Page:Mennonite Handbook of Information 1925.djvu/78

 joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart), hence the latter has no place in the kingdoms of this world.

The first is divinely appointed to hold in check the works of the evil doer and to preserve the life and dwelling place of all who temporarily abide in the world and are yet subjects of the kingdom of peace.

Members of the peace kingdom are supposed to be universally law-abiding and separate in operation, and hence as a kingdom of peace can never come in conflict with the kingdom of force. Should the kingdom of peace accomplish its great work of extending over all the earth as the waters cover the sea, so that the lawless and evil doing class would disappear, then the kingdom of force would become obsolete and useless.

Though the fact is generally recognized that the kingdom of peace and the kingdom of force should operate separately as two institutions, after all many persons insist on exercising certain rights and privileges that give them identity in both kingdoms.

In short, citizenship becomes established in both kingdoms to the degree that where the franchise is used, it follows that such citizens should use the sword also. In this it becomes clear that the true principle of separation between the two powers is lost, and unhappily they become interwoven and entangled one with the other.

Some Protestant leaders, such as Martin Luther and others, claimed that nonresistance * was taught in the Scriptures but yet held it to be necessary and obligatory for Christians to go to war with the civil