Note 877 — Chapter XIV · (continued 3)

Ibid., p. 93. Whereas Luther’s other ideas to be described changed considerably in later years, this one of an “abrogated spiritual government” always remained, though with some modifications. According to the Preface to his “Instruction for Visitations” (1528) and the “Instruction” itself, “the visitors have of themselves no official public authority for holding the Visitation, but must be conversant with the Bible, find therein their qualification and be appointed by the Elector, in the name of the preachers, to hold the Visitation. In this quality they are unable to exercise any sort of force or compulsion, this being reserved to the Elector, but, as representing him, they also share in his secular power.” “It is part of the duty of the authorities” to “establish and regulate the Matrimonial Courts”; the secular authorities are bound where the work of the pastors has been of no avail, to take their “own means for the spiritual and temporal protection of the Christianity of the country, against scandal and false doctrine,” and to make God’s Word the only public and authorised code and authority. For the spiritual government consists exclusively “in the Word and the preaching-office, and can only penetrate into the heart by means of the Word and the work of the pastor.” Karl Müller thus sums up the teaching of the documents in question in “Kirche, Gemeinde und Obrigkeit nach Luther,” 1910, p. 74 f.