Martin Luther – The Babylonian Captivity of the Church (Full Audiobook with Captions)

Introduction to the Babylonian Captivity of the church this is a Libra Vox recording all Libra Vox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit libravox.org the Babylonian Captivity of the church by Martin Luther translated by RS Grignon introduction Jesus Martin Luther of the order of Saint Augustin

Salutes his friend Herman Telehius whether I will or not I am compelled to become more Learned day by day since so many great masters VI with each other in urging me on and giving me practice I wrote about indulgences two years ago but now I extremely regret having published that book

At that time I was still involved in a great and superstitious respect for the tyranny of Rome which LED me to judge that indulgences were not to be totally rejected seeing them as I did to be approved by so general a consent among men and no wonder for at that time

It was I alone who was rolling this stone afterwards however with the kind aid of Sylvester and the friars who supported indulgences so strenuously have perceived that they were nothing but mere impostures of the flatterers of Rome whereby to make a way with the faith of god and the money of men

And I wish I could prevail upon the booksellers and persuade all who have read them to burn the whole of my writings on indulgences and in place of all I have written about them to adopt this proposition indulgences are wicked devices of the flatterers of Rome after this Eckius and M

Sir with their fellow conspirators begin to instruct me concerning the primacy of the Pope here too not to be ungrateful to such learning men I must confess that their works helped me on greatly for while I had denied that the papacy had any divine right

I still admitted that it had a human right but after hearing and reading the super subtle subtleties of those Cox Combs by which they so ingeniously set up their idol my mind being not entirely unteachable in such matters I now know and am sure that the papacy is the kingdom of Babylon

And the power of Nimrod the mighty hunter here moreover that all may go prosperously with my friends I entreat the booksellers and entreat my readers to burn all that I have published on this subject and to hold to the following proposition the papacy is the mighty hunting of the Bishop of Rome

This is proved from the reasonings of echius of M Sir and of the Leipzig Lecturer on the Bible at the present time they are playing at schooling me concerning communion in both kinds and some other subjects of the greatest importance I must take pains not to listen in vain

To these philosophical guides of mine a certain Italian friar of Cremona has written a revocation of Martin Luther to the Holy See that is to say not that I revoke as the words imply but that he revokes me this is the sort of Latin that the Italians nowadays are beginning to write

Another friar a German of Leipzig lecturer as you know on the whole canon of the Bible has written against me concerning the sacrament in both kinds and is about as I hear to do still greater and wonderful wonders the Italian indeed has cautiously concealed his name perhaps alarmed by the examples of Cayotin

And Sylvester the man of Leipzig however as befits a vigorous and fierce German has set forth in a number of verses on his title page his name his life his sanctity his learning his office his glory his honor almost his very shoe lasts from him no doubt I shall learn not a little

Since he writes a letter of dedication to the very son of god so familiar are these saints with Christ who reigns in heaven in short three magpies seem to be addressing me one a Latin one well another a Greek one still better the third a Hebrew one best of all

What do you think I have to do now my dear Herman but to prick up my ears the matter is handled at Leipzig by the observance of the Holy Cross hitherto I have foolishly thought that it would be an excellent thing if it were determined by a general council

That both kinds in the sacrament should be administered to the laity to correct this opinion this more than most Learned friar says that it was neither commanded nor decreed whether by Christ or by the apostles that both kinds should be administered to the laity and that it

Therefore has been left to the judgment of the church which we are bound to obey what should be done or left undone on this point thus speaks he you ask perhaps what craze has possession of the man or against whom he is writing since I did not condemn the use of one kind

And did leave it to the judgment of the church to ordain the use of both kinds and this he himself endeavours to assert with the object of combating me by this very argument I reply that this kind of argument is a familiar one with all who write against Luther namely either

To assert the very thing which they attack or to set up a figment that they may attack it thus did Sylvester Eckius M sir the man of Cologne 2 and those of Louvain if this friar had not gone back from their spirit he would not have written against Luther

A greater piece of good fortune however has befall in this man than any of the others whereas he intended to prove that the use of one kind had neither been commanded nor decreed but left to the decision of the church he brings forward scriptures to prove that by the command of Christ

The use of one kind was ordained for the laity thus it is true according to this new interpreter scripture that the use of one kind was not commanded and at the same time was commanded by Christ you know how specially those logicians of Leipzig employ this new kind of argument does not answer

Also after having professed in his former book to speak fairly about me and after having been convicted by me of the foulist envy end of base falsehoods confess when about to confute me in his later book that both were true and that he had written of me in both an unfair

And a fair spirit a good man indeed as you know but listen to our species advocate of one species in whose mind the decision of the church and the command of Christ are the same thing and again the command of Christ and the absence of his command are the same thing

With what dexterity he proves that only one kind should be granted to the laity by the command of Christ that is by the decision of the church he marks it with capital letters in this way and infallible foundation next he handles with incredible wisdom the sixth chapter of the gospel of Saint John

In which Christ speaks of the bread of heaven and the bread of life which is himself these words this most Learned man not only miss applies to the sacrament of the altar but goes farther and because Christ said I am the living bread and not I am the living cup

He concludes that in that passage the sacrament in only one kind was appointed for the laity but the words that follow my flesh is meat indeed and my blood is drink indeed and again unless you eat the flesh of the son of man and drink his blood

Since it was evident to this friars brains that they tell irrefutably in favor of reception in both kinds and against that in one kind he evades very happily and learnedly in this way that Christ meant nothing else by these words than that he who should receive one kind should receive under this

Both the body and the blood this he lays down as his infallible foundation of a structure so worthy of holy and heavenly reverence learn now along with me from this man that in the sixth chapter of Saint John Christ commands reception in one kind but in such a manner that this commanding means

Leaving the matter to the decision of the church and further that Christ in the same chapter speaks of the laity only not of the presbyters for to us this living bread from heaven that is the sacrament in one kind does not belong but per chance the bread of death from hell

Now what is to be done with the deacons and sub deacons as they are neither Lehmann nor priests they ought on this distinguished authority to use neither one nor both kinds you understand my dear Teletheus this new and observant manner of handling scripture but you must also learn this that Christ

In the sixth chapter of Saint John is speaking of the sacrament of the Eucharist though he himself teaches us that he is speaking of faith in the Incarnate Word by saying this is the work of god that you believe in him whom he has sent but this Leipzig professor of the Bible

Must be permitted to prove whatever he pleases out of any passage or scripture he pleases for he is an annexagarian nay and Aristotelian theologian to whom names and words when transposed mean the same things and everything throughout his whole book he so fits together the testimonies of Scripture that

If he wishes to prove that Christ is in the sacrament he ventures to begin thus the lesson of the book of the revelation of the Blessed John and as suitably as this would be said so suitably does he say everything and thinks like a wise man to adorn his ravings

By the number of passages he brings forward I pass over the rest that I may not quite kill you with the dregs of this most offensive drain lastly he aduces Paul 1st Corinthians 11 who says that he had received from the Lord and had delivered to the Corinthians the use both

Of the bread and of the cup here again as everywhere else our advocate of one species handles the scriptures admirably and teaches that in that passage Paul permitted not delivered the use of both kinds do you ask how he proves it out of his own head

As in the case of the 6th chapter of John for it does not become this lecturer to give a reason for what he says since he is one of those whose proofs and teachings all come from their own visions here then we are taught that the Apostle in that passage

Did not write to the whole church of Corinth but only to the laity and that therefore he gave no permission to the priests but that they were deprived of the whole sacrament and next that by a new rule of grammar I have received from the Lord means the same thing as

It has been permitted by the Lord and I delivered to you the same thing as I permitted to you I beg you especially to know this for it follows hence that not only the church but every worthless fellow everywhere will be at liberty under the teaching of this master to turn into permissions

The whole body of the commandments institutions and ordinances of Christ and the apostles I see that this man is possessed by an angel of Satan and that those who act in collusion with him are seeking to obtain a name in the world through me as being worthy to contend with Luther

But this hope of theirs shall be disappointed and in my contempt for them I shall leave them forever unnamed and shall content myself with this one answer to the whole of their books if they are worthy that Christ should bring them back to a sound mind I pray him to do so

In his mercy if they are not worthy of this then I pray that they may never cease to write such books and that the enemies of the truth may not be permitted to read any others it is a common and true saying this I know for certain that if I fight with filth

Whether I conquer or am conquered I am sure to be defiled in the next place as I see that they have plenty of leisure and of paper I will take care that they shall have abundant matter for writing and will keep in advance of them so that while they

In the boastfulness of victory are triumphine over some one heresy of mine as it seems to them I shall meanwhile be setting up a new one for I too am desirous that these illustrious leaders in war should be adorned with many titles of honor and so while they are murmuring

That I approve of communion in both kinds and are most successfully engaged on this very important subject so worthy of themselves I shall go farther and shall now endeavor to show that all who deny to the laity communion in both kinds are acting impiously to do this the more conveniently I shall make

A first essay on the bondage of the church of Rome with the intention of saying very much more in its own proper time when those most Learned papers shall have got the better of this book this moreover I do in order that no pious reader who may meet with my book

May be disgusted at the draws I have handled and have reason to complain that he finds nothing to read which can cultivate or instruct his mind or at least give occasion for instructive reflection you know how dissatisfied my friends are that I should occupy myself with the poultry twistings of these men

They say that the very reading of their books is an ample confrontation of them but that for me they look for better things which Satan is trying to hinder by means of these men I have determined to follow the advice of my friends and to leave the business of wrangling and in vain

To those hornets of the Italian friar of Cremona I shall say nothing he is a simple and unlearned man who is endeavouring to bring me back by some thongs of rhetoric to the Holy See from which I am not conscious of having ever withdrawn nor has anyone proved that I have

His principal argument in some ridiculous passages is that I ought to be moved for the sake of my profession and of the transfer of the imperial power to the Germans he seems indeed altogether to have meant not so much to urge my return as to write the praises of the French

And of the Roman Pontiff and he must be allowed to testify his obsequiousness to them by this little work such as it is he neither deserves to be handled severely since he does not seem to be actuated by any malice nor to be learnedly confuted since through pure ignorance and inexperience

He trifles with the whole subject to begin I must deny that there are seven sacraments and must lay it down for the time being that there are only three baptism penance and the bread and that by the court of Rome all these have been brought into miserable bondage

And the church dispoiled of all her liberty and yet if I were to speak according to the usage of Scripture I would hold that there was only one sacrament and three sacramental signs I shall speak on this point more at length at the proper time

But now I speak of the sacrament of the bread the first of all sacraments I shall say then what advance I have made as a result of my meditations in the ministry of this sacrament for at the time when I published a discourse on the Eucharist

I was still involved in the common custom and did not trouble myself either about the rightful or the wrongful power of the Pope but now that I have been called forth and become practiced in argument they have been dragged by force into this arena I shall speak out freely what I think

Let all the papers laugh or lament against me alone in the first place the sixth chapter of John must be set aside altogether as not saying a single syllable about the sacrament not only because the sacrament had not yet been instituted but much more because the very sequence of the discourse

And of its statements shows clearly that Christ was speaking as I have said before of faith in the Incarnate Word for he says my words they are spirit and they are life showing that he was speaking of that spiritual eating where with he who eats lives while the Jews

Understood him to speak of a carnal eating and therefore raised a dispute but no eating gives life except the eating of faith for this is the really spiritual and living eating as Agustin says why does thou get ready thy stomach and thy teeth believe in thou hast eaten a sacramental

Eating does not give life for many eat unworthily so that Christ cannot be understood to have spoken of the sacrament in this passage there are certainly some who have misapplied these words to the sacrament as did the writer of the decoratives some time ago and many others it is one thing however

To misapply the scriptures and another to take them in their legitimate sense otherwise when Christ says except ye eat my flesh and drink my blood ye have no life in you he would be condemning all infants all the sick all the absent and all who were hindered in whatever manner

From a sacramental eating however eminent their faith if in these words he had meant to enjoy in a sacramental eating thus Agustin in his second book against Julianis proves from Innocentius that even infants without receiving the sacrament eat the flesh and drink the blood of Christ

That is partake in the same faith as the church let this then be considered as settled that the sixth chapter of John has nothing to do with the matter for which reason I have written elsewhere that the Bohemians could not rightfully depend upon this passage in their defense of reception in both kinds

End of the introduction SECTION 1 of the Babylonian Captivity of the church by Martin Luther translated by RS Grignon this Librevox recording is in the public domain concerning the Lord’s Supper there are two passages which treat in the clearest manner of this subject and at which we shall look

The statements in the Gospels respecting the Lord suffer and the words of Paul 1st Corinthians 11 Matthew Mark and Luke agree that Christ gave the whole sacrament to all his disciples and that Paul thought both parts of it is so certain that no one has yet been shameless enough to assert the contrary

Add to this that according to the relation of Matthew Christ did not say concerning the bread eat ye all of this but did say concerning the cup drink ye all of this Mark also does not say they all ate but they all drink of it each writer

Attaches the Mark of universality to the cup not to the bread as if the spirit foresaw the season that should come and should forbid to some that communion in the cup which Christ would have common to all how furiously would they rave against us

If they had found the word all applied to the bread and not to the cup they would leave us no way of escape would clamor us down pronounce us heretics condemn us as schismatics but when the word stands on our side against them

They allow themselves to be bound by no laws of logic these men of freest will while they change and change again and throw into other confusion even the things which are of god but supposed me to be standing on the other side and questioning my lords the papists

In the supper of the Lord the whole sacrament or the sacrament in both kinds was either given to the presbyters alone or at the same time to the laity if to the presbyters alone for thus they will have it to be then it is no wise

Lawful that any kind should be given to the laity for it ought not to be rashly given to any to whom Christ did not give it at the first institution otherwise if we allow one of Christ institutions to be changed we make the whole body of his laws of no effect

And any man may venture to say that he is bound by no law or institution of Christ for in dealing with scripture one special exception does away with any general statement if on the other hand it was given to the laity as well it inevitably follows that reception

Both kinds ought not to be denied to the laity and in denying it to them when they seek it we act impiously and contrary to the deed example and institution of Christ I confess that I have been unable to resist this reasoning and have neither read

Heard of nor discovered anything to be said on the other side while the words and example of Christ stand unshaken who says not by way of permission but of commandment drink ye all of this for if all are to drink of it and this cannot be understood as said to the presbyters alone

Then it is certainly an impious deed to debar the laity from it when they seek it were it even an angel from heaven who did so for what they say of its being left to the decision of the church which kind should be administered is said without rational ground is alleged without authority

And is as easily contemned as proved nor can it avail against any adversary who opposes to us the word and deed of Christ and whose blows must therefore be returned with the word of Christ and this we have not on our side if however either kind can be denied to the laity

Then by the same decision of the church a part of baptism or of penance might be taken from them since in each case the reason of the matter and the power are alike therefore as the whole of baptism and the whole of absolution are to be granted to all the laity

So is the whole sacrament of the bread if they seek it I am much astonished however at their assertion that it is wholly unlawful under pain of mortal sin for presbyters to receive only one kind in the mass and this for no other reason than that as they all unanimously say

The two kinds form one full sacrament which ought not to be divided let them tell me then why is it lawful to divide it in the case of the laity and why they alone should not be granted the entire sacrament do they not admit on their own showing

That either both kinds ought to be granted to the laity or that it is no lawful sacrament which is granted to them under one kind how can the one kind be a full sacrament in the case of the laity and not a full one in the case of the presbyters

Why do they want the decision of the church and the power of the Pope in this matter the words of god and the testimonies of truth cannot thus be done away with he follows further that if the church can take from the laity the one kind

The wine she can also take from them the other kind the bread and thus might take from the laity the whole sacrament of the altar and deprive the institution of Christ of all effect in their case but I ask by what authority if however she cannot take away the bread or both kinds

Neither can she take the wine nor can any possible argument on this point be brought against an opponent since the church must necessarily have the same power in regard to either kind as in regard to both kinds if she has it not as regards both kinds she has it not as regards either

I should like to hear what the flatterers of Rome may choose to say on this point but what strikes me most forcibly of all and thoroughly convinces me is that saying of Christ this is my blood which is shed for you and for many for the remission of sins

Here you see most clearly that the blood is given to all for whose sins it is shed now who will dare to say that it was not shared for the laity do you not see who it is that he addresses as he gives the cup does he not give it to all

Does he not say that it was shared for all for you he says let us grant that these are priests and for many he continues these cannot be priests and yet he says drink ye all of it I also could easily trifle on this point

And turn the words of Christ into a mockery by my words as that trifler my opponent does but those who rest upon the scriptures in arguing against us must be refuted by the scriptures these are the reasons which have kept me from condemning the Bohemians who whether they be good or bad men

Certainly have the words and deeds of Christ on their side while we have neither but only that idle device of men the church hath thus ordered it well it was not the church but the tyrants of the churches without the consent of the church that is of the people of god

Who have thus ordered it now where I ask is the necessity where is the religious obligation where is the use of denying to the laity reception in both kinds that is the visible sign when all men grant them the reality of the sacrament without the sign if they grant the reality

Which is the greater why do they not grant the sign which is the less for in every sacrament the sign in so far as it is a sign is incomparably less than the reality itself what then I ask should hinder the granting of the lesser thing when the greater is granted unless indeed

As it seems to me this has happened by the permission of god in his anger to be the occasion of assism in the church and to show that having long ago lost the reality of the sacrament we are fighting on behalf of the sign which is the lesser thing against the reality

Which is the greatest and only important thing just as some persons fight on behalf of ceremonies against charity this monstrous perversion appears to have begun at the same time at which we began in folly to set Christian charity at not for the sake of worldly riches

That god might show by this terrible proof that we think signs of greater consequence than the realities themselves what perversity it would be if you were to concede that the faith of baptism is granted to one seeking baptism and yet deny him the sign of that very faith namely water last of all

Stand the irrefutable words of Paul which must close every mouth first Corinthians 11 I have received of the Lord that which also I delivered unto you he does not say as this friar falsely asserts out of his own head I permitted to you nor is it true

That he granted the Corinthians reception in both kinds on account of the contentions among them in the first place as the text itself shows the contention was not about the reception in both kinds but about the contemptuousness of the rich and the envy of the poor as is clear from the text

Which says one is hungry and another is drunken and you shame them that have not then 2 he is not speaking of what he delivered as if it were for the first time he does not say I received from the Lord and I deliver to you but I received and I have delivered

Namely at the beginning of his preaching long before this contention arose thus signifying that he had delivered to them the reception in both kinds this delivering means enjoying as he elsewhere uses the same word thus the smoke clouds of assertion which this friar heaps together concerning permission without scripture without reason

And without cause go for nothing his opponents do not ask what his dreams are but what the judgment of Scripture is on these points and out of it he can produce not a tittle in support of his dream while they can bring forward so many thunderbolts and defense of their belief

Rise up then in one body all you flatterers of the Pope be active defend yourselves from the charge of empirety tyranny and treason against the gospel and wrongful columbation of your Brethren ye who proclaim as heretics those who cannot approve of the mere dreams of your brains

In opposition to such plain and powerful scriptures if either of the two are to be called heretics and schismatics it is not the Bohemians not the Greeks since they take their stand on the Gospels but you Romans who are heretics and impious schismatics you who presume upon your own figments alone

Against the manifest teaching of the scriptures of god but what can be more ridiculous or more worthy of the head of this friar than to say that the Apostle wrote thus and gave this permission to a particular church that of Corinth but not to the universal church once does he prove this

Out of his usual store his own impious head when the universal church takes this epistle as addressed to itself reads it and follows it in every respect why not in this part of it if we admit that any one epistle of Paul or one passage in any epistle

Does not concern the universal church we do away with the whole authority of Paul the Corinthians might say that what he taught concerning faith in writing to the Romans did not concern them what could be more blasphemous or more mad than this mad idea

Far be it from us to imagine that there can be one tittle in the whole of Paul which the whole of the universal church ought not to imitate and keep not thus thought the fathers nor any until these perilous times in which Paul foretold that there should be blasphemers blind and senseless men

Among whom this friar is one or even the foremost but let us grant this intolerably wild assertion if Paul gave permission to a particular church then on your own showing the Greeks and the Bohemians are acting rightly for they are particular churches and therefore it is enough that they are not acting against

The teaching of Paul who at least gives them permission furthermore Paul had not power to permit of anything contrary to the institution of Christ therefore on behalf of the Greeks and the Bohemians I set up these sayings of Christ and of Paul against the Rome and all thy flatterers nor cants thou

Show that power has been given thee to change these things by one hair’s breath much less to accuse others of heresy because they disregard they presumptuous pretensions it is thou who deserves to be accused of empirety and tyranny we also read the words of Cyprian who by himself

Is powerful enough to stand against all the Romanists and who testifies in his discourse concerning the lapsed in the fifth book that it had been the custom in that church for both kinds to be administered to layman and even to children yeah

For the body of the Lord to be given into their hands as he shows by many instances among other things he thus reproves some of the people and because he does not immediately receive the body of the Lord with unclean hands or drink the blood of the Lord with polluted mouth

He is angry with the priests as sacrilegious you see that he is here speaking of certain sacrilegious laymen who wished to receive from the priests the body and the blood have you hear wretched flatterer anything to gabble say that this holy martyr this teacher of the church

So highly endowed with the Apostolic Spirit was a heretic and availed himself of a permission in his particular church he relates in the same place an incident which had occurred in his own sight and presence when he writes in the plainest terms that as a Deacon

He had given the cup to an infant girl and when the child struggled against it had even poured the blood of the Lord into its mouth we read the same thing of Saint Donnatus whose broken cup how Dolly does this wretched flatterer try to get rid of I read he says

That the cup was broken I do not read that the blood was given what wonder that he who perceives in the Holy Scriptures what he wills to perceive should also read in historical narratives what he wills to read but can he in this way at all

Establish the power of the church to decide or can he thus confute heretics but enough said on this subject for I did not begin this treatise in order to answer one who is unworthy of an answer but in order to lay open the truth of the matter I conclude then

That to deny reception in both kinds to the laity is an active empirety and tyranny and one not in the power of any angel much less of any pope or council whatever nor do I care for the council of Constance for if its authority is to prevail

Why should not also that of the council of Basel which decreed on the other hand that the Bohemians should be allowed to receive in both kinds a point which was carried there after long discussion as the extant annals and documents of that council prove this fact that ignorant flatterer brings forward

On behalf of his own dreams so wisely does he handle the whole matter the first bondage then of this sacrament is as regards its substance or completeness which the tyranny of Rome has rested from us not that they sin against Christ to use one kind only

Since Christ has not commanded the use of any but has left it to the choice of each individual saying this do ye as often as ye shall do it in remembrance of me but they sin who forbid that both kinds should be given to those who desire to use this freedom of choice

And the fault is not in the laity but in the priests the sacrament does not belong to the priests but to all nor are the priests lords but servants whose duty it is to give both kinds to those who seek them as often as they seek them

If they have snatched this right from the laity and forcibly denied it to them they are tyrants and the laity are free from blame whether they go without one or both kinds for meanwhile they will be saved by their faith and by their desire for a complete sacrament so to the ministers themselves

Are bound to grant baptism and absolution to him who seeks them if they do not grant them the seeker has full merit of his own faith while they will be accused before Christ as wicked servants thus of old the Holy Fathers in the desert passed many years

Without communicating in either kind of the sacrament I am not therefore advocating the seizing by force on both kinds as if we were of necessity commanded and compelled to receive them but I am instructing the conscience that every man may endure the tyranny of Rome knowing that he has been forcibly deprived of

His right in the sacrament on account of his sins this only I would have that none should justify the tyranny of Rome as if she had done right in denying one kind to the laity but we should abhorr it and withhold our consent from it though we may bear it

Just as if we were in bondage with the Turk where we should not be at liberty to use either kind for this reason I have said that it would be a fine thing in my opinion if this bondage were done away with by the decree of a general council

And Christian liberty restored to us out of the hands of the tyrant of Rome and if to each man were left his own free choice about seeking and using it as it is left in the case of baptism and penance now however by the same tyranny

He compels one kind to be received year by year so extinct is the liberty granted us by Christ and such are the deserts of our impious in gratitude the other bondage of the same sacrament is a milder one and as much as it regards the conscience but one which it is by far

The most perilous of all things to touch much more to condemn here I shall be a wicklifeit and a heretic under 600 names what then since the Bishop of Rome has ceased to be a bishop and has become a tyrant I fear absolutely none of his decrees since I know that neither he

Nor even the General Council has power to establish new articles of the faith formerly when I was in bibing the scholastic theology my lord the Cardinal of Cambray gave me occasion for reflection by arguing most acutely in the fourth book of the sentences that it would be much more probable

And that fewer superfluous miracles would have to be introduced if real bread and real wine and not only their accidents were understood to be upon the altar unless the church had determined the contrary afterwards when I saw what the church was which had thus determined namely the tomistic that is the Aristotelian Church

I became bolder and whereas I had been before in great straits of doubt I now at length established my conscience in the former opinion namely that there were real bread and real wine in which were the real flesh and real blood of Christ in no other manner

And in no less degree than the other party assert them to be under the accidents and this I did because I saw that the opinions of the Tomists whether approved by the Pope or by a council remained opinions and did not become articles of the faith

Even were an angel from heaven to decree otherwise for that which is asserted without the support of the scriptures or of an approved revelation it is permitted to hold as an opinion but it is not necessary to believe now this opinion of Thomas is so vague

And so unsupported by the scriptures or by reason that he seems to me to have known neither his philosophy nor his logic for Aristotle speaks of accidents and subject very differently from Saint Thomas and it seems to me that we ought to be sorry for so great a man

When we see him striving not only to draw his opinions on matters of faith from Aristotle but to establish them upon an authority whom he did not understand a most unfortunate structure raised on a most unfortunate foundation I quite consent then that whoever chooses to hold either opinion should do so

My only object now is to remove scruples of conscience so that no man may fear being guilty of heresy if he believes that real bread and real wine are present on the altar let him know that he is at liberty without peril to his salvation to imagine think

Or believe in either of the two ways since here there is no necessity of faith in the first place I will not listen to those or make the slightest account of them who will cry out that this doctrine is wickified hussite heretical or opposed to the decisions of the church

None will do this but those whom I have convicted of being themselves in many ways heretical in the matter of indulgences of free will in the Grace of god of good works and sins and so forth if Wycliffe was once a heretic they are themselves 10 times heretics

And it is an excellent thing to be blamed and accused by heretics and perverse sophists since to please them would be the height of empirety besides they can give no other proof of their own opinions nor have they any other way of disproving the contrary ones then by saying this is wyclifite

Her site heretical this feeble argument and no other is always at the tip of their tongue and if you ask for scripture authority they say this is our opinion and the church has decided it thus to such an extent do men who are reprobate concerning the faith and unworthy of belief

Dare to propose to us their own fancies under the authority of the church as articles of the faith there is however very much to be said for my opinion in the first place this that no violence ought to be done to the words of god neither by man nor by angel

But that as far as possible they ought to be kept to their simplest meaning and not to be taken unless the circumstances manifestly compel us to do so out of their grammatical improper signification that we may not give our adversaries any opportunity of evading the teaching of the Holy Scriptures for this reason

The ideas of origin were rightly rejected when in contempt of the plain grammatical meaning he turned the trees and all other objects described as existing in Paradise into allegries since hence it might be inferred that trees were not created by god so in the present case since the evangelists right clearly

The Christ took bread and blessed it and since the book of acts and of the Apostle Paul also call it bread real bread and real wine must be understood just as the cup was real for even these men do not say that the cup is trans substantiated

Since then it is not necessary to lay it down that a trans substantiation is affected by the operation of divine power it must be held as a figment of human opinion for it rests on no support of Scripture or of reason it is forcing on us a novel and absurd usage of words

To take bread as meaning the form or accidents of bread and wine as the form or accidents of wine why did they not take all other things as forms or accidents even if everything else were consistent with this idea it would not be lawful thus to infeble the word of god

And to deprive it so unjustly of its proper meaning the church however kept the right faith for more than 12 centuries nor did the holy Fathers ever or anywhere make mention of this trans substantiation a pretentious word and dream indeed until the counterfeit Aristotelian philosophy begin to make its inroads on the church

Within these last 300 years during which many other erroneous conclusions have also been arrived at such as that the divine essence is neither generated nor generates that the soul is the substantial form of the human body and other like assertions which are made absolutely without reason or cause

As the Cardinal of Cambray himself confesses they will say perhaps that we shall be in peril of idolatry if we do not admit that bread and wine are not really there this is truly ridiculous for the laity have never Learned the subtle philosophical distinction between substance and accidents

Nor if they were taught it could they understand it and there is the same peril if we keep the accidents which they see as in the case of the substance which they do not see for if it is not the accidents which they adore but Christ concealed under them

Why should they adore the substance which they do not see but why should not Christ be able to include his body within the substance of bread as well as within the accidents fire and iron two different substances are so mingled in red hot iron

That every part of it is both fire and iron why may not the glorious body of Christ much more be in every part of the substance of the bread Christ is believed to have been born of the and violet virgin of his mother in this case too

Let them say that the flesh of the Virgin was for a time annihilated or as they will have it to be more suitably expressed trans substantiated that Christ might be unwrapped in its accidents and at length come forth through its accidents the same will have to be said respecting the closed door

In the closed entrance of the tomb through both of which he entered and went out without injury to them but hence has sprung that Babylon of a philosophy concerning continuous quantity distinct from substance till things have come to such a point that they themselves do not know what are accidents

And what is substance for who’s ever proved to a certainty that heat and cold color light weight and form are accidents lastly they have been driven to pretend that god creates a new substance additional to those accidents on the altar on account of the saying of Aristotle

That the essence of the accident is to be in something and have been LED to an infinity of monstrous ideas from all of which they would be free if they simply allowed the bread on the altar to be real bread I rejoice greatly that at least among the common people

There remains a simple faith in this sacrament they neither understand nor argue whether there are accidents in it or substance but believe with simple faith that the body and blood of Christ are truly contained in it leaving to these men of leisure the task of arguing as to what it contains

But perhaps they will say that we are taught by Aristotle that we must take the subject and predicate of an affirmative proposition to signify the same thing or to quote the words of that monster himself in the sixth book of his metaphysics and affirmative proposition requires the composition of the extremes

Which they explain as they’re signifying the same thing thus in the words this is my body they say that we cannot take the subject to signify the bread but the body of Christ what shall we say to this whereas we are making Aristotle and human teachings

The sensors of such sublime and divine matters why do we not rather cast away these curious inquiries and simply adhere to the words of Christ willing to be ignorant of what is done in this sacrament and content to know that the real body of Christ is present in it

By virtue of the words of consecration is it necessary to comprehend altogether the manner of the divine working but what do they say to Aristotle who applies the term subject to all the categories of accidents although he takes the substance to be the first subject thus in his opinion this white this great

This something are subjects because something is predicated of them if this is true and if it is necessary to lay down a doctrine of transubstantiation in order that it may not be asserted of the bread that it is the body of Christ why I ask is not a doctrine of transaccidentation

And also laid down that it may not be affirmed of an accident that it is the body of Christ for the same danger remains if we regard this white thing or this round thing as the subject on whatever principle trans substantiation is taught on that same ought transaccidentation ought to be taught

On account of the two terms of the proposition as is alleged signifying the same thing if however by a high effort of understanding you make abstraction of the accident and refuse to regard it as signified by the subject in saying this is my body why can you not as easily rise above

The substance of the bread and refuse to let it be understood as signified by the subject so that this is my body may be true in the substance no less than in the accident especially so since this is a divine work of almighty power

Which can operate to the same extent and in the same way in the substance as it can in the accident but not to philosophies too far does not Christ appear to have met these curious inquiries in a striking manner when he said concerning the wine not hook est sanguis mais

But heke s sanguis mais he speaks much more clearly still when he brings in the mention of the cup saying this cup is the New Testament in my blood 1st Corinthians 11 does he not seem to have meant to keep us within the bounds of simple faith

Just so far as to believe that his blood is in the cup if for my part I cannot understand how the bread can be the body of Christ I will bring my understanding into captivity to the obedience of Christ and firmly believe in simple adherence to his word

Not only that the body of Christ is in the bread but that the bread is the body of Christ for so shall I be kept safe by his words where it is said Jesus took bread and blessed it and break it and said take eat this that is this bread

Which he had taken and broken is my body Paul also says the bread which we break is it not the communion of the body of Christ he does not say that the communion is in the bread but that the bread itself is the communion of the body of Christ

What if philosophy does not understand these things the Holy Spirit is greater than Aristotle does it even understand the transubstantiation which these men speak of seeing that they themselves confess that all philosophy breaks down on this point the reason why in the Greek and Latin the pronoun this is referred to the body

Is that the genders are alike but in the Hebrew where there is no neuter gender it is referred to the bread so that we might properly say this bread is my body both the usage of language and common sense prove that the subject points to the bread and not to the body

When he says Hoke s corpus mayhem that is this bread is my body as then the case is with Christ himself so is it also with the sacrament for it is not necessary to the bodily indwelling of the god head that the human nature should be trans substantiated

So that the god head may be contained beneath the accidents of the human nature but each nature is entire and we can say with truth this man is god this god is man though philosophy does not receive this yet faith receives it and greater is the authority of the word of god

Than the capacity of our intellect thus 2 in the sacrament it is not necessary to the presence of the real body and real blood that the bread and wine should be transstantiated so that Christ may be contained beneath the accidents but while both bread and wine continue there

It can be said with truth this bread is my body this wine is my blood and conversely thus will I understand this matter in honor of the holy words of god which I will not allow to have violence done them by the petty reasonings of men

Or to be distorted into means alien to them I give leave however to others to follow the other opinion which is distinctly laid down in the decrital provided only as I have said that they do not press us to accept their opinions as articles of faith and the section 1

Section 2 of the Babylonian Captivity of the church by Martin Luther translated by RS Grignon this liberavox recording is in the public domain concerning the Lord’s supper continued the third bondage of this same sacrament is that abuse of it and by far the most impious by which it has come about

That at this day there is no belief in the church more generally received or more firmly held then that the mass is a good work into sacrifice this abuse has brought in an infinite flood of other abuses until faith in the sacrament has been utterly lost and they have made this divine

Sacrament a mere subject of traffic huxterine and money getting contracts hence communions brotherhoods suffrages merits anniversaries memorials and other things of that kind are bought and sold in the church and made the subjects of bargains and agreements and the entire maintenance of priests and monks depends upon these things

I am entering upon an arduous task and it may perhaps be impossible to uproot abuse which strengthened by the practice of so many ages and approved by universal consent has fixed itself so firmly among us that the greater part of the books which have influence at the present day must

Needs be done away with and almost the entire aspect of the churches be changed and a totally different kind of ceremonies be brought in or rather brought back but my Christ lives and we must take heed to the word of god with greater care than to all the intellects of men and angels

I will perform my part will bring forth the subject into the light and will impart the truth freely and ungrudgingly as I have received it for the rest let everyone look to his own salvation I will strive as in the presence of Christ my judge

That no man may be able to throw upon me the blame of his own unbelief and ignorance of the truth concerning the sacrament of the altar to begin if we wish to attain safely and prosperously to the true and free knowledge of this sacrament we must take the utmost care to put aside

All that has been added by the zeal or the notions of men to the primitive and simple institution such as vestments ornaments hymns prayers musical instruments lamps and all the pump of visible things and must turn our eyes and our attention only to the pure institution of Christ

And set nothing else before us but those very words of Christ with which he instituted and perfected that sacrament and committed it to us in that word and absolutely in nothing else lies the whole force nature and substance of the mass all the rest are human notions accessory to the word of Christ

And the mass can perfectly well subsist and be kept up without them now the words in which Christ instituted this sacrament are as follows while they were at supper Jesus took bread and blessed it and break it and gave it to his disciples and said take eat this is my body

Which is given for you and he took the cup and gave thanks and gave it to them saying drink ye all of this this cup is the New Testament in my blood which is shed for you and for many for the remission of sins do this in remembrance of me these words

The Apostle Paul 1st Corinthians 11 also delivers to us and explains it greater length on these we must rest and build ourselves up as on a firm rock unless we wish to be carried about with every wind of doctrine as we have hitherto been through the impious teachings of men

Who pervert the truth for in these words nothing has been omitted which pertains to the completeness use and profit of this sacrament and nothing laid down which it is superfluous or unnecessary for us to follow he who passes over these words in his meditations or teachings concerning the mass will teach monstrous impieties

As has been done by those who have made an opus operatum and a sacrifice of it let this then stand as a first and infallible truth that the mass or sacrament of the altar is the Testament of Christ which he left behind him at his death distributing

And inheritance to those who believe in him for such are his words this cup is the New Testament in my blood let this truth I say stand as an immovable foundation on which we shall erect all our arguments you will see how we shall

Thus overthrow all the impious attacks of men on this sweetest sacrament the truthful Christ then says with truth that this is the New Testament in his blood shed for us it is not without cause that I urge this the matter is no small one

But must be received into the depths of our minds if then we inquire what a testament is we shall also learn what the mass is what are its uses advantages abuses a testament is certainly a promise made by a man about to die by which he assigns his inheritance and appoints heirs

Thus the idea of a testament implies first the death of the testator and secondly the promise of the inheritance and the appointment of an heir in this way Paul Romans 4 Galatians 3 and 4 Hebrews 9 speaks at some length of Testaments we also see this clearly in those words of Christ

Christ testifies of his own death when he says this is my body which is given this is my blood which is shed he assigns and points out the inheritance when he says for the remission of sins and he appoints heirs when he says for you and for many

That is for those who accept and believe the promise of the testator for it is faith which makes us heirs as we shall see you see then that the mass as we call it is a promise of the remission of sins made to us by god and such a promise

As has been confirmed by the death of the son of god for a promise and a testament only differ in this that a testament implies the death of the promiser a test dater is a promiser who is about to die and a promiser is so to speak

A test dater who is about to live the Testament of Christ was prefigured in all the promises of god from the beginning of the world Yay whatsoever value the ancient promises had lay in that new promise which was about to be made in Christ and on which they depended

Hence the words agreement covenant testament of the Lord are constantly employed in the scriptures and by these it was implied that god was about to die for where a testament is there must also a necessity be the death of the testator Hebrews 9:16 god having made a testament

It was necessary that he should die now he could not die unless he became a man and thus in this one word testament the incarnation and the death of Christ are both comprehended from all this it is now self evident what is the use and what the abuse of the mass

What is a worthy or an unworthy preparation for it if the mass is a promise as we have said we can approach it by no works no strength no merits but by faith alone for where we have the word of god who promises there we must have faith

On the part of the man who accepts and it is thus clear that the beginning of our salvation is faith depending on the word of a promising god who independently of any efforts of ours prevents us by his free and undeserved mercy and holds out to us the word of his promise

He sent his word and healed them Psalm 107 20 he did not receive our works and so save us first of all comes the word of god this is followed by faith and faith by love which in turn does every good work because it worketh no evil

Yeah it is the fulfilling of the law there is no other way in which man can meet or deal with god but by faith it is not man by any works of his but god who by his own promise is the author of salvation so that everything depends

Is contained and preserved in the word of his power by which he begot us that we might be a kind of first fruits of his creation thus when Adam was to be raised up after the fall god gave him a promise saying to the serpent

I will place emnity between thee and the woman and between thy seed and her seed she shall bruise thy head and thou shall bruise her heel in this word of promise Adam with his posterity was as it were born in the bosom of god and preserved by faith in him

Waiting patiently for the woman who should bruise the head of the serpent as god had promised in this faith and waiting he died not knowing when and how the promise would be accomplished but not doubting that it would be accomplished for such a promise being the truth of god preserves even in hell

Those who believe and wait for it this promise was followed by another made to Noah the bowl in the cloud being given as a sign of the covenant believing in which he and his posterity found god propitious after this god promised to Abraham that in his seed

All the kindreds of the earth should be blessed this is that bosom of Abraham into which his posterity have been received lastly to Moses and to the children of Israel especially to David God gave the most distinct promise of Christ and thus at length revealed what had been

The meaning of the promise made to them of old time thus we come to the most perfect promise of all that of the New Testament in which life and salvation are freely promised in plain words and are bestowed on those who believe the promise Christ conspicuously distinguishes this Testament from the old one

By calling it the New Testament The Old Testament given by Moses was a promise not of remission of sins nor of eternal blessings but of temporal ones namely those of the land of Canaan and by it no one could be renewed in spirit and fitted to receive a heavenly inheritance

Hence it was necessary that as a figure of Christ an unreasoning lamb should be slain in the blood of which the same Testament was confirmed thus as is the blood so is the Testament as is the victim so is the promise now Christ says the New Testament in my blood not in another’s

But in his own blood by which Grace is promised through the spirit for the remission of sins that we may receive the inheritance the mass then as regards its substance is properly nothing else than the force said words of Christ take eat and so forth he seems to say behold o man

Sinner and condemned as thou art out of the pure and free love with which I love thee according to the will of the father of mercies I promise thee in these words antecedently to any merits or prayers of thine remission of all thy sins and eternal life

That thou mayest be most certain of this my irrevocable promise I will confirm it by my very death I will give my body and shed my blood and will leave both to thee as a sign and memorial of this very promise as often as thou shalt receive them remember me

Declare and praise my love and bounty to thee and give thanks from this you see that nothing else is required for a worthy reception of the mass than faith resting with confidence on this promise believing Christ to be truthful in these words of his and not doubting that these

Immeasurable blessings have been bestowed upon us on this faith a spontaneous and most sweet affection of the heart will speedily follow by which the spirit of the man is enlarged and enriched that is love bestowed through the Holy Spirit on believers in Christ thus the believer is carried away to Christ

That bountiest and beneficial testator and becomes all together another and a new man who would not weep tears of delight may almost die for joy in Christ if he believed with unhesitating faith that this inestimable promise of Christ belongs to him how can he fail to love such a benefactor who

Of his own accord offers promises and gives the greatest riches and an eternal inheritance to an unworthy sinner who has deserve very different treatment our one great misery is this that while we have many masses in the world few or none of us recognize consider

Or apprehend the rich promises set before us in them now in the mass the one thing that demands our greatest may our sole attention is to keep these words and promises of Christ which indeed constitute the mass itself constantly before our eyes that we should meditate on and digest them and exercise

Nourish increase and strengthen our faith in them by this daily commemoration this is what Christ commands when he says do this in remembrance of me it is the work of an evangelist faithfully to present and command that promise to the people and to call forth faith in it on their part

As it is to say nothing of the impious fables of those who teach human traditions in the place of this great promise how many are there who know that the mass is a promise of Christ even if they teach these words of Christ they do not teach them as conveying a promise

Or a testament and therefore call forth no faith in them it is a deplorable thing in our present bondage that nowadays the utmost care is taken that no layman should hear these words of Christ as if they were too sacred to be committed to the common people we priests are so mad

That we arrogate to ourselves alone the right of secretly uttering the words of consecration as they are called and that in a way which is unprofitable even to ourselves since we never look at them as promises or a testament for the increase of faith under the influence of some superstitious and impious notion

We do reverence to these words instead of believing them in this our misery Satan so works among us that while he has left nothing of the mass to the church he yet takes care that every corner of the earth shall be full of masses

That is of abuses and mockeries of the Testament of god and that the world shall be more and more heavily loaded with the greatest sins of idolatry to increase its greater damnation for what more grievous sin of idolatry can there be than to abuse the promise of Christ by our perverse notions

And either neglect or extinguish all faith in them god as I have said never has dealt or does deal with men otherwise then by the word of promise again we can never deal with god otherwise and then by faith in the word of his promise

He takes no heed of our works and has no need of them though it is by these we deal with other men and with ourselves but he does require to be esteemed by us truthful in his promises and to be patiently considered as such and thus worshipped in faith hope and love

And thus it is that he is glorified in us when we receive and hold every blessing not by our own efforts but from his mercy promise and gift this is that true worship and service of god which we are bound to render in the mass

But when the words of promise are not delivered to us what exercise of faith can there be and without faith who can hope who can love without faith hope and love what service can there be there is no doubt therefore that at the present day the whole body of priests and monks

With their bishops and all their superiors are idolators and living in a most perilous state through their ignorance abuse and mockery of the mass or sacrament or promise of god it is easy for anyone to understand that two things are necessary at the same time the promise and faith without a promise

We have nothing to believe while without faith the promise is useless since it is through faith that it is established and fulfilled once we easily conclude that the mass being nothing else than a promise can be approached and partaken of by faith alone without which whatever prayers preparations works signs

Or gestures are practiced are rather provocations to empirety than acts of piety it constantly happens that when men have given their attention to all these things they imagine that they are approaching the altar lawfully and yet in reality could never be more unfit to approach it

Because of the unbelief which they bring with them what a number of sacrificing priests you may daily see everywhere who if they have committed some trifling error by unsuitable vestments or unwashed hands or by some hesitation in the prayers are wretched and think themselves guilty of an immense crime

Meanwhile as for the mass itself that is the divine promise they neither heed nor believe it Yay are utterly unconscious of its existence oh unworthy religion of our age the most impious and ungrateful of all ages there is then no worthy preparation for the mass or rightful use of it except faith

By which it is believed as a divine promise wherefore let him who is about to approach the altar or to receive the sacrament take care not to appear before the Lord his god empty now he will be empty if he has not faith in the mass or New Testament and what more grievous

Empathy can he commit against the truth of god then by his unbelief as far as in him lies he makes god a liar and renders his promises idol it will be safest then to go to the mass in no other spirit than that in which thou wouldest go

To hear any other promise of god that is to be prepared not to do many works and bring many gifts but to believe and receive all that is promised thee in that ordinance or is declared to thee through the ministry of the priest is promised unless thou comeest in this spirit

Beware of drawing near for thou will surely draw near unto judgment I have rightly said then that the whole virtue of the mass consists in those words of Christ in which he testifies that remission is granted to all who believe that his body is given and his blood shed for them

There is nothing then more necessary for those who are about to hear mass then to meditate earnestly and with full faith on the very words of Christ for unless they do this all else is done in vain it is certainly true that god has ever been want in all his promises

To give some sign token or memorial of his promise that it might be kept more faithfully and tell more strongly on men’s minds thus when he promised to know that the earth should not be destroyed by another deluge he gave his bow in the cloud and said that he would

Thus remember his covenant to Abraham when he promised that his seed should inherit the earth he gave circumcision as a seal of the righteousness which is by faith thus to Gideon he gave the dry and the Dewey fleece to confirm his promise of victory over the medianites thus to Ahaz

He gave a sign through Isaiah to confirm his faith in the promise of victory over the kings of Syria and Samaria we read in the scriptures of many such signs of the promises of god so too in the mass that first of all promises

He gave a sign in memory of so great a promise namely his own body and his own blood in the bread and wine saying do this in remembrance of me thus in baptism he adds to the words of the promise the sign of immersion in water

Where we see that in every promise of god two things are set before us the word and the sign the word we are to understand as being the Testament and the sign as being the sacrament thus in the mass the word of Christ is the Testament the bread and wine are the sacrament

And as there is greater power in the word than in the sign so is there greater power in the Testament than in the sacrament a man can have and use the word or Testament without the sign or sacrament believe saith Agustin and thou hast eaten but in what do we believe

Except in the word of him who promises thus I can have the mass daily may hourly since as often as I will I can set before myself the words of Christ and nourish and strengthen my faith in them and this is in very truth the spiritual eating and drinking

Here we see how much the theologians of the sentences have done for us in this matter in the first place not one of them handles that which is the sum and substance of the whole namely the Testament and word of promise and thus they do away with faith

And the whole virtue of the mass in the next place the other part of it namely the sign of the sacrament is all that they deal with but they do not teach faith even in this but their own preparations Oprah Oprahta participations and fruits of the Mass at length

They have reached the very depth of error and have involved themselves in an infinity of metaphysical triflings concerning trance substantiation and other points so that they have done away with all faith and with the knowledge and true use as well of the Testament as of the Sacrament

And have caused the people of Christ as the prophet says to forget their god for many days but do thou leave others to recount the various fruits of hearing mass and apply thy mind to saying and believing with the prophet the god has prepared a table before thee

In the presence of thine enemies a table at which thy faith may feed and grow strong now it is only on the word of the divine promise that thy faith can feed for man shall not live by bread alone but by every word that proceeded out of the mouth of God

Matthew 4 4 wherefore in the Mass thou must look above all things most closely to the word of promise as to a most sumptuous banquet full of every kind of food and holy nourishment for thy soul this thou must esteem above all things in this thou must place all thy trust

And cleave firmly to it even in the midst of death and all thy sins if thou dust this thou will possess not only those drops as it were and littleness of the fruits of the mass which some have superstitiously invented but the main found of life itself namely that faith in the word

From which every good thing flows as Christ said he that believeth on me out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water John 7:38 and again whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst but the water that I shall give him shall be in him

A well of water springing up into everlasting life John 4:14 there are two difficulties which are want to beset us and prevent our receiving the benefits of the mass the one is that we are sinners and unworthy from our utter vileness of such great blessings the other is even if we were worthy

The very greatness of the blessings themselves which are such that weak nature cannot dare to seek or hope for them who would not be struck in the first place with amazement rather than with the desire for the remission of sins and eternal life if he rightly estimates

The greatness of the blessings which come through these namely the having god as his father and being a child of god and heir of all good things to meet this double weakness of nature thou must take hold of the word of Christ and fix thine eyes much more strongly on it

Than on these cogitations of thine own infirmity for the works of the Lord are great and he is mighty to give beyond all that we can seek or comprehend indeed unless his works surpass our worthiness our capacity our whole comprehension they would not be divine thus to Christ encourages us saying fear not

Little Flock for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom Luke 12:32 this incomprehensible exuberance of God’s mercy poured out on us through Christ makes us in our turn to love him above all things to cast ourselves upon him with a most perfect trust to despise all things

And be ready to suffer all things for him hence this sacrament has been rightly called the fountain of love here we may draw an example from human affairs if some very rich Lord were to bequeath a thousand pieces of gold to any beggar or even to an unworthy and bad servant

Such a one would certainly demand and receive them confidently without regard either to his own worthiness or to the greatness of the legacy if anyone were to set these before him as objections what do you think he would reply he would certainly answer what is that to you

It is not by my deserving nor by any right of my own that I receive what I do receive I know that I am unworthy of it and that I am receiving much more than I deserve nay I have deserved the very contrary but what I claim

I claim by right of a testament and of the goodness of another if it was not an unworthy act to leave such a legacy to me who am so unworthy why should my unworthiness make me hesitate to accept it may the more unworthy I am the more readily do I

Embrace this free favor from another with such reasonings we must arm our own consciences against all their scruples and anxieties that we may hold this promise of Christ with un hesitating faith we must give the utmost heed not to approach in any confidence in our own confessions prayers and preparations

We must despair of all these and come in a lofty confidence in the promise of Christ since it is the word of promise which alone must reign here and in pure faith which is the one and soul sufficient preparation we see from all this how great the wrath of god has been

Which has permitted our impious teachers to conceal from us the words of this Testament and thus as far as in them lay to extinguish faith itself it is evident what must necessarily follow this extinction of faith namely the most impious superstitions about works for when faith perishes

And the word of faith is silent then straight way works and traditions of works rise up in its place by these we have been removed from our own land as into bondage of Babylon and all that was dear to us has been taken from us even thus it has be fallen us

With the mass which through the teaching of wicked men has been changed into a good work which they call Opus oparatum and by which they imagine that they are all powerful with god hence they have gone to the extreme of madness and having first falsely affirmed that the mass is of a veil

Through the force of the opus oparatum they have gone on to say that even if it be hurtful to him who offers it impiously yet it is nonetheless useful to others on this basis they have established their applications participations fraternities anniversaries and an infinity of lucrative and gainful businesses of that kind

You will scarcely be able to stand against these errors many and strong as they are and deeply as they have penetrated unless you fix what has been said firmly in your memory and give the most steadfast heed to the true nature of the mass you have heard that

The mass is nothing else than the divine promise or testament of Christ commended to us by the sacrament of his body and blood if this is true you will see that it cannot in any way be a work nor can any work be performed in it

Nor can it be handled in any way but by faith alone now faith is not a work but the mistress and life of all works is there any man so senseless as to call a promise he has received or a legacy that has been bestowed on him a good work

Done on his part toward the testator what air is there who thinks that he’s doing a service to his father when he receives the testamentary documents along with the inheritance bequeathed to him once then this impious rationus of ours that we come to receive the testament of god

As if we were doing a good work towards him is not such ignorance of that testament and such a state of bondage of that great sacrament a grief beyond all tears where we ought to be grateful for blessings bestowed on us we come in our pride to give what we ought to receive

And make a mockery with unheard of perversity of the mercy of the giver we give to him as a work of ours what we receive as a gift from him and we thus make the test dater no longer the bestower of his good gifts on us but the receiver of ours

Alas for such empirety who has ever been so senseless as to consider baptism a good work what candidate for baptism has ever believed he was doing a work which he might offer to god on behalf of himself and others if then in one sacrament and testament

There is no good work communicable to others neither can there be any in the mass which is itself nothing but a testament and a sacrament hence it is a manifest and impious error to offer or apply the mass for sins for satisfactions for the dead

Or for any necessities of our own or of others the evident truth of this statement you will easily understand if you keep closely to the fact that the mass is a divine promise which can profit no one be applied to no one be communicated to no one except to the believer himself

And that solely by his own faith who can possibly receive or apply for another a promise of god which requires faith on the part of each individual can I give another man the promise of God if he does not believe it or can I believe for another man

Or can I make another believe yet all this I must be able to do if I can apply and communicate the mass to others for there are in the mass only these two things God’s promise and man’s faith which receives that promise if I can do this

I can also hear and believe the gospel on behalf of other men I can be baptized for another man I can be absolved from sin for another man I can partake of the sacrament of the altar for another man Nate I can go through the whole list of their sacraments

I can also marry for another man be ordained priest for another man be confirmed for another man receive extreme function for another man why did not Abraham believe on behalf of all the Jews why was every individual Jew required to exercise faith in the same promise which Abraham believed

Let us keep to this impregnable truth where there is a divine promise there every man stands for himself individual faith is required every man shall give an account for himself and shall bear his own burdens as Christ says he that believeth and is baptized shall be saved

But he that believeth not shall be damned Mark 16:16 thus every man can make the mass useful only to himself by his own faith and can by no means communicate it to others just as a priest cannot administer a sacrament to any man on behalf of another but administers

The same sacrament to each individual separately the priests in their work of consecration and administration act as ministers for us not that we offer up any good work through them or communicate actively but by their means we receive the promise and its sign and communicate passively this idea continues among the laity

For they are not said to do a good work but to receive a gift but the priests have gone after their own impieties and have made it a good work that they communicate and make an offering out of the sacrament and testament of god

Whereas they ought to have received it as a good gift but you will say what will you ever overthrow the practices and opinions which for so many centuries have rooted themselves in all the churches and monasteries and all the superstructure of anniversaries suffrages applications and communications which they have established upon the mass

And from which they have drawn the amplist revenues I reply it is this which has compelled me to write concerning the bondage of the church for the Venerable Testament of god has been brought into a profane servitude to gain through the opinions and traditions of impious men

Who have passed over the word of god and have set before us the imaginations of their own heart and thus have LED the world astray what have I to do with the number or the greatness of those who are in error truth is stronger than all if you can deny that Christ

Teaches that the mass is a testament and a sacrament I am ready to justify those men again if you can say that the man who receives the benefit of a testament or who uses for this purpose the sacrament promise is doing a good work

I am ready and willing to condemn all that I have said but since neither is possible why hesitate to despise the crowd which hastens to do evil whilst you give glory to god and confess the truth namely that all priests are perversely mistaken who look on the mass as a work

By which they may aid their own necessities or those of others whether dead or alive my statements I know are unheard of and astounding but if you look into the true nature of the mass you will see that I speak the truth these errors have proceeded from that over security

Which has kept us from proceeding that the wrath of god was coming upon us this I readily admit that the prayers which we pour forth in the presence of god when we meet to partake of the mass our good works or benefits which we mutually in part apply and communicate

And offer up for one another as the Apostle James teaches us to pray for one another that we may be saved Paul also exhorts that supplications prayers intercessions and giving the thanks be made for all men for kings and for all that are in authority 1st Timothy 2 1 and two

These things are not the mass but works of the mass if indeed we can call the prayers of our hearts and our lips works because they spring from the existence and growth of faith in that sacrament the mass or promise of god is not completed by our prayers but only by our faith

And in faith we pray and do other good works but what priest sacrifices with the intention and idea of only offering up prayers they all imagine that they are offering Christ himself to god the father as an all sufficient victim and that they are doing a good work on behalf of

All men who as they allege will profit by it they trust in the opus oparatum and do not attribute to the effect to prayer thus by a gradual growth of error they attribute to the sacrament the benefit which springs from prayer and they offer to god what they ought

To receive as a gift from him we must therefore make a clear distinction between the Testament and sacrament itself and the prayers which we offer at the same time and not only so but we must understand that those prayers are of no value at all either to him who offers them

Or to those for whom they are offered unless the Testament has been first received by faith so that the prayer may be that of faith which alone is heard as the Apostle James teaches us so widely does prayer differ from the Mass I can pray for as many persons as I will

But no one receives the mass unless he believes for himself and that only so far as he believes nor can it be given either to god or to men but it is god alone who by the ministry of the priest gives it to men and they receive it by faith alone

Without any works or merits no one would be so audaciously foolish as to say that when a poor and needy man comes to receive a benefit from the hand of a rich man he is doing a good work now the mass is the benefit of a divine promise

Held forth to all men by the hand of the priest it is certain therefore that the mass is not a work communicable to others but the object of each man’s individual faith which is thus to be nourished and strengthened we must also get rid of another scandal

Which is a much greater and very spacious one that is that the mass is universally believed to be a sacrifice offered to god with this opinion the words of the Canon of the mass appear to agree such as these gifts these offerings these holy sacrifices and again this oblation

There’s also a very distinct prayer that the sacrifice may be accepted like the sacrifice of Abel hence Christ is called the victim of the altar to this we must add the sayings of the Holy Fathers a great number of authorities and the usage that has been constantly observed throughout the world

To all these difficulties which beset us so pertenaciously we must oppose with the utmost consistency the words and example of Christ unless we hold the mass to be the promise or testament of Christ according to the plain meaning of the words we lose all the gospel and our whole comfort

Let us allow nothing to prevail against those words even if an angel from heaven taught us otherwise now in these words there is nothing about a work or sacrifice again we have the example of Christ on our side when Christ instituted this sacrament and established this testament in the last supper

He did not offer himself to god the father or accomplish any work on behalf of others but as he sat at the table he declared the same testament to each individual present and bestowed on each the sign of it now the more any mass resembles and is akin

To that first mass of all which Christ celebrated at the last supper the more Christian it is but that mass of Christ was most simple without any display of vestments gestures hymns and other ceremonies so that if it had been necessary that it should be offered as a sacrifice

His institution of it would not have been complete not that anyone ought rashly to blame the universal church which has adorned and extended the mass with many other rights and ceremonies but we desire that no one should be so deceived by showy ceremonies or so perplexed by the amount of external display

As to lose the simplicity of the mass and in fact pay honor to some kind of transubstantiation as will happen if we pass by the simple substance of the mass and fix our minds on the manifold accidents of its outward show for whatever has been added to the mass

Beyond the word and example of Christ is one of its accidents and none of these are we to consider in any other light than we now consider monstrances as they are called and altar clause within which the host is contained it is a contradiction in terms that the mass should be a sacrifice

Since we receive the mass but give a sacrifice now the same thing cannot be received and offered at the same time nor can it be at once given and accepted by the same person this is as certain as that prayer and the thing prayed for cannot be the same

Nor can it be the same thing to pray and to receive what we pray for what shall we say then to the canon of the mass and the authority of the fathers first of all I reply if there were nothing to be said it would be safer to deny their authority altogether

Than to grant that the mass is a work or a sacrifice and thus to deny the word of Christ and to overthrow faith in the mass together however that we may keep the fathers 2 we will explain first Corinthians 11 that the believers in Christ when they met to celebrate the mass

Were accustomed to bring with them portions of food and drink called colex which were distributed among the poor according to the example of the Apostles x 4 and from which were taken the bread and wine consecrated for the sacrament since all these gifts were sanctified by the word

And prayer after the Hebrew right in accordance with which they were lifted on high as we read in Moses the words and the practice of elevation or of offering continued in the church long after the custom had died out of collecting and bringing together the gifts which were offered or elevated thus Hezekiah

Isaiah 37 4 bids Isaiah to lift his prayer for the remnant that is left again the psalmist says lift up your hands to the holy place and to thee will I lift up my hands and again that men may pray everywhere lifting up holy hands first Timothy 2:08 hence the expressions

Sacrifice or oplation ought to be referred not to the sacrament and Testament but to the collects themselves hence to the word collect has remained in use for the prayers said in the Mass for the same reason the priest elevates the bread and the cut as soon as he has consecrated them

But the proof that he is not there in offering anything to god is that in no single word does he make mention of a victim or an oblation this too is a remnant of the Hebrew right according to which it was customary to elevate the gifts which

After being received with giving of thanks were brought back to god or it may be considered as an abmonition to us to call forth our faith in that Testament which Christ on that occasion brought forward and set before us and also as a display of its sign the oblation of the bread

Properly corresponds to the words this is my body and Christ as it were addresses us bystanders by this very sign thus 2 the oblation of the cup properly corresponds to these words this cup is the New Testament in my blood the priest ought to call forth

Our faith by the very right of elevation and as he openly elevates the sign or sacrament in our site so I wish that he also pronounced the word or testament with loud and clear voice in our hearing and that in the language of every nation that our faith might be more efficaciously exercised

Why should it be lawful to perform mass in Greek and Latin and Hebrew and not also in German or in any other language wherefore in this abandoned and most perilous age let the priests who sacrifice take heed in the first place that those words of the major and minor canon with the collex

Which speak only too plainly of a sacrifice are to be applied not to the sacrament but either to the consecration of the bread and wine themselves or to their own prayers for the bread and wine are presented beforehand to receive a blessing that they might be sanctified by the word and prayer

But after being blessed and consecrated they are no longer offered but are received as a gift from god and in this matter let the priest consider that the gospel is to be preferred to all canons and colleagues composed by men but the gospel as we have seen does not allow

The mass to be a sacrifice in the next place when the priest is performing mass publicly let him understand that he is only receiving and giving to others the communion in the mass and let him beware of offering up at the same moment his prayers for himself and others

Lest he should seem to be presuming to offer the Mass the priest also who is saying a private mast must consider himself as administering the communion to himself a private mass is not at all different from nor more efficient than the simple reception of the communion by a layman

From the hand of the priest except for the prayers and that the priest consecrates and administers it to himself in the matter itself of the mass and the sacrament we are all equal priests and laymen even if he is requested by others to do so let him beware of celebrating votive masses

As they are called and of receiving any payment for the mass or presuming to offer any vote of sacrifice but let him carefully refer all this to the prayers which he offers whether for the dead or the living let him think thus I will go and receive the sacrament for myself alone

But while I receive it I will pray for this or that person and thus for purposes of food and clothing receive payment for my prayers and not for the Mass nor let it shake thee in this view though the whole world is of the contrary opinion in practice

Thou has the most certain authority of the gospel and relying on this thou may as easily contemn the ideas and opinions of men if however in despite of what I say thou will persist in offering the mass and not thy prayers only then know that I have faithfully warn thee

And that I shall stand clear in the day of judgment whilst thou will bear thine own sin I have said what I was bound to say to thee as a brother to a brother for thy salvation it will be to thy prophet if thou take heed to my words to thy hurt

If thou neglect them and if there are some who will condemn these statements of mine I reply in the words of Paul evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse deceiving and being deceived 2nd Timothy 3:13 hence anyone may easily understand that often quoted passage from Gregory in which he says

That a mass celebrated by a bad priest is not to be considered of less value than one by a good priest and that one celebrated by Saint Peter would not have been better than one celebrated by the traitor Judas undercover of this saying some try to shelter their own empirety

And have drawn a distinction between the opus operatum and the opus operons that they might continue secure in their evil living and yet pretend to be benefactors to others Gregory indeed speaks the truth but these men pervert his meaning it is most true that the Testament and sacrament are not less effectively given

And received at the hands of wicked priests than at those of the most holy who doubts that the gospel may be preached by wicked men now the mass is a part of the gospel may the very sum and compendium of the gospel for what is the whole gospel

But the good news of the remission of sins now all that can be said in the most ample and copious words concerning the remission of sins and the mercy of god is all briefly comprehended in the word of the Testament hence also sermons to the people

Ought to be nothing else but expositions of the mass that is the setting forth of the divine promise of this Testament this would be to teach faith and truly to edify the church but those who now expound the mass make a sport and mockery of the subject by figures

A speech derived from human ceremonies as therefore a wicked man can baptize that is can apply the word of promise and the sign of water to the person baptized so can he also apply and minister the promise of this sacrament to those who partake of it and partake himself with them

As the traitor Judas did in the supper of the Lord still the sacrament and testament remains always the same it performs in the believer its own proper work in the unbeliever it performs a work foreign to itself but in the matter of oblations the case is quite different

For since it is not the mass but prayers which are offered to god it is evident that the oblations of a wicked priest are of no value as Gregory himself says when we employ an unworthy person as an advocate the mind of the judge is prejudiced against us we must not therefore

Confound these two things the mass and the prayer sacrament and work testament and sacrifice the one comes from god to us through the ministry of the priest and requires faith on our part the other goes forth from our faith to god through the priest and requires that he should hear us

The one comes down the other goes upwards the one therefore does not necessarily require that the minister should be worthy in pious but the other does require it because god does not hear sinners he knows how to do as good by means of wicked men

But he does not accept the works of any wicked man as he showed in the case of Cain it is written the sacrifice of the wicked is an abomination to the Lord Proverbs 15 8 and again whatsoever is not of faith is sin Romans 14:23 we shall now make an

End of this first part of the subject but I am ready to produce further arguments when anyone comes forward to attack these from all that has been said we shall see for whom the mass was intended and who are worthy partakers of it namely those alone who have sad afflicted disturbed

Confused and earning consciences for since the word of the divine promise in this sacrament holds forth to us remission of sins any man may safely draw near to it who is harassed either by remorse for sin or by temptation to sin This Testament of Christ is the one medicine for past

Present and future sins provided thou cleavist to it with un hesitating faith and believeth that that which is signified by the words of the Testament is freely given to thee if thou does not so believe then nowhere never by no works by no efforts will thou be able to appease thy conscience

For faith is the sole peace of conscience and unbelief the sole disturber of conscience end of section 2 section 3 of the Babylonian Captivity of the church by Martin Luther translated by RS Green Yong this Lieber Vox recording is in the public domain concerning the sacrament of baptism

Blessed be the god and father of our Lord Jesus Christ who according to the riches of his mercy has at least preserved this one sacrament in his church uninjured and uncontaminated by the devices of men and has made it free to all nations and to men of every class

He has not suffered it to be overwhelmed by the foul and impious monstrosities of Everest and superstition doubtless having this purpose that he would have little children incapable of avarice and superstition to be initiated into this sacrament and to be sanctified by perfectly simple faith in his word

To such even at the present day baptism is of the highest advantage if this sacrament had been intended to be given to adults and those of full age it seems as if it could hardly have preserved its efficacy and its glory in the presence of that tyranny of Everest and superstition

Which has supplanted all divine ordinances among us in this case too no doubt fleshly wisdom would have invented its preparations its worthiness its reservations its restrictions and other like nets for catching money so that the water of baptism would be sold no cheaper than parchments are now

Yet though Satan has not been able to extinguish the virtue of baptism in the case of little children still he has had power to extinguish it in all adults so that there is scarcely anyone nowadays who remembers that he has been baptized much less glories in it so many other

Ways have been found of obtaining remission of sins and going to heaven occasion has been afforded to these opinions by the perilous saying of Saint Jerome either miss stated or misunderstood in which he calls penitance the second plank of safety after shipwreck as if baptism were not penitance

Hence when men have fallen into sin they despair of the first plank or the ship as being no longer of any use and begin to trust and depend only on the second plank that is on penitance then says sprung those infinite loads of vows religious dedications works satisfactions pilgrimages indulgences and systems

And from them oceans of books and of human questionings opinions and traditions which the whole world nowadays cannot contain thus this tyranny possesses the church of god in a comparably worse form than it ever possessed the synagogue or any nation under heaven it was the duty of bishops to remove all these abuses

And to make every effort to recall Christians to the simplicity of baptism so that they might understand their own position and what as Christians they ought to do but the one business of bishops at the present day is to lead the people as far as possible away from baptism and to plunge them

All under the deluge of their own tyranny and thus as the prophet says to make the people of Christ forget him forever all wretched men who are called by the name of bishops they not only do nothing and know nothing which bishops ought but they are even ignorant what they ought to know

And do they fulfill the words of Isaiah his watchmen are blind they are all ignorant they are shepherds that cannot understand they all look to their own way everyone for his own gain from his quarter Isaiah 56 10 and eleven the first thing then

We have to notice in baptism is the divine promise which says he who believes and is baptized shall be saved this promise is to be infinitely preferred to the whole display of works vows religious orders and whatever has been introduced by the invention of man on this promise depends our whole salvation

And we must take heed to exercise faith in it not doubting at all that we are saved since we have been baptized unless this faith exists and is applied baptism profits us nothing may it is hurtful to us not only at the time when it is received

But in the whole course of our life after for unbelief of this kind charges the divine promise with falsehood and to do this is the greatest of all sins if we attempt this exercise of faith we shall soon see how difficult the thing it is to believe this divine promise for human weakness

Conscious of its own sinfulness finds it the most difficult thing in the world to believe that it is saved or can be saved and yet unless it believes this it cannot be saved because it does not believe the divine truth which promises salvation this doctrine ought to have been studiously implicated

Upon the people by preaching this promise ought to have been perpetually reiterated men ought to have been constantly reminded of their baptism faith ought to have been called forth and nourished when this divine promise has been once conferred upon us its truth continues even to the hour of our death

And thus our faith in it ought never to be relaxed but ought to be nourished and strengthened even till we die by a perpetual recollection of the promise made to us in baptism thus when we rise out of our sins and exercise penitance we are simply reverting to the efficacy of baptism

And to faith in it whence we had fallen and we return to the promise then made to us but which we had abandoned through our sin for the truth of the promise once made always abides and is ready to stretch out the hand and receive us when we return this unless I mistake

Is the meaning of that obscure saying that baptism is the first of sacraments and the foundation of them all without which we can possess none of the others thus it will be of no little profit to a penitant first of all to recall to mind his own baptism

And to remember with confidence that divine promise which he had deserted rejoicing that he is still in a fortress of safety and that he has been baptized and detesting his own wicked in gratitude in having fallen away from the faith and truth of baptism his heart will be marvelously comforted

And encouraged to hope for mercy if he fixes his eyes upon that divine promise once made to him which could not lie and which still continues entire unchanged and unchangeable by any sins of his as Paul says if we believe not yet he abided faithful he cannot deny himself second Timothy 2:13

This truth of god will preserve him and even if all other hopes perish this if he believes it will not fail him through this truth he will have something to oppose to the insolent adversary he will have a barrier to throw in the way of the sins which disturb his conscience

He will have an answer to the dread of death in judgment finally he will have a consolation under every kind of temptation and being able to say god is faithful to his promise and in baptism I received the sign of that promise if god is for me who can be against me

If the children of Israel when returning to god and repentance first of all called to mind their exodus from Egypt and in remembrance of this turned back to god who had brought them out a remembrance which is so often implicated on them by Moses and referred to by David

How much more are we to remember our exodus from Egypt and in remembrance of it to return to him who brought us out through the washing of the new birth this we can do most advantageously of all in the sacrament of the bread and wine so of old these three sacraments penitance baptism

And the bread were often combined in the same act of worship the one adding strength to the other thus we read of a certain holy virgin who whenever she was tempted relied on her baptism only for defense saying in the briefest words I am a Christian the enemy forth with

Felt the efficacy of baptism and of the faith which depended upon the truth of a promising god and fled from her we see then how rich a Christian or baptized man is since even if he would he cannot lose his salvation by any sins however great unless he refuses to believe

For no sins whatever can condemn him but unbelief alone all other sins if faith in the divine promise made to the baptized man stands firm or is restored are swallowed up in a moment through that same faith yay through the truth of god because he cannot deny himself if thou confess

Him and cleave believingly to his promise whereas contrition and confession of sins and satisfaction for sins and every effort that can be devised by men will desert thee at thy need and will make thee more miserable than ever if thou forget us this divine truth

And puffest thyself up with such things as these for whatever work is wrought apart from faith in the truth of god is vanity and vexation of spirit we also see how perilous and false an idea it is that penitance is a second plank of refuge after shipwreck

And how pernicious and error it is to suppose that the virtue of baptism has been brought to an end by sin and that this ship has been dashed to pieces that ship remains one solid and indestructible and can never be broken up into different planks in it all are conveyed

Who are carried to the port of salvation since it is the truth of god giving promises in the sacraments what certainly does happen is that many rashly leap out of the ship into the sea and perish these are they who abandon faith in the promise and rush headlong into sin

But the ship itself abides and passes on safely in its course and any man who by the Grace of god returns to the ship will be born on to life not on a plank but on the solid ship itself such a man is he who returns by faith

To the fixed and abiding promise of god thus Peter charges those who sin with having forgotten that they were purged from their old sins second Peter 1 9 doubtless meaning to reprove their ingratitude for the baptism they had received and the impiety of their unbelief what prophet then

Is there in writing so much about baptism and yet not teaching faith in the promise all the sacraments were instituted for the purpose of nourishing faith and yet so far are they from attaining this object that men are even found impious enough to assert that a man ought

Not to be sure of the remission of sins or of the Grace of the sacraments by this impious doctrine they deprive the whole world of its senses and utterly extinguish or at least bring into bondage that sacrament of baptism in which the first glory of our conscience stands

Meanwhile they senselessly persecute wretched souls with their contritions their anxious confessions their circumstances satisfactions works and an infinity of such trifles let us then read with caution or rather despise the master of Sentences Book 4 with all his followers who when they write their best

Write only about the matter and form of the sacraments and so handle only the dead and perishing letter of those sacraments while they do not even touch upon their spirit life and use that is the truth of the divine promise and faith on our part see then that I’ll be not

Deceived by the display of works and by the fallacies of human traditions and so wrong the truth of god and thy own faith if thou will be saved thou must begin by faith in the sacraments without any works thy faith will be followed by these very works

But thou must not hold faith cheap for it is itself the most excellent and most difficult of all works and by it alone that will be saved even if that were compelled to be destitute of all other works for it is a work of god not of man as Paul teaches

All other works he performs with us and by us this one work he performs in us and without us from what has been said we may clearly distinguish the difference between man the minister and god the author of baptism man baptizes and does not baptize

He baptizes because he performs the work of dipping the baptized person he does not baptize because in this work he does not act upon his own authority but in the place of god hence we ought to receive baptism from the hand of man just as if Christ himself may god himself

Were baptizing us with his own hands for it is not a man’s baptism but that of Christ and god though we received it by the hand of a man even so any other creature which we enjoy through the hand of another is really only gods beware then

Of making any such distinction in baptism as to attribute the outward right to man and the inward blessing to god attribute both of them to god alone and consider the person of him who confers baptism in no other light than as the vicarious instrument of god by means of which the Lord

Sitting in heaven dips thee in the water with his own hands and promises the remission of sins upon earth speaking to thee with the voice of a man through the mouth of his minister the very words of the minister tell thee this when he says

I baptize the in the name of the father and of the son and of the Holy Spirit amen he does not say I baptize thee in my name but says as it were what I do I do not by my own authority but in the place and in the name of god

And I must look upon it as if the Lord himself did it in visible shape the author and the minister are different but the work of both is the same they rather it is that of the author alone through my ministry in my judgment and expression in the name

Relates to the person of the author so that not only is the name of the Lord brought forward and invoked in the doing of the work but the work itself is performed as being that of another in the name and in the place of another by the like figure Christ says

Many shall come in my name Matthew 24 5 and again by whom we have received Grace and apostleship for obedience to the faith among all nations for his name Romans 1 5 I most gladly adopt this view because it is the thing most full of consolation and an effective aid to faith

To know that we have been baptized not by a man but by the very Trinity itself through a man who acts towards us in its name this brings to an end that idle contention which is carried on about the form of baptism as they call the words themselves the Greeks saying

Let the servant of Christ be baptized the Latins I baptize others also in their pedantic trifling condemn the use of the expression I baptize the in the name of Jesus Christ though it is certain that the apostles baptized in this form as we read in the acts of the Apostles

And will have it that no other form is valid than the following I baptize thee in the name of the father and of the son and of the Holy Spirit amen but they strive in vain they prove nothing they only bring forward their own dreams in whatever manner baptism is administered

Provided it is administered not in the name of a man but in the name of the Lord it truly saves us may I have no doubt that if a man received baptism in the name of the Lord even from a wicked minister who did not give it in the name of the Lord

He would still be truly baptized in the name of the Lord for the efficacy of baptism depends not so much on the faith of him who confers it as of him who receives it thus we read an instance of a certain player who was baptized in just these and similar

Narrow questions and disputes have been raised for us by those who attribute nothing to faith and everything to works and ceremonies on the contrary we owe nothing to ceremonies and everything to faith alone which makes us free in spirit from all these scruples and fancies another thing

Which belongs to baptism is the sign of the sacrament which is that dipping into water whence it takes its name for in Greek to baptize signifies to dip and baptism is a dipping we have said already that side by side with the divine promises

Signs also are given us to represent by a figure the meaning of the words of the promise or as the moderns say the sacrament has an effectual significance what that significance is we shall see very many have thought that in the word and the water there is some occult spiritual virtue

Which works the Grace of god in the soul of the recipient others deny this and declare that there is no virtue in the sacraments but that Grace is given by god alone who according to his covenant is present at the sacraments instituted by himself all however agree in this

That the sacraments are effectual signs of Grace they are LED to this conclusion by this one argument that it does not otherwise appear what preeminence the sacraments of the new law would have over those of the old if they were only signs hence they have been driven to attribute

Such efficacy to the sacraments of the new law that they have stated them to be profitable even to those who are immortal sin and have declared that neither faith nor Grace are requisite but that it is sufficient that we do not place any impediment in the way

That is any actual purpose of sinning afresh we must carefully avoid and fly from these doctrines for they are impious and unbelieving repugnant to faith and to the nature of the sacraments it is a mistake to suppose that the sacraments of the new law differ from the sacraments of the old law

As regards the efficacy of their significance both are on an Equality in their significance for the same god who now saves us by baptism and the bread saved Abel by his sacrifice Noah by the Ark Abraham by circumcision and all the other patriarchs by their own proper signs there is no difference then

Between the sacrament of the old and of the new law as regard their significance provided we understand by the old law all the dealings of god with the patriarchs and other fathers in the time of the law for those signs which were given to the patriarchs and fathers

Are completely distinct from the legal figures which Moses instituted in his law such as the rights of the priesthood in relation to vestments vessels food houses in the like these are as different as possible not only from the sacraments of the new law but also from those signs which god gave

From time to time to the fathers who lived under the law such as that given to Gideon in the fleece to Manoa in his sacrifice such also as that which Isaiah offered to Ahaz in all these cases alike some promise was given which required faith in god in this then

The figures of the law differ from signs new or old that the figures of the law have no word of promising next to them requiring faith and therefore are not signs of justification and as much as they are not sacraments of faith which alone justify but only sacraments of works

Their whole force and nature lay in works not in faith for he who did them fulfilled them even if his work was without faith now our signs or sacraments and those of the fathers have annexed to them a word of promise which requires faith and can be fulfilled by no other work

Thus they are signs or sacraments of justification because they are sacraments of justifying faith and not of works so that their whole efficacy lies in faith itself not in working he who believes them fulfills them even though he do no work hence the saying it is not the sacrament

But faith in the sacrament which justifies thus circumcision did not justify Abraham and his seed and yet the Apostle calls it a seal of the righteousness of faith because faith in that promise with which circumcision was connected did justify and fulfilled the meaning of circumcision

Faith was that circumcision of the heart in spirit which was figured by the circumcision of the flesh in the letter thus it was evidently not the sacrifice of Abel which justified him but the faith by which he offered himself entirely to god of which faith the outward sacrifice was a figure

Thus it is not baptism which justifies any man or is of any advantage but faith in that word of promise to which baptism is added for this justifies and fulfills the meaning of baptism for faith is the submerging of the old man and the emerging of the new man

Hence it cannot be that the new sacraments differ from the ancient sacraments for they both alike have divine promises and the same spirit of faith but they differ incomparably from the ancient figures on account of the word of promise which is the sole and most effective means of difference

Thus at the present day the pump of vestments localities meets and an infinite variety of ceremonies doubtless figure excellent works to be fulfilled in the spirit and yet since no word of divine promise is connected with them they can in no way be compared with the signs of baptism and the bread

Nor can they justify men nor profit them in any way since their fulfillment lies in the very practice or performance of them without faith for when they are done or performed they are fulfilled thus the Apostle speaks of those things which all are to perish with the using

After the commandments and doctrines of men Colossians 2:22 now the sacraments are not fulfilled by being done but by being believed thus it cannot be true that there is inherent in the sacraments of power effectual to produce justification or that they are efficacious signs of Grace these things are said in

Ignorance of the divine promise and to the great detriment of faith unless indeed we call them efficacious in this sense that if along with them there be un hesitating faith they do confer Grace most certainly and most effectively but that it is not this kind of efficacy which those writers attribute to them

Is evident from this that they assert them to be profitable to all men even the wicked and unbelieving provided they put no obstacle in the way as if unbelief itself were not the most persistent of all obstacles and the most hostile to Grace thus they have endeavoured to make out of the sacrament

A precept and out of faith a work for if a sacrament confers Grace on me merely because I receive it then it is certainly by my own work and not by faith that I obtain Grace nor do I apprehend any promise in the sacrament but only a sign instituted in commanded by god

It is evident from this how utterly the sacraments are misunderstood by these theologians of the sentences and as much as they make no account either of faith or of the promise in the sacraments but cleave only to the sign and the use of the sign and carry us away from faith to works

From the word to the sign thus as I have said they have not only brought the sacraments into bondage but as far as in them lay have entirely done away with them let us then open our eyes and learn to look more to the word than the sign

More to faith than to the work or use of the sign and let us understand that whenever there is a divine promise their faith is required and that both of these are so necessary that neither can be of any effect without the other we can neither believe unless we have a promise

Nor is the promise effectual unless it is believed well if these two act reciprocally they produce a real ensure efficacy in the sacraments hence to seek efficacy in the sacrament independently of the promise and the faith is to strive in vain and to fall into condemnation thus Christ says

He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved but he that believeth not shall be damned Mark 16:16 thus he shows that in the sacrament faith is so necessary that it can save us even without the sacrament and on this account when he says he that believeth not

He does not add and is not baptized baptism then signifies two things death and resurrection that is full and complete justification when the minister dips the child into the water this signifies death when he draws him out again this signifies life thus Paul explains the matter

Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the father even so we also should walk in newness of life Romans 6 4 this death and resurrection we call a new creation a regeneration and a spiritual birth

And these words are not only to be understood allegorically as they are by many of the death of sin and the life of Grace but of a real death and resurrection for baptism has no fictitious meaning nor does sin die or Grace rise fully within us until the body of sin

Which we bear in this life is destroyed for as the Apostle says as long as we are in the flesh the desires of the flesh work in us and our work upon hence when we begin to believe we begin at the same time to die to this world

And to live to god in a future life so that faith is truly a death and resurrection that is that spiritual baptism in which we are submerged and emerge when then the washing away of sins is attributed to baptism it is rightly so attributed but the meaning of the phrase is too slight

And weak to fully express baptism which is rather a symbol of death and resurrection for this reason I could wish that the baptized should be totally immersed according to the meaning of the word and the signification of the mystery not that I think it necessary to do so

But that it would be well that so complete and perfect a thing as baptism should have its sign also in completeness and perfection even as it was doubtless instituted by Christ for a sinner needs not so much to be washed as to die that he may be all together renewed into another creature

And that there may thus be a correspondence in him to the death and resurrection of Christ along with whom he dies and rises again in baptism for though we may say the Christ was washed from his mortality when he died and rose again yet it is a weaker expression

Than if we said that he was totally changed and renewed and so there is more intensity in saying that death and resurrection to eternal life are signified to us by baptism than that we are washed from sin here again we see that the sacrament of baptism even in respect to the sign

Is not the mere business of a moment but has a lasting character for though the transaction itself passes quickly the thing signified by it lasts even until death yay till the resurrection at the last day for as long as we live we are always doing that which is signified by baptism

That is we are dying and rising again we are dying I say not only in our affections and spiritually by renouncing the sins and vanities of the world but in very deed we are beginning to leave this bodily life and to apprehend the future life so that there is a real

As they call it and also a bodily passing out of this world to the father we must therefore keep clear of the error of those who have reduced the effect of baptism to such a small and slender dimensions that while they say the Grace is infused by it

They assert that this Grace is afterwards so to speak effused by sin and that we must then go to heaven by some other way as if baptism had now become absolutely useless do not vow judge thus but understand that the significance of baptism is such that only as live and die in it

And that neither by penitance nor by any other way cans thou do art but return to the effect of baptism and do afresh with thou word baptized in order to do and what thy baptism signified baptism never loses its effect unless in desperation thou refuse to return to salvation

Thou may us wander away for a time from the sign but the sign does not on that account lose its effect thus thou has been baptized once for all sacramentally but thou need is continually to be baptized by faith and must continually die and continually live baptism have swallowed up thy whole body

And given it forth again and so the substance of baptism ought to swallow up thy whole life in body and in soul and to give it back in the last day clothed in the robe of brightness and immortality thus we are never without the sign as well as the substance of baptism

May we ought to be continually baptized more and more until we fulfill the whole meaning of the sign at the last day we see then that whatever we do in this life tending to the mortifying of the flesh and the vivifying of the spirit is connected with baptism

And that the sooner we are set free from this life the more speedily we fulfill the meaning of our baptism and the greater the sufferings we endure the more heavily do we answer the purpose of baptism the church was at its happiest in those days when martyrs were daily put to death

And counted as sheep for the slaughter for then the virtue of baptism reigned in the church with full power though now we have quite lost sight of it for the multitude of human works and doctrine the whole life which we live ought to be a baptism and to fulfill the sign

Or sacrament of baptism since we have been set free from all other things and given up to baptism alone that is the death and resurrection to whom can we assign the blame that this glorious liberty of ours and this knowledge of baptism are nowadays in bondage

Except only to the tyranny of the Roman pontiff he most of all men as becomes a chief Shepherd ought to have been the preacher and the searcher of this liberty in this knowledge as Paul says let a man so account of us as the ministers of Christ

And stewards of the mysteries of god 1st Corinthians 4 1 but his sole object is to oppress us by his decrees and laws and to ensnare us into bondage to his tyrannical power not to speak of the impious and damnedable ways in which the Pope fails to teach these mysteries

By what right I ask has he established laws over us who has given him authority to bring into bondage this liberty of ours given us by baptism one purpose as I said we ought to carry out in our whole lives namely to be baptized that is to be mortified

And to live by faith in Christ this faith alone ought to have been taught above all by the chief Shepherd but now not a word is said about faith but the church is crushed by an infinite number of laws concerning works in ceremonies the virtue and knowledge of baptism are taken away

The faith of Christ is hindered I say then neither pope nor bishop nor any man whatever has the right of making one syllable binding on a Christian man unless it is done with his own consent whatever is done otherwise is done in the spirit of tyranny and thus the prayers fastings almsgiving

And whatever else the Pope ordains and requires in the whole body of his decrees which are as many as they are iniquitous he has absolutely no right to require and ordain and he sins against the liberty of the church as often as he attempts anything of the kind

Hence it has come to pass that while the churchmen of the present day are strenuous defenders of church liberty that is of wood stone fields and money for in this day things ecclesiastical are synonymous with things spiritual they yet by their false teaching not only bring into bondage

The true liberty of the church but utterly destroy it Yay more than the Turk himself could contrary to the mind of the Apostle who says be not ye the servants of men first Corinthians 7:23 we are indeed made servants of men when we are subjected to their tyrannical ordinances and laws

This wicked and flagitious tyranny is aided by the disciples of the Pope who distort and pervert to this end the saying of Christ he who hereth you hereth me they swell out these words into a support for their own traditions whereas this saying was addressed by Christ to the apostles

When they were going forth to preach the gospel and therefore ought to be understood as referring to the gospel alone these men however leave the gospel out of sight and make this saying fit in with their own inventions Christ says my sheep hear my voice but they know not the voice of strangers

For this cause the gospel was bequeathed to us that the pontiffs might utter the voice of Christ but they utter their own voice and are determined to be heard the Apostle also says of himself that he was not sent to baptize but to preach the gospel

And thus no man is bound to receive the traditions of the pontiff or to listen to him except when he teaches the gospel and Christ and he himself ought to teach nothing but the freeest faith since however Christ says he who hears you hears me why does not the Pope also hear others

Christ did not say to Peter alone he who hears thee lastly where there is true faith there must also of necessity be the word of faith why then does not the unbelieving pope listen to his believing servant who has the word of faith blindness blindness reigns among the Pontus others however

Far more shamelessly irrigate to the pope the power of making laws arguing from the words whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven Matthew 16:19 Christ is speaking there of the binding and loosing of sins

Not of bringing the whole church into bondage and making laws to oppress it thus the papal tyranny acts in all things on its own false maxims while it forcibly rests and perverts the word of god I admit indeed the Christians must endure this accursed tyranny as they would

Any other violence inflicted on them by the world according to the saying of Christ whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek turn to him the other also Matthew 5:39 but I complain of this that wicked pontiffs boast that they have a rightful power to act thus

And pretend that in this Babylon of theirs they are providing for the interests of Christendom an idea which they have persuaded all men to adopt if they did these things in conscious and a valid empirety and tyranny or if it were simple violence that we endured we might meanwhile

Quietly reckon up the advantages thus afforded us for the mortification of this life and the fulfillment of baptism and should retain the full right of glory in in conscience at the wrong done us as it is they desire so to ensnare our conscience in the matter of liberty

That we should believe all that they do to be well done and should think it unlawful to blame or complain of their iniquitous actions being wolves they wish to appear shepherds being antichrists they wish to be honored like Christ I cry aloud on behalf of liberty and conscience

And I proclaim with confidence that no kind of law can with any justice be imposed on Christians whether by men or by angels except so far as they themselves will for we are free from all if such laws are imposed on us we ought so to endure them

As still to preserve the consciousness of our liberty we ought to know and steadfastly to protest that a wrong is being done to that liberty though we may bear and even glory in that wrong taking care neither to justify the tyrant nor to murmur against tyranny who is he that will harm you

If he be followers of that which is good first Peter 3:13 all things work together for good to the elect of god since however there are but few who understand the glory of baptism in the happiness of Christian liberty or who can understand them for the tyranny of the Pope

I for my part will set free my own mind and deliver my conscience by declaring aloud to the Pope and to all papists that unless they shall throw aside all their laws and traditions and restore liberty to the churches of Christ and cause that liberty to be taught

They are guilty of the death of all the souls which are perishing in this wretched bondage and that the papacy is in truth nothing else than the kingdom of Babylon and a very antichrist for who is the man of sin and the son of perdition

But he who by his teaching and his ordinances increases the sin and perdition of souls in the church while he yet sits in the church as if you were god all these conditions have now for many ages been fulfilled by the papal tyranny it has extinguished faith darkened the sacraments crushed the gospel

While it has enjoined and multiplied without end its own laws which are not only wicked and sacrilegious but also most unlearned and barbarous behold them the wretchedness of our bondage how does the city sit solitary that was full of people how is she become as a widow

She that was great among the nations and princess among the provinces how is she become tributary among all her lovers she has none to comfort her all her friends have dealt treacherously with her lamentations 1 1 and two there are at this day so many ordinances so many rights so many parties

So many professions so many works to occupy the minds of Christians that they forget their baptism for this multitude of locusts caterpillars and kinker worms no man is able to remember that he was baptized or what it was that he obtained in baptism

We ought to have been like babes when they are baptized who being preoccupied by no zeal and by no works are free for all things at rest and safe in the glory of their baptism alone we also ourselves are babes in Christ unremittingly baptized in opposition to what I have said

An argument will perhaps be drawn from the baptism of infants who cannot receive the promise of god or have faith in their baptism and it will be said that therefore either faith is not requisite or infants are baptized in vain to this I reply that all men

Say that infants are aided by the faith of others namely that of those who bring them to baptism for as the word of god when it is preached is powerful enough to change the heart of a wicked man which is not less devoid of sense and feeling than any infant

So through the prayers of the church which brings the child in faith to which prayers all things are possible the infant is changed cleansed and renewed by faith infused into it nor should I doubt that even a wicked adult if the church were to bring him forward and pray for him

Might undergo a change in any of the sacraments just as we read in the gospel that the paralytic man was healed by the faith of others in this sense too I should readily admit that the sacraments of the new law are effectual for the bestowal of Grace not only on those

Who do not place any obstacle in the way but on the most obstinent of those who do what difficulty cannot the faith of the church and the prayer of faith remove when Steven is believed to have converted the Apostle Paul by this power but in these cases the sacraments do what they do

Not by their own virtue but by that of faith without which as I have said they have no effect at all a question has been raised whether a child yet unborn but of which only a hand or foot appears can be baptized on this point I would give no hasty judgment

And I confess my own ignorance nor do I know whether the reason on which they base their opinion is sufficient namely that the whole soul exists in every part of the body for it is not the soul but the body which is outwardly baptized on the other hand I cannot pronounce that

As some assert he who has not yet been born cannot be born again though it is a very strong argument I leave this question to the decision of the spirit and meanwhile would have every man to be fully persuaded in his own mind I will add one thing

Of which I wish I could persuade everyone that is that all vows whether those of religious orders or of pilgrimages or of works of any kind should be entirely done away with or at least avoided and that we should remain in the liberty of baptism full as it is

Of religious observances and of good works it is impossible to express what an extent this far too much extolled belief in vows detracts from baptism and obscure is the knowledge of Christian liberty not to mention the unspeakable and infinite danger to souls which is daily increased by this I moderate passion for vows

And thoughtless rashness in making them oh you most wicked bishops and most unhappy pastors who slumber at your ease and desport yourselves with your own desires while you have no pity for the grievous and perilous affliction of Joseph it would be well to do away by a general edict with all vows

Especially those which are perpetual and to recall all men to their baptismal vows or at least to admonish all to take no vow rashly and not only to invite no vows but to place delays and difficulties in the way of there being taken we make an ample vow at baptism

A greater one than we can fulfill and we shall have enough to do if we give all our efforts to this alone but now we compass sea and land to make many proselytes we fill the world with priests monks and nuns and we imprison all these and perpetual vows

We shall find those who will argue on this point and lay it down that works performed under the sanction of a vowel are better than those performed independently of vows and will be preferred in heaven and meet with far higher reward blind and impious Pharisees who measure righteousness and holiness by the greatness

And number of works and by some other quality in them well in God’s sight they are measured by faith alone since in his sight there is no difference between works except so far as there is a difference in faith by this inflated talk wicked men create a great

Opinion of their own inventions and puff up human works in order to allure the senseless multitude who are easily LED by a species show of works to the great ruin of faith forgetfulness of baptism and injury to Christian liberty as a vowel is a sort of law and requires a work

It follows that as vows are multiplied so laws and works are multiplied and by the multiplication of these faith is extinguished and the liberty of baptism is brought into bondage not content with these impious allurements others go further and assert that entrance into a religious order is like a new baptism

Which may be successively renewed as often as the purpose of a religious life is renewed thus these devotees attributed to themselves alone righteousness salvation and glory and leave to the baptized absolutely no room for comparison with them the Roman pontiff that fountain and author of all superstitions confirms approves

And embellishes these ideas by grandly worded bulls and indulgences well no one thinks baptism worthy even of mention by these showy displays they drive the easily LED people of Christ into whatever whirlpools of error they will so that unthinkful for their baptism they imagine that they can do better by their works

Than others by their faith where for god also who is fro word with the fro word resolving to avenge himself on the pride and unthinkfulness of these devotees causes them either to fail in keeping their vows or to keep them with great labor and to continue immersed in them

Never become acquainted with the Grace of faith and of baptism as their spirit is not right with god he permits them to continue to the end in their hypocrisy and to become at length a laughing stock to the whole world always following after righteousness and never attaining to it

So that they fulfill that saying their land also is full of idols Isaiah 2:08 I should certainly not forbid or object to any vow which a man may make of his own private choice I do not wish altogether to condemn or depreciate vows but my advice would be altogether against the public

Establishment or confirmation of any such mode of life it is enough that every man should be at liberty to make private vows at his own peril but that a public system of living under the constraint of vows should be inculcated I consider to be a thing pernicious to the church

And to all simple souls in the first place it is not a little repugnant to the Christian life and as much as a vowel is a kind of ceremonial law and a matter of human tradition or invention from all which the church has been set free by baptism

Since the Christian is bound by no law except that of god moreover there is no example of it in the scriptures especially of the vow of perpetual chastity obedience and poverty now of all of which we have no example in the scriptures is a perilous one

Which ought to be urged upon no man much less be established as a common and public mode of life even if every individual must be allowed to venture upon it at his own peril if he will there are some works which are brought by the spirit in

But few and these are by no means to be brought forward as an example or as a manner of life I greatly fear however that these systems of living under vows and the religious are of the number of those things of which the Apostle foretold speaking lies in hypocrisy forbidding to marry

And commanding to abstain from meats which god has created to be received with Thanksgiving 1st Timothy 4 2 and three let no one cite against me the example of Saint Bernard Saint Francis Saint Dominic and such like authors or supporters of religious orders god is terrible and wonderful

In his dealings with the children of men he could preserve Daniel and Anayas as arias and Misael holy even as ministers of the kingdom of Babylon that is in the midst of wickedness he may also have sanctified the men of whom I have spoken in their perilous mode of life

And have guided them by the special working of his spirit while yet he would not have this made an example for other men it is certain that not one of these men was saved by his vows or his religious order but by faith alone by which all men are saved

But to which these showy servitudes of vows are especially hostile in this matter let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind I shall carry out my undertaking and speak on behalf of the liberty of the church and of the glory of baptism and I shall state for the general benefit

What I have Learned under the teaching of the spirit and first I counsel those who are in high places in the church to do away with all those vows and the practice of living under vows or at the least not to approve or extoll them if they will not do this

Then I earnestly advise all who desire to make their salvation the safer particularly growing youth and young men to keep aloof from all vows especially from such as our extensive and lifelong I give this advice in the first place because this mode of life as I have already said

Has no evidence or example in the scriptures but rests only on the bowls of the Pontus who are but men and secondly because it tends to lead men into hypocrisy through its singularity and show you appearance when sorise pride and contempt of the ordinary Christian life if there were no other cause

For doing away with these vows this one by itself would have wait enough that by them faith and baptism are depreciated and works are magnified now these cannot be magnified without ruin this consequences for among many thousands there is scarcely one who does not look more to his works

As a member of a religious order than to faith and under this delusion they claim superiority over each other as being stricter or laxer as they call it hence I advise no men Yay I dissuade every man from entering into the priesthood or any religious order unless he be so fortified with knowledge

As to understand that however sacred and lofty may be the works of priests or of the religious orders they differ not at all in the sight of god from the works of a husband man laboring in his field or of a woman attending to her household affairs but that in his eyes

All things are measured by faith alone as it is written in all thy work believe with the faith of thy soul for this is the keeping of the commandments of God Ecclesiasticus 32 23 nay it very often happens that the common work of a servant or a handmaiden is more acceptable to god

Than all the fastings and works of a monk or a priest when they are done without faith since then it is likely that at present day vows only tend to increase men’s pride and presumption in their own works it is to be feared that there is nowhere less of faith

And of the church than in priests monks and bishops and that these very men are really Gentiles and hypocrites who consider themselves to be the church or the very heart of the church spiritual persons and rulers of the church when they are very far indeed from being so

These are really the people of the captivity among whom all the free gifts bestowed in baptism have been brought into bondage while the poor and slender remnant of the people of the land appear vile in their eyes from this we perceive two conspicuous errors on the part of the Roman pontiff

The first is this that he gives dispensations in the matter of vows and does this as if he alone possessed authority beyond all other Christians so far does the rashness and audacity of wicked men extend if a vow can be dispensed with any brother can dispense for his neighbor or even for himself

If he cannot grant such dispensations neither has the pope any right to do so once has he this authority from the keys they are common to all and only have power over sins but since the Pope himself confesses that vows have a divine right

Why does he cheat and ruin wretched souls by giving dispensations in a matter of divine right which admits of no dispensation he prays of the redemption of vows and declares that he has power to change vows just as under the law of old

The first born of an ass was exchanged for a lamb as if a vow which requires to be fulfilled everywhere and constantly wear the same thing with the first born of an ass or as if because god in his own law ordered an ass to be exchanged for a lamb therefore the pope

Who is but a man had the same power with respect to a law which is not his but God’s it was not a pope who made this decretal but an ass which has been exchanged for a pope so utterly mad and impious was he the Pope commits a second great error again

In decreeing that the bond of marriage may be broken through if one of the parties even against the will of the other desires to enter a monastery providing the marriage has not yet been consummated what devil inspires this pretentious decree of the Pope god commands men to keep faith

And observe truth towards one another and that every man should bring gifts out of his own substance for he hates robbery for burnt offering as he declares by the mouth of Isaiah now husband and wife owe fidelity to each other by their compact a fidelity which can be dissolved by no law

Neither can say I belong to myself or can do without robbery whatever is done against the will of the other else why not also have a rule that a man who is in debt if he enter into a religious order shall be freed from his deaths

And be at liberty to deny his bond he blind he blind which is greater good faith which is commanded of god or a vowel invented and chosen by men art thou a Shepherd of souls o Pope are ye doctors of sacred theology who teach in this way why do you teach thus

Because you extoll a vow as being a better work than marriage but it is not faith which alone can magnify anything that you magnify but works which in the sight of god are nothing or at least all equal as concerns their merit I cannot doubt them

That from such vows as it is right to make neither men nor angels can give a dispensation but I have not been able to convince myself that all the vows made in these days fall under the head of rightful vows such as that ridiculous piece of folly when parents devote their child

Yet unborn or an infant to a life of religion or to perpetual chastity nay it is certain that this is no rightful vow it appears to be a mockery of god since the parents vow what it is and no wise in their power to perform

I come now to members of the religious orders the more I think of their three vows the less I understand them and the more I wonder how the exaction of such vows has grown upon us still less do I understand at what period of life such vows can be taken

So as to be legitimate and valid in this all are agreed that such vows taken before the age of puberty are not valid and yet in this matter they deceive a great number of youths who know as little of their own age as of what they are vowing

The age of puberty is not looked to when vows are taken but consent is supposed to follow afterwards and the professed are held in bondage and devoured by dreadful scruples of conscience as if a vowel in itself void could become valid by the progression of time

To me it seems folly that any limit to a legitimate vowel should be laid down by others who cannot lay one down in their own case nor do I see why a vowel made in a man’s 18th year should be valid but not if made in his 10th or 12th year

It is not enough to say that in his eighteenth year a man feels the impulses of the flesh what if he scarcely feels them in his twentieth or thirtieth year or feels them more strongly in his thirtieth year than in his twentieth why again is not a similar limitation

Placed on the vows of poverty and obedience what time shall we assign for a man to feel himself ever vicious or proud when even the most spiritually minded men have a difficulty in detecting these affections in themselves there will never be any sure and legitimate vow until we have become thoroughly spiritual

And so have no need of vows we see then that vows are most uncertain and perilous things it would be a salutary course to leave this lofty manner of living under vows free to the spirit alone as it was of old and by no means

To convert it into a perpetual mode of life we have now however set enough on the subject of baptism and liberty if I am will perhaps come for treating more fully of vows and in truth they greatly need to be treated of end of section 3

Section 4 of the Babylonian Captivity of the church by Martin Luther translated by RS Green Yong this Lieprovox recording is in the public domain concerning the Sacrament penance in this third part I shall speak of the Sacrament penance by the tracts and disputations which I have published on this subject

I have given offense to very many and have amply expressed my own opinions I must now briefly repeat these statements in order to unveil the tyranny which attacks us on this point as on sparingly as in the Sacrament of the bread in these two sacraments gain and Luker find a place and therefore

The Everest of the shepherds has raged to an incredible extent against the sheep of Christ while even baptism as we have seen and speaking of vows has been sadly obscured among adults that the purposes of avarice might be served the first and capital evil connected with this sacrament is that

They have totally done away with a sacrament itself leaving not even a vestige of it whereas this like the other two sacraments consists of the word of the divine promise on the one side and of our faith on the other they have overthrown both of these

They have adapted to the purposes of their own tyranny Christ’s word of promise when he says whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven Matthew 16:19 and whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven

And whatsoever ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven Matthew 18:18 and again whose whoever sins you remit they are remitted unto them and whose whoever sins you retain they are retained John 20:23 these words are meant to call forth the faith of penitants

That they may seek and obtain remission of their sins but these men in all their books writings and discourses have not made it their object to explain to Christians the promise conveyed in these words and to show them what they ought to believe and how much consolation they might have but to establish

In the utmost length breath and depth their own powerful and violent tyranny at last some have even begun to give orders to the angels in heaven and to boast with an incredible frenzy of empirety that they have received the right to rule in heaven and on earth and have the power of binding

Even in heaven thus they say not a word about the saving faith of the people but talk largely of the tyrannical power of the pontiffs whereas Christ’s words do not deal at all with power but entirely with faith it was not principalities powers and dominions that Christ instituted in his church

But a ministry as we learn from the words of the Apostle let a man so account of us as of the ministers of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of god 1st Corinthians 4 1 when Christ said whosoever believeth and is baptized shall be saved

He meant to call forth faith on the part of those seeking baptism so that on the strength of this word of promise a man might be sure that if he believed and were baptized he would obtain salvation no sort of power is here bestowed on his servants

But only the ministry of baptism is committed to them in the same way when Christ says whatsoever ye shall bind and so forth he means to call forth the faith of the penitant so that on the strength of this word of promise he may be sure that if he believes and is absolved

He will be truly absolved in heaven evidently nothing is said here of power but it is the Ministry of absolution which is spoken of it is strange enough that these blind and arrogant men have not irrigated to themselves some tyrannical power from the terms of the baptismal promise

If not why have they presumed to do so from the promise connected with penitance in both cases there is an equal ministry a like promise and the same character in the sacrament and it cannot be denied that if we do not owe baptism to Peter alone it is a piece of impious tyranny

To claim the power of the keys for the pope alone thus also when Christ says take eat this is my body which is given for you this is the cup in my blood he means to call forth faith in those who eat that their conscience may be strengthened by faith in these words

And that they may feel sure that when they believe it they receive remission of sins there is nothing here which speaks of power but only of ministry the promise of baptism has remained with us at least in the case of infants but the promise of the bread and the cup has been destroyed

Or brought into servitude to avarice and faith has been turned into a work and a testament into a sacrifice thus also the promise of penance has been perverted into a most violent tyranny and into the establishment of a dominion that is more than temporal not content with this

Our Babylon has so utterly done away with faith as to declare with shameless front that it is not necessary in this sacrament nay in her empty Christian wickedness she pronounces it a heresy to assert the necessity of faith what more is there that tyranny could do and has not done

Verily by the rivers of Babylon there we sat down Yay we wept when we remembered Zion we hanged our harps upon the willows in the midst there of Psalm 137 1 and two may the Lord curse the barren willows of those rivers amen the promise and faith having been blotted out and overthrown

Let us see what they have substituted for them they have divided penance into three parts contrition confession and satisfaction but in doing this they have taken away all that was good in each of these and have set up in each of their own tyranny and caprice in the first place

They have so taught contrition as to make it prior to faith in the promise and far better as not being a work of faith but a merit may they make no mention of faith they stick fast in works and in examples taken from the scriptures where we read of many who obtained pardon

Through humility and contrition of heart but they never think of the faith which wrought this contrition in sorrow of heart as it is written concerning the ninovites the people of ninova believed god and proclaimed to fast and put on sackcloth Jonah 3 5 these men worse and more audacious than the ninovites

Have invented a certain attrition which by the virtue of the keys of which they are ignorant may become contrition and this may be stowed on the wicked and unbelieving and thus do away entirely with contrition oh unindurable wrath of god that such things should be taught in the church of Christ

So it is that having got rid of faith and its work we walk heedlessly in the doctrines and opinions of men or rather perish in them a contrite heart is a great matter indeed and can only proceed from an earnest faith in the divine promises and threats the faith which

Contemplating the unshakeable truth of god makes the conscience to tremble terrifies and bruises it and when it is thus contrite raises it up again consoles and preserves it thus the truth of the threatening is the cause of contrition and the truth of the promise is the cause of consolation when they are believed

And by this faith a man merits remission of sins therefore faith above all things ought to be taught and called forth when faith is produced contrition and consolation will follow other own accord by an inevitable consequence hence although there is something in the teaching of those

Who assert that contrition is to be brought about by the collection as they call it and contemplation of our own sins still theirs is a perilous and perverse doctrine because they do not first teach the origin and cause of contrition namely the unshakable truth of the divine threatenings and promises

In order to call forth faith so that men might understand that they ought to look with much more earnest attention to the truth of god by which to be humbled and raised up again then to the multitude of their own sins which if they be looked at apart from the truth of god

Are more likely to renew and increase the desire for sin than to produce contrition I say nothing of that insurmountable chaos of labor which they impose upon us namely that we are to frame a contrition for all our sins for this is impossible we can know but a small part of our sins

Indeed even our good works will be found to be sins as it is written enter not into judgment with thy servant for in thy sight shall no man living be justified Psalm 143 2 it is enough that we sorrow for those sins which VEX our conscience at the present moment and which are

Easily recognized by an effort of our memory he who is thus disposed will without doubt be ready to feel sorrow and fear on account of all his sins and will feel sorrow and fear when in future they are revealed to him beware than of trusting in thy own contrition

Or attributing remission of sins to thy own sorrow it is not because of these that god looks on thee with favor but because of the faith with which thou has believed his threatenings and promises and which is wrought that sorrow in thee therefore whatever good there is in penitance is due not to

The diligence with which we reckon up our sins but to the truth of god and to our faith all other things are works and fruits which follow of their own accord and which do not make a man good but are done by a man who has been made good by his faith

In the truth of god thus it is written because he was wrath there went up a smoke in his presence Psalm 18 8 the terror of the threatening comes first which devours the wicked but faith accepting the threatening sends forth contrition as a cloud of smoke contrition though it has been

Completely exposed to wicked and pestle indoctrins has yet given less occasion to tyranny and the love of gain but confession and satisfaction have been turned into the most noted workshops for lucr and ambition to speak first of confession there is no doubt that confession of sins is necessary and is commanded by god

They were baptized of John in the Jordan confessing their sins Matthew 3 6 if we confess our sins he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins if we say that we have not sinned we make him a liar and his word is not in us first John 1

9 and ten if the saints must not deny their sin how much more are those who are guilty of great or public offenses to confess them but the most effective proof of the institution of confession is given when Christ tells us that an offending brother must be told of his fault brought before

The church accused and finally if you neglect to hear the church X communicated he hears what he yields to reproof and acknowledges and confesses his sin the secret confession however which is now practiced though it cannot be proved from Scripture is in my opinion highly satisfactory and useful or even necessary

I could not wish it not to exist may I rejoice that it does exist in the church of Christ for it is the one great remedy for afflicted consciences when after laying open our conscience to a brother and unveiling all the evil which lay hid there we receive from

The mouth of that brother the word of consolation sent forth from god receiving which by faith we find peace in a sense of the mercy of god who speaks to us through our brother what I protest against is the conversion of this institution of confession into a means of tyranny and extortion

By the bishops they reserve certain cases to themselves as secret and then order them to be revealed to confessors named by themselves and thus VEX the consciences of men filling the office of bishop but utterly neglecting the real duties of a bishop which are to preach the gospel and to

Minister to the poor may these impious tyrants principally reserve to themselves the cases which are of less consequence while they leave the greater ones everywhere to the common herd of priests cases such as the ridiculous inventions of the bull in chain of Domini that their wicked perverseness may be yet more manifest

They do not reserve those things which are offenses against the worship of god against faith and against the chief commandments but even approve and teach them such as those journeyings hither and feather on pilgrimage the perverted worship of saints the lying legends of saints the confidence in and practice of works and ceremonies

By all which things the faith of god is extinguished and idolatry is nourished as it is at this day the Pontus we have nowadays are such as those whom Cheropom established at Dan and Beershiba as ministers of the Golden calves men who are ignorant of the law of god of faith and of

All that concerns the feeding of the sheep of Christ and who only thrust their own inventions upon the people by terror and power although I exhort men to endure the violence of these reservers even as Christ bids us to endure all the tyrannical conduct of men and teaches us to obey such extortioners

Still I neither admit nor believe that they have any right of reservation by no jot or tittle can they prove this well I can prove the contrary in the first place if in speaking of public offenses Christ says that we have gained our brother if he hears us when told of his fault

And that he is not to be brought before the church unless he has refused to hear us and that offenses made us be set right between Brethren how much more true will it be concerning private offenses that the sin is taken away when the brother has voluntarily confessed it to brother

So that he need not bring it before the church that is before a prelate or priest as these men say in their foolish interpretation in support of my opinion we have again the authority of Christ when he says in the same passage whatsoever you shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven

And whatsoever you shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven Matthew 18:18 this saying is addressed to all Christians and to every Christian once more he says to the same effect again I say unto you that if two of you shall agree on earth as touching anything that they shall ask

It shall be done for them of my father which is in heaven Matthew 18:19 now a brother laying open his secret sins to a brother in seeking pardon certainly agrees on earth with that brother in the truth which is Christ in confirmation of what he had said before Christ says still more clearly

In the same passage where two or three are gathered together in my name there am I in the midst of them Matthew 18:20 from all this I do not hesitate to say that whosoever voluntarily confesses his sins privately in the presence of any brother or when told of his faults asks pardon

And amends his life is absolved from his secret sins since Christ has manifestly bestowed the power of absolution on every believer in him with whatever violence the Pontus may rage against this truth add also this little argument that if any reservation of hidden sins were valid and there could be no salvation

Unless they were remitted the greatest hindrance to salvation would lie in those things which I have mentioned above even those good works and idolatries which we are taught at the present day by the pontiffs well if these most weighty matters are not a hindrance with how much less reason are those lighter

Offences so foolishly reserved it is by the ignorance and blindness of the pastors that these portants are wrought in the church therefore I would warn these princes of Babylon and bishops of Beth Aven to abstain from reserving cases of any kind whatever but to allow the freest permission to hear confessions

Of secret sins to all Brethren and sisters so that the sinner may reveal his sin to whom he will with the object of seeking pardon and consolation that is the word of Christ uttered by the mouth of his neighbor they affect nothing by their rash presumption but to ensnare it needlessly the consciences

Of the weak to establish their own wicked tyranny and to feed their own avarice on the sins and perdition of their Brethren thus they stain their hands with the blood of souls and children are devoured by their parents and Ephraim devours Judah and Syria Israel as Isaiah says to these evils

They have added circumstances mothers daughters sisters relatives branches fruits of sins all devised at complete leisure by the most subtle of men who have set up even in the matter of sins a sort of tree of consanguinity and affinity so fertile of results are ignorance and empathy for these devices

Of some worthless fellow have passed into public law as has happened in many other cases so vigilantly do the shepherds watch over the church of Christ that whatever dreams of superstition or of new works these senseless devotees indulge they forth with bring forward and dress them up with indulgences and fortify

Them with bowls so far are they from prohibiting these things and protecting the simplicity of faith and liberty for the people of god for what has liberty to do with the tyranny of Babylon I should advise the total neglect of all that concerns circumstances among Christians there is but one circumstance

And that is that a brother has sinned no character is to be compared to Christian brotherhood nor has the observation of places times days and persons or any other such superstitious exaggeration any effect but that magnify things which are nothing at the expense of those things which are everything

As if there could be anything greater or more weighty than the glory of Christian brotherhood they so tie us down to places and days and persons that the name of brother is held cheap and instead of being free men we are slaves in bondage we to whom all days places persons and

All other outward things are equal how unworthyly they have treated the matter of satisfaction I have abundantly shown in the case of indulgences they have abused it notably to the destruction of Christians in body and in soul in the first place they have so taught it that the people have not understood

The real meaning of satisfaction which is a change of life furthermore they so urge it and represent it as necessary that they leave no room for faith in Christ but men’s conscience are most wretchedly tortured by scruples on this point one runs hither another vither one to roam another to a convent another

To some other place one scourges himself with rods another destroys his body with vigils and fasting while all under one general delusion say here is Christ or there and imagine that the kingdom of god which is really within us will come with observation these monstrous evils we owe to thee see of Rome

And to thy homicidal laws and rights by which thou has brought the world to such a point of ruin that they think they can make satisfaction to god for their sins by works while it is only by the faith of a contrite heart that he is satisfied this faith thou not only compelest

To silence in the midst of these two molds but strivest to destroy only in order that thy avarus that insatiable leech may have some to whom to cry bring bring and may make a traffic of sins some have even proceeded to such a length in framing engines of despair for souls

As to lay it down that all sins the satisfaction enjoying for which has been neglected must be gone over a fresh in confession what will not such men dare men born for this end to bring everything 10 times over into bondage moreover I should like to know how many people there are

Who are fully persuaded that they are in a state of salvation and are making satisfaction for their sins when they murmur over the prayers enjoined by the priest with their lips alone and meanwhile do not even think of any amendment of life they believe that by one moment of contrition and confession

Their whole life is changed and that there remains merit enough over and above to make satisfaction for their sins how should they know better when they are taught nothing better there is not a thought here of mortification of the flesh the example of Christ goes for nothing

Who when he absolved the woman taken in adultery said to her go and sin no more thereby laying on her the cross of mortification of the flesh no slight occasion has been given to these perverted ideas by our absolving centers before they have completed their satisfaction once it comes that they are

More anxious about completing their satisfaction which is a thing that lasts than about contrition which they think has been gone through in the act of confession on the contrary absolution ought to follow the completion of satisfaction as it did in the primitive church whence it happened that the work being over

They were afterwards more exercised in faith and newness of life on this subject however it must suffice to have repeated so far what I have said at greater length in writing on indulgences let it also suffice for the present to have said this much in the whole respecting these three sacraments

Which are treated of and not treated of in so many mischievous books of sentences and of law it remains for me to say a few words about the remaining sacraments also that I may not appear to have rejected them without sufficient reason end of Section 4

Section 5 of the Babylonian Captivity of the church by Martin Luther translated by RS Grignon this leprovost recording is in the public domain of confirmation it is surprising that it should have entered anyone’s mind to make a sacrament of confirmation out of that lane on of hands which Christ applied to little children

And by which the apostles bestowed the Holy Spirit ordained presbyters and healed the sick as the apostle rights to Timothy lay hands suddenly on no man first Timothy 5:22 why not also make a confirmation out of the sacrament of bread because it is written and when he had received meat he was strengthened

Acts 9:19 or again bread which strengthen this man’s heart Psalm 104 15 thus confirmation would include three sacraments of bread of orders and of confirmation itself but if whatever the apostles did is a sacrament why his not preaching rather been made into a sacrament I do not say this because I condemn

The seven sacraments but because I deny that they can be proved from the scriptures I wish there were in the church such a lane on of hands as there was in the time of the Apostles whether we choose to call it confirmation or healing as it is however none of it remains

Except so much as we have ourselves invented in order to regulate the duties of the bishops that they may not be entirely without work in the church for when they had left the sacraments which involved labor along with the word to their inferiors as being beneath their attention on the grounds for sooth

That whatever institutions the Divine Majesty has set up must need to be an object of contempt to men it was but right that we should invent some easy duty not to troublesome for the dainties of these great heroes and by no means commit it to inferiors as if it were of little importance

What human wisdom has ordained ought to be honored by men thus such as the priests are such would be the ministry and office which they hold for what is a bishop who does not preach the gospel or attend to the cure of souls but an idol in the world

Having the name in form of a bishop at present however we are inquiring into the sacraments of divine institution and I can find no reason for reckoning confirmation among these to constitute a sacrament we require in the very first place a word of divine promise on which faith may exercise itself

But we do not read the Christ ever gave any promise respecting confirmation although he himself laid hands upon many and although he mentions among the signs that should follow them that believe they shall lay hands on the sick and they shall recover Mark 16:18 no one however

Has interpreted these words of a sacrament or could do so it is enough then to consider confirmation as a right or ceremony of the church of like nature to those other ceremonies by which water and other things are consecrated for if every other creature is sanctified by the word and prayer

Why may not man much more be sanctified by the same means even though they cannot be called sacraments of faith in as much as they contain no divine promise neither do these work salvation while sacraments save those who believe in the divine promise of matrimony

It is not only without any warrant of scripture that matrimony is considered a sacrament but it has been turned into a mirror mockery by the very same traditions which vaunted as a sacrament let us look a little into this I have said that in every sacrament

There is contained a word of divine promise which must be believed in by him who receives the sign and that the sign alone cannot constitute a sacrament now we know we read that he who marries a wife will receive any Grace from god neither is there in matrimony any sign of divine institution

Nor do we anywhere read that it was appointed of god to be a sign of anything although it is true that all visible transactions may be understood as figures and allegorical representations of invisible things but figures and allegries are not sacraments in the sense in which we are speaking of sacraments furthermore

Since matrimony has existed from the beginning of the world and still continues even among unbelievers there are no reasons why it should be called a sacrament of the new law and of the church alone the marriages of the patriarchs were not less marriages than ours nor are those of unbelievers

Less real than those of believers and yet no one calls them a sacrament moreover there are among believers wicked husbands and wives worse than any Gentiles why should we then say that there is a sacrament here and not among the Gentiles shall we so trifle with baptism and the church as to say

Like those who rave about the temporal power existing only in the church that matrimony is a sacrament only in the church such assertions are childish and ridiculous and by them we expose our ignorance and rashness to the laughter of unbelievers it will be asked however does not the Apostle say that they

Too shall be one flesh and that this is a great sacrament and will you contradict plain words of the Apostle I reply that this argument is a very dull one and proceeds from a careless and thoughtless reading of the original throughout the Holy Scriptures this word sacramentum

Has not the meaning in which we employ it but an opposite one for it everywhere signifies not the sign of a sacred thing but a sacred thing which is secret and hidden thus Paul says let a man so account of us as of the ministers of Christ and stewards of the mysteries

That is sacraments of god 1st Corinthians 4 1 where we use the Latin term sacrament in Greek the word mystery is employed and thus in Greek the words of the apostles are they too shall be one flesh this is a great mystery this ambiguity has LED

Men to consider marriage as a sacrament of the new law which they would have been far from doing if they had read the word mystery as it is in the Greek thus the apostle calls Christ himself a sacrament saying and without controversy great is the sacrament that is mystery of godliness

God was manifest in the flesh justified in the spirit scene of angels preached unto the Gentiles believed on in the world received up into glory 1st Timothy 3:16 why have they not deduced from this an eighth sacrament of the new law under such clear authority from Paul

Or if they restrain themselves in this case where they might so suddenly have been copious in the invention of sacraments why are they so lavish of them in the other it is because they have been misled by their ignorance as well of things as of words

They have been caught by the mere sound of the words and by their own fancies having once on human authority taking a sacrament to be a sign they have proceeded without any judgment or scruple to make the word mean a sign wherever they have met with it in the sacred writings

Just as they have imported other meanings of words and human habits of speech into the sacred writings and transformed these into dreams of their own making anything out of anything hence their constant senseless use of the words good works bad works sin Grace righteousness virtue and almost all

The most important words and things they use all these at their own discretion founded on the writings of men to the ruin of the truth of god and of our salvation thus sacrament and mystery in Paul’s meaning are the very wisdom of the spirit hidden in a mystery as he says

Which none of the princes of this world knew for had they known it they would not have crucified the Lord of glory 1st Corinthians 2 8 there remains to this day this folly this stone of stumbling and rock of offense this sign which shall be spoken against

Paul calls preachers the stewards of these mysteries because they preach Christ the power and wisdom of god but so preach him that unless men believe they cannot understand thus a sacrament means a mystery and a hidden thing which is made known by words but is received by faith of heart

Such as the passage of which we are speaking at present they too shall be one flesh this is a great mystery these men think that this was said concerning matrimony but Paul brings in these words in speaking of Christ and the church and explains his meaning clearly by saying

I speak concerning Christ and the church see how well Paul and these men agree Paul says that he is setting forth a great mystery concerning Christ in the church while they set it forth as concerning male and female if men made us indulge their own caprices in interpreting the sacred writings what wonder

If anything can be found in them were even 100 sacraments Christ then and the church are a mystery that is a great and hidden thing which may indeed and ought to be figured by matrimony as in a sort of real allegory but it does not follow that

Matrimony ought to be called the sacrament the heavens figuratively represent the apostles the Son Christ the waters nations but these are not therefore sacraments for in all these cases the institution is wanting and the divine promise and these it is which make a sacrament complete hence Paul is either of his own spirit

Applying to Christ the words used in Genesis concerning matrimony or else he teaches that in their general sense the spiritual marriage of Christ is also there declared saying even as the Lord cherisheth the church for we are members of his body of his flesh and of his bones

For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother and shall be joined unto his wife and they too shall be one flesh this is a great mystery but I speak concerning Christ and the Church Ephesians 5 29 through 32 we see that he means this whole text to be understood

Is spoken by him about Christ he purposely warns the reader to understand the sacrament as in Christ and the church not in matrimony I admit indeed that even under the old law may from the beginning of the world there was a sacrament of penitance but the new promise of penitance

And the gift of the keys are peculiar to the new law as we have baptism in the place of circumcision so we now have the keys in the place of sacrifices or other signs of penitance I have said above that at different times the same god has given different promises

And different signs for the remission of sins and the salvation of men well yet it is the same Grace that all have received as it is written we having the same spirit of faith believe and therefore speak Second Corinthians 4:13 our fathers did all eat the same spiritual meat

And did all drink the same spiritual drink for they drink of that spiritual rock that followed them and that rock was Christ first Corinthians 10 3 and four these all died in faith not having received the promises god having provided some better thing for us that they without us should be made perfect

Hebrews 11:13 40 for Christ himself the same yesterday and today and forever is the head of the church and from the beginning even to the end of the world there are then different signs but the faith of all believers is the same since without faith it is impossible to please god

And by it Abel pleased him let then matrimony be a figure of Christ in the church not however a sacrament divinely instituted but one invented in the church by men LED astray by their ignorance alike of things and of words so far as this invention is not injurious to the faith

It must be born with in charity just as many other devices of human weakness and ignorance are born with in the church so long as they are not injurious to faith and to the sacred writings but we are now contending for the firmness and purity of faith and of Scripture

Lest if we affirm anything to be contained in the sacred writings and in the articles of our faith and it is afterwards proved not to be so contained we should expose our faith to mockery be found ignorant of our own special business cause scandal to our adversaries and to the weak

And fail to exalt the authority of Holy Scripture for we must make the widest possible distinction between those things which have been delivered to us from god in the sacred writings and those which have been invented in the church by men of however eminent authority from their holiness and their learning

Thus far I have spoken of matrimony itself but what shall we say of those impious human laws by which this divinely appointed manner of life has been entangled and tossed up and down good god it is horrible to look upon the temerity of the tyrants of Rome

Who thus according to their own caprices at one time and no marriages and at another time enforce them is the human race given over to their caprice for nothing but to be mocked and abused in every way and that these men may do what they please with it

For the sake of their own fatal gains there is a book in general circulation and held in no slight esteem which has been confusedly put together out of all the dregs and filth of human traditions and entitled The Angelic Summary while it is really a more than diabolical summary in this book

Among an infinite number of monstrous statements by which confessors are supposed to be instructed while they are in truth most ruinously confused 18 impediments to matrimony are enumerated if we look at these with a just and free eye of faith we shall see that the writer

Is of the number of those of whom the Apostle foretold that they should give heed to seducing spirits and doctrines of devils speaking lies in hypocrisy forbidding to marry 1st Timothy 4 1 through three what is forbidding to marry if this is not forbidding it to invent so many impediments

And to set so many snares that marriages cannot be contracted or if they are contracted must be dissolved who has given this power to men granted that such men have been holy and LED by a pious zeal why does the holiness of another encroach upon my liberty

Why does the zeal of another bring me into bondage let whosoever will be as holy and as zealous as he will but let him not injure others or rob me of my liberty I rejoice however that these disgraceful laws have at length attained the glory they deserve and that by their aid

The men of Rome have nowadays become common traitors and what do they sell the shame of men and women a merchandise worthy of these traffickers who surpass all that is most sorted and disgusting in their avarice and impiety there is not one of those impediments

Which cannot be removed at the intercession of mammon so that these laws seem to have been made for no other purpose than to be the nets for money and snares for souls in the hands of those greedy and rapacious nimrods and in order that we might see in the Holy Place

In the church of god the abomination of the public sale of the shame and ignomine of both sexes a business worthy of our Pontus and fit to be carried on by men who with the utmost disgrace and business are given over to a reprobate mind instead of that ministry of the gospel

Which in their Everest and ambition they despise but what am I to say or do if I were to enter upon every particular this treatise would extend beyond all bounds for the subject is in the utmost confusion so that no one can tell where he is to begin

How far he is to go or where he is to stop this I know that no Commonwealth can be prosperously administered by mere laws if the magistrate is a wise man he will govern more happily under the guidance of nature than by any laws if he is not a wise man

He will affect nothing but mischief by laws since he will not know how to use them or to adapt them to the once of the time in public matters therefore it is of more importance that good and wise men should be at the head of affairs than that any laws should be passed

For such men will themselves be the best of laws since they will judge cases of all kinds with energy and justice if together with natural wisdom there be learning and divine things then it is clearly superfluous and mischievous to have any written laws and charity above all things

Has absolutely no need of laws I say however and do all that in me lies admonishing and in treating all priests and friars if they see any impediment with which the pope can dispense but which is not mentioned in Scripture to consider all those marriages valid which have been contracted in whatever way

Contrary to ecclesiastical or pontifical laws let them arm themselves with the divine law which says what god hath joined together let not man put us under the union of husband and wife is one of divine right and holds good however much against the laws of men it may have taken place

And the laws of men ought to give place to it without any scruple for if a man is to leave his father and mother and cleave to his wife how much more ought he to tread underfoot the frivolous and unjust laws of men that he may cleave to his wife if the pope

Or any bishop or official dissolves any marriage because it has been contracted contrary to the people laws he is an antichrist does violence to nature and is guilty of treason against god because this sentence stands whom god has joined together let not man put us under besides this

Man has no right to make such laws and the liberty bestowed on Christians through Christ is above all laws of men especially when the divine law comes in as Christ says the Sabbath was made for man and not man for the Sabbath therefore the son of man is Lord also of the Sabbath

Mark 2:27 through 28 again such laws were condemned beforehand by Paul when he foretold that those should arise who would forbid to marry hence in this matter all those rigorous impediments derived from spiritual affinity or legal relationship and consenguinity must give way as far as is permitted by the sacred writings

In which only the second grade of consenguinity is prohibited as is written in the book of Leviticus where 12 persons are prohibited namely mother stepmother full sister half sister by other parent granddaughter father’s sister mother’s sister daughter in law brother’s wife wife’s sister stepdaughter uncle’s wife

In these only the first grade of affinity and the second grade of consenguinity are prohibited and not even these universally as is clear when we look carefully at the subject for the daughter and granddaughter of a brother and sister are not mentioned as prohibited though they are in the second grade

Hence if at any time a marriage has been contracted outside these graves then which no others have ever been prohibited by God’s appointment it ought by no means to be dissolved in account of any laws of men matrimony being a divine institution is incomparably above all laws and therefore

It cannot rightfully be broken through for the sake of laws but rather laws for its sake thus all those fanciful spiritual affinities of father mother brother sister or child ought to be utterly done away with in the contracting of matrimony what but the superstition of man has invented that spiritual relationship

If he who baptizes is not permitted to marry her whom he has baptized or a godfather his goddaughter why is a Christian man permitted to marry a Christian woman is a relationship established by a ceremony or by the sign of the sacrament stronger than that established by the substance itself of the sacrament

Is not a Christian man the brother of a Christian sister is not a baptized man the spiritual brother of a baptized woman how can we be so senseless if a man instructs his wife in the gospel and in the faith of Christ and thus becomes truly her father in Christ

Shall it not be lawful for her to continue his wife would not Paul have been at liberty to marry a Maiden from among those Corinthians all of whom he declares that he had begotten in Christ see then how Christian liberty has been crushed by the blindness of human superstition much more idle still

Is the doctrine of legal relationship and yet they have raised even this above the divine right of matrimony nor can I agree to that impediment which they call disparity of religion and which forbids a man to marry an unbaptized woman neither simply nor uncondition of converting her to the faith

Who has prohibited this god or man who has given men authority to prohibit marriages of this kind Verily the spirits that speak lies in hypocrisy as Paul says of whom it may be truly said the wicked have spoken lies to me but not according to thy law patricious a heathen married Monica

The mother of Saint Augustin who was a Christian why should not the same thing be lawful now a like instance of foolish nay wicked rigor is the impediment of crime as when a man marries a woman previously polluted by adultery or has plotted the death of a woman’s husband

That he may be able to marry her whence I ask a severity on the part of men against men such as even god has never exacted do these men pretend not to know that David a most holy man married Beth Sheba the wife of Uriah though both these crimes had been committed

That is though she had been polluted by adultery and her husband had been murdered if the divine law did this why do tyrannical men act thus against their fellow servants it is also reckoned as an impediment when there exists what they call a bond that is

When one person is bound to another by betrothal in this case they conclude that if either party have subsequently had intercourse with a third the former betrothal comes to an end I cannot at all receive this doctrine in my judgment a man who has bound himself to one person

Is no longer at his own disposal and therefore under the prohibitions of the divine right owes himself to the former though he has not had intercourse with her even if he have afterwards had intercourse with another it was not in his power to give what he did not possess he has deceived her

With whom he has had intercourse and has really committed adultery that which has LED some to think otherwise is that they have looked more to the fleshly union than to the divine command under which he who has promised fidelity to one person is bound to observe it he who desires to give

Ought to give of that which is his own god forbid that any man should go beyond or defraud his brother in any matter for good faith ought to be preserved beyond and above all traditions of all men thus I believe that such a man cannot with a safe conscience

Cohabit with a second woman and that this impediment ought to be entirely reversed if a vow of religion deprives a man of his power over himself why not also a pledge of fidelity given and received especially since the latter rests on the teaching and fruits of the Spirit Galatians 5

While the former rests on human choice and if a wife may return to her husband not withstanding any vow of religion she may have made why should not a betrosed man return to his betrosed even if connection with another have followed we have said however above

That a man who has pledged his faith to a Maiden is not at liberty to make a vow of religion but is bound to marry her because he is bound to keep his faith and is not at liberty to abandon it for the sake of any human tradition

Since god commands that it should be kept much more will it be his duty to observe his pledge to the first to whom he has given it because it was only with a deceitful heart that he could give it to a second and therefore he has not really given it

But has deceived his neighbor against the law of god hence the impediment called that of error takes effect here and knows the marriage with the second woman the impediment of holy orders is also American trivens of men especially when they idly assert that even a marriage already contracted is an old

By this cause always exalting their own traditions above the commands of god I give no judgment respecting the order of the priesthood such as it is at the present day but I see that Paul commands that a bishop should be the husband of one wife and therefore the marriage of a Deacon

Of a priest of a bishop or of a man of any kind of orders cannot be an old although Paul knew nothing of that kind of priests and those orders which we have at the present day perish then these accursed traditions of men which have come in for no other end

Than to multiply perils sins and evils in the church between a priest and his wife then there is a true and inseparable marriage approved by the divine command what if wicked men forbid or inolet of their own mere tyranny be it that it is unlawful in the sight of men

Yet it is lawful in the sight of god whose commandment if it be contrary to the commandments of men is to be preferred just as much a human contrivance is the so called impediment of public propriety by which contracted marriages are an old I am indignant at the audacious in piety

Which is so ready to separate what god has joined together you may recognize Antichrist in this opposition to everything which Christ did or taught what reason is there I ask why on the death of a betrothed husband before actual marriage no relative by blood even to the 4th degree

Can marry her who was betrothed to him this is no vindication of public propriety but mere ignorance of it why among the people of Israel which possessed the best laws given by god himself was there no such vindication of public propriety on the contrary by the very command of god

The nearest relative was compelled to marry her who had been left a widow ought to the people who are in Christian liberty to be burdened with more rigid laws than the people who were in legal bondage and to make an end of these figments rather than impediments I will say that at present

It is evident to me that there is no impediment which can rightfully anole a marriage already contracted except physical unfitness for cohabiting with a wife ignorance of a marriage previously contracted or a vow of chastity concerning such a vowel however I am so uncertain even to the present moment

That I do not know at what time it ought to be reckoned valid as I have set above and speaking of baptism learn then in this one matter of matrimony into what an unhappy and hopeless state of confusion hindrance entanglement and peril all things that are done in the church have been

Brought by the pestilent unlearned and impious traditions of men there is no hope of a remedy unless we can do away once for all with all the laws of men call back the gospel of liberty and judge and rule all things according to it alone amen it is necessary also

To deal with the question of physical incapacity but be a premise and that I desire what I have said about impediments to be understood of marriages already contracted which ought not to be an old for any such causes but with regard to the contracting of matrimony

I may briefly repeat what I’ve said before that if there be any urgency of youthful love or any other necessity on account of which the Pope grants a dispensation then any brother can also grant a dispensation to his brother or himself to himself and thus snatch his wife in whatever way he can

Out of the hands of tyrannical laws why is my liberty to be done away with by another man’s superstition or ignorance or if the Pope gives dispensation for money why may not I give a dispensation to my brother or to myself for the advantage of my own salvation does the Pope establish laws

Let him establish them for himself but let my liberty be untouched the question of divorce is also discussed whether it be lawful I for my part detest divorce and even prefer bigamy to it but whether it be lawful I dare not define Christ himself the chief of shepherds says

Whosoever shall put away his wife saving for the cause of fornication causes her to commit adultery and whosoever shall marry her that is divorced commiteth adultery Matthew 5:32 Christ therefore permits divorce only in the case of fornication hence the pope must necessarily be wrong as often as he permits divorce for other reasons

Nor on any man forth with to consider himself safe because he has obtained a dispensation by pontifical audacity rather than power I am more surprised however that they compel a man who has been separated from his wife by divorce to remain single and do not allow him to marry another for

If Christ permits divorce for the cause of fornication and does not compel any man to remain single and if Paul bids us rather to marry than to burn this seems plainly to allow of a man’s marrying another in the place of her whom he has put away

I wish that this subject were fully discussed and made clear that provision might be made for the numberless perils of those who at the present day are compelled to remain single without any fault of their own that is whose wives or husbands have fled and deserted their partner

Not to return for ten years or perhaps never I am distressed and grieved by these cases which are of daily occurrence whether this happens by the special malice of Satan or from our neglect of the word of god I cannot by myself establish any rule contrary to the opinion of all

But for my own part I should exceedingly wish at least to see applied to this subject the words but if the unbelieving depart let him depart a brother or a sister is not under bondage in such cases 1st Corinthians 7:15 here the apostle permits that the unbelieving one

Who departs should be let go and leaves it free to the believer to take another why should not the same rule hold good if a believer that is a nominal believer but in reality just as much an unbeliever desserts husband or wife especially if with the intention of never returning

I cannot discover any distinction between the two cases in my belief however if in the apostles time the unbeliever who had departed had returned or had become a believer or had promised to live with the believing wife he would not have been received but would himself have been authorized to marry another woman

Still I give no definite opinion on these questions though I greatly wish that a definite rule were laid down for there is nothing which more harasses me and many others I would not have any rule on this point laid down by the sole authority of the Pope or of the bishops

But if any two Learned and good men agree together in the name of Christ and pronounce a decision in the spirit of Christ I should prefer their judgment even to that of councils such as are assembled nowadays which are celebrated simply for their number and authority independently of learning and holiness I therefore

Suspend my utterances on this subject until I can confer with some better judge end of Section 5 section 6 of the Babylonian Captivity of the church by Martin Luther translated by RS Grignon this Livravash recording is in the public domain of orders of this sacrament The Church of Christ knows nothing

It was invented by the church of the Pope it not only has no promise of Grace anywhere declared but not a word is said about it in the whole of the New Testament now it is ridiculous to set up as a sacrament of god that which can

Nowhere be proved to have been instituted by god not that I consider that a right practice for so many ages is to be condemned but I would not have human inventions established in sacred things nor should it be allowed to bring in anything is divinely ordained which has not been divinely ordained

Lest we should be objects a ridicule to our adversaries we must endeavour that whatever we put forward as an article of faith should be certain and uncorrupt and established by clear proofs from Scripture and this we cannot show even in the slightest degree in the case of the present sacrament

The church has no power to establish new divine promises of Grace as some senselessly assert who say that since the church is governed by the Holy Spirit whatever she ordains has no less authority than that which is ordained of god the church is born of the word of promise through faith

And is nourished and preserved by the same word that is she herself is established by the promises of god not the promise of god by her the word of god is incomparably above the church and her part is not to establish ordain or make anything in it but only to be established

Ordained and made as a creature what man begets his own parent who establishes the authority by which he himself exists this power the church certainly has that she can distinguish the word of god from the words of men so Augustin confesses that his motive for believing the gospel was the authority of church

Which declared it to be the gospel not that the church is therefore above the gospel for if so she would also be above god in whom we believe since she declares him to be god but as Augustin says elsewhere the soul is so taken possession of by the truth that thereby

It can judge of all things with the utmost certainty and yet cannot judge the truth itself but is compelled by an infallible certainty to say that this is the truth for example the mind pronounces with infallible certainty that 3 and 7 are 10 and yet can give no reason why this is true

While it cannot deny that it is true in fact the mind itself is taken possession of and having truth as its judge is judged rather than judges even such a perception is there in the church by the illumination of the spirit in judging and approving of doctrines a perception which she cannot demonstrate

But which she holds is most sure just as among philosophers no one judges of those conceptions which are common to all but everyone is judged by them so it is among us with regard to that spiritual perception which judges all things yet is judged of no man as the Apostle says

Let us take it then for certain that the church cannot promise Grace to do which is the part of god alone and therefore cannot institute a sacrament and even if she had the most complete power to do so it would not forth with follow that orders are a sacrament

For who knows what is the church which has the spirit when only a few bishops and Learned men are usually concerned in setting up these laws and institutions it is possible that these men may not be of the church and may all be in error as councils have very often been in error

Especially that of Constance which is earned the most impiously of all that only is approved article of faith which has been approved by the universal church and not by that of Rome alone I grant therefore that orders may be a sort of church right like many others

Which have been introduced by the fathers of the church such as the consecration of vessels buildings vestments water salt candles herbs wine and the like in all these no one asserts that there is any sacrament nor is there any promise in them thus the anointing of a man’s hands

The shaving of his head and other ceremonies of the kind do not constitute a sacrament since nothing is promised by these things but they are merely employed to prepare men for certain offices as in the case of vessels or instruments but it will be asked what do you say to Dionysius

Who reckons up six sacraments among which he places orders in his hierarchy of the church my answer is I know that he is the only one of the ancient authorities who is considered as holding seven sacraments although by the emission of matrimony he has only given six

We read nothing at all in the rest of the fathers about these sacraments nor did they reckon them under the title of sacrament when they spoke of these things for the invention of such sacraments is a modern one then 2 if I may be rational enough to say so

It is all together unsatisfactory that so much importance should be attributed to this Dionysius whoever he was for there is almost nothing of solid learning in him by what authority or reason I ask does he prove his inventions concerning angels in his celestial hierarchy a book on the study of which curious

And superstitious minds have spent so much labor are they not all fancies of his own and very much like dreams if we read them and judge them freely in his mystic theology indeed which is so much cried up by certain very ignorant theologians he’s even very mischievous and follows Plato rather than Christ

So that I would not have any believing mind bestow even the slightest labor on the study of these books you’ll be so far from learning Christ in them that even if you know him you may lose him I speak from experience let us rather hear Paul and learn Jesus Christ than him crucified

For this is the way the truth and the life this is the latter by which we come to the father as it is written no man cometh unto the father but by me so in his hierarchy of the church what does he do but describe certain ecclesiastical rights

Amusing himself with his own allegories which he does not prove just as has been done in our time by the writer of the book called The Rationale of Divine Things this pursuit of allegories is only fit for men of idol minds could I have any difficulty in amusing myself with allegories

About any creative thing whatever did not want a Ventura apply the Liberal arts allegorically to theology it would give me no trouble to write a better hierarchy than that of Dionysius as he knew nothing of popes cardinals and archbishops and made the bishops the highest order

Who indeed is there of such slender wits that he cannot venture upon allegory I would not have a theologian bestow my attention upon allegries until he is perfectly acquainted with the legitimate and simple meaning of Scripture otherwise as it happened to origin his theological speculations will not be without danger

We must not then immediately make a sacrament of anything which Dionysius describes otherwise why not make a sacrament of the procession which he describes in the same passage and which continues in use even to the present day may there will be as many sacraments as there are rights in ceremonies

Which have grown up in the church resting however on this very weak foundation they have invented and attributed to this sacrament of theirs certain indelible characters supposed to be impressed on those who receive orders whence I ask such fancies by what authority by what reasoning are they established

Not that we object to their being free to invent learn or assert whatever they please but we also assert our own liberty and say that they must not irrigate to themselves the right of making articles of faith out of their own fancies as they have hitherto had the presumption to do

It is enough that for the sake of Concord we submit to their rights and inventions but we will not be compelled to receive them as necessary to salvation when they are not necessary let them lay aside their tyrannical requirements and we will show a ready compliance with their likings

That so may we live together in mutual peace for it is a disgraceful unjust and slavish thing for a Christian man who is free to be subjected to any but heavenly and divine traditions after this they bring in their very strongest argument namely that Christ said at the last supper

Do this in remembrance of me behold they say Christ ordained them as priests hence among other things they have also asserted that it is to priests alone that both kinds should be administered in fact they have extracted out of this text whatever they would like like men who claim the right to assert

At their own free choice whatever they please out of any words of Christ wherever spoken but is this to interpret the words of god let us reply to them that in these words Christ gives no promise but only a command that this should be done in remembrance of him

Why did they not conclude that priests were ordained in that passage also were Christ in laying upon them the ministry of the word and of baptism said go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature baptizing them in the name of the father and of the son

And of the Holy Ghost it is the peculiar office of priests to preach and to baptize again since at the present day it is the very first business of a priest and as they say an indispensable one to read the canonical hours why have they not taken their idea of

The sacrament of orders from those words in which Christ commanded his disciples as he did in many other places but especially in the garden of Yosemite to pray that they might not enter into temptation unless indeed they evade the difficulty by saying that it is not commanded to pray for its suffices

To read the canonical hours so that this cannot be proved to be a priestly work from any part of scripture and that consequently this praying priesthood is not of god as indeed it is not which of the ancient fathers has asserted that by these words priests were ordained whence then this new interpretation

It is because it has been sought by this device to set up a source of implicable discord by which clergy and laity might be placed farther asunder than heaven and earth to the incredible injury of baptismal Grace and confusion of evangelical communion hence has originated that detestable

Tyranny of the clergy over the laity in which trusting to the corporal function by which their hands are consecrated to their tuncture and to their investments they not only set themselves above the body of late Christians who have been anointed with the Holy Spirit but almost look upon them as dogs

Unworthy to be numbered in the church along with themselves hence it is that they dare to command exact threaten drive and oppress at their will in fine the Sacrament of orders has been and is a most admirable engine for the establishment of all those monstrous evils which have hitherto been wrought

And are yet being wrought in the church in this way Christian brotherhood has perished in this way shepherds have been turned into wolves servants into tyrants and ecclesiastics into more than earthly beings how if they were compelled to admit that we all so many as have been baptized are equally priests

We are so in fact and it is only a ministry which has been entrusted to them and that with our consent they would then know that they have no right to exercise command over us except so far as we voluntarily allow of it thus it is said Ye are a chosen generation

A royal priesthood a holy nation verse Peter 2:09 thus all we who are Christians are priests those whom we call priests are ministers chosen from among us to do all things in our name and the priesthood is nothing else than a ministry thus Paul says let a man so account of us as

The ministers of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of god 1st Corinthians 4 1 from this it follows that he who does not preach the word being called to this very office by the church is in no way a priest and that the sacrament of orders can be nothing else than a ceremony

For choosing preachers in the church this is the description given of the priest the priest’s lips should keep knowledge and they should seek the law at his mouth for he is the messenger of the Lord of hosts Malachi 2 7 be sure then that he who is not a messenger of

The Lord of hosts or who is called to anything else than a messenger ship if I may so speak is certainly not a priest as it is written because thou hast rejected knowledge I will also reject thee that thou shalt be no priest to me Isaiah 4 6 they are called pastors

Because it is their duty to give the people pasture that is to teach them therefore those who are ordained only for the purpose of reading the canonical hours and offering up masses are popish priests indeed but not Christian priests since they not only do not preach

But are not even called to be preachers nay it is the very thing intended that a priesthood of this kind shall stand on a different footing from the office of preacher thus they are priests of ours and missiles that is a kind of living images having the name of priests

But very far from being really so such priests as those whom Jerobom ordained in Beth oven taken from the lowest dregs of the people and not from the family of Levi see then how far the glory of the church has departed the whole world is full of priests bishops cardinals and clergy

Of whom however so far as concerns their official duty not one preaches unless he be called afresh to this by another calling besides his sacramental orders but thinks that he amply fulfills the purposes of that sacrament if he murmurs over in a vain repetition

The prayers which he has to read and celebrates masses even then he never prays these very hours or if he does pray he prays for himself while as the very height of perversity he offers up his masses as a sacrifice though the mass is really the use of the sacrament

Thus it is clear that those orders by which as a sacrament men of this kind or ordained to be clergy are in truth a mirror and entire figment invented by men who understand nothing of church affairs of the priesthood of the ministry of the word or of the sacraments

Such as is the sacrament such are the priests it makes do these errors and blindnesses has been added a greater degree of bondage in that in order to separate themselves the more widely from all other Christians as if these were profane they have burdened themselves with a most hypocritical celibacy

It was not enough for their hypocrisy and for the working of this error to prohibit bigamy that is the having of two wives at the same time as was done under the law for we know that that is the meaning of bigamy but they have interpreted it to be bigamy

If a man marries two versions in succession or a widow once Nate the most sanctified sanctity of this most sacral sanct sacrament goes so far that a man cannot even become a priest if he have married a virgin as long as she is alive as his wife

And in order to reach the very highest summit of sanctity a man is kept out of the priesthood if he had married one who was not a pure virgin though it were in ignorance and merely by an unfortunate chance but he may have polluted 600 harlots

Or corrupted any number of matrons or virgins or even kept many Ghana needs and it will be no impediment to his becoming a bishop or Cardinal or even pope then the saying of the Apostle the husband of one wife must be interpreted to mean the head of one church unless that magnificent dispenser

The pope bribe with money or LED by favor that is to say move by pious charity and urged by anxiety for the welfare of the churches chooses to unite to one man three 20 or 100 wives that is churches oh pontiffs worthy of this venerable sacrament of orders

Oh princes not of the Catholic churches but of the synagogues of Satan Yay a very darkness we may well cry out with Isaiah ye scornful men that rule this people which is in Jerusalem Isaiah 28:14 and with Amos woe to them that are at ease in Zion

And trust in the mountain of Samaria which are named chief of the nations to whom the house of Israel came Amos 6 1 oh what disgrace to the church of god from these monstrosities of sacridotalism where are there any bishops or priests who know the gospel not to say preach it

Why then do they boast other priesthood why do they wish to be thought holier and better and more powerful than other Christians whom they call the laity what unlearned person is not competent to read the hours monks hermits and private persons although layman may use the prayers of the hours

The duty of a priest is to preach and unless he does so he is just as much a priest as the picture of a man is a man does the ordination of such babbling priests the consecration of churches and bells or the confirmation of children constitute a bishop

Could not any Deacon or layman do these things it is the ministry of the word that makes a priest or a bishop fly then I counsel you fly young man if you wish to live in safety and do not seek admission to these holy rights

Unless you are either willing to preach the gospel or are able to believe that you are not made any better than the laity by this sacrament of orders to read the hours is nothing to offer the mass is to receive the sacrament what then remains in you

Which is not to be found in any layman your tancher and your vestments wretched priesthood which consists in taunture investments is it the oil poured on your fingers every Christian is anointed and sanctified in body and soul with the oil of the Holy Spirit and formerly was allowed to handle the sacrament

No less than the priests now do although our superstition now infutes it as a great crime to the laity if they touch even the bare cup or the corporal and not even a holy man is allowed to wash the altar claws and sacred napkins when I see how far the sanctuary

Sanctity of these orders has already gone I expected that the time will come when the laity will not even be allowed to touch the altar except when they offer money I almost burst with anger when I think of the impious tyranny’s of these reckless men who mock and ruin the liberty

And glory of the religion of Christ by such frivolous and purile triflings let every man then who has Learned that he is a Christian recognize what he is and be certain that we are all equally priests that is that we have the same power in the word and in the sacrament whatever although

It is not lawful for anyone to use this power except with a consent of the community or at the call of a superior for that which belongs to all in common no individual can irrigate to himself until he be called and therefore the sacrament of orders if it is anything

Is nothing but a certain right by which men are called to minister in the church furthermore the priesthood is properly nothing else than the ministry of the word I mean the word of the gospel not of the law that the acanet is a ministry not for reading the gospel or the Epistle

As the practice is nowadays but for distributing the wealth of the church among the poor that the priests may be relieved of the burden of temporal things and they give themselves more freely to prayer and to the word it was for this purpose as we read in the acts of the Apostles

That deacons were appointed thus he who does not know the gospel or does not preach it is not only not priest or bishop but a kind of pest to the church who under the false title of priest or bishop as it were in sheep’s clothing hinders the gospel and acts the part of

The wolf in the church therefore those priests and bishops with whom the church is crowded at the present day unless they work out their salvation on another plan that is unless they acknowledge themselves to be neither priests nor bishops and repent of bearing the name of an office the work of which they

Either do not know or cannot fulfill and thus the floor with prayers and tears the miserable fate of their hypocrisy are verily the people of eternal tradition concerning whom the saying will be fulfilled my people are gone into captivity because they have no knowledge and their honorable men are famished and their multitude

Dried up with thirst therefore hell hath enlarged herself and opened her mouth without measure and their glory and their multitude and their pump and he that rejoiceth shall descend into it Isaiah 5:13 and 14 o word of dread for our age in which Christians are swallowed up in such an abyss of evil

As far then as we are taught from the scriptures since what we call the priesthood is a ministry I do not see at all for what reason a man who has once been made priest cannot become a layman again since he differs in no wise from a layman except by his ministerial office

But it is so far from impossible for a man to be set aside from the ministry that even now this punishment is constantly inflicted on offending priests who are either suspended for a time or deprived forever of their office for that fiction of an indelible character

Has long ago become an object of derision I grant that the Pope may impress this character though Christ knows nothing of it and for this very reason the priest thus consecrated is the lifelong servant in bondsman not of Christ but of the Pope as it is this day but unless I deceive myself

If at some future time this sacrament and figment fall to the ground the papacy itself will scarcely hold its ground and we shall recover that joyful liberty in which we shall understand that we are all equal in every right and shall shake off the yoke of tyranny

And know that he who is a Christian has Christ and he who has Christ has all things that are Christ and can do all things on which I will write more fully and more vigorously when I find that what I have said here displeases my friends the papists end of Section 6

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