The Great Controversy The Great Controversy | Page 141
Rome became more and more exasperated by the attacks of Luther,
and it was declared by some of his fanatical opponents, even by doctors
in Catholic universities, that he who should kill the rebellious monk
would be without sin. One day a stranger, with a pistol hidden under his
cloak, approached the Reformer and inquired why he went thus alone.
“I am in God’s hands,” answered Luther. “He is my strength and my
shield. What can man do unto me?”—Ibid., b. 6, ch. 2. Upon hearing
these words, the stranger turned pale and fled away as from the presence
of the angels of heaven.
Rome was bent upon the destruction of Luther; but God was
his defense. His doctrines were heard everywhere—“in cottages and
convents, ... in the castles of the nobles, in the universities, and in the
palaces of kings;” and noble men were rising on every hand to sustain
his efforts.—Ibid., b. 6, ch. 2.
It was about this time that Luther, reading the works of Huss,
found that the great truth of justification by faith, which he himself
was seeking to uphold and teach, had been held by the Bohemian
Reformer. “We have all,” said Luther, “Paul, Augustine, and myself,
been Hussites without knowing it!” “God will surely visit it upon the
world,” he continued, “that the truth was preached to it a century ago,
and burned!”—Wylie, b. 6, ch. 1
In an appeal to the emperor and nobility of Germany in behalf of the
reformation of Christianity, Luther wrote concerning the pope: “It is a
horrible thing to behold the man who styles himself Christ’s vicegerent,
displaying a magnificence that no emperor can equal. Is this being
like the poor Jesus, or the humble Peter? He is, say they, the lord of
the world! But Christ, whose vicar he boasts of being, has said, ‘My
kingdom is not of this world.’ Can the dominions of a vicar extend
beyond those of his superior?”—D’Aubigne, b. 6, ch. 3.
He wrote thus of the universities: “I am much afraid that the
universities will prove to be the great gates of hell,
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