Page:Luther's correspondence and other contemporary letters 1521-1530.djvu/148

Let. 558 be converted and live. But let those who obstinately persist in their errors be punished with the rod of destruction, according to the decrees of the sacred laws and canons, so that others, with their example before them, may either remain in the true faith, or, if they have lapsed, may return to the right way.

But if someone, perchance, shall say that Luther was condemned by the Apostolic See without a hearing and without the entering of a defence, and ought at least to have a hearing, and not to be condemned before he has been convicted; you will reply that what belongs to the faith is to be believed on divine authority and needs no proof. "Away with arguments," says Ambrose, "when the inquiry concerns the faith it is the fishermen, not the dialecticians, that must be believed." We admit, to be sure, that he ought not to be denied the right to defend himself in regard to matters of fact, i.e., whether he has or has not said thus and so, or preached or written this and that; but as regards the divine law and the matter of the sacraments, we must take our stand on the authority of the saints and of the Church. Besides, almost all the things on which Luther differs from others have already been rejected by General Councils, and there ought to be no doubt that whatever has been approved by General Councils and the Church Universal, must be held as an article of faith; for anyone who casts doubt upon things that have once been rightly settled, insults a Synod of the Church. What certainty can men ever have and how can there ever be an end to disputations and contentions, if any presumptuous and perverse individual shall have the liberty, or the license, to reject those things that have been established by the decision, not of one man or of a few men, but by the common consent of the ages and of the wisest men and of the Church Catholic, which God never allows to err in matters of faith, while every state, on the other hand, demands that its laws be kept inviolable. Will not every place be filled with disturbance and scandal and confusion unless those things that have once, nay, often, been settled by mature judgment are firmly kept by all? Since, therefore, Luther and his followers condemn the councils of the holy fathers, burn the sacred canons, and throw everything into confusion at their