The History of the Reformation in the Sixteenth Century (Vol.1-5). Jean-Henri Merle d'Aubigne
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the high priest or any other great personage. He usually chose persons who were low and despised,—on one occasion he even chose a shepherd, (Amos). At all times the saints have had to rebuke the great—kings, princes, priests, the learned—at the risk of their lives. And under the New Dispensation has it not been the same? Ambrose in his day was alone; after him Jerome was alone; later still Augustine was alone.... I do not say that I am a prophet,313 but I say they ought to fear just because I am alone and they are many. One thing I am sure of—the Word of God is with me and is not with them.
"It is said also," continues he, "that I advance novelties, and that it is impossible to believe that all other doctors have for so long a period been mistaken.
"No, I do not preach novelties. But I say that all Christian doctrines have disappeared, even among those who ought to have preserved them; I mean bishops and the learned. I doubt not, however, that the truth has remained in some hearts, should it even have been in infants in the cradle.314 Poor peasants, mere babes, now understand Jesus Christ better than the pope, the bishops, and the doctors.
"I am accused of rejecting the holy doctors of the Church. I reject them not: but since all those doctors try to prove their writings by Holy Scripture, it must be clearer and more certain than they are. Who thinks of proving an obscure discourse by one still more obscure? Thus, then, necessity constrains us to recur to the Bible, as all the doctors do, and to ask it to decide upon their writings; for the Bible is lord and master.
"But it is said men in power persecute him. And is it not clear from Scripture that persecutors are usually in the wrong, and the persecuted in the right; that the majority are always in favour of falsehood, and the minority in favour of truth? The truth has, at all times, caused clamour."315
Luther afterwards reviews the propositions condemned in the bull as heretical, and demonstrates their truth, by proofs drawn from Holy Scripture. With what force, in particular, does he now maintain the doctrine of grace!
"What," says he, "will nature be able, before and without grace, to hate sin, avoid it, and repent of it; while that, even since grace is come, this nature loves sin, seeks it, desires it, and ceases not to combat grace, and to be irritated against it; a fact for which all the saints continually do groan!... It is as if it were said that a large tree, which I am unable to bend by exerting my utmost strength, bends of itself on my letting it go; or that a torrent, which walls and dykes cannot arrest, is arrested the instant I leave it to itself.... No, it is not by considering sin and its consequences that we attain to repentance, but by contemplating Jesus Christ, his wounds, and boundless love.316 The knowledge of sin must result from repentance, and not repentance from the knowledge of sin. Knowledge is the fruit, repentance is the tree. With us the fruit grows upon the tree, but it would seem that, in the states of the holy father, the tree grows upon the fruit."
The courageous doctor, though he protests, also retracts some of his propositions. Surprise will cease when his mode of doing it is known. After quoting the four propositions on indulgences, condemned by the bull,317 he simply adds
"In honour of the holy and learned bull I retract all that I have ever taught touching indulgences. If my books have been justly burned, it must certainly be because I conceded something to the pope in the doctrine of indulgences; wherefore, I myself condemn them to the fire."
He also retracts in regard to John Huss. "I say now, not that some articles, but all the articles of John Huss, are Christian throughout. The pope, in condemning Huss, condemned the gospel. I have done five times more than he, and yet I much fear have not done enough. Huss merely says, that a wicked pope is not a member of Christendom; but I, were St. Peter himself sitting to-day at Rome, would deny that he was pope by the appointment of God."
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