“But thou sayest once more:  ’Yea, worldly power cannot compel to belief.  It is only external protection against the people being misled by false doctrine.  How else can heretics be kept it bay?’ Answer:  That is the business of bishops, to whom the office is entrusted, and not to princes.  For heresy can never be kept off by force; another grip is wanted for that.  This is another quarrel and conflict than that of the sword.  God’s Word must contend here.  If that avail nothing, temporal power will never settle the matter, though it fill the world with blood.  Heresy pertains to the spiritual world.  You cannot cut it with iron, nor burn it with fire, nor drown it in water.  You cannot drive the devil out of the heart by destroying, with sword or fire, the vessel in which he lives.  This is like fighting a blade of straw.” (10, 395 ff.)

Referring to the Anabaptists, Luther wrote in 1528:  “It is not right, and I think it a great pity, that such wretched people should be so miserably slain, burned, cruelly put to death; every one should be allowed to believe what he will.  If he believe wrongly, he will have punishment enough in the eternal fire of hell.  Why should he be tortured in this life, too; provided always that it be a case of mistaken belief only, and that they are not also unruly and oppose themselves to the temporal power?” (17, 2188.)

To his friend Cresser he wrote:  “If the courts wish to govern the churches in their own interests, God will withdraw His benediction from them, and things will become worse than before.  Satan still is Satan.  Under the Popes he made the Church meddle in politics; in our time he wishes to make politics meddle with the Church.” (21b, 2911.  Translations by Waring.)

But why did not these excellent principles attain better results in Luther’s own time?  On this question we have no better answer than that given by Bryce:  “The remark must not be omitted in passing how much less than might have been expected the religious movement did at first actually effect in the way of promoting either political progress or freedom of conscience.  The habits of centuries were not to be unlearned in a few years, and it was natural that ideas struggling into existence and activity should work erringly and imperfectly for a time.” (Holy Roman Empire, p. 381.) This would be Luther’s own answer.  His work was among people who were just emerging from the ignorance and spiritual bondage in which they had been reared in the Catholic Church.  They had to be gradually and with much patience taught, not only in regard to their rights and privileges, but also in regard to their proper and most efficient application.  But it is not in agreement with the facts when the charge is directed against Luther that he employed the authority of the State for furthering the ends of the Church because he urged the Saxon Elector to arrange for a visitation of the demoralized churches in the country, and to order such improvements to be