SECRETARY FOSTER ON CHURCH AND STATE.
By C. P. B.
REV. J. M. FOSTER, one of the district secretaries of the National Reform Association, has an article in the Christian Cynosure of October 17, which is noteworthy as showing, rather more plainly than anything which any officer of that association has said recently, the real purpose of the association. They all deny most persistently that they want a union of Church and State, but almost their every utterance shows that they do demand and are working for just such a union. A few quotations from Mr. Foster’s article will show that this is so. Of the relation of Church and State, he says:— “This has been the vexed question of all the ages. The Papacy thought it was settled when the church became the supreme ruler of the State in the exaltation of Stevens, in 756. The prelatic party supposed it fixed when King Henry VIII., of England, made the State the sole arbiter of the church, in 1534. The Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia in 1787 imagined it was disposed of when they embodied the secular theory of government in the fundamental law of this land. But the problem is not yet solved. Neither the enthronement of the church by Constantine in 323, nor her divorcement by America in 1787, correspond with the scriptural model, or peacefully adjust the intimate and delicate relations existing between Church and State.” This paragraph is only introductory, and does not state just what Mr. Foster’s idea of the proper relation of Church and State is, though it does reveal the fact that he does not approve of the American and Protestant doctrine of total separation of Church and State as provided for in our National Constitution. It is also noteworthy that, while he disapproves of Constantine’s plan of making the State the ruler of the church, he has naught to say against letting the church rule the State. The reason for this will appear presently. In order to make the subject perfectly plain, Mr. Foster treats it under three propositions, each of which he attempts to prove, though the second and third are point-blank contradictions of the first. His first proposition is:— “1. According to the Scriptures, Church and State are mutually separate and independent divine institutions.” This is true, and some of Mr. Foster’s reasons for holding it are good. He says:— “They exist by the decree of God, and are answerable to him. ‘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.’ This divine ordination establishes the church’s independence. ‘The powers that be are ordained of God.’ ‘Rulers are God’s ministers to thee for good.’ This determines the freedom of the State.”680 This is good, but he spoils it all by attempting to show that Church and State were not united under the Jewish theocracy. It is scarcely necessary to remark that in this he utterly fails. Mr. Foster’s second proposition is:— “2. According to the Scriptures, the State and its sphere exist for the sake of, and to serve the interests of, the church.” This he supports by a lot of arguments, but not reasons, drawn from the theocracy. Among other things he says:— “The true State will have a wise reference to the church’s interests in all its legislative, executive, and judicial proceedings. Public vice and crime, immorality and licentiousness—the wild boar from the forest that devours the garden of the Lord—it destroys; and morality, virtue, and good order, the handmaids of religion, it promotes and encourages. The expenses of the church, in carrying on her public aggressive work, it meets in whole, or in part, out of the public treasury. Thus the church is protected and exalted by the State. David and Solomon made provision for the building of the temple, and Hiram, king of Tyre, assisted them. Cyrus, king of Persia, issued a decree respecting the rebuilding of the temple, and it is expressly declared that the Lord stirred up his heart to do it. Darius afterward issued an edict to the same effect. Another royal enactment was made by Artaxerxes to the same purpose. And all this was done with divine approval.” If that would not be a union of Church and State we confess that we do not know what would be. His third proposition agrees with the second, and is:— “3. According to the Scriptures, the Church and the true State will exist in friendly recognition and co-operation.” In support of this, he says:— “Because the State is distinct from the church, it does not follow that it is divorced from her. The Christian family is a divine institution. It is independent of the church, and yet it exists in friendly recognition and co-operation with her. The church will recognize the good offices of the Christian State; and the true State will formally acknowledge its obligation to ‘serve’ the church. They may swear the same covenant bond, in which are embodied the duties which each, in its sphere, owes to the king. The nation and the church of Israel seem to have sworn the same bond at Sinai. The church of the British Isles and the three kingdoms, Scotland, England, and Ireland, swore the same covenant in 1643, —‘The Solemn League and Covenant.’ “Rev. William Milroy has well said, in reference to ‘the duty of the State, as such, to enter into alliance with the church of Christ, and to profess, adhere to, and maintain the true religion:— “‘Ever since Christianity became a power among the nations of the world, the minds of legislators have been occupied with the difficult question: Can Church and State enter into mutual alliance and yet each prosecute, untrammeled, its respective ends, and exercise, uncontrolled, its important functions? Though the verdict of the Christian people of the United States, if called to-day to answer this question, would probably be overwhelmingly in the negative, yet we conceive the pious, profound, and sagacious men of the second Reformation, more than two hundred years ago, solved the problem correctly, answering in the affirmative. And not only so, but for a brief period in the land of the covenants they presented to the world what has nowhere else been witnessed, the solution in practical operation.’ May our land soon be thus in covenant with God, and in a state of friendly recognition and co-operation with the church of Christ.” And still Mr. Foster does not want a union of Church and State! Oh, no, he only wants them to be married and not divorced! And he wants it to be an Indian marriage, reversed at that, so that the State (the husband) shall become the slave of the Church (the bride)! We certainly think that the verdict of the American people ought to be against any such wicked scheme as that thus unblushingly proposed by the National Reform Association. One more thought: In his second letter to the Corinthians Paul says: “I am jealous over you with godly jealousy, for I have espoused you to one husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ.” 2 Cor. 11:2. But Mr. Foster thinks it does not follow that it (the State) is divorced from her (the Church). But what does the apostle say in Romans?—“For the woman which hath an husband is bound by the law to her husband so long as he liveth; but if the husband be dead, she is loosed from the law of her husband. So then, if, while her husband liveth, she be married to another man, she shall be called an adulteress.” Rom. 7:2, 3. It follows that Mr. Foster wants the church to live in adultery, having at the same time two husbands, the State and Christ. But will our Lord consent to be a party to any such union?—Nay, verily. The Church may be united with the State, as Mr. Foster indicates, but she cannot be united with Christ at the same time.