Chapter 1: The Names of Christ’s Kingdom
To understand more certainly and fully what the kingdom of CHRIST is among his people who live in this age, and what true participation in his kingdom and its administration are, let us first consider the names by which it is called in Holy Scripture, and then the distinctive characteristics attributed to it. We must undertake this with a faith that leaves us in no doubt that the Lord and the Holy Spirit, in naming this kingdom, as in naming other things, have used the most appropriate, clear, and expressive names. We must also believe that they have explained the power, character, and distinctive marks of this kingdom so clearly and abundantly that all we need is sincere and sound faith to grasp and firmly hold the meaning of these names and the characteristics Scripture attributes to this kingdom.
We read that this kingdom is called the kingdom of God, the kingdom of CHRIST, God’s beloved Son, and the kingdom of heaven. Now we know that a kingdom, when truly and properly so called, means the government of a people or a city in which one person, who surpasses the others in wisdom and every virtue, governs and provides whatever benefits its citizens. He does this so that they lack absolutely nothing by which each may, from childhood, be formed and brought to every virtue, a blessed way of life, and lasting happiness.
Since this is the nature and power of any kingdom that can truly be called a kingdom, whenever we read that the kingdom we are discussing is called the kingdom of God, let us consider that all the benefits proper to every kingdom exist and are provided in this kingdom far more fully and perfectly than they could ever exist or be provided in any human kingdom. This is so because God surpasses all human beings both in the wisdom to govern well and in goodwill toward the entire human race. Indeed, since God alone is good, alone wise, and alone powerful, only in his kingdom can the benefits that royal government ought to provide be received in full.
Let our minds consider these same things when we read in Holy Scripture that this kingdom belongs to our Lord JESUS CHRIST, the beloved Son of God, for he is by nature one with the Father. But let us also reverently consider and weigh how the Lord, having become human, entered upon this kingdom of his and began to administer it in this age, and how he foretold that he would continue to administer it until the end of the world.
For when he came into this world, sent by the Father into his kingdom, he emptied himself. Taking the form of a servant, he presented himself as an ordinary man, furnished with none of the world’s resources or attendants (Phil 2). He did not even have a place to lay his head (Matt 8), and when he was dragged away to punishment, all his followers deserted him. He displayed none of this age’s wisdom or eloquence. Those then considered the wisest and holiest among God’s people judged him insane and unworthy of being heard by any sensible person (John 10). So little favor did he enjoy among the powerful in his people, namely the chief priests, scribes, elders of the people, and Pharisees, that no insults or injuries could satisfy their hatred of him until they had secured his crucifixion.
Likewise, this King of ours chose as his ministers men utterly despised in the world’s judgment: uneducated, weak, and inexperienced men. They too, because of him, were counted among the lowest of humanity; indeed, they were considered unworthy of being tolerated among human beings. For, like men condemned to death, they were often grievously afflicted by hunger, thirst, and exposure to the weather. They were struck with fists, assailed with abuse and blasphemies, denied shelter, and altogether regarded as scapegoats for the world and the refuse of all people (Rom 8; 1 Cor 4).
Although the world, and most savagely of all his own Jewish nation, repaid with such cruelty and brutality the supreme benefits that our King daily heaped upon them, both personally and through his ministers, he nevertheless subjected himself to everyone and served their salvation even to the point of death. By doing good to everyone in word and deed, and through the greatest miracles, he sought to overcome their fury and savagery. He fled from the kingship offered him by the people (John 6). He never assumed any worldly power for himself, to such an extent that he gratefully accepted the utterly unjust sentence of death from Pilate, who exercised public authority, acknowledging that Pilate received this authority over him from heaven (John 19).
Yet amid such profound humility and self-abasement, amid this extreme poverty in the world’s eyes, contempt, hatred, and persecution of the utmost cruelty, our Lord and Savior nevertheless truly reigned. He exercised dominion with marvelous power over not only everyone’s possessions and bodies but also their minds. Those whom the Father had given him as true citizens of his kingdom he moved by his word and Spirit to follow him immediately and most eagerly, leaving parents, wives, children, and all their possessions (Matt 4). They followed him into every kind of poverty and disgrace in this age, and into death itself, but also into every kind of holiness, godliness, and righteousness.
His enemies, burning with eagerness to kill him, he restrained with a gesture, drove from the temple with a whip, and threw to the ground with a word. Demons, the sea, the winds, and all created things obeyed his command whenever he wished. What more? He had received from the Father all authority in heaven and on earth (Matt 28). Yet he exercised and administered that authority through word and Spirit alone, entirely without the world’s supports, instruments, or weapons. In the same way he opened his kingdom to the world and restored it through his apostles and ministers. He has never reigned among human beings in any other way, nor will he do so, at least in this age.
All these things, therefore, we must learn, consider, and weigh with the greatest reverence whenever we read, hear, or recall anything about the kingdom of our Lord JESUS CHRIST, the kingdom of the crucified one.
The third name of this kingdom, by which it is called the kingdom of heaven, teaches us almost the same things. First, when it is called the kingdom of heaven, it is clearly expressed that it is not of this world, although it is within us who still live in the present world. For it is from heaven, where we have and call upon our Father, the true God and our Creator; where our King JESUS CHRIST sits at the Father’s right hand and restores all things in heaven and on earth (Eph 1). Through the gospel and the Holy Spirit we are called together into this kingdom and guided toward eternal life.
Therefore our citizenship must also be in heaven (Phil 2), just as God has chosen us out of this world (John 15) and, together with his Son, has made us alive, raised us up, and placed us in heavenly realms (Eph 2). That is, through faith in himself and his Son, he has made us participants in heavenly and blessed life, certain of the resurrection we long for and of our transfer to heaven, where we may enjoy this life of God in full.
Now, so that we may perceive more clearly and firmly the nature and power of the kingdom of CHRIST, and what is necessary for its restoration among us, let us compare what this kingdom and the kingdoms of the world have in common, and what is distinctive to each.
Chapter 2: Christ’s Kingdom and Earthly Kingdoms
1. The kingdoms of the world and Christ’s kingdom agree in this: supreme governing authority rests with one ruler. The difference is that worldly kings cannot be present everywhere with their people, nor can they alone see to and provide everything that concerns the welfare of the commonwealth. They must therefore appoint governors, deputies, and viceroys in various places, according to the extent of their kingdoms. They must also keep beside them men of outstanding prudence and wisdom, whose counsel they can use in their royal administration. Our heavenly king, Jesus Christ, however, is with us everywhere and every day, according to his promise, until the end of the age (Matt 28). He himself sees, establishes, and accomplishes everything that concerns the salvation of his people.
He therefore needs no deputies, no one to take his place or act in his stead. He does indeed use ministers and designated ranks of ministry in administering his people’s salvation. But all their work and labor would be fruitless unless he himself gave growth to their planting and watering (1 Cor 3), and made them ministers of the new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit (2 Cor 5). They cannot even conceive of contributing anything of themselves to the administration of this kingdom. Worldly kings, by contrast, need ministers who commonly use their own diligence and prudence to assist their kings’ commands, and carry them out more skillfully than the kings’ instructions themselves provide.
2. Next, the administration of worldly kingdoms and of Christ’s kingdom has this in common: worldly kings too must arrange and direct everything toward making their citizens godly and just, so that they rightly acknowledge and worship their God, and truly benefit their neighbors in all their actions. For this reason worldly kings too must be ready to face any dangers, exile, and death itself. They have received all their authority from God, supremely good and great, over his people and the sheep of his pasture, and indeed for the building up of their faith and salvation, not for their destruction (2 Cor 10, 13). To administer their authority in this way, they must labor with all their heart, all their soul, and all their strength, sparing no expenditure or effort for this very purpose.
Yet even if worldly kings direct all their care toward this end, leaving out nothing that concerns it, they cannot themselves cleanse human minds of their inborn ungodliness and injustice, and therefore cannot imbue them with true godliness and justice. They can cut useless trees, thorns, and brambles out of the Lord’s field, out of the people entrusted to them, by suppressing the ungodliness and injustice of wicked men. With good laws they can plow and cultivate the field, that is, the part of the people that can be healed, and in some measure prepare it to receive God’s seed. They must work at this with the greatest diligence, for they are God’s ministers, appointed for this very purpose. But this field cannot be expected to bear the fruit of godliness and justice until our king Christ breathes his gift of growth upon the seed of the gospel sown in it. He alone gives his citizens new birth and brings those dead in sins to the life of righteousness (1 Cor 3; John 3, 5). To receive this authority from the Father, he underwent a most bitter death for his citizens, even while they were still his enemies and adversaries.
3. The administration of worldly kingdoms, like that of Christ’s kingdom, must tolerate the wicked among the good while their wickedness remains hidden. But when they openly display their ungodliness and injustice, and refuse to abandon it after correction, both must remove them from the commonwealth. For the Lord commanded his people with great severity to drive criminal and wicked men out of their midst, burn them with fire, and thus cleanse themselves as thoroughly as possible (Deut 13, 17, 19, 21, 22, 24).
Here, however, the administration of worldly kingdoms differs from that of Christ’s kingdom. To reform vicious citizens and expel those beyond remedy from the commonwealth, worldly kings use fines, beatings, imprisonment, exile, and various forms of capital punishment, according to God’s command. For they do not bear the sword in vain (Rom 13). In the kingdom of heaven and of Christ, however, those who have turned away from the path of salvation are brought back by the word and the Spirit alone, with obligations to perform penance imposed upon them, provided they can be healed. As for the unyielding and those obstinate in their crimes, it is enough for Christ’s people to regard them as Gentiles and tax collectors (Matt 16, 18; 1 Cor 5; 2 Cor 2, 12; 2 Thess 3).
Nevertheless, to strike his people with fear of sinning, our king Christ also frequently chastises those who sin more gravely in his churches, sometimes sending diseases and various calamities upon them. Those obstinate in their crimes he often suddenly removes from their midst by dreadful kinds of death, and casts into hell. To exercise this severity he sometimes uses the ministry of evil spirits, as he did in chastising and testing his Job and in punishing the Egyptians. Sometimes he also uses his holy people. Thus, through Peter’s rebuke he suddenly killed Ananias and Sapphira; he struck blind the magician who opposed Paul; and he handed Alexander and Hymenaeus, who blasphemed his gospel, over to Satan to be tormented (Acts 6, 13; 1 Tim 1).
Not a few of the saints in the early church possessed this gift and this capacity of the Holy Spirit, which Paul called “power” in writing to the Corinthians. Even today the prayers of the saints against the wicked enemies of Christ’s kingdom are not without effect. Nor was the prophet Elisha’s curse upon the boys who mocked him ineffective, for bears soon tore them apart (2 Kgs 2).
4. The kingdoms of the world and Christ’s kingdom agree in this: just as worldly kings customarily do, so our heavenly king Christ wills that his citizens be received and sealed into his kingdom through definite outward covenants and sacred pledges, that they be gathered into their own assemblies, hold their own meetings, and be governed through their own ministries. Our king, however, also cleanses his citizens from sins through his sacraments, according to the hidden counsel of his eternal election, and grants them the newness of heavenly life. Worldly kings can do none of these things.
For this reason our heavenly king also wills that his people be arranged, as it were, into definite tribes and hold their own holy assemblies. There they are to hear his word, pour out prayers to him, and give thanks for the benefits they have received, both in words and in sacred offerings for Christ’s needy people. Finally, through the sacraments of blessed fellowship with him, they are to establish firmly the covenant of eternal salvation both with God and with one another, be more deeply grafted into him, their head, and grow into him in all things (Rom 6; 1 Cor 12; Gal 3; Eph 5; Titus 3; John 6; Eph 4).
For this purpose he appoints and establishes ministers and pastors for his people, to set his laws before them outwardly as well, dispense the sacraments, and care for all of them together and each of them individually. Through these ministries, faith, together with every endeavor toward heavenly life, is to be preserved in his elect, and to increase and reach maturity day by day.
5. Our heavenly king also condescends to provide his people abundantly with the necessities of life, and to ensure that no one among them lacks these things at all. For he knows what they need (Acts 6; Matt 6). First, as is also the duty of worldly kings, he directs each of his citizens from childhood to learn thoroughly and practice those trades and occupations for which he himself has fashioned and fitted each one. He distributes these in such a way that only in his kingdom is that goal of civil government, “sufficiency,” attained.
For those in whom he truly reigns seek nothing for themselves, but only what benefits others. They therefore take care that each person among them applies himself to his own duty with complete quietness and diligence, and maintains his own place in Christ’s body, disturbing nothing through meddling and neglecting nothing through sloth and idleness. They exclude from their fellowship those who abandon their duty and persist in living idly (1 Cor 13; 1 Thess 2; 2 Thess 3; 1 Cor 12; Eph 4).
Since, as God’s children, they are led in all things by God’s Spirit, they can readily accomplish what they undertake. For this Spirit distributes his gifts to each person, so that everyone may contribute something to the common good. Next, because true brotherly love flourishes among them, those who have been granted an abundance of temporal goods give generously to those burdened by a lack of these things. Finally, no one comes into the Lord’s presence in the solemn assemblies empty-handed, but each gratefully offers something to the Lord in return for his gifts. These offerings are distributed among those in need by the church’s regularly appointed and faithful deacons, according to the Holy Spirit’s ordinance. Thus no needy person is found among Christ’s true citizens, but each receives as much as is sufficient for that person to live a godly and blessed life (1 Cor 12; Exod 23; Deut 16; Acts 2, 4).
It is indeed also the duty of worldly kings to provide for all these things in the commonwealth. But they use force and command to secure these outward arrangements. Even so, they cannot ensure that no one among their people is in need, and that each is provided with enough to live well and happily. For they cannot give those who abound in the resources of this life a ready willingness to give, nor give the needy hearts content with the kindness that supplies their necessities. Our king, however, the giver of true love and patience, makes his people’s hearts most willing and steadfast, through his word and Spirit, both for this beneficial sharing of possessions and for the patient endurance of limited means.
To establish this sharing of possessions among his people more firmly and make it more fruitful, he also brings it about through his word and Spirit that each of his people both devoutly enters and steadfastly pursues the way of life to which he is called by him. In his kingdom, where it truly prevails, no one is joined in marriage rashly or from fleshly lust. Rather, marriage follows careful consideration of the counsel and authority of parents and other guardians, whether belonging to the household or appointed by the commonwealth.
These guardians look above all to obtaining wives for their sons who agree with them in religion, who submit to their husbands wholeheartedly, and who respect and honor them as the church respects and honors Christ (Eph 5). They are to be truly faithful helpers to their husbands in living a godly and blessed life. Likewise, these guardians take care to join their daughters to husbands who truly love them and help them toward all holiness and godliness. Such husbands are to prove themselves truly beneficial guides, caretakers, and protectors of their wives, as Christ the Lord proves himself toward his body, the church.
When our king gives children to spouses thus joined together in the Lord, he breathes his Spirit into them, so that they instruct and form their children with the greatest care toward all godliness, holiness, and righteousness. After consecrating their children to the Lord in baptism, they recognize themselves as their children’s tutors rather than their parents. For they know that those whom they themselves begot through the flesh unto death, Christ has begotten anew through baptism unto eternal life.
They therefore take care that their children are taught by themselves, by schoolteachers, who likewise give first place to teaching godliness in Christ’s kingdom, and by the church’s catechists. The children are to learn to recognize and hate the power of sin inherent in them, and to ask God the Father, through Christ alone, their king and high priest, for the forgiveness of sins and the Spirit of righteousness. They are to do this with living repentance and faith, which are always accompanied by an endeavor to put the flesh to death and advance in newness of life.
This is that “training and admonition” of God which the Holy Spirit so earnestly commends to parents in the letter to the Ephesians (Eph 6). Through this training, what the Lord commanded concerning the baptized is fulfilled: “And teach them to observe whatever I have commanded you” (Matt 28).
Unless children’s minds are formed and accustomed to obey Christ in this way from the very first time they can understand anything, thorns and brambles of vice grow up in them from the root of their corrupted origin. These either turn away and repel the seed of God’s word so that their hearts do not receive it, or choke and extinguish it once received. Laws subsequently applied to their reform then accomplish no more than remedies usually accomplish in a body in which diseases have grown so strong that it now rejects every medicine, or even turns it into something harmful to itself.
Furthermore, just as our king places each of his people, as a member of his body, in the most fitting place, so he also grants each one the ability to embrace that place gratefully and maintain it with all faithfulness and diligence, wherever he has been placed. This applies whether the place is, in the world’s judgment, lowly, obscure, and afflicted, or elevated, distinguished, and splendid.
When his citizens have been distributed in this way and are applying themselves to their occupations and duties, our king so cherishes them and adds his own beneficence that all of them together and each individually embrace one another with the greatest love, like members of a body, and care most attentively for one another. They truly have one heart and one soul, and all things in common among themselves (Acts 4).
Yet this sharing disturbs none of the orders of human society established by God, and changes no condition of life assigned by him. Nevertheless, it ensures that each receives his due honor and is allotted the benefits that belong to him, whatever contributes to living a godly and blessed life. As I said above, worldly kings too must establish all these things among their people and labor toward them. But their actual and lasting realization belongs distinctively to Christ’s kingdom when it fully prevails.
6. The kingdoms of the world and Christ’s kingdom have this in common: both must continually struggle against other beings, both human beings and spirits.
Their distinctive features are these: worldly kingdoms use bodily weapons as well against wicked men. Christ’s kingdom, however, fights with spiritual weapons alone against enemies both bodily and spiritual, namely, those weapons described in 2 Corinthians 10 and Ephesians 6.
7. The kingdoms of the world and Christ’s kingdom agree in this: just as worldly kingdoms are subject to Christ’s kingdom, so Christ’s kingdom is also, in its own way, subject to worldly kingdoms. Our king Christ, now administering his kingdom at the Father’s right hand, is subject to no one; rather, everything in heaven and on earth must be subject to him. Yet when he lived in this world, he himself was subject to the authorities to whom he himself had entrusted the sword, even unto death, and indeed a most unjust death.
In the same way, he wills that his people wholeheartedly obey not only true worldly kings and just princes, but even the most unjust masters and the foulest tyrants, provided public authority has been entrusted to them (1 Pet 2). They are patiently to render not only lawful tribute and taxes, but whatever these rulers demand and impose, submit themselves to their unjust judgments, and diligently perform all the duties of the commonwealth according to their share.
This is what the Holy Spirit commanded in Romans 13: “Let every soul be subject to the higher authorities”. By saying “every soul,” he teaches, as Chrysostom rightly concludes, that this command was given not only to those whom people call secular, but also to priests and monks. Indeed, it applies even if someone is an apostle, an evangelist, a prophet, or anyone else whatsoever. For, as the same Chrysostom devoutly says, “Subjection does not overthrow godliness.”
Furthermore, just as Christ’s kingdom subjects itself to the kingdoms and authorities of the world, so, conversely, every true worldly kingdom, I mean a kingdom, not a tyranny, subjects itself to Christ’s kingdom. The kings themselves do so above all, endeavoring not only to practice godliness themselves, but also to lead their subjects to it.
Thus they are all incorporated into Christ’s kingdom through holy baptism and pledge themselves to obey him. They frequently attend the sacred assemblies, both to receive Christ’s teaching more fully there and to conform themselves more firmly to his discipline. If they lose command of themselves and sin, they by no means refuse the obligations of penance.
That most religious emperor Theodosius furnished an outstanding example of this in the church at Milan. When he wished to enter the church as usual, Ambrose met him before the entrance and barred him from it, rebuking him severely because he dared to try to enter the sacred assembly without yet having done penance for the cruel massacre in which he had indiscriminately raged against the Thessalonians because they had stoned and insulted his magistrates. For, after assembling the people for a spectacle, he had sent in soldiers who killed seven thousand of them. Theodosius not only bore Ambrose’s rebuke calmly, but made it an occasion for salutary repentance.
He not only gratefully accepted this rebuke, but also patiently submitted to the obligation to perform penance imposed by the same Ambrose, being excluded from sacred observances for eight months. He was released from that obligation only when he had demonstrated his repentance by its true fruits and had begged for pardon humbly and in tears.
Likewise, Valentinian I, although considered more knowledgeable in military affairs than in religion, spoke most devoutly when the church at Milan was without a pastor. He summoned bishops to choose a bishop for that church and said:
“You cannot possibly be unaware, nourished as you are in the divine Scriptures, of what sort of man he should be to whom episcopal dignity is to be entrusted. He must instruct those under him not only by his teaching but also by his conduct and life, and offer himself as an example of every virtue in such a way that his very administration bears witness to his teaching. Therefore, at this time also, place upon the episcopal throne a man to whom we too, the governors of the empire, may sincerely bow our heads, and whose rebukes we may gladly receive as medicinal care, since we are human and inevitably commit faults.”
Such were his words.
For true kings, who are all Christians, know that they hear Christ when they hear his true ministers, and reject Christ when they despise those ministers (Luke 10). For the Lord sends his ministers just as the Father sent him (John 20). Thus godly worldly kings sometimes appoint and restore the Lord’s priests by their own authority, especially when the priesthood has been corrupted and the churches have become depraved. We read that David, Solomon, Hezekiah, Josiah, and also many godly emperors and kings in the light of the new covenant did this.
Nevertheless, when the churches’ ministers have been lawfully appointed and rightly perform their duty, all true kings and princes humbly hear Christ’s voice from those ministers and reverence the majesty of God’s Son in them. The ministers, for their part, administer nothing of their own, but only Christ’s words and mysteries, the words and mysteries of eternal life.
For this reason such princes devote themselves entirely not only to Christ’s public ministers and the churches’ pastors, but also to the churches as a whole. They cherish and adorn them with the greatest diligence, fulfilling these words of Isaiah: “Kings will be your foster fathers, and their wives, princely women, your nursing mothers. With their faces bowed to the ground they will pay homage to you, and lick the dust of your feet. And you will know that I am the LORD, and that those who wait for me are not put to shame” (Isa 49). Likewise, these words of the psalm: “And all kings will fall down before him; all nations will serve him” (Ps 72).
All true kings have furnished many outstanding examples of this holy zeal for Christ’s kingdom. David, Hezekiah, and Josiah did so among the people of the old covenant; Constantine, Jovian, Theodosius, and many others did so among the people of the new covenant, as ecclesiastical and other histories abundantly testify. Yet just as few people consent to let God’s Son reign fully over them, so they deserve to receive from him very few true kings, kings who both know with certainty what concerns their people’s welfare and happiness and diligently provide for it. Hence it commonly happens that the citizens of Christ’s kingdom receive no assistance or service from worldly kingdoms, as though they existed nowhere. Instead, they are harassed and tormented by the world’s tyrants and by whatever wicked men those tyrants favor.
Nevertheless, however much the world hates and attacks Christ’s kingdom through its tyrants, God sends forth the scepter of his power and causes it to rule in the midst of his enemies. Our king himself gathers, preserves, and feeds his flock in the midst of wolves (Ps 110; Isa 40). He demonstrated this most wonderfully in the early church, when he so suddenly increased and multiplied his church in Jerusalem among its most savage enemies, and adorned it so wonderfully with heavenly gifts that even its enemies feared it. No one dared to join it unless our king himself had granted that person true faith in him (Acts 2, 4). For he must reign in his elect until the end of the world.
He reigns in them according to the Father’s counsel and his own, a counsel hidden indeed, but always just. At one time he reigns in more people and more fully, to reveal in the vessels of mercy the infinite riches of his goodness. At another he reigns in fewer people and less strongly, to demonstrate his just severity toward the ungodliness and ingratitude of people who suppress with their lies the truth they have known to some extent.
But if our king Christ fully receives a people into his favor and makes them a priestly kingdom, as he once did the people of Israel, he places over them princes and kings who, following the example of Moses, Joshua, and similar leaders and guardians of God’s people, devote their foremost care to establishing and advancing religion. They tolerate absolutely no one in their commonwealth who openly violates the Lord’s covenant, the covenant of faith and salvation, whether by neglecting sacred ceremonies or appointed holy days, or by acknowledged shameful deeds and crimes, much less by any contradiction or corruption of God’s word.
For it is the duty of all good princes to take every precaution that their subjects wrong no one, that children do not resist their parents’ governance, that servants do not run away from their masters or refuse their commands, and that no one withholds from anyone else the service he owes. How much more, then, must all those governors of commonwealths be vigilant and diligent who acknowledge that all their authority has been conferred upon them by God alone, and that he himself has appointed them shepherds of his people for this purpose: to govern and guard those subject to them according to his will, and to take care that no one entrusted to their charge falls away from God, his maker, Father, and Lord, despises his laws, or in any matter deprives him of his due honor?
Hence God, by a truly merciful judgment, decreed in his law that the whole people should stone those who had spoken any blasphemy against him, violated the Sabbath, accepted a false religion or attempted to impose it upon others, or transgressed his laws with deliberate intent (Lev 24; Exod 31, 35; Deut 13, 17; Num 15).
When godly kings thus keep watch against wrongs done to God, the ungodliness of many is indeed not rooted out. It is, however, suppressed, so that it does not display itself to God’s dishonor and become a stumbling block to the weak.
God, the wisest and best governor of the human race, judged it preferable that the ungodly should be compelled to keep their ungodliness to themselves and pretend to godliness, something harmful only to themselves, rather than be permitted to pour the poison of their ungodliness upon others as well, and thereby draw many weak people among his people away from fear of him and his true worship.
Moreover, in his infinite goodness and mercy, he now wills that all should also be baptized and then be taught under the church’s discipline whatever he has commanded (Matt 28), so that he may offer salvation to all and remove from everyone the excuse of ignorance. In this he acts just as he did when he formerly commanded all the children and household-born servants of his people to be circumcised and to observe all his religious ordinances. This has the further benefit that no one among his people is left without saving doctrine and instruction in godliness.
Since, therefore, we acknowledge that whatever is written in the divine books was written for our instruction, and that whatever the saints of old did at God’s command is set before us as an example (Rom 15; 1 Cor 10), it is certainly the duty of those who endeavor to prove themselves true kings to God’s people to put no human authority or corrupt custom before God’s commands in the administration of their kingdoms, or before the examples of the ancient leaders and guardians of God’s people whom God commended.
They will therefore take care above all that Christ’s religion is administered by suitable priests with the greatest sincerity and most ardent diligence. Next, according to the Lord’s command, they will take care that all who have pledged themselves to Christ through baptism are continually taught, and observe, whatever our king himself commanded. They will not connive at any of their people openly withdrawing from Christ’s teaching and discipline, much less opposing it with ungodly audacity. If the reprobate meanwhile prove themselves hypocrites, rejecting in their hearts the godliness they outwardly pretend, they will thereby harm only themselves, not others, since they are not permitted to impose ungodliness upon others either by word or deed.
Such kings, therefore, the Lord promised his people through the prophets, but on condition that they fully receive his Son’s kingdom. Yet to reveal the hidden and heavenly power of his Son’s kingdom, from the beginning of its spread among the Gentiles until Constantine he gave his people no king. Instead, he repeatedly tested and tried them through the cruelest tyrants, although he sometimes granted them tolerable peace in their affairs, even under ungodly tyrants.
Nevertheless, all the holy martyrs and Fathers always recognized that it is a supreme gift of divine mercy for true kings and princes to be placed over human affairs. These are rulers who above all both honor Christ’s kingdom themselves and endeavor to spread it among their people and make it more illustrious day by day. Therefore Christ’s people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own special people (1 Pet 2), must indeed rely upon the protection of Christ their king alone, and must not be disturbed even if the government of the world is entrusted to the most savage tyrants.
Yet they must continually pray to the Lord that he place true kings and princes over commonwealths, rulers who administer everything according to his heart, so that they may lead a quiet and peaceful life in all godliness and uprightness. And those whom God appoints to the government of commonwealths must, as I have said, strive and labor above all to administer their authority according to God’s laws and the examples of godly princes commended by God.
From these considerations, if they are devoutly weighed and the passages of Scripture cited are carefully pondered, it will be easy to see what Christ’s kingdom has in common with worldly kingdoms, what is distinctive to Christ’s kingdom, and how they are joined together, subject themselves to one another, and serve one another. But so that the whole power and character of Christ’s kingdom may be understood somewhat more firmly, I have thought it fitting to add several passages of the holy Scriptures that explain these matters somewhat more clearly and with greater force, and set them before our eyes. For knowledge of Christ’s kingdom has today been all too thoroughly effaced and suppressed. Even those who wish to be considered both the most knowledgeable about Christ’s kingdom and the most devoted to it demonstrate this all too clearly by their actions.
