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to others and are just to all men in accordance with His law so that the authorities which rule the world have no occasion to find them guilty.
When faith and love die in men – the two qualities that can perform miracles ther are left in such corruption that secular sovereignty is hardly in the position to restrain them.
God has given us faith for the purpose of doing good deeds, pleasing to Him and useful to the entire world. When men fall away from faith they are seized with the passions of this world and immediately the sword directs their ways.
The sword does not always reach the transgression1 but the ruler sends all of a sudden a bandit with a sword; he comes from somewhere, unexpected, and proceeds to pilfer, to plunder, to arrest, to imprison, and to murder, till in the end God leaves no one unpunished by the revengeful sword.
But all this secular authority has derived its power from a false interpretation of the Scriptures; it is an interpretation espoused by the Antichrist and all his power worka against Christ and his chosen ones through the medium of the secular power.
L I.e. punishment does not meet the crime.
