Page:Luther's correspondence and other contemporary letters 1521-1530.djvu/153

 160 LUTHER'S CORRESPONDENCE AND Let SSQ

and| setting up, so to speak, the trophies of his evil deeds, is celebrating a triumph.

If only you will take counsel not with those who have in- stigated this man to the committing of these crimes, but with yourself alone and your accustomed wisdom, you will see for yourself, beloved Son, that this is not a matter of dispu- tations because of which at the banning you seemed to take Luther's part for the honor of your own university against the professors of neighboring universities (perhaps not wrongly) ; nor is it even a matter of the Roman See, from which our faith originated, and which Luther has attacked far more sharply than accords with Christian charity; but it concerns the very foundations of our religion, which that son of iniquity, who is a very different man from what you and many others at first thought him, is attempting to rend asunder, cast down and altogether overthrow. Consider, too, that we have trouble enough, and more than enough, to defend our boundaries against the arms and the wiles of the infidels, even though we were not laboring with the internal discords, schisms and heresies of which Luther is the author. If your too great indulgence gives him any longer the opportunity to rend the seamless cloak of the Lord, beware lest our Re- deemer, Who, in His great kindness, has adorned you with so many brilliant gifts, may be the more grievously angry with you the longer you allow this poison to go unpunished.

We have written at such length especially to you and more pointedly than to the other princes of Germany because the others can easily excuse themselves on the ground that these evils did not arise in their dominions and that the author of them was not in their power to chastise. From this time forth you will no longer have any reason for dissimulation or any occasion for protecting this man; for this plague first arose in your own home, it has increased there, and even now con- tinues to exist there. The sentence of the Apostolic See, which you were awaiting, the imperial edict, the opinions of scholars, and the innumerable ills that have come out of this heresy, all show that your mind is somewhat clouded, either by too great fondness for Luther or from some other cause.

Take upon yourself at last, my Son, this great and holy

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