What are some major differences between advocates of "Westminster General Equity" and "Strict General Equity"?

⮜ Answered Questions

We use the terms "Westminster General Equity" and "Strict General Equity" to describe an important distinction in how certain Christians choose to understand and follow God's law. This distinction can also usefully apply to those who do not label themselves as "theonomists", because most Christians claim to be (at least) influenced by God's law.

Westminster General Equity

The Westminster Confession of Faith makes a significant claim about how God's law continues to apply under the New Covenant:

IV. To [the people of Israel] also, as a body politick, he gave sundry judicial laws, which expired together with the state of that people, not obliging any other now, further than the general equity thereof may require. [emphasis added]

When we say "Westminster General Equity", we refer to the most common understanding of the above phrase "general equity" among the Westminster reformers. Examples include George Gillespie, Thomas Cartwright, William Perkins, John Stubbs, and Thomas Shepherd. This view is characterized by the following:

1. Asserting that a judge (or "magistrate") has the discretion/authority to change the "surely die" death penalties to some lesser penalty. They usually argue from certain of the narrative passages in scripture that these penalties are merely "maximum penalties," rather than mandatory. They will also sometimes assert that a magistrate has the arbitrary authority to pardon an offender.
2. Asserting that a legislature/king can set different penalties by law than what scripture asserts, including increasing the harshness of the penalties for property crimes (which, in Biblical law, never call for corporal punishment or the death penalty). They also assert that a legislature/king can turn sins (or even non-sinful acts) into crimes by adding a civil penalty which isn't specified in scripture.

Calvin held this view, for example:

Very ancient laws of other nations punished theft by exacting the double of what was stolen, while subsequent laws made a distinction between theft manifest and not manifest. Other laws went the length of punishing with exile, or with branding, while others made the punishment capital. ... All laws alike avenge murder with blood, but the kinds of death are different. In some countries, adultery was punished more severely, in others more leniently. Yet we see that amidst this diversity they all tend to the same end. For they all with one mouth declare against those crimes which are condemned by the eternal law of God—viz. murder, theft, adultery, and false witness; though they agree not as to the mode of punishment. This is not necessary, nor even expedient. There may be a country which, if murder were not visited with fearful punishments, would instantly become a prey to robbery and slaughter. There may be an age requiring that the severity of punishments should be increased. . . . One nation might be more prone to a particular vice, were it not most severely repressed. How malignant were it, and invidious of the public good, to be offended at this diversity, which is admirably adapted to retain the observance of the divine law. The allegation, that insult is offered to the law of God enacted by Moses, where it is abrogated, and other new laws are preferred to it, is most absurd. Others are not preferred when they are more approved, not absolutely, but from regard to time and place, and the condition of the people, or when those things are abrogated which were never enacted for us. The Lord did not deliver it by the hand of Moses to be promulgated in all countries, and to be everywhere enforced;"

Strict General Equity

On the other hand, advocates of "Strict General Equity" differ radically with the above two points. They are characterized by:

1. Asserting that judges are bound to the Biblically-established penalties for crimes, and do not have the discretion/authority to make them lesser or pardon a convicted criminal. They do not interpret the "surely die" (mot yumat) death penalties as merely "maximum" penalties, but as the only "just" penalty for the crime in question (cf. Heb. 2:2, Heb. 10:28). In Biblical law, there are, of course, certain allowances for "ransom" (e.g. for negligent manslaughter and other talion offenses), and Strict General Equity advocates would follow these laws precisely.
2. Asserting (based upon Deut. 4:2) that no legislature or king has the authority to change Biblical law: neither to lessen or increase penalties, nor to criminalize acts which are not already criminalized in scripture. This is sometimes labelled as the "Regulative Principle of Civil Government," but I would assert that this isn't merely a regulative principle, but a strong direct inference from scripture.

Greg Bahnsen is the most well-known proponent of "Strict General Equity":

A parent need not punish every disobedience of his or her child, and in interpersonal offenses love can cover a multitude of sins. But such discretion is explicitly prohibited to the magistrate in regard to the law's penal sanctions.2 They were not to swerve to the right or the left from the law (Deut. 17:18-20), and justice is perverted when the law is slackened (Hab. 1:4). God declared "Thine eye shall not pity" when criminals are to be executed (Deut. 19:13, 21), for that would make the magistrate guilty of being a respecter of persons (Prov. 24:23). "The evil man shall not be unpunished" (Prov. 11 :21). Mercy on the part of the civil magistrate in applying the penal sanctions of the law against criminals is strictly forbidden. "A man who had violated Moses' law died without compassion on the word of two or three witnesses" (Heb. 10:28) - the justice of which procedure is foundational to our conviction that God is just in condemning apostates for eternity (v. 29)! Those who wish to keep God's law, therefore, will definitely contend with the wicked (Prov. 28:4). Not even a trespass offering before the priest (Lev. 6:4-7; Num. 5:5-8) or clinging to God's merciful altar (Ex. 21:14) could relieve the criminal of his punishment - even as the sacrificial death of Christ upon the altar for our salvation does not relieve criminals today. Inflexibility regarding the law's penal sanctions is a virtue, not a drawback.

Role of civil government: "Nursing Father"

Advocates of Westminster General Equity tend to view the civil magistrate as having a "parental" ("fatherly") role, with a scope of authority analogous to a father as head of a family. They are often explicit about this analogy and use it as an element of their reasoning about the scope of civil government authority. Here is an example from Calvin, taken from his commentary on Isaiah:

Undoubtedly, while kings bestow careful attention on these things, they at the same time supply the pastors and ministers of the Word with all that is necessary for food and maintenance, provide for the poor and guard the Church against the disgrace of pauperism; erect schools, and appoint salaries for the teachers and board for the students; build poor-houses and hospitals, and make every other arrangement that belongs to the protection and defense of the Church.

Advocates of Westminster General Equity will often say things like: "We must obey civil government as long as they do not command anything scripture forbids, or forbid anything scripture commands." This type of lordship authority is certainly appropriate for a father as head of a household, within the limited scope of his family. It is a separate, debatable issue whether it applies to civil governments. Another example from the WCF:

And because the powers which God hath ordained, and the liberty which Christ hath purchased, are not intended by God to destroy, but mutually to uphold and preserve one another; they who, upon pretence of Christian liberty, shall oppose any lawful power, or the lawful exercise of it, whether it be civil or ecclesiastical, resist the ordinance of God.

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; and all the ordinances of God duly settled, administered, and observed.

Role of civil government: Servant of God for Justice

Advocates of Strict General Equity strongly disagree with the analogy between civil magistrates/kings and fathers of families. They assert that this type of lordship authority is specifically denied by scripture at the level of civil government. They would assert that we are not morally required to obey any civil government order or law which goes beyond the specific, limited mandate of civil government, which is to retributively punish evildoers. Strict General Equity advocates deny that civil government has any implicit authority to pre-emptively regulate or to intervene in the broad liberty which God granted to families and individuals in the Genesis 1:28 dominion mandate.