The Highway Forums General Discussion Open Forum Civil Government and the 1647 Westminster Confession

Many problems arise when the civil government becomes inflated, particularly when it grows beyond its borders to dictate church government.
The 1647 Westminster Confession went too far on this point. It rightly prohibits the civil magistrate from assuming to himself the administration of the Word and sacraments. But it goes on to say that the civil magistrate “hath authority, and it is his duty, to take order, that unity and peace be preserved in the Church, that the truth of God be kept pure and entire; that all blasphemies and heresies be suppressed; all corruptions and abuses in worship and discipline prevented or reformed.”
It is not the place of civil government to prevent abuses in worship, much less reform them. The work of reformation and holy worship belongs to the church. The church, not the state, is “a pillar and buttress of truth” (1 Timothy 3:15).