CHAP. XLIII.
Fourthly, I ask, were not these elders or ministers of the church of Ephesus sufficiently furnished, from the Lord Jesus, to drive away these mystical and spiritual wolves?[144]
Truth. True it is, against the inhuman and uncivil violence of persecutors, they were not, nor are God’s children, able and provided; but to resist, drive away, expel, and kill spiritual and mystical wolves by the word of the Lord, none are fit to be Christ’s shepherds who are not able, Tit. i. 9-11. The bishop, or overseer, must be able by sound doctrine both to exhort and to convince the gainsayers: which gainsayers to be by him convinced, that is, overcome or subdued, though it may be in themselves ever obstinate, they were, I say, as greedy wolves in Crete, as any could be at Ephesus. For so saith Paul, ver. 10: they were unruly and vain talkers, deceivers, whose mouths must be stopped, who subverted whole houses; and yet Titus, and every ordinary shepherd of a flock of Christ, had ability sufficient to defend the flock from spiritual and mystical wolves, without the help of the civil magistrate.
Peace. In this respect, therefore, methinks we may fitly allude to that excellent answer of Job to Bildad, the Shuhite, Job xxvi., How hast thou helped him that is without power? How savest thou the arm that hath no strength? How hast thou counselled him that hath no wisdom? How hast thou plentifully declared the thing as it is?
Lastly, I ask, whether, as men deal with wolves, these wolves at Ephesus were intended by Paul to be killed, their brains dashed out with stones, staves, halberts, guns, &c., in the hands of the elders of Ephesus, &c.?[145]
Truth. Doubtless, comparing spiritual things with spiritual, all such mystical wolves must spiritually and mystically so be slain. And the witnesses of truth, Rev. xi. 5, speak fire, and kill all that hurt them, by that fiery word of God, and that two-edged sword in their hand, Ps. cxlix. 6.
But oh! what streams of the blood of saints have been and must be shed, until the Lamb have obtained the victory, Rev. xvii. 14, by this unmerciful—and in the state of the New Testament, when the church is spread all the world over—most bloody doctrine, viz., the wolves (heretics) are to be driven away, their brains knocked out, and killed—the poor sheep to be preserved, for whom Christ died, &c.
Is not this to take Christ Jesus, and make him a temporal king by force? John vi. 15. Is not this to make his kingdom of this world, to set up a civil and temporal Israel, to bound out new earthly, holy lands of Canaan, yea, and to set up a Spanish inquisition in all parts of the world, to the speedy destruction of thousands, yea, of millions of souls, and the frustrating of the sweet end of the coming of the Lord Jesus, to wit, to save men’s souls (and to that end not to destroy their bodies) by his own blood?[146]