ess king Belshazzar; also Jeremiah, when he preached to
the ungodly Jews and exclaimed (Jer 15, 10): "Woe is me, my mother,
that thou hast borne me." So in Micah 7, 1: "Woe is me! for I am as
the grape gleanings of the vintage: there is no cluster to eat."

57. The wrath of God is most fearful as he recalls the Word. What man
would not prefer pestilence, famine, war--these being mere bodily
calamities--to a famine of the Word which is always joined to eternal
damnation? An example of the horrible darkness into which Satan can
lead men when God is silent and does not speak, is furnished by the
Gentiles who have been bereft of the Word. Who is not horrified by the
Romans, men of exemplary wisdom and famous before other nations by
reason of their dignified discipline, who observed the custom of
letting the worthy matrons worship and crown Priapus, the foul idol,
and of leading bridal virgins before it? What is more ludicrous than
that the Egyptians adored the calf Apis as the supreme godhead?

58. The Tripartite History gives an account of Constantine the Great
being the first to abolish in Phoenicia and other places the shameless
custom of using virgins, before their nuptials, for purposes of
prostitution. Such monstrous infamies were accounted religion and
righteousness among the Gentiles. There is nothing, in fact, so
ridiculous, so stupid, so obscene, nothing so remote from all
propriety, that it cannot be foisted as the very essence of religion
upon men who have been forsaken by the Word.

59. This is, therefore, the greatest penalty, that God, through the
mouths of the holy patriarchs, threatens no longer to reprove men by
his Spirit; which means that henceforth he will not give his Word to
men, since all teaching is vain.

60. Like punishment our times will bring also upon Germany. For we see
the haste, the unrest, of Satan, and his efforts to defraud whom he
may of the Word. How many sects has he roused during our lifetime, and
this while we bent all our energies toward the maintenance of pure
doctrine! What is in store after our death? Surely, he will lead forth
whole swarms of Sacramentarians, Anabaptists, Antinomians, Servetians,
Campanistans and other heretics who at present, conquered by the pure
Word and the constancy of faithful teachers, keep out of sight, but
are ready for every opportunity to establish their doctrines.

61. Those, therefore, who have the Word in its purity, should learn to
embrace th