#35- If The Church Doesn’t Keep the Word, Then No Different From Heretic

“Now if I do not know or distinguish the true church from the false one on the basis of obedience and obdurate disobedience, then I am unable to speak of a church any longer. Then one might accordingly also with due deference call all heretics, all factions and sects that are wantonly disobedient to Christ, the holy church; for they are in no way worse than the pope’s church, if indeed wanton disobedience against God does no harm. On the other hand, the papal church is no better because it is just as stubbornly disobedient to God and wickedly perverts his word and, besides, it is more insistent on being right than any other faction and heretic. This would finally be the upshot that there would no longer be either a church or heretics on earth, for by what criterion would we prove that this or that faction consists of heretics?

If we say, ‘God has commanded that lords and parents should be obeyed,’ then they have the papal church as an excellent example and can say, ‘Even the papal church does not keep God’s command; rather, it forbids keeping it and strangles and persecutes all those who want to keep God’s word.’ …  The result of the superlative skill of the papists is twofold: God’s kingdom is being destroyed by sheer heresy, and the worldly authorities are set at variance by constant revolts, and homes are filled with lost children. Nevertheless, it has to be regarded as justly done, and whoever wants to reprove it finds himself condemned and reproved as a heretic, rebel, and lost child. They should be thanked, these excellent teachers. But enough of that now; for I am indeed ready, if God so wills, to write something that deals particularly with the church.  In such a writing I should like to show who indeed they are who most assiduously teach people to be disobedient to God and man, who destroy both God’s and the world’s kingdom (as much as they are able) and make themselves free of them, and who alone possess the rule in heaven and on earth and yet do as they please” (Luther’s Works, v.38 p.229-230).

Posted in 2017 Reformation Quotes.