[Footnote 204: "Quid hoc ad me? qui sciam etiam Turcam honorandum et ferendum potestatis gratia. Quia certus sum non nisi volente Deo ullam potestatem consistere" (De Wette, i. 236).] [Footnote 205: "I beg first of all that you will not help to mollify Count Albert in these matters, but let him go on as he has begun.... Encourage him to go on briskly, to leave things in the hands of God, and obey His divine command to wield the sword as long as he can." "Do not allow yourselves to be much disturbed, for it will redound to the advantage of many souls that will be terrified by it, and preserved." "If there are innocent persons amongst them, God will surely save and preserve them, as He did with Lot and Jeremiah. If He does not, then they are certainly not innocent.... We must pray for them that they obey, otherwise this is no time for compassion; just let the guns deal with them." "Sentio melius esse omnes rusticos caedi quam principes et magistratus, eo quod rustici sine autoritate Dei gladium accipiunt. Quam nequitiam Satanae sequi non potest nisi mera Satanica vastitas regni Dei, et mundi principes etsi excedunt, tamen gladium autoritate Dei gerunt. Ibi utrumque regnum consistere potest, quare nulla misericordia, nulla patientia rusticis debetur, sed ira et indignatio Dei et hominum" (De Wette, ii. 653, 655, 666, 669, 671).] [Footnote 206: "Wir lehren die christlich Obrigkeit moege nicht nur, sondern solle auch sich der Religion und Glaubenssachen mit Ernst annehmen; davon halten die Wiedertaeufer steif das Widerspiel, welches sie auch zum Theil gemein haben mit den Praelaten der roemischen Kirche" (Declaration of the Protestants, quoted in Joerg, _Deutschland von 1522 bis 1526_, p. 709).] [Footnote 207: "As to your question, how they are to be punished, I do not consider them blasphemers, but regard them in the light of the Turks, or deluded Christians, whom the civil power has not to punish, at least bodily. But if they refuse to acknowledge and to obey the civil authority, then they forfeit all they have and are, for then sedition and murder are certainly in their hearts" (De Wette, ii. 622; Osiander's opinion in Joerg, p. 706).] [Footnote 208: "Dass in dem Urtheil und desselben oeffentlicher Verkuendigung keines Irrthums oder Ketzereien ... sondern allein der Aufruhr und fuergenommenen Morderei, die ihm doch laut seiner Urgicht nie lieb gewesen, gedacht werde" (Joerg, p. 708).] [Footnote 209: "Principes nostri non cogunt ad fidem et Evangelion, sed cohibent externas abominationes" (De Wette, iii. 50). "Wenn die weltliche Obrigkeit die Verbrechen wider die zweite Gesetzestafel bestrafen, und aus der menschlichen Gesellschaft tilgen solle, wie vielmehr denn die Verbrechen wider die erste?" (Luther, _apud_ Bucholtz, _Geschichte Ferdinands I._, iii. 571).] [Footnote 210: Planck, iv. 61, explains why this was not thought of.]