Theological Quarterly (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1877 Excerpt: ...properly consists of these two parts: The first is contrition, or the terrors of a conscience smitten with acknowledged sin. The other part is faith, which is conceived from the Gospel or absolution, and believes that for Christ's sake sins are remitted." "This first act of Luther's evangelical life," says Gieseler, "has been hastily ascribed by at least three eminent writers of very different character--Bossuet, Hume, and Voltaire--to the narrow monastic motive, the jealousy of a rival order. It is asserted that the Augustinian friars had usually been invested in Saxony with this profitable commission, and that it only became offensive to Luther when transferred to the Dominicans. There is no ground for this assertion. The Dominicans had been for nearly three centuries the peculiar favourites of the Holy See, and objects of all its partialities; and it is particularly remarkable that, after thfl middlo of the fifteenth century, during a period scandalously fruitful in the abuse in question, we very rarely meet with the name of any Augustinian as employed in that service. Moreover, it is almost equally important to add that none of the contemporary adversaries of Luther ever advanced this char.'8 against him, even at the moment in whicll the controversy was carried on with the most unscrupulous wrath." The influence of thesa theses was instantly felt far and wide. "The theses," says Luther himself, "ran cleai through all Germany in fourteen days, foi all the world was complaining about tha indulgences; and because all the bishops and doctors were silent, and nobody was willing to bell the cat, Luther became a renowned doctor, because at last somebody had come who took hold of the thing." Luther, in his frank, art...