untrammeled." (Waring, _Political Theories of Luther,_ p. 235 f.)

This testimony of one who has made a careful investigation of Luther's
writings on the subject of liberty of conscience is, of course, not
first-hand evidence; it merely shows what impressions people take away
from their study of Luther. Let us hear Luther himself. In the _Appeal
to the German Nobility_ he says: "No one can deny that it is breaking
God's commandments to violate faith and a safe-conduct, even though it
be promised to the devil himself, much more then in the case of a
heretic. . . . Even though John Hus were a heretic, however bad he may
have been, yet he was burned unjustly and in violation of God's
commandments, and we must not force the Bohemians to approve this, if
we wish ever to be at one with them. Plain truth must unite us, not
obstinacy. It is no use to say, as they said at the time, that a
safe-conduct need not be kept if promised to a heretic; that is as much
as to say, one may break God's commandments in order to keep God's
commandments. They were infatuated and blinded by the devil, that they
could not see what they said or did. God has commanded us to observe a
safe-conduct; and this we must do though the world should perish; much
more, then, where it is only a question of a heretic being set free. We
should overcome heretics with books, not with fire, as the old Fathers
did. If there were any skill in overcoming heretics with fire, the
executioner would be the most learned doctor in the world; and there
would be no need of study, but he that could get another into his power
could burn him." (10, 332.)

In his treatise _On the Limits of Secular Authority,_ Luther says:
"Unbearable loss follows where the secular authority is given too much
room, and it is likewise not without loss where it is too restricted.
Here it punishes too little; there it punishes too much. Although it is
more desirable that it offend on the side of punishing too little than
that it punish too severely; because it is always better to permit a
knave to live than to put a good man to death, inasmuch as the world
still has and must have knaves, but has few good men.

"In the first place, it is to be noted that the two classes of the human
race, one of whom is in the kingdom of God under Christ, and the other
in the kingdom of the world under civil authority, have two kinds of
laws; for every kingdom must have its laws and its rights, and no
kingdom or _