In Secular Authority, Martin Luther debates what the appropriate place and
function of secular authority is in a Christian community, and what are its
restrictions. Luther believed, just like Aquinas, that power and authority was
granted by God and not man. He uses Romans 13 to support this; "Let every
soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no power but of God:
the powers that be are ordained of God. Whosoever therefore resisteth the
power resisteth the ordinance of God: and they that resist shall receive to
themselves damnation” ( ESV). Luther also thought that it was a sin and
political wrongdoing to reject God’s anointing.
Luther also talked about how secular authority may preserve law and order
and to chastise those who would not obey the law, and that the government
should be abided by. Luther also, like Aquinas and Augustine, speaks of two
cities.” We must divide all the children of Adam into two classes; the first
belong to the kingdom of God, the second to the kingdom of the world.”
(Luther) Those who have faith and follow God’s word belong to the Kingdom
of God. Luther believed that the citizens of the kingdom of God did not need
secular law or any authorities to enforce it. With that being said, Luther
states, “ Therefore, it is not possible for the secular sword and law to find any
work to do among Christians, since of themselves they do much more than
its laws and doctrines can demand” (Luther, n.d.). Luther goes on to further
discuss how far secular authority spreads. He states that secular authority
spreads to everything on this earth, except for souls.
When it comes to statesmanship, Luther defined what is required from a
good prince. He stated, that a prince “must follow this example and proceed
with fear; he must depend neither upon dead books nor upon living heads,
but cling solely to God, pray without ceasing to Him, and ask for a fight
understanding, above all books and masters, wisely to rule his subjects. ( 1
Kings 3:9 ) Therefore I know of no law to prescribe for a prince, but will
simply instruct him what the attitude of his heart and mind ought to be with
respect to all laws, counsels, decisions and actions, so that if he govern
himself thereby God will surely grant him the power to carry out all laws,
counsels, and actions in a proper and godly way” (Luther, n.d.)
The Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity, by Richard Hooker, was a public debate
among the Puritans and the Anglicans regarding church polity. The first four
books focus on epistemology, hermeneutics, and inconsistencies in the
Puritan/Presbyterian critique. Hooker states that the New Testament is either
quiet on how the church should be ordered or allows changes from the
original commands in the New Testament. Hooker starts by stating what law
is and how reason and revelation function together to lead the church. He
pointed out that all laws come from God, which is a common theme that
Aquinas and Luther also support. “For as they rightly maintain God must be
glorified in all things, and that the actions of men cannot tend unto his glory
unless they be framed after his law; so it is their error to think that only law
which God hath appointed unto men in that behalf is the sacred Scripture”
(Hooker, 1970).
Hooker fought that the fulfillment of natural law, human and positive law are
adapted to society. Public power originates from the community through
laws. He stated that “ by the natural law, whereunto he hath made all
subject, the lawful power of making laws to command whole politic societies
of men belongeth so properly unto the same entire societies, that for any
prince or potentate of what kind soever upon earth to exercise the same of
himself, and not either by express commission immediately and personally
received from God, or else by authority derived at the first from their consent
upon whose persons they impose laws, it is no better than mere tyranny”
(Hooker, 1970). With this, Hooker believed such power comes directly from
God or from the people. The prince is responsible to God and the
community. His ideas are the same that has been seen in previous readings
where the law makes the king instead of the king making the law.
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