"
Right. But then it must be the lawful rulers; those in whom the
sovereign or supreme power is lodged by the known laws and constitution
of the country. Where the laws and constitutional liberties of the
nation are trampled on, the subjects do not lose, and are not in
conscience bound to forego, their right of resistance, because they are
Christians, or because it happens to be a matter of religion, in which
their rights are violated. And this was Luther's opinion. Whether, if a
Popish Czar shall act as our James II. acted, the Russian Greekists
would be justified in doing with him what the English Protestants
justifiably did with regard to James, is a knot which I shall not
attempt to cut; though I guess the Russians would, by cutting their
Czar's throat.
Ib.
'But no man will do this, except he be so sure of his doctrine and
religion, as that, although I myself should play the fool, and should
recant and deny this my doctrine and religion (which God forbid), he
notwithstanding therefore would not yield, but say, "If Luther, or an
angel from heaven, should teach otherwise, _Let him be accursed_."'
Well and nobly said, thou rare black swan! This, this is the Church.
Where this is found, there is the Church of Christ, though but twenty in
the whole of the congregation; and were twenty such in two hundred
different places, the Church would be entire in each. Without this no
Church.
Ib. p. 248.
"And he sent for one of his chiefest privy councillors, named Lord
John _Von Minkwitz_, and said unto him; 'You have heard my father say,
(running with him at tilt) that to sit upright on horseback maketh a
good tilter.
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