May the Lord grant the shepherds of his people the gift of not wanting to seem wiser than God, or more clement and humane, so that they may at length see what a pleasing sacrifice it is to God and how necessary and how effective a remedy against the deadly disease of mankind it is to impose just punishments on godless, criminal, and wicked men.
But since no one can describe an approach more equitable and wholesome to the commonwealth than that which God describes in his law, it is certainly the duty of all kings and princes who recognize that God has put them over his people that they follow most studiously his own method of punishing evildoers.
If you immediately condemn anyone who doesn't quite believe the same as you do as forsaken by Christ's Spirit, and consider anyone to be an enemy of truth who holds something false to be true, who, pray tell, can you still consider a brother? I for one have never met two people who believed exactly the same thing. This holds true in theology as well.
Citizens are not governed for their good and for the true glory of the supreme King when the secular authorities do not rule according to the divine Law and are not set to observe it themselves. For where God is not recognized and obedience to Him is not required before all things, there peace is not peace, justice is not justice, and that which should be profitable brings injury instead.