OK, so confessionally, (not theonomically-confessionally, as that assumes what must be proven) what was wrong with what Lane did that he was pleased to call Biblical Theology?
Lane argues that a magistrate's duty is to the illusive "law of nature" rather than Sinai. Our Confession teaches that the magistrate
as a magistrate:
has 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, and all the ordainances of God duly settled, administrated, and observed.
As you will note, this power includes the civil sanctions of the mosaic judicials for:
1. Not doing the law of thy God, and the law of the king: let judgment be executed speedily upon him, whether it be unto death, or to banishment, or to confiscation of goods, or to imprisonment.
2. Blasphemy: LEV 24:16 And he that blasphemeth the name of the Lord, he shall surely be put to death, and all the congregation shall certainly stone him: as well the stranger, as he that is born in the land, when he blasphemeth the name of the Lord, shall be put to death.
3. Seducing to idolary and a false god: DEU 13:5 And that prophet, or that dreamer of dreams, shall be put to death; because he hath spoken to turn you away from the Lord your God, which brought you out of the land of Egypt, and redeemed you out of the house of bondage, to thrust thee out of the way which the Lord thy God commanded thee to walk in. So shalt thou put the evil away from the midst of thee.
4. Refusing God's lawful worship: 2CH 15:13 That whosoever would not seek the Lord God of Israel should be put to death, whether small or great, whether man or woman.
He argues from "trajectory" from OT Nation to NT church, contrary to the above, as well as contrary to the binding of all civil bodies politic by the general equity of the judicials. Gillespie refuted such ideas of "trajectory" and typology in the following terms:
And the text itself is clear, for he put to death the priests of Samaria, who had sacrificed in the high places of idolatry (v. 20), but as for those who sacrificed in the high places of will-worship, because they sacrificed to the Lord only (as the word is [in] 2 Chron. 33:17), therefore Josiah did not put them to death, only he caused them to go out of all the cities of Judah, and to cease from the priest's office, so that they durst not come up to the altar of the Lord at Jerusalem, only they were permitted to eat of the unleavened bread amongst their brethren (v. 8-9), which is parallel to that law [in] Ezek. 44:10-14, a prophecy concerning the Christian Temple, and the times of the New Testament, which reaches a blow to another silly and short-sighted evasion, used both in the Bloody Tenet, and M.S. to A.S. that all this coercive power exercised in the Old Testament was typical, and therefore not imitable now in the New Testament.
Whereunto I further reply, 1. The reason of all that coercive severity was moral and perpetual, as was shown from Deut. 13:11. 2. Next, why did they not prove that it was typical? Shall we take their fancy for a certainty? They have neither Scripture nor interpreters for it. 3. They confound the judicial laws of Moses with the ceremonial, making judicatories and justice typical no less than the ceremonies. 4. They do utterly overthrow the investiture of Christian Princes and Magistrates with any power at all in matters of religion, from the Old Testament.
Note, this was a common opinion ("they have neither Scripture
nor interpreters"), so that Gillespie could easily dismiss this as Anabaptist rhetoric (regarding typicalness of the Mosaic judicials). In this regard, he cites Beza, Calvin, Junius and Piscator in favor of the contunity vs. discontinuity of the civil magistrate's coercive power taught in Moses.
The Israel = Jesus theme is overwrought. The Westminster Confession recognizes the multifaceted usage of Israel as a "church under age", and a "civil body politic" whose judicial laws, inspired by God, bind all civil bodies politic according to their marrow, or general equity. Or, in utilizing Leviticus 26 as showing the curses of God upon sin in this life.
Also, the conclusion that rebellious sons should not be executed by magistrates is clearly contrary to the judicial law's marrow, and to the teachings of our Lord Jesus Christ, who stated that the 5th Commandment entails both the personal and civil application, and called His opponents hypocrites and holders to man-made traditions, offering vain worship by rejecting the 5th Commandment (cf. Matthew 15:3 - 7 and Mark 7).
Those are a few instances, but I think this is far off of topic, so I will stop.
Cheers,
Adam