"Grace and peace in Christ, our Lord and Savior. You are not the only ones, my dear sirs, who are having a great deal of trouble with marriage matters; others are having the same experience. I myself am greatly plagued by them; I put up a stiff resistance, calling and crying out that these things should be left to the temporal authorities, and as Christ says, 'Leave the dead to bury their own dead' (Mt 8:22). God grant that they may do this, rightly or wrongly, for we are supposed to be servants of Christ, that is, we are to deal with the gospel and conscience, which gives us more than enough to do against the devil, the world, and the flesh.

 

"No one can deny that marriage is an external, earthly matter, like clothing and food, house and property, subject to temporal authority, as the many imperial laws enacted on the subject prove. Nor do I find any example in the New Testament where Christ or the apostles concerned themselves with such matters, except where they touched upon consciences, as St. Paul did, and especially where unbelievers or non-Christians are concerned, for it is easy to deal with these and all matters among Christians or believers (1Co 7:1-24). But with non-Christians, with which the world is filled, you cannot move forward or backward without the sharp edge of the temporal sword. And what use would it be if we Christians set up a lot of laws and decisions, as long as the world is not subject to us and we have no authority over it?

 

"Therefore I simply do not wish to become involved in such matters at all and plead with everyone not to bother me with them. If you do not have monarchs, then you have officials. If they do not render just decisions, what concern is it of mine? They are responsible. They have undertaken the office. I am horrified too by the example of the pope, who was the first to get mixed up in this business and has seized such worldly business as his own to the point where he has become nothing but a worldly lord over emperors and kings. So here too I am afraid that the dog may learn to eat leather by nibbling at his own rags and we too may be misled with good intentions, until finally we fall away from the gospel into purely earthly matters. As soon as we begin to act as judges in marriage matters, the teeth of the millwheel will have snatched us by the sleeve and will carry us away to the point where we must decide the penalty. Once we have to decide the penalty, then we must also render judgment about the body and goods, and by this time we are down under the wheel and drowned in the water of worldly affairs.

 

"Praise God that now the whole world knows what effort and zeal I have already expended and how hard I am still toiling to see that the two authorities or realms, the temporal and the spiritual, are kept distinct and separate from each other and that each is specifically instructed and restricted to its own task."

 

Martin Luther, On Marriage Matters