Page:Luther's correspondence and other contemporary letters 1521-1530.djvu/287

284 Christ could say these things to the Apostles, who were filled with the Holy Ghost—according as He said to them, "Receive ye the Holy Ghost; whose soever sins ye remit," etc. —may I not then justly, rightly, freely and lawfully say to you:

Ah, Martin Luther, what madness has seized you? Are you insane? For you sin far more, incomparably more, than did the apostles and disciples in the texts just quoted, in that by your own,—I cannot say authority, for manifestly you have none,—but of your own rashness and arrogance, you have not blushed to burn the sacred Book of the Canon Law in public, and with a great oration, showing contempt for the keys of the Catholic faith and of the papal power. Unless I am mistaken, this book should be kept with no less devotion, piety and faith than was the ark of the Lord in which were hidden the tables written with the finger of God, which, as Lyra says, were "witnesses between God and the people, being commandments received from Him." When Uzzah the Levite, the carrier of this famous ark, saw the car tipping and put his hand on it to prevent it falling, he was immediately smitten and died. The Book of Decretals is full of authorities drawn from the Old and New Testaments, and of treatises of theologians, and of sacred canons established by the inspiration of the Holy Ghost, as the text says. These, forsooth, are greater than, or at least equal to, the things contained in the ark of the Lord, since they are more edifying and profitable to the salvation of souls than are the covenants of the Lord between Himself and His people. Because the precepts in the aforesaid parts of the Book of the Decretals are divine and are by the same author from whom the said covenants proceeded, and are as edifying. Wherefore it is said, "Blessed are they that hear the word of God, and keep it." And the blessed Augustine says that he who neglects