The civil ministry or service.
Secondly, a civil ministry, or office, merely human and civil, which men agree to constitute, called therefore a human creation, 1 Pet. ii. [13], and is as true and lawful in those nations, cities, kingdoms, &c., which never heard of the true God, nor his holy Son Jesus, as in any part of the world beside, where the name of Jesus is most taken up.
From all which premises, viz., that the scope of the Spirit of God in this chapter is to handle the matters of the second table—having handled the matters of the first, in the twelfth:—since the magistrates of whom Paul wrote, were natural, ungodly, persecuting, and yet lawful magistrates, and to be obeyed in all lawful civil things: since all magistrates are God’s ministers, essentially civil, bounded to a civil work, with civil weapons, or instruments, and paid or rewarded with civil rewards:—from all which, I say, I undeniably collect, that this scripture is generally mistaken, and wrested from the scope of God’s Spirit, and the nature of the place, and cannot truly be alleged by any for the power of the civil magistrate to be exercised in spiritual and soul-matters.
CHAP. LII.
What is to be understood by evil, Rom. xiii. 4.
Peace. Against this I know many object, out of the fourth verse of this chapter, that the magistrate is to avenge, or punish, evil: from whence is gathered that heresy, false Christs, false churches, false ministries, false seals, being evil, ought to be punished civilly, &c.
Truth. I answer, that the word κακὸν is generally opposed to civil goodness, or virtue, in a commonwealth, and not to spiritual good, or religion, in the church.
Secondly, I have proved from the scope of the place, that here is not intended evil against the spiritual, or Christian estate handled in the twelfth chapter, but evil against the civil state in this thirteenth, properly falling under the cognizance of the civil minister of God, the magistrate, and punishable by that civil sword of his as an incivility, disorder, or breach of that civil order, peace, and civility, unto which all the inhabitants of a city, town, or kingdom, oblige themselves.
Peace. I have heard, that the elders of the New England churches—who yet out of this thirteenth of Romans maintain persecution—grant[159] that the magistrate is to preserve the peace and welfare of the state, and therefore that he ought not to punish such sins as hurt not his peace. In particular, they say, the magistrate may not punish secret sins in the soul: nor such sins as are yet handling in the church, in a private way: nor such sins which are private in families—and therefore, they say, the magistrate transgresseth to prosecute complaints of children against their parents, servants against masters, wives against husbands, (and yet this proper to the civil state). Nor such sins as are between the members and churches themselves.
And they confess, that if the magistrate punish, and the church punish, there will be a greater rent in their peace.