Martin Luther — To the Christian Nobility of the German States (1520)

What the Church needs to-day is not more machinery or better, not new organizations or more and novel methods, but men whom the Holy Ghost can use — men of prayer, men mighty in prayer.

Our ancestors understood it, because they had studied it, with all the earnestness of persecuted men, who had to contend with sword and pen. We hold their correct theory; but, it is to be feared, only by prescription and…

Hence, civil government is an ordinance of God; magistrates rule by His providence and by His command, and are His agents or ministers. Obedience to them, in the Lord, is a religious duty, and rebellion against them is n…

The laborious Christian then looks upon his own efforts for sinners as one of the preordained steps in this plan of mercy, upon his prayers as taught him by the Holy Ghost, and therefore surely destined to an answer; and…

Scripture and experience concur in imputing to man, in his natural state, an obduracy and deadness of heart, which would leave the preacher of the gospel to labor in despair, were it not for his dependence on the Soverei…

God having created man upright, and he having sought out many inventions, and thus fallen into sin; our next inquiry must be into the remedy which God's love and mercy found for this fall. This remedy, in its exhibition,…