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Luther’s Separation from Rome
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virtue of his certificates of pardon, all the sins which the purchaser
should afterward desire to commit would be forgiven him, and that
even repentance was not indispensable. More than this, he assured
his hearers that the indulgences had power to save not only the living
but the dead; that the very moment the money should clink against
the bottom of his chest, the soul in whose behalf it had been paid
would escape from purgatory and make its way to Heaven.
When Simon Magus offered to purchase of the apostles the
power to work miracles, Peter answered him, “Thy money perish
with thee, because thou hast thought that the gift of God may be
purchased with money.” [
Acts 8:20
.] But Tetzel’s offer was grasped
by eager thousands. Gold and silver flowed into his treasury. A
salvation that could be bought with money was more easily obtained
than that which requires repentance, faith, and diligent effort to resist
and overcome sin.
The doctrine of indulgences had been opposed by men of learn-
ing and piety in the Romish Church, and there were many who had
no faith in pretensions so contrary to both reason and revelation. Yet
no bishop dared lift his voice against the fraud and corruption of this
iniquitous traffic. The minds of men were becoming disturbed and
uneasy, and many eagerly inquired if God would not work through
some instrumentality for the purification of his church.
[104]
Luther, though still a papist of the straitest sort, was filled with
horror at the blasphemous assumptions of the indulgence-mongers.
Many of his own congregation had purchased certificates of pardon,
and they soon began to come to their pastor, confessing their various
sins, and expecting absolution, not because they were penitent and
wished to reform, but on the ground of the indulgence. Luther
refused them absolution, and warned them that unless they should
repent, and reform their lives, they must perish in their sins. In
great perplexity they sought out Tetzel, and informed him that an
Augustine monk had treated his letters with contempt. The friar was
filled with rage. He uttered the most terrible curses, caused fires
to be lighted in the public square, and declared that he had orders
from the pope to burn the heretics who dared oppose his most holy
indulgences.
Luther now entered boldly upon his work as a champion of
the truth. His voice was heard from the pulpit in earnest, solemn