# Der Lutheraner_St. Louis Missouri_1852 10 12_S27
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

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and against himself, to provoke the wrath of the pope against himself, and even to draw upon himself ban and outlawry thereby, he would never have believed. Only when he could no longer conceal from himself that from the Head of Christendom at Rome the sun-bright truth of the Gospel, which he had set forth in his propositions, was condemned, doubts about the Roman Church itself arose in Dr. Luther; and the shameless defense of the supreme judicial authority of the pope in all matters of faith and conscience, with which the papistic theologian John Eck came forward, urged our Luther to subject this point also to the strict examination of God's Word, and so it came about that the mystery of iniquity in the antichristian papacy was now revealed to him from Scripture, piece after piece. The more Rome and its adherents set themselves against the evangelical truth discovered by him, the more was he driven into the Scriptures, and with this at the same time into the work of the Reformation itself. Every testimony for the truth which he was compelled by necessity and for conscience' sake, by virtue of his oath upon the Holy Scripture, which he had taken upon assuming the doctorate, to render, was a stone toward the building of the temple taking new shape; every step to which his opponents pressed him was the necessary cause of the following; until the work of the Reformation was completed under his hand, before any actual plan of reformation had formed in his soul. And when in the time of trial he was almost dizzy before the great work into which he had been led, and his soul was horrified at the storms which in consequence of his appearance swept through lands and peoples, he comforted himself in the quiet closet before his God, that not he, but God had begun such a work, that it was not his, but God's cause. His prayer at Worms, where he was to appear before Emperor and Empire, bears witness to this.

How very differently it had gone with other reformatory attempts, which were begun from human counsel and purpose! There had been no lack of such before Luther. For that the Church needed a reformation had long been felt by many esteemed and pious men. The desire for reformation expressed itself so strongly that it came up in earnest for discussion at every church council that had been held in the 100 years before Luther. At the Council of Constance, which condemned the faithful witness of JESUS Christ, John Huss, a reformation in head and members was to take place. Many learned men had written in favor of a reformation and given counsel to that end. For the sins and offenses of the clergy, or of the so-called spiritual estate, were beyond measure and outraged every Christian feeling. On the Roman see itself sat the most worthless men, who committed the most horrible vices without shame. Revelry, wantonness, love of display, unchastity, insatiable greed, yea even atheism could be openly proved against the Roman popes of that time. But all those well-meant plans of a reform of the Church remained unexecuted; the corruption remained as it was, and grew the longer the more. Had not God himself looked to it, and taken up the cause of his flock himself, a reformation would never have come about. Precisely an unregarded monk, who had never thought of becoming a reformer, God chose for his instrument, that the honor might remain to him alone, that it might be plainly recognized that this Reformation was God's work.

2.

But to this proof there comes yet another, which is no less important. It is this: that it was a work which surpassed all human powers. There was a prodigious task to be done in order to effect a true, thorough reformation of the Church. What a heap of errors, human ordinances and abuses had to be cleared away, what a power of deep-rooted prejudices to be overcome! If anyone, at a time when the mightiest princes of the earth still paid homage to the pope as the most mighty of all and the nations trembled before his ban, had been asked to foretell that a poor solitary monk would dare to burn publicly with fire the pope's bull of excommunication and decretals; to write publicly and prove from Scripture that the papacy was founded by the devil; — or if anyone had been asked to foretell that from a lowly, poor monk such a transformation would proceed in the Church, in consequence of which the Christian people would no longer be content with what pope, bishops and councils say, or what the ordinances of the Church prescribe, but would itself test and search what the Word of God says, and henceforth would let no articles of faith be forced upon it by men, unless they were clearly grounded in Holy Scripture; this would have been held a thing impossible.

It would indeed lead too far to relate all the errors and abuses with which the papacy had laid waste the Church. Yet something we must mention of them, in order to see from it what a heavy work the Reformation was, surpassing all human powers.

There was, first of all, the enormous authority of the pope. He had brought it about that the whole Church acknowledged him as the visible head, as the visible vicar of Christ on earth, who alone had the keys of the kingdom of heaven, who alone was to decide what should be taught and believed in the Church. Whatever he ordained or established in matters of faith or ceremonies counted as a rule for the whole Church and had to be received in blind obedience; even when it plainly contradicted Holy Scripture. To no one belonged the right of free examination, nay not even the reading of Scripture. The pope raised his seat even above the thrones of kings and princes, had seized all spiritual and temporal power, and oppressed the whole Christian people in all lands with unspeakable burdens — a tyranny such as had never been on earth; for he regarded himself as lord over the conscience, body, life and goods of all men. When therefore we read what St. Paul has prophesied of Antichrist, 2 Thess. 2:4: "Who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is God," — there can be no doubt that this Antichrist has revealed himself in the Roman pope; who exalted himself above all that is called God or worship by this very thing, that he took it upon himself to order, alter and abolish everything in doctrine and worship at his pleasure.

With the enormous authority of the pope there naturally went also this, that the whole so-called spiritual estate took such a position toward the people as withdrew all right in spiritual things from the people and laid it into the hands of the priests. The priesthood was, so to speak, the train of the papacy; in relation to the latter it stood in slavish dependence, but toward the people it exercised all the power on a small scale which the pope exercised on a large. From the right of calling, from the right of judging concerning doctrine, from the government of the Church, the Christian people was wholly shut out; for they, the clergy, regarded themselves together with the pope alone as the Church.

If we now look further at what instruction for salvation was actually given to the people in the papistic church, we meet there with many subversive, soul-endangering errors. For although Christ, his Godhead, incarnation, his meritorious suffering and death, his resurrection and ascension were not denied; yet Christ's merit was greatly diminished and obscured by the addition of so much human delusion. Alongside the merit of Christ men pointed to the intercessions and merits of the saints, especially to the intercession of Mary, as though Christ's heart could be reached over the sinner only through the intercession of his mother. Men commanded pilgrimages, offerings, donations, in order thereby to win the favor of the saints. Alongside faith men pointed to works, to one's own penances and satisfactions; to purgatory as the last means of cleansing for those who had not died as perfect saints. The comforting doctrine of the righteousness of faith, that God imputes to the sinner the righteousness of his dear Son, who