Christ in prescribing laws for the external ordering of the worship, and all their decent symbolical ceremonies, what more doth the Pope and the prelate in that kind?  He may, with as good warrant, preach and administer the sacraments.


  • We deny the king to be the head of the church.


  • We assert, that in the pastors, doctors, and elders of the church, there is a ministerial power, as servants under Christ, in his authority and name to rebuke and censure kings; that there is revenge in the gospel against all disobedience; the rod of God; the rod of Christ’s lips; the sceptre and sword of Christ; the keys of his kingdom, to bind and loose, open and shut; and that this power is committed to the officers of Christ’s house, call them as you will."


In answer to a question about the kings authority about the affairs of the church, the Prelate admitted kings could not preach but argued the king has some authority over the church.  Here is Rutherford’s answer:


“1. If ye give the king power of the exercises of word and sacraments in his kingdom, this is deprivation of ministers in his kingdom, you may make him to give a ministerial calling, if he may take it away.  By what word of God can the king close the mouth of the man of God, whom Christ hath commanded to speak in his name?


2. If the king may externally govern the church, why may he not excommunicate; for this is one of the special acts of church government...?"


Later he said, “The king hath a chief hand in church affairs, when is a nurse-father, and beareth the royal sword to defend both the tables of the law… The king doth not execute with blind obedience, with us, what the Pope commandeth, and the prelates, but with light of knowledge what synods discern.. They are to obey the word of the Lord in their mouth.”

Here is Samuel Rutherford's answer to the notion that Romans 13 has Nero in view:

"...but that Paul commandeth subjection to Nero, and that principally and solely, as he was such a man, de facto, I shall then believe, when antichristian prelates turn Paul's bishops, (1 Timothy 2), which is a miracle.  If Paul had intended that they should have given obedience to Nero, as the only essential judge, he would have designed him by the noun in the singular number."  In other words, Rutherford is explaining that Paul is not writing about Nero anymore than he is writing about our prime minister.  Rather, he is describing what ought to be.  These words are prescriptive rather than descriptive. 




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