Page:Luther's correspondence and other contemporary letters 1521-1530.djvu/528

 with them. This is Dietrich's answer, a postscript to a letter, the date of which is not given. As he speaks of Luther's Commentary on the Eighty-second Psalm as still in the future, and as this was completed by April 3, it must have been before that date. Dietrich here gives con- cisely exactly the position taken by Luther in this work, loc. cit», iSgff. See Smith, preface to second edition, p. xiv.

. . • The other day, when I wrote this, I started that ques- tion at dinner whether the magistrate ought to use force against heretics. Then Dr. Martin expounded to me the manner in which he will treat that whole place in the psalm.* First he made this division: Heretics are of two sorts. Some are against religion only, not against the civil polity. Concerning those who sin against the civil polity, as do the Anabaptists, there is no doubt that they are to be punished and severely pun- ished by the magistrate as seditious. Those sinning against religion only, as are to-day the sacramentarians and papists, should not be tolerated either. In the first place, because if there are in the state those who teach differently, occasion will be given for riots and tumults. The magistrate ought to guard against this. Secondly, if the magistrate knows who teach against religion, he ought not to tolerate them lest he become an accomplice of others' sins. Thirdly, blasphemers ought not to be tolerated, and everybody of that sort is a blasphemer. But the magistrate ought to be careful not to judge as blas- phemy what is not blasphemy. When I first asked him about this he said that he would treat it with more care, and when he had thought it over would undertake to write on it Never- theless I thought I would thus show you my affection and re- gard. You see that you have brought this matter up most opportunely.

Veit Dietrich.

874. LUTHER TO CONRAD CORDATUS AT ZWICKAU. Enders, vii, 291. (Wittenberg}, April 2, 1530.

Grace and peace in Christ. May He comfort you in your sadness and affliction, my dear Cordatus, for who else can soothe such a grief? For I, too, have had experience of such a calamity as comes to a father's heart, sharper than a two-


 * I,e., Psalm Ixxxii.

�� �