At thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore (Ps. 16: 11)
“A wise king sifts out the wicked, and brings the threshing wheel over them”
Proverbs 20:26
The civil magistrate is not supposed to be a neutral umpire. The “teams” that assemble under his oversight will not two baseball teams, or two football teams, with the magistrate needing to not care who prevails.
No. Because the magistrate wields power, and does so in a fallen world, there are two different kinds of people who are interested in how he wields that power. Those two kinds of people are the righteous and the wicked. It is the assigned task of the magistrate, and particularly of the chief magistrate, to take sides. Moreover it is his task to take the right side.
Because of the growth of libertarian assumptions, we have drifted into the idea that the magistrate is just supposed to call balls and strikes, not caring which team wins the game. So if the drag queens want story hour at the library, then they should be treated in exactly the same way as the ladies from the Wholesome Readings for Kids Hour. But this is absurd, and the only way we might wind up not thinking it absurd would be if we were in the grip of a really bad idea.
A good king attacks the wicked. If he refuses to do so, for whatever reason, then the effect this will have is that it will attract the wicked. His court, his circles, his advisors, will soon be populated by wicked men, and by no one else. If the magistrate is not attacking wicked men, then his circles will be safe for wicked men. And as soon as it is determined to be safe, they will start to congregate there.
So there is no neutrality. There can be no neutrality. If a magistrate is not at war with the wicked, then his only other option is to be at war with the saints.
