128 The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan
[ 127 ] 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,” 166 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.” 167 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 168 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 corner-stone 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 to 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 marvelous 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
166 Matt. 10:34. 167 D ' Aubigné, b. 5, ch. 2. 168 Matt. 21:12.