The Reformation · 1523
On Secular Authority
Martin Luther · 1483–1546
What it is
God rules the world through two governments, spiritual and temporal, and no prince has authority over the soul — heresy cannot be beaten down with iron.
Why it lasted
The foundation of the Lutheran two-kingdoms doctrine, containing both an argument for freedom of conscience and the seeds of later political quietism.
Scripture it works from
Where to read it
This work is in the public domain and can be read in full, free, at the archives below. The Library catalogues it; it does not host the text.
These open a search on each archive rather than a direct link, which is the honest way to point at an edition nobody here has checked line by line.
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