We have finally received the letter that you, Luther, gave us at Wittenberg on the first day of September 1525, which we have received (I do not know in which country it travelled for so long), in which you say that you are sorry and ashamed of yourself that you have so foolishly and rashly let your book go out against me, not out of your own spirit, but out of the seduction of those who were not almost favorable to me. In which you know yourself (as you write) to be entirely guilty of how seriously you have injured us, and for this reason you are justified in shying away from petitioning us in writing; but you have been made brave and bold (you write) not only that you have heard me so graciously that, knowing myself to be mortal, I will not bear you immortal enmity, but also that you, by credible
Witnesses that the booklet, which went out under my name from the sacraments, is not truly mine, as for this the guileful (so you write) sophists wanted to consider, who abused our title of majesty and did not feel what danger they do to themselves with this our disgrace, first of all the Cardinal of York (Eboracum), whom you call an abomination and a common hatred of God and the world, in addition a poison of our kingdom. And for this reason you are so ashamed (as you write) that you must not open your eyes against us, that you have allowed these workers of wickedness to move you against such a great king. Further you append that this finally makes you scream.
2) With Walch: in.
*An edition of this letter was published in 1527 in Dresden by Wolfgang Stöcke under the title: Uospoiikio invietissimi XnsUuo ue Drunoiao ro^is, äolonsoris tiäei uo Domini D^verniuo uä praolutuo smstoluo ouxitu. About the edition of Cochlaeus at Cologne and the translation of Emser, both in 1527, information has already been given in the previous number. In addition, this answer of the king is found in the writings of Joh. Fischer, Bishop of Rochester, Würzburg 1597, and in Bzovii annal. uä unn. 1525, Dom. XIX, p. 373. The king's letter has no date. On the basis of Luther's letter to Wenceslaus Link, De Wette III, p. 58, one wanted to put this letter into the year 1525, but wrongly, because this letter belongs, as Köstlin correctly remarks "Martin Luther" vol. Il, p. 620 uä 145, not at all into the year 1525, but into the year 1526. Accordingly, this writing will also have to be put into the same year. Luther worked on the refutation of it on February 1, 1527.
Cf. in this volume, Appendix, No. 3. We reproduce the text according to Walch's old edition.
I earnestly urged you that I have now begun to be favorable to the gospel, and have finally received a displeasure because of this kind of lost and useless people, namely those who are opposed to your sect, which, as you write, has truly been a gospel, that is, a joyful message to your heart, and you pray most sacredly that God the Lord may so instruct me that I may become obedient and inclined to the gospel with my whole spirit, and not let my ears be taken in by the poisonous voices of the sirens, who can do nothing but cry out Luther for a heretic. Then you remind me that I should take to heart that there is nothing wrong in your teaching, for you teach nothing else but that one must be saved through the faith of Jesus Christ, the Son of God (who suffered for us and was raised again). For this is the main and foundation of your doctrine, on which you build (as you say) love toward your neighbor, obedience toward the worldly ruler, and crucifixion of the body of sins. You also desire to be heard in this alone, and wonder that you are condemned, neither heard nor overcome. In addition, you rage against the Roman church in your old way, and boast how many German princes have taken your side, and that it is no wonder that the emperor and some princes persecute you, but it is more to be wondered at that any prince should fall to the gospel; Because princes and nations always tend to resist the gospel, and you desire very much that you may rejoice with me at this miraculous sign, that I may become a perfect disciple of Christ, a confessor of the gospel, and be counted among your good patrons. Furthermore, you beg and plead through the cross of Christ that we may forgive you for what your book has offended us, and you voluntarily promise that (as soon as 1) it is convenient for us) you will let another go out against it, and revoke the previous one in my honor, because you firmly believe 2) that the gospel and the honor of God can hope for no little fruit from it, if you are granted to write from the gospel to the king of England.
(2) These, Luther, are all the points and contents of your epistle, from which, as we sufficiently note, you do not mean what you write, but understand and well discern where your deceitful speech is going: so we will follow our old way,
1) With Walch: so much.
2) With Walch: us.
and so that you may not deceive the simple-minded with your guileful lists, we will answer you on all and every point in the shortest possible way.
3. That you say that you are ashamed of your book itself, I do not know how true you speak in that; But I do know that there is reason enough why you should be ashamed, not only of this book, but of almost all your books, which contain nothing but shameful errors and nonsensical heresies that are neither founded on reason nor supported by art, but are spoken and substantiated solely out of stubborn presumption, because you claim to be such a great teacher, the likes of which no one has ever been to this day or before. Nor can I well see how it could be true that you are urged to write your book against me by those who are not almost favorable to me, because the thing itself brings it along, that you are more tempted by those who have not granted you anything good, because your book is such that it may bring its poet nothing but shame and vice, and my book is an honor. For yours clearly shows that you have not found a single word of a sound mind that you might hold against me, which in my opinion proves sufficiently which of us has a better cause. No matter how much you pretend that you do not believe that the booklet I have let pass is mine, but that it was probably done in my name by the malicious sophists, much greater and more credible witnesses than your credible witnesses know that it is mine, and the less you like it, the more I prefer to confess it myself. But that you write that the booklet mentioned has brought me shame, everyone can understand well (how much you always bergest this), how very badly it upsets you that my booklet has been praised with such great coincidence by all pious people, and before that from the venerable judgment of the chair, which, just as it condemns your heresy, so it has so much testimony and power from the most holy Jerome that it let itself be meant that it would be enough for it if its faith were proven by this chair alone. Although I am not in the habit of boasting much about this honor, nor about any of my other works, I pray to God that I may do so always, and that all honor and glory may be attributed to God alone. But this pleases me to tell the truth, to some extent, that my book, be it as it may (for I am not unaware of my weakness, nor has your cause been much weaker), this
my little book (as far as the argument extends) has not only wiped out all the filth that you previously splashed on the holy sacraments, but also what you subsequently poured out furiously, and that it drove you to write such a book, from which the whole world would like to see that you had become completely nonsensical from the anger and impotence of your mind of an ungodly, as namely in which you, not only of art and senses, but also of all respectability, you might have mustered nothing but foolish chatter, whorish scolding, and more than hollow-headed insolence, when my book, in turn, has not only kept itself against the church (which faith you dare to overthrow) and proven our service, but has also shown love for you and desire to improve you rather than to condemn you, more than your badness ever deserved. To this end, my booklet reports that, according to the knowledge of highly learned men, many of your errors have been displaced with powerful causes, and that with powerful writings, which, to be sure, have not been invented from myself, nor have they been drawn to my benefit (as you are in the habit of pulling the holy Scriptures of your will to courage by the hair), but have been weighed according to the holy old fathers' interpretations and are entirely in accordance with him, so that in this matter we would have no fellowship with those whom you are wont to call sophists, [who] are in truth pious and learned men, whom you also call sophists for no other reason than that you would gladly weigh down their powerful arguments (with which they reveal and overcome your foolishness) with the hatred of sophistry.
4. Since you continue to spitefully disgrace and blaspheme with a poisonous tongue the most reverend in God the Father, the Cardinal of York, our most distinguished councillor and chancellor in England, I know his excellent wisdom better than I believe that he will be moved in the least by the spiteful blasphemies of your tongue 2), because your tongue also so reviles the whole church, belittles the most holy fathers, disgraces all saints, despises the apostles of Christ, dishonors his most holy mother and blasphemes God himself as the origin, founder and instigator of all sins; which abominable filth of your blasphemy appears publicly everywhere, not only in all the places of your poisonous books, which you have written to the noticeable harm of the Christian people, but also from the one that the peasants in German
1) Hohlhipler - a meanly scolding lotterbube. In Walch, instead of "hohlhippische" - "holipische".
2) With Walch: witnesses.
We have committed such senseless acts in the lands that have been made wild by your heresy. Therefore, although the above-mentioned most reverend father has been very dear to us for a long time because of his special virtues, he is and will be so much dearer to us every day, as much more we realize that he is hated by you and your kind; But that you call him a poison of my kingdom, does not seem advisable to us, that we should give an account to a monastic brother, what benefit and piety we and our kingdom received daily from this man's special wisdom, faithfulness, work, effort and wholesome diligence. But to say nothing of the other, this is an indication enough of how useful he is to our whole country, that he is carrying out the ministry he is commanded to do according to the will of our minds, and is always purifying our kingdom from the poisonous contamination of your heresy, of which some very sick people sometimes come even to England, yea, they come from those places which the noxious breath of your unhealthy mouth hath poisoned, which nevertheless, found by diligent inquiry and good diligence of the aforesaid most reverend father, we do not drive from us alone, lest your leprosy come among ours; but act and heal them conveniently, and with great love we bring them back to the right faith. For as far as ours are concerned, we hope with God's grace to be wiser and much stronger in the faith of Christ, than that your godless and foolish sect may deceive us with flattery, as a great hope has always made you, I do not know which impudent liar or, that I believe more, some one or two apostate brothers and apostates, who, driven out of my kingdom and fled from the faith of Christ, live with you of their lust with splendor and unchastity; From which [sect] my kingdom (as I respect) is so purified that, although there are still some others of the same small 3) ones (of which, however, I hope there are not very many), nevertheless, 4) so many of them remain, I would that you had them all with you.
(5) You call this a gospel, that is, a glad tidings to your heart, that I have now begun to be favorable to the gospel, as if I had never been favorable to it before. But the fact that I did not begin to love the gospel and read it with reverence as recently as you think indicates (how much you deny this) that I have overcome much of your harmful heresy with the open testimonies of the gospel, which you (as you do) have not yet understood.
3) With Walch: Kleüen.
4) Instead of "nevertheless" in Walch: "nach denn".
I have said) sufficiently indicated that I do not only now begin to act the gospel. Therefore, you should know that our primary concern has long been and should always be for the gospel, as I know its teachings to be wholesome, but only for those who deal with the gospel differently than you do. For you, in your interpretation of the Scriptures, are always against the whole world, based only on the fictitious findings of your dreams, and you disregard the advice of the wise man, Proverbs 3, namely: "Son, do not rely on your wisdom, and do not consider yourself wise in your own eyes. But as far as I am concerned, I know well and freely confess how inadequate I am to hear the holy Scriptures from myself, for which reason I humbly ask for the help of divine grace, and wholeheartedly submit myself first to the statutes of the Christian church, which are to be considered great; Then also to the interpretations of the Christian fathers, whom the goodness of God has mildly instructed in the Scriptures, enlightened with graces, confirmed in faith, adorned with good works, and finally declared by miraculous signs that their faith and life are pleasing to Him. If, on the other hand, you despise reported holy fathers, carelessly desecrate their memory and (as much as you can and may) cut off their honors; lest the pretense and reverence of so great holiness should shine before your insolent heresies, you praise none but your own ingenuity and art, and though you publicly defend manifest folly for wisdom and false heresy for truth, yet you have nothing else, on which you may rely entirely, except that you cry out as a stentorian 1) that the Scriptures are bright and clear enough for you and that all those who ever held otherwise were vain stones, sticks and blocks, however much of them and with whatever ingenuity, art or holiness they ever seemed. Moreover, as you have gloriously raised the cause with words, you incite and drive the coarse and unruly peasants to rage unbridled under a semblance of evangelical freedom and to champion your nonsensical sect. If anyone would be so foolish as to waver or doubt which way he should take, namely this new way of yours or the old way of the holy fathers, our Sustainer Christ solves all questions for him when he says in Matthew 7: "By their fruits you will know them," for by their fruits you will know them.
1) Stentor was one who was in the war before Troy and had such a great voice that he shouted as loud as fifty men otherwise.
No one doubts that the reported holy fathers were pious people and of an irreproachable life, who were determined to serve God with fasting, praying and chastity and whose writings all smell of love. Of you, however, there is much less doubt, because it is publicly seen that you have done everything that you have subjected yourself to, beginning with envy and hope, proceeding with anger and ill will, continuing and exalting yourself by the mere application of a little cry or praise, and finally falling into the most shameful pleasure of the flesh. Because of how much you always cover up this doctrine of yours with the appearance of evangelical freedom, and although I know myself well enough how thin my art is, it is not so thin that you will persuade me to believe that your presumption is good, because you, always preaching about the Spirit, are wallowing in carnal pleasure and pretending to exhort the world to the way of an evangelical life, while turning people away from solitary chastity, which the gospel diligently praises us for. Finally, you throw away your chastity (which you promised with vows and surrendered to God) even from yourself, which all the power of the holy scripture binds you to keep.
(6) You also write, Luther, that you are very ashamed to lift up your eyes against us, that you have so easily allowed yourself to be moved by the operarios of wickedness (as you say) against us. But I am indeed very much surprised that you are not seriously ashamed to raise your eyebrows against God, or to look at any pious person, that you have allowed yourself to fall into such recklessness by inspiration of the devil, that you have weakened and deprived of her honor a nun, who was sanctified to God, with sinful embrace, for the sake of foolishness of the flesh and shameful pleasure (since you are an Augustinian brother). How is it that you not only recognized her carnally (which vice, if you had shown this to the Romans and pagans, she would have been buried alive and you would have been punished to the death), but you have publicly taken her as a wife with a defiled wedding, and so you obviously abuse her by wickedness to a daily whore, with the highest astonishment of the whole world, with the highest disgrace of both of you by the whole world, with the highest contempt of the holy matrimony and the highest reviling of the most holy vows.
7. further, that which is most to be hated among all, if thou art guilty of such an abominable misdeed.
2) With Walch: "inheritors".
and you should be sorry, then you pretend, instead of repentance, an impudent glory, and flee so much from invoking forgiveness that you also publicly irritate the other monastics in the pursuit of your vice by writing and books. Therefore, Luther, since you begin this, we are not very surprised that you would so gladly cut off the honor and service of all the saints; namely, that you realize that from their honor and reverence grows the disgrace of your vices; for whoever believes that they were pious must necessarily consider you the most wicked, who teaches and acts so outrageously repugnant to the teachings and works of the dear saints. For who can praise the marriage of a monk who thinks anything of the most holy and learned father Jerome? For as he says: "It is not only condemnable to those who have vowed chastity to be free, but also to desire to be free. Read, Luther, and read this pious father's epistles to the 1) nun who had fallen, and the like to the deacon who had put her to shame, and learn, poor man, from these and other of the holy fathers' writings, to do more penance for your sin, than to draw the unfortunate companions of your damnation to you by an evil example and sinful counsel with obviously nonsensical books in defense of your vice, which one cannot excuse.
(8) Again, I am utterly astonished how thou (who dost everywhere boast so proudly and strongly of thy knowledge of the Scriptures) dost so utterly despise thy vows, when thou hast read in the Scriptures, "If thou hast vowed anything unto God, forbear not to perform it. "For God dislikes an unfaithful promise," Ecclesiastes 5. Item and this, "Vow and keep your vows to God your Lord." How then? If thou hast promised a vow unto God thy Lord, thou shalt not be ashamed to perform it; for God thy Lord will require it of thee; and if thou be forgiven thereby, it shall be counted unto thee also for sin. But thou (as I perceive) thinkest that the vows of chastity, fasting, poverty, and obedience are to be numbered among the servile ceremonies of the law of Moses. For your customs and books give evidence enough that the evangelical freedom (who would believe you) is in nothing else than in freedom of carnal pleasure. But the prophet Isaiah has a far different opinion, because "at that time," he says Cap. 9 (indicating the time of the law of Christ), "they will
1) Walch: to which.
Vows promised to God, their Lord, and they will perform them," so that he undoubtedly indicates that the vows of the Christians have more power in the course of the evangelical laws and are kept more sacredly than they were ever kept in Mosiah's law. Which thing God tells us Apost. 5. 5. held up an example to us, since he punished the transgressed vow of Ananias and Sapphira so severely in the part of the stolen money; of which St. Gregory 2) (as if he were addressing you, Luther, and your whore with it, since your union is not a conjugal being) admonishes the monks, thus reading: Ananias would have pledged money to God, which he then (overcome by the devil's inspiration) alienated again; but you know with what death he was punished. If, then, he was worthy of death for having again alienated the money he had given to God, consider what peril you will be worth before the divine court, who have alienated not money but yourself from the almighty God (to whom you pledged yourself under the spiritual garment). What do you want, Luther, what does your poor wife want to say to this? If you now recognize your sin or are sorry for it (even if you sin something in addition to it out of stupidity of the flesh), there is hope for your correction, as happened with Magdalene, David, and many others like them. But now, what hope shall we have of you, if you persist in defending your wickedness, and brazenly boast that you ought to be ashamed of yourself? If thou call thy vices virtue, and thou call the virtue of others vice? Do you not plunge into the pit of malediction, which the prophet Isaiah, Cap. 5, mourns in the like of you, saying: "Woe to you who call good evil and evil good; who take darkness for light and light for darkness, bitter for sweet and sweet for sour and bitter"? Because you do not respect these scriptures at all, because you twist and turn them to your liking, spurning their most holy expounders and rejecting their most wholesome teaching, which has been proven by the holy lives of the holy fathers; and because you oppose all these things with nothing but sacrilege, presumption, and rage against the vows with utterly animal arguments and nonsensical babbling, which is such a manifest heresy that no greater nor more manifest is easily unheard: nor pray God never to let my ears be taken in by the poisonous voices of the sirens, who can do nothing but Luther.
2) in r6K. lid. I. 6. 33. aä Venantiurn ^xostatarn.
for a heretic. I truly hear no brighter voice in this place than your books, which scream nothing to my ears except that Luther is a heretic; so much so that I am truly astonished at the unashamedness with which you may boast to me that you teach nothing except that one must be saved through the faith of Jesus Christ, the Son of God (who suffered for us and was raised again). And on this foundation you then build love towards the neighbor, obedience to the worldly rulers' and crucifixion of the body of sins.
9 If God, Luther, would that these words of yours were as true as I know them to be false! For, dear one, how do you build love on faith, when you teach that faith alone, without good works, is enough for salvation? Then even though in the booklet in which you raged against me (since shame so oppressed you that you were disgusted to hear anything more about this matter) you charged us that we had turned your words against you: Not only did you not answer at all to the same words of your own, which we reproached you with in defense of the sacraments, and by which we so bound and entangled you with this so atrocious heresy that you could neither escape nor flee; but you, you shamefaced and prudent man, immediately spoke the same words again, and immediately in the same book, in which you falsely complain that such things had been falsely brought to your attention before, through misrepresentation. For thus you write: It is a robbery of the church and ungodliness, if one wants to please God by works and not by faith alone. Which words are no less clear and evident than those you wrote before in the "Babylonian prison," thus: "So you see how rich a Christian man or a baptized man is, who (even if he wants to) cannot forfeit his blessedness, however great a sin he always commits, because he does not want to believe; for no sin can condemn him, but unbelief alone; all the others (if faith stands or returns) will be forgiven him through the divine promises.divine promises made to the baptized, are swallowed up in a moment by reported faith. These words of yours indicate your opinion so publicly that they neither need nor permit any gloss: for no color can be painted here, except that you, against the words of Christ, Matth. 7 (namely, "narrow is the way that leads to the kingdom of heaven"), make the way reported to us broad and easy with your evangelical freedom, so that you may take the easy way out of your own hands.
You make a friend of the rabble by teaching that it is enough for salvation if one believes the promise of God alone, without any effort of good works. Which faith is far from the opinion of St. Paul, Gal. 5, who praises "the faith that worketh by love"; who also gives the testimony 2 Cor. 13: "Whether ye be in faith or not, test ye yourselves." But how can this testing be done but by good works? For he who does righteousness is pleasing to God. Yes, the holy evangelist John also says against such deceivers, who deceive the people with such vain, idle and dead faith: "Children" (he says 1 Ep. 3), "let no one deceive you! He that doeth right is righteous." And truly, Luther, to believe according to your teaching that one may live without fruits of good works, and wallow in sins without all fear, and rely solely on this hope and too much proud presumption, that faith alone may wash away or swallow up the filth of so many hardened sins: this is a faith that is undoubtedly worse than the devil's faith. For, as St. James Cap. 2. says: "You believe that there is a God; the devils also believe this and tremble before him," [the devils] are not so bad in this as you are, because you fear nothing at all. But do you not think, Luther, that the apostle spoke these words especially to you? who by this heresy of yours (by which you argue that mere faith alone is enough for salvation) repel and prevent all fear of God. For since you say that a baptized person is so rich that he cannot forfeit or lose his salvation (even if he wants to, and however great sins he is always burdened with), because he does not want to believe: It follows as soon as that all fear of God is in vain, it is now drawn by his just judgment and terrible chastisement of hell (from which fear we irritably accept the path to virtue), or is now the fear that comes from the fact that we fear to offend the one whom we love as a father, even as children. For what need is there of fear (but to do a bitter and hard thing), when the only thing that would make a man blessed is sweet and pleasing faith? Or why do we torment ourselves with the fear of God, or fright of hellish fire, when mere faith alone is enough without any burden? And indeed, Luther, because in your assertion you separate all fear of damnation and hell from the preparation for repentance, and say that one should seek it through love alone, you do indeed
This place is a great injustice to the poor sinners, of whom you take care with such tender favor to be considered merciful; for you are working to take from them that which the good God has ordained for them, as a special means by which they might come to love: for love itself (while we live in this pilgrimage) is not sufficiently preserved, namely, where it is too secure without fear; for "where you yourself" (says the Scripture, Sir. 27.) "keep not always the fear of GOD, thy house shall soon fall." Whoever examines the holy Scriptures will find that sinners are not drawn by one way alone, but by many, among which is also counted reported fear, although they all have one end in view, namely, improvement of life, without which means and ways the sinner may not by all means so soon attain to beatific love. Therefore, how could you give sinners any worse advice than to advise them to flee from the reported means by which they, having turned away from sins, would be blessedly drawn to God?
(10) Now there is almost no other way that we are so often and so strongly drawn in the beginning than by this fear, which is driven into us by the cruelty of hell. For which reason also Christ, the Most Gracious, holds this terror before the eyes of His disciples, when He says Matth. 10.Fear him who, after he has killed, has power to cast into hell fire, lest anyone should think that poor sinners are not concerned in this matter, who do not yet repent, nor have any intention of repenting; and what can be more useful to them than this fear, which (as the Scripture says) "casteth out sin"; and he who is without fear may not be justified. Therefore, not only do you take away the fear of the last judgment and of punishment from repentance (which fear is the best way for us to escape from the snares of sin), but also (so that we may persist in our sins all the longer out of faith) you must completely remove all fear from the love of God, even though the Scripture says: "The fear of God is the beginning of love. Yes, it also afflicts us (as I said above) Isa. 25: "Unless you always keep to the fear of God, your house will soon fall down." The Scripture is not silent about how great power fear gives to faith: "Those who fear the Lord," says Sir. 2, "will not disbelieve His words; those who fear Him will seek the things that are pleasing to Him. How the Scriptures
teaches that wisdom also is to be raised by fear; "for the beginning of wisdom" (says Ps. 111. Prov. 9. Sir. 1.) "is the fear of the Lord." So now you see how the holy Scriptures, of which, as you forgive, you think so much, attribute fear (which you thus diminish) not only to wisdom and faith, but (since we are still on the way and pilgrimage) also to love, and indeed not unreasonably; for he who, out of fear of the last judgment, has begun to avoid and shun sin (which alone had turned his mind away from God) must, for necessity's sake, become the more skillful. Therefore, when the prophet noted the usefulness of this so needy fear, he asked not only that it be given to him badly, but that it be driven into him strongly and shot through with a feeling of pain. "Shoot through or fasten on" (he says Ps. 119, 120.) "my flesh with your fear, for before your judgments I have shunned." And why did God want to admonish us, to frighten us with hell and its torment? Because only that the fear of its torment and torture would be like a halter or bridle, by which he would turn men from sin and draw them to himself, drawing them by his love and favor.
011 For this reason, and because it is quite known and evident that thou annulest this fear, and openly impugnest good works, and despisest the satisfaction of penitents; how then dost thou act so impudently as to write that thou buildest love upon thy faith? when we have publicly proved, and that with your own clear and bright words, that you build on your faith nothing but evil works, because you teach that faith alone without works is enough, and despise good works, being a great teacher and cause to dare all things freshly without fear, because you promise that all sins will be swallowed up in a moment by faith alone, before you discuss faith when you write: It could by no means be faith, except a living and undoubted delusion, by which a man is certain, beyond all certainty, that he is pleasing to God, and that he has a gracious God who forgives him all things that he does or acts. With which words you forgive a very proud faith, and advise that a sinful man should thus pardon himself, as if he were not only certain of divine grace and favor in himself, but also certain of it in God, and as if he were God's own joy or pleasure, in such great favor with him that he should not forgive him.
could be angry with whatever great vices he displays: as if God had promised freedom from all sin for the single merit of faith; perhaps because faith (as you write in the "Babylonian prison") swallows up all sin in an instant.
(12) But as much as this hopeful and idle faith is pleasing to you alone, it was displeasing to the ancient fathers. That is why St. Isidore says: In vain does he flatter himself of mere faith, who does not practice good morals. St. Augustine also writes the same, and immediately takes a cause from the interpretation of the word fides; that is, faith (he says) is called by the word fit (that is, it happens). Two syllables, if one speaks, are fides; the first comes from doing, the other from speaking: therefore, if I ask you whether you believe? and you say: yes, I believe; ei, so do that which you say: then fides, that is, a faith, becomes of it. But what are the words of your patron, from whom you have now shamefully fallen away as a fugitive, valid for you? or what old father's words are valid for you, because you destroy them all and are allowed to argue against them, that there is no other way to faith, indeed that there is no other faith, but only that which you falsely discuss and interpret? Even though you want to take it as if it were adorned with love, you can never maintain it before the scholars who know what Christian faith is, because you make your faith so lacking in good works and so devouring sin that it gives the bad guy the rotten security of the shameful evil life. For contrary to this, the holy apostle Gal. 5. holds this to be true faith in adults, "which worketh by love"; so saith St. John, Cap. 14: "he that loveth God hath also his commandments, and keepeth them." So that, according to both of them, one from faith, the other from love, you should turn away from evil and do good, and not persist in this idle, hopeful faith, by which you are sure of all certainty that you please God, and that he must praise and forgive you for all that you do. If this were so, the good and (as God Himself testifies) so righteous pious man Job, since there was no equal of him on earth, would not have been so fearful as to say, Cap. 9: "I am afraid of all my works, for I knew that you would not spare the sinner."
(13) I confess that you write that faith must be alive, but it cannot be alive without love; so (as the evangelist says) he who does not keep the commandments of God does not love, John 14, and no one who has grown up and come to reason and does not strive in good works keeps them. From this it follows that your faith, which despises good works, cannot be alive, but is bad faith, like that which the apostle Jacob condemns in Cap. 2, when he says, "Faith without works is dead."
(14) Fuerder, where that is true which thou affirmest in the discourse of the ten commandments themselves, namely, that the commandments of God, first of all the ninth and tenth, may by no means be kept by anyone, however holy he may be (against which Christ seems to me to hold, since he says Matt. 11: "My yoke is easy, and my burden is light"), and if God is not loved, his commandments are not kept, and there is no life of faith where love is not involved. says: "My yoke is easy and my burden is light"), and if God is not loved, His commandments are not kept, and there is no life in faith where love is not present: do you not see how from your own words the speech again comes to the conclusion that the faith you want to consider alive cannot be alive, nor may it be?
15. But as you write these things, you make it clear enough where you want to go: For your books leave no one in doubt that among these two you intend and want to contend for one thing, namely, that you either persuade us of the hopeful and dangerous faith, from which trust anyone who relies on it needs to do good works, and make faith a thorn or spur to sin all the more freely than he who believes that it alone will swallow up all sins, however great and horrible they may be. Against which faith (where such intemperate hope may otherwise be called faith 1) the holy Scripture, Sir. 37, cries out strongly, "O thou mischievous presumption, who created thee?" Or do you raise faith so high to the top (though you cover the matter with words), so that few or none of them may come up, and you bring the common people into another and disgusting vice, namely, into despair of attaining salvation and faith; which despair, once it is rooted in, and the care to live rightly and well is completely laid aside, falls upon all the pleasures of the flesh, as the apostle writes Eph. 4: "Despairing, they have given themselves up to the unpleasantness of life.
1) In the old edition: for one faith.
chastity, to work all impurity." To which saying also falls that which is read in Job on the 15th: He does not believe (deceived by forgiven error) that he can be redeemed with some reward.
16. Therefore it is public enough in the day that your doctrine is wicked and most wicked, which shuns all means, and gives no credence to the promise, but either to that which even a blind man would see to be wicked, or to that which even an angel would scarcely reach, and that you seek nothing else by these two means, but that either the certainty of the attained faith, or else the despair of attaining it, plunges men into the freedom of a sinful life, which you alone endeavor to introduce under the appearance of evangelical freedom, nor do you build any other love on your faith.
(17) But that you write that you also base obedience to the temporal rulers on faith: who cannot consider this impertinent and ridiculous, since no one is hiding how stubbornly you teach that a Christian is not bound by any human law, of which the rulers are servants and executors? If you also despise all the holy Concilia, in which heresy you have continued so harshly that you, along with other wicked heretics, have burned the saints quite publicly and mockingly, the peasants, awakened by your admonitions, have resisted the rulers with heaps, to their own wretched murder, and to your eternal shame and disgrace.
18. how would you say (if there were some shame in you) that you build on faith the crucifixion of the body of sins, when you build on your dead faith the neglect of prayer, the contempt of feast days, the omission of fasting days, the violation of chastity, and finally all these things, so that Christians, partly from the commandment of Christ himself, partly from the approval of the Christian church, use to crucify the body of sins.
19. about this, how are you not ashamed to speak, that you teach and exhort people to crucify the body of sins? because you so obstinately teach this accursed heresy, that no one has power nor liberty of his will, so that he may do no good. For who will undertake to do what is good? or will care what he does that is evil? who has himself once wholly imagined that he is neither sufficient for himself, nor could cooperate with the grace of God in doing what is good, or in doing anything, and that
Even the evil deed that is done by him is not his, as in which he does nothing at all out of his will, but in which the eternal and unchangeable necessity of the divine will (which he could neither promote nor hinder) works all things.
(20) This very worst of all heresies that have ever arisen, and which also blasphemes the justice of God in the most dreadful way, seems to me to be the root from which all sins spring, which your mob commits in such a manifold and harmful way, which mischievous audacity (so that they will not shy away from anything out of the conscience of their unrighteousness) you diligently take upon yourself to arm yourself with the excuse of the unalterable necessity of the divine will. Which false opinion you also take care to disguise and color with some passages of Scripture, some of which are obscure in themselves, some of which are publicly misrepresented by you, some of which also show the contradiction clearly enough, which you insolent one nevertheless shout that they are clear and bright for you. In what matter, where thou hast any drop of sense or shame, I marvel at thy presumption, that thou mayest preach such an abominable heresy against so many words of the holy fathers, against the consensus of all ages or times of the whole Christian church, against so many innumerable, evident, clear and bright passages of holy scripture, that they leave no color at all to the adversary; Which, because the Scriptures are full everywhere, it would be in vain to recount many here, but let us be content with one or two as an example. For what can be clearer than these most plain words, Deut. 30: "I have set before you life, and good, and blessing, and punishment: therefore know thou life, that thou mayest live, and thy seed"? Dear one, how is the choice given to us, where freedom is denied to us? Or how can the choice stand with necessity? Because in the person of God (who puts punishment and reward for good and evil at the door of man's will) it is publicly said to man: "He has set before you water and fire; stretch out your hand to whichever you wish. Item: "Before man there is life and death; whichever he pleases, that shall be given him," Sirach 15? What does the will do here? what does the stretching out of the hand do, if he has no free will? To what end did John the Baptist exhort the Jews to repent? Matth. 3. Why did Christ tell the adulteress to sin no more? John 8: For what purpose did he command men to keep his commandments, when they keep them neither for themselves?
nor with the help of his grace may contribute something to the attitude of the same?
(21) Since God told man that good and evil were in their hands, did He tell them true or false? If you argue that he spoke falsely, you subtract faith from all his promises, in which alone you want to place salvation. Again, if you confess that he has spoken truly, you must also confess that you have spoken falsely, because you publicly teach the contradiction. Therefore, in this matter there is no further question to be asked, except: whether one should believe Christ or you? you then want to say - as nothing can be so strange or oddly conceived that you (where you are a little stout) are not allowed to speak - that God has spoken these words in a joke. Such, however, does not befit the valor of His Majesty; He spoke especially seriously in this matter, indicating to them the freedom of the will, as a certain cause that they would be justly punished if they did contrary to his commandments, so that he openly declared, without doubt, that there was no guilt in his righteousness, so that no one would take such an ungodly opinion of his mercy, nor be persuaded of that which you are now publicly preaching, namely, that the most gracious God is of such a tyrannical nature that he torments even the poor man, who has done nothing wrong, with a horrible and unending torment, solely to satisfy the tyrannical desire to torment people.
22 Because of this, and because you have fallen so deeply into the well of this poisonous heresy, that you may think this of God, which no pious man would lead into his mind to think or believe, not only of any pious man, but also of no one who would be moderately wicked, I consider that no further proof is needed of how dilapidated the building is that you have built on the watery foundation of such an unbelieving faith. Nor have these heresies of yours inspired the opinion that I would have thought to dispute them, for I recognize them in such a way that one would like to raise so much against each of them that one would fill not only a letter, but also several large books with them. Thus they have long since been so publicly overcome, so justly condemned everywhere, and so annoying to all pious and Christian people to hear that they should no longer be disputed and much less believed, even if an angel preached them from heaven,
because they are so utterly repugnant to the gospel and faith that Christ has taught His Church for so long.
(23) But even if they were as disputatious and doubtful as they undoubtedly are against you, I have long ago resolved that I would not dispute with you any further, having experienced how you, without all reason, give yourself entirely to frivolous bickering and quarreling. From which time on I decided (which I also want to keep), as far as the quarreling with words is concerned, to leave your lost head to its own malice and to let it manage its own. Although I see that there was no lack of others who answered from England and other places to what you wrote against me, and some also adorned you according to your merit, and dealt with you with your own arts, only that they used reason in addition to the spiteful words with which you alone disputirst. To them you have not yet answered anything at all, and would certainly not have remained silent for so long if you (who have so often overcome in public) had not been crushed by shame. But where your insolence will again move you to write, I am sure that someone will be found from among them who will once again denounce you. But for myself, I truly do not want to write to you anymore, nor would I have written to you now, if I had not been moved by the deceitful advice of your letter, by which you subsequently claim that your followers believe that I have begun to fall to the part, to which you would nevertheless have received a short answer from me; I would not have touched any of your heresies if you had not so insolently pretended that you teach nothing else than that men must be saved by the faith of Jesus Christ, and based on this love for one's neighbor, obedience to the worldly rulers, and crucifixion of the body of sins. For this your so impudent presumption has forced me to bring forth one or two of your erroneous doctrines, that every one may the more easily see that they are much of another kind, than some of those things of which you so falsely boast that you alone teach them.
(24) Nevertheless, I have not yet mentioned your other heresies, which sufficiently show the insolent presumption of your vanity. For since you condemn the solitary chastity of priests, reject holy consecration, mix up the bread with Christ's Corpus Christi, and so horribly violate the canon of the holy mass, you are not yet able to show the truth of your heresies.
You call women confessors, and grant them all the sacraments, and call them consecrators of Christ's Corpus Christi; you make so little distinction between the immaculate God-bearer and your whore, you blaspheme the holy cross of Christ, and teach that there is no purgatory, but that all souls sleep until the day of judgment, so that you give people hope that their torment will be long delayed, so that the wicked may sin all the more freshly: Because thou teachest these and a thousand other impudent heresies, art thou not afraid to write of thyself, that thou teachest nothing else, but that man must be saved through the faith of Jesus Christ? since you do nothing else in the truth, except that you might eliminate the faith of Christ, who, if he had come to teach the things you now teach, would not have come to turn men away from evil, nor would he have been (which he was) a master of virtue, but a public patron of vices, which, far from being true of him, he has given in this a noticeable enough indication, that he suffered such a cruel torture on the cross, that he might redeem us from the chastisement of sins. If there were any shame in you, you would not be able to teach such things: 1) How can I then tolerate that you write such things to me? since you know well that I have not only read these unchristian heresies of yours in your books, but also, according to the knowledge of highly learned people, have overcome many of them. . 25 Since this is the case, it is a wonder to see how impudently you fall on it again and desire to be "heard", as if you had never been heard before, and act as if you are surprised that you should be condemned, unheard and unconquered. Have you, Luther, never been interrogated by the most reverend father and Cardinal Sancti Sixti, the Pope's legate in Germania? have you never been allowed to dispute publicly? Have you not been interrogated in Saxony in the presence of the public 2) scribes? Have you not been heard more than too much by the whole world with your unchristian and blasphemous books, which, scattered everywhere, have spread the pestilential poison of your heresies far and wide? Nor are you ashamed to complain that you have not yet been heard, but-
1) In the old edition: redeemed, now that there is any shame in you, how can I endure it that 2c.
2) Walch: open.
of all things have been condemned without being conquered. But as far as your condemnation is concerned, you may well sleep securely, if you do not want to be condemned in any other way, if you are overcome first, so that you yourself confess to be overcome; otherwise you have truly been overcome often enough, "also by some other highly learned men and also by us, which not only the most learned all testify, but also the holy apostolic see has judged and recognized. Which, even though you do not want to recognize it in the face of hope, you yourself confess sufficiently by the fact that you have not found anything so far that you would be responsible for, except frivolous gossip and malicious words.
26. But if I, Luther, were to understand nothing at all of the matter for which you are condemned, I could certainly not doubt it, for you would be rightly condemned, since I see that the highest bishops with the whole collection of the most venerable cardinals have condemned you, which justice and respectability no pious person should suspect for the sake of a monastic brother's frivolous gossip, who rages and rages intemperately because he has been condemned, first of all because he is such a one for whom no reasonable cause is sufficient, who is not moved by any testimony of Scripture and who does not believe anyone but himself, whom 3) he also believes alone in all things, against the counsel of the wise man who writes Proverbs 3. 3: "Thou shalt not be wise in thyself." Which generation of men, as of a desperate kind, this is, note from Sirach 26: "Thou hast seen" (saith he) "a man that thought himself wise, but the unwise man hath more to hope for than he."
27 Since I also saw that many of your heresies were condemned with the agreement and consent of several highly famous high schools, why should I hold so many and such great men's judgments suspect, even though I myself (as I said) understood nothing at all about the matter they had discussed, since one of them was also the most renowned school in Paris, in whose opinion and judgment you had promised to remain. But after you noted that your errors were so obvious that nowhere was there a pious and learned man in whose knowledge you might place your trust: on the day at Worms, where the emperor condemned you with all the counsel of the rulers, you well addressed yourself to the people.
3) Walch: which.
But to submit that which would be disputed to any man's judgment, who would decide whether you were right or wrong, you have most vehemently refused and rejected.
28. Because I see you as such a one, and act in such a way that you will neither grant into other judges, nor obey those whom you had promised to obey, and neither spare nor fear imperial majesty's judgment (who had so many highly learned men in his council), nor the apostolic chair and holy assembly's sentence, but as a wicked scoffer appeal to the next common council, and then not even badly to the next one, but a secret passage by which you may escape, namely, that which will be most closely gathered in the Holy Spirit, so that you, in which you would be condemned, may always say that the Holy Spirit was not present, and yet as soon as afterwards despise all common conciliums, so that no one may doubt that you will finally be obedient to no one at all; Since you (I say again) hold yourself in such a way, how should the verdict passed against you be suspicious to me, if I understood nothing about the whole business, nor heard anything different?
29. But now, since I understand your matter as it is in itself, namely, vain obvious and undoubted heresy, of which I have told you several, just as you then pretend: You are astonished that you have not been heard so far, so we are even more astonished how you could speak this and that someone could be found who wants to hear you, as if the obdurate impudence of a monastic brother were reason enough that one must first doubt whether the things are finally true, which the whole common Christian church holds to be articles of faith and has always believed and held for more than fifteen hundred years, as seems clear from the teachings of Christ and his apostles, as well as from many blessed teachers 1) of the church, each of whom wrote in a different time and place than the other, and yet all of whom have been united in one faith, from the birth and passion of Christ until your unfortunate preaching: Which most holy fathers and approved interpreters of the holy scriptures, because thou despisest their writings, I can see no cause at all why thou shouldest desire that they should believe thine, or what fruits thy writings may bring us, which the approved interpreters of the holy scriptures have given us.
1) In Walch: "Teachings.
Teaching of all holy men from so many years ago are so quite repugnant.
(30) Therefore, if you write that the gospel and the glory of God would have great hope of not a little fruit from it, where you have been given free power to write to us about the business of the gospel, you would indeed have to take away everything that you have given or written so far, and write far differently, because close to everything that has been written by you so far, or, as I can note from your letter, you will still write from now on. For from the things that you have written to this day, the gospel of Christ has received no fruit at all, so that from the pestilential air of your poisoned mouth, much beautiful fruit has departed from it, and the most lovely and fruitful vine, which had ripened and grown to the sweetest fruit, where this caterpillar would not have crawled over it and eaten it away, has been spoiled.
(31) That you now again like to desecrate and blaspheme the Roman churches and their priests so frivolously is not my opinion, to quarrel with a monastic brother about this matter. But as they always are, you truly show yourself enough what kind of man you are. But since you want to be considered a perfect evangelist, you would do much better if you had learned from the Gospel to pull the beam out of your own eye before you attack the splinter in someone else's. You should also diligently try to be a good evangelist. You should also diligently judge, in the case of those who murmur and hurl abuse out of envy and malice, in the case of Moses and David, what end must await those who revile those to whom they are indebted to be submissive and obedient with reverence. Also, if you think that the church is wavering a little, you should learn to moderate yourself and be careful not to be so insolent and impudent that you presume to attack it so boldly and want to guide it with your crooked and impudent fingers, lest God teach you morality and remind you of your office, just as he taught him who presumed to lay hands on the sinking ark of the covenant 2 ).
32) Although there is no doubt that you have a desire to rage against the Roman court so frivolously, your teaching and your life both testify sufficiently that the reported court (even if it were as bad as you make it) could still not displease you, since the most important things of all are also in your hands.
2) In Walch: "Archen des Gelübdniß.
The most wicked boys and apostates, who despise their vows, throw away a better life, abandon spiritual practice, and completely surrender themselves to the pleasures of the flesh, are the most pleasing to you, and in turn the pious and spiritual people (who would have chosen to spend all their lives in divine service with prayer, fasting, and chastity) are miserably driven out of their monasteries and houses daily by you and your wicked mob, fasting and chastity) are daily and miserably driven out of their monasteries and houses by you and your wicked mob, and the holy temple, which was ordained for the venerable company and company of virgins, is now given over to the impure harlots to defile and desecrate. But does this not prove more than enough that you hate no one because he is a scoundrel, but that you are truly hostile to all those who are pious and love virtue, that is, those who are opposed to your ways and teachings? So indeed you murmur against the Roman see for no other reason than that you see, and are therefore angry, that your ungodly heresies have been condemned by it, so that it may not answer you unkindly: your murmuring and crying is not against us, but against the Lord, Exodus 16.And if the reported chair lifts up its eyes in Christ (instead of which it decays 1) and is graciously heard against your presumptuous hope, it will cry out: Those who think themselves great and boast of their power, you humble them; for hardly anyone was ever born who ascribes so much to himself, and yet by right so little is due to him, as you ascribe to yourself, and you, 2) if you were so wise as your good judgment has persuaded you, you would not have sent yourself into revenge, so that you, punished by the supreme bishop, would have taken it upon yourself more to murmur against it than to improve yourself because of it. A wise and chaste man does not murmur when he is punished, Sirach 10. Therefore I hold it completely for this, because you please yourself so well 3) and think yourself wise in your eyes, you will recently feel how that rhymes with you, which the apostle said to the pagan philosophers Rom. 1: "They have become vain in their thoughts, and their unwise heart is darkened; and saying that they were wise, they have become fools."
So your arrogance grows, that you now count yourself very rich in friends with great fame, previously great princes in German lands,
1) In Walch: "vorweiset".
2) Instead of "and you" in Walch: "which".
3) Walch: sowol.
who, as you boast, are on your side. But I believe that you will find out how true it is that God, in the secret revelation, has threatened a man who (if you do not overpower him with malice) would be very much like you, "you say" (he says), "I am rich and powerful, and may do nothing, and do not know that you are wretched and miserable, poor and blind. (I am rich and mighty, and may do nothing, and know not that thou art wretched and miserable, poor, blind, naked and bare. Revelation 3. But I believe for certain that not long after this Christ, which gospel you presume to extinguish (though you pretend great favor), according to the kindness he bears to his church, will appoint you 4) some hussy by which he will break the horns and crest of your foolish hope, and leave you so bare of friends, 5) as he has now forsaken you of his grace, because you, so often and so graciously offered to you by it yourself, always cast it out for and for and throw it away, yes, he has also now long begun to prove this to you noticeably, where your hopefulness has not so blinded you that you do not want to notice it; For although you boast very much that you have the favor of great princes, the matter proves the contradiction of that, that the poor wretched peasants, so seduced by your doctrine, have been slain with their pernicious harm and miserable defeat, by the power and victories of the most noble princes, who, with the highest reward from God, and praise and honor of all pious people, have resisted your rebellious mob and sect.
34. But that you say that it is no wonder that the emperor and some princes persecute you, and allegirst that from the prophet, "the nations have raged, and the peoples have begun useless things, the kings have come together, and the princes have united against the Lord, and against his anointed ones", these words fall on your head, if what you say is true, the German people and princes stand with you, because there is no doubt that your whole group and following is opposed to Christ, so let whoever wants to join you; But he that dwelleth in heaven shall laugh them to scorn, and the LORD shall mock them. 2. as he has now proved long enough, since more than seventy thousand or so of those who have sworn to your sect (in vengeance of God, who sends the princes to them) have been slain in a few months.
35. but that you so sacredly desire that God may so cooperate with your words with me that I may be converted by a miraculous sign to the gospel.
4) In Walch: "the".
5) Walch: befriend.
I freely confess that I am favorable to the gospel, and that this mind has not only always been with me, but also grows daily; but because I do not know that you mean the matter as if all those were unfavorable to the gospel who are not inclined to your sect; because I also know that God does not use miraculous signs against the faith of His Son, before the devil does such a miraculous sign in me, that I become favorable to your ungodliness from the bottom of my heart, under the name of the Gospel: I would truly rather that you, Luther, and all of yours be led beforehand to where you (where you do not mend your ways) shall be led in good faith.
36. But that you do me so much honor, and offer yourself so mildly against me, that you should not complain (where you realize that it is to my liking) to write another book, in which you praise me mildly, and at the same time revoke all the things, and take away again, which you would have written before on the contradiction: I will very gladly do this work for you, Luther, because I am not so hungry for fame that I desire your books for my praise, but rather desire and wish something better for you, namely that you recognize your errors, revoke your heresies, and improve yourself at times, and return to the faith, and thus prove it with writings and good works, so that you may give praise and glory to God. Otherwise, when you continue (as you have begun) with your ungodly heresies and evil lives, you truly cannot praise me more and more vehemently than when you reproach me. And again, more and uglier you cannot revile me, than if you exalt me to the highest you are able, where else that is true (which is certainly true), as it is read in Seneca: So shameful shall it be to thee, if thou be praised by shameful men, as if thou wert praised for shameful things.
37. Therefore, when you write that you are very ashamed of your book, which you wrote against me, and lay the blame on other people, I do not know which ones, whose blowing you followed and humbly fall at my feet and ask for mercy, hoping that because I know myself to be mortal, I will not want to carry immortal enmity with me; Truly, Luther, although you, holding yourself in such high esteem, have always considered yourself a great man, that you have not been ashamed to confess in your writings that you are not alone, but want to be from now on, not only while you live, but also after your death, "yes,
even if you were burned to ashes and thrown into a thousand seas," a mortal enemy of the pope, which height, how far kings depart, is unknown to me: yet I have never considered you so great that I ever intended to be your enemy, even though I am as hostile to your heresy as anyone else can be to it. Nor have I ever been so moved by any of the insults with which you have recklessly raged against me that you could not have asked me to do so with much less prayer than you are now using, if you meant the matter from the heart and amicably. But since I see that you proudly scatter these humble pleas of yours everywhere in defense of your heresy, I, Luther, am not so blind that I do not see and understand sufficiently 1) where this deceitfulness of yours (which you have not hidden wisely enough) is leading. By which you (although you do not refrain from your foolish blasphemy) diligently endeavor to gain favor and free power with us by flattery, that you might write to us of your heresies under a semblance of evangelical commerce, just as if 2) this had been done with our favor. But if the German princes had so well noted and foreseen the opinion and end of your undertaking as soon as in the beginning (God wanted it to happen), you would certainly not have been able to cause them so much harm under the appearance of freedom.
38. Therefore, just as you, Luther, with fictitious words ask me to forgive your guilt against me through the holy and venerable cross of Christ (which, how honestly it is held by you, your writings sufficiently indicate, in which you not only act unchristian and blasphemous, but also wantonly and with insufferable levity), so I again truly and from the heart admonish you to fall down not before me, but before the feet of God, and by his grace (which is always ready for those who do not wantonly cast it out) [with requests for] the freedom of your will (which you, I do not know whether you do this more out of foolishness or out of 3) malice, even deny) diligently [, so that you may obtain] 4) the help of divine graces, and if this is bestowed upon you by your petition and increased by steadfastness of humble prayer, then make every effort to cooperate with it in such a way that you first do away with any
1) With Walch: "versehe".
2) With Walch: "we".
3) Walch: also.
4) These insertions seemed necessary to make sense.
again into a monastery, the poor woman (who would have been a bride of Christ), of whom you now, to damn you both, abuse yourself under the name of a conjugal being according to your sinful lust. But all your life you would lament and weep for the manifold errors into which you have fallen, the great pile of evil and wickedness that your books have caused in so many places, and the miserable damage to so many innumerable bodies, which have been miserably deprived by your adverts, but above all and before that, the miserable and unending torment of the poor souls, of whom your evil teachings have plunged countless numbers into hell, and God wanted you to have so much grace and strength of spirit, that no terror, no peril, nor no fear of death would be able to ward you off, that you would not freely let yourself in among the heaps and, speaking the truth publicly, condemn and curse your shameful heresies yourself, with which you have poisoned the world with words, and even more 1) with your deadly pen, and yet have not yet exhausted them, but keep the most atrocious filth of the same quat 2) hidden in your heart. How much freer and bolder you would do this, how much better you would do it, and how much more you would thereby pander to the gospel, to which you have hitherto been so harmful, and would do enough with it.
1) Walch: less.
2) Quat-^Koth.
for what you have so wickedly committed; But if you do not have so much grace, and the stupidity of the flesh prevents you, that for fear you may not at present recant your heresies and errors to those whom you have vexed with them, then do not be ashamed to follow the apostle Peter (though you despise his followers), and therefore, if you may not confess the truth to them, and deny and conspire against Christ, come out from among those whom you (in whom you are not like St. Peter) have yourself made wicked. Peter), and bitterly weep over your sin, and turn yourself away to some spiritual monastery, where you may have recourse to the Borne (3) of grace and forgiver of sins, that is, to Christ, and do salutary penance for your committed sins, where you may also recant your errors, for the salvation of your soul and without all danger to the body. There, with recantation and lamentation of your poisonous heresies and blasphemous misdeeds, procurire and procure for yourself forgiveness of your past sin with the open sinner's humble and not so proud hope, mind, word and heart through wholesome fear of constant repentance. What transformation and correction of you and others, according to your example, I would truly much rather hear, because I have heard so far unwillingly, you and through you so many miserably corrupt.
3) Walch: the Bornen.