Page:Luther's correspondence and other contemporary letters 1521-1530.djvu/86

 weighty passages of Scripture that he has got the Wittcn- bergers badly frightened. Melanchthon has written the Elec- tor to have Luther sent hither, or else to let this man go to Luther. You would find him a man otherwise very simple. Melanchthon continually clings to his side, listens to him, won- ders at him and venerates him. He is deeply disturbed at not being able to satisfy that man in any way. He does not cease writing to Luther and the Elector that opportunity should be given for a conference at which the texts allied by each might be compared. . ..

Sas. NICHOLAS WILSON TO THE READER.

Letters and Papers of Henry VIII, iii, no. 1273.

(London), January i, 1522.

This letter is the preface to the first printed edition of Bishop Fisher's sermon against Luther {supra, no. 482), translated into Latin by Richard Pace. Wilson was a well known Catholic divine (ti548)> who had been educated at Cambridge. DNB.

Wilson alludes to the rapid diffusion of Lutheranism — ^the activity and pertinacity of its supporters — the confusion and dissensions occasioned by it. Unequal to the task alone, he says that Luther surrounded himself with shrewd men, who are at the same time excellent scholars, but more studious of popularity than truth. His influence over them is such that when once they have adopted his teachings they despise all others, consider themselves the exclusive possessors of sacred leaming, and wrest the Scriptures to their will. "When Luther has once rendered them invincible, he teaches them to simulate constancy, frugality, labor, humility, the greatest order and zeal for propagating the glory of Christ, and equal grief and indignation against any who oppose what they call sound doctrine; in short, every virtue which pertains to probity or holiness of life." He admits that Luther is a very learned man, and one who would have been the greatest ornament to die Church of Christ, if his innocence had equaled his leam- iqg. But he has now become so insanely arrogant as to claim for himself the exclusive interpretation of Scripture; taxing die Fathers of the Church with blindness, inconsistency and error. He alone is on Christ's side, and all who contradict

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