The Magdeburg Confession
Proverbs 24:11-12 Rescue those being led away to death;
hold back those staggering toward slaughter.
If you say, “But we knew nothing about this,”
does not he who weighs the heart perceive it?
Does not he who guards your life know it?
Will he not repay everyone according to what they have done?
The Magdeburg Confession was written in 1550, after Martin Luther’s death in 1546, when war had already broken out and the defeat of the Lutherans in April 1547 at the Battle of Mühlberg had already happened.
The Magdeburg Confession outlines the Lutheran argument about the circumstances in which a lesser magistrate may take up arms against a greater magistrate who is abusing his citizens.
A notable quote, that has a bearing on people’s responsibilities with regard to the vaccines:
We now come to the second part of the duty of pious men, about which God has instructed us in Proverbs 24, saying, “Rescue those who are being led to death and do not refrain from freeing those who are being dragged to destruction. If you say, ‘We did not have the strength to do so,’ He who is the inspector of the heart, He knows. Nothing can deceive the Preserver of your soul, and He will render to a man according to his works.”
Furthermore:
Therefore this doctrine is an exposition of the fifth commandment, which makes guilty of murder not only those who take away life unjustly, but also those who do not rescue, as much as they can, either their own or others’ lives from unjust violence. If we are true members of Christ and members of one body joined together in Christ and made alive by His one Spirit, then truly there will also appear what the Apostle affirms about this body of Christ: When, he says, one member suffers, all the members suffer with it, and they are themselves distressed for each other, and bring each other mutual help
The Magdeburg Confession is available in an English translation online, free to download, here:
https://gereformeerd.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/Magdeburg-Confession-1550.pdf
A good website about the Magdeburg Confession, with a different translation, and the excellent book The Doctrine of the Lesser Magistrate which I reviewed last week.
http://magdeburgconfession.com
https://archive.org/details/doctrineoflesser0000trew
This is Guidance for a problem I face in advising my 2 younger brothers on a topic that will not be welcomed although maybe healing in due course. None of us have been spring chickens for some time.
Thank you, Martin Luther. Thank you, FirstFactCheck.
Humbly Grateful ...