as chanting, reading, vestments;
and the name 'spiritual estate' is given to the members of the
holy orders, not on account of their faith (which perhaps they do
not have), but because they have been consecrated with an
external anointing, wear distinctive dress, make special prayers
and do special works, have their places in the choir, and seem to
attend to all such external matters of worship."[26]

The fallacy of the argument that because the Old Testament was a
type of the New, therefore the material types of the Old
Testament must be reproduced in the New, is exposed by him. [27]
The open and fearless opposition to the popedom at Rome, which
already appeared in the Diet at Augsburg in 1518, and more
circumspectly, in the Leipzig Disputation in 1519, is very
free[28] in this booklet to the laity of 1520, and is preliminary
to the more intense antagonism which will appear in "The
Babylonian Captivity." At Leipzig, Eck had laid emphasis on the
Scripture passage, "Feed my sheep," and both this passage[29] and
the one of Matthew 16:18 ("Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I
will build my Church") are explained by Luther for the laity. He
charges the popes with having forsaken the faith, with living
under the power of Satan, and with being themselves
heretical.[30]

This tractate applies doctrine to existing institutions, and
makes the truth clear to the laity. We see in it the power of
Luther in stirring the popular mind. We do not regard the coarse
invectives of Luther (which many cultured men of to-day seem to
cite with outward horror--and inner enjoyment) as a remark of low
peasant birth, or of crudeness of breeding, but as the language
of a great leader who, in desperate struggle with the powers that
be, knew how to attach himself to the mind of his age in such way
as to influence it. How noble and great is his own remark at the
close of his booklet on others' allusion to himself in print!
"Whoever will, let him freely slander and condemn my person and
my life. It is already forgiven him. God has given me a glad and
fearless spirit, which they shall not embitter for me, I trust,
not in all eternity."

Luther in this pamphlet, insists that none are to be regarded as
heretics simply because they are not under the Pope; and that the
Pope's decrees, to stand, must endure the test of Scripture.
Luther wrote in May. In June he told Spalatin that if the Pope
did not reform, he would appeal to the Emperor and German
n