The Holy Scripture - english version B.indd - Sabbat

372Interpretation of the Reformers.invincible.Take first the case of the reformer Luther. Early in the year 1520, he wrote toSpalatinus thus: „I am extremely distressed in my mind. I have not much doubtbut the pope is the real antichrist. The lives and conversation of the popes,their actions, their decrees, all agree most wonderfully to the descriptions ofhim in Holy Writ.“In the autumn of the same year he printed a treatise o the „BabylonishCaptivity of the Church.“ Such was the title. In this he exposed theimposture of indulgences; he showed that their object is to rob men of money bythe perversion of the gospel. In this animated production Luther called the Papacy„the kingdom of Babylon.“ Meanwhile Leo X. published his famousdamnatory bull against Luther, containing extracts from his work, and forbiddingall persons to read his writings on pain of excommunication; commanding thosewho possesed his work to burn them; excommunicating Luther as an obstinateheretic delivered to Satan for the destruction of his flesh, and commanding allsecular princes, under pain of incurring the same censures and forfeiting all theirdignities, to seize his person, that he might be punished as his crimes deserved.In October of the same year, Luther wrote to Spalatinus: „At last the Romanbull is come, and Eckius is the bearer of it. I treat it with contempt. You seethat the expressed doctrines of Christ Himself are here condemned. I feelmyself now more at liberty, being assured that the popedom is antichristianand the seat of Satan.“On December 1st he published two tracts ins answer to the bull, one whichws entitled, „Martin Luther against the Execrable Bull of Antichrist.“ In itsconclusion he admonishes the pope and his cardinals no longer to perseverein madness, „no longer to act the undoubted part of the antichrist of theScriptures.“On December 10th in the same year, 1520, Luther called together the professorsand students in the town of Wittemberg, and publicly burned the Papal bull.Along with it he burned the canon law, the decretals, the Clementines, and theextravagants of the popes.The die was now cast. Luther had declared war against the Roman pontiff. Hehad „boldly denominated him the man of sin, and exhorted all Christianprinces to shake off his usurpations.“ In this manner was the Reformationinaugurated.In order to justify his action, Luther selected thirty articles from the code ofPapal laws, as illustrating the contents of the books he had consumed. These heprinted with pointed remarks, calling on the people to use their own judgmentwith reference to them. He sums up by saying, that on comparing the differentparts of the canon law, its language simply amounts to this: „that the pope is Godon earth above all that is earthly, temporal, or spiritual; that all things belongto the pope, and that no one must venture to say, What do you?“Here is an old black-letter copy of Luther‘s „Commentary on theEpistle to the Galatians.“ Under the expression in the second verse,„the Churches of Galatia,“ he says, „Wheresoever the substance of the holysacraments remains, there is the holy Church, although antichrist their reigns,