The Great Controversy The Great Controversy | Page 128

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 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 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

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