for the two opposing parties. Offering due homage to the sovereignty of God in matters of the soul, he suppressed in its presence his own kingly authority. ‘Let no one,’ said he, ‘do any injury to his neighbor in his estate, his honor, or his body, on account either of papist or Lutheran doctrine; but let every one act with respect to religion as his own conscience dictates and in such a manner that he may be able to give a good account to Almighty God.’[250] One work there was, however, essential to the progress of the Gospel, which the Danish clergy would not have allowed to be done. This was the translation and printing of the Holy Scriptures in the vulgar tongue. If Frederick had sanctioned it, he would have violated his neutrality. How to overcome this difficulty? It was got over in a surprising way. It was Frederick’s opponent, his terrible and unfortunate nephew, formerly the ally of the Pope, who accomplished this work, or at least who caused it to be done by those about him. Michelsen, the burgomaster of Malmoe, had followed the king in his disgrace, leaving behind him his wife, his daughter, and his property. The latter was confiscated. Christian II., who, since he heard Luther, was full of zeal for evangelical doctrine, and perhaps also saw that it was the most powerful weapon for the humiliation of his enemy, the Roman hierarchy, urged the ex-burgomaster, who had become his private secretary, to complete and to publish the Danish translation of the New Testament which was already began. The translators had made use of the Vulgate and of the translations of Erasmus and Luther. Luther’s, especially, had been followed by Michelsen in the translation of the apostolical epistles, with which he was entrusted. This Danish translation was printed at Leipzig in small quarto, in 1524, under the sanction and with the assistance of Christian; and it was sent into Denmark from one of the ports of the Netherlands, probably from Antwerp, whence likewise Tyndale’s English translation had gone forth. There were three prefaces; two of them were translated from Luther, and the third was written by Michelsen.