- To repress these scruples and arguments of the laity by force alone, and not to solve
them by giving reasons, is to expose the Church and the Pope to the ridicule of their enemies, and
to make Christian men unhappy. - If, then, pardons were preached according to the spirit and mind of the Pope, all these
questions would be resolved with ease; nay, would not exist. - Away then with all those prophets who say to the people of Christ, "Peace, peace," and
there is no peace. - Blessed be all those prophets, who say to the people of Christ, "The cross, the cross,"
and there is no cross. - Christians should be exhorted to strive to follow Christ their head through pains, deaths,
and hells; - [Lat. Text, XX.] And thus trust to enter heaven through many tribulations, rather than
in the security of peace [per securitatem pacis].
PROTESTATION.
I, Martin Luther, Doctor, of the Order of Monks at Wittenberg, desire to testify publicly
that certain propositions against pontifical indulgences, as they call them, have been put forth by
me. Now although, up to the present time, neither this most celebrated and renowned school of
ours nor any civil or ecclesiastical power has condemned me, yet there are, as I hear, some men of
headlong and audacious spirit, who dare to pronounce me a heretic, as though the matter had been
thoroughly looked into and studied. But on my part, as I have often done before, so now too I
implore all men, by the faith of Christ, either to point out to me a better way, if such a way has
been divinely revealed to any, or at least to submit their opinion to the judgment of God and of the
Church. For I am neither so rash as to wish that my sole opinion should be preferred to that of all
other men, nor so senseless as to be willing that the word of God should be made to give place to
fables devised by human reason.
§ 33. The Theses-Controversy. 1518.
Luther’s Sermon vom Ablass und Gnade, printed in February, 1518 (Weimar ed. I. 239–246; and
in Latin, 317–324); Kurze Erklärung der Zehn Gebote, 1518 (I. 248–256, in Latin under the
title Instructio pro Confessione peccatorum, p. 257–265); Asterisci adversus Obeliscos Eckii,
March, 1518 (I. 278–316); Freiheit des Sermons päpstlichen Ablass und Gnade belangend,
June, 1518, against Tetzel (I. 380–393); Resolutiones disputationum de indulgentiarum virtute,
August, 1518, dedicated to the Pope (I. 522–628). Letters of Luther to Archbishop Albrecht,
Spalatin, and others, in De Wette, I. 67 sqq.
Tetzel’s Anti-Theses, 2 series, one of 106, the other of 50 sentences, are printed in Löscher’s Ref.
Acta, I. 505–514, and 518–523. Eck’s Obelisci, ibid. III. 333.
On the details of the controversy, see Jürgens (III. 479 sqq.), Köstlin (I. 175 sqq.), Kolde (I. 126
sqq.), Bratke, and Dieckhoff, as quoted in § 31.
The Theses of Luther were a tract for the times. They sounded the trumpet of the Reformation.
They found a hearty response with liberal scholars and enemies of monastic obscurantism, with
German patriots longing for emancipation from Italian control, and with thousands of plain Christians
waiting for the man of Providence who should give utterance to their feelings of indignation against