Again, our Saviour Christ’s commission to His apostles and disciples was to proclaim His kingdom, not present, but to come; and to teach all nations, and to baptize them that should believe; and to enter into the houses of them that should receive them, and where they were not received, to shake off the dust of their feet against them; but not to call for fire from heaven to destroy them, nor to compel them to obedience by the sword. In all which there is nothing of power, but of persuasion. He sent them out as sheep unto wolves, not as kings to their subjects. They had not in commission to make laws; but to obey, and teach obedience to laws made; and consequently they could not make their writings obligatory canons without the help of the sovereign civil power. And therefore the Scripture of the New Testament is there only law where the lawful civil power hath made it so. And there also the king, or sovereign, maketh it a law to himself; by which he subjecteth himself, not to the doctor or apostle that converted him, but to God himself and His Son Jesus Christ, as immediately as did the apostles themselves.
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