Luther’s Separation from Rome
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The reformer’s writings and his doctrine were extending to every
nation in Christendom. The work spread to Switzerland and Holland.
Copies of his writings found their way to France and Spain. In England
his teachings were received as the word of life. To Belgium and Italy
also the truth had extended. Thousands were awakening from their
death-like stupor to the joy and hope of a life of faith.
Rome became more and more exasperated by the attacks of Luther,
and it was declared by some of his fanatical opponents, even by doctors
in Catholic universities, that he who should kill the rebellious monk
would be without sin. One day a stranger, with a pistol hidden under
his cloak, approached the reformer, and inquired why he went thus
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alone. “I am in the hands of God,” answered Luther. “He is my help
and my shield. What can man do unto me?” Upon hearing these words,
the stranger turned pale, and fled away, as from the presence of the
angels of Heaven.
Rome was bent upon the destruction of Luther; but God was his
defense. His doctrines were heard everywhere,—in convents, in cot-
tages, in the castles of the nobles, in the universities, in the palaces of
kings; and noble men were rising on every hand to sustain his efforts.
It was about this time that Luther, reading the works of Huss,
found that the great truth of justification by faith, which he himself
was seeking to uphold and teach, had been held by the Bohemian
reformer. “We have all,” said Luther, “Paul, Augustine, and myself,
been Hussites without knowing it.” “God will surely visit it upon the
world,” he continued, “that the truth was preached to it a century ago,
and burned.”
In an appeal to the emperor and nobility of Germany in behalf of
the Reformation of Christianity, Luther wrote concerning the pope: “It
is monstrous to see him who is called the vicar of Christ, displaying
a magnificence unrivaled by that of any emperor. Is this to represent
the poor and lowly Jesus or the humble St. Peter? The pope, say they,
is the lord of the world! But Christ, whose vicar he boasts of being,
said, ‘My kingdom is not of this world.’ Can the dominions of a vicar
extend beyond those of his superior?”
He wrote thus of the universities: “I fear much that the universities
will be found to be great gates leading down to hell, unless they take
diligent care to explain the Holy Scriptures, and to engrave them in the
hearts of our youth. I advise no one to place his child where the Holy