But, replied Claude – as the Protestant polemic at this hour replies in kneeling to the image, or kissing the cross, you do what the second commandment forbids, and what the Scripture condemns as idolatry.

It is clear from this that transubstantiation was unknown in the ninth century to the Churches at the foot of the Alps.

He had but erected a pulpit on the Seven Hills, from the lofty elevation of which the English Reformer was able to proclaim, in the hearing of all the nations of Europe, that Rome was the Antichrist.

Nay, he chose this moment to make a forward movement, and to aim more terrible blows at the Papacy than any he had yet dealt it.

With Catherine Bora there entered a new light into the dwelling of Luther. To sweetness and modesty, she added a more than ordinary share of good sense. A genuine disciple of the Gospel, she became the faithful companion and help-meet of the Reformer in all the labors and trials of his subsequent life.

He would have escaped the stake, the agony of which is but for a moment, but he would have missed the crown, the glory of which is eternal.

Popery is the gospel transubstantiated into the flesh and blood of Paganism, under a few of the accidents of Christianity.