What They Said

"48.  For to that end also in the holy Scripture profitable, to show which is the best manner of governing a commonwealth, and that the magistrate, as being God's minister, may by this guiding star be so directed, as that he may execute the parts of his office according to the will of God, and may perfectly be instructed to every good work; yet the minister is not said properly to treat of civil businesses, but of the scandals which arise about them, or in the cases of conscience which occur in the administration of the commonwealth, so also the magistrate is not properly said to be exercised about the spiritual things of the church, but rather about those external things which adhere unto and accompany the spiritual things."

George Gillespie 

(From: CXI Propositions Concerning the Ministry and Government of the Church)

"For to that end also is the Holy Scripture profitable, to show which is the best manner of governing a commonwealth, and that the magistrate, as being God's minister, may by this guiding star be so directed, as that he may execute the parts of his office according to the will of God, and may perfectly be instructed in every good work…"

George Gillespie

"Though we have clear and full scriptures in the New Testament for abolishing the ceremonial law, yet we no where read in all the New Testament of the abolishing of the judicial law, so far as it did concern the punishing of sins against the moral law."

George Gillespie

"There is nothing which any way pertaineth to the worship of God left to the determination of human laws, besides the mere circumstances, which neither have any holiness in them, for as much as they have no other use and praise in sacred than they have in civil things, nor yet were particularly determinable in Scripture, because they are infinite."

George Gillespie

"Reformation ends not in condemnation, but in action"

George Gillespie

"..the will of God concerning civil justice and punishments is no where so fully and clearly revealed as in the judicial law of Moses. This therefore must be the surest prop and stay to the conscience of the Christian Magistrate."

George Gillespie