39 But if it be of God, ye cannot overthrow it; lest haply ye be found even to fight against God.



Ver. 39. Ye cannot overthrow it] Neither you, nor kings and tyrants to help you; so one ancient Greek copy readeth it. Diocletian laid down the empire in great discontent, because he could not, by any persecution, suppress the true Christian religion. (Beza.) So did Charles V, a political prince, and a sore enemy to the Church. He, when he had in his hand Luther dead, and Melancthon, Pomeran, and other preachers of the gospel, alive; he not only determined not anything extremely against them, or violated their graves, but also entreating them gently, sent them away; not so much as once forbidding them to publish openly the doctrine that they professed. For it is the nature of Christ’s Church, that the more that tyrants spurn against it, the more it flourisheth and increaseth.