[2217] Holl, ib., p. 20 f. Luther’s words are from “De capt, babyl.,” “Werke,” Weim. ed., 6, p. 533; “Opp. lat. var.,” 5, p. 64. Cp “Nisi hæc adsit aut paretur fides, nihil prodest baptismus imo obest, non solum tum cum suscipitur, sed toto post tempore vitæ.” Ib., p. 527 f.=57. Cp. above, vol. iv., p. 487.
[2218] “He protests against the war with the Turks being carried on under the pretext of Christianity, ‘as though our people could be termed an army of Christians fighting the Turks,’ when in ‘the whole army there are perhaps barely five Christians [real Lutheran believers].’ ... Thus he deliberately calls into question the Christianity of the German people and hence demands that the war should be undertaken as a merely secular thing.” Holl, ib., p. 22, with a reference to “Werke,” Erl. ed., 31, p. 37, and to a letter to Spalatin, Dec. 21, 1518, “Briefwechsel,” 1, p. 333. Cp. above, p. 402, and vol. iii., p. 77 ff.
[2219] Above, vol. ii., p. 108.
[2220] See our examination of the “Von welltlicher Uberkeytt” in vol. ii., pp. 297-306.
[2221] The passages are cited below, p. 577, n. 2.
[2222] Luther’s answer to the question he raises, “Werke,” Erl. ed., 62, p. 207, in the Table-Talk: “Whether it be lawful to kill a tyrant, who at his own pleasure acts contrary to right and justice” is aimed at absolutism. He replies confidently: Yes, where the latter really oppresses his subjects by crying deeds of wrong and where the “citizens and subjects unite together” to make an end of him as they would of any “other murderer or highwayman.” In his “Ob Kriegsleutte auch ynn seligen Stande seyn künden,” 1526, Luther does not sanction private revenge nor any disorderly or violent action on the part of the mob, “whereby the people rise and depose their lord or strangle him.” He emphasises in this passage as the reason the absence of legal proceedings: “It does not do to pipe too much to the mob, or it will only too readily lose its head.” “Werke,” Weim. ed., 19, p. 635; Erl. ed., 22, p. 259.
[2223] To the Elector Johann, Feb. 9, 1526, “Werke,” Erl. ed., 53, p. 368 (“Briefwechsel,” 5, p. 318), on the introduction of Lutheranism into Altenburg. Cp. vol. ii., p. 315 f.; the principal reason why the ruler was to intervene was, that he might not deliberately tolerate “idolatry.”
[2224] Cp. “Werke,” Weim. ed., 26, p. 200; Erl. ed., 23, p. 9. Luther’s preface to the Instructions of the Visitors, 1528.
[2225] “Werke,” Weim. ed., 8, p. 679; Erl. ed., 22, p. 48. “Eyn trew Vormanung ... sich zu vorhuten fur Auffruhr und Emporung,” 1522. In connection with this the author says: It is not lawful for the individual to rebel against “Endchrist,” i.e. the Papacy, and to make use of force, but the secular authorities and the nobles “ought from a sense of duty to use their regular authority for this purpose, each prince and ruler in his own land,” etc. This he wrote on the eve of composing his “Von welltlicher Uberkeytt,” according to which the prince was not to trouble at all about the religion of his country.
[2226] Above, vol. ii., p. 88 f.; vol. iv., p. 510 f. N. Paulus, “Protestantismus und Toleranz im 16. Jahrh.,” 1911, p. 7 ff.