The lawyers, he says, speaking in a mystical vein, act quite wrongly when, as soon as they see that anyone has the law on his side, they encourage him to assert his rights (“_qui statim quod secundum iura iustum sciunt, prosequendum suadent_”). “On the contrary, every Christian should rejoice in suffering injustice, even in matters of the greatest moment (‘_quoad maximas iustitias nostras_’).... But almost the whole world runs after the contrary error [i.e. sternly asserts its rights]. Cardinals, bishops, princes act like the Jews did to the King of Babylon (2 Kings xxiv. 20; xxv. 1 ff.); they cling to their petty privileges, lose sight of morality and so perish.” Someone should have told Duke George (of Saxony) when he fought against the Duke of Frisia: “Your own and your people’s deserts are not so great that you should not rather have patiently allowed yourself to be chastised by that rebel, who, though unrighteous, was the executor of God’s righteous judgment. Calm yourself therefore and acknowledge the Will of God.”[589] He says something similar to his own bishop, Hieronymus Schulz (Scultetus) of Brandenburg,[590] and to another bishop, probably Wilhelm von Honstein, Bishop of Strasburg. The latter had put in force the ecclesiastical statutes against the infringers of the sanctity of the church. Luther says: “Why trouble a town with this wretched matter? It is merely a question of human regulations; but if the bishop desired to enforce God’s laws, he would not need to leave his own house; he is not indeed acting wrongly, but he is swallowing a camel and straining at gnats (Matt. xxiii. 24).... But the bishops thirst for vengeance, they brand the criminals and themselves deserve to be worse branded. Would to God that the time may come when rights and privileges and all who worship them are consigned to perdition! Ambition and unbelief should not be allowed to triumph over those condemned for transgressing the statutes.”[591] “I say this with pain, but I am obliged to because I have an Apostolic commission to teach. My duty is to point out to all the wrong they are committing, even to those in high places.”[592] In accordance with this, the young Professor loudly blames Pope Julius II. In his quarrel with the Republic of Venice “this advice should have been given him: ‘Holy Father, Venice is doing you a wrong, but the Roman Church deserves it on account of her faults, yea, she deserves even worse. Therefore do nothing, such is the Will of God.’ But the Pope replied: ‘No, no, let us vindicate our rights by force.’”[593] “He chastised them [the Venetians] with great bloodshed because they had sinned grievously and seized upon the possessions of the Church; he brought them back to the Church and so gained great merit. But the horrible corruption of the Papal Curia and the mountain of the most terrible immorality, pomp, avarice, ambition and sacrilege is accounted no sin.”[594]