Page:Luther's correspondence and other contemporary letters 1521-1530.djvu/294

 Jews through hatred, and Pilate though timidity and with evil mind [put Christ to death], therefore they deserved not re- ward but punishment. But your writings have closed the gates of the celestial kingdom and have opened the gates of hell to those who follow* your false doctrine. You should, therefore, weep for the almost innumerable souls of the faith- ful which your false and heretical doctrine and your counter- feit eloquence has led to hell to remain for eternity without hope, where there is weeping, gnashing of teeth, crying and much wailing, for from hell there is no redemption. The value that God puts on one soul is declared by the parable of the shepherd who left the ninety and nine sheep to seek for the one lost and wandering in the desert. And having found it he put it on his shoulders rejoicing, and he called together his friends and neighbors, saying, Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep which was lost.* Wherefore I beg and ex- hort you, Martin Luther, and as one desirous of your salva- tion I ask you to recognize your error and to weep inwardly for burning the book of the Decretals, and to retract your aforesaid writings, both heretical and repugnant to truth and to the Catholic faith. In this you would imitate Augustine, who wrote a book of retractions * disproving some of his writ- ings, and the emperor who said that he did not blush to emend and to change his writings which were not quite right.* Nay, the gloss to the Canon Law even says that a particular Church can err.* It is an act of great prudence for a man to retract what he has said, nor is he who returns to the truth called un- stable. Otherwise you will undergo punishment in this world and heavier punishment in the next, for you will be judged a heretic and schismatic; nay, you are already so judged. You ought not to take what I have written ill, for, says the wise man, when you heal wounds pain is the medicine of pain, and better are the wounds of a friend than the kisses of an enemy.* Farewell, and be not incredulous but faithful, lest a worse

1 Reading stctanitbus for seciantts, ' Luke XV, 4-6.

the Post Nicene Fathers.
 * Augustine's well known work. Ntiinerotu extracts from it are translated in


 * This is quoted from the Digest, for which see notes to text.


 * Various citations omitted in translation.


 * Proverbs xxiii, 6, quoted from Canon I«aw.

�� �