"Pardon me, most reverend Father in Christ, and most illustrious Prince," says he to him, "if I, who am only the dregs of mankind,[365] have the presumption to write your High Mightiness. The Lord Jesus is my witness, that, feeling how small and despicable I am, I have long put off doing it.... Will your Highness, however, be pleased to let fall a look on a grain of dust, and, in accordance with your episcopal meekness, graciously receive my petition. [365] Fex hominum. (Ibid.) "There are people who are carrying the papal indulgence up and down the country in the name of your Grace. I do not so much blame the declamation of the preachers, (I have not heard them,) as the erroneous ideas of unlearned and simple people, who imagine that by buying indulgences they secure their salvation.... "Good God! souls entrusted to your care, most venerable Father, are conducted to death, and not to life. The just and strict account which will be required of you grows and augments from day to day.... I have not been able to continue longer silent. Ah! man is not saved by works, or by the performances of his bishop... Even the righteous scarcely is saved; and the way that leadeth unto life is strait. Why, then, do the preachers of indulgences by vain fables inspire the people with a false security? "According to them, indulgence alone ought to be proclaimed, ought to be extolled.... What! Is it not the chief and only duty of bishops to instruct the people in the gospel and the love of Jesus Christ?[366] Jesus Christ has nowhere ordered the preaching of indulgence; but has strongly enjoined the preaching of the gospel.[367] How dreadful, then and how perilous, for a bishop to allow the gospel to be passed in silence, and nothing but the sound of indulgence to be incessantly dunned into the ears of his people.... [366] "Ut populus Evangelium discat atque charitatem Christi." (Ibid.) [367] Vehementer præcipit." (Ibid.) Earnestly commands. "Most worthy Father in God, in the Instruction of the commissaries, which has been published in name of your Grace, (doubtless without your knowledge,) it is said that the indulgence is the most precious treasure,--that it reconciles man to God, and enables those who purchase it to dispense with repentance. "What then, can I, what ought I to do, most venerable Bishop, most serene Prince? Ah! I supplicate your Highness, by the Lord Jesus Christ, to turn upon this business an eye of paternal vigilance, to suppress the pamphlet entirely, and ordain preachers to deliver a different sort of discourses to the people. If you decline to do so, be assured you will one day hear some voice raised in refutation of these preachers, to the great dishonour of your most serene Highness." Luther at the same time sent his theses to the archbishop, and, in a postscript, asked him to read them, that he might be convinced how little foundation there was for the doctrine of indulgences.