Page:Luther's correspondence and other contemporary letters 1521-1530.djvu/147

 and yet pennit such things to be done among their subjects. the Lord negligently, and keepeth back his sword from the blood of the wicked."
 * Cursed be he," saith the prophet/ "that doeth the work of

In the seventh place, let them consider that Luther is using almost the same means for seducing Christian people that the filthy Mahomet used to deceive so many thousands of souls, namely, permitting those things to which carnal men are in- clined and exempting them from those things in our law which are burdensome; except that Luther seems to proceed a little more moderately, and thus deceives men more readily than the other. Mahomet granted men permission to have many wives and to put them away at will and take others; this man, in order to win the favor of the monks and the vir- gins dedicated to God, and the priests who are guilty of lustful desire, preaches that vows of perpetual continence are not lawful and not binding, and that evangelical liberty, there- fore, permits them to marry, forgetting the word of the apostle, when he speaks of the younger widows, and says,* "When they have begun to wax wanton against Christ, they will marry, having damnation, because they have cast off their first faith."

When you have set forth these things and many others to the same effect, which you can gather from the copies of our letters and think out for yourself, you will, in our name, exhort the said princes, prelates and people, that they shall at last wake up and bestir themselves to put a stop to the grievous insults that the Lutherans are putting upon God and His holy religion, and to the shame which they are in- flicting upon the whole German nation and its princes, and to the reproach and contempt which they are bringing on their own ancestors, whom they are, in effect, condemning to hell, as we have said. Let them proceed at once to the execution of the apostolic sentence and the aforesaid imperial edict. Let pardon be granted to those who come to themselves and wish to abjure their errors, and let them always incline toward mercy rather than toward revenge, after the example of our God, who willeth not the death of sinners, but rather that they

1 Jeremiah xMii, lo. * I limotky ▼» xxi*

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