The Articles were to this effect:—
"1. In this new temple there was to be only one king to rule over the people of God.
2. This king was to be a minister of righteousness, and to bear the sword of justice.
3. None of the subjects were to desert their allotted places.
4. None were to interpret Holy Scripture wrongfully.
5. Should a prophet arise teaching anything contrary to the plain letter of Holy Scripture, he was to be avoided.
6. Drunkenness, avarice, fornication, and adultery were forbidden.
7. Rebellion to be punished with death.
8. Duels to be suppressed.
9. Calumny forbidden.
10. Egress from the camp forbidden without permission.
11. Any one absenting himself from his wife for three days, without leave from his officer, the wife to take another husband.
12. Approaching the enemy's sentinels without leave forbidden.
13. All violence forbidden among the elect.
14. Spoil taken from the enemy to go into a common fund.
15. No renegade to be re-admitted.
16. Caution to be observed in admitting a Christian into one society who leaves another.
17. Converts not to be repelled.
18. Any desiring to live at peace with the Christians, in trade, friendship, and by treaty, not to be rejected.
19. Permission given to dealers and traders to traffic with the elect.
20. No Christian to oppose and revolt against any Gentile magistrate, except the servants of the bishops and the monks.
21. A Gentile culprit not to be remitted the penalty of his crime by joining the Christian sect.
22. Directions about bonds.
23. Sentence to be pronounced against those who violate these laws and despise the Word of God, but not hastily, without the knowledge of the king.
24. No constraint to be used to force on marriages.
25. None afflicted with epilepsy, leprosy, and other diseases, to contract marriage without informing the other contracting party of their condition.
26. Nulla virginis specie, cum virgo non sit, fratrem defraudabit; alioquin serio punietur.
27. Every woman who has not a legitimate husband, to choose from among the community a man to be her guardian and protector.
"Given by God and King John the Just, minister of the Most High God, and of the new Temple, in the 26th year of his age and the first of his reign, on the second day of the first month after the nativity of Jesus Christ, Son of God, 1535."[234]
The object Bockelson had in view in issuing this edict was to produce a diversion in his favour among the Lutherans. He already felt the danger he was in, from a coalescence of Catholics and Protestants, and he hoped by temperate proclamations and protestations of his adhesion to the Bible, and the Bible only, as his authority, to dispose them, if not to make common cause with him, at least to withdraw their assistance from the common enemy, the Catholic bishop.
For the same object he sent letters on the 13th January to the Landgrave of Hesse, and with them a book called "The Restitution" (Von der Wiederbringung), intended to place Anabaptism in a favourable light.[235]
The Landgrave replied at length, rebuking the fanatics for their rebellion, for their profligacy, and for their heresy in teaching that man had a free will.[236]
This reply irritated the Anabaptists, and they wrote to him again, to prove that they clave to the pure Word of God, freed from all doctrines and traditions of men, and that they followed the direct inspiration of God through their prophet. They also retorted on Philip with some effect. The Landgrave, said they, had no right to censure them for attacking their bishop, for he had done precisely the same in his own dominions. He had expelled all the religious from their convents, and had appropriated their lands; he had re-established the Duke of Wurtemburg in opposition to the will of the Emperor; he had changed the religion of his subjects, and was unable to allege, as his authority for thus acting, the direct orders of Heaven, transmitted to him by the prophets of the living God. They might have retorted upon the Landgrave also, the charge of immorality, but they forbore; their object was to persuade the champion of the Protestant cause to favour them, not to exasperate him by driving the tu quoque too deep home.
With this letter was sent a treatise by Rottmann, entitled, "On the Secret Significance of Scripture."
Philip of Hesse wavered. He wrote once more; and after having attempted to excuse himself for those things wherewith he had been reproached, he said, "If the thing depended on me only, you would not have to plead in vain your just cause, and you would obtain all that you demand; but you ought ere this to have addressed the princes of the empire, instead of taking the law into your own hands; flying to arms, erecting a kingdom, electing a king, and sending prophets and apostles abroad to stir up the towns and the people. Nevertheless, it is possible that even now your demands may be favourably listened to, if you recall on equitable conditions those whom you have driven out of the town and despoiled of their goods, and restore your ancient constitutions and your former authorities."[237]
Luther now thundered out of Wittemberg. Sleidan epitomises this treatise. Five Hessian ministers also issued an answer to the doctrine of the Anabaptists of Münster, which was probably drawn up for them by Luther himself, or was at least submitted to him for his approval, for it is published among his German works.[238] It is full of invective and argument in about equal doses. A passage or two only can be quoted here:—