Law and Dominion

Biblical Law and Our Faith - RR264B4

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Law

Genre: Speech

Track: 09

Dictation Name: RR264B4

Location/Venue: ________

Year: _______

Our subject this session is biblical law and our faith. The Moody Monthly magazine has an advice page which is conducted by the Christensen’s. Recently they carried the following letter and then gave a commentary on it. The letter read: “Dear Chuck and Winnie. Does God forgive endlessly? I am disturbed by the rationalizing coming from Christian young people and lay leaders in full time Christian work. My wife and I, active in our church of children who acquaint us with many young people and their parents. One young man working for a Christian organization admitted he lives with a woman who is not his wife. He sees no conflict between his Christian ministry and personal lifestyle. Another Christian, a woman, said she spent her vacation with a male friend and shared a hotel room to cut expenses. When challenged with the propriety and morality of the situation she retorted: “God will forgive.”

We also know a pastor who fools around with several women in his congregation, but preaches week after week with no apparent remorse. Whenever we confront these loose moral standards the usual reply is: “We can always confess and God will forgive.” But no one seems ready to confess and change his lifestyle. God’s grace in forgiveness is precious, but isn’t there a limit to what he puts up with? What do you say to someone using the Lord’s forgiveness as a safety net for immorality?” Unquote.

Now the Christensen’s cited several bible verses but never the law in answering. They said a new way of life is necessary for a Christian, and rightly so. They even quoted our Lord to the effect that a tree is known by its fruit, but their basic council was this and I quote: “Restore, but don’t judge. Surround your conversations with prayer and weeping, don’t rebuke without compassion, speak the truth in love.” Unquote.

They add then, rightfully, that only the Holy Spirit can awaken the conscience; but not once do they speak the law of God to being violated by any one of these persons. Not once. Moreover, in confronting sin my tears, or my anger, my compassion, my love or my hate are minor facts. To stress them is humanism. It is putting the emphasis on what our attitude can do. The important fact is in all these situations, God’s law is broken. How I feel and how the sinner feels is secondary. The central fact is that all sin is a revolt against God. An insult to him and a violation of his law. Antinomianism has related itself to a world of humanism and to the priority of human feelings and human needs. Antinomianism has replaced God’s laws with pious gush and we cannot substitute tears or any human emotion for faithfulness unto the Lord.

Recently in a major magazine a candidate for the US senate from an important state was interviewed about his candidacy and about the fact that he is a homosexual. The interviewer, by the way, was also a homosexual. The candidate replied when asked about the political and social significance of his candidacy and I quote: “Let that appear in the eyes of others. There are lots of other issues that are important and that I think a lot more about than sexual orientation. My general instinct has always been in sexual matters or any other rather more toward ecumenical than towards ghettoizing. I mean, if you really wanted to get me seriously and profoundly on the subject I’d have to say that I don’t really think that either heterosexual or homosexual exists, and that only an insane society could ever have made a division like this. And those who think of themselves proudly on one side or the other are equally demented.” Unquote. What this man went on to say then was that it was just a question of lifestyle. Again, that word. The concerned parents who wrote to Moody Monthly used that word. We hear it on all sides, not only from the opposition but ostensibly Christian leaders speaking of what they should call moral laws as “life style”. And there you see one of the most dramatic instances of the devaluation of scripture that you can imagine.

And it is commonplace today. We cannot reduce matters of morality to a question or questions of lifestyle. But there is an inescapable logic to all such usage; when we deny God’s law we also deny morality because law and morality are different facets of the same fact. And that same fact, that one fact, is holiness. Holiness. Holiness requires separation from sin to righteousness -or justice because righteousness and justice are one and the same terms- to God and his law. If we negate law or morality we negate holiness. The antinomians are negating holiness! And this is why the kind of problem that is described in that letter to Moody Monthly is so prevalent. And you had better believe it is. What is described there is mild compared to what I hear every time I travel back and forth across the country!

Antinomianism is resulting in very practical immoralism. Theological antinomianism will lead to moral antinomianism. Our Lord said this do and thou shalt live, and he meant that he alone can give us power to do his will as our Savior, he gives life and he gives the laws of life. It is important for us as we consider the matter of biblical law and our faith to turn back to someone who made major contributions to our understandings of this subject: John Wycliffe. John Wycliffe said that truth and law are interchangeable, they are one and the same thing, different facets of the same fact. God’s every law word, every word of scripture is law, because when God speaks his word is binding upon us.

Wycliffe said and I quote: “Sacred scripture which is the law of Christ contains in itself all truth. Since all law is truth it therefore contains in itself all law.” Unquote. All Christian life, he said, is to be measured by scripture, by every word thereof. No empire, no community, no realm, no family, no organization can live without law. They must have law. And the only valid law for every area of life and thought and every area of man and his society is the law of God. Government requires law to function; every aspect of life was made by God and is under God, and hence, under His law.

Wycliffe then went on to speak of a particular law with deep biblical roots to which I will return very shortly. This was the writ of Cessavit. Cessavit is latin for “he hath ceased”, it was introduced into law in England by Edward I. There was a great demand for it and it satisfied a moral demand in the people. In a Christian society. What was a writ of Cessavit? If a tenant who had received a grant of land, or anyone who had received some type of grant from a higher power conditional upon the performance of certain duties failed to perform those duties after two years of faithlessness a writ of Cessavit could be issued against him separating him from the land or from whatever it was the he had been granted.

Centuries later the writ of Cessavit was abolished, the modern age was hostile to it. In this country practical applications of the same writ of Cessavit -although it existed under other names- have been eliminated. Let me give you an example of the kind of thing that the writ of Cessavit applied to in its day.

A widow who together with her husband set up a foundation in this country not too many years ago, some time in the fifties, found by the late sixties that the entire foundation had been alienated from the purpose for which it was created...legally she had no recourse. Why? Because there was no functioning writ of Cessavit in this country to recall any agency by law to its original purpose. Most of the foundations in this county were established by men who were Christians or conservative in the overwhelming majority of cases. And they’re now working to further revolution. I could document this, but there are numerous studies that have been made concerning the dereliction and alienation of foundations in this country.

Now. The writ of Cessavit was introduced in order to recall an agency, an institution, or a person to his responsibilities. So that, if a knight or a feudal tenant had received from a Lord a grant of land for the performance of certain duties and he proceed to be derelict in those duties after two years he could be dispossessed. Now Wycliffe was concerned with the application of the writ of Cessavit to the church, and the church institutions, monasteries, convents, and the like. And he said: Anything that has been set up to do the Lord’s word and been endowed by funds by people or by the fathers or forefathers of certain persons and has strayed from that purpose must have a writ of Cessavit issued so that it can be taken from them and restored to those who will fulfill the original purpose.

Now Henry the VIII did not use the write of Cessavit because he did not want to restore the monasteries in other foundations of his day to their Godly purpose, he wanted to seize their wealth; at some points he even falsified the charges against those monasteries. But Wycliffe felt that a writ of Cessavit was basic to society. Why? What was his biblical premise?

The earth is the Lord’s and fullness thereof, the world and they that dwell therein. That everything man has he has conditionally in terms of God’s law! That his possession of the earth, his possession of life, his possession of all things is conditional upon the law of God. It is upon this premise that we execute a murderer… or did in his day. In a sense what it meant was applying a writ of Cessavit and saying “you abused your right to life, and therefore it is revoked by God’s law”. And to a thief, Cessavit applies to you. You abused your freedom under God, you’ve broken his law and therefore your freedom must be denied to you and you must make restitution. Or to a church that was faithless...you have abused your privilege as a church, you’re no more a church and you must be dispossessed and what you have be given to another.

Now those who followed Wycliffe took this concept, not always using the word Cessavit, and applied it to the state, to rulers. Saying “if you have departed from your function as a ruler to bring justice to the people, to judge wisely, and to rob no man. If you have abused those privileges Cessavit must be applied to you and you are dispossessed and all men are relieved of the responsibility to you.”

Doctor Douglas Kelly spoke of the fact that he has translated Calvin’s sermons on Samuel. I think you’ll find it interesting to know that a number of historians all over the country have already borrowed chapters of that to use in forthcoming books because they’re so important. They represent among the last things that Calvin worked on, his latter works, and his mature reflections on precisely what we’re talking about! And his indictment of the oppression of the rich and the oppression of civil rulers. We hope we can get them published. And if any of you have the funds to subsidize it we’ll be very happy to see you. We have a number of important things like that that we want to get out.

But what Calvin and others of his day were saying was, there is a writ of Cessavit against civil authorities, against the state. When they violate the law of God, when they fail to do that for which they have power because all power whether of the church or of civil rulers of or husbands or of leaders in business or wherever and each of us in our conduct with each others is conditional! Everything in this world is conditional upon faithfulness to God and his law. That’s what the law of God is about. It pronounces blessings upon obedience and curses upon disobedience because God issues a writ of Cessavit against any man or nation or institution that is not faithful to his law.

Thus, Wycliffe and Edward I when it was formulated in terms of the concept of the writ of Cessavit for simply applying in terms of civil statute a concept which they felt was profoundly, thoroughly, and totally scriptural. And we have now, because we are antinomian, abolished the writ of Cessavit in every area of life.

Recently on television some people were being interviewed. They had given a guilty verdict which sent a man back to prison after a brutal rape, and they all seemed to feel guilty about doing it. After all, they said, a man has a right to freedom. He has a right to life and being in prison is no freedom, no life. And they felt guilty! On another program a group of people interviewed all said it was wrong to take the life of any murderer, because every man has a right to life unconditionally. But all that we are is of God’s creation and ordination, and all life, all property, all authority, all powers in this world are held conditionally under God.

And God issues against every person and every economy a writ of Cessavit in due time saying: “Cease. You’ve had it.”

Wycliffe’s work, therefore, was most notable. He developed his doctrine of the meaning of Cessavit out of scripture; out of the fact that God gave to man in the Garden of Eden a conditional use of the earth. That after the fall, again, that conditional use was pronounced, that in the law it was so pronounced, that our Lord repeated when he said every branch that beareth not fruit is going to be cut off! Excised from the vine and given over to burning. In some, as Solomon said, the wealth of the sinner is laid up for the just.

One of the scholars of the Reformation whose area was essentially law; Althusius, Johannes Althusius declared summing up this doctrine centuries after Wycliff: “All power is limited by definite boundaries and laws. No power is absolute, infinite, unbridled, arbitrary, and lawless. Every power is bound to laws right and equity. Likewise, every civil power that is constituted by legitimate means can be terminated and abolished.” Unquote.

Man is under God’s law because he is God’s creation, God’s creature, and because of God’s covenant. When God made a covenant with man that covenant was at one and the same time a covenant of law and a covenant of grace because every covenant is a treaty of law and the superior party gives the law to the inferior. And every such covenant is also a covenant of grace because it is grace for the great and superior power to have anything to do with the lesser one.

The Puritan Peter Balkly declared that to be under the government of God’s law and to be in the covenant and to be a Christian are, he said, to be one and the same thing. To be a Christian, to be under the covenant, and to be under the law. He said and the Puritans are emphatic on this: One and and same thing. But the modern world has separated the state and law from Christianity as well as from education. It has said that the state and law and education can go their own way and let the humanists control it.

Oliver Wendell Holmes made basic to his legal philosophy a sharp distinction between law and morality, a distinction which is totally illogical, totally irrational and impossible. When you pass any law you say thou shalt not do thus and such because we believe this to be morally wrong, to be bad. It may not be so, from the standpoint of God, but a law is a moral declaration! And Holmes made a totally irrational statement when he said law and morality are two separate and totally different things. The most amazing fact in the history of law is that the whole world of law welcomed his statement and bought it. And that the churches bought it! And turned it into the doctrine of antinomianism, and allowed the state to throw out progressively everything that smacked of the law of God. They bought that argument, and no one asked: what sense can this make? how is it possible to speak in this kind of language? Holmes went virtually unchallenged in his statement, and the implications for our society have been deadly. Holmes represented unitarianism and a militant humanism, a marked hostility to Christianity. He was a total relativist. He did not believe there was any good or evil so when he was saying you cannot have law and morality meaning the same thing he was saying it’s because there was no such thing as morality. No such thing!

The late Princeton philosopher who wrote his book: Walter Coffman: Beyond Guilt or Justice saying the same point. And he said, “The idea of justice is a relic of biblical thought. If there is no God there is no right nor wrong and therefore no justice or injustice, and if there is no God there is no guilt or innocence. Try to imagine a society in which there is no guilt or innocence, no justice nor injustice. That’s the kind of society the world is moving towards today! And that’s the kind of society that antinomian churches are inviting with their antinomianism.

When men deny God’s law, when they become antinomians, God’s law is replaced by the tyranny of the totalitarian state and with it’s new law: Reasons of State.

Reasons of state. It bears other names, the general welfare, the common utility, and the like. A medievalist gains post has traced this doctrine which goes back to greco-roman culture, he has traced it’s development and how the monarchs and the emperors of the medieval era picked it up and sought through it to win their freedom from the requirements from the world of God’s law. Reason in terms of this doctrine was identified with the state, something which Russo did also. And therefore what reason required, what the state required, was {?}-facto necessary for all society and there could be no disagreement with that purpose.

Antinomianism contributed to the rise of the doctrine of reasons of state, of the states right to lie. Sylvester declared it within our lifetime here in this country. The state very early became, to quote Ganes Post: “A supreme moral entity on earth. And it could demand the sacrifice of human lives for it’s safety.” Unquote. The modern state therefore sees itself as the highest moral value; this is so conspicuous in all these trials that I attend. The obvious fact is that these Christian schools that are arrested, they go out looking for the poorest schools very often, so they can say: “Here’s a horrible example of what Christian education is like. They used to test the students to prove that their education was inferior but the worst they could get was a two year advantage on the part of these Christian school students! So now they bar such tests.

Police officers have gotten on the stands and testified to the fact that they’re never called to a Christian school but someone from their precinct gets called to a public school everyday because of narcotics charges, knifings, drunkenness, assaults on teachers, and so on. This evidence doesn’t mean anything to the state. It’s regarded as irrelevant because reasons of state tell them that the statist education is the best and don’t try to use facts against us.

According to Ganes Post, and I quote: “Henry II of England may at one moment have reached the logical conclusion what nature permitted him to do was not unlawful.” Unquote. This equation of the lawful with the natural of course was basic to the kinsey reports so that whatever was natural, such as child molestation and bestiality, was ipso-facto moral. To quote Ganes Post once more in his study of the development of the concept of reasons of states. Hence, the highest reason of the safety of the state was itself a moral end.

In the later thirteenth century a philosopher actually argued that adultery committed by a private citizen in order to save the state from a tyrant was a lesser evil and might even be licit. The commands of God for private morality could thus be compromised for the sake of a higher moral end, that of the state.” Unquote. The illustration to which Ganes Post refers to is a common one that for centuries political philosophers developed and argued about. They would imagine all kinds of hypothetical cases where the only way the state could be saved was if someone committed some kind of crime. Adultery, homosexuality, murder, theft,... you name it. Every kind of far out hypothetical situation totally imaginary, totally impossible was nonetheless created and then used as justification.

It is possible that such and such a person doing such and such a thing could save the life of the society of the state. Therefore all things are permitted when they are reasons of state. Whether they have an actual or only a potential or a hypothetical role in preserving the life of the state.

Thus as Ganes post makes clear throughout his work what the state does is right, because the state is morality incarnate. Or as Hegel -the father of virtually every contemporary political philosophy- held, the state is God walking on earth. This is what the modern state is. It claims to be God walking on earth and what we need to do is to set forth the majesty and authority of the law of God and to issue a writ of Cessavit against the modernist modern state saying, “the authority that you have is only conditional, and in the name of God we declare that you have exceeded your authority and unless you change your ways politically, economically, and in every way God’s writ of Cessavit will soon overtake you and overwhelm you and destroy you.

Babylon and Assyria and Rome are gone. And there is nothing about any modern state that guarantees that it is going to exist indefinitely like a god. Not so long as the Lord God of host lives, and he lives indeed. [audience applauds]

We’re going to have a question and answer period, and I want to say in advance, if your questions are too hard for me I’ll refer them to Douglas to answer in Gaelic.

[Douglas] haha, okay.

[Rushdoony] I have a question that was handed too me. This question is with regard to influencing the humanist mental health laws that operate in our land today, and what specific objectives would you say are the most important. Well, that’s something that deserves an entire hour so it’s going to be hard to answer in a few words. But the question is really a philosophical question. Mental health. What does constitute mental health? There was a time when people were, in this country, actually considered mentally sick if they were atheists! They were rare, they were guarded as people who were off their rocker.

Now we today are getting definitions by some groups of Christian faith as mentally sick. As a matter of fact, we’ve had twelve states which this past year introduced legislation to declare anyone who had a dramatic change of lifestyle, that is a conversion, as mentally sick. It actually got on governor Carey's desk in New York state and Christians and Jews woke up too late to realize what it was, it had already gotten on his desk. This one rabbi in New York said in shock: “In terms of this bill Moses would have been declared mentally sick and a conservator appointed to handle his estate!”

Providentially we did get a number of political figures across country to write to the governor, call him by telephone -including Bill Richardson of California- and he vetoed it at the last hour of the last day. But mental health laws are very dangerous whether they’re defined by Christians or non Christians because with the mental health law you can, in effect, state who has the right to function freely. I think we need to recognize how dangerous they are and then I would refer you to the works of Thomas Szasz. Doctor Szasz is not a Christian, he’s a libertarian, he’s a psychiatrist and he has challenged the very idea of mental sickness. Go to his books because I think he has laid down some guidelines that are shaking up the whole industry, so to speak. And I think they’re very important ones.

[audience member] Um, I’d like to ask a question of Doctor Kelly. I believe it was in the 6’th century when the popes declared that the bible was forbidden territory for the common man, it was only to read by the priestly clerics, etc. And that was prevalent up until, what, the 1500 when we burned the last translator of the bible in vernacular at the stake. That was in England I believe. Um, there seemed to be a curious paradox to what you pointed out as the pervasion of the Christian life through all of medieval society from the 4-5 hundreds into the tenth century. What---how did the Word pervade people if they couldn’t read the book?

[Douglas] Well, yes they could. First of all there was never any pope in history of the church even in it’s darkest hours -and there were some very very dark hours and dark years, but never did any pope say it was illegal to read the bible to the people. What they said was for many many years, it’s illegal to make a translation from the latin {?} without authorization of the church. But they never said you can’t read the bible. And in fact, really, all through the middle ages we as Protestant historians have failed to give the credit that is due to the Medieval Catholic church that there was quite a bit of bible preaching that remained; there was a declension in bible preaching and in apprehension of the basic facts of the gospel in large areas of the church especially in the 14’th and 15’th centuries that no one could deny, but in movements such as the brethren of common life state within the church and groups outside there was preaching, but even in the normal {?} situation there was quite a lot of preaching of the word of God all the way through the middle ages.

[Rushdoony] We have often a misapprehension because we’re told about the bible being changed. It was changed because they didn’t have printing. It was all handwritten, it represented a tremendous investment of money and to keep it from being stolen it was chained; but it was there for anybody to read. And the language of all the schools was Latin at that time, so anyone who could read could read the bible. But it was always kept chained to keep it from being stolen. Now, in the days of printing we put them in hotel rooms and the Gideons hope it’ll be stolen. [audience chuckles]

[audience member] I have a question for doctor Rushdoony, but before I ask the question i would like to know, how many people here have male members of their family between the ages of sixteen and twenty-one?

[short pause]

[same audience member] My question deals with the draft. It is now a requirement of law that any young man reaching the age of sixteen must register for the draft. I also understand that quite a few do not, therefore the draft pull is smaller than what it would be if the government were to give laws requiring that everyone be registered. Also, I have no problem that my coming of age son defending the United States and dieing for his country, I would be proud of him for that..I would have somewhat of a problem with him being sent to some foreign country, fighting in a war that perhaps in five years will be forgotten about, withdrawn from, and the enemy would move into the area anyway. I read the portions of the institute of biblical law that deal with this but they really haven’t answered that question...

[Rushdoony] That’s a hard one to answer, maybe Douglas should answer that in Gaelic.... [audience laughs] The fact is, I...feel very deeply concerned about the draft, I feel very deeply concerned about the military. Two years ago almost to the day I was asked by the army to lecture on ethics which I did from a thoroughly biblical perspective to officers at Fort Jackson in South Carolina, the biggest military base in the country. It was an interesting experience because ERA. has kept a lot of PHD’s from getting jobs as professors in physics or whatever because minority people -especially minority women- have priority on those jobs. So there were a lot of PHD’s -black and white- in the military because there was no other job for them. We’ve never had a better educated military, or a more discouraged one.

They are not only not being paid in terms of inflation they are deliberately, I believe, being underpaid! Their pay has been cut in this past decade, with the massive inflation we’ve had since seventy they’re getting less money. And most of the officers unless their children have a left home the wives have to work to make ends meet! And they know how they were betrayed by the folks back home during the Vietnam war; I talked to some men who were at Meli, and they said: We told the top brass back here, the civilian personnel’s, what had happened. They covered it up. We said expose it! We don’t want any responsibility for anything that’s out of line. And they said we got the blame, so when we went home we were actually spat upon. And they were bitter. They don’t have any confidence in Washington, DC.

And it’s hard as a father to have any confidence in a country that sells out it’s own soldiers. So it’s an agonizing decision. I can see how someone could morally say it’s still my duty, and I could see how someone could morally say I cannot fight for a country that sells out those who are going to risk their lives in its defence. I don’t know what else I can say.

[Rushdoony] Oh, I have a question here. How do you suggest we deal with people who are struggling with hemarteous sin in view of the fact that we are all people in process of becoming like Christ and not there yet. That is, why wasn’t King David stoned or killed after the Bathsheba episode? Well. The answer to that is that we are not perfectly sanctified in this life, hemarteous is the sin of the Christian it is stumbling, it is falling, it is missing the mark. Eunomia is the sin of the ungodly, it is aiming in the other direction, it is being anti-law. Literally, that’s the meaning of the word: anti-law.

So just as a child learns to walk and stumbles quite a bit so we in this lifetime begin to move in the direction of the Lord, missing the mark very often and stumbling and falling. King David was not executed after his sin although the bible requires it because God took the judgement upon himself and God in that judgement saw fit to keep him alive but punish him in other ways. And God is not anything but the Lord of the law, so we cannot judge God’s action.

[audience member] What can we do as a family to preserve what meager assets that we have in were of massive inflation or in view of economic collapse so that we can continue Christian reconstruction following that.

[Rushdoony] Yes, that question I was just reading and it’s an important one. l think you need to consult people who’re experts in this field and we do have-- [audience member interrupts but is unintelligible] --ahah, we do need to consult people who’re experts here like Victor (Porlea?), here. Christian men who know something about economic planning. We need to explore ways of setting up our property, or home, or farm, or whatever it is to preserve it from any inheritance tax or state or the like. So each of us has to explore what will work best for us in this circumstance, but we also need to recognize that it is not just a preservation of what we have but a preservation to capitalize the Lords kingdom. So we have to first train the family to see itself as the basic unit under God, and second that it is a steward under God to use everything it has to further the reconstruction of all things in terms of the word of God.

[audience member] Ah, what are the prognosis on money market investments in view of the coming alleged collapse?

[audience laughs about something]

[Rushdoony] George, if I knew that I’d be a billionaire in a year or two. [audience laughs again] I do think we’re in for massive inflation, and I would suggest you talk to Hal Brian about that because Hal knows what’s coming better than I do.

[audience member] I have a question for Doctor Kelly. You were talking about the Puritans and I was just wondering why Cromwell’s {?} failed, well it seemed to fail in our history because afterwards he was replaced by a king again.

[Douglas Kelly] Well, I think we need to say two things about deists. First of all, it did fail politically as far maintaining the puritan regime. I don’t know all the factors that go into that, probably a large part of the problem was that a number who sided with the puritans really didn’t have their essential thinking changed. Cromwell was succeeded by a very weak son, it was a problem of who would be his successor and particularly those who were just ready to jump on board the bandwagon that they thought would secure their property or bring the most money, many of them were ready to recall King in that they thought they would benefit the most from his return. Now that’s about the failure.

However Mr. Christopher Hill of Oxford has given a great deal of space in his excellent book called God’s Englishmen speaking of Oliver Cromwell which was written in 1970 to showing that the movement of Cromwell in the Puritan movement really was not a failure, because it so changed the whole structure of English society and then because of the influence of the British empire and the influence of America which sprang from Puritan England values the civil structures that were set up, were still based on what the Puritans wanted and proved. For instance, the glorious revolution of 1688 really went back and reestablished in a somewhat secularized form probably the majority of the Puritan program politically and economically.

Though, as I say, it was in a secularized form putting sovereignty in parliament instead of in God. But the Puritan movement wasn’t a failure ultimately because it did change the world, but it was a failure politically in the sense that there was not a successor to take Cromwell’s position then and crown Mr. Stewart.

[audience member speaks nearly unintelligibly] I have a question for Doctor Kelly. My studies of his created {?} have been through the impression that, uh, medieval economics was basically that of (Judaism?) and falling into mercantilism rather than what we would call market economics which came into it’s full form about, say, after the 1700’s. And uh, it was my whole observation has kind of convinced me a lot of the regulatory {?} {?} that is today does not come from Marxism but from a revival of (judaism? guildism?) and mercantilism. And do you think that this is...uh...what is your opinion of that analysis?

[Douglas Kelly] Yes. Well, I would say you did not have the flowering of the full free market economy until the, say, Adam Smith and so forth in the 1700’s. That is certainly true. And you did have a good bit of the (guild?) mentality in the middle ages that sometimes worked to keep competition down and often very much did it, but I think you would have to say that was quite a lot of a free trade. There was the increasing productivity because work and thrift, there was the rising of the industrial beginnings, spinning and so forth especially in cloth which led to commerce. And you had in general the strong movements towards free trade and away from government control. Now the (Guilds?) did some positive things in the sense that they were perhaps in one sense necessary in the beginning to protect the middle class merchants from some of the feudal barons. So they did serve some positive purposes in establishing centers and so forth in various parts of Europe. And they became and were perhaps by their very nature somewhat repressive, and some of the regulatory activity that we see in our country often is encouraged by some big businesses to keep down the competition, so that’s true. But I wanted Doctor Rushdoony to say something about Bishop (Nico Urim?) because he had some-- [Rushdoony interrupts] Well, you know him better than I do. [audience laughs]

Well he was before my time, he was a medieval bishop and what we call Gresham’s law was best formulated -although it goes back to Aristophanes- developed, and stated by Bishop (Orein?). Bishop Orein had a healthy sense of sound money and the market place. So what we have to say the medieval era was so decentralized during all but the last phase that you did have a number of kinds of economies functioning, and a number of developments. But you definitely did have a great deal of freedom and Orein simply stated in his studies better than anyone else what was a practice in many areas.

[audience member] I have a question for Doctor Rushdoony. The antinomian position essentially puts a division between Christ and his word, and then on the other hand we have those who seem to be linking Christ with a word that’s beyond the scriptures. Could you say something about the relationship between Christ and the word? The inscripted word?

[Rushdoony] Yes. Because our Lord Christ is very of very God and the second person of the Godhead the word of God is his word. It is the word of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. So when the Lord tells us that if you love me, keep my commandments he’s not limiting himself to just what he has said but to the every word of God. Does that answer your question or didn’t I understand all of it?

[audience member] I guess I’m a little more concerned about those who see the word of God going beyond the inscripted word.

[Rushdoony] Oh, yes! Those who see the word of God going beyond the scriptures and the inscripted word. This is a part of a widespread movement today which in effect says that there are further words from God that develop in the cultural context. There are some who refuse to speak of themselves as reformed but are reformational in that they are continually reforming our knowledge of God by some kind of fresh in sigh. [audio ends abruptly]