[German Culture Past and Present by Ernest Belfort Bax]@TWC D-Link bookGerman Culture Past and Present CHAPTER II 4/17
There is one in Saxony who is called Luther, of whom many pious and honest folk tell how that he doth write so consolingly the good evangelical (_evangelische_) truth.
But again I hear that the Pope and the cardinals at Rome have put him under the ban as a heretic; and certain of our own preachers, too, scold him from their pulpits as a knave, a misleader, and a heretic.
I am utterly confounded, and know not where to turn; albeit my reason and heart do speak to me even as Luther writeth.
But yet again it bethinks me that when the Pope, the cardinal, the bishop, the doctor, the monk, and the priest, for the greater part are against him, and so that all save the common men and a few gentlemen, doctors, councillors, and knights, are his adversaries, what shall I do ?" "For answer, dear friend, get thee back and search the Scriptures, and thou shalt find that so it hath gone with all the holy prophets even as it now fareth with Doctor Martin Luther, who is in truth a godly Christian and manly heart and only true Pope and Apostle, when he the true office of the Apostles publicly fulfilleth....
If the godly man Luther were pleasing to the world, that were indeed a true sign that his doctrine were not from God; for the word of God is a fiery sword, a hammer that breaketh in pieces the rocks, and not a fox's tail or a reed that may be bent according to our pleasure." Seventeen noxious qualities of the wolf are adduced--his ravenousness, his cunning, his falseness, his cowardice, his thirst for robbery, amongst others.
<<Back Index Next>> D-Link book Top TWC mobile books
|