The gospel and its adherents are not to be protected by the sword, nor are they thus to protect themselves. True Christian believers are sheep among wolves, sheep for the slaughter; they must be baptized in anguish and affliction, tribulation, persecution, suffering, and death; they must be tried with fire, and must reach the fatherland of eternal rest, not by killing their bodily enemies, but by mortifying their spiritual enemies.

Early Anabaptist writers make the case against a Christian’s use of violence.