The answerer when he should speak to toleration in the state, runs to punishments in the church, which none can deny.
First, concerning that of the Lord Jesus rebuking his disciples for their rash and ignorant bloody zeal (Luke ix.), desiring corporal destruction upon the Samaritans for refusing the Lord Jesus, &c., the answerer affirmeth, that hindereth not the ministers of the gospel to proceed in a church way against scandalous offenders; which is not here questioned, but maintained to be the holy will of the Lord, and a sufficient censure and punishment, if no civil offence against the civil state be committed.
Secondly, saith he, “Much less doth this speak at all to the civil magistrate.”
Where I observe, that he implies that beside the censure of the Lord Jesus, in the hands of his spiritual governors, for any spiritual evil in life or doctrine, the civil magistrate is also to inflict corporal punishment upon the contrary-minded:[134] whereas,
If the civil magistrate be a Christian, he is bound to be like Christ in saving, not destroying men’s bodies.
First, if the civil magistrate be a Christian, a disciple, or follower of the meek Lamb of God, he is bound to be far from destroying the bodies of men for refusing to receive the Lord Jesus Christ: for otherwise he should not know, according to this speech of the Lord Jesus, what spirit he was of, yea, and to be ignorant of the sweet end of the coming of the Son of man, which was not to destroy the bodies of men, but to save both bodies and souls, vers. 55, 56.
The civil magistrate bound not to inflict, nor to suffer any other to inflict, violence, stripes, or any other corporal punishment, for evil against Christ.
Secondly, if the civil magistrate being a Christian, gifted, prophesy in the church, 1 Cor. xiv. 1—although the Lord Jesus Christ, whom they in their own persons hold forth, shall be refused—yet they are here forbidden to call for fire from heaven, that is, to procure or inflict any corporal judgment, upon such offenders, remembering the end of the Lord Jesus’ coming [was] not to destroy men’s lives, but to save them.
Lastly, this also concerns the conscience of the civil magistrate. As he is bound to preserve the civil peace and quiet of the place and people under him, he is bound to suffer no man to break the civil peace, by laying hands of violence upon any, though as vile as the Samaritans, for not receiving of the Lord Jesus Christ.