In the above instances the Catholic could find support for his conscience in the infallible authority of the Church. It was this authority which forbade him Luther’s writings as heretical, and, in the case of contrition—which Luther also brings forward—it was likewise his religious faith, which, consonantly with man’s natural feeling, demanded such sorrow for sin. In earlier days authority and faith were the reliable guides of conscience without which it was impossible to do. Luther left conscience to itself or referred it to his own words and his reading of Scripture, though this again, as he himself acknowledged, was not an absolute rule; thus he leaves it a prey to a most unhappy uncertainty—unless, indeed, it was able to “find assurance” in the way he wishes. Quite early in his career he also gave the following instruction to those of the clergy who were living in concubinage on how to form their conscience; they were “to salve their conscience” and take the female to their “wedded wife,” even though this were against the law, fleshly or ghostly. “Your soul’s salvation is of more account than any tyrannical laws.... Let him who has the faith to take the risk follow me boldly.” “I will not deceive him,” he adds apologetically, but at least he had “the power to advise him regarding his sins and dangers”; he will show them how they may do what they are doing, “but with a good conscience.”[244] For as Luther points out in another passage, even though their discarding of their supposed obligation of celibacy had taken place with a bad conscience, still the Bible-texts subsequently brought forward, read according to the interpretation of the new Evangelist, avail to heal their conscience.[245] At any rate, so he tells the Teutonic Knights when inviting them to break their vow of chastity: “on the Word of God we will risk it and do it in the teeth of and contrary to all Councils and Churches! Close eyes and ears and take God’s Word to heart.”[246] Better, he cries, go on keeping two or three prostitutes than seek of a Council permission to marry![247] These were matters for “those to risk who have the faith,” so we have heard him say. In reality all did depend on people’s faith ... in Luther, on their conviction that his doctrine and his moral system were right. But what voice was to decide in the case of those who were wavering?