Concerning Christian Liberty | Page 4

their impiety. And for
this I am so far from being sorry that I have brought my mind to despise the judgments of
men and to persevere in this vehement zeal, according to the example of Christ, who, in
His zeal, calls His adversaries a generation of vipers, blind, hypocrites, and children of
the devil. Paul, too, charges the sorcerer with being a child of the devil, full of all subtlety
and all malice; and defames certain persons as evil workers, dogs, and deceivers. In the
opinion of those delicate-eared persons, nothing could be more bitter or intemperate than
Paul's language. What can be more bitter than the words of the prophets? The ears of our
generation have been made so delicate by the senseless multitude of flatterers that, as
soon as we perceive that anything of ours is not approved of, we cry out that we are being
bitterly assailed; and when we can repel the truth by no other pretence, we escape by
attributing bitterness, impatience, intemperance, to our adversaries. What would be the
use of salt if it were not pungent, or of the edge of the sword if it did not slay? Accursed
is the man who does the work of the Lord deceitfully.
Wherefore, most excellent Leo, I beseech you to accept my vindication, made in this

letter, and to persuade yourself that I have never thought any evil concerning your person;
further, that I am one who desires that eternal blessing may fall to your lot, and that I
have no dispute with any man concerning morals, but only concerning the word of truth.
In all other things I will yield to any one, but I neither can nor will forsake and deny the
word. He who thinks otherwise of me, or has taken in my words in another sense, does
not think rightly, and has not taken in the truth.
Your see, however, which is called the Court of Rome, and which neither you nor any
man can deny to be more corrupt than any Babylon or Sodom, and quite, as I believe, of a
lost, desperate, and hopeless impiety, this I have verily abominated, and have felt
indignant that the people of Christ should be cheated under your name and the pretext of
the Church of Rome; and so I have resisted, and will resist, as long as the spirit of faith
shall live in me. Not that I am striving after impossibilities, or hoping that by my labours
alone, against the furious opposition of so many flatterers, any good can be done in that
most disordered Babylon; but that I feel myself a debtor to my brethren, and am bound to
take thought for them, that fewer of them may be ruined, or that their ruin may be less
complete, by the plagues of Rome. For many years now, nothing else has overflowed
from Rome into the world--as you are not ignorant--than the laying waste of goods, of
bodies, and of souls, and the worst examples of all the worst things. These things are
clearer than the light to all men; and the Church of Rome, formerly the most holy of all
Churches, has become the most lawless den of thieves, the most shameless of all brothels,
the very kingdom of sin, death, and hell; so that not even antichrist, if he were to come,
could devise any addition to its wickedness.
Meanwhile you, Leo, are sitting like a lamb in the midst of wolves, like Daniel in the
midst of lions, and, with Ezekiel, you dwell among scorpions. What opposition can you
alone make to these monstrous evils? Take to yourself three or four of the most learned
and best of the cardinals. What are these among so many? You would all perish by
poison before you could undertake to decide on a remedy. It is all over with the Court of
Rome; the wrath of God has come upon her to the uttermost. She hates councils; she
dreads to be reformed; she cannot restrain the madness of her impiety; she fills up the
sentence passed on her mother, of whom it is said, "We would have healed Babylon, but
she is not healed; let us forsake her." It had been your duty and that of your cardinals to
apply a remedy to these evils, but this gout laughs at the physician's hand, and the chariot
does not obey the reins. Under the influence of these feelings, I have always grieved that
you, most excellent Leo, who were worthy of a better age, have been made pontiff in this.
For the Roman Court is not worthy of you and those like you, but of Satan himself, who
in truth is more the ruler in that Babylon than you are.
Oh, would