Page:Readings in European History Vol 2.djvu/119

 Martin Luther and his Revolt against the Church 8 1 in alien Historien gelobt sind, zu lehren unbestandig, mein- How the eidig, Verrater, Bosewichte, treulos sein ? P°P e had Gott hat geboten, man soil Eid und Treue halten auch den thTGennans Feinden ! und du unterwindest dich solches Gebot zu losen, setzest in deinen ketzerischen, antichristlichen Dekretalen, du habest Macht daruber, und liigt durch deinen Hals und Feder der bose Satan, als er nie gelogen hat, zwingst und dringst die Schrift nach deinen Mutwillen ! Ach Christe, mein Herr, sieh herab, lass herbrechen deinen jiingsten Tag und zerstore des Teufels Nest zu Rom ! After proving, as he hoped, that the supremacy of the pope was all a terrible mistake and that the secular rulers were free and in duty bound to correct the evils in the Church, Luther sketches a plan for preventing money from going to Italy, for reducing the number of idle, begging monks, of harmful pilgrimages, and inex- pedient holidays. Luxury and drinking were to be re- pressed, the universities, especially the divinity schools, reorganized, etc. VIII. Luther rejects the Doctrine of the Seven Sacraments In his Address to the German Nobility Luther had 247. Lu- said little or nothing of theology or religious doctrine. ] ^ S hCap- But three months later (September, 1520) he attacked ^j^ 6 the whole sacramental system of the mediaeval Church in his Babylonish Captivity of the Church. Many reformers like Glapion, the Franciscan confessor of Charles V, who had read the Address with equanimity if not approval, were shocked by Luther's audacity in rejecting the ancient conceptions of the Church. To begin. I must deny that there are seven sacraments, and must lay it down for the time being that there are