Many Lutheran preachers and religious writers were accustomed to remind the people not only of the tales in the Table-Talk, but also of what was contained in the early exposition of the Ten Commandments, in the Prayer-book of 1522 and in the Church-postils, Commentary on Galatians, etc. Books of instances such as those of Andreas Hondorf in 1568 and Wolfgang Büttner in 1576 made these things widely known. David Meder, Lutheran preacher at Nebra in Thuringia, in his “Eight witch-sermons” (1605), referred in the first sermon to the Table-Talk, also to Luther’s exposition of the Decalogue, to his Commentary on Genesis and his work “Von den Conciliis und Kirchen.” Bernard Albrecht, the Augsburg preacher, in his work on witches, 1628, G. A. Scribonius, J. C. Gödelmann and N. Gryse all did the same. In what esteem Luther’s sayings were held by the Protestant lawyers is plain from certain memoranda of the eminent Frankfurt man of law, Johann Fischart, dating from 1564 and 1567. Fischart was against the “Witches’ Hammer” and the other Catholic productions of an earlier day, such as Nider’s “_Formicarius_,” yet he expresses himself in favour of the burning of witches and appeals on this point to Luther and his interpretation of Holy Scripture. Holy Scripture and Luther were as a rule appealed to by the witch-zealots on the Protestant side, as is proved by the writings of Abraham Saur (1582) and Jakob Gräter (1589), of the preacher Nicholas Lotichius and Nicholas Krug (1567), of Frederick Balduin of Wittenberg (1628)—whose statements were accepted by the famous Saxon criminalogist Benedict Carpzov, who signed countless death sentences against witches—and by J. Volkmar Bechmann, the opponent of the Jesuit Frederick von Spee. We may pass over the many other names cited by N. Paulus with careful references to the writings in question.[1180] It must be pointed out, however, that an increase in the severity of the penal laws against witches is first noticeable in the Saxon Electorate in 1572, when it was decreed that they should be burnt at the stake, even though they had done no harm to anyone, on account of their wicked compact with the devil.[1181] As early as 1540, at a time when elsewhere in Germany the execution of witches was of rare occurrence, four persons were burnt at Wittenberg on June 29 as witches or wizards.[1182] Shortly before this Luther had lamented that the plague of witches was again on the increase.[1183]