THE PAPACY DESCRIBED.
The commissions made their report: people were astonished at it. Never had men spoken out so freely against the pope and the bishops. The commission of the princes, in which the ecclesiastics and the laymen were in equal numbers, proposed a fusion of Popery and Reform. "The Priests would do better to marry," said they, "than to keep women of ill-fame in their houses; every man should be at liberty to communicate under one or both forms; German and Latin may be equally employed in the Lord's Supper and in Baptism; as for the other sacraments, let them be preserved, but let them be administered gratuitously. Finally, let the Word of God be preached according to the interpretation of the Church (this was the demand of Rome), but always explaining Scripture by Scripture" (this was the great principle of the Reformation). Thus the first step was taken towards a national union. Still a few more efforts, and the whole German race would be walking in the direction of the Gospel.
The evangelical Christians, at the sight of this glorious prospect, redoubled their exertions. "Stand fast in the doctrine," said the Elector of Saxony to his councillors.[20] At the same time hawkers in every part of the city were selling Christian pamphlets, short and easy to read, written in Latin and in German, and ornamented with engravings, in which the errors of Rome were vigorously attacked.[21] One of these books was entitled, The Papacy with its Members painted and described by Doctor Luther. In it figured the pope, the cardinal, and then all the religious orders, exceeding sixty, each with their costumes and description in verse. Under the picture of one of these orders were the following lines:
Greedy priests, see, roll in gold
Forgetful of the humble Jesu:
under another:
We forbid you to behold
The Bible, lest it should mislead you![22]
and under a third:
We can fast and pray the harder
With an overflowing larder.[23]
"Not one of these orders," said Luther to the reader, "thinks either of faith or charity. This one wears the tonsure, the other a hood; this a cloak, that a robe. One is white, another black, a third gray, and a fourth blue. Here is one holding a looking-glass, there one with a pair of scissors. Each has his playthings......Ah! these are the palmer worms, the locusts, the canker-worms, and the caterpillars which, as Joel saith, have eaten up all the earth."[24]
THE DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM.