231. ALBERT, ARCHBISHOP AND ELECTOR OF MAYENCE,
TO LUTHER. Enders, ii 336. Calbe, February 26, 152a
Greeting in the Lord. Honorable and beloved in Christ, we received your letter* in which you try to free us from the danger of crafty suggestion and yourself from the peril of being thought hatefully hypocritical and obstinate. Wc could not but be pleased that you promised to listen to better doctrine, and, if you are taught, to give up your own opinion. Although, as befitting our office, we profess that all matters of Christian faith and piety are very dose to our heart, yet we have not hitherto had leisure given us to read or even to glance at your works which are now in everybody's hands. Wherefore it is not our intention to pass judgment on them, but to leave that to others who are greater than we, whom we reverence, and to whom we rightly yield precedence, and who have already taken up the discussion of these matters.*
But we do greatly wish that you as well as all others who have undertaken a spiritual life, should treat sacred things reverently, piously, modestly, without tumult, hatred and con- tumely, as becoming. For not without serious pain of mind and vehement displeasure we daily learn that distinguished men professing to be Christians fiercely fight, as though for a great, serious matter, for their own frivolous opinions and notions, as, for example, whether the power of the Roman pontiff is divine or human, and of free will, and many other similar trifles, which do not concern true Christianity. Everything is treated as a matter of vital importance, every- one defends his own opinion haughtily not without ^^ proaching and reviling his opponent. Thus, to the great peril of inciting disobedience and sedition, many strange opinions are scattered among the fickle crowd and the unlearned peo- ple, and much is rashly suggested to the ears of the laity con- trary to the long established customs of the Church of Christ,
^Supra, 232.
'Luther resented this refusal of Albert to discuss his books, as he wrote him December i, 1521: "To my second letter to your Grace, humbly aaldnf for instruction, I got a hard, improper, unepiscopal, unchristian answer, referrinf me to higher powers for information." Smith, op. cit., p. xa8.
�� �
