Be of good cheer, and do not brood over the apparent facts. Faith is the proof of things not seen;' why, then, do you judge according to what is seen? What is done, Spalatin, and what is seen in this affair are different. I seek nothings- there is one that seeketh.* Let it stand or fall, I neither gain nor lose anything. You have my opinion.
Our friends are not as much displeased as are you and as you wrote. The provost' thinks that I have treated these brawl- ers rightly. If everything which comes forth under the name of bishops is to be received, what tyranny will reign! I am sure that the Bishop of Meissen is not the author of tliis edict, and I firmly hope that he will not recognize it. Even if he does this I assume that my warning will make him act more prudently and wisely in future.
Yet I cannot deny that I have been more vehement than I should; but as they knew that I would be, they should not have irritated the dog. You know yourself how hard it is to moderate an angry pen. This is the reason why I am sorry to be in the public eye; and the more I am involved in such business, contrary to my monastic vow, the more sorry I am. But they act against me and God's Word so criminally and fiercely, that were I not moved to write warmly, even a mind of stone might be moved to war by indignation. Far from having such a mind, however, I am naturally warm, and have a pen which is not at all blunt. So I am carried beyond the bounds of moderation by these monsters.
Moreover I wonder whence this new scrupulousness is bom, which calls all that is said against an opponent scurillity. What do you think of Christ? Was he scurrilous when he called the Jews a perverse and adulterous generation, off- spring of vipers, hypocrites and children of the devil? Paul speaks of dogs, vain babblers, seducers, unlearned, and in Acts xiii. so rages against a false prophet that he might seem insane, saying: "O full of all guile and all villainy, thou son
tHcbrcws, xi. i.
'John, viii. 50.
- Dr. Henning Code, professor at Erfurt till iso9» when he went to Witten-
berg as professor of canon law and provost of the City Church. In 15 16 he returned to Erfurt for two years, when he came back to Wittenberg. He died January, 1521. He was against the Reformation.
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