iv. 1).
This bad system has now issued in such a pompous display of power and
such a terrible tyranny that no earthly government can be compared to
it, as if the laity were something else than Christians. Through this
perversion of things it has happened that the knowledge of Christian
grace, of faith, of liberty, and altogether of Christ, has utterly
perished, and has been succeeded by an intolerable bondage to human
works and laws; and, according to the Lamentations of Jeremiah, we have
become the slaves of the vilest men on earth, who abuse our misery to
all the disgraceful and ignominious purposes of their own will.
Returning to the subject which we had begun, I think it is made clear by
these considerations that it is not sufficient, nor a Christian course,
to preach the works, life, and words of Christ in a historic manner, as
facts which it suffices to know as an example how to frame our life, as
do those who are now held the best preachers, and much less so to keep
silence altogether on these things and to teach in their stead the laws
of men and the decrees of the Fathers. There are now not a few persons
who preach and read about Christ with the object of moving the human
affections to sympathise with Christ, to indignation against the Jews,
and other childish and womanish absurdities of that kind.
Now preaching ought to have the object of promoting faith in Him, so
that He may not only be Christ, but a Christ for you and for me, and
that what is said of Him, and what He is called, may work in us.
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