sufficient, without worldly laws, to guide and direct us in the path
of the true Christian religion? With trembling, I answer, it is.
It was sufficient for Christ Himself, and it was sufficient for His
disciples." And, therefore, the duty of all true Christians was as
clear as the noon-day sun. He never said that Christian people
should break the law of the land. He admitted that God might use
the law for good purposes; and therefore, as Christ had submitted to
Pilate, so Christians must submit to Government. But there their
connection with Government must end. For heathens the State was a
necessary evil; for Christians it was an unclean thing, and the less
they had to do with it the better. They must never allow the State
to interfere in matters within the Church. They must never drag
each other before the law courts. They must never act as judges or
magistrates. They must never take any part whatever in municipal or
national government. They must never, if possible, live in a town
at all. If Christians, said Peter, lived in a town, and paid the
usual rates and taxes, they were simply helping to support a system
which existed for the protection of robbers. He regarded towns as
the abodes of vice, and citizens as rogues and knaves. The first
town, he said, was built by the murderer, Cain. He first murdered
his brother Abel; he then gathered his followers together; he then
built a city, surrounded by walls; and thus, by robbery and
violence, he became a well-to-do man. And modern towns, said Peter,
were no whit better. At that time the citizens of some towns in
Bohemia enjoyed certain special rights and privileges; and this, to
Peter, seemed grossly unfair. He condemned those citizens as
thieves. "They are," he said, "the strength of Anti-Christ; they are
adversaries to Christ; they are an evil rabble; they are bold in
wickedness; and though they pretend to follow the truth, they will
sit at tables with wicked people and knavish followers of Judas."