Two Kingdoms — Church and State

“A real book wherein are printed diverse sayings and doings of Dr Luther in these latter days when he applied for Synodical membership in the United States.” — from the Preface.

“The conception of the Evangelical Lutheran church proceeds from the inward spiritual essence of the church, as a communion of faith, love, the Holy Ghost, knit together by means of the word of God and the sacraments, but which also forms itself into a body in an outward manifestation.

“It is one of the most striking, and most valuable characteristics of the Bible, that it is the Book of mankind. It is both designed, and prepared, for all people, and for all classes of people.

“The question of the Ministry is not one of indifference, which each individual, under the presumption that God has given no decision, may decide according to his own judgment and pleasure.

“Hitler’s Mein Kampf embodies all the aims and principles against liberal democratic processes reiterated in all the important papal encyclicals of post-Reformation Catholicism. It should not be surprising that the Vatican in our time, in exchange for benefits promised to the Catholic church, betrayed the forces of democracy, both inside and outside the church, and used its influence and power to foster allegiance to Fascism and Nazism throughout the world.

“Nor will the careful student ever recall Lincoln without recognizing the Gettysburg incident as condensing within itself all that he elsewhere spoke and wrote and accomplished. The meaning of what had transpired on the first three days of July, 1863, with the thousands of lives that had been sacrificed, and the tens of thousands that were enduring untold physical suffering, and the countless homes throughout the land that were darkened because they mourned loved ones, so filled his heart that he compressed the convictions of a lifetime and the anguish of the responsibilities he was then bearing, into a two minutes’ address that has become the most highly cherished classic that America has produced.

“The two main changes that came about as a result of the Protestant Reformation concerned: l) the reassertion of the true faith in Christ and His saving work; 2) a new culture of freedom in the social order.

“The more we meditate on the titles thus bestowed upon us, the more we find that we must think more highly of ourselves in our connection with the Savior. We are spiritually of royal descent.

“The church is, and in order to be the body of Christ, must be essentially invisible. She possesses not a single essential attribute by which she is visible. If it were not for the instructions of the Holy Spirit, we would be ignorant, not only of her nature, but even of her very existence.

“Men, who in their hearts are strangers to true religion, and opposed to its real interests, are always ready to exercise a controlling influence over the church. In almost every religious community, there are some such men, who would carry the spirit of the world into religion.

“There is nothing more difficult, these times, than to keep the Church out of politics. And this difficulty is intensified where a Christian principle is at stake. “The Church, in some of its branches, has been knocking at the door of State and clamoring for the name of God in the Constitution.