omote the end for which Government itself was held to
be instituted. The clergy had authority over the conscience, but it was
thought necessary that they should be supported by the State with the
absolute penalties of outlawry, in order that error might be
exterminated, although it was impossible to banish sin.[228] No
Government, it was maintained, could tolerate heresy without being
responsible for the souls that were seduced by it;[229] and as Ezechiel
destroyed the brazen serpent to prevent idolatry, the mass must be
suppressed, for the mass was the worst kind of idolatry.[230] In 1530,
when it was proposed to leave the matters in dispute to the decision of
the future Council, Luther declared that the mass and monastic life
could not be tolerated in the meantime, because it was unlawful to
connive at error.[231] "It will lie heavy on your conscience," he writes
to the Duke of Saxony, "if you tolerate the Catholic worship; for no
secular prince can permit his subjects to be divided by the preaching
of opposite doctrines. The Catholics have no right to complain, for they
do not prove the truth of their doctrine from Scripture, and therefore
do not conscientiously believe it."[232] He would tolerate them only if
they acknowledged themselves, like the Jews, enemies of Christ and of
the Emperor, and consented to exist as outcasts of society.[233]
"Heretics," he said, "are not to be disputed with, but to be condemned
unheard, and whilst they perish by fire, the faithful ought to pursue
the evil to its source, and bathe their hands in the blood of the
Catholic bishops, and of the Pope, who is a devil in disguise."[234]

The persecuting principles which were involved in Luther's system, but
which he cared neither to develop, to apply, nor to defend, were formed
into a definite theory by the colder genius of Melanchthon. Destitute of
Luther's confidence in his own strength, and in the infallible success
of his doctrine, he clung more eagerly to the hope of achieving victory
by the use of physical force. Like his master he too hesitated at first,
and opposed the use of severe measures against the Zwickau prophets; but
when he saw the development of that early germ of dissent, and the
gradual dissolution of Lutheran unity, he repented of his ill-timed
clemency.[235] He was not deterred from asserting the duty of
persecution by the risk of putting arms into the hands of the enemies of
the Reformation. He acknowledged the danger,