“Just as subjects necessarily owe obedience to their magistrates; and children and the rest of the family, to their parents and masters, on account of God; so on the other hand, when magistrates and parents themselves lead their charges away from true piety and uprightness, obedience is not owed to them from the word of God. Also, when they professedly persecute piety and uprightness, they remove themselves from the honor of magistrate and parents before God and their own consciences, and instead of being an ordinance of God they become an ordinance of the Devil, which can and ought to be resisted by His order for the sake of one’s calling.” – The Magdeburg Confession of 1550, by Nicolaus Von Amsdorff
Not sure how well this squares with the idea that Romans 13 is urging submission to Nero’s Rome, but it is certainly attractive.
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