II.
Of the Matters to be Considered in the Councils.
Let us now consider the matters which should be treated in the councils, and with which popes, cardinals, bishops, and all learned men should occupy themselves day and night, if they loved Christ and His Church. But if they do not do so, the people at large and the temporal powers must do so, without considering the thunders of their excommunications. For an unjust excommunication is better than ten just absolutions, and an unjust absolution is worse than ten just excommunications. Therefore let us rouse ourselves, fellow-Germans, and fear God more than man, that we be not answerable for all the poor souls that are so miserably lost through the wicked, devilish government of the Romanists, through which also the dominion of the Devil grows day by day; if indeed this hellish government can grow any worse, which for my part I can neither conceive nor believe.
1. It is a distressing and terrible thing to see that the head of Christendom, who boasts of being the Vicar of Christ and the successor of St. Peter, lives in a worldly pomp that no king or emperor can equal: so that in him that calls himself most holy and most spiritual, there is more worldliness than in the world itself. He wears a triple crown, whereas the mightiest kings only wear one crown. If this resembles the poverty of Christ and St. Peter, it is a new sort of resemblance. They prate of its being heretical to object to this; nay, they will not even hear how unchristian and ungodly it is. But I think that if he should have to pray to God with tears, he would have to lay down his crowns; for God will not endure any arrogance. His office should be nothing else than to weep and pray constantly for Christendom, and to be an example of all humility.
However this may be, this pomp is a stumbling-block, and the Pope, for the very salvation of his soul, ought to put it off; for St. Paul says: “Abstain from all appearance of evil” (1 Thess. v. 21); and again: “Provide things honest in the sight of all men.” (2 Cor. viii. 21.) A simple mitre would be enough for the Pope: wisdom and sanctity should raise him above the rest; the crown of pride he should leave to Antichrist, as his predecessors did for some hundreds of years. They say: He is the ruler of the world. This is false; for Christ, whose vice-gerent and vicar he claims to be, said to Pilate: “My kingdom is not of this world.” (John xviii. 36.) But no vice-gerent can have a wider dominion than his Lord. Nor is he a vice-gerent of Christ in His glory, but of Christ crucified, as St. Paul says: “For I determined not to know anything among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified” (2 Cor. ii. 2); and (Phil. ii. 7): “Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus; who made himself of no reputation, and took upon himself the form of a servant.” (Phil. ii. 5, 7.) Again (1 Cor. i.): “We preach Christ crucified.” Now they make the Pope a vice-gerent of Christ exalted in heaven, and some have let the Devil rule them so thoroughly, that they have maintained that the Pope is above the angels in heaven, and has power over them; which is precisely the true work of the true Antichrist.
2. What is the use in Christendom of the people called “Cardinals”? I will tell you. In Italy and Germany there are many rich convents, endowments, fiefs and benefices, and as the best way of getting these into the hands of Rome, they created cardinals, and gave them the sees, convents, and prelacies, and thus destroyed the service of God. That is why Italy is almost a desert now: the convents are destroyed, the sees consumed, the revenues of the prelacies and of all the churches drawn to Rome; towns are decayed; the country and the people ruined, while there is no more any worship of God or preaching; why? Because the cardinals must have all the wealth. No Turk could have thus desolated Italy and overthrown the worship of God.
Now that Italy is sucked dry, they come to Germany and begin very quietly; but we shall see, that Germany is soon to be brought into the same state as Italy. We have a few cardinals already. What the Romanists mean thereby the drunken Germans18 are not to see until they have lost everything—bishoprics, convents, benefices, fiefs, even to their last farthing. Antichrist must take the riches of the earth, as it is written. (Dan. xi. 8, 39, 43.) They begin by taking off the cream of the bishoprics, convents, and fiefs; and as they do not dare to destroy everything as they have done in Italy, they employ such holy cunning to join together ten or twenty prelacies, and take such a portion of each, annually, that the total amounts to a considerable sum. The priory of Würzburg gives one thousand guilders, those of Bamberg, Mayence, Treves and others also contribute. In this way they collect one thousand or ten thousand guilders, in order that a cardinal may live at Rome in a state like that of a wealthy monarch.