The American Presbyterians exerted no little influence over the formation of the early American Republic, especially in the Middle States of Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and New York. How did they think about the relationship between government and religion? This question is critical for confessional Presbyterians. It was, after all, the Presbyterians of the early republic who revised the Westminster Standards in 1788. A firm grasp of their political theology provides important context for rightly reading the changes they made to the Standards. We could examine the works of John Witherspoon, the famous Presbyterian minister, President of Princeton, member of the Continental Congress, and figurehead of the 1788 confessional revisions. However, it’s useful to consider other Presbyterians of the period as well. In this regard, an essay written by George Duffield II opens a window into early American Presbyterian political theology. Duffield’s essay, however, provides more than a historical viewpoint. It also reminds us of biblical, confessional principles relevant to us today.
George Duffield II
Duffield was born on October 7, 1732, in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. He graduated from the College of New Jersey (Princeton) in 1752 and then taught for two years as a tutor at the college. After serving as a pastor on the frontier of Pennsylvania and then a missionary, he took a call as pastor of Pine Street Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia from 1772 to 1790, critical years for the American Republic. John Adams attended Pine Street while serving on the Continental Congress. He referred to Duffield as a man of “Genius and Eloquence” (Diary, September 17, 1775), whose “Principles, Prayers and Sermons more nearly resemble those of our New England Clergy than any that I have heard” (John Adams to Abigail Adams, John 11, 1775).
In 1777, the Continental Congress appointed Duffield as their chaplain (along with the Episcopalian William White) in response to their first chaplain leaving Philadelphia with the British. They desired committed patriots to serve in this important role. Duffield fit the bill.
In June of 1776, Pennsylvania began to prepare for independence from Britain. This would require, among other things, a new constitution for the state. A provincial convention was called to lay the groundwork for the impending task. Amongst other preparations, the convention resolved to require all members to subscribe to the following profession of faith:
I do profess faith in God, the father, and in Jesus Christ, his eternal son, the true God, and in the Holy Spirit, one God blessed for evermore; and do acknowledge the holy scriptures of the old and new testament, to be given by divine inspiration. (Minutes, June 21, 1776)
Once the constitutional convention began in July, the minutes provided a report of the members duly reading, taking, and subscribing to this profession. However, something changed during the proceedings. The final state constitution did include a religious test for office, but it no longer required a profession of faith in the Trinity:
I do believe in one God, the creator and governor of the universe, the rewarder of the good and the punisher of the wicked. And I do acknowledge the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament to be given by Divine inspiration.
What caused the shift? A detailed study of the minutes may provide the answer. Without falling into speculation, it is worth noting that Benjamin Franklin had been elected president of the proceedings. He formally subscribed to the profession but undoubtedly without the convictions of other members. Perhaps he swayed the discussions?
Whatever the exact nature of the case, George Duffield saw a need to argue for religious tests for office in Pennsylvania. There was a “proposed alteration” that raised serious concerns. Consequently, he wrote an essay entitled, “Who Should Be Our Rulers?” From the tenor of Duffield’s piece, it seems likely that the originally proposed alteration was the removal of religious tests. Hence, the final religious test was probably a settled compromise. Interestingly, Duffield then reaffirmed the thesis of this essay eleven years later in 1787 while Witherspoon and company were revising the sections of the Westminster Standards regarding civil government. In his words, “the arguments here adduced have weight” and provide, on the whole, “the safest line of conduct.”
In the essay, Duffield intends to answer one primary question:
May a community of professing christians, of right require any profession of the christian faith of those appointed to bear rule among them, previous to their admission to office, or make a profession of christianity, a suspending term of their being admitted to any of the principal offices in the state?
Before answering this question, Duffield makes a number of important qualifications. First, all Christian sects are liable to mistakes. Therefore, they ought to “exercise mutual charity and forbearance towards each other.” In other words, Duffield eschews uncharitable conflict between Christian denominations. To quote Witherspoon, “mutual forbearance” is required for “matters of inference or rather matters of comparatively small moment” (Works, 4.54). Duffield would have agreed that we ought to avoid the “sin of rash judging” in such cases. Second, Duffield notes how no person may experience any “pains or penalties for his religious sentiments,” provided they “in no way [tend] to the hurt of the commonwealth.” With these qualifications in mind, Duffield then marshals arguments for religious tests for office by way of seven considerations before responding to objections.
His first six considerations are short and straightforward. He notes how civil service is not a natural right. No man is born with a claim to any office of trust. It is, therefore, no transgression of anyone’s rights to require a religious test for office. Moreover, every community has the right to choose who it may employ as its rulers. Consequently, they have a right to make regulations regarding who may or may not meet their desired qualifications. Indeed, establishing such regulated tests is nothing more than “a proper mark of respect paid to themselves, as a body, and to the christian religion they profess.” Neglect of such a test will inevitably sink the religion of the people “lower in the public esteem,” placing it “on a par with Infidelity.” As a result, the surest bulwark of good morals will lose its influence. As religion goes, so goes the virtue of the people—and the health and prosperity of the state are sure to follow.
Duffield drives home this point in his seventh consideration. “The experience of all ages has confirmed the observation,” argues Duffield, “that the principles and practice of superiors, and especially of rulers, have great influence on those of inferior rank.” He goes on,
To admit therefore, an Infidel to authority and rule in the State, as it gives weight and influence to his sentiment and example, so it has in the same proportion a direct tendency, to promote infidelity and sap the foundation of good morals in the state, and thereby do it a material and essential injury; nor can the effect be doubted, when we consider how naturally prone mankind are to be, much more easily and powerfully influenced by evil sentiments and examples than good ones.
For this final point, Duffield is not content to rely upon reason and history. He deploys a biblical case as well. He recognizes that the Deists “sneer at an appeal to the Holy Scriptures.” Nevertheless, he says, “I believe them to be from God, and designed to make us wise for our own true good here, as well as eternal happiness hereafter.” Duffield sees the Scriptures as providing the way of escape from this present evil age into the eternal world of heaven—and as the Holy Book that provides us with political wisdom for today. Indeed, he declares that it is the “will and command of the Eternal God” that “a State composed of professing christians, should place over them, rulers and officers professing christianity.”
As religion goes, so goes the virtue of the people—and the health and prosperity of the state are sure to follow.
Duffield deploys passages primarily from the Old Testament. However, he provides a clarifying model for how to use the Old Testament witness within a modern context. Duffield notes:
Although in the directions given to the Jews, there were some things of a particular nature and particularly designed for that people, exclusive of all other nations under heaven in every age, yet, whatever general directions were given to them, founded in and consonant to the reason of things, these were as much designed for us as for them, and are equally obligatory on us.
Duffield distinguishes between “things of a particular nature and particularly designed for that people” and “general directions” that are “founded in and consonant to the reason of things.” The former particulars passed away with the nation-state of Israel. However, the “general directions” grounded in “reason” are “equally obligatory on us.” Duffield, then, is not calling for Pennsylvania to establish the commonwealth according to the judicial laws of Moses. Rather, he is declaring the obligation of all Christian people to obey the “general equity” of the Old Testament law in their civil polity (WCF 19.4). With this principle established, Duffield then exposits a number of classic passages from the Reformed tradition on civil government.
First, Duffield lists the qualifications God gives for magistrates from Deuteronomy 17:18–20:
And when he sits on the throne of his kingdom, he shall write for himself in a book a copy of this law, approved by the Levitical priests. And it shall be with him, and he shall read in it all the days of his life, that he may learn to fear the Lord his God by keeping all the words of this law and these statutes, and doing them, that his heart may not be lifted up above his brothers, and that he may not turn aside from the commandment, either to the right hand or to the left, so that he may continue long in his kingdom, he and his children, in Israel.
Duffield then says,
Let any one read the passage and then say whether an Infidel Magistrate can by any means be supposed to answer the character; or whether its most plain and natural meaning, if it has any respect or meaning to us at all, is not that as professing christians we ought to choose officers professing christianity.
Indeed, the magistrate must be of the biblical religion, study the word of God, learn the fear of the Lord, and set an example for the people. How could a magistrate fulfill these tasks unless he professes the Christian faith?
Duffield next cites 2 Samuel 23:3–4, the classic definition of a good ruler: “When one rules justly over men, ruling in the fear of God, he dawns on them like the morning light.” Then he cites Psalm 101, taken historically as David’s oath when he ascended the throne. It’s the core text used by the Reformed tradition to argue for the qualifications of the “Christian prince” who rules as a terror to evildoers and a friend to the righteous, establishing godly order within the realm. Last in his string of loci classici from the Old Testament, he cites Isaiah 49:23, which reads in the King James as “kings shall be thy nursing fathers.” At least since Calvin, the role of the magistrate as a “nursing father” denoted his duty to “protect the church” (WCF 23.3 [1788]). Duffield’s point is clear: non-Christian magistrates are unlikely to fully discharge the duty prescribed to them by the Scripture.
Duffield asserted that no religiously neutral morality exists.
Before concluding his case, Duffield exposits one New Testament passage, namely, l Corinthians 6:1–7. In this text, Paul forbids Christians from taking legal cases before civil rulers. Duffield takes this passage not as “forbidding Christians to go to law at all” nor merely “condemning of a litigious disposition” but rather “going to law before infidel magistrates and judges, and not before Christians.” To Duffield’s mind, then, a lack of religious test for office would jeopardize the ability of Christians to utilize the legal system.
To conclude his positive case, Duffield reaffirms his desires for “the rights of conscience fully and equally secured to all of every denomination.” Nevertheless, unless he is “greatly mistaken,” then “both reason and revelation” teach that
if it is not an absolutely incumbent duty, it is at least highly becoming, and right, and fit that a community of professing Christians should admit none but such as profess Christianity to principal places of trust, as Rulers in the State.
Duffield then turns to offer responses to six counter arguments to his case.
First, he notes the objection of some that “Church and State ought to be kept entirely Separate” so that “no connection [be] admitted between things civil and religious” since “they have no connection in nature” and “many mischiefs have flowed from blending them together.” Duffield has little patience for this line of reasoning. “If this be so,” responds Duffield, “then great care must be taken to establish nothing of morality, for this is one grand essential constituent of religion, which consists in loving God supremely and our neighbors as ourselves.” In other words, Duffield asserted that no religiously neutral morality exists. If the state must remain separate from religion, then it must remain separate from ethics as well. Most concerningly, Duffield notes how such a separatist conception of church and state would entail “no Sabbath established in any State.” Duffield then makes a remarkable observation:
As the observation of a Sabbath is a part of revealed religion, and depends entirely on the divine authority of that revelation which enjoins it, we cannot establish the observation of a Sabbath without previously admitting, and equally establishing the divine authority of that revelation on which the Sabbath depends. We must, therefore, inevitably either admit and establish in our civil constitution the divine authority of the Scriptures, or we must utterly reject the Sabbath from amongst us, save as any one may choose of his own accord to observe the day. There is no alternative in the case.
One must recall the central place of Sabbath laws in early American life. To this day, Blue Laws still remain in many American localities, a ruin and shadow of a once towering social institution. It made great sense, then, for Duffield to argue from a premise his audience would have certainly taken as unmovably certain: America needed Sabbath laws. Notice, moreover, Duffield’s conclusion: to maintain our Sabbath laws, we must “admit and establish in our civil constitution the divine authority of the Scriptures.” Duffield’s advocacy for including the authority of the Scriptures in the civil constitution was not unique to him or unique to his time. Duffield had his state’s constitution in mind, but nearly 100 years later, A. A. Hodge argued for a similar inclusion in the Federal Constitution (“Address Concerning a Religious Amendment to the US Constitution,” 1974). In the words of Presbyterian Ruling Elder and SCOTUS Justice William Strong, “in constituting and administering its government” a nation is “under obligations” to acknowledge “the Bible as the fountain of its laws and the supreme rule of its conduct” (“A Call for a National Convention,” 1872). Hence, both Hodge and Strong would have agreed with Duffield’s concluding response:
The truth of the case is, it is impossible to run a line of distinction between things civil and religious, so as to separate the one from the other, in any civilized State. They are in many respects what God and nature have joined together, and man may not put asunder.
So much for Mr. Jefferson’s Wall.
The next string of objections Duffield handles in short order:
2. Do religious tests for office deprive non-Christians from a natural right? No, says Duffield. No one has a natural right to rule.
3. Do religious tests for office deprive the community from utilizing the gifts of capable non-Christians? Perhaps, Duffield admits, but certainly enough capable Christians live within Pennsylvania so as to fill its highest offices.
4. Do religious tests for office deprive the people of the freedom to elect non-Christians if they so desire? Yes, Duffield concedes, but it is a freedom freely turned over by the people for the sake of their own wellbeing.
5. If a majority of Christians hold the highest offices, would it not be prudent to allow a few non-Christians to hold an office or two? No, says Duffield: “one sinner destroyeth much good.”
6. Do religious tests for office encourage hypocrisy among the ruling class? It will encourage no more hypocrisy than any oath encourages. If religious tests ought to be abandoned for this reason, then so must the oath of allegiance to the United States.
Duffield ends his essay with one final plea. “Old customs and institutions,” he says, “are like old friends.” We ought not cast them off without “weighty reasons urging thereto.” Indeed, “we have tried now for near a century an institution, the same in substance with that above pleaded for, formed by the celebrated founder of this State.” Altering this arrangement would lead to a foolhardy “experiment.” Duffield sealed his essay with a prophetic warning from Hosea 8:3–4:
Israel has spurned the good; the enemy shall pursue him. They made kings, but not through me. They set up princes, but I knew it not.
The foreboding possibilities that so startled Duffield eventually broke over the horizon. Religious tests for office were eventually abandoned. Now, two hundred and fifty years later, no American state may honestly refer to itself as “a community of professing Christians.” If Duffield’s arguments hold water, then the cause of American apostasy lies in large part at the feet of our rulers. Non-Christian magistrates have given “weight and influence” to infidelity, sapping “the foundation of good morals in the state.” Indeed, if “one sinner destroyeth much good,” then a ruling class of sinners establisheth much evil. The present state of America sadly vindicates Duffield’s concerns.
Duffield’s advocacy for including the authority of the Scriptures in the civil constitution was not unique to him or unique to his time.
Of what use, then, is the study of Duffield’s essay? It was written for circumstances much different than our own. Of course, we may learn much of value for the history of American Presbyterian political theology. Duffield believed the “general directions” of the Old Testament regarding civil matters still bind nations today. He believed civil rulers must rule in the fear of God, walk in the perfect way, and act as “nursing fathers” to the church. He believed in Sabbath laws and the establishment of the authority of the Bible in the Pennsylvania constitution. And, for all of these reasons, he believed that it was impossible to separate religion from civil order. “What God and nature have joined together” may man “not put asunder.” Nevertheless, he also believed in “mutual forbearance” and “the rights of conscience fully and equally secured to all of every denomination.” All of this enlightens our perspective on Presbyterianism in the Middle States during the founding of America.
For confessional Presbyterians, however, Duffield’s essay provides more than historical value. It reminds us of biblical and confessional principles, which hold true in every age. The magistrate is the “nursing father” of the church (WCF 23.3). He must “maintain piety” among the people and “rule in the fear of the Lord” (WCF 23.2 and the prooftexts). The Scriptures bind all men, including magistrates, and they must “endeavor” that sins “be avoided” and duties “performed” by their fellow Americans (WLC 99). Moreover, magistrates must “see to it” that the Sabbath “be observed by all those that are under their charge” (WLC 118). Nevertheless, “no law of any commonwealth should interfere with, let, or hinder, the due exercise thereof, among the voluntary members of any denomination of Christians” (WCF 23.3). Duffield’s essay, then, is more than a historical curiosity. It is deeply confessional.
As American Presbyterians in 2026, we face a difficult task. We must not merely affirm the principles of our Confession. We must also apply them. How ought we do so in our modern republic with all of its diversities? A few implications are clear: We ought to oppose candidates who despise God’s law and God’s church. Moreover, whenever possible, we ought to support competent Christians seeking civil office who love the church and will bring God’s law to bear upon civil matters. Of course, good candidates will not appear out of thin air. Hence, as a practical matter, we might consider how to better organize, coordinate, communicate, donate, and invest in the next generation. Most of all, however, we must pray “for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way” (1 Tim. 2:2). After all, “unless the Lord watches over the city, the watchman stays awake in vain” (Ps. 127:2).