The Great Controversy The Great Controversy | Page 191

of heart, nor faith, nor charity. Where these three 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:

190