The Holy Scripture - english version B.indd - Sabbat

Dr. Martin Luther and the Reformers225Being isolated in his small room, he poured his heart out before God “with suchfaith and confidence ... as if he was talking to his friend and father. ‘I know’, said thereformer, ‘that you are our Father and our God, that you will scatter the persecutorsof your children, because yourself you are in danger with us. This whole thing isyours; we have made it just because you wanted it.Protect us, O LORD {YAHWEH}! “from: D’Aubigné, ibid, vol. 14, section 6, p. 152 fTo Melanchthon, who was crushed by the burden of fear and sorrow, he (Luther)wrote:“Grace and peace in Christ! In Christ, I said, not in the world. Amen! I enormouslyhate your concerns that consume you, as you write. If the cause is wrong, so we willwithdraw, if it is just, why do we make the one making us sleep well a liar? And thatfor so many promises?... Christ does not elude the cause of justice and truth, he livesand reigns, and what else do we have to fear “?from: D’Aubigné, ibid, vol. 14, section 6, p. 152 fF. Holdesmess Gale: The Story of Prostestantism:On receipt of the legate’s report in Rome, the Pope proceeded to issue, on November9th, a new decretal on the subject of indulgences, declaring that „all those who haveacquired indulgences, whether alive or dead, are released from so much temporalpunishment for their actual sins as is the equivalent of the acquired indulgence. Thisdoctrine is to be held and preached by all, under penalty of excommunication, fromwhich only the Pope can absolve, save at the point of death.“The effect upon Luther was twofold. We find him writting at about this time to hisfriend Wenceslaus Link at Nuremberg: “The conviction is daily growing upon methat the Pope is Anitchrist.“Luther writes in answer to the pope: „Rome has cut herself off from the universalChurch; if ye {you} reform not, I and all that worship Christ do account yourseat to be possessed and oppressed by Satan himself, to be the damned seatof antichrist, which we will not be subject to nor incorporate with, but do detestand abhor the same.“taken from: „Romanism and the Reformation“ by H. Grattan GuinnessProf. Walter J. Veith:H. Grattan Guiness, in his classic work: Romanism and the Reformation, 1887 showsclearly that there was no difference between paganism and that which crept into theidolatrous church supposedly representing Jesus Christ. He writes:Had Paganism its temples and altars, its pictures and images? So has Rome.Had Paganism its holy water and incense? So has Rome.Had Paganism its tonsured priests, presided over by a pontifex maximus? So hasRome.Had Paganism its claim to sacerdotal infallibility? So has Popery.