cause may be, it never justifies rioting. Luther
declares that he will rather side with those who suffer in, than with
those who start, a riot. Rioting is forbidden in God's Law (Dent. 16,
20; 32, 35). This particular rioting against the papists has been
instigated by the devil, in order to divert people's minds from the real
spiritual issues of the times, and to bring the cause of the Gospel into
disrepute. Luther feels these tumultuous proceedings as a disgrace.
"People who read and understand my teaching correctly," he says, "do not
start riots. They were not taught such things by me. If any engage in
such proceedings and drag my name into it, what can I do to stop them?
How many things are the papists doing in the name of Christ which Christ
never commanded!" Luther begs all who glory in the name of Christians to
conduct themselves as Paul demands 2 Cor. 6, 3: "Giving no offense in
anything, that the ministry be not blamed." (10, 360 ff.) Whoever can,
ought to treat himself to the reading of this fine treatise of the
exiled monk of Wittenberg.

The iconoclastic uprising which broke out in Wittenberg in the closing
days of the month of February, 1522, finally decided Luther, at the risk
of his life, to quit his exile and to fight the devil, who was trying to
subvert his good doctrine by such wicked practises. The world knows that
it was Luther who quelled the riot in his town. Luther's face was ever
sternly set against those who wanted to wage the Lord's wars with the
devil's weapons. No murder or sacrilege that was committed in those days
can be laid at the door of Luther's teaching.

The Catholics are trying to divert attention from their own unwarranted
and violent proceedings by charging Luther with preaching a war of
extermination against their hierarchy. How did they treat the just
claims and reasonable demands of the German nation for measures that
were admitted to be crying needs of the times? No German diet met but a
long list of grievances was submitted by the suffering people. It was of
no avail. The haughty clergy rode over the people's rights and prayers
rough-shod. The tyrannous devices which their cunning had invented were
executed with brazen impudence. How had they treated simple laymen in
whose possession a Bible was found? What was their inquisitorial court
but the anteroom to holy butchers' shambles, the legal vestibule to
murder that had been sanctioned by the Popes? How had they treated
Luther?