subject only to the limitation that they are not permitted to encroach upon the rights of others.  The natural, the almost inevitable, consequence of the declaration and recognition of these principles was eventually the establishment of modern constitutional law.  It was not in consequence of his teaching, but merely in spite of it, that for the next two centuries (in certain instances) monarchical government became more autocratic, as feudalism was being transformed into civil government. . . .  All through Luther’s writings, and in his own acts as well, is to be read the right of the individual to think and believe in matters political, religious, and otherwise as he sees proper.  His is the right to read the Bible, and any other book he may desire.  He has the right to confer and counsel, with others, to express and declare his views pro and con, in speech and print, so long as he abides by, and remains within, the laws of the land.  Luther firmly believed in the liberty of the individual as to conscience, speech, and press.  The search for truth must be untrammeled.” (Waring, Political Theories of Luther, p. 235 f.)

This testimony of one who has made a careful investigation of Luther’s writings on the subject of liberty of conscience is, of course, not first-hand evidence; it merely shows what impressions people take away from their study of Luther.  Let us hear Luther himself.  In the Appeal to the German Nobility he says:  “No one can deny that it is breaking God’s commandments to violate faith and a safe-conduct, even though it be promised to the devil himself, much more then in the case of a heretic. . . .  Even though John Hus were a heretic, however bad he may have been, yet he was burned unjustly and in violation of God’s commandments, and we must not force the Bohemians to approve this, if we wish ever to be at one with them.  Plain truth must unite us, not obstinacy.  It is no use to say, as they said at the time, that a safe-conduct need not be kept if promised to a heretic; that is as much as to say, one may break God’s commandments in order to keep God’s commandments.  They were infatuated and blinded by the devil, that they could not see what they said or did.  God has commanded us to observe a safe-conduct; and this we must do though the world should perish; much more, then, where it is only a question of a heretic being set free.  We should overcome heretics with books, not with fire, as the old Fathers did.  If there were any skill in overcoming heretics with fire, the executioner would be the most learned doctor in the world; and there would be no need of study, but he that could get another into his power could burn him.” (10, 332.)

In his treatise On the Limits of Secular Authority, Luther says:  “Unbearable loss follows where the secular authority is given too much room, and it is likewise not without loss where it is too restricted.  Here it punishes too little; there it punishes too much.  Although it is more desirable that it offend on the side of punishing too little than that it punish too severely; because it is always better to permit a knave to live than to put a good man to death, inasmuch as the world still has and must have knaves, but has few good men.