been proved, and goes about with turbulence and makes a disturbance according to his own sweet will. If he were a good spirit he would first humbly submit to be proved and judged, as does the Spirit of Christ. It would be a fine fruit of the spirit, by which he could be proved, if he did not creep into the corners and flee the light, but would stand out publicly before his enemies and opponents and make his confession and give his answers. But the spirit of Allstedt shuns that sort of thing as the devil shuns the Cross, and yet in his own nest he speaks the most unterrified language, as though he were full of three Holy Ghosts, and this unseemly boasting is a fine proof of who this spirit is. For in his book * he offers to make answer in the presence of a harmless assembly, and to stake life and soul upon it, but not in a corner, in the presence of two or three persons. Tell me, who is this bold and confident Holy Spirit who sets himself such narrow limits and will not appear except before a "harmless assembly," and will not make answer in a corner before two or three persons? What kind of a spirit is that who is afraid of two or three people and cannot endure an assembly that may do him harm? I shall tell you. He smells the roast; he has been with me once or twice in my cloister at Wittenberg and has had his nose punched; so he does not like the soup and will not appear except where his own followers are present who will say Yes to his swelling words. If I, who have no spirit and hear no heavenly voices, had used such words against my papists, how they would have shouted Victory, and stopped my mouth!
I cannot boast or shout defiance in such lofty words. I am a poor, miserable man, and did not begin so splendidly, but with fear and trembling, as St. Paul himself confesses that he did,* though he too might have boasted about a voice from heaven. How humbly I attacked the Pope, how I besought him, how I made requests of him, as my first writings show! In poverty of spirit I did what this world-devouring spirit has never tried to do, but right manfully and like a knight
An apology, containing an attack on Luther, which Münser had published earlier in the year under the title, Von dem gerichteten Glauben, etc.
I Corinthians iii, 6.
