Salvation and Godly Rule

Liberty of Conscience

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Doctrinal Studies

Lesson: Liberty of Conscience

Genre: Speech

Track: 55

Dictation Name: RR136AD55

Location/Venue:

Year: 1960’s-1970’s

Let us worship God. How amiable are thy tabernacles, O Lord of Hosts. A day in thy courts is better than a thousand. For the Lord God is a sun and shield. The Lord will give grace and glory. No good thing will he will he withhold from them that dwell uprightly. O Lord of Hosts, blessed is the man that trusteth in thee. Let us pray.

Almighty God, our heavenly Father, who hast summoned us to be thy people, and who hast set the seal of thy love upon us, we give thanks unto thee that in the midst of a troubled world, we walk in thy peace and in thy safety. We thank thee that thou hand is before and behind us, and dost always surround us with thy protecting care and grace. Make us mindful, our Father, that thou hast called us to be thy people, to exalt thy name, to serve thee, to rejoice in thee, and to walk in thy confidence and in thy path. Bless us by thy word and by thy Spirit, that we may be better armed day by day in thy service and to thy praise and glory. In Jesus name. Amen.

Our scripture lesson is from Galatians 2:1-5, and our subject: Liberty of Conscience. “Then fourteen years after I went up again to Jerusalem with Barnabas, and took Titus with me also. And I went up by revelation, and communicated unto them that gospel which I preach among the Gentiles, but privately to them which were of reputation, lest by any means I should run, or had run, in vain. But neither Titus, who was with me, being a Greek, was compelled to be circumcised: and that because of false brethren unawares brought in, who came in privily to spy out our liberty which we have in Christ Jesus, that they might bring us into bondage: to whom we gave place by subjection, no, not for an hour; that the truth of the gospel might continue with you.”

The subject of liberty of conscience is a very important one. It is especially important because it is denied in the modern world. Legally, our country was established on the premise of liberty of conscience, among other things. In recent years, it has moved from any position which legally holds to liberty of conscience to a radically different one, the idea of toleration. Now the two are definitely and drastically different. The idea of toleration was first propounded by Sir Thomas Moore in his Utopia. King Utopus decreed toleration of most religions and of most religious practices, but reserved the right to himself to tolerate that which he choose and at any time to withdraw that toleration. Now, what Sir Thomas Moore did in Utopia was to revive the ancient pagan concept of toleration. What is the difference?

To understand the difference, let us go back to Rome, because Rome is the classic example of a state which held to religious toleration. Rome believed that the best policy to follow, as an Empire, was to tolerate any and every religious group as long as it was not definitely subversive. All any religious group had to be within the Roman Empire was to apply for legal status, for licensing. This was a relatively simple act. The essence of it was to offer incense at the altar of the emperor, signifying the priority of the state to any god or gods, or any religion. Then, they were granted toleration. The whole point, of course, of the persecution of Christianity was its refusal to apply for legal status. The whole premise of Christianity was that we do not exist at the sufferance of the state. The state has no jurisdiction over God, and over Christ, to say whether they have a legal existence or not. Liberty of conscience means we have the right to worship God because God is God over us, and over the state, and not only must we recognize God, but the state must recognize God.

Now the inevitable outcome was, of course, an all-out warfare between Christ and Caesar. As one scholar, Gutterman, had written, “The end of the ancient state coincides with the triumph of Christianity. The triumph of Christianity marks the close of the political and religious development of the classical civilization. The dichotomy between church and state which characterizes society since the fourth century makes its appearance in the last age of the Roman Empire. Render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s and unto God what it God’s, is a rule which the ancient state knew not and could hardly acknowledge. This is not merely a coincidence. It is a sequence as Folange{?} has pointed out. The close integration of the ancient gods with a classical community was of the essence of the life of the ancient civilization. When this {?} disappeared, the vital part of the classical culture went with it.”

Now, the thesis of the ancient state, and of all states outside of Christendom, was and is that the state has absolute right over every area of life. It can decree that a man’s life be taken without any word of God saying that murderers and kidnappers, and others forfeit their life. It does it on its own. It can decree abortion as Greece and Roman did, and as our modern Supreme Court has recently done. It can decree that a particular class, or race, or group can be eliminated. It has total jurisdiction over man in every area of life. Now this was the claim of Rome; absolute, total jurisdiction.

Sir Hartley Shawcross who, in the early 1950’s, was attorney general of Britain, made the statement in Parliament on one occasion concerning the absolute right of Parliament, and he stated that if Parliament decrees that all blue-eyed babies shall be destroyed at birth, Parliament has that power. Now, this was an assertion of the principle of ancient paganism, of the ancient pagan state. Incidentally, he was not challenged on that, except by a very small number whose number of Parliament today is even fewer.

Now, Rome claimed such total power. Having established that power, its policy then was, “We will be tolerant of all who will recognize our claims, who will work within the framework of Rome and its absolute sovereignty,” and this, of course, the Christians refuse to do.

I referred a few weeks ago to the fact that as soon as the church began to spread within the Roman Empire, within the lifetime of St. Paul, within a few years after the resurrection, Roman Emperors were indeed writing to governors of various provinces asking for a report on these people. They’re unlicensed. Provide us information concerning them and either demand that they comply or execute them. We have the letters of Pliny the Younger, and his report on what the Christians were, plus the fact that he had executed all who refused to recant their faith, or to offer incense to the Emperor. Now, the Emperor in question was Trajan, who regarded himself as a very enlightened and tolerant person, and his attitude was, “Give them every opportunity to be sensible about this, and to apply for a license, to recognize that Rome is superior in every area, that Rome can tell them how much they can do and what they are going to do. If they grant us supremacy, be indulgent of their superstitions,” and that was the word that he used. Now, Pliny found a number who refused to recant and executed them, and then he said that some recanted, or said, “Well, we were with the church for awhile but we left it about a year ago,” and so from the report of the recanters, he made the following statement. First of all, concerning the recanters, “They all worshiped your image and the statues of the gods, and cursed Christ, but they declared that the sum of their guilt or error had amounted only to this, that on an appointed day, they had been accustomed to meet before daybreak, and to recite a hymn antiphonally to Christ. Before daybreak because the Lord ’s Day was a work day, and they either met in the early church late at night or before daybreak and before time to go to work. Reciting a hymn antiphonally to Christ as to a God, and to bind themselves by an oath, not for the commission of any crime, but to abstain from theft, robbery, adultery, and breach of faith, and not to deny a deposit when it was claimed. After the conclusion of this ceremony, it was their custom to depart and meet again to take food. It was ordinary and harmless food, and they had ceased this promise after my edict in which in accordance of your orders, I had forbidden secret societies. I thought it the more necessary therefore, to find out what truth there was in this by applying torture to two maidservants who were called deaconesses, but I found nothing but a depraved and extravagant superstition. I therefore postponed my examination and had recoursed you for consultation.”

Now this and other reports gave evidence of the very superior morality of the Christians. At a somewhat later date, Tertullian, in pleading for religious liberty, and against the persecution and execution of Christians, told the Emperor, “You know you have no better citizens than we. We are your more honest citizens, your most faithful and honest taxpayers at a time when everybody is cheating. We are your best soldiers. Wherever we serve, you know you can depend on us in all things save this, and yet, Rome would not surrender its claim to totalitarian power, ready enough to grant toleration if they applied for licenses, but only on those terms.

In other words, every area of life was within the jurisdiction of the state which could grant toleration or deny it. The state claimed exclusive sovereignty over man and the world. This was the premise of Rome, of Babylon, of Greece, of every ancient state and of the modern state. We do not have anywhere in the world, virtually, any idea of liberty of conscience. Only toleration for conscience, if the state so deems.

Religious liberty and liberty of conscience rests on the exclusive and ultimate claim of God to sovereign over man and the world. This is why, in the last century, when the first talk in the 1830’s, about state sovereignty developed. John Adams gave his famous Fourth of July oration, in which he expressed horror over the use of the word “sovereignty” as applied to anything human. It belongs, he said, only to God, and our Fathers, when they fought, fought against the idea of the sovereignty of the state. Shall we now succumb to it? In fact, as late as the time of the Versailles Treaty, the American delegation headed by Lansing(?), Secretary of State, objected to the use of the word “sovereignty,” because they said in the American tradition, we do not use this for anything that is of man. How much we have changed since then.

Liberty of conscience means, in the Christian tradition, the duty and freedom of all areas of life to be godly and to develop their potentialities under God. It means freedom from mutual interference for all spheres. Freedom of interference of the state by the church, and of the church by the state, of the family from church and state, of the school from any of these, of the economic area and so on, each area under God, interdependent but not subservient.

Now, the idea of absolute freedom, which is propounded by some today, is a myth. The most radical development of this was under the Marquis DeSade, who wanted freedom for murder, freedom for every perversion in particular, but still required the abolition of Christianity, marriage, the church, and all protection of life and property and much more. Every philosophy of freedom has its areas of constraint. In Anarchism, there is the freedom of the absolute individual, but a total proscription of any government over man, so that you are not free in an anarchistic order from having your property robbed, or your person assaulted, or murdered, and any attempt by you to claim the integrity of your property from others is a restriction of their liberty according to anarchism, such men as Max Sterner and others. Under statism, you have the freedom of the absolute state, but no freedom for the individual or the church, or the school.

For Christianity, there is the freedom of the absolute God, and only freedom insofar as we conform to God’s order. Under Christianity, there is no freedom for murder, for theft, for adultery, for false witness, for fraud, for cannibalism, and for a variety of other practices that are proscribed by biblical law, and today, we are at war with Christian liberty, at war with the biblical doctrine of liberty of conscience, and we are seeing the revival of a number of things which are definitely anti-Christian.

One of the most interesting things lately was a book by a University of California historian, Jeffrey Burton Russell, Witchcraft in the Middle Ages. It was apparently, I understand from someone who knew him, a very painful book for Russell to write. He began his research convinced that the whole idea of the witch cults in the Medieval and early modern period, being so bad, was a lot of propaganda, and these were poor superstitious people who were brutally oppressed by Christians. He admits before he is through, and provides abundant evidence that actually, not only were these witches cults an anti-Christian, religious movement, pagan to the core, antinomian, but that they practiced human sacrifice, cannibalism, and much, much more, and so as he concludes his book, he feels that the revival of this kind of movement is a major threat to the future, and he writes, “Now once again, institutions are failing, and men are being thrust back upon their own formulations of symbolic order. Once again, lacking the framework of a coherent rational system, we are increasingly subject to propaganda, nihilism, and mindless violence. Dogmatic and reasoning ideologists are preparing for us a new witch craze, couched now in secular, rather than in transcendental terms.”

And so he sees in it a fearful threat to the future, a threat to human life, because he feels very definitely that the movement, as it has arisen, will very quickly, if it has not already, and there is evidence that it already has, gone to such things as cannibalism and human sacrifice.

Now, the modern argument for liberty of conscience is a totally anarchistic one. Stanton{?} Lind{?} and others who have written lately about liberty of conscience, as well as the whole of the New Left, have not defended liberty of conscience in any historic Christian sense. In fact, they want to proscribe and eliminate Christianity entirely by law. They want liberty of conscience only for the anarchistic individual, for groups like the witchcraft cults, to practice cannibalism or whatever is in conformity with their idea of liberty, and so it is important for us to understand what the issues are in the doctrine of liberty of conscience.

The great and classic statement of it, the case which has had a profound influence on all modern history, and which lead to the liberty of conscience which we have had, is Section 2 of Chapter 20 of the Westminster Confession, and as I indicated a couple weeks ago, recently a historian has belatedly admitted how centrally important this statement is, historically. God alone is Lord of the conscience, and {?} free from the doctrines and commandments of men, which are in anything contrary to his word or beside it, in matters of faith or worship, so that to believe such doctrines or to obey such commandments out of conscience, is to betray true liberty of conscience, and the requiring of an implicit faith, and an absolute and blind obedience is to destroy liberty of conscience and reason also.

Now this is the point of critical importance. The apostles refused to lord it over men’s conscience. This comes through clearly in the New Testament. Church and state dare not do so without sinning, but both now are lording it over the conscience of men.

Now the whole point of St. Paul in our scripture lesson is concerned precisely with this matter: liberty of conscience. What is he writing about? The Judeizers in the church were requiring that converts be circumcised. Now let’s examine the entire subject to see why Paul took the stand that he did. The church retained the practice of circumcision. In fact, in Christendom, circumcision has been well nigh a universal practice from the time of the apostles to the present, but never required except by the Coptic church, which is hardly Christian. Now St. Paul makes a point of the fact, and tells us he was circumcised on the eighth day. He tells us moreover, that when he converted Timothy, who had a Jewish mother, he insisted on Timothy being circumcised. On the other hand, he tells us that Titus, being a Greek when the Judeizers insisted that he be circumcised, he refused to allow it, as a matter of principle. Over and over again, he deals with the symbolic meaning of circumcision, in passage after passage. This is not new with St. Paul. The Old Testament repeatedly speaks of the symbolic meaning of circumcision. The thing that is clear is that circumcision was symbolically a very important thing to St. Paul, and moreover, that St. Paul was not averse to the use of it, provided it was not mandatory, and that was the point of objection.

Now, it would be easy to say, Why the fuss? After all, Paul, you believe in circumcision. You think it’s a good thing even though it’s no longer the covenant rite, and you believe that God gave it in the beginning not only as the covenant rite, but as a very good practice for health reasons, and therefore, you yourself circumcised Timothy. Now, why make such a stink about it and divide the church over it? Why not go along with these Judeizers and you will unite the church instead of splitting it? You’re not against it. You yourself have not said, Don’t do it. You just want{?} the Judeizers because they insisted that it must be done. Now, this is such a subtle point, Paul. Why don’t you stop dividing the church over it? But Paul is emphatic, and he tells us that he never, for a moment, considered compromising. “To whom we gave place by subjection, no, not for an hour; that the truth of the gospel might continue in us.” In other words, St. Paul says the whole integrity, the whole truth of the gospel depended on my saying, No, it cannot be made mandatory. It must not. The whole gospel hinges on this. Why? Because St. Paul was emphatic. No requirement can be made of any Christian unless the word of God requires it, and now, the covenant mark was not circumcision. It was baptism. Baptism was mandatory, not circumcision. Circumcision might be a very wise step. St. Paul was all for its practice, but never to require it, as from God. Man’s conscience, in other words, can only be bound by the word of God, and the requirement of scripture is not baptism, not circumcision.

St. Paul makes the same point in the fourth chapter, verses 9 and 10. “But now, after that ye have known God, or rather are known of God, how turn ye again to the weak and beggarly elements, whereunto ye desire again to be in bondage? Ye observe days, and months, and times, and years.” Here again, this is very important. What is he talking about? The law? No, definitely not. This is what many ministers and superficial commentators say, but it is not. God never calls the law “weak and beggarly elements.” What is he referring to? It is, to the Jewish rites and festivals, which were not canonical, that is, not biblical, or although physical, had been reinterpreted and altered so that they were no longer the same as the biblical practices.

Now, there’s no question that these rites were, in many cases, very rich in meaning and beautiful. For example, the Feast of Dedication or Feast of Lights, which we know as Hanukah is a very beautiful service. It is not biblical. Our Lord referred to it in John 8:12 when he said, “I am the light of the world,” and it’s very easy to see how people could love that rite, because at the certain day, all the lights in all homes were extinguished, all fires were extinguished, and all the believers went to the temple and took a light from the altar and carried it home to signify that they derived their light not from their selves but from the Lord. It is beautiful, but St. Paul’s point with regard to this and other things, however beautiful, however rich in meaning, the conscience of man cannot be bound by such things. They are “weak and beggarly elements” as contrasted to the word of God, so that no matter how noble a rule you and I lay down, how worthy it might be, or how worthy the cause, we cannot bind the conscience of men to anything save the word of God, so that if the church were the most faithful, the most godly church of all, it could not still say, “Well, we want to bind your conscience on this little item apart from the word of God,” nor can the finest country in the world do that either. God alone is the Lord of the conscience.

There were many rites: Simhath Torah, the Feast in honor of the law, meaning Simhath Torah, the joy of the law. Beautiful, and yet we can beggar that, as contrasted to the word of God. It could not bind the conscience, but there was more. As St. Paul goes on to say in the first four verses in the fifth chapter, what the Judeizers have done is to turn the law into a way of salvation. “Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage. Behold, I Paul say unto you, that if ye be circumcised, Christ shall profit you nothing. For I testify again to every man that is circumcised, that he is a debtor to do the whole law. Christ is become of no effect unto you, whosoever of you are justified by the law; ye are fallen from grace.” If you believe that you cannot be saved unless you are circumcised and that, like the Judeizers, you believe in justification by the law rather than by the grace of God, you’ve abused the whole point of the law, and Christ is of no effect for you. This is the end result, if men’s conscience is bound by anything other than the word of God.

Then you are saying that what we bind you with is essential to your salvation, essential to your welfare, but God alone is the Lord of the conscience. Do you see the point? Paul was not condemning or opposing immoral or evil practices and observances. He was not saying that the things that I am against, like circumcision, or the Feast of Lights (Hanukah), or Simhath Torah, or any of these things are evil in themselves. They’re rich, they’re meaningful, but they’re weak and beggarly elements compared to the word of God, and if the most beautiful thing man devises can bind man’s conscience, there is another way of salvation than Jesus Christ. God alone is the Lord of the conscience, because God alone is man’s savior.

Thus, he opposed these things because of their claims on the conscience of man. Church and state are of God’s ordination. Both have a holy calling, but neither can compel the conscience of any man apart from the word of God, and herein lies our liberty of conscience. It gives us the ground whereon we can confront all powers in the assurance that Christ has called us, not to bondage but to liberty. “Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage.” Let us pray.

Almighty God, our heavenly Father, we give thanks unto thee that thou hast made us free in Jesus Christ. O Lord, our God, we are surrounded today with the yokes of bondage which again seek to bind men, to bind the conscience of men to church and to state, and to other agencies. Thy word hast set us free. Grant that, by thy word, we may bring freedom unto others, and again establish ourselves in thee and of thee, and to thy praise and glory. Bless us to this purpose in Jesus name. Amen. We have a very few minutes. Are there any questions?

Well, if there are no questions, I’d like to share something with you. One of the most valuable columns in the Herald Examiner is by Jim Fibig{?}, and a couple days ago he had a very interesting commentary, which I think is well worth reading, because it is relevant to what we have been just discussing. Fibig{?} wrote, “The Indians who gathered eleven hostages and took over the community of Wounded Knee, South Dakota last week were handled with care by authorities, because well, the criminals were Indians, and Indians as we all know, got the short end of the feather by the white eyes, but what would have happened if the Indians had won? Would the red man have been any more noble in victory? Ask the 20 white ranchers on Arizona’s mineral strip. Two hundred thirty-two thousand acres that were in the public domain for fifty years, until former Secretary of the Interior, Stuart Udall{?} handed the deed to the Apaches in 1969. So much for nobility. A few days ago, the Apaches informed the ranchers, some of whom had lived there for fifty years, that they would have to be off the land by June 30. Moreover, they were ordered to leave all improvements such as homes, barns, water pumps, and corals on the property, without compensation. If the situation were reversed, if it were white man ordering Indians off the land without compensation, every professional bleeding heart in America would be screaming like hell, but the bleeding hearts only have hearts for Wounded Knee, South Dakota. I have a solution. When the Indians pack their pick-ups and withdraw from Wounded Knee, the twenty displaced Arizona ranchers would be the next group to take over the town. They can gather a few hostages, hole up with their Winchesters, and make their demands for justice made known to the press. How far do you think they’ll get?”

Now, of course, this happens, this kind of thing, precisely because in our day and age, the conscience of man is bound, not by the word of God, but by sentimental humanism, and as a result, it is easily commanded by any such nonsense that comes along, and men cannot deal with such situations as we have faced in Wounded Knee, South Dakota and elsewhere, unless they have liberty of conscience under God. We’ve heard very little about the fact, incidentally, that the overwhelming majority of Sioux Indians are not in favor of what went on there, that those who have opposed it have actually been called by the press, and I saw this reference in the L.A. Times, the establishment Indians. Just because they have opposed it, they are suddenly called by a dirty word. On top of that, a very sizable percentage of the Indians who poured into Wounded Knee were not even Sioux. They were people from all over, from Los Angeles and elsewhere, Indians who were city dwellers and who saw a good opportunity for some rabble-rousing, and yet there are people who feel very deeply upset about all that we have done to the Indian, and whose conscience is very tender on that score. The conscience of man becomes enslaved whenever and wherever it is not under the word of God, because God alone is the Lord of the conscience, and men can only be free of men when they are thoroughly and totally under God.

Well, our time is up. Let’s bow our heads now for the benediction.

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

End of tape