# Synodical Conference Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1890_S11
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

of the Ev. Luth. Synodical Conference of North America. 1890. 11

Church"? Yes indeed, but what is at stake there is not a command that the princes and worldly governments are given, but a promise which the church has, and which we see fulfilled also where the worldly government concerns itself only with its own office and does not permit itself encroachments into the church's domain. Our government here in this country gives us protection, and we can develop freely; in many places it grants churches and schools exemption from taxes, that is, a privilege, and thereby becomes a nursing mother of the church, whereas in Germany, where the territorial rulers have themselves styled and honored as "supreme bishops" of the Protestant territorial churches, our brethren in the German free churches cannot develop freely, receive no corporate rights, and are hampered and hindered by the state in many ways.

It was further objected: from the fact that in the passages cited above only temporal things are named with which government is to be occupied, it does not follow that its office cannot and may not extend over spiritual things or the conscience; rather, this must be proved by passages of Scripture which expressly forbid the worldly government, or "the state," such an interference in spiritual matters.

A thorough reply was made to this. If we reflect on the first thesis, that government is a divine institution, it will have to be certain to us that the rights of government too must be determined by God. God instituted marriage, and the rights and duties of spouses go as far as God has fixed them. When the emperor or king appoints an official as his envoy, he gives him an instruction, and the authority of that official extends as far as this instruction states, and no further. So too the powers of government go exactly as far as God has assigned and granted to it. How, then, are we to learn what the rights and duties of government are? Well, we have learned from God's Word that government is a divine institution. If God's Word had told us nothing about it, we could not assert that. And so, exactly where we learned the origin of government, we shall also learn what its rights and duties are; and what we do not find about it in Scripture, whether in express words or because it at least follows of necessity from the expressions used, lies in the expressions, that we do not know; there we merely guess; and what we guess there has no more value than our own acuteness. We can never say that this and that (of which Scripture says nothing) is just as much a right and duty of government as government is a divine institution. If, then, we find in Holy Scripture a passage that makes it the duty of all governments to take charge of spiritual, heavenly goods, to regulate them, to rule over them as government, to command and to forbid, then it is settled for us, and if it only