el with physical evils, nor guilt be incurred in order to
avoid suffering and persecution. Westphal declared in his _Explicatio
Generalis Sententiae, quod a Duobus Malis Minus sit Eligendum: "Impium
est, amoliri pericula per peccata, nec ita removentur aut minuuntur sed
accersuntur et augentur poenae._ It is wicked to avert dangers by sins,
nor are they removed or diminished in this way, but rather superinduced
and increased." (13, 251.) "It is better to take upon oneself
punishments and great dangers than to offend God and to provoke His
wrath by such offense." (250.) "It is better and easier to bear many
evils and to undergo many dangers than to be unfaithful in the least
commandment of God, and burden oneself with the guilt of even a single
sin." (251.) Our paramount duty is not to escape persecution, but to
retain a good conscience. Obey the Lord and await His help! Such was the
counsel of Flacius and the loyal Lutherans. (Frank 4, 65.)

But our Wittenberg school will be closed, our churches will be
desolated, and our preachers will be banished, exclaimed the
faint-hearted Wittenbergers. The Lutherans answered: It is our duty to
confess the truth regardless of consequences, and, at the same time, to
look to God for the protection of His Church. Flacius said, in _De Veris
et Falsis Adiaphoris:_ Confess the truth and suffer the consequences! A
Christian cannot obtain peace by offending God and serving and
satisfying tyrants. Rather be drowned by the Spaniards in the Elbe with
a millstone about one's neck than offend a Christian, deny the truth,
and surrender the Church to Satan. "Longe satius esset teste Christo
pati, ut alligata mola asinaria in medium Albis ab Hispanis
proiiceremur, quam _unicum_ parvulum Christi scandalizaremus, multo vero
magis haec et quaevis gravissima pati deberemus, quam _tam infinitis_
(ut iam fit) Christi parvulis offendiculum daremus, ecclesiam Satanae
proderemus et salvificam confessionem veritatis abiiceremus." (Schl. 13,
227.)

As to the Wittenberg School, Flacius said: "It would certainly be better
that the school were closed not one, but many years than that we, by
avoiding confession, extremely weaken our own religion as well as
strengthen the one opposed to it." (13, 231.) "As for myself, I do not
doubt that, if only the theologians had been steadfast, the Wittenberg
School would have been to-day much firmer than it is.... The Interim
sprang from the timidity of the Wittenberg theol