“I believe that it has now become clear that it is not enough or in any sense ‘Christian’ to preach the works, life, and words of Christ as historical fact, as if the knowledge of these would suffice for the conduct of life. Yet, this is the fashion among those who today are regarded as our best preachers…and such teaching is childish and effeminate nonsense.

There are some who have no understanding to hear the truth of liberty and insist upon their goodness as means for salvation. These people you must resist, do the very opposite, and offend them boldly lest by their impious views they drag many with them into error.

For the sake of the liberty of the faith do other things which they regarded as the greatest of sins….Use your freedom constantly and consistently in the sight of and despite the tyrants and the stubborn so that they also may learn that they are impious, that their laws and works are of no avail for righteousness, and that they had no right to set them up." Martin Luther’s essay, “The Freedom of a Christian