The Holy Scripture - english version B.indd - Sabbat

Dr. Martin Luther and the Reformers219were to be issued a hue and cry for Antichrist, we should certainly take up this churchon suspicion, and it would certainly not be let loose again, for it so exactly answersthe description.Popery is contrary to Christ’s Gospel, and is the Antichrist, and we ought to prayagainst it. It should be the daily prayer of every believer that Antichrist might be hurledlike a millstone into the flood and for Christ, because it wounds Christ, because itputs sacramental efficacy in the place of His atonement, and lifts a piece of breadinto the place of the Saviour, and a few drops of water into the place of the HolyGhost, and puts a mere fallible man like ourselves up as the vicar of Christ on earth;if we pray against it, because it is against Him, we shall love the persons thoughwe hate their errors: we shall loave their souls though we loath and destest theirdogmas, and so the breath of our prayers will be sweetened, because we turn ourfaces towards Christ when we pray.“taken from: Michael de Semlyen: All Roads lead to Rome“F. Holderness Gale: The Story of Protestantism, S. 106”:When Luther visited Rome, the work of rebuilding St. Peter’s had alreadybegun. Julius II. was Pope when Luther visited Rome, but in 1513, a year afterLuther became Docter. Julius died, and was succeeded as Pontiff by Leo X.So vast were Leo’s schemes for the rebuilding of Rome that they quickly drained histreasury; the Pope had recourse to the sale of indulgences.The commissioner for Germany was the Archbishop Albert, of Mayence andMagdeburg. In which latter diocese was Wittenberg. He struck a bargain with Rome,under which he was allowed to retain half the proceeds of the sales in Germany.Of these sub-commissioners the most prominent and not the least blasphemouswas John Tetzel, a Dominican monk who seems to have combined the voice of atown-crier with the unscrupulous blandishments of a cheap-jack. From town to townthrough Germany Tetzel proceeded with his retinue. At the head of the procession,the Pope’s bull issuing the indulgences was carried in a casket on a velvet cushion.The Dominican bore a great red cross from which were suspended the arms of Leo X.,and behind him were driven the mules which carried the bales of pardons.Of the keys of these chests, one was in the hands of Tetzel, a second was kept bythe representative of the bankers, and a third was entrusted to the civil authorities.Tetzel, whose personal character was notoriously bad, that the Elector Frederickforbade Tetzel to carry on his trade in indulgences within the territory over which heruled.„Indulgences,“ he urged, „are the most precious and most noble of God’s gifts.Come,“ he shouted, „ and I will give you letters all properly sealed, by which even thesins which you intend to commit may be pardoned.“Tetzel proclaimed, as Pope Boniface VIII. had done two centuries earlier, that anindulgence could be secured by the living for the benefit of the dead.‘Priest, noble, merchant, wife, youth, maiden, do you not hear your parents andyour other friends who are dead, and who cry from the bottom of the abyss, ‘We aresuffering horrible torments! A trifling alms would deliver us; you can give it, and youwill not’? At the very instant that the money rattles at the bottom of the chest the soulescapes from purgatory, and flies ransomed to heaven.“ …