But let every one beware of the poisoned tongues and devil-glosses which can invent a love of such description. Christ speaks of the highest, strongest, best love of which man is capable. He will not be loved with a false, divided love; here there must be whole-hearted and pure love, or none at all. And the meaning of Christ is that in St. Peter's person He is instructing all preachers how they must be equipped; as if He would say: "See, Peter, if you shall preach My word, and thereby feed My sheep, there shall rise against you the powers of hell, devil, world, and all that therein is, and you must be willing to venture body, life, goods, honor, friends, and everything which you have; and this you will not do if you do not love Me and cleave close to Me. And if you should begin to preach, and the sheep were being fed in the pastures, and the wolves would break in, and you would then flee as a hireling, and not venture your life, but leave the sheep without care, to the wolves [John 10:12 ff.], it would have been better that you had never begun to preach and feed the sheep." For if he falls, who preaches the Word and should stand at the head, offence is given to every one, the Word of God is brought to deepest disgrace, and more harm is done to the sheep than if they had no shepherd at all. Christ cares much for the feeding of the sheep; He cares nothing at all how many crowns the pope wears, and how in all his splendor he lifts himself far above the kings of the world.
Let any one tell if he can, whether the papacy has such love, or if Christ, in these words, has instituted such a worthless authority as the papacy is. Without doubt he is truly a pope who preaches with such love; but where can such a one be found? There is no passage that gives me as much sorrow in my preaching as this one does—of love I feel not much, of preaching I do more than enough. They accuse me of being rabid and revengeful; I fear that I have done too little. I should have pulled the wool[76] much harder for the ravening wolves, who never cease to rend the Scripture, to poison and pervert it to the great injury of the poor, forsaken sheep of Christ. If I had only loved them enough I should have dealt quite differently with the pope and his Romanists, who with their laws and their prattle, their letters of indulgence, and the rest of their foolery, bring to naught out faith and God's Word. They make for us what laws they will, only to capture us, and then sell them to us again for money;[77] with their mouths they weave snares for money, and yet boast that they are shepherds and keepers of sheep, whereas they are truly wolves, thieves, and murderers, as the Lord says in John x.
I know right well that this little word, "love," scares the pope and his Romanists and makes them weak and weary, nor are they willing that it should be pressed, for it overturns the whole papacy. It made Dr. Eck weary at Leipzig;[78] and whom would it not make weary, since Christ directly commands Peter not to feed the sheep except there be love? He must have love or there can be no "feeding." I shall wait a while now to see how they will parry this thrust. If they prick me with "feeding," I will prick them much harder with "loving," and we shall see who prevails. This is the reason why some of the popes in their Canon laws so neatly pass in silence this word "love," and make so much ado about "feeding," thinking that thereby they have preached only to drunken Germans, who will not notice how the hot porridge burns their tongue. This is the reason, too, why the pope and the Romanists cannot bear any questioning and investigating of the foundation of papal power, and every one is accused of doing a scandalous, presumptuous and heretical thing, who is not satisfied with their mere assertions, but seeks for its real basis. But that one should ask if God is God, and seek in frivolous presumption to penetrate all His mysteries, they suffer with equanimity, and it does not concern them. Whence this perverted game? From this, that, as Christ says, John iii, "He that doeth evil, feareth the light." [John 3:20] Where is the thief or robber who courts investigation? Thus the evil conscience cannot bear the light; but truth loveth the light, and is an enemy to darkness, even as Christ says in the same chapter, "He that doeth truth, cometh to the light." [John 3:21]
Now we see that the two sayings of Christ, spoken to Peter, on which they build the papacy, are stronger against the papacy than all others, and the Romanists can produce nothing that does not make them a laughing-stock. I shall let the matter rest here, and pass by whatever else this miserable Romanist spues out in his book; since I have controverted it all many times before, and now also some others have effectually done so in Latin.[79] I find nothing in it, except that he soils the Holy Scriptures like a sniveling child; in no place does he show a mastery of his words or an understanding of his subject.
[Sidenote: The Conclusion of the Matter]
On the subject of the papacy I have come to this conclusion: Since we observe that the pope has full authority over all our bishops, and has not attained it apart from the providence of God—although I do not believe that it is a gracious, but rather a wrathful providence which permits men, as a plague on the world, to exalt themselves and oppress others—therefore I do not desire that any one should resist the pope, but rather bow to the providence of God, honor this authority, and endure it with all patience, just as if the Turk ruled over us; in this wise it will do no harm.
I contend for but two things. First: I will not suffer any man to establish new articles of faith, and to abuse all other Christians in the world, and slander and brand them as heretics, apostates and unbelievers, simply because they are not under the pope. It is enough that we let the pope be pope, and it is not needful that, for his sake, God and His saints on earth should be blasphemed. Second: All that the pope decrees and does I will receive, on this condition, that I first test it by the Holy Scriptures. He must remain under Christ, and submit to be judged by the Holy Scriptures.
But these Roman knaves come along, place him above Christ, and make him a judge over the Scriptures; they say that he cannot err, and whatever is dreamed at Rome, nay, everything which they dare to come out with, they would prescribe for us as articles of faith. And as if that were not enough, they would introduce a new kind of faith, so that we are to believe what we can see with our bodily eyes; whereas faith, by its very nature, is of the things which no one sees or feels, as St. Paul says in Hebrews xi [Heb. 11:1]. Now the Roman authority and fellowship[80] is a bodily thing, and can be seen by any one. If the pope came to that—which may God forbid!—I would say right out that he is the real Antichrist, of whom all the Scriptures speak.
If they grant me these two things, I will let the pope remain, nay, help to exalt him as him as they please; if not, he shall be to me neither pope nor Christian. He that must do it may make an idol of him; I will not worship him.
Moreover, I would be truly glad if kings, princes, and all the nobles would take hold, and turn the knaves from Rome out of the country, and keep the appointments to bishoprics and benefices out of their hands. How has Roman avarice come to usurp all the foundations, bishoprics and benefices of our fathers? Who has ever read or heard of such monstrous robbery? Do we not also have the people who need them, while out of our poverty we must enrich the ass-drivers and stable-boys, nay, the harlots and knaves at Rome, who look upon us as nothing else but arrant fools, and make us the objects of their vile mockery?