Full Text for Luther: A Blessing to the English, part 5 (Text)

(!tuurur~itt IDqrulugual flnut41y Continuing LEHRE UND VVEHRB MAGAZIN FUER EV.-LuTH. HOMILETIK THEOLOGICAL QUARTERLy-THEOLOGICAL MONTHLY vol.xm September, 1942 No.9 CONTENTS Page Leading Thoughts on Eschatology in the Epistles to the Thessa- lonians. L. Fuerbringer _________________________________________________ 641 False Principia Cognoscendi in Theology. W. H_ T. Dau _____________ 654 Luther: A Blessing to the English. WlIllnm Dallma lln . _________ 662 Henry Melchior Muehlenberg. W. G. Polack ________________ ...:..... ________ 673 What Makes for Effective Preaching? ;J. H. C. Fritz ___________ 684 , Outlines on the Wuerltemberg Epistle Selections ______________ 692 MisceUania _________________ . ______________ . __________________________________ 699 Theological Observer. - Kirchlich-Zeitgeschichtliches ________ 709 Book Review. - Literatur ______ . ________ . ______ . ________________ . ______ 716 Ein Predlger muss nleht alleln wei- den, also dass er die Schafe unter- weise. wle aie rechte Christen sollen leln. sondern auch daneben den Woel- fen weh-ren, dass aie die Schare nicht angrel£en und mit talscher Lehre ver- fuehren und Irrtum elntuehren. Luthe-r Es 1st keln Ding. da8 die Leute mehr bel der K1rehe behaelt denn die gute Predlgt. - ApologW, Arl_ 24 If the trwnpet glve an uncertain sound. who shall prepare hl.maelf to the battle? - 1 Co-r. 14:8 Published for the Ev. Luth. Synod of Missouri, Ohio, and Other States CONCORDIA PUBLISHING HOUSE, St. Louis, Mo, 662 Luther: A Blessing to the English Luther: A Blessing to the English VI. Lutheran Progress John Skelton, poet-laureate of Oxford, Cambridge, and Lou- vain, whom Erasmus called "a light and ornament of British litera- ture" and poet-laureate Southey also praised fabulously, was the most popular and audacious writer of his day. Tutor to Henry VIII, he scored the wicked courtiers. Cleric, he castigated the clergy. "Bestiall and untaught men," not able to read or spell their own names, they appoint as priests, preferring habitual drunkards that lead disorderly lives to worthy candidates. The theologians with a "lytell ragge of rhetoricke, a lesse lump of logicke, a patch of philosophy, tumbled in theology, were drowned in dregges of divinite, posing as doctoures of the chayre at the taverns." His "Colin Clout" blames all the woes of England on the clergy and mentions Some have smacke Of Luther's sacke, And a brennyng sparke Of Luther's warke. The powerful Wolsey is "a malyncoly mastyf and mangye curre dog." In "Vlhy come ye nat to courte?" he prays God save his noble grace, And grant him a place Endless to dwell With the devil in Hell! For I undertake He would so brag and crack That he would then make The devil to quake! Roy's Satire says of the clergy- Make the company great or small, Among a thousand find thou shall Scant one chaste of body or mind. Joanna Leman would not take the blessed bread from her "Horsyn preste." Maria da Pozo wrote Francis Spinelli from Rome, January 9, 1524: It is said the pope will make him [Luther] cardinal to quiet him, provided he choose to accept the grade. These Lutheran affairs harass the pope. Believes this will be the deluge of the Church. Bishop Gian Matteo Giberti of Verona late in April wrote Melchior Lang, the nuncio in England: "Lutheranism is increasing, to the peril of Christendom. . .. If simple remedies will not suffice, the emperor should use fire and sword. . .. The pope expects great results from the king's help, considering the recent efforts of the cardinal of York to prevent this horrible plague from planting its foot in his kingdom. The king has gained great honor by being Luther: A Blessing to the English 663 the first to oppose this monster. The pope is the pilot of the ship, which will perish with him if his warnings be not regarded." On May 9 John Clerk and Thomas Hannibal write Wolsey Campegi wished him to make some demonstration against Lu- theranism in London and to threaten "the hedds of Steeds and of that fellowship in London" (Hanse merchants) with the loss of their privileges unless they root out this heresy from their cities. Bishop John Longland of Lincoln on January 5, 1525, wrote Wolsey about Wolsey's proposal for making a secret search in several places at once; and that Wolsey would be at the (St. Paul's) Cross with the clergy and have a notable clerk to preach against Luther and those who brought Lutheran books into England; after which, proclamation should be made for all who possessed copies to bring them in by a certain day, on which sentence of excommuni- cation should be fulminated against all who disobeyed and those convicted compelled to abjure or be burned. All merchants and stationers are to be bound not to bring them in. The king is as good and gracious in this quarrel of God as could be ... as fervent in this cause of Christ, His Church, and maintenance of the same, as ever a noble prince was. . .. The world is marvelously bent against the faith, and it is the King's grace and you that must remedy the same. On January 16 Wolsey wrote John Clerk, now bishop of Bath: "Now that the Lutheran sect is so rapidly spreading through Ger- many, France, Spain, Flanders, Denmark, Scotland, and perhaps England, the pope should try to check it by some act tending tu the reformation of enormity, and the observance of Christ's laws, or else it is hard to know how much the malice of the ghostly enemy might work or have power in them. . .. The Lutheran heresy makes it necessary to act wisely and speedily, lest Germany be estranged from the Church and the evil example do much harm in England." In 1525 the kings of England and France made a treaty against the Turk and "the Lutheran sect, hardly less dangerous than the Turk." In 1525 John Bugenhagen, usually called Pomeranus, sent a letter to the faithful Christians in England. John Bale, the future bishop of Ossory, gave it in English. "A compendious letter which Jhon Pomerane of Wittenberge sent to the faithful cristen congre- gation in England." More replied to Bugenhagen: "They fight against faith and deny Christ, who, while they extol only grace and faith, deny the value of works, and make men callous to living well. . .. "Do you contend that it is false to say that your faction has wasted Germany by tumult; slaughter, and rapine? Do you dare call those liars 664 Luther: A Blessing to the English who affirm that your doctrine is the cause of it all?" - the Ana- baptist insurrection and the Peasants' War. Later he even blames Luther for the kaiser's sack of Rome in 1527. On September 21 Wolsey wrote the king from Boulogne: "The princes may elect a new king of the Romans, or else a new em- peror, for repressing Luther, and bringing Germany into a better order and obedience." "Hamilton was the first man after the erection of the university who put forth a series of theses to be publicly defended. These theses were conceived in the most evangelical spirit and were maintained with great learning. It was by my advice that he pub- lished them," says Francis Lambert of Avignon, the first French monk to be converted by Luther's writings and the first president of Marburg in Hessen, the first Protestant university. Hamilton's theses are based on Luther's Freedom of a Chris- tian Man. Bishop John Leslie says Hamilton was filled "with venom very poisonable and deadly . . . soaked out of Luther and other arch- heretics.;; In prison he converted Canon Alexander Alane, whom Melanchthon called Alesius, Wanderer. Hamilton was burned early in 1528. His theses were translated by John Frith and embodied by John Knox and John Fox, and so Patrick's Places became a cornerstone of Protestant theology both in Scotland and in England. On May 11, 1528, the following were examined. Thomas Hem- sted, who confessed his wife, Joan, had taught him the Lord's Prayer and the Apostles' Creed in English, which she had learned from Gilbert, a shipwright; William Bocher, Robert Hemsted, John and Edmund Tyball, Robert Faire, John Chapman, Thomas Hilles, William Browne, John Craneford, and the friars Gardyner, John Wyggen, Thomas Topley, and William Gardyner. Humphrey Monmouth, a wealthy cloth merchant, who lived near the Tower, went to Rome and got an indulgence from guilt and punishment, and made a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. "When Luther's doctrine came first into England, Monmouth was an em- bracer of it." He bought and studied Luther's works and "had all the marks of a Scripture man." He heard Tyndale preach, was impressed, and took the needy scholar into his home. Here Tyn- dale read Luther, and now "Luther occupied the highest place in his esteem and exercised very considerable influence over his opinions." On May 14,1528, Sir Thomas More searched Monmouth's house and ministered articles against him. 1. That he knew that Luther and his opinions were condemned as heretical, and that his books were prohibited in England, in April, 1521. Luther: A Blessing to the English 665 2. That he has bought and kept many books by Luther and his sect. 3. That he has helped and given exhibition to persons occupied in translating the Bible, and making erroneous books from it; as Sir William Hochin alias Tyndalle, priest, and friar Roye, an apos- tate Observant. 4. That he helped Tyndalle and Roye to go to Almayne to study Luther's sed. 5. That he had books of Luther's translated into English, as well as his book De Libertate Christiana, and his exposition upon the Pater Noster. 6. That the De Libertate Christia.l1a was written in the be- ginning and drawn out of St. Augustine's works, and the exposition of the Pater Noster ascribed to Hilarius, to blind and abuse the readers. 7. That he has helped the translation of the New Testament by Tyndal and Roye, as well as its printing and importation. 8. That he has rel'ld and kept the translation after it was openly forbidden as being full of errors. 9. That he has kept and read an English introduction to St. Paul's Epistle to the Romans. 10. That other books, full of errors, translated into English, have been sent to him by Tyndalle. 11. That he has been privy to the printing beyond sea, of detestable English books against the sacrament of the Aitar, the Mass, and other observances of the Church. 12. That he has caused books by Luther and friar Lambert to be translated into English. 13. That he has eaten flesh in Lent. 14. That he has said and believed that faith without works is sufficient to save a man's soul. 15. That all men are not bound to observe the constitutions of the Church. 16. That we should pray to God, and not to Saints. 17. That Christians are to worship God only, and not Saints. 18. That pilgrimages should not be used. 19. That men should not offer to images in Church, nor set lights before them. 20. That contrition and confession to God alone are sufficient for a man in deadly sin. 21. That no man is bound to keep fast days. ·'1' 22. That pardons granted by the Pope or it bishop, are not profitable. 666 Luther: A Blessing to the English 23. That he is considered an advancer and favorer of Luther and his heresies. 24. That the above is true and notorious, and commonly re- ported in London and elsewhere. He was flung into prison. On June 4, 1528, Tayler writes Wolsey about John Corbett, one of his servants, well learned both in Greek and Latin, in good letters he has wonderful felicity and capacity and insuperable diligence. He had to "take a pen and paper, and write his mind with his o'vn hand, as far as he knoweth himserr infect in Luther's opinions, and by whom he was moved and what companions or favorites he hath had or hath, adherents to the said Luther's heresies." Hopes Wolsey will have compassion of [his young] age. Next day Tayler writes that at midnight Corbette rose, "saying he went ad opus naturae." "The cecesse was without the chamber." As he returned not, his fellows sought for him, but he could not be found. Has sent to Paris and Roan in search of him. Hopes he shall be excused for his facile credence. On June 5, 1528, Sir Robert Winl1eld wTites the bishop of Bath by Wolsey's command has taken certain of Martin Luther's scholars at Paris, who have accused a priest of this tov.m [Calais], named Philip Smyth, otherwise Fabry. The priest's chamber was well furnished with books, 12 or more of Luther's or his favorers; all of which he put into a pillowbere and sealed, and committed the priest to Wolsey's commissary. The priest had Luther on Peter, Jude, the Galatians, and De pseudo-Epistolis. Francis Lam- bert on the 12 Minor Prophets, De causa, &c., and his Paradoxes. Melanchthon on St. Paul to the Romans and to the Corinthians, and on the Gospel of St. John. The Psalter of Pomeranius. John Oecolampadius on Isaiah. The New Testament of Erasmus, his De Libero Arbitrio; the two parts of his Hyperaspistes against Luther. He had these books two years and a half. Thinks Luther should not be condemned except by a General Council. Francis Dynamis [Strong?] on June 19, 1528, confesses to Wolsey a previous acquaintance with George Constantine, Simon Fish, Thomas Bilney, and others, whom he abhors as pestiferous followers of Luther, at whose suggestion he had translated into English the first book of Francis Lambert "De Causis excaecationis multorum seculorum," and a letter which Bugenhagen sent "To the Faithful in Anglia." He had visited Paris and spent ten months in Constantine's house, where he had bought Luther's works and others, and the New Testament in English, with an "Introduction to the Epistle of St. Paul to the Romans," etc. But being taken and committed to prison, these books were Luther: A Blessing to the English 667 found among his effects, and he was brought before the English ambassador at St. Germain's, Bishop Clerk of Bath. He ends by bespeaking the usual clemency of the cardinal. Friars William Roy and Jerome Barlow at Strassburg printed Rede me and be not wrothe, based on Niclas Manuel's famous Krankheit der Messe, a violent attack on the English clergy and especially Wolsey. A dialog of Wolfgang Resch was translated by Walter Lynne under the name of Dialog of Two Sisters. Cardinal Wolsey feasted his eyes on a play which was a satire on Luther, likely some connection with John Hasenberg's Ludus ludentem Luderum ludens. On July 28 Richard Harman writes the kaiser he has been put in prison by the margrave of Amsterdam for selling English New Testaments to a merchant out of England and for harboring Lutherans in his house. Tyndale published The obedience of a Christen man and how Christen rulers ought to governe. . .. At Marlborow in the lande of Hesse. The seconde daye of October. Anno MCCCCC. xxviij by me Hans luft." "So thoroughly Lutheran in its thought that it reads like a translation of the reformer's own words," says Preserved Smith. The king cried out: "This book is for me and all kings to read!" Strype declares it made Henry shake off the rule of the Pope. On October 15, 1528, an unknown heretic confessed about four years ago Joan, daughter of one Dyer of Tynchenfeld, taught him the 1st chapter of James. One Quyntyne, butcher, taught him the 2nd chapter of James. John Tyball read Paul's Epistles and the Evangelists to him. Went with Sir Richard Fox, John Tyball, John Smyth, friars Tapley and Gardyner, to the house of one Gilbert, shipwright, where they read the New Testament and talked of heresies. They also met at Bowre Hall, Mother Bacher's, and Mother Charte's, where sometimes Fox, or the respondent, or John Smyth, would read the New Testament in English, in presence of them and their households. About a year ago last Whitsuntide, being in London with John Tyball, went to friar Barnes at the Friars Augustines, to buy New Testaments. Found him reading the New Testament to a young gentleman, with a chain round his neck. Each of them bought a New Testament for 3s. Read it in the houses of Roger, a tanner, Gyfford, Bower Hall, Mother Bacher's, and Mother Charte's, and at last sold it to Fox. Dr. Philip Faber [Smith] after December, 1528, thanks Wolsey for absolving him from his errors at the intercession of Cardinal Campegi for holding heretical communications with one Dynamis, who had come to Calais two or three years ago. When he said GG8 Luther: A Blessing to the English he followed Lyranus, Dynamis facetiously replied, "Forget the delirium of Lyra, and take this new preacher of the Gospel," giving him Luther's Abrogation of the Mass, Exposition of Daniel's Vision, The Eighth oj Daniel; which he had not seen before. He also received from him three books which Dynamis had bought at Antwerp, viz., Melanchthon on Romans, Matthew, and Luther's Unfree Will. Melanchthon on John and Corinthians, with Francis Lambert on the Rule of the Minorites, he had resold to James Yates; and some other volumes in English and German, which he had copied out vvith his OVVll hand. "The playe called the foure PP. A newe and a very mery enterlude of A palmer, A pardoner, A potecary, A pedler. Made by Jo1m Heewood" [Heywood] came out about 1528. Froude says it is full of Lutheran doctrine, but we find in it only a satire of the corrupt condition of the church. "This was still the age of blasphemous and saturnalian parody, when feasts of the ass, the bull, and the Innocents were celebrated before cathedral altars." Cardinal Campegi, credited with five bastards, round the royal rascal reading Luther's books. On April 3, 1529, he wrote: "I told the king this vIas the devil dressed in angel's garb in order that he might the more easily deceive. I represented that by Councils and theologians it had been determined that the Church justly held her temporal goods. "His Majesty remarked the Lutherans say these decisions were arrived at by theologians, insinuating it was now necessary for the laity to interpose. Then he attacked the wickedness of the papal court." It seems the leaven of Luther's Address to the Nobility of the German Nation was now leavening the lump of the head of the English nation. In 1525 Simon Fish, a lawyer of Gray's Inn, in a play acted the part of Cardinal Wolsey and then fled over the sea to Tyndale. About 1529 he wrote A Supplicacyon for the Beggers to the King ovre Souereygne lorde." "For verey constreint they die for hunger . . . by the reason and [that] there is ... craftily crept ynto this your realme an other sort (not of impotent, but) of strong, puissaunt, and counter- feit holy, and ydell, beggers and vacabundes, whiche ... are nowe encreased vnder your sight, not onely into a great nombre, but also ynto a kingdome. These are (not the herdes, but the rauinous wolues going in herdes clothing, deuouring the £locke) the Bis- shoppes, Abbottcs, Priours, Deacons, Archedeacons, Suffraganes, Prestes, Monkes, Chanons, Freres, Pardoners and Somuers. And who is abill to nombre this idell, rauinous sort, whiche (setting Luther: A Blessing to the English 66[; all labours aside) haue begged so importunatly that they haue gotten ynto theyre hondes more then the therd part of all youre Realme." Five orders take 20 pence a year from every house, or in round numbers 43,333 pounds, 6 shillings, 8 pence. "England stoud tributary vnto a cruell, deuelisshe bloudsupper, dronken in the bloude of the sayntes and marters of Christ. . . . "The haue to do with euery mannes ",Tife, euery mannes doughter, and euery mannes mayde, that cukkoldrie and baudrie shulde reigne DUel' all emong your subjects, that noman shulde knowe his owne childe .... "These be they that haue made an hundreth thousand ydell hores yn your realme. These be they that corrupt the hole genera- tion of mankind in your realme; that catche the pokkes of one woman, and bere theym to an other; that be brent wyth one woman, and bere it to an other; that catche the lepry of one woman, and bere it to another; ye, some one of theym shall bost among his felawes, that he hath medled with an hundred wymen .... "Where is youre swerde, power, crowne, and dignite become, that shulde punisshe (by punisshement of deth, euen as other men are punisshed) the felonies, rapes, murders, and treasons committed by this sinful generacion? . . . "Who is she that wil set her hondes to worke, to get. iij. d. a day, and may haue at lest . xx. d. a day to slepe an houre with a frere, a monke, or a prest? What is he that wolde laboure for a grote a day, and may haue at lest. xij. d. a day to be haude to a prest, a monke, or a £rere? Whate a sort are there of theime that mari prestes souereigne ladies, but to cloke the prestes yncon- tinency, and that they may haue a liuing of the prest theime silues for theire laboure? ... "Whate remedy: make lawes ageynst theim? Are they not stronger in your owne parliament house then your silfe? ... "This is the great scabbe why they will not let the newe Tes- tament go a-brode yn your model' tong, lest men shulde espie that they, by theyre cloked ypochrisi, do translate thus fast your king dome into theyre hondes . . . that they are cruell, vnclene, vnmerciful, and ypochrites, that thei seke not the honour of Christ, but their owne, that the remission of sinnes are not giuen by the popes pardon, but by Christ, for the sure feith and trust that we haue in him .... "Take from theim all these thynges. . .. Then shall the gospell be preached .... " A copy of this eloquent indictment came into the hands of Anne Boleyn, and through her the king got it and put it into his bosom. 670 Luther: A Blessing to the English Sir Thomas More tried to wipe out the deep impression made by Fish by writing the SuppZicacion of the poore sely soules pewling out of Purgatory. The souls scoff at the author of the Beggers, "sometymes scoldyng and rayling at hym, callying hym foole, witlesse, frantike, an asse, a goose, a madde dogge, an hereticke, and all that naught is." Such is the wit of England's greatest wit. Parable of the Wicked Mammon appeared in 1529 - Tyndale's work on justification by faith, based on Luther. More calls it "a very treasury and well-spring of wickedness, a book by which many have been beguiled and brought into many wicked heresies." An Exposition in to the seventh chaptre of the first pistle to the Corinthians. At Malborow in the londe of Hesse. MDXXIX .xx daye Junii.' By me Hans Luft. Translated by Tyndale. A Pistle to the Christen Reder. The Revelation of Antichrist. Antithesis wherein are compared togeder Christes actes and our holye father the Popes. [At Marl] borow in the land of Hesse. xij day of Julye Anno MCCCCCxxix. Hans lillt. - Luther's Pas- sional Christi et Antichristi of 1521. Tunstal helped make the Treaty of Cambray, ended on Au- gust 5, 1529, which embraced "the forbidding to print or sell any Lutheran books." While at Antwerp, he met Augustine Packyng- ton, a mercer and merchant of London, who offered to buy up all English New Testaments. "The Bishop, thinkyng that he had God by the too, when in deede he had (as after he thought) the Deville by the fiste, said, 'Gentle Master Packyngton, do your diligence and get them, and with all my harte I will paie for them, what- soever thei cost you, for the bokes are erronious and naughte, and I entende surely to destroy theim all, and to burn them at Paule's Crosse .... "An so forward went the bargain. The Bishop had the bokes, Packyngton had the thankes, and Tyndale had the money." Ever more New Testaments came into England, and so Tunstal asked Packington how that came. "It will never bee better as long as thei have the letters and stamps, therefore it were best for your lordshippe to bye the stampes to, and then are you sure." The Bishop smiled at him and saied: "Well, Packyngton, well," and so ended this matter. Curate George Constantine of London helped Tyndale and Joy in translating the New Testament, passed and repassed the sea, taking the Testament and Luther's works to England, and was arrested and jailed. Lord Chancellor More said: "Constantine, there is beyond the sea, Tyndale, J oye, and a greet many mo of you. I knowe thei cannot lyve without helpe, some sendeth theim money and suc- Luther: A Blessing to the English 671 cowreth theim, and thyself beyng one of them, haddest parte thereof, and therefore knowest from whence it came. I praie thee who be thei that thus helpe them?" "My Lorde, will you that I shal tell you the truthe 7" "Yea, I praie thee." "Mary I will. Truly, it is the Bishoppe of London that hath holpen us, for he hath bestowed emong us a great deale of money in New Testamentes to burne theim, and that hath and yet is our only succoure and comfort." "Now by my trclthe, I thynke even the same, and I said so muche to the Bishop, when he went about to bye them." Constantine betrayed his companions and the shipmen who brought in the books. Henry ordered Wolsey to free the prior of Reading, in prison for Lutheranism, "unless the matter is very serious." The Reichstag had time and again presented the famous Hun- dred grievances against the clergy, and on November 3, 1529, England followed the example. This Parliament is known as "The Parliament for the cnonnities of clergy." Bishop Burnet says the laymen were favorers of the Lutheran teaching in their hearts. All the clergy could do was to cry "Heretics! Lack of faith!" Bishop John Fisher cried: "For God's sake, see what realm the kingdom of Boheme was, and when the church fell down, there fell the glory of the kingdom. Now with the Commons is nothing but 'Down with the church,' and all this meseemeth is for lack of faith only." The saintly sage was forced to apologize, but "he stooped to an equivocation too transparent to deceive anyone." The bishops said: "In the crime of heresy, thanked be God, there hath no notable person fallen in our time. Truth it is that certain apostate friars and monks, lewd priests, bankrupt merchants, vagabonds and lewd idle fellows of corrupt nature, have embraced the abominable and erroneous opinions lately sprung up in Ger- many, and by them have been some seduced in simplicity and ignorance. Against these, if judgment have been exercised accord- ing to the laws of the realm, we be without blame. If we have been too remiss or slack, we shall gladly do our duty from henceforth." They did - with a vengeance. "By the procurement and sedition of Martin Luther and other heretics were slain an infinite number of Christian people" in Ger- many. That must not happen in England; and so, in 1529 the King issued "A Proclamation of resysting and withstandyng of most dampnable Heresyes, sown within this Realme by the Disciples of Martin Luther and other Heretykes, Perverters of Christes Re- 672 Luther: A Blessing to the English ligyon." He published an Index of Prohibited Books with the title: Books of the Lutherian sect or faction imported into the city of London. "Dr. N[artin Luther CUllcenling Good Works. Letter or Luther to Pope Leo X. Tessaradecas Consolatoria of Martin Luther. Tract of Luther Concerning Christian Liberty. Sermons of Dr. Mar- tin Luther. Exposition of the Epistles of St. Peter by Martin Luther. Reply of Martin Luther to Bartholomew Catharinus. Of the Works of God by Martin Cellarius. Deuteronomy, from the Hebrew, "'.lith annotations of Martin Luther. Luther's CatechisT'! in Latin by J. Lonicerus. The Prophet Jonah, explained by Martin Luther. Commentary of Martin Luther on the Epistle of Paul to the Galatians. Selection from the letters of Martin Luther, full of piety and learning, with the interpretations of several psalms. Narrations of Postils of Martin Luther upon the lessons from the Gospels, etc. Sixteen Conclusions of the reverend father, Martin Luther, concerning Faith and Ceremonies. Most Wholesome Dec- laration of the same concerning Faith and Works. Most Learned Explanation of Ceremonies. Fifty Conclusions by the same for timid consciences, Luther's Explanation of his thirteenth proposi- tion Concerning the Power of the Pope. Oration of Didyrnus Faventinus [Melanchthon] on behalf of Martin Luther. New Nar- rations of Martin Luther on the prophet Jonah. Judgment of Martin Luther Concerning Monastic Vows. Enchiridion of Godly Prayers of Martin Luther. Several brief Sermons of Martin Luther on the Virgin, the Mother of God." Also works of Melanchthon, Bugenhagen, Brentz, Rhegius, Carlstadt, Agricola, Bucer, and others - all "books of the Lutheran sect." More writes: "Although these books cannot either be there printed without great cost, nor here sold without great adventure and peril, yet with money sent hence, they cease not to print them there and send them hither by the whole sacks full at once, and in some places, looking for no lucre, cast them abroad at night; so great a pestilent pleasure have some devilish people caught with the labor, travail, cost, charge, peril, harm, and hurt of themselves to seek the destruction of others." More wished Catholics were half so zealous "as those that are fallen into false heresies and have forsaken the faith, who seem to have a hot fire of hell in their hearts that can never suffer them to rest or cease, but forces them night and day to labor and work busily to subvert and destroy the Catholic Christian faith by every means they can devise." Oak Park, Ill. WILLIAM DALLMANN (To be continued)