Page:Luther's correspondence and other contemporary letters 1507-1521.djvu/563

558 lowed the official with Dr. Cochlaeus the Dean of Frankfort to examine me. But it was a useless debate, for they tempted me with sharp sarcasm, but did not accomplish their end. I said: The Pope is no judge of matters pertaining to God's Word and the faith, but a Christian man must examine and judge them himself, as he has to live and die by them. For the Word of God and the faith is the property of every man in the whole community. That I founded on St. Paul (I Corinthians, xiv.)[i] "If a revelation be made to another sitting by, let the first keep silence.'' From this saying it is clear that the master should follow the pupil if the latter has the better support in God's Word. And this saying stood and yet stands, as they said nothing against it. Thus we parted.

Afterwards the Chancellor of Baden and Dr. Peutinger were deputed to treat with me to submit my books to his Imperial Majesty without any reservation, saying that I should trust to them, for they would decide as Christians. As they pressed me hard I put it on their consciences whether they would advise me to trust so freely to his Imperial Majesty and others, since they had already condemned me and burned my books, and whether I did not therefore have good reason to take care and make the proviso that they should decide nothing contrary to the gospel, and whether good reason to do so were not found in the prohibition of the Scripture to trust in men, as Jeremiah xvii. says: "Cursed is he that trusteth in man."[ii] Thus we parted. I agreed to submit on condition that they would decide nothing against God's Word. They were not able to take away that condition.

After that my Lord of Trier gave me an audience alone, in which he showed himself very kind and more than gracious, and tried his best to do the right thing. He made me similar representations, and I answered as before, for I knew not how else to answer; then he left me. Then immediately came the official with a count and the Chancellor* of his Imperial Majesty as a notary, and gave me this message from his Majesty: As I would not yield in my undertaking, I should

1 Luther quotes in Latin; the verse is the 30th, which is not given by Luther as the division into verses came after his day.

2 Latin.

3 Rather his secretary, Maximilian Transsylvanus von Zevenbergen.