salutary use of this sacrament. For, since Christians ought to live as one body, the members cannot be cemented together more faithfully, closely, and strongly than with that cement which made both one, namely, Christ [cf. Rom. 12: 4-5]. Therefore all who claim to be Christ’s will prove that this is really the case by regarding a brother as a member—eye, hand, or foot; if they do not exhibit this, they who come to this table eat and drink judgment to themselves [ef. I Cor. 11: 29]. For it is set for this purpose: that, eating together the same bread, i. e., through the faith that is in Christ Jesus, and coalescing into one body, we may by this holy sacramental initiation, as it were, be united into the one army and peculiar people of God.
Purgatory
You were as much surprised as if you had found a horseshoe (if one may use a native proverb in a foreign language) that I rejected purgatory because of these words of Christ: “He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved” [Mk. 16: 16]. Yet nothing more effective could be employed for exposing the mercenary fietions about purgatory of those who think that godliness is gain [cf. I Tim. 6:5]. For by these words above all is revealed by what way salvation comes to the wretched, namely, by faith; and if by faith, then not by works. Just see, now, how purgatory has all at once vanished; for it had been cooked up to patch the holes left by our works; yet not by them does one come to God, but by faith.
Hence it follows that:
“He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved”; not, he that is roasted in a purifying fire. For it must be that all who die depart hence either in the faith of Christ or without that faith. If they go hence in faith, they are saved; for He says: “He that believeth shall be saved.” If in disbelief, they are condemned; for on the other side He says: “He that disbelieveth shall be condemned” [Mk. 16: 16].
Jn. 3:16-18: “God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on him should not perish, but have eternal life. For God sent not his Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world should be
[This section was copied into True and False Religion. See p. 286.]
saved through him. He that believeth on him is not judged; but he that believeth not hath been judged already, because he hath not believed on the name of the only begotten Son of God.”
You see, in the first place, that the Son was given that he who believeth on Him should have eternal life. Next, you see that eternal life is to follow. But that would not be eternal whieh would during a long period of time endure grievous suffering in a purgatory fire. In the third place, you see that the world is saved through Christ. In the fourth place, that he who believeth on Him is not judged; yet, He who would be thrust into purgatory certainly would be judged. For, after weighing men’s offences, the Roman pontiffs, like Minos and Rhadamanthus, cast them into Cocytus or send them off to the Fortunate Islands. In the fifth place, he that believeth not has been condemned already, because he has not relied upon the grace and strength of Christ. This, therefore, is assured, that we depart hence either faithful or unfaithful, etc.
Yet, lest someone suspect danger in delay (as the saying is), let us hear what Truth again says, Jn. 5: 24: “Verily, verily” (notice the asseveration), “I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth him that sent me, hath eternal life; and he cometh not into judgment, but hath passed out of death into life.” But what, pray, is judging, if to sentence to the fire of purgatory is not to judge? Therefore, those who trust in Christ pass, nay, have passed, out of death into life, not life that lasts but for a time, but eternal life.
And the rich man of the parable, who sees Lazarus in Abraham’s bosom, is driven to despair by these words: “Between us and you there is a great gulf, so that neither can go across to the others,” ete. [Lk. 16: 26]. But here the discourse is about those released from the body, and it posits only two regions, one represented by the person of Lazarus, the other by that of the rich man. Hence those who depart hence either are carried by angels into heavenly mansions and cannot descend to those who are in another place; or else they are thrust into the lower world and will never be allowed to ascend. Why, then, do we wrangle so fiercely, when Truth says that the latter cannot ascend and the former cannot descend?
Is it our business to manufacture in another world penitentiaries, prisons, fetters, fires, cold, hunger, and other torments? Why, then, do we mislead wretched consciences with these fictions?
Rom. 8: 1: Paul asserts that no condemnation awaits those who are in Christ Jesus. Therefore, if we continue firm and immovable in Christ Jesus unto the end, we shall be saved, Mt. 24:13.
On the very same day on which he shared Christ’s punishment, the robber was a participant of His joy and glory [Lk. 23:43]. Where did he endure scourgings and the other evils? Or is God unjust, that He should not mate His words with deeds? Not so, for we see that in the case of the robber He exactly fulfilled the saying, “He hath not come into judgment, but hath passed out of death into life” [Jn. 5: 24].; Paul forbids us to be anxious concerning them that fall asleep, I Thess. 4: 13, as if we had no hope of a future life, just as the heathen have no hope. But if there were a purgatory, undoubtedly he would have taught us to sorrow for those who we knew were being sadly afflicted with torments. Therefore, since he had occasion to mention the dead, and, more than that, to discuss the anxiety of the living in regard to them, and yet gave not the slightest hint of purgatory, it is quite evident that Paul knew nothing about purgatory. He realized that it was sufficient for him to know Christ and Him crucified [I Cor. 2: 2].
But what need of many words, when we see that purgatory has the support only of human fiction and not of God’s word? For all the passages of Holy Scripture used in its defence have been violently twisted to serve that purpose.
Therefore, Emser, henceforth consider not how readily you can rise to heights of insult or of eloquence, but how truly and justly you ean speak. Do you think that what you are after in your writings is not clear even to a blind man? Yet all you prove by them is that you are a blatherskite, and that for your belly’s sake you are furnishing the Romanists a feeble defence. Their domination is so little able to last that, though it were
defended by all the arms of all the princes, nevertheless its patrons will perish along with its vassals sooner than it be restored. Wherefore, since you are a German, you ought loyally to befriend your race, even though Christ is of little concern to you. For you see how all are embracing Christ returned from Egypt, are listening solely to His word, and cannot be torn from Him even by death; wherefrom there would arise nothing but peace, joy, righteousness, holiness, and innocence, were there not certain illy employed idle fellows like yourself, enemies of all tranquillity, who so persistently disturb the common safety as to have no regard for evils, seditions, and wars, that they may supply an abundance of everything to the belly, their God [Phil. 3: 19], for its gluttonous use. Indeed, I do not hesitate to say that they would make a soup of the whole world, did we but connive at it. Do you, then, favor the work already begun; do not live for the ruin of Germany; do not suppose that they act wrongly who rescue the celestial word from an iniquitous tyranny. But if you cannot have a mind so fair, transfer your attention from matters of divinity to medicine, that you may at least cure your gout, either with ox-dung, or with rape elixir, or with hot vinegar. For you are naturally less fitted for sacred letters than for anything else.
Farewell, and may God grant you a good mind!
[i. e., the Reformation.]