Luther’s Separation from Rome
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defend these theses next day at the university, against all who should
see fit to attack them.
His propositions attracted universal attention. They were read and
re-read and repeated in every direction. Great excitement was created
in the university and in the whole city. By these theses it was shown
that the power to grant the pardon of sin, and to remit its penalty, had
never been committed to the pope or to any other man. The whole
scheme was a farce,—an artifice to extort money by playing upon the
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superstitions of the people,—a device of Satan to destroy the souls of
all who should trust to its lying pretensions. It was also clearly shown
that the gospel of Christ is the most valuable treasure of the church,
and that the grace of God, therein revealed, is freely bestowed upon
all who seek it by repentance and faith.
Luther’s theses challenged discussion; but no one dared accept the
challenge. The questions which he proposed had in a few days spread
through all Germany, and in a few weeks they had sounded throughout
Christendom. Many devoted Romanists, who had seen and lamented
the terrible iniquity prevailing in the church, but had to know how to
arrest its progress, read the propositions with great joy, recognizing in
them the voice of God. They felt that the Lord had graciously set his
hand to arrest the rapidly swelling tide of corruption that was issuing
from the see of Rome. Princes and magistrates secretly rejoiced that a
check was to be put upon the arrogant power which denied the right of
appeal from its decisions.
But the sin-loving and superstitious multitudes were terrified as
the sophistries that had soothed their fears were swept away. Crafty
ecclesiastics, interrupted in their work of sanctioning crime, and seeing
their gains endangered, were enraged, and rallied to uphold their pre-
tensions. The reformer had bitter accusers to meet. Some charged him
with acting hastily and from impulse. Others accused him of presump-
tion, declaring that he was not directed of God, but was acting from
pride and forwardness. “Who does not know,” he responded, “that
one can seldom advance a new idea without having some appearance
of pride, and without being accused of exciting quarrels? Why were
Christ and all the martyrs put to death?—Because they appeared proud
despisers of the wisdom of the times in which they lived, and because
they brought forward new truths without having first consulted the
oracles of the old opinions.”
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