Nevertheless, he admits that it is the right of the bishops to
“restrain heretics.” “The bishops must do this, for it appertains
to their office though not to the Princes”--a theory which Luther
persistently refused to see carried to its logical conclusion. He also
admits, that “no one has a right to command souls unless he knows
how to show them the way to heaven,”--though here, again, he would
have denied the consequence which Catholics gathered from this truth,
when they urged that the measures adopted by the Empire against the
innovations were for the safeguarding of the road to heaven, which an
infallible Church points out to mankind. In Luther’s opinion there
no longer existed any Church able to “point out the way to heaven”
without danger of error. “This no man can do,” he exclaims in the
same passage,[890] “but God alone.” It was hopeless for Catholics to
argue that the Church did so only in God’s name, and under explicit
promise of His assistance. Facts are there to prove that, at the
very time when Luther was proclaiming his theories of religious
toleration, he was setting them at nought in the most outrageous
fashion where Catholics were concerned; he was, however, careful to
veil his invitation to abolish their faith and worship under the
specious pretext of demolishing abuses, sacrilege and the Kingdom of
Antichrist. Nor was it long before he invoked the help of the secular
power against sectarians within his own camp.
Where, towards the close of the work “On the secular power,” Luther
passes on to show how Princes, who are “desirous of acting as
Christian Princes and lords,” ought to administer their authority, he
reaches a less controversial subject and is able to expound in that
popular, imaginative language which he knew so well how to handle
certain wholesome views which had already found expression in earlier
times. In the forcible exhortations he here gives, rulers desirous
of profiting might have found much to learn. Whoever wishes to be a
Christian Prince must above all “lay aside the notion that he is to
rule and govern by violence.” “Justice must reign at all times and
in everything.” His whole mind must be set on “making himself of use
and service to his subjects.” Secondly, “he must keep an eye on the
Jacks-in-office and on his councillors, and behave towards them in
such a way as not to despise any of them, while at the same time not
confiding in any one man to such an extent as to leave everything to
him.” “Thirdly, he must take care to deal rightly with evil-doers.”
“He must not follow those advisers and fire-eaters who urge and tempt
him to make war.” “Fourthly--what ought really to have been placed
first-- ... the ruler must behave towards his God as a Christian,
submitting himself to Him with entire confidence, and praying for
wisdom to rule well.”[891]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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