154
ESSAYS ON LIBERT\1I'
there was no rival authority for him to appeal to. No ecclesiastical organism existed, the civil power was not on his side, and not even a definite system had yet been evolved by controversy out of his original doctrine of justification. His first efforts were acts of hostility, his exhortations were entirely aggressive, and his appeal ,vas to the masses. When the prohibition of his New T esta- ment confirmed him in the belief that no favour was to be expected from the princes, he published his book on the Civil Power, which he judged superior to everything that had been written on government since the days of the Apostles, and in which he asserts that authority is given to the State only against the wicked, and that it cannot coerce the godly. "Princes," he says, U are not to be obeyed when they command submission to superstitious errors, but their aid is not to be invoked in support of the Word of God." 1 Heretics must be converted by the Scriptures, and not by fire, otherwise the hangman would be the greatest doctor. 2 At the time when this was written Luther was expecting the bull of excommunication and the ban of the empire, and for several years it appeared doubtful ,vhether he would escape the treatment he con- demned. He lived in constant fear of assassination, and his friends amused themselves with his terrors. At one time he believed that a Jew had been hired by the Polish bishops to despatch him; that an invisible physician was on his way to Wittenberg to murder him; that the pulpit from which he preached was impregnated with a subtle
1 .. If they prohibit true doctrine, and punish their subjects for receiving the entire sacrament, as Christ ordained it, compel the people to idolatrous practices, with masses for the dead, Indulgences, invocation of saints, and the like, in these things they exceed their office, and seek to deprive God of tbe obedience due to Him. For God requires from us this above all, that we hear His Word, and follow it; but where the Government desires to prevent this, the subjects must know that they are not bound to obey it II (Luther's Werke, xiii. 2244). Ie Non est, mi Spalatine, principum et istius saeculi Pontificum tueri verbum Dei, nec ea gratia ullorum peto praesidium" (Luther's Brieje, ed, De Wette, i. 521, Nov. 4, 1520), Ie I will compel and urge by force no man; for the faith must be voluntary and not compulsory, and must be adopted witbout violence II (.. Sermonen an Carlstadt," Werke, xx, 24, 1522), 2 .. Schrift an den christlichen Adel" (Werke, x, 574, June 1520). His pro- position, Haereticos comburi esse contra voluntatem spiritus, was one of those condemned by Leo X, as pestilent, scandalous, and contrary to Christian charity,
