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KEY Commentary Side Textual Bibliographic Scriptural
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This wise reason is their shoteancre and
al their hold / their
refuge to flight and chefe stone in their fundacion
/ wheron they
haue bilt all their lies and all their mischeue
that they haue wrought this .viij. hundred yeres. And this
reason do the Iewes laye vn to
oure charge this daye / and this reason doeth chefely
blynd them and
hold them still in obstinacie. Oure spirites first
falsifie the scripture to stablish their lyes. And when the
scripture cometh to light and is
restored vn to the true vnderstondinge and their
iuglinge spied / and
they like to sofre shippwracke / then they cast out
this ancre / they be the church and can not erre / their
auctorite is greater then the
scripture / and the scripture is not true / but
because they saye so
and admitte it. And therfore what soeuer they
affirme / is of as greate auctorite as the scripture.
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93/1–3
Oure prelates . . .
awne. Cf. Luke 22.25–26.
93/3–5
Peter . . .
required. Cf. Acts 15.10.
93/5–6
paul . . .
obedience. Cf. 2 Cor. 11.4.
93/6–7
galathyans . . .
bondage. Cf. Gal. 5.1.
93/8–9
peter . . . superioures. Cf. CWM 6/1.106/30–33.
93/9–10
obey . . .
swerde. For temporal rulers, cf. Eph. 6.5–7, Tit. 2.9, Tit.
3.1, Heb. 13.17, 1 Pet. 2.13–14, 18.
93/11–12
obey . . .
awne. For spiritual leaders, cf. 2 Pet. 2.1, Gal. 1.8.
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Notwithstondinge / as I saide / the kingdome of
heuen stondeth not in wordes of mans wisdome / but in power and
spirite. And therfore loke vn to the ensamples of the scripture
and so shalt thou vnderstonde. And of an hundred ensamples
betwene Moses and Christe / where the Israelites fell from god
and were euer restored by one prophete or other / let vs take
one: even Ihon the Baptiste. Ihon went before Christ to prepare
his waye / that is / to brynge men vn to the knowlege of their
sinnes and vn to repentaunce /
thorow true expoundynge of the lawe / which is the
only waye vn to Christe. For excepte a man knowlege his sinnes
and repent of
them / he can haue no parte in Christe / of Ihon
Christ saith Matt. xvij. that he was Elias that shuld come and
restore all thynge. That is / he shuld restore the scripture vn
to the right sens agayne / which
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93/14–19
Of tradicions . .
. vnite. Erasmus had lamented that the life of Christians is
burdened by "human constitutions" that impose ceremonial
practices. Still, liturgical ceremonies, with due moderation, add proper
solemnity to divine worship. Cf. Ratio verae theologiae (1518) in Holborn 238–39, 252.
Luther formulated his protest against obligatory ecclesiastical
traditions in Avoiding the Doctrines of
Men, a short tract of 1522 that also circulated in a 1525 Latin
version. Luther stressed that two Pauline texts, 1 Tim. 4.1–4 and Col.
2.16–23, foresaw and condemned such attempts to ensnare Christian
consciences regarding fasts and feasts (WA 10/2.72–92; LW 35.131–47).
Here Christian freedom rests on ten biblical texts that undercut any
ecclesiastical authority to lay down binding obligations. The observance
of fasts and feasts is not evil in itself, but making them obligatory
is, according to Luther, to add to God's commandments in contravention
of Deut. 4.2 and to make God's good creatures defiling, against Matt.
15.11.
Johann Eck dedicated Ch. 13 of his Enchiridion,
"On Human Constitutions " (Fraenkel 146–57; Battles 93–99), to
demonstrating from other biblical texts that church authorities are
empowered to enact laws concerning matters that are coherent with
Scripture and that promote discipline and communal activity. Eck also
took up eight texts cited by reformers and argued that each of them was
wrongly used in the polemic against "traditions." In 1530 the same
argument unfolded between Articles 15 and 26 of the Augsburg
Confession (cf. The Book of Concord 36f and
63–70) and the corresponding articles of the imperial Die Confutatio der Confessio Augustana (112–15 and 176–85).
The 1530 argument is treated in Wicks, "Abuses" 280–85 (Augsburg
Confession) and 297–300 (Confutatio). For
fasting, cf. nn on 67/22–23, 81/5, 81/6. (JW)
93/22–24
For . . .
trulye. Cf. Matt. 5.17–19.
93/27
ye be the salt of the
erth. Matt. 5.13. The rest of the verse is paraphrased below,
"vnsauerye . . . vnderfote" (94/4–5). "The notion that this
verse applies only to priests and bishops is probably taken from the Glossa ordinaria (PL 114.91)" (CWM 6/2.635).
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