Martin Luther: Betrayer of Church, Friends, and Supporters --- Question: How can you hate the Catholic Church and the Papacy so much and still get a statue in the Vatican?

October 31st, 2017, the anniversary of my baptism, is also the 500th anniversary of Martin Luther's purported nailing of the 95 theses on the Church of All Saints doors at Wittenberg, Germany. Even though many German scholars deny that this particular event actually happened as it has been told down through the ages, it still can be considered the anniversary of the Lutheran heresy and of the devastation that hit the Catholic Church as a result of Luther's revolt.

In commemoration of this event, and with a Catholic intent to reveal the true Martin Luther --- and not the fanciful Martin Luther portrayed by Francis in the ceremonies had over the last year in his honor.

We can see that Luther betrayed everything in his life, his religious Order, his Church, his friends, and his supporters to satisfy his own cosmic ego. The following are sections from several lectures that I have given on Martin Luther over the past years from his birth and his harsh upbringing to his still "revolting" death.

As opposed to the present occupants of the Vatican who celebrate the Heresy of Martin Luther by producing a postage stamp in his honor, I would like to present the true Luther, primarily by using his own words. I will present Luther's own words as italicized text.

The two men presenting their works to the Crucified Christ are Luther and Melanchthon, Luther's assistant and co-worker.

Luther: One Monk Against Christendom

1)     Martin Luder: Home, Storm, Monastery, Priesthood

Luther’s Early Life:

Luther was born at Eisleben in Germany on the night of the 10^th of November 1483 about 45 years after Gutenburg invented the printing press and 9 years before Columbus discovered America.

On the day following his birth, he was brought to St. Peter’s Church, where he was baptized and given the name Martin in honor of the saint whose feast it was. His father’s name was John Luder, which was only later changed to Luther. To Melanchton he said: “I am a peasant’s son. My father, my grandfather, all my ancestors were genuine peasants. My father was a poor miner.” Both parents were, according to the Swiss Kessler, “spare, short, and dark complexioned.” The father was a rugged, stern, irascible character and the mother was conspicuous for “modesty, the fear of God, and prayerfulness.”

John Luder, shortly after his marriage to Margaret Ziegler we find him abruptly abandoning his small holding in the little peasant township and hurriedly seeking a new home and a new occupation about 100 miles away in another hamlet Eisleben, when his first child was born. According to Henry Mayhew, a Protestant, who actually investigated this case, for that, to quote this member of the family that published Punch magazine, “The simple fact, then, would appear to be that John Luder had, in a dispute, stricken a herdsman dead to the earth by means of a horse bridle which he happened to have in his hand at the time, and was thereupon forced to abscond from the officers of justice as hurriedly  as he could.

According to the German historian Ortmann, “This misfortune of John Luder lives still in the minds of the Mὃrha peasantry. The villagers there still tell you not only the same tale, but they show you the very spot – the field in which the tragedy occurred.”

For years their means were  scant enough and the struggle to meet the support of the household was both hard and grinding….In this home…there was unfortunately one great deficiency more intolerable than family life. Childish fun and frolic which beget happiness and good cheer found no encouragement in the Luther family circle. Home life was exacting, cold, dull, and cheerless. The father was stern, harsh, exacting, and the mother was altogether too given to inflict the severest corporal punishments. He tells us in his “Table Talk” (Tischreden) that on one occasion his father, in a fit  of uncontrollable rage, beat him so mercilessly that he became a fugitive from home and was on this account so “embittered against him that he had to win me to himself again.” At another time, he tells us, “his mother in her inflexible rigor flogged him, until the blood flowed, on account of a worthless nut.” The same happened to the young Martin in school. In this regard he states that he was beaten 15 times in succession during one morning [2 too many], and to the best of his knowledge, without much fault of his own. “This severity shattered my nervous system for life.”

But the claim by historians which will arguably be most upsetting for followers is the recently uncovered written evidence that it was not, as thought, a lightning bolt which led to the then 21-year-old's spontaneous declaration he wanted to become a monk. Rather, it was his desperation to escape an impending arranged marriage. (Oct. 25, 2008, The Guardian, Kate Connolly,  Researchers Dig Up the Dirt on Father of Protestantism)

A)    Crisis  over Indulgences:

Preface to the Complete Edition of Luther’s Latin Writings, Wittenburg, 1545 – one year before his death.

For a long time I strenuously resisted those who wanted my book, or more correctly my confused lucubrations, published. I did not want the labors of the ancients to be buried by my new works and the reader kept from reading them.

But my books, as it happened, are accordingly crude and disordered chaos, which is not easy to arrange even for me. Persuaded by these reasons, I wished that all my books were buried in perpetual oblivion, so that there might be room for better ones.

His patron, John Frederick, Duke and Elector of Saxony.

So you will find how much and what important matters I humbly conceded to the pope in my earlier writings, which I later and now hold and execrate as the worst blasphemies and abomination. At first I was alone and certainly very inept and unskilled in conducting such great affairs. For I got into these turmoils by accident and not by or intention.

Hence, when in the year 1517 indulgences were sold (sic) (I wanted to say promoted) in these regions for most shameful gain --- I was then a preacher, a young doctor of theology, so to speak – and I began to dissuade the people and to urge them not to listen to the clamors of the indulgence hawkers; they had better things to do. I certainly thought that in this case I should have a protector in the pope, on whose trustworthiness I then leaned strongly, for in his decrees he most clearly damned the immoderation of the quaestors, as he called the indulgence preachers.

Soon afterwards I wrote two letters, on to Albrecht, the Archbishop of Mainz who got half of the money from the indulgence, the pope the other half --- something I  did not know at the time --- the other to the ordinary Jerome, bishop  of Brandenburg.  I begged them to stop the shameless blasphemy of the questers. But the poor little brother was despised. Despised, I published the Theses….in which, to the pope’s honor, I developed the idea that indulgences should indeed not be condemned,  but that good works of love should be preferred to them.

I am accused by the pope, am cited in Rome, and the whole papacy rises up against me alone.

Here, in my case, you may see how hard it is to struggle out of and emerge from errors which have been confirmed by the example of the whole world and have by long habit become a part of nature.

"The Pagan Servitude of the Church" (1520) It is 2 years since I wrote on indulgences, but I now greatly regret having published that little book [on indulgences: Resolutiones disputationum (1518)]. At that time I was still entangled in the gross superstitions of a masterful Rome [the Holy Roman Catholic Religion], but I still thought that indulgences ought not to be wholly rejected, as THEY HAD RECEIVED THE APPROVAL OF A VERY LARGE NUMBER OF PEOPLE [all of Christendom]. My attitude was not strange, for otherwise I should have been alone in trying to move the mountain. Afterwards, thanks to….those friars who strenuously defended indulgences [and hence went against Luther’s teaching and words], I saw that these were simply impositions on the part of the hypocrites of Rome to rob men of their money and their faith in God. I now wish I  could prevail upon the booksellers, and PERSUADE MY READERS TO BURN THE WHOLE  OF MY BOOKLETS ON INDULGENCES AND INSTEAD OF ALL I HAVE WRITTEN ON THIS SUBJECT.”

Indulgences are Evils devised by the Toadies at Rome: I SAW CLEARLY THAT THE PAPACY WAS TO BE UNDERSTOOD AS THE KINGDOM OF BABYLON AND THE REGIME OF NIMROD, THE MIGHTY HUNTER. HENCE ONCE AGAIN, AND IN ORDER THAT MY FRIENDS MAY BE WELL ON THE RIGHT SIDE, I BEG BOTH THE BOOKSELLERS AND MY READERS TO BURN WHATEVER I HAVE PUBLISHED ON THIS SUBJECT.

Conclusion: Martin Luther advises us to BURN HIS BOOKS!

B)     Manic Attack on the Church: The New Gospel of Faith Without Works

1518: I had also acquired the beginning of the knowledge of Christ and faith in him, i.e., not by works by faith in Christ are we made righteous and saved. Pope is not the head of the church by divine right. Nevertheless, I did not draw the conclusion, namely, that the pope must be the devil. For what is not of God must of necessity be of the devil.

I can bear with a less hateful spirit those who cling too pertinaciously to the papacy, particularly those who have not read the sacred Scriptures, or also the profane, since I, who read the sacred Scriptures most diligently so many years, still clung to it so tenaciously.

1519, Leo X.

But up till then in was not the cold blood about the heart, but a single word in Chapter 1 (:17), “In it the righteousness of God is revealed,” that had stood in my way. For I hated that word “righteousness of God,” which, according to the use and custom of all teachers, I had been taught to understand philosophically regarding the formal and active righteousness, as they called it, with which God is righteous and punished the unrighteous sinner. Though I lived as  a monk without reproach, I felt that I was a sinner before God with an extremely disturbed conscience. I could not believe that he was placated by my satisfaction. I did not love, yes, I hated the righteousness of God who punishes sinners.

At last, by the mercy of God, meditating day and night, I gave heed to the context of the words, namely, “In it the righteousness of God is revealed,’ as it is written, ‘He who through faith is  righteousness shall live.’”

There I began to understand that the righteousness of God is that by which the righteous lives by a gift of God, namely by faith. And this is the meaning: the righteousness of God is revealed by the gospel, namely, the passive righteousness with which merciful  God justifies us by faith, as it is written, He who through faith is righteous shall live.””

HERE I FELT THAT I WAS ALTOGETHER BORN AGAIN AND HAD ENTERED PARADISE ITSELF THROUGH OPEN GATES. THERE A TOTALLY OTHER FACE OF THE ENTIRE SCRIPTURE SHOWED ITSELF.

I relate these things, so that, I you are a reader of my puny works, you may keep in mind, that, as I said above, I WAS ALL ALONE and one of those who…have become proficient by writing and teaching. I have not one of those who from nothing suddenly become the topmost, though they are nothing, neither have labored, nor been tempted, nor become experience, BUT HAVE WITH ONE LOOK AT THE SCRIPTURE EXHAUSTED THEIR ENTIRE SPIRIT.

It is equally impossible for us to keep any one of them [the 10 Commandments].

Therefore God has rightly included all things, not under anger or lust, but under unbelief, so that they who imagine that they are fulfilling the law by doing the works of chastity and mercy required by the law (the civil and human virtues) might not be saved. They are included under the sin of unbelief and must either seek mercy or be justly condemned.

If works are sought after as a means to righteousness, are burdened with this perverse leviathan, and are done under the false impression that through them one is justified, they are made necessary and freedom and faith are destroyed; and this addition to them makes them no longer good BUT TRULY DAMNABLE WORKS.

The following text is an analysis in The Truth about Luther by Msgr. Patrick O’Hare:

In his commentary on a Psalm, “Conceived in sorrow and corruption, the child sins even in his mother’s womb, when, as yet a mere fetus, an impure mass of matter, before it becomes a human creature, it commits iniquity and incurs damnation. As he grows, the innate element of corruption develops. Man has said to sin, “Thou art my father,” and every act he performs is an offense against God; and to the worms, “You are my brothers,” and he crawls like them in mire and corruption. He is a bad tree and cannot produce good fruit, a dunghill and can only exhale foul odors. He is so thoroughly corrupted that it is absolutely impossible for him to produce good actions. Sin is his nature; he cannot help committing it. Man may do his best to be good, still his every action is unavoidably bad; he commits a sin as often as he draws his breath.” (Wittenb. III, 518)

“The Papists contend that faith which is informed by charity, justifies. On this point, we must contend and oppose with all our strength; here we must yield not a nail’s breath to any; neither to the angels of Heaven, nor to the gates of Hell, nor to St. Paul, nor to a hundred Emperors, nor to a thousand popes, nor to the whole world.”

Now, I will cite excerpts from the work of Fr. Leonel Franca SJ titled The Church, the Reform and Civilization (Rio de Janeiro: Editora Civilizacão Brasileira, 3rd ed., 1934, 558 pages).

One element absolutely characteristic of the teaching of Luther is the doctrine of justification by faith alone, independent of works. More clearly put, for him the superabundant merits of Our Lord Jesus Christ alone and of themselves would assure man of eternal salvation. According to this, one could lead a life of sin on this earth without remorse of conscience, without fear of the justice of God.

The voice of conscience was, for Luther, not that of grace, but the voice of the Devil.

For this reason he wrote to a friend that a man tempted by the Devil should at times “drink more abundantly, gamble, divert himself, and even commit some sin out of hatred and defiance for the Devil, in order to not give him opportunity to disturb his conscience with trifles … The whole Decalogue should be wiped away from our eyes and souls because we are so persecuted and molested by the Devil” (Luther, Briefe, Sendschreiben und Bedenken, ed. De Wette, Berlin, 1825-1828, in L. Franca, op. cit., pp. 199-200).

Along these lines, he [Luther] also wrote: “God only obliges you to believe and to confess. In everything else, He leaves you free to do whatever you want, without any danger to your conscience. Further, it is certain that He does not care if you leave your wife, flee from your master, or are not faithful to any obligation. What is it to Him if you do or do not do such things?” (Werke, ed. de Weimar, 12, pp. 131ff., in ibid., p. 446).

Perhaps even more categorical is this incitement to sin, written in a letter to Melanchton dated August 1, 1521: “Be a sinner, and sin boldly (esto peccator et pecca fortiter) but even more boldly believe and rejoice in Christ, the conqueror of sin, death and the world. During this life we must sin. It suffices that, by the mercy of God, we know the Lamb who takes away the sins of the world. Sin will not separate us from Him, even if we were to commit a thousand murders and a thousand adulteries a day” (Briefe, Sendschreiben und Bedenken, 2, p. 37, in ibid., p. 439).

This doctrine is so radical that Luther himself could hardly believe it: “There is no religion in the whole world that teaches this doctrine of justification. I myself, even though I teach it publicly, have a great difficulty in believing it privately” (Werke, 25, p. 330, in ibid., p. 158).

It has been rightly said of Luther that to know the doctrine is to know the man.

Firstly, his sentimental temperament made him too anxious to feel sensible consolations.

The doctrine that grace is infused into the soul when sin is effaced made him almost despair of God, for he never tasted the perfect purity of grace.

This personal voluntarism was all the more dangerous because his scrupulosity made him take the least involuntary sensations for sins and made him want to attain a level of human holiness that would betray no signs of human weakness. For 10 years his soul was consumed with fear of eternal damnation. He was counseled to put all trust in the Redeemer of the human race, who had not died in vain.

To escape this state of interior torment in which his scruples and his proud voluntarism held him captive, Luther threw himself into activism with his preaching and instruction. Then came the temptation to despair: be content with what you are, a fallen angel, a deformed creature; your job is to do evil, for your very being is evil.

“Concupiscence is invincible.” Around this time he began signing his letters, “Luder, son of Adam the outcast.”

Luther was a scrupulous monk on the brink of despair.

To put the seal on his transformation he began to call himself Lutherius, Martin the Freedman.

Brother Martin explained that according to St. Paul, the justification of God means covering with a purely extrinsic mantle the accumulation of sin which is sin. In order to be just, sinful man has but to believe. Again from St. Paul, he would deduce that all of man’s efforts are sinful; that he is without freedom; that he is only a beast driven either by God or by the devil, whichever of the two is in the saddle.

“Everything comes from grace, nothing comes from works, and the gift of grace is the act of God alone. All that man will be or do has been determined for him in advance from all eternity; some are born to be saved, others to be damned, without regard for their own choice, which in truth is never free.”

This annihilates the natural powers of man, above all his freedom; it denies him the ability of meriting heaven with God’s help. God, also, becomes powerless to sanctify man inwardly.

D)    Apostasy: Attack on Papacy, Priesthood, Mass, Sacraments,  Religious Life, and Religion Itself

1520 – An Open Letter to Pope Leo X: Compelled me to appeal from your see to a future council.

I freely vow that I have, to my knowledge, spoken only good and honorable words concerning you whenever I have thought of you. If I had ever done otherwise, I myself could by no means condone it, but should agree entirely with the judgment which others have formed of me; and I should do nothing more gladly than recant such indiscretion and impiety. I have called you a Daniel in Babylon; and everyone who reads what I have written knows how zealously I defended your innocence against your defamers….Indeed, your reputation and the fame of your blameless life, celebrated as they are throughout the world by the writings of many great men, are too well known and too honorable to be assailed by anyone, no matter how great he is. I am not so foolish as to attack one whom all people praise.

Therefore, most excellent Leo, I beg you to give me a hearing after I have vindicated myself by this letter, and believe me when I say that I have never thought ill of you personally, that I am the kind of a person who would wish you all good things eternally.

1520 – The Freedom of a Christian: Nor was Christ sent into the world for any other ministry except that of the Word. Moreover, the entire spiritual estate  -- all the apostles, bishops and priests – have been called and  instituted only, for the ministry of the Word [i.e., not the Mass or the Sacraments]

Injustice is done those words “priest,” “cleric,” “spiritual,” “ecclesiastic,” when they are transferred from all Christians to those few who are now by a mischievous usage called “ecclesiastics,” Holy Scripture makes no distinction between them, although it gives the names “ministers,” “servants,” “Stewards” to those who are now proudly called popes, bishops, and lords [egalitarianism]. [He denies Holy Orders outright]

By these snares [the Catholic Religion] numberless souls have been dragged down to hell, so that you might see in this the work of Antichrist. 

[Rejects Transubstantiation] I found peace in my conscience in accepting the earlier opinion, viz., that the true flesh and the true blood of Christ were in the true bread and true wine, and this not otherwise, nor less, than the Thomists regard them as under the accidents.

This opinion of Thomas’, being without a basis in Scripture or reason, is so uncertain that it seemed to me as if he understood neither his philosophy nor his logic. Aristotle speaks of accidents and their subject very differently from St. Thomas. I feel we ought to be sorry for so great a man, not only for drawing his views from Aristotle in matters of faith, but also for attempting to found them upon logic alone.

An Appeal to the Ruling Class of German Nationality As To the Amelioration of the State of Christendom:

When a pope or bishop anoints, grants tonsures, ordains, consecrates, dresses differently from laymen, he may make a hypocrite of a man or an anointed image, but never a Christian or a spiritually-minded man. The fact is that our baptism consecrates us all without exception, and makes us all priests [absolute egalitarianism].

[Rejects all hierarchy in the Church and rejects the Apostolic Succession] When a bishop consecrates, he simply acts on behalf of the entire congregation, all of whom have the same authority. They may select one of their number and command him to exercise this authority on behalf of the others [absolute equality in the Church]….To put it more plainly, suppose a small group of earnest Christian laymen were taken prisoner and settled in the middle  of a desert without any episcopally ordained priest among them; and they then agreed to choose one of themselves, whether married or not, and endow him with the office of baptizing, administering the sacrament, pronouncing absolution and preaching; that man would be as truly a priest as if he had been ordained by all the bishops and the popes….without any of the pomp of present custom…..Everyone who has been baptized may claim that he has already been consecrated priest, bishop, or pope. Only by the consent and command of the community should any individual person claim for himself what belongs equally to all [Democratism in the Church].

[Complete rejection of the Catholic Church and Religion] Everything that the papacy has instituted or ordered is directed solely towards the multiplication of sin and error.

(1522) “I do not admit that my doctrine can be judged by anyone, even by the angels. He who does not receive my doctrine cannot be saved.” In his supreme rebellion, Luther put himself in the place of Jesus Christ.

In reality, for Luther, Revelation is a personal affair: my Revelation is the Revelation.

Private judgment therefore emerges as the source and the origin of the Reformation. Luther’s private judgment would do more to destroy what the Church held most dear than would any other point of doctrine. Private judgment signed the death warrant of the entire treasure of the Church.

Reason is utterly ruined, along with the rest of human nature, so that all speculative sciences are erroneous. Luther is not a theorist reasoning about his principles; he was a charismatic leader who took hold of a popular movement and directed it intuitively without the least concern for the laws of logic. To those who objected his contradictions and inconsistencies, he responded with force and verbal diatribe, little troubling himself to frame a reasoned reply.

p. 54, Because he stakes everything on faith without for common sense, Luther is a fideist. In fact, his “faith” has no basis in anything rational. It is a heretical pseudo-faith which could not fail to become what it has become for so many Protestants today: a fatal leap driven by a desperate pride; a flight toward the unknown, full of distress and confidence, born in the depths of one’s own being. Luther’s faith is sufficient to itself; reason can only corrupt it. Thus with a stroke of his pen the reformer swept away a thousand years of fruitful theological endeavor.  Luther says, “It is impossible to reform the Church if Scholastic theology and philosophy are not torn out by the roots with Canon Law….Logic is nowhere necessary in theology because Christ does not need human inventions.”

Luther opposed the interior to the exterior. All that comes from without ought to be rejected, in particular the sacraments of the Church but also divine Revelation. Fr. Yves Congar, in admiration before Luther, was quite correct in affirming that he had rethought all of Christianity. Why? Because Luther was incapable of receiving anything which had not come from his own experience. This principle of self-sufficiency was eventually adopted by Kant and developed into a theory of pure reason emancipated from exterior realities.

With regard to the Bible, did he not claim to judge whether a book is truly inspired “ex gustu et sapore—by its taste and savor.”

pp. 60-61, Erasmus laments their fate with a touch of irony: “What a great defender of Evangelical freedom we have in Luther! Thanks to him, the yoke we bear becomes twice as heavy. Mere opinions become dogma.”

Luther personifies the arrival of the Self on the spiritual and religious scene. Behold the very quintessence of modernism, from Kant to our own day.

E)     Luther and the Bible. Does Luther REALLY rely on the Bible for his teaching?

So Everybody was Ignorant of the Bible before Luther came along, right? Laughably WRONG!: “No book,” says The Cambridge Modern History, “was more frequently republished than the Latin Vulgate, of which 98 distinct and full editions appeared prior to 1500….From 1475, when the first Venetian issue is dated, 22 complete editions have been found in the city of St. Mark alone….This Latin text, constantly produced and translated, was accessible to all scholars.”

Germanic translations of the Bible: In Germany, prior to the issue of Luther’s new Testament in 1522, no authority enumerates fewer than 14 editions in High German and 3 in Low German.

Protestant historian Wilhelm Walther published a book entitled, The German Translation of the Bible in the Middle Ages,  in which he proves that previous to the year 1521, before Luther ever thought of translating the Bible into the German language, there existed 17 editions of the whole Bible in German, besides an almost countless number of German versions of the New Testament, the Psalms, and other parts of the Bible.

The well-known Anglican writer, Blunt, in his History of the Reformation, Vol. 1 writes: “there has been much wild and foolish wring about the scarcity of the Bible in the ages preceding the Reformation. It has been taken for granted that the Holy Scripture was almost a sealed book until it was printed in English by Tyndale [an English disciple of Luther] and that the only source of the knowledge respecting it before them was the translation made by Wycliffe. The facts are…that all laymen who could read were, as a rule, provided with their Gospels, their Psalter, or other devotional portions of the Bible. Men did, in fact, take a vast amount of personal trouble with respect to the production of the Holy Scriptures….The clergy studied the Word of God and made it known to the laity; and those few among the laity who could read had abundant opportunity of reading the Bible either in Latin or English, up to the Reformation period.”

What Luther REALLY thought of the Bible. Here I have his Preface to the New Testament --- just in case you might not interpret the New Testament correctly after you finally retch the Bible out of the hands of the Catholic Church. In other words, the Bible is NOT SELF-EXPLANATORY and Luther explicitly acknowledges this in his own Preface to his own Bible. Notice that EVERYONE has been WRONG except for him!

Preface to the New Testament:

However, many unscholarly expositions and introductions have perverted the understanding of Christian people till they have not an inkling of the meaning of the gospel as distinct from the law, the New Testament as distinct from the Old Testament. This distressing state of affairs calls for some sort of guidance by way of preface, to free the ordinary man from his false though familiar notions, to lead him into the straight road, and to give him some instruction. He must be shown what to expect in this volume, lest he search it for commandments and laws, when he should be looking for gospel and promises.

In the first place, then, we must grasp the importance of getting rid of the vain idea that there are 4 gospels, and only 4 evangelists; and we must dismiss once and for all the view that some of the New Testament writings should be classed as books of law or history or prophecy or wisdom, as the case may be. Rather we must  be clear and definite in our minds, on the one hand, that the Old Testament is a volume containing God’s law and commandments. It also preserves the records of men who kept them, and of others who did not. On the other hand, the New Testament is a volume containing God’s promised evangel, as well as records of those who believed or disbelieved it. We can therefore take it for certain that there is only one gospel, just as the New Testament is only one book. So too, there is only one faith nd only one God: the God who makes promises.

Therefore, beware lest you make Christ into a Moses, and the gospel into a book of law or doctrine, as has been done before now, including IN SOME OF JEROME’S PREFACES…The gospel demands NO WORKS TO MAKE US HOLY AND TO REDEEM US. INDEED, IT CONDEMNS SUCH WORKS.

Thus it is not by our own works, but by His work, His passion and death, that He makes us righteous, and gives us life and salvation. Christ in the gospels and Peter and Paul in their letters, set forth many doctrines and regulations and expounded those regulations.

Laws are not prescribed for believers. For if good works and love do not blossom forth, it is not genuine faith, the gospel has not yet gained a foothold, and Christ is not yet RIGHTLY KNOWN. Watch that you apply yourself to the books of the New Testament SO THAT YOU MAY LEARN TO READ THEM IN THIS WAY.

The Books that are the best and the noblest in the New Testament: You are in a position…decide which are the best. The true kernel and marrow of all the books, those which should rightly be ranked first, are the gospel of John and St. Paul’s epistles, especially that to the Romans, together with St. Peter’s first epistle.

You will not find in these books much said about the works and miracles of Christ, but you will find a masterly account of how faith in Christ conquers sin, death, and hell; and gives life….THIS IS THE TRUE ESSENCE OF THE GOSPEL, AS YOU HAVE LEARNED. If I were compelled to make a choice, and had to dispense with either the works or the preaching of Christ, I would rather do without the works than the preaching; FOR THE WORKS ARE OF NO AVAIL TO ME, WHEREAS HIS WORDS GIVE LIFE…John records but few of the works of Christ.

It follows that the gospel of John is unique in loveliness and of a truth THE PRINCIPLE GOSPEL FAR FAR SUPERIOR TO THE OTHER 3, AND MUCH TO BE PREFERRED. And in the same way, the epistles of St. Paul and St. Peter are far in advance of the 3 gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke.

In sum, the gospel and the first epistle of St. John, St. Paul’s epistles, especially those to the Romans, Galatians, and Ephesians; and St. Peter’s first epistle are THE  BOOKS WHICH SHOW CHRIST TO YOU. They teach everything you need to know for your salvation, even if you were never to see or hear any other book or any other teaching. In comparison with these, the epistle of St. James is an epistle full of straw, because it contains nothing evangelical.

Preface to the Epistle of St. Paul to the Romans: THIS EPISTLE IS IN TRUTH THE MOST IMPORTANT DOCUMENT IN THE NEW TESTAMENT, THE GOSPEL IN ITS PUREST FORM.

God helping me, I will try my best to make this preface serve as an introduction which will enable everyone to understand it in the best possible way. Hitherto, this epistle has been smothered with comments and all sorts of irrelevances; yet, in essence, it is a brilliant light, almost enough to illumine the whole Bible.

[St. Paul according to Luther] We must learn what St. Paul means by such words as laws, sin, grace, faith, righteousness, flesh, spirit, and the like, otherwise we shall read and only waste our time.

Psalm 117 declares that all men are liars, because no one keeps God’s law from his heart ; nor can he do so; for to be averse to goodness  and prone to  evil are traits found in all men.

Faith Without Works:  We reach the conclusion that faith alone justifies us and fulfills the law; and this because faith brings us the spirit gained by the merits of Christ. That is Paul’s meaning in chapter 3 of Romans. We confirm the law through faith, i.e., we fulfill it by faith….so unbelief is the sole cause of sin….Christ therefore singled out unbelief and called it sin.

He does this to the extent that He pays no regard to our remaining sins, and does not judge them; rather He deals with us according to the faith which we have in Christ until sin is killed.

They fall into the error of declaring that faith is not enough, that he must do “works” if we are to become upright and attain salvation….When they hear the gospel, they miss the point; in their hearts, and out of their own resources [LIKE LUTHER HIMSELF!], they conjure up an idea which they call “belief,” which they treat as genuine faith. All the same, it is but a human fabrication, an idea without a corresponding experience in the depths of the heart.

[What is “faith”?] Faith is a living and unshakeable confidence,  a belief in the grace of God so assured that a man would die a thousand deaths for its sake.

BEWARE THEREFORE OF WRONG CONCEPTIONS OF YOUR OWN AND OFF THOSE WHO TALK NONESENSE WHILE THINKING THEY ARE PRONOUNCING SHREWD JUDGMENTS ON FAITH AND WORKS WHEREAS THEY ARE SHOWING THEMSELVES THE GREATEST OF FOOLS.

Unless you give these terms [the ones used in the epistle to the Romans] this connotation, you will never comprehend Paul’s epistle to the Romans, nor any other book of Holy Scripture. BEWARE THEN OF ALL TEACHERS WHO USE THESE TERMS DIFFERENTLY, NO MATTER WHO THEY MAY BE, WHETHER JEROME, AUGUSTINE, AMBROSE, ORIGEN, OR THEIR LIKE; OR EVEN PERSONS MORE EMINENT THEN THEY.

Sin still exists; but on account of the faith that battles with it [sic], is not held against us to our condemnation….Our freedom is freedom from the demands and obligations of the law.

In chapters 9, 10, and 11, Paul deals with the eternal providence of God. It is by this providence that it was first decided who should, and who should not, have faith; who should conquer sin, and who should not be able to do so [Absolute Predestinationism]

Preface to the Epistle of St. James: I do not hold it to be of apostolic authorship.

First, because, in direct opposition to St. Paul and all the rest of the Bible, it ascribes justification to works….This defect proves that the epistle is not of apostolic provenance….The epistle of James, however, only drives you to the law and its works….He does violence to Scripture, and so contradicts Paul and all Scripture….I therefore refuse him a place among the writers of the TRUE CANON OF MY BIBLE.

With regard to the Bible, did he not claim to judge whether a book is truly inspired “ex gustu et sapore—by its taste and savor.”

He announced that the seven deuterocanonical books, universally accepted by the Church, were merely apocryphal. He showed the same distain for the five books of Moses. Nor did he spare the New Testament. The letter of St. James he called an epistle of straw; turning on the Epistle to the Hebrews, he warned his followers: “It need not surprise one to find here bits of wood, hay, and straw.” As for the Apocalypse, “There are many things objectionable in this book. To my mind it bears upon it no marks of an apostolic or prophetic character….Everyone may form his own judgment of this book; as for myself, I feel an aversion to it, and to me this is sufficient reason for rejecting it.” BEHIND THE APPEARANCE OF LUTHER’S BIBILOLATRY FED BY HIS SOLA SCRIPTURA, THERE LURKS THE HEART OF A BIBLIOCLAST.

F)     Luther, Melanthon, Zwingli, and the Anabaptists: The Vicious Fragmentation of Protestantism

How Luther attacked and betrayed his own followers:

Luther managed to find cause for complaint in the exegetical liberties taken by Karlstadt and other co-Reformers. He went so far as to carve into the dinner table the words of the consecration, “This is my Body, this is My Blood,” and threateningly insist that his followers take them according to their literal meaning.

 Anabaptist Peasant War (1525): Luther did not have to wait to see his fears realized. The incentive to rebellion, which he had long agitated for and developed, was at last realized in the tremendous outbreak of the “Peasant’s War” which was led by fanatics of the Thomas Munzer persuasion. The proposals of the peasants in the “12 Articles” of their Manifesto gave unmistakable proofs of the religious character of their demands. The First Article demanded Liberty to preach the Gospel and the right of congregations to elect and depose their parish priests. The Third Article declared: “There are to be no serfs, because Christ has liberated us all.”

Luther himself recognized the need for this heavenly authentication. In 1524, trying to prevent Thomas Münzer (another Protestant who took the side of the Anabaptists) from preaching in Mulhouse, he wrote to the city magistrates and insisted they should not receive this turbulent innovator unless he could not prove his mission with extraordinary works: “If he says that God and His Spirit are sending him as they did the Apostles, let him prove it with prodigies and miracles; if not, forbid him to preach.” (4)

At the breaking out of the rebellion, when the greater part of Germany was thrown into arms, fierce fanaticism and wild extravagance dominated the minds and spirits of the insurgents. Luther was the “man of the Evangel” and on him the eyes of the great number of peasants were directed when the rising took place. They proposed to overthrow the whole political, religious, and social structure as it then existed. They wanted to efface all inequalities in property, employment and rank. In the new social order which they aimed to establish there were to be “no rulers or subjects, no rich or poor, no cities or commerce, but all should live in primitive simplicity and perfect equality. The fanatical ministers who harangued the peasants and urged them on to execute their schemes made bold to tell them, it was God’s will that they should everywhere “kill and destroy without mercy until all the  mighty were laid low and the promised Kingdom of God established.”

Munzer appealed to Luther’s gospel and quoted his writings in support of their program. They called themselves his followers and declared it their purpose to put their principles into practice. By the great mass of peasants it was doubtless that they believed Luther was with them and that they could count on his support.”  The rising terror spread on all sides.

Initially Luther tried to stem the movement by urging the peasants to keep quiet and renounce all desire for revenge, and appeals to the rulers to show a modicum of mercy and to grant at least some few measures of relief.

In Luther’s Exhortation to Peace, to the princes he said: “You are bringing it upon yourselves and wish to get your heads broken. There is no use in any further warning or admonition…You must become different and give way to the word of God; if you refuse to do it willingly, then you will be forced to do it by violence and riot.”

What the peasants focused on was Luther’s denunciations of their wrongs, all advice to have nothing to do with rebellion or revolution was spurned and condemned. Luther was, therefore, thoroughly vexed. He was angered because the common people, whom he felt he owned body and soul were no longer willing in his changed mood to listen to his advice and submit to his further dictation. Luther saw and heard of the atrocities in the insurgent districts and it filled him with fear and dread. He then questioned how the rulers that had hitherto protected his cause would fare in the event of the rebels being successful in Saxony and Wittenburg. Assuming the role of cruel and relentless oppressor, he treacherously turns upon the peasants as if they  were not hi own spiritual progeny whom he led into the trap and loudly clamors for the princes to turn out in force to exterminate all who had taken up the sword against them.

In his tract, Against the Murderous and Rapacious Hordes of the Peasants, he urged the authorities to crush the revolution. “Pure deviltry is urging on the peasants; they rob and rage and behave like mad dogs.” “Therefore let all who are able, mow them down, slaughter and stab them, openly or in secret, and remember that there is nothing more poisonous, noxious, and utterly devilish than a rebel. You must kill him as you would a mad dog; if you do not fall upon him, he will fall upon you and the whole land.”

“Like the mules who will not move unless you perpetually whip them with rods, so the civil powers must drive the common people, whip, choke, hand, burn, behead, and torture them, that they may learn to fear the powers that be. The course, illiterate Mr. Great I am --- the people – must be forced, driven as one forces and drives swine and wild animals.”

The princes followed his advice. As Erasmus said, “While Luther was reveling in his nuptials [by marrying the nun Katie von Bora] a hundred thousand peasants were descending to the tomb.”

Luther recognized, after his behavior during the peasant war, that the common people were no longer disposed to look upon him as a leader worthy of confidence and support. The crowds that heretofore followed him in rebellion were gradually decreasing in numbers, and his pet schemes were in danger of complete collapse. So Luther put reliance for the propagation of his evangel on the princes he once denounced and condemned. 

G)    Luther Degenerates: The Scandal

Lutheran Degeneration, in Luther's own words:

“Since the downfall of Popery and the cessations of excommunications and spiritual penalties, the people have learned to despise the word of God. They care no longer for the churches; they have ceased to fear and honor God….I would wish, if it were possible, to leave these men without a preacher or pastor, and let them live like swine. There is no longer any fear or love of God among them. After throwing off the yoke of the Pope, everyone wishes to live as he pleases.”

The new Gospel did not even make Luther himself better. He said: “I confess…that I am more negligent than I was under the Pope and there is now nowhere such an amount of earnestness under the Gospel, as was formerly seen among monks and priests….If God had not closed my eyes, and if I had foreseen these scandals, I would never have begun to teach the Gospel.”

In studying Luther, we must remember that his cardinal dogma when he abandoned Catholic teaching was that man has no free will, that he can do no good, and that to subdue animal passion is neither necessary nor possible. He insists that the moral law of the Decalogue is not binding, that the 10 Commandments are abrogated and that they are no longer in force among Christians. “We must remove the Decalogue out of sight and heart” (De Wette, 4, 188). “If we allow them --- the Commandments – any influence in our conscience, they become the cloak of all evil, heresies, and blasphemies.” (Comm. Ad Galatians). “If Moses should attempt to intimidate you with his stupid 10 Commandments, tell him right out: chase yourself to the Jews. (Wittenb. Ad 5, 1573). “As little as one is able to remove mountains, to fly with the birds, to create new stars, or to bite off one’s nose, so little can on escape unchastity.” (Alts Abenmachlslehre, 2, 118)

Hieronymus Dungersheim, an eminent theologian of Leipzig, indignant at his conduct, which little became one who that he was called to the reform of the Church and the age, puts this question in his “Thirty Articles” to Luther: “What are your thoughts when you are seated in the midst of the heard of apostate nuns whom you have seduced and, as they themselves admit, make whatever jokes occur to you? You not only do  not attempt to avoid what you declare is so hateful to you (the excitement of sensuality), but you intentionally stir your own and other’s passions. What are your thoughts when you recall your own golden words, either when sitting in such company, or after you have committed your wickedness? What can you reply, when reminded of your former conscientiousness, in view of such a scandalous life of deceit? I have heard what I will not now repeat from those who had converse with you, and I could supply details  and names. Out upon your morality and religion; out upon your obstinacy and blindness! How have you sunk from the pinnacle of perfection and true wisdom to the depths of depravity and abominable error, dragging down countless numbers with you!”

Alas, you “theologian of the Cross”! What you now have to show is nothing but the filthiest wisdom of the flesh, that wisdom which, according to the Apostle Paul in Romans, 8:6, is the death of the soul and the enemy of God.”

Even when he was engaged in the translation of the Bible, Luther, in the year 1521, while living in Wartburg --- to which place this “courageous” Apostle had fled in the disguise of a country squire and lived under an assumed name --- wrote to his friend Melanchthon to say: “I sit here in idleness and pray, alas, little and sigh not for the Church of God. Much more am I consumed by the fires of my unbridled flesh. In a word, I, who should burn of the spirit, am consumed by the flesh and by [impurity] (De Wette, 2, 22)

Luther further tells that while a Catholic, he passed his life in “austerities, in watchings, in fasts and praying, in poverty, chastity and obedience.” When once reformed…he says that as it does not depend upon him not to be a man, so neither does it depend upon him to be without a woman; and that he “can no longer forego the indulgence of the vilest natural propensities.” (Serm. De Matrim. Fol 119).

“He was so well aware of his immorality,” we are informed by Melanchthon, “that he wished they would remove him from the office of preaching.” (Sleidan, Book II, 1520).

Luther himself recognized the devastating effects of such admittedly insincere preaching: “The Gospel today finds adherents who are convinced that there is nothing except a doctrine that serves to fill their bellies and give free reign to all their impulses” (Werke, 33, p. 2, in ibid., p. 212).

As for his evangelical followers, Luther added that “they are seven times worse than they were before. After preaching our doctrine, men have given themselves over to stealing, lying, trickery, debauchery, drunkenness, and every kind of vice. We have expelled one devil (the papacy) and seven worse have entered.” (Werke, 28, p. 763, in ibid., p. 440).

“After we understood that good works were not necessary for justification, we became much more remiss and colder in the practice of good … And if we could return today to the prior state of things and if the doctrine that affirms the necessity of doing good works could be revived, our eagerness and promptness in doing good works would be quite different” (Werke, 27, p. 443, in ibid., p. 441).

Over the altar of the Protestant church of Wittenberg, Lucas Carnach replaced the Apostles in the Last Supper with Luther, Melanchton and other Protestant leaders

All these insanities explain how Luther reached the frenzy of satanic pride, saying of himself: “Does this Luther seem to you an extravagant man? As for me, I think that he is God. Otherwise, how could his writings or his name have the power to transform beggars into lords, asses into doctors, swindlers into saints, and slime into pearls?” (Ed. Wittemberg, 1551, vol. 4, p. 378, in ibid., p. 190).

At other times, Luther’s opinion of himself was much more objective: “I am a man placed and involved in society, in dissolutions, carnal actions, negligence, and other wrongdoings, to which are added those of my office itself” (Briefe, Sendschreiben und Bedenken, 1, p 232, in ibid., p. 198). Excommunicated in Worms in 1521, Luther gave himself over to idleness and sloth.

On July 13, he wrote to another Protestant leader, Melanchton: “Here I find myself, mindless and hardened, established in idleness. Oh woe! Praying little and no longer wailing for the Church of God because I burn and blaze in my untamed flesh. In short, I who should have fervor of spirit, have fervor of the flesh, licentiousness, sloth, idleness and somnolence (Ibid, 2, p. 22, in ibid., p. 198).

In a sermon preached in 1532: “As for me, I confess – and many others could undoubtedly make the same confession – that I am as neglectful in discipline as in zeal, much more negligent now that under the papacy. Today, no one has the zeal for the Gospel that they used to have in the past” (Saemtliche Werke, ed. de Plochman-Irmischer, 28 (2), p. 353, in ibid., p. 441).

What similarity can be found, then, between the morals of Luther and that of the Holy Roman Catholic Apostolic Church?

H)    The Legacy: Precursor of Modernist Apostasy

Papacy and Catholic  Church: “How many times have I not asked myself with bitterness the same question which the Papists put me: Art thou alone wise? Darest thou imagine that all mankind have been in error for so long….I am not so bold as to assert that I have been guided in this affair by God. How will it be, if, after all, it is thou thyself who art wrong, and art thou involving in thy error so many souls who will then be eternally damned?” (Latin Works, Weimar ed. 8)’

This was a favorite expression of Luther:: “Living, I have been your plague; dying, I shall be your death, o Pope.” [pestis eram vivens, moriens tua mors ero, Papa]. In 1527 he wrote it in a letter; later he wrote it with a piece of chalk on a wall in the place where, some hours afterward, he would be surprised by death.

The Council of Trent was opened on December 13, 1545, under Pope Paul III, and was concluded under Pius IV in 1563. Luther frequently called on the Pope to summon a General Council but now that it was assembled he would not attend it, knowing full well his doctrines would be there condemned. While the Council Fathers were making preparations for the 4^th Session, Luther, making a trip back to his birth place Eisleben, he was told that he was invited to the Council. He exclaimed in a rage: “I will go and may I lose my head if I do not defend my opinions against all the world; that which comes forth from my mouth is not my anger but the anger of God.”

A longer journey was before him, however. He died in his 63 year on Feb. 17, 1546. After eating a hearty supper and enjoying himself, jesting as usual, he was a few hours after attacked with dreadful pains, and thus he died. Raging against the Council a little before his death, he said to Justus Jonas, one of his followers: “Pray for our Lord God and His Gospel, that it may turn out well, for the Council of Trent and the abominable Pope are grievously opposed to him” Saying thus he died.

Friends, we do not accept the Heresies of Martin Luther and never will. Let us proclaim this fact today in the face of the Heretics, in the face of the World, and, incredibly enough, in the face of the Vatican II New Church.