Page:Luther's correspondence and other contemporary letters 1521-1530.djvu/43

 securely in the saddle that no one can unhorse them. I am afraid it is God's doing that they are hardened in their hearts, give no thought to humility and do not consider peace, so that at last they must perish without any mercy.

They blame me for it all, but they know full well how proudly they have hitherto despised the poor man. I have often offered peace, have cried out for it and run to meet it. I have declared my readiness to answer charges, have held disputations, and have now appeared at two diets. It has helped me not at all. I have not met with justice but with the arbitrary show of force; have been commanded simply to recant, and threatened with all sorts of misfortune. Ah, well, if the hour comes when they, too, shall cry in vain for peace I hope they will remember the desserts that they are earning now! I can do nothing more; I have been pushed off the field; they now have time to change what people neither can nor ought to nor will endure from them. If they do not change it, someone else will change it without their consent; he will not teach them as Luther has, with letters and words, but with deeds. Thank God there now is less fear and dread of the bugaboo at Rome, and the chapter Si quis suadente ' will no longer bewitch the people; the whole world can now break the spell."

In order to show that I am not idle in this wilderness, my Patmos, I, too, have written an Apocal)rpse to give to all who wish it. I am herewith sending it to your Honor, to show my goodwill and gratitude for the many encouragements you have given to unworthy me. It is a sermon on confession, composed for this reason. This last Lent I issued a mild in- struction to penitents,' along with a petition to our spiritual tyrants, asking them not to disturb simple consciences about my books, and showing, besides, how their tyranny over the confessional was without sufficient ground. But they are so obstinate that they will neither hear nor consider. Ah, well, I have seen bubbles on the water before now, and once I saw an ambitious smokenJoud set itself to quench the sun ; but the

^Tht chtpter of the Canon Law (c. i, in Clem. t. 8). 'Den Segen Sprechen, the word that breaks a spell.

s UnUrricht der Bnchtkinder Ubtr die vtrbotenen BUcker (Crlangen*, xxir, JOjfiT)*

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