# Synodical Conference Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1890_S19
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

of the Ev. Luth. Synodical Conference of North America. 1890. 19

and with the hand follow them; the heart they cannot compel, even if they tore themselves apart. For true is the proverb: Thoughts are toll-free. What is it, then, that they want to force people to believe in the heart and see that it is impossible? They thereby drive weak consciences by force to lie, to deny, and to say otherwise than they hold in the heart, and so burden themselves with dreadful, foreign sins. For all the lies and false confession which such weak consciences make fall upon him who extorts them. It would indeed be much easier, even if their subjects were in error, to let them err in plain error, than to press them to lie and to say otherwise than they have in the heart; and it is also not right to want to resist evil with something worse ... You say: But Paul said in Rom. 13:1: Let every soul be subject to the power and authority! Answer: There you come right, for these sayings serve me. St. Paul speaks of the authority and power. Now you have heard that over the soul no one can have power but God. So St. Paul can speak of no obedience except where the power can be. From this it follows that he speaks, not of faith, that worldly power is not to have the right to command faith, but of external goods, to order and govern them on earth. His words also give this plainly and clearly, where he sets the limit for both power and obedience and says, Rom. 13:7: 'Give to everyone his due: tribute to whom tribute is due, toll to whom toll, honor to whom honor, fear to whom fear is due.' Behold, worldly obedience and power go only over tribute, toll, honor, fear, externally. ... All this Jesus also finely distinguished and put briefly, when he says, Matt. 22:21: 'Render to Caesar what is Caesar's, and to God what is God's.' If imperial power extended into God's kingdom and power, and were not something separate, he would not have distinguished it so. For, as was said, the soul is not under the emperor's power; he can neither teach nor lead it, neither kill nor make alive, neither bind nor loose, neither judge nor sentence, neither hold nor release, as would have to be the case if he had power to command it and to lay laws on it; but over body, goods and honor he has indeed the right to do so, for these are under his power." (On Worldly Authority, how far one owes it obedience. 1523. Walch X, p. 455 ff.)

Luther: "Authority is not to forbid what anyone wants to teach and believe, be it Gospel or lies; it is enough that it forbid the teaching of rebellion and discord." (Admonition to Peace on the Twelve Articles of the Peasantry. 1525. Walch XVI, 64.)

Luther: "But if someone should say, as some accuse me: If there is to be no human law, then there would also have to be no worldly government; do you then want to crush all authority? I answer: What has worldly government to do with the matter? We know well that Paul and Peter have