“I do not say that I am a prophet, but I do say that the Papists have the more reason to fear I am one, the more they despise me and esteem themselves. God is wonderful in His works and judgments.... If I am not a prophet yet I am certain within myself that the Word of God is with me and not with them; for I have Scripture on my side, but they, only their own doctrine.”[1211]
“There were plenty donkeys in the world in Balaam’s time, yet God did not speak through all of them, but only through Balaam’s ass.”[1212] “They also say that I bring forward new things, and that it is not to be supposed that all others were in the wrong for so long. To this reproof the ancient prophets also had to listen.... Christ’s teaching was different from what the Jews had heard for a thousand years. On the strength of this objection the heathen, too, might well have despised the Apostles, seeing that their ancestors had believed otherwise for more than three thousand years.”[1213]
“I say that all Christian truth had perished amongst those who ought to have been its upholders, viz. the bishops and learned men. Yet I do not doubt that the truth has survived in some hearts, even though only in those of babes in the cradle.”[1214]
“I do not reject them [all the Doctors of the Church] ... but I refuse to believe them except in so far as they prove their contentions from that Scripture which has never erred.... Necessity forces us to test every Doctor’s writings by the Bible and to judge and decide upon them. The standing as well as the number of my foes is to me a proof that I am in the right.”[1215]
“Were I opposed only by a few insignificant men I should know that what I wrote and taught was not from God.... Truth has ever caused disturbance, and false teachers have ever cried ‘Peace, peace.’”[1216]
“They say they don’t want to be reformed by such a beggar....” “Daniel has arisen in his place and is determined to perform what the angel Gabriel has pointed out to him; for the same prophet told us how he would rise up at the end of the world. That he is now doing.” “God has made Luther a Samson over them; He is God and His ways are wonderful.... Let good people say the best they can of me and let the Papists talk and lie to their hearts’ content.”[1217]
Neither councils nor reformations will help them. “They wish to reform and govern the Church according to their own lights and by human wisdom; but that is something that lies far above the counsel of men. When our Lord God wished to reform His Church He did so ‘divinitus,’ not by human methods; thus it was at the time of Josue, of the Judges, Samuel, the Apostles and also in my own time.”[1218]
Even should our work be frustrated, yet the “power of the Almighty could make a new Luther out of nothing.” In this wise “God raised up Noe when He was obliged to destroy the world by the deluge. And, in Abraham’s time, when the whole world was plunged in darkness and under the empire of Satan, Abraham and his seed came as a great light; and He drowned King Pharao and slew seven great nations in Canaan. And again when Caiphas crucified the Son of God ... He rose again from the dead and Caiphas was brought to nought.”[1219]
“Christ was not so greatly considered, nor had He ever such a number of hearers as the Apostles had and we now have; Christ Himself said to His disciples: ‘You will do greater works than I,’ and, truly enough, at the time of the Apostles, and now amongst us, the Gospel and the Divine Word is preached much more powerfully and is more widely spread than at the time of Christ.”[1220]