fallibly seek Him with their whole heart, and preserve truth and affection towards all people, friends or enemies; they should wish or do evil to no one; and if such things are done to them, they should suffer without revenge, returning evil for evil neither to the good nor to the evil; for such and similar matters does the law of Christ enjoin. And those who will not be bound by such injunctions cannot be justified before God. Therefore is it impossible that worldly people, who love the world and wish to live for the world, should submit themselves to this law, for they would have to give up the world if they wished to fulfil this law. Thus, indeed, the first godly assemblies progressed in Christ's law: abandoning totally the errors of the heathens, the incredulity of the Jews, and all the vanities of this world, they . . . rapidly progressed without any of the rights of citizens, and without the rule of a high priest, guided only by the law of Christ."
"But later, when these twofold laws, those of the State and those of the Pope, were established, then immediately the state of Christianity was diminished and it declined. And those who write chronicles reflect on this, and we see it with our eyes that these two laws produce the most harmful disturbances and death of faith and of God's law. . . . I therefore ask, Is the law of God sufficient without worldly laws to guide and direct us in the path of truly Christian religion? Then, though with trembling, I say, It is so, for Christ's law was sufficient to guide Christ's manhood (i.e. Christ as a man), as well as all His disciples, without the interference of any worldly institutions."
The subversive character of these theories, which lead to the assertion that the necessity of secular authority
