#2022-To Leonhard Beier

Those who despise all godliness and do not participate in communion we are accustomed to frighten with the reputation and most-illustrious name of the Prince, and to threaten them with the ban and punishment as blasphemers. So then if they do not straighten up we have ordered the pastors to instruct them for a month longer teaching and rebuking; finally if they are hardened ,to exclude them from the congregation (coetu) and to avoid them as heathen. There is a clear passage on excommunication in the Scripture. You can, if they are not , through the customary salutary-means (HEILMITTEL), not saved write again about this matter. 1533. Martin Luter,D.