The Papacy and Good Works (F. Pieper)

F. Pieper. Christian Dogmatics. Volume III. The Papacy and Good Works: Pages 65-66.
"This rule, by the way, that the members of the Jesuit order must put their conscience into the keeping of the superior, represents no new development in the system of the Papacy. When the Pope denies to the rest of mankind the right to judge for themselves in matters of doctrine and demands the sacrificium intellectus et voluntatis, he thereby requires every human being to surrender his own conscience and thus to renounce that faculty which distinguishes man from beast. It has been justly said of the Papacy that it "dehumanizes mankind." The right to be a man has been reclaimed for mankind by the Reformation. Luther demands that all questions of right and wrong be submitted to the conscience of the individual, that the individual Christian decide for himself the questions of doctrine and morals according to God's revealed Word, and that in matters pertaining to the state and civil life the individual decides according to the light of reason, or the "natural Law, in which reason appears at its best (St. L. X:416).
Footnote 107:
In accordance with this everyone must carefully examine whether, e. g., a war is justified or not. Cf. Luther, St. L. X:413 ff., 524 ff. Here the conscience of the individual must decide; he cannot permit the State or the Church (pastor, synod) or any other man-made agency to make the decision for him. Therefore Luther stresses the need to investigate the situation, not in a superficial manner, but "with the greatest diligence." That is also the meaning of the 16th article of the Augustana, where among the functions of the government also the right "to engage in just wars" is mentioned. If the government calls its citizens to arms to prosecute an unjust war, the citizens must refuse their obedience, as the end of the article states. Luther states the same in the treatises mentioned above. Only where, after diligent inquiry, a personal decision becomes impossible and the matter remains uncertain, there according to Luther's opinion, the Christian, when forced to serve in the war, should "not weaken the certain obedience" (to the government) "for the sake of an uncertain right." (ibid., 525)

Quote, John Stuart Mill, 1867

Those branches of politics, or of the laws of social life, on which there exists a collection of facts sufficiently sifted and methodized to form the beginning of a science should be taught ex professo. Among the chief of these is Political Economy, the sources and conditions of wealth and material prosperity for aggregate bodies of human beings....
The same persons who cry down Logic will generally warn you against Political Economy. It is unfeeling, they will tell you. It recognizes unpleasant facts. For my part, the most unfeeling thing I know of is the law of gravitation: it breaks the neck of the best and most amiable person without scruple, if he forgets for a single moment to give heed to it. The winds and waves too are very unfeeling. Would you advise those who go to sea to deny the winds and waves-or to make use of them, and find the means of guarding against their dangers? My advice to you is to study the great writers on Political Economy, and hold firmly by whatever in them you find true; and depend upon it that if you are not selfish or hart-hearted already, Political Economy will not make you so.

(quote taken from macro economics, fourth edition, n. Gregory Mankiw , Worth Publishers, 2000.)

Edward Gibbon's assessment of Julian

Rather than attempt to match the elegance or lucidity of Edward Gibbon, rather than attempt my own appraisal of Julian, I will simply tell you what Gibbon said in The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Volume II, published by Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. and copyrighted in 1910. Edward Gibbon writes in chapter XXII, page 406:

Whatever had been his choice of life, by the force of intrepid courage, lively wit, and intense application, he would have obtained, or at least he would have deserved, the highest honours of his profession, and Julian might have raised himself to the rank of minister or general of the state in which he was born a private citizen. If the jealous caprice of power had disappointed his expectations; if he had prudently declined the paths of greatness, the employment of the same talents in studious solitude would have placed beyond the reach of kings his present happiness and his immortal fame. When we inspect with minute, or perhaps malevolent, attention the portrait of Julian, something seems wanting to the grace of perfection of the whole figure. His genius was less powerful and sublime than that of Caesar, nor did he possess the consummate prudence of Augustus. The virtues of Trajan appear more steady and natural, and the philosophy of Marcus is more simple and consistent. Yet Julian sustained adversity with firmness, and prosperity with moderation. After an interval of one hundred and twenty years from the death of Alexander Severus, the Romans beheld an emperor who made no distinction between his duties and his pleasures, who laboured to relieve the distress and to revive the spirit of his subjects, and who endeavoured always to connect authority with merit, and happiness with virtue. Even faction, and religious faction was constrained to acknowledge the superiority of his genius in peace as well as in war, and to confess, with a sigh, that the apostate Julian was a lover of his country, and that he deserved the empire of the world.

Thomas Manton

Mr. Thomas Manton once wrote:
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For the present: A family is the seminary of Church and State; and if children be not well principled there, all miscarrieth: a fault in the first concoction is not mended in the second; if youth be bred ill in the family, they prove ill in Church and Commonwealth; there is the first making or marring, and the presage of their future lives to be thence taken, Prov. 20:11. By family discipline, officers are trained up for the Church, 1 Tim. 3:4, One that ruleth well his own house, etc.; and there are men bred up in subjection and obedience. It is noted, Acts 21:5, that the disciples brought Paul on his way with their wives and children; their children probably are mentioned, to intimate, that their parents would, by their own example and affectionate farewell to Paul, breed them up in a way of reverence and respect to the pastors of the Church.
For the future: It is comfortable, certainly, to see a thriving nursery of young plants, and to have hopes that God shall have a people to serve him when we are dead and gone: the people of God comforted themselves in that, Ps. 102:28, The Children of thy servants shall continue, etc.
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From the Book of Concord (Why Write Your Confessions?)

The Book of Concord, The Confessions of the Evangelical Lutheran Church
Translated and Edited by Theodore G. Tappert
Fortress Press
Philadelphia
1959
Pages 12, 13


...we have directed our churches and schools first of all to the Holy Scriptures and the Creeds, and then to the aforementioned Augsburg Confession. We desire particularly that the young men who are being trained for service in the church and for the holy ministry be faithfully and diligently instructed therein, so that the pure teaching and confession of the faith may be preserved and perpetuated among our posterity through the help and assistance of the Holy Spirit until the glorious advent of our only Redeemer and Saviour Jesus Christ.

Since this is the way things are, and since we are certain of our Christian confession and faith on the basis of the divine, prophetic, and apostolic Scriptures and have been adequately assured of this in our hearts and Christian consciences through the grace of the Holy Spirit, the most acute and urgent necessity demands that in the presence of so many intrusive errors, aggravated scandals, dissensions, and long-standing schisms a Christian explanation and reconciliation of all of the disputes which have arisen should come into being. Such an explanation must be thoroughly grounded in God's Word so that pure doctrine can be recognized and distinguished from adulterated doctrine and so that the way may not be left free and open to restless, contentious individuals, who do not want to be bound to any certain formula of pure doctrine, to start scandalous controversies at will and to introduce and defend monstrous errors, the only possible consequence of which is that finally correct docrine will be entirely obscured and lost and nothing beyond uncertain opinions and dubious, disputable imaginations and views will be transmitted to subsequent generations.