But light and darkness cannot harmonize . Between truth and error there is an irrepressible conflict . To uphold and defend the one is to attack and overthrow the other . Our Saviour Himself declared : " I came not to send peace , but a sword ." Matthew 10:34 . Said Luther , a few years after the opening of the Reformation : " God does not guide me , He pushes me forward . He carries me away . I am not master of myself . I desire to live in repose ; but I am thrown into the midst of tumults and revolutions ." --D ' Aubigne , b . 5 , ch . 2 . He was now about to be urged into the contest . The Roman Church had made merchandise of the grace of God . The tables of the money-changers ( Matthew 21:12 ) were set up beside her altars , and the air resounded with the shouts of buyers and sellers . Under the plea of raising funds for the erection of St . Peter ' s Church at Rome , indulgences for sin were publicly offered for sale by the authority of the pope . By the price of crime a temple was to be built up for God ' s worship--the cornerstone laid with the wages of iniquity ! But the very means adopted for Rome ' s aggrandizement provoked the deadliest blow to her power and greatness . It was this that aroused the most determined and successful of the enemies of popery , and led to the battle which shook the papal throne and jostled the triple crown upon the pontiff ' s head .
The official appointed to conduct the sale of indulgences in Germany--Tetzel by name--had been convicted of the basest offenses against society and against the law of God ; but having escaped the punishment due for his crimes , he was employed to further the mercenary and unscrupulous projects of the pope . With great effrontery he repeated the most glaring falsehoods and related marvellous tales to deceive an ignorant , credulous , and superstitious people . Had they possessed the word of God they would not have been thus deceived . It was to keep them under the control of the papacy , in order to swell the power and wealth of her ambitious leaders , that the Bible had been withheld from them . ( See John C . L . Gieseler , A Compendium of Ecclesiastical History , per . 4 , sec . 1 , par . 5 .)
As Tetzel entered a town , a messenger went before him , announcing : " The grace of God and of the holy father is at your gates ." --D ' Aubigne , b . 3 , ch . 1 . And the people welcomed the blasphemous pretender as if he were God Himself come down from heaven to them . The infamous traffic was set up in the church , and Tetzel , ascending the pulpit , extolled the indulgences as the most precious gift of God . He declared that by virtue of his certificates of pardon all the sins which the purchaser should afterward desire to commit would be forgiven him , and that " not even repentance is necessary ." -- Ibid ., b . 3 , ch . 1 . More than this , he assured his hearers that the indulgences had power to save not only the living but the dead ; that the very moment the money should clink against the bottom of his chest , the soul in whose behalf it had been paid would escape from purgatory and make its way to heaven . ( See K . R . Hagenbach , History of the Reformation , vol . 1 , p . 96 .)
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