The church should not persecute other churches in Christ's kingdom on this earth. And civil government can not give that power that it does not have to a church the person in charge favors. PG here, Thursday, March 27, 2025, Day Page 12b of 40 according to pdf. Add to yesterday's post on two churches as an example.
....12b: So that the controversy between these churches about the truth of their doctrines and the purity of their worship is on both sides equal; nor is there any judge, either at Constantinople or elsewhere upon earth, by whose sentence it can be
determined. The decision on that question belongs only to the Supreme Judge of all men, to whom also alone belongs the punishment of the erroneous. In the meantime, let those men consider how heinously they sin, who, adding injustice, if not to their error, yet certainly to their pride, do rashly and arrogantly take upon them to misuse the servants of another master, who are not at all accountable to them.............
{commentary: The civil government and heathens have no authority over a church, nor does one church have any authority over another. }
paragraph 2...................An infidel, who has himself no authority to punish Christians for the articles of their faith, cannot confer such an authority upon any society of Christians, nor give unto them a right which he has not himself. This would be the case at Constantinople; and the reason of the thing is the same in any Christian kingdom. The civil power is the same in every place. Nor can that power, in the hands of a Christian prince, confer
any greater authority upon the Church than in the hands of a heathen;which is to say, just none at all.