under pain of excommunication at the Swiss congress at Baden, about burning Lutheran books.* First, we want to know your opinion, whether we ought to obey or not, after the command shall be published, and then, what your men of Zurich decided to do. Briefly, my own opinion is that the excommunication is to be disregarded, not so much because I favor Luther as that I would unwillingly lose the money I spent for the books, and also because I think the thing is too unjust to be obeyed. When was it ever heard in the Church that anyone should be condemned before he had a chance to state the reasons for his opinions, especially when he particularly wished to do so ? It is proclaimed through the whole town here that Luther and the schoolmaster* are to be burned, although I never speak of him except to my intimates, and that rarely, nor have I ever brought forward a single opinion from him. Yet I know why they join my name with Luther's ; it is because in my classes I speak the gospel truth, and say what the subject demands, though no more. And be- cause this agrees with what he says in several places, they think that that is from Luther which is really from the gospel. I could easily answer this charge if necessary. Yet I would not willingly lose his books, for I have not one or two, but a great many. Wherefore advise us and we will follow your advice. Do quickly and briefly more than we ask. . . .
326. FRANCIS VON SICKINGEN TO LUTHER. Enders, ii. 506. German. Cologne, November 3, 152a
Honorable, learned, kind, dear Doctor, and singular, good Friend! My willing service with all my body and estate is heartily yours! I have received your two last letters at Cologne, and have read them together with your Offer and Protestation* and have heard what George Spalatin has to say, and am glad to learn that you are minded to show forth
- 0n October 22, at Baden, the Pope's Nuncio Pucci made this proposition ifl
accordance with instructions he had received from Aleander. His speech cited at length, loc, cit,
'Myconius means himself. The emphasis upon reliance on the Bible inde- pendently of Luther is characteristic of the Swiss Reformation.
- C/. supra, no. 287. At Worms, later, Sickingen handed Luther's Offer and
Protestation and his letter to Charles V. to that monarch, who tore them to piece* without reading them. He had certainly seen them previously at Cologne. Grisar, i. 344^*
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