# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1849 02 06_S91
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

91

toward the authority, precisely as God's handmaid and deputy (see Ps. 82), and indeed not toward the good authority alone, but also toward the evil, for the sake of its office and of this divine institution; as it is written: "Honour the king!" "Fear to whom fear; honour to whom honour"; — words which the holy Apostle wrote when in Rome an almost insane and most cruel, bloodthirsty monster, the Emperor Nero, was reigning.

Second, according to God's Word and ordinance the subjects should also especially, for their authority, lift up supplication, prayer and intercession to the LORD, that they may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty. (1 Tim. 2, 2.)

Third, they owe obedience and subjection; not from fear of punishment, not from hope of reward and recognition, but, as it is written, Rom. 13, 5, "for conscience sake," because the authority is ordained of God and bears God's image and honor.

This obedience, however, is to be rendered not merely to kind and fatherly sovereigns and governments, but also to harsh and tyrannical despots, so far as they command and demand nothing that is contrary to God's commandment, such as, for example, to wage unjust wars of conquest, to suppress the confessors of the pure Gospel, and so forth, for here also it holds: "We ought to obey God rather than men."

Fourth, also tribute and custom, according to Rom. 12, 6. 7., because it, the authority, is precisely God's minister, who maintains the right protection, for the punishment of the evildoers and for the praise of them that do well. But how, you say, if, for example, the princes burden their subjects beyond measure with taxes, perhaps to keep a great standing army on foot and thereby to gain for themselves a commanding position among the other States? or if they set up an excessive host of officials, who, in good Chinese fashion, oppress and burden the producing classes almost intolerably? or if by the censorship of the press they hinder and forcibly suppress every candid exposure of the evils and defects of their government? or if, moreover, they did not keep toward their peoples the promises and pledges made earlier, for example to give a free constitution? — How now, should the subjects there, when respectful representations and petitions help nothing on repeated occasions, but the pressure and the burden rather increases than decreases, — shall, or may the poor afflicted subjects there not help themselves by force, drive out their sovereigns, or at least depose them, and choose others for themselves, or even give themselves another, for example, the constitution according to which the sovereignty is in the mass of the people themselves? — Far be that! If the oppressed and burdened subjects desire to be Christians, and not heathen, the following Word of God binds their heart and conscience: "Whosoever resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God: and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation." (Rom. 13, 2.)

For however much wrong the sovereigns may have, rebellion and insurrection are in any case a still greater wrong, and it is indeed better to suffer wrong than to do wrong, for this latter is directly contrary to God's Word and the conscience; the former, however, does no harm to the Christian conscience and heart, but rather profits it, provided the Christian, as is fitting, willingly takes it up and accepts it as a fatherly chastening of his God. Viewed according to the divine law, namely, it is a small thing if we, measured by human right, suffer ever so great a wrong; for we have, as sinners by nature, deserved far worse punishments from God than an evil authority, or even hunger, sword and pestilence is, namely death, hell, devil and eternal damnation. Viewed according to the Gospel, however, this latter eternal punishment does not touch us at all, if we believe in Christ from the heart, and also that temporal evil of the wicked authority is then properly no longer punishment, but fatherly visitation, in order wholesomely to crucify and mortify the still remaining old Adam, and to make us more and more like the LORD Christ, who has left us an example that we should follow His steps; for as He, when He was reviled, reviled not again, when He suffered, threatened not, so will we also do; and as He committed Himself to Him that judgeth righteously, so should we also not avenge ourselves, but give place unto the wrath of God, who will also repay the godless authority according to its works, and bring the fruit of its doings upon its own head.

But if we help ourselves out of flight from the cross and fleshly impatience, we fall ourselves into God's judgment and draw upon us worse plague than evil authority is. Or is it not a more terrible evil, when in consequence of such fleshly self-help bloody party-conflicts, or even civil wars spreading further around, arise? when a condition of complete lawlessness and licentiousness sets in, and God then puts an end to this condition by sending a mighty tyrant upon the necks of the contending parties, who chastises them not, like the former, with rods, but with scorpions? It goes with them then as with the frogs in the fable. who would not suffer the log as king, whereupon they got the stork, who devoured them all.

And this end the matter in Germany might perhaps take, that those of royal sentiments and the Republicans first bite and devour one another, until at last the bear from the North comes upon both, and with his mighty paws lays the latter especially in the dust and holds them mightily down.

But should it, for the first, turn out thus, that the Republicans prevail, and no outside power comes upon them, it is nevertheless much to be feared that out of themselves, sooner or later, one will arise who by violence seizes the sole sovereignty, as the history of ancient and modern times repeatedly attests.

In sum: Violent self-help and self-revenge of burdened subjects against their unjust authority is directly contrary to God's Word and ordinance, and is nothing but an intoxication out of the cup of reeling of carnal liberty, which Satan, the liar and murderer from the beginning, has poured full for the children of unbelief, in order, under pretense of freedom, to make them his servants, and to lead them captive in the snares of destruction, according to his will. Therefore also the sense of their heart and the cry of their mouth: "Let us break their bands asunder, and cast away their cords from us!" (Ps. 2.) is really spoken against the most high Majesty of God in heaven, whose enemies and despisers they are. "He that dwelleth in the heavens shall laugh: the LORD shall have them in derision. Then shall he speak unto them in his wrath, and vex them in his sore displeasure." But how now, you say, how shall a Christian people conduct itself according to God's Word and ordinance, when it has a harsh and unjust sovereign, who lays upon it an almost intolerable burden, and at all humble and respectful petition for the removal of even the grossest oppression gives nothing, but rather afterward plagues his people harder than before, as Pharaoh did with Israel?

The first thing is, that it humble itself under the mighty hand of God and bethink itself that with its sins it has indeed deserved far more temporal punishments, and properly the eternal damnation of hell, and that even now there are still many wicked and godless people among them, who under kind and mild sovereigns would only go on sinning ever more rudely and boldly, and for whom it is especially greatly needful that they be thoroughly plagued and the wantonness of their flesh be subdued. For God punishes one knave with another, godless subjects through godless princes, and conversely.

The second is this, that they cry unto God and first of all call upon the LORD for their oppressors, blinded by the devil, as it is written, Matt. 5, 44: "Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you; that ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven."

If this now be done honestly and sincerely, God will do one of two things: either the godless sovereign, if he is ordained to eternal life, will thoroughly enter into himself, turn to the LORD, and become a Christian prince, or the intercession of the Christian people will return upon itself, the hardening of the tyrant will, as with Pharaoh, visibly increase, and the LORD will, without the doing of the people, carry out His judgments upon him, as for example upon Pharaoh and the godless kings of Israel, and in this way the sub-