Quote 3378
it is indeed a great grace and blessing of God that He sets pious princes over us; just as it is a great and grievous plague when He allows godless children and fools to rule, as is written in various passages of Scripture, Isaiah 3 and 32.
Martin Bucer
https://reformedbooksonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/Bucer-Grounds-and-Reasons-from-Scripture-for-the-Changes-about-the-Lords-Supper-called-the-Mass-Baptism-Feast-Days-and-Images.pdf367
Other Quotes from the Author & Topic
Firstly, our brothers have an aversion to the name "Mass" and prefer to call it the "Lord's Supper," which has long been called "Mass" in the Roman church. Although we do not wish to quarrel with anyone over words, we are inclined to reconcile ourselves with those who agree with us that such words cause offense, hatred, and discord, through which Christian faith and love are damaged, as stated in 1 Timothy 6. Nevertheless, we must confess that it is more Christian and certain to use the name given by Christ our Lord Himself, as the Scripture provides it, with which such things can have no inherent association. Specifically, I mean the term "Missa," which we call "Mass" in German; it is said to be derived from the Hebrew word "mas," meaning a required offering or tribute, hence an offering. This is also found in the fifth book of Moses (Deuteronomy 16:10), and therefore, the Mass is considered an abomination to godliness when the Lord's Supper is held to be an offering.https://reformedbooksonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/Bucer-Grounds-and-Reasons-from-Scripture-for-the-Changes-about-the-Lords-Supper-called-the-Mass-Baptism-Feast-Days-and-Images.pdf
The Scriptures of God are written for all believers; all believers have the Spirit of Christ, by whom one understands the Scriptures. https://reformedbooksonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/Bucer-Grounds-and-Reasons-from-Scripture-for-the-Changes-about-the-Lords-Supper-called-the-Mass-Baptism-Feast-Days-and-Images.pdf
Citizens are not governed for their good and for the true glory of the supreme King when the secular authorities do not rule according to the divine Law and are not set to observe it themselves. For where God is not recognized and obedience to Him is not required before all things, there peace is not peace, justice is not justice, and that which should be profitable brings injury instead.
If you immediately condemn anyone who doesn't quite believe the same as you do as forsaken by Christ's Spirit, and consider anyone to be an enemy of truth who holds something false to be true, who, pray tell, can you still consider a brother? I for one have never met two people who believed exactly the same thing. This holds true in theology as well.
May the Lord grant the shepherds of his people the gift of not wanting to seem wiser than God, or more clement and humane, so that they may at length see what a pleasing sacrifice it is to God and how necessary and how effective a remedy against the deadly disease of mankind it is to impose just punishments on godless, criminal, and wicked men.
But since no one can describe an approach more equitable and wholesome to the commonwealth than that which God describes in his law, it is certainly the duty of all kings and princes who recognize that God has put them over his people that they follow most studiously his own method of punishing evildoers.
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