are wanting , all is wanting , and I would not give a pear stalk for such a result . . . . God does more by His word alone than you and I and all the world by our united strength . God lays hold upon the heart ; and when the heart is taken , all is won . . . .
" I will preach , discuss , and write ; but I will constrain none , for faith is a voluntary act . See what I have done . I stood up against the pope , indulgences , and papists , but without violence or tumult . I put forward God ' s word ; I preached and wrote--this was all I did . And yet while I was asleep , . . . the word that I had preached overthrew popery , so that neither prince nor emperor has done it so much harm . And yet I did nothing ; the word alone did all . If I had wished to appeal to force , the whole of Germany would perhaps have been deluged with blood . But what would have been the result ? Ruin and desolation both to body and soul . I therefore kept quiet , and left the word to run through the world alone ." -- Ibid ., b . 9 , ch . 8 .
Day after day , for a whole week , Luther continued to preach to eager crowds . The word of God broke the spell of fanatical excitement . The power of the gospel brought back the misguided people into the way of truth . Luther had no desire to encounter the fanatics whose course had been productive of so great evil . He knew them to be men of unsound judgment and undisciplined passions , who , while claiming to be specially illuminated from heaven , would not endure the slightest contradiction or even the kindest reproof or counsel . Arrogating to themselves supreme authority , they required everyone , without a question , to acknowledge their claims . But , as they demanded an interview with him , he consented to meet them ; and so successfully did he expose their pretensions that the impostors at once departed from Wittenberg .
The fanaticism was checked for a time ; but several years later it broke out with greater violence and more terrible results . Said Luther , concerning the leaders in this movement : " To them the Holy Scriptures were but a dead letter , and they all began to cry , ' The Spirit ! the Spirit !' But most assuredly I will not follow where their spirit leads them . May God of His mercy preserve me from a church in which there are none but saints . I desire to dwell with the humble , the feeble , the sick , who know and feel their sins , and who groan and cry continually to God from the bottom of their hearts to obtain His consolation and support ." -- Ibid ., b . 10 , ch . 10 .
Thomas Munzer , the most active of the fanatics , was a man of considerable ability , which , rightly directed , would have enabled him to do good ; but he had not learned the first principles of true religion . " He was possessed with a desire of reforming the world , and forgot , as all enthusiasts do , that the reformation should begin with himself ." -- Ibid ., b . 9 , ch . 8 . He was ambitious to obtain position and influence , and was unwilling to be second , even to Luther . He declared that the Reformers , in substituting the authority of Scripture for that of the pope , were only establishing a different form of popery . He himself , he claimed , had been divinely commissioned to introduce the
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