Luther on War and Revolution

Secular authority, according to Luther, is in a sense the extension of patriarchal authority to the community. As such it is part of the present order of creation, by which Luther meant the conditions of human activity and existence in history. However, its constitutional form, like all other political settlements within the frame of Moral Law, was for him a matter of human expediency. For his part, Luther was content to accept the political settlement of his time