“That Luther in principle regarded the death penalty in the case of heretics as just, even where there was no harm done to the ‘_regna mundi_,’” says Wappler, “is plain from the advice given by him on Oct. 20, 1534, to Prince Johann of Anhalt in reply to his inquiry concerning the attitude to be adopted towards the Anabaptists at Zerbst.” “The fact is, that from the commencement of 1530 the reformers cease to make any real distinction between the two classes of heretics [the seditious ones and those who merely taught false doctrines]. Heretics who merely ‘blasphemed’ were always regarded by them, at least where they remained obdurate, as practically guilty of sedition, and, consequently, as deserving the death penalty.” “The principal part in this was played by Luther, Melanchthon being merely the draughtsman of the memoranda in which Luther’s ideas on the question of heretics were reduced to a certain system.”[952] “The many executions, even of Anabaptists who are known to have not been revolutionaries and who were put to death on the strength of the declarations of the Wittenberg theologians, refute only too plainly all attempts to deny the clear fact, viz. that Luther himself approved of the death penalty even in the case of such as were merely heretics.”[953] Wappler, after showing how Luther’s wish was, that everyone who preached without orders should be handed over to “Master Hans,” adds: “And what he said, was undoubtedly meant in earnest; shortly before this, on Jan. 18, 1530, as Luther had doubtless learned from Melanchthon, at Reinhardsbrunn near Gotha, six such persons had been handed over to Master Hans, i.e. to the executioner, and duly executed.” Wappler regards it as futile to urge that: “Luther could not prevent executions taking place in the Saxon Electorate”; it is wrong to put the blame on Melanchthon rather than on Luther for the putting to death of heretics.[954] Speaking of the execution of Peter Pestel at Zwickau, the same author[955] declares that it was “a sad sign of the unfortunate direction so early [1536] taken by the Lutheran reformation that its representatives should allow this man, who had neither disseminated his doctrine in his native land nor rebaptised … to die a felon’s death.” “Even contempt of the outward Word,” he says, “carelessness about going to church and contempt of Scripture—in this instance contempt for the Bible as interpreted by Luther—was now regarded as ‘rank blasphemy,’ which it was the duty of the authorities to punish as such. To such lengths had the vaunted freedom of the Gospel now gone.”[956] The introduction of the Saxon Inquisition (See above, vol. v., 593) leads him to remark: “The principle of evangelical freedom of belief and liberty of conscience, which Luther had championed barely two years earlier, was here most shamefully repudiated, particularly by this lay inquisition, and yet Luther said never a word in protest.”[957]