"The world I know is full of wranglers who obscure the doctrine of justification by faith, and of fanatics who persecute it. Do not be astonished at it, but continue to defend it with courage, for it is the heel of the seed of the woman that shall bruise the head of the serpent.[772]
"Beware also of the jurisdiction of the bishops, for fear we should have soon to recommence a more terrible struggle than the first. They will take our concessions widely, very widely, always more widely, and will give us theirs narrowly, very narrowly, and always more narrowly.[773] All these negotiations are impossible, unless the Pope should renounce his Papacy.
"A pretty motive indeed our adversaries assign! They cannot, say they, restrain their subjects, if we do not publish everywhere that they have the truth for them: as if God only taught his Word, in order that our enemies might at pleasure tyrannize over their people.
THE WORD ABOVE THE CHURCH.
"They cry out that we condemn all the Church. No, we do not condemn it; but as for them, they condemn all the Word of God, and the Word of God is more than the Church."[774]
This important declaration of the Reformers decides the controversy between the Evangelical Christians and the Papacy: unfortunately we have often seen Protestants return, on this fundamental point, to the error of Rome, and set the visible Church above the Word of God.
"I write to you now," continues Luther, "to believe with all of us (and that through obedience to Jesus Christ), that Campeggio is a famous demon.[775] I cannot tell how violently these conditions agitate me which you propose. The plan of Campeggio and the Pope has been to try us first by threats, and then, if they do not succeed, by stratagems; you have triumphed over the first attack, and sustained the terrible coming of Cæsar: now, then, for the second. Act with courage, and do not yield to the adversaries except what can be proved with evidence from the very Word of God.
"But if, which Christ forbid! you do not put forward all the Gospel; if, on the contrary, you shut up that glorious eagle in a sack; Luther—doubt it not!—Luther will come and gloriously deliver the eagle.[776] As certainly as Christ lives, that shall be done!"
PAPIST INFATUATION.
Thus spoke Luther, but in vain: everything in Augsburg was tending towards approaching ruin; Melancthon had a bandage over his eyes that nothing could tear off. He no longer listened to Luther, and cared not for popularity. "It does not become us," said he, "to be moved by the clamours of the vulgar:[777] we must think of peace and of posterity. If we repeal the episcopal jurisdiction, what will be the consequence to our descendants? The secular powers care nothing about the interests of religion.[778] Besides too much dissimilarity in the Churches is injurious to peace: we must unite with the bishops, lest the infamy of schism should overwhelm us for ever."[779]