Other similar statements are met with in his Table-Talk at a later date. “It is true a preacher ought not to fight in his own defence, for which reason I do not take a sword with me when I mount the pulpit, but only on journeys.”[176] “The lawyers,” he said, on February 7, 1538, “command us to resist the Emperor, simply desiring that a madman should be deprived of his sword.... The natural law requires that if one member injure another he be put under restraint, made a prisoner and kept in custody. But from the point of view of theology, there are doubts (Matt. v., 1 Peter ii.). I reply, however, that statecraft permits, nay commands, self-defence, so that whoever does not defend himself is regarded as his own murderer,” in spite of the fact, that, as a Christian and “believer in the Kingdom of Christ, he must suffer all things, and may not in this guise either eat or drink or beget children.” In many cases it is necessary to put away “the _Christianum_ and bring to the fore the _politicam personam_,”[177] just as a man may slay incontinently the violator of his wife. “We are fighting, not against Saul, but against Absalom.” Besides, the Emperor might not draw the sword without the consent of the Seven Electors. “The sword belongs to us, and only at our request may he use it.”[178] “Without the seven he has no power; indeed, if even one is not for him, his power is nil and he is no longer monarch.... I do not deprive the Emperor of the sword, but the Pope, who has no business to lord it and act as a tyrant.”[179] “The Emperor will not commence a war on his own account but for the sake of the Pope, whose vassal he has become; he is only desirous of defending the abominations of the Pope, who hates the Gospel and thinks of nothing but his own godless power.”[180]