# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_Januar 1863_S4
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

4 Preface.

As to the first point, Luther writes in his "Admonition to Peace on the Twelve Articles of the Peasantry in Swabia," of the year 1525: "First, we may thank no one on earth for this mischief and uproar but you, princes and lords — especially you blind bishops, mad priests and monks — who, hardened to this very day, do not cease to rage and rave against the holy Gospel, even though you know it is right and cannot refute it; and besides, in worldly government you do nothing more than flay and fleece, to maintain your pomp and arrogance, until the poor common man can no longer bear it . . This you should know, dear lords: God so brings it about that one cannot, will not, and shall not endure your raging any longer. You must become different, and yield to God's Word. If you will not do it in a friendly, willing manner, you will have to do it through violent and ruinous means. If the peasants do not do it, others will. And even if you struck them all down, they would still be unbeaten — God will raise up others. For he will strike you, and he shall strike you. It is not peasants, dear lords, who set themselves against you: it is God himself who sets himself against you, to visit your raging upon you." After Luther, in this and similar fashion, has preached God's Word to the lords, he thereupon turns also to the subjects, the peasants, rebukes their rebellion, and says, among other things, concerning their articles — particularly concerning the third one cited: "There shall be no serf, since Christ has freed us all! What is this? This is to make Christian freedom wholly carnal. Did not Abraham and the other patriarchs and prophets also have serfs? Read St. Paul, what he teaches of the servants who were all serfs at that time. Therefore this article stands flatly against the Gospel, and is robbery, in that by it every man takes from his lord his own body, which has become the lord's property. For a serf can indeed be a Christian and have Christian freedom, just as a prisoner or a sick man is a Christian and yet is not free. This article would make all men equal, and turn Christ's spiritual kingdom into a worldly, external kingdom, which is impossible. For an earthly kingdom cannot stand where there is not inequality among persons, so that some are free, some captive, some lords, some subjects, etc. As St. Paul says, Gal. 3:28, that in Christ lord and servant are one thing." (Ibid., XVI, 60–61, 85–86.) In this, Luther's fellow workers were altogether at one with him. Melanchthon writes, among other things, in his "Writing against the Articles of the Peasantry": "It is also an outrage and violence that they will not remain serfs. That they invoke Scripture, that Christ has made us free — that is spoken of spiritual freedom: that we are certain that through him our sin is taken away without any satisfaction of our own, and that we