authorship by beginning to defend themselves. I beg, if you think
rightly of the Gospel, do not imagine its cause can be accomplished
without tumult, scandal, and sedition. Out of the sword you cannot make
a feather, nor out of war, peace. The Word of God is a sword, war, ruin,
destruction, poison, and, as Amos says, it meets the children of Ephraim
like a bear in the way and a lioness in the woods.--I cannot deny that I
have been more vehement than is seemly. But since they knew this, they
ought not to have stirred up the dog. How difficult it is to temper
one's passions and one's pen you can judge even from your own case. This
is the reason I have always disliked to engage in public controversy;
but the more I dislike it, the more I am involved against my will, and
that only by the most atrocious slanders brought against me and the Word
of God. If I were not carried away thereby either in temper or pen, even
a heart of stone would be moved by the indignity of the thing to take up
arms; and how much more I, who am both passionate and possessed of a pen
not altogether blunt! By these monstrosities I am driven beyond modesty
and decorum. At the same time, I wonder where this new religion came
from, that whatever you say against an adversary is slander. What do you
think of Christ? Was He a slanderer when He called the Jews an
adulterous and perverse generation, the offspring of vipers, hypocrites,
sons of the devil? And what about Paul when he used the words dogs, vain
babblers, seducers, ignorant, and in Acts 13 so inveighed against a
false prophet that he seems almost insane: `Oh, thou full of deceit and
of all craft, thou son of the devil, enemy of the truth'? Why did he not
gently flatter him, that he might convert him, rather than thunder in
such a way? It is not possible, if acquainted with the truth, to be
patient with inflexible and ungovernable enemies of the truth. But
enough of this nonsense. I see that everybody wishes I were gentle,
especially my enemies, who show themselves least so of all. If I am too
little gentle, I am at least simple and open, and therein, as I believe,