No one can deny that the ultimate object of the endeavour was good. The Divines were seeking--and that very earnestly--the promotion of Christian morality and virtue. They wished to reform the manners of the people, to make Christians of the large population of London, and to do as much as possible towards realizing the theory of a Christian state. But they mistook the means. So far as preaching the Gospel, promoting education, exercising social influence, and exhibiting a pious example went, they acted wisely and well. By such methods alone can irreligious men be converted. The City clergy, however, proceeded beyond this, and sought to bring under church discipline the whole body of their parishioners, whether those parishioners had voluntarily embraced their communion or not. Yet nothing can be more plain from Scripture, reason, and experience, than that such discipline can be effectually exercised only amongst people who have by their own free will entered into fellowship with a religious society. True Christian discipline can only touch persons who have submitted themselves to the laws, and acknowledged the sanctions of Christianity. When the help of the magistrate is solicited, and any kind of temporal punishment is esteemed a proper method of religious correction, the exercise of purely _ecclesiastical_ government is virtually given up; the case is transferred from the spiritual kingdom of Christ to the empire of physical force. Of course everybody can feel the weight of the magistrate's sword, but everybody cannot and will not feel that there is power also, but of another and still more serious kind, in a pastor's crook. This difficulty was felt in the middle ages. In Archbishop Winchelsey's Constitutions at Merton, in the year 1305, mention is made of heretics who relinquished the Articles of the Faith, opposed ecclesiastical liberties, and refused to pay tithes and other dues. It was commanded that the people should be effectually _persuaded_ to submit, and that those who did not voluntarily obey should be compelled by suspension, excommunication, and interdict. But heretics did not care for spiritual censures any more than they did for persuasion; and nothing further at that time could be brought to bear upon such offenders. The evil increased.[176] At length the civil power was called in to counteract it, and at last came the Act _de Hæretico Comburendo_. [Sidenote: _Discipline._]