Page:Luther's correspondence and other contemporary letters 1521-1530.djvu/450

 burg have adopted our system of church visitation;* may Christ bless it. I believe you know that Urban Rh^ius has come to his senses again and will fight vigorously on our side against the sacramentarians. Why could the Margrave not call him ? I think he would go not unwillingly, especially as I cannot promise to give up Amsdorf, whose presence at Magde- burg is necessary for many reasons.

You ask whether the government may lawfully put false prophets to death.' I hesitate to give capital punishment even when it is evidently deserved, for I am terrified to think what happened when the papists and Jews, before Qirist, per- secuted with death. Whenever and wherever it has been the law to put false prophets and heretics to death, in the course of time it has come to pass that none but the most holy prophets and most innocent men were slain by this law, for wicked rulers made it a pretext and judged whom they wished as false prophets and heretics. I fear the same will happen with us, if we ever allow ourselves to put men to death for opinions even in one just instance, as now we see the papists shed innocent blood instead of guilty by this law. Wherefore, I am not able to admit in any case that false teachers be put to death; it is sufficient to banish them, and if our posterity abuse this penalty at least their sin will be less and will hurt only themselves.

My opinion of lunatics is, that all idiots and insane persons are possessed by devils, though on that account they will not be damned; but I think Satan tries men in different ways, some severely, some lightly, some for a long time, some for a short one. Physicians may attribute such things to natural causes, and sometimes partly cure them by medicine, but they are ignorant of the power of devils. Qirist did not hesitate to say in the Gospel that the old woman bowed down with

^This was decided on at the conference of theologians of George of Branden- burg and of Nuremberg at Schwabach, June 14, 1528. Enders, yt, 304.

'On Luther's tolerance, see J. A. Faulkner, in Papers of the American Church History Society, Second Series, yoL iy, ppt. i69ff., 19 14; N. Paulus: Protestantismm und Jolerans, 191 1; K. Volker: ToleranM und Intolerang im Zeitalter der Reformat tion, 191 2, especially pp. 75-96; Smith: Life and Letters of Luther, preface to Second Edition, 1914, pp. xiiiff. In general it may be said that Luther was fairly tolerant until 1525, but after the Peasants* War came out more and more strongly for the duty of the state to enforce orthodoxy.

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