The Ninth Commandment

The Court

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Prerequisite/Law

Genre: Speech

Lesson: 10

Track: 111

Dictation Name: RR130BJ111

Date: 1960s-70s

Our scripture is Deuteronomy 17:8-11, “The Court.” Deuteronomy 17:8-11:

“8 If there arise a matter too hard for thee in judgment, between blood and blood, between plea and plea, and between stroke and stroke, being matters of controversy within thy gates: then shalt thou arise, and get thee up into the place which the Lord thy God shall choose;

9 And thou shalt come unto the priests the Levites and unto the judge that shall be in those days, and enquire; and they shall shew thee the sentence of judgment:

10 And thou shalt do according to the sentence, which they of that place which the Lord shall choose shall shew thee; and thou shalt observe to do according to all that they inform thee:

11 According to the sentence of the law which they shall teach thee, and according to the judgment which they shall tell thee, thou shalt do: thou shalt not decline from the sentence which they shall shew thee, to the right hand, nor to the left.”

Last week, we analyzed Deuteronomy21:1-9, the Law of Atonement for all offenses. According to that law, every wrong must be righted. It is a sin to allow any sin to go unrighted. That law, as several other laws that we have analyzed of late, have made clear the participation of a Levite in the civil courts. This Levite, who was to be a member of the court, or sometimes a panel of Levites in some courts, was a man or men who were lawyers, trained in God’s Law, which was the law of the land. This fact we know from history to have been the case, so it was not merely required by God’s Word, it was practiced throughout all of Israel’s history, and every time, save days of degeneracy. Josephus verifies this fact, as do other sources.

This is not surprising. Every court is a religious establishment. This does not mean there is a confusion of Church and State. It means the Church, State, school, business, everyman’s family and life, his work, are religious establishments, religious matters, places where God’s Law-Word is to be applied. And if we do not apply it, God’s judgment is upon us. It means, in other words, the total permeation of Church, State, school, family, all institutions by the authority of God’s Word.

The Levites in question were, as I indicated, trained lawyers in God’s Word, experts in the Law of God. Dr. Waller of the Church of England of the last century commented on this law, saying, “It is not sufficiently observed that this defines the relation between the Church and the Bible from the time of the Law and was delivered to the Church and that the relation between the Church and the Bible is the same to this day. The only authority wherewith the Church, of Israel or of Christ, can bind or loose is the written Law of God. The binding or forbidding, and loosing or permitting of the rabbis the authority which our Lord committed to His Church was only the application of His written Word. The rabbis acknowledged this from one end of the Talmud to the other by the appeal to scripture which is made in every cage, sometimes in almost every line. The application is often strained or fanciful, but this does not alter the principle. The written Word is the chain that binds, nor does the varying relation between the executive and legislative authority alter the principle.” Now what Waller was saying was that this law applies no only to the State but to the Church as well. It applies to every institution. In other words, when our Lord spoke of binding and loosing, He was referring to this law.

The lawyer who was trained in Biblical Law and was a member of the court, or the panel of lawyers of Levite background, would bind or loose, that is declare what God’s Word required, and they had to require that. And what God’s Word did not require, or loosed, and they then could remit sins, on restitution only. Thus, when our Lord, in Matthew 16 and 17 and in Matthew 18:18 referred to binding and loosing, it was a reference to this law, as every listener knew. [In Matthew 16:18, 19] Our Lord said, “18And I say also unto thee, that thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. 19And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.” [Matthew 18:18] “Verily I say unto you, whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.” The keys are the law and the true interpretation of the law.

Now, God says we need not be afraid of men. If we bind, if we require of men that which God’s Law gives us the right to require of them, in church, state, or anywhere else, we have the authority of God behind us. And if we loose on earth, that which is loosed in Heaven, then again, and only when we are faithful, are we again supported by God. Thus, we cannot forgive anything in any man, unless they make restitution. We must require it of them. Then we must forgive. Nor can we bind any man, his action or his conscience, apart from the Word of God. To do otherwise is to sin against God and attempt to bind and loose that which God does not permit us to bind or loose.

Now the Westminster Confession declared in Chapter 31, section 5, synods and counsels are to handle or conclude nothing but that which is ecclesiastical and are not to intermeddle with civil affairs which concern the commonwealth, unless by humble petition and peace is extraordinary, or by way of advice for satisfaction of conscience if they be thereunto required by the civil magistrate. And some people take this to mean that there can be no mixture of religion and the State. But what this speaks of is Church and State; that church counsels are to deal with church matters, under god and State counsels are to deal with State matters under God.

Twice lately, I’ve had people tell me of reactions with lawyers, once in this area, and once cross country,; who hear that I was teaching a series on Biblical Law. And they said in shock and in amazement that the Bible can have nothing to do with the law. It’s religion and law is something entirely different. But if the law deals with right and wrong, it is inescapably concerned with morality and religion.

As we saw some time ago, every court concerned with law is a religious establishment, whether it’s a church court or a civil court or a park corporation board or anything else. In the State, because the court is a religious establishment, it requires religious education or it will fail. Because our lawyers now get not education in biblical faith, but rather in Humanism, they naturally see the courts in terms of their religion: Humanism. Either the religion of a State is taught or the State is revolutionized. Hence it was, it was two Unitarians, Horace Mann and James G. Carter who established the public school system in this country. They were concerned with revolution.

Our law, therefore, requires that the civil court and every court bind and loose, only in terms of God’s Word. In the civil court, according to our text, it says that in matters of judgment between blood and blood and so on, the Levite, or the lawyer trained in God’s Law is to be present to judge. Between blood and blood means a decision between murder and manslaughter. Thus, the civil judge would determine the evidences as to what happened. The judge who was trained in the law on the same bench would determine in terms of God’s Word whether it was manslaughter or murder. Then it says they shall judge between plea and plea, between one type of plea for right as against another. Between stroke and stroke, that is varieties of bodily injury. And matters of controversy within thy gates, that is every kind of conflict and civil or other type of suit within the community. Thus, the lawyer was to rule on very practical cases, everyday cases where the application of the law was a question. God’s Law, in other words, must govern every court of every kind and the court must at the very least be fully grounded in the law. It must also govern the family, because parents constitute a court as they judge their children. But no court, neither Church nor State, can neither bind nor loose if it does not adhere to the Law of God as the sole source of binding and loosing, of condemning and acquitting.

The true god of every legal system, as we have pointed out before, is the source of law. Wherever the source of law is in any system, there is your god. And the State cannot make itself god, or if it does, it has lost the right to command—the moral right to command. Now when this situation prevails, as it does on all sides of us today, the people of God have certain routes open to them.

1.      They can offer peaceful resistance, using the instruments of the law.

2.      They can take the course of emigration. They can go to another country. This is how this country was established and how it has been populated over the decades.

3.      They can render obedience with a full awareness that they are obeying as unto God to preserve order while they try to convert the society again to the Law of God.

4.      They can as a last resort, pursue disobedience as a moral duty under the leadership of someone in authority. If there are any officials or persons of authority who will assume the responsibility of providing leadership.

The more any power in Church, State, home or anywhere—any authority—any court departs from God’s Law, the more impotent it becomes as it confronts real offenses. Then, instead of justice, it swings wildly from throwing the book at people to letting them off; in dealing severely with trifling offenses and in dealing with a trifling way with serious offenses. Thus, in the 1960, looting became a very common and powerful factor on the American scene. Very little in the way of judgment was meted out to any of these looters. And yet, in some of the Eastern cities in particular, the police officers were told to go out and pick up traffic offenders for every kind of offense, to crack down heavily in order to fill the coffers of the cities which had to pay so much overtime pay for the looting. In New York City, the police protested in vain. They tried to call the attention of the public to this injustice, but it was futile. And sometimes it has led to ridiculous conditions.

One of the places where the worst kind of lawlessness has prevailed and the police have been handcuffed has been Washington, D.C. And yet recently an incident happened in Washington, D.C. of which most of the police are profoundly embarrassed, but it is the kind of thing that is commanded and done at times. Let me read to you a statement coming from very conservative sources in Washington, D.C. “A dozen footmen, mounted policemen and officers on motor scooters charged the group and arrested three. After running into a parked car and falling, Donahoe was pounced upon by four officers, one of whom blackjacked him as he was pinned to the ground by other park policemen. What does this April Washington Post story describe? Police over-reacting to anti-war demonstrators? No. It describes federal park police (not the regular police), federal park police arresting citizens of Washington, D.C. for violating a bizarre ordinance that prohibits kite flying. By the 19th, fifteen persons had been arrested in April for kite flying.”

When the law ceases to command men morally, it breaks down. And when you have a breakdown of the moral force of the law, then two possibilities exist. One is anarchy. Men will not obey a law which lacks any moral foundation. Today there is a widespread rebellion across country of youth against their parent. It makes sense. It’s very logical. Since most parents are Humanists, with no moral ground for commanding obedience in such homes, the youth are morally right. They are only morally wrong in relationship to their parents rather than in relationship to God, if their parents are godly parents, exercising godly authority. But in most cases, children have grown up in homes where there is no moral authority, no moral teaching, have been brought up in Humanistic schools, Humanistic churches, in a Humanistic society and they are only applying the principles they’ve been taught. God can object, but their parents have no moral right to object. This is one possibility when law ceases to command men morally.

The other possibility is naked coercion, the rule of terror. Karl Marx said it was logical, since there was no God, that Anarchism was the only sound philosophy, every man a law unto himself. But he said, this will break down, therefore we’ve got to have Communism; solidarity. But how can you have it? That was the problem, and so then he said, there’s only one way: terror. And so you have the Red Terror. It will not end. It’s logical.

Nowhere should moral authority be greater than in the Church. When the Church teaches the Word of God faithfully, its moral authority is very great. Discipline then is written into the hearts and the sinew of the people. Then you have more than the Church court demanding it, the lives of the people creates it. The same is true in a godly family where the children believe the Word. When parents don’t have to lay down the law to the children, they respond to it most of the time, only occasionally is it necessary to rebuke them. Most of the time, they respond because the structure of the moral law is in their hearts. To repeat, the court is a religious establishment. For the court to function, the religion of the court must also be the religion of the people. If the faith is not in the hearts of the people, no revolution can put it into the courts. Instead of moral discipline, there will be either anarchy or terror. If men will not obey God they will not obey men. And this is why we have the problems today. Then, the only instruments of order are the gallows and the gun.

Moral failure of a society creates a terror order. And an order built on terror has one destiny: to kill or to be killed. Thus, the future, short of a return to the Law of God offers anarchy or terror. God says His Word shall not return unto Him void. Only a godly order can establish order. Apart from it, we reap the whirlwind.

Let us pray.

Almighty God, our Heavenly Father, we thank Thee that Thy Law-Word is a guide and a lamp to our feet. So teach us to walk, our Father, that in all things we may commit ourselves to Thy Word, may obey Thee, may trust in Thee, knowing that Thou wilt be a pillar and a cloud to go before us and to make the way straight before us. Our God, we thank Thee, in Jesus’ name, amen.

Are there any questions now, first of all about our lesson?

Yes.

[Audience] They still… {?}

[Rushdoony] I—could you repeat? I can’t quite hear you.

[Audience] They say that the {?} where people were arrested {?} some time, {?} eventually, {?}

[Rushdoony] Oh, those cities of refuge were regular cities. The only one who could find a refuge there was someone who was, who had committed manslaughter, an accidental killing. There would be a hearing when he went there and he would have the freedom of the city, but if he left, they would not be responsible for him. This was to prevent blood feuds.

Yes.

[Audience] {?} restitution, in order to gain forgiveness? {?}

[Rushdoony] No. God’s Law applies to everybody.

[Audience] Well … {?} I know people who are {?} forgiveness

[Rushdoony] Yes.

[Audience] And I wondered… I thought forgiveness was only attained from our {?} to express law. {?}

[Rushdoony] Yes. Very good question. The nature of forgiveness.

Now forgiveness is in two areas; one, as it affects God, because when any man sins, he sins against God and also some man is involved very often, you see. Now, let us suppose a man steals from you. If he makes restitution according to the Law of God, you have to forgive him—but not before. Now he may make restitution because we have a godly law order and he can’t get away with doing anything else, you see. God then, has not forgiven him, who knows the heart. So forgiveness is both civil (social) and God-ward. But by and large, the person today who would make one kind of restitution has also made the other. And in a society where men do not seek God’s forgiveness, they’re not going to seek men’s forgiveness either.

Yes.

[Audience] In this {?} that I see so many people, and I do take a resignation, and because of the law, they continue {?} of {?}, all through their lives

[Rushdoony] Right.

[Audience] And so to a point, felt that I, that I might{?}

[Rushdoony] ---If

[Audience] {?}

[Rushdoony] Yes, what you have to recognize in such a case, yes, this person from the civil point of view, from the social point of view is forgiven, but they are unregenerate. It’s just that their money enables them to buy their way out. In such a case, you go your own way. But you cannot hold the offense against them. You can recognize their unregenerate nature, but the offense is forgiven with restitution.

Yes.

[Rushdoony] You talked about laws of terror, {?} laws of terror, a real state of terror. Our Constitution was composed, not to be {?}

[Rushdoony] Yes. Christians are told not to be terrified, but a reign of terror means the kind of thing you have in the Soviet Union: bloody, savage, vicious repression. And it is an ugly thing. So Christians are to have faith in the face of it, and they will suffer, but God still is mindful of them. The suffering behind the Iron Curtain is fearful. And yet it has been a defective Christianity which has been in part responsible for their condition.

Yes.

[Audience] {?}

[Rushdoony] I—I can’t quite hear you.

[Audience] {?} trivial crimes {?} was more important than… {?}… and very confused on how I feel about the law, {?} and how {?}

[Rushdoony] Yes. We do have a problem today as to how to regard these things, because the courts by and large are corrupt. In an excellent study of the city of Chicago, a detailed study of the link there between politics, business, labor and crime, Demaris recently documented at great length that the whole of corruption exists because these elements want it. It also documented the fact that there’s been trouble within the police force, but they went on to state that the only attempt to cope with this sort of thing has been by an element—a sizeable element within the police force that has consistently made arrests which the judges have then dismissed.

Now, how, if we live in Chicago (and we’re going to have the same degree, more or less everywhere as things are going), how are we to regard things? Well, we should by and large as far as possible, avoid entanglements with courts because they are lawless. Yet we have to give to them the respect due to the office and the institution under God. This does not mean we feel that a particular judge is any good. But we still conduct ourselves with respect in view of the office, even as we fight against what they are doing.

I forget which chapter of Acts it is, perhaps it’s Acts 18, or 21, we have an illustration of this principle in the life of Paul. Because St. Paul emphatically taught in Romans 13, respect for those to whom respect is due, and to all those in authority, to give them the dignity due to their position. Oh, yes, the 23rd chapter, verses 1-5:

“1 And Paul, earnestly beholding the council,” (he had been illegally arrested and he says) “Men and brethren, I have lived in all good conscience before God until this day.

2 And the high priest Ananias commanded them that stood by him to smite him on the mouth.

3 Then said Paul unto him, God shall smite thee, thou whited wall: for sittest thou to judge me after the law, and commandest me to be smitten contrary to the law?

4 And they that stood by said, Revilest thou God's high priest?

5 Then said Paul, I wist not, brethren, that he was the high priest: for it is written, Thou shalt not speak evil of the ruler of thy people.”

Now to explain that incident, because I think this gives us the heart of the matter. Paul had been illegally arrested. He began to defend himself, and the high priest ordered him to be slapped across the face or hit with something across the face. And he was struck. And Paul called him a whited wall, that is, a whitewashed wall; a hypocrite in other words. That was an expression for being a totally hypocrite. “…for sittest thou to judge me after the law, and commandest me to be smitten contrary to the law?” A defendant could not be struck in the process of a hearing. So they told him, “Revilest thou God’s high priest?” And then St. Paul apologized for calling him a hypocrite. He didn’t retract the rest of his statement and he didn’t call him a high priest. He said I recognize I was in the wrong for calling him that because it is written in scripture, thou shalt not speak evil of the ruler of thy people. So, he’s the ruler of you. I don’t recognize him as a legitimate high priest, I just call him a ruler. But I was wrong. Anyone who has an office is deserving of formal respect, even as I state, he didn’t retract this—that you have no right to judge me after the law when you violate the law in the very process. That was his point. So, it’s a fine balance, but it’s one we are required to maintain.

And the temptation today is, in most quarters, continually to damn all those in high places as a bunch of hypocrites and crooks and so on and to do nothing about the real issues, you see; to vilify rather than to act. Does that help answer your question?

We don’t have more than a few minutes and there are a few things I’d like to share with you. One, there is an interesting article in a magazine I would not normally recommend, the July Argosy, July 1970 Argosy, entitled, “British Historian Charges Ben Franklin was a British Spy”. Now, I’d always felt that there was a great deal of truth to this kind of suspicion, and now the publication of the records of the archives of the British Secret Service confirm this. In a footnote, I believe, or perhaps in the body of the text of this Independent Republic I pointed out that he was a member of the Hellfire Club, which was a particularly degenerate group in England made up of people in high places in government. So he probably was linked with something subversive.

Now, I also in another footnote indicated Jefferson’s membership in a subversive revolutionary group in France. And I suspect someday, something will turn up there. The two men were the two, you might say Unitarians, in our midst in the country at that time.

Some of the evidence that is brought out by Richard Deacon in his History of the British Secret Service, which is just briefly summarized in this article, is the following:

         Close friendship with Lord le Despenser, founder of the Hellfire Club, a society of Libertines, which British Intelligence used as a cover

         Use of the pseudonym, Brother Benjamin of Cookham

         Association with a Chevalier de Deon de Beaumont, a spectacularly successful French secret agent who usually posed as a woman

         Membership in a firm of land speculators, chartered by the British government retained during the Revolution

         Protests by both French and American diplomats at every move of the Americans in Paris during the Revolution was known by the English Ambassador

         Existence inside Franklin’s American Embassy of a cell of British Intelligence agents organized by his chief assistant, Bancroft. He refused ever to fire Bancroft over the protests of other Americans

         The fact that copies of most of Franklin’s reports to America during the Revolution are in the British Archives. Certain memoranda by the British diplomat Richard Oswald from Paris who {?} government in London

         Franklin’s rejection of espionage charges against Bancroft, a man characterized by King George III himself as a double agent

         Refusal to investigate those charges and denunciation of the man who made the charges

         Documents in the British museum revealing that Franklin passed on to London information about American shipping

Now, the article really defends Franklin. But at least it brings out some of these facts. The reason why these have not been published before, although some historians have known about this, and people who are on the outside and have not had access to some of these facts, like myself, have suspected them, is because after all, why denounce one of your own boys. If he had been an Orthodox Christian, it would have been long before this denounced.

Then I was interested in this article that I picked up in a paper, from a, of a Chicago UPI dispatch, titled “Homosexual Hustlers can be Rehabilitated.” You get this kind of thing continually in the paper. And it goes on to say that two doctors in a recent issue of The Journal of the American Medical Association said that they had great success in rehabilitating young homosexual hustlers between the ages of 15 – 23. But what was this rehabilitation? The last sentence makes clear. No attempts were made to sexually change them. All they did was to work them into respectable positions. That’s rehabilitation today.

Then, this, as very revealing of the kind of mentality that prevails today, from a paper of the last week, Dorothy Manner’s Hollywood Column. Barry Sullivan is warming up to take Tony Curtis’ place on those Cancer Society commercials on TV since Tony was blacked out after being apprehended in England for possession of a stronger type of weed (marijuana). Incidentally, Tony is still burning over the continuing attention given to the incident in his native country when it has become old hat in England. And no matter what the cancer people think about his sincerity, he’s still continuing his campaign to get people off cigarettes. Now isn’t that something, to be indignant about? But this is the reality today. It’s the guilty who are indignant at being regarded as guilty. This is the kind of hypocrisy that prevails today, and we’re going to see more and more of that. You’re going to be guilty for daring to presume before long that anyone guilty of rape or murder should be punished. How dare we have such nasty thoughts?

Well, our time is up—oh, one thing more. I need to know how many are going to attend the Sennholz Seminar; the reservations have been so slow in coming in that if they don’t come in shortly they will have to cancel them. This is a problem they had last time and they had quite a sizeable crowd but they don’t know now, since it’s vacation, whether people are again just delaying to the last minute with their reservations. So could I have a show of hands?

[Audience] When is it?

[Rushdoony] It’s Saturday, the 11th. This Saturday, I believe—yes, this coming Saturday, all day. $20 or $22 with the buffet lunch. How many are planning to attend? There’s data in the back. One, two, three, four, five… very good. I’ll notify the people in charge.

Let’s bow our heads now for the benediction.

And now, go in peace. God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Ghost bless you and keep you, guide and protect you, this day and always. Amen.