_, "the law helps him who watches"; just as if it were
not as much their duty to watch for their neighbor's cause as for
their own. Thus they intentionally allow their neighbor's cause
to be lost, although they know that it is just. This evil is at
present so common that I fear no court is held and no suit tried
but that one side sins against this Commandment. And even when
they cannot accomplish it, they yet have the unrighteous spirit
and will, so that they would wish the neighbor's just cause to be
lost and their unjust cause to prosper. This sin is most frequent
when the opponent is a prominent man or an enemy. For a man wants
to revenge himself on his enemy: but the ill will of a man of
prominence he does not wish to bring upon himself; and then
begins the flattering and fawning, or, on the other hand, the
withholding of the truth. Here no one is willing to run the risk
of disfavor and displeasure, loss and danger for the truth's
sake; and so God's Commandment must perish. And this is almost
universally the way of the world. He who would keep this
Commandment, would have both hands full doing only those good
works which concern the tongue. And then, how many are there who
allow themselves to be fenced and swerved aside from the truth by
presents and gifts! so that in all places it is truly a high,
great, rare work, not to be a false witness against one's
neighbor.

[Sidenote: In Spiritual Matters]

II. There is a second bearing of witness to the truth, which is
still greater, with which we must fight against the evil spirits;
and this concerns not temporal matters, but the Gospel and the
truth of faith, which the evil spirit has at no time been able to
endure, and always so manages that the great among men, whom it
is hard to resist, must oppose and persecute it. Of which it is
written in Psalm lxxxii, "Rid the poor out of the hand of the
wicked, and help the forsaken to maintain his just cause." [Ps.
82:3 f.]

Such persecution, it is true, has now become infrequent; but that
is the fault of the spiritual prelates, who do not stir up the
Gospel, but let it perish, and so have abandoned the very thing
because of which such witnessing and persecution should arise;
and in its place they teach us their own law and what pleases
them. For this reason the devil also does not stir, since by
vanquishing the Gospel he has also vanquished faith in Christ,
and everything goes as he wishes. But if the Gospel should be
st