In our own day Doctor Martin Luther has given similar advice in his Letter to the Saxon Princes Concerning the Rebellious Spirit, where he says: Since Paul writes that there must be sects in order that those who prove good may be made manifest, [I Cor. 11:19] one should confidently let the false spirits preach and let their spirit do battle with his. If their spirit be true, it will have nothing to fear from his. On the other hand, if his be true, it will be preserved in the face of theirs. If in the process some are led astray, so be it. That is what happens in war; whenever there is a battle, some are killed or wounded, but whoever fights honourably will be crowned [2 Tim. 2:5] And he says further: But where the spirits go beyond this and not only fight with the word but also use their fists, whether it be he or the others, the government should not tolerate this but straightway forbid it and say: We will gladly see and suffer it that you spirits do battle with the word, in order that the true doctrine prove itself. But you must not use your fists, for that is our office. Otherwise clear out of our land!
Since, then, there must be sects and divisions in the kingdom of Christ, and since from them, though evil in themselves, something good will nevertheless result, why then should a government presume to use the sword to drive from Christ’s kingdom something that scripture says must necessarily be in it? This would be nothing else than to contradict scripture and to want to make manifest in the spiritual realm the sword and its power rather than those who have proved good or the power of God’s word.
But our Lord God knows a way to make us grasp that the sword cannot do the job. For it is well known what sort of a game the devil has played with the Anabaptists for the last two or three years, namely that the more the government has used its sword against them, hanged or burned them, the more they have hastened to that very place and some have even surrendered themselves and said that even if the authorities wanted to imprison and execute them, they were prepared to suffer for their faith. In some places it has gotten so completely out of hand that the government, weary of executions, has had to desist.* It seems to me that this has made the sword dull in matters of faith and heresy and turned it into a fox’s tail, so that the devil is laughing up his sleeve about it. And if God permits the devil to make his followers so joyous in the face of the sword, should not God give all the more power to his elect and true believers to triumph under his Christ against sword and fire, as the histories testify and as we have experienced in our own day? Thus, whether one uses the sword to execute true or false believers, in neither case is anything achieved except that the more that people see their fellows executed for their persecuted faith the more they are strengthened in it.
Since all of this is in fact so, why should a government make itself guilty of violating Christ’s kingdom, which has not been entrusted to it, with injustice and tumult? And besides, will not all its hangings, care, and labour not only be in vain but also be sure to nourish and build up, all the more the longer they continue, the very thing they are intended to eradicate? Furthermore, if a Christian government forbids false faith, it thereby gives governments that adhere to false doctrine a pretext for combatting the true faith. For as soon as one admits that a government may impose penalties upon unbelievers, then every government will assume this right for itself—for none of them will admit to having a false faith—each one executing and banishing one after the other all those who are not of its faith.
And if one offers the excuse that the evangelical governments do not act so harshly but simply bar unbelievers from their lands, that is true; one penalty is more bearable than the other. But no matter how mild a penalty may be, it is nevertheless a penalty and it is thereby acknowledged that it is proper to penalize unbelief. And once the right to penalize is conceded, who will thereafter set limits to the harshness or mildness of the government’s penalties against unbelief? And a Christian government will make itself an accomplice in the sins of others, which they could in good conscience have avoided becoming involved in.
* It is not clear what specific incidents, if any, the author has in mind. But in general it can be said that the years 1527 through 1533 were the bloodiest (679 executions, 352 in 1528–29 alone) in the history of Anabaptism in the area of Switzerland, south and central Germany, and the Austrian lands.
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