Protective-Not-Directive (1788)
Magistrate protects the church from violence and danger without preferring one denomination — the American 1788 revision aligning with disestablishment.
This is a contested or rejected alternative.
The Westminster baseline on Magistrate's Role is Custos-Utriusque-Tabulae (1646). Personas and schools listed below hold this alternative position instead — either because they argued for it at the Assembly (like the Erastians on polity) or because they represent a receiving tradition that departed from the Standards on this point.
Who holds this position
Cruxes on this attribute
The Assembly navigated 3 cruxes that bear directly on Magistrate's Role.
The Erastian Question
Does ecclesiastical jurisdiction belong to the church or to the civil magistrate?
The Magistrate and the Two Tables
Is the civil magistrate the keeper of both tables of the Decalogue?
The 1788 American Revision
How the American Presbyterians rewrote the magistrate chapters for a disestablished republic.
Other positions on Magistrate's Role
Custos-Utriusque-Tabulae (1646) WCF
Magistrate has duty toward both tables of the Decalogue — to suppress public heresy and blasphemy, to call synods (WCF XXIII.3, 1646 text) — the Solemn-League-and-Covenant settlement.
Mixed-Care-Without-Coercion
Affirms the magistrate's care for true religion but restricts instruments to non-coercive means.
Erastian-Magistrate-Over-Church
Magistrate holds ultimate ecclesiastical authority — Selden and Lightfoot's Assembly position rejected by XXX.1.