Quotes About Authority

Put 'em who threaten possessions and power together with 'em who offend our tastes in sex and dope. Those who're touched, put 'em in asylums. Pack off old ones to 'senior communities,' nursing homes. Our children? Keep'em prisoner, baby-sitter as warden. School? Good for fifteen to twenty years. Army afterward. Liberated, we live in prison. No this, no that. Kill us before we die!

The supreme and only Judge of the universe stands before the tribunal of an earthly judge.

Is it faith to understand nothing, and merely submit your convictions implicitly to the Church?

Yet consider now, whether women are not quite past sense and reason, when they want to rule over men.

This is how we can distinguish true religion from superstition: when the Word of God directs us, there is true religion; but when each man follows his own opinion, or when men join together to follow an opinion they hold in common, the result is always concocted superstition.

Christ is known rightly nowhere but in Scripture. If

The difference between us and the papists is that they do not think that the church can be 'the pillar of the truth' unless she presides over the word of God. We, on the other hand, assert that it is because she reverently subjects herself to the word of God that the truth is preserved by her and passed on to others by her hands.

holding firmly to the principle that true religion is founded upon obedience. Unless

The true structure of the church is the Kingdom of God, and this is neither frail nor like a tent in any way. But

where Christ does not reign men are wolves to men. Each

Greeks receives the name of   ethelobreskeia -- the term which Paul here makes use of. He has,   however, an eye to the etymology of the term, for ethelobreskeia   literally denotes a voluntary service, which men choose for themselves   at their own option, without authority from God.

As to their question-How can we be assured that this has sprung from God unless we have recourse to the decree of the church?-it is as if someone asked: Whence will we learn to distinguish light from darkness, white from black, sweet from bitter? Indeed, Scripture exhibits fully as clear evidence of its own truth as white and black things do of their color, or sweet and bitter things do of their taste.

Faith not only should be fixed upon the essence of Christ (as they say), but should also attend to his mission and power. It

In condemning, therefore, the vices of a father, a truly pious son will   subscribe to God's Law; and still, whatsoever he may be, will   acknowledge that he is to be honored, as being the father given him by   God.

for in our own day we see many who are stupid enough to be so overcome by the mere title of "the church," that they take sides with the pope, and would be damned forever rather than raise a finger against his authority.

For although we hold that the Word of God alone lies beyond the sphere of our judgement, and that fathers and Councils are of authority only in so far as they accord with the rule of the Word, we still give to the Councils and fathers such rank and honor as it is meet for them to hold, under Christ.

Priests are set up by the pope and his followers to sacrifice Christ, not to teach the people. But

When that which professes to be the Word of God is acknowledged to be so, no person, unless devoid of common sense and the feelings of a man, will have the desperate hardihood to refuse credit to the speaker.

It lays down a   clear distinction between spiritual and civil government, in order to   inform us that outward subjection does not prevent us from having   within us a conscience free in the sight of God.

Mohammed and the pope have this principle of religion in common: they pretend that Scripture does not contain perfect doctrine, and that they receive a higher revelation from the Spirit. The

eLet this point therefore stand: that those whom the Holy Spirit has inwardly taught truly rest upon Scripture, and that Scripture indeed is self-authenticated;16 hence, it is not right to subject it to proof and reasoning.

ought we to put confidence in men who conduct themselves with rashness, and, though they assume authority in God's name, yet have no certain and lawful calling? We may learn, then, how neither angels nor men ought to be held in such honor as to induce us to receive whatever they bring forward, unless the Almighty has appointed them to be his ministers and interpreters.

A real king is the one who recognizes that, in governing his kingdom, he is a true minister of God. Conversely whoever does not reign with a view to serving God's glory acts not as a ruler but as a robber.

The pastor ought to have two voices: one, for gathering the sheep; and another, for warding off and driving away wolves and thieves. The Scripture supplies him with the means of doing both.