Page:Luther's correspondence and other contemporary letters 1521-1530.djvu/152

 him from Nuremberg. RTA., iii, 406, n. i. Two other breves of Adrian to Frederic, t)ne of October 5, 1522, and one of 1523, printed Erlangen, Opera varii argumenti, vi, sSgff^ 1872.

Beloved Son ! Greeting and the apostolic benediction ! We do not doubt that in the beginning, when Martin Luther first b^gan to disseminate his errors, your Highness had no idea that those tender shoots would produce such evil fruit in the Church of God, for you would not have allowed wicked heresies to flourish so long in your dominions, since your own life has been holy and you are sprung from ancestors who were wont to extirpate the heresies that entered their lands from foreign parts. We are confident that this opinion is well- grotmded, because of the promises of piety and constancy which you made (as we have learned) to our predecessor, Leo X, of blessed memory, through our beloved son Thomas, Cardinal of San Sisto,^ then legate in Germany, to the effect that you would tolerate Luther only so long as the Apostolic See had not repudiated his doctrines ; when that had been de- cided you would not wait for anyone else to inflict punishment upon him.

Lo, now, beside the academic condemnation of the fore- most universities in the world, the sentence of the Apostolic See, which you said you were awaiting, has been declared. In matters of this kind the Apostolic See not only cannot err but is accustomed to guide all other churches into the right way when they have fallen into error, and in this case it has proceeded the more deliberately and gravely because of the magnitude of the matter and because it judged that the man was a favorite of yours, and for you this Holy See has always done everything it could. This was followed some time after- wards by the imperial edict for the execution of the said sentence decreed by the Diet of Worms, at which you were yourself present. Nevertheless, as we have learned with no small vexation, this fire is not yet extinguished; indeed, it is continually spreading far and wide, and Martin Luther him- self, whom you have not punished as you ought, making your dominions, from which he first entered the field, an asjrlum and bulwark, is continually going from bad to worse,

^Cajettn. Cf. Vol. I, p. 102.

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