Page:Luther's correspondence and other contemporary letters 1521-1530.djvu/433

 humble opinion. In the first place, since the said Hans Mohr has no call to speak of these things publicly, and yet is worse than others because no one asks him or compels him to testify to his faith, he ought to refrain from speaking of these things in the presence of simple-minded folk until he is forced to do so. In the second place, since he is not and cannot be certain about the matter he ought not, even according to the divine law in I Peter iii, to talk about it to anyone, learned or un- learned, thinking that he is certain about it; but if he will not be silent, let him speak to the preacher or the pastor. Let him hear them and ask them questions, and let them be the first to understand the reason for his opinions and deal with him as becomes Christians. In the third place, since he blas- phemes our faith with evident lies when he says that we make the Creator out of the creature, he has deserved to be sentenced to perpetual silence, for he plainly shows that he understands neither our faith nor his own and wishes, out of mere wanton- ness and ignorance, to satisfy his own desire for blasphemy and to stir up the poor common people to like lies and blas- phemies. For we do not say that the creature is made the Creator when we say that Christ's body is in the Lord's Sup- per, or IS the bread. He does not wish to know that we do not make bread and body one thing with one single nature, but only say that bread and body are both there. But to blas- pheme is the way of all fanatics. Even if one were to say that the creature has become the Creator (which we do not),. it would not be altogether false, for we all believe that God is man and man is God in Christ ; yet man is a creature and God the Creator. Such a manner of speech among Christians is, therefore, not so horrible as they blasphemously say. If they go on still farther, it will be false at last that God is man. This blasphemy and lying, then, ought to be reason enough for muzzling him, for it gives us reason to believe that he would rather lie and blaspheme than tell the truth. This is

denying the real presence, and Melanchthon wrote against him to Balthatar Thfiring, pastor at Coburg, Norember 18, 1527, CR., i, 909. The Elector asked to 1540 he was under-bailiff at Herrenberg; in 154a a soldier in the a e i f ic c of Wurttemberg. Clemen: Beitr&ge, ii, 44, iii, 106.

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