Page:Luther's correspondence and other contemporary letters 1521-1530.djvu/279

 not only have Caiaphas among His enemies, but Judas among His friends.

Knowing this» we should be armed and ready, like men who expect attack on either side, and we must not be surprised or terrified when schism arises in our midst, but must steadfastly consider that it must and will be so, and pray God to stand by us and keep us on the right track. Moses says, God proves us to find out whether or not we depend on Him with all our heart.

I say this because I have learned how new "prophets" have arisen, and because certain of your clergy have written me that Dr. Carlstadt has raised an outcry among you with his ranting about the sacrament and images and. baptism, as he has done elsewhere, and that he reviles me as though I had driven him out of the land.

Now, dearest friends, I am not your preacher, and no one is bound to believe me; let every man search for himself. I may warn ; I cannot control. I hope you have seen in my writ- ings how simply and certainly I treat the Gospel, the grace of Christ, the law, faith, love, the cross, doctrines of men, the Pope, and monastic vows ; in short, the main heads of Chris- tian doctrine. In these I think I am found blameless, and can- not deny that, though unworthy, I am an instrument of God by which He has helped many souls.

Of these main articles of faith Dr. Carlstadt has not rightly 1 set forth one, nor can he. Now that I look into his writings, I am simply shocked to find out, what I never suspected before, that the man is still in such deep darkness. It looks to me, when he falls on outward ceremonies with such violence, as if he thought the whole of Christianity lay in breaking images, subverting the Lord's Supper and hindering baptism. He is like to darken the sun and light of the Gospel and our Christian faith with his smoke and fog, so that the world will forget all that it has hitherto learned of us. What he teaches is not genuine Christianity. Breaking images, denying the sacrament and punishing infant baptism are arts which any rascal can learn, but which never made a Christian. Such a spirit is a gross devil who has little in common with me.

Therefore my true warning and advice is that you be on

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