on the
door--he will already be present.

We can finally be certain that God is not angry with us, and that
even if we do not call on the saints for intercession, we are
secure for God has never commanded it. God says that God is a
jealous God granting their iniquities on those who do not keep his
commandments [Ex.20]; but there is no commandment here and,
therefore, no anger to be feared. Since, then, there is on this
side security and on the other side great risk and offense against
the Word of God, why should we go from security into danger where
we do not have the Word of God to sustain, comfort and save us in
the times of trial? For it is written, "Whoever loves danger will
perish by it" [Ecclus. 3], and God's commandment says, "You shall
not put the Lord your God to the test" [Matt. 4].

"But," they say, "this way you condemn all of Christendom which
has always maintained this--until now." I answer: I know very
well that the priests and monks seek this cloak for their
blasphemies. They want to give to Christendom the damage caused
by their own negligence. Then, when we say, "Christendom does not
err," we shall also be saying that they do not err, since
Christendom believes it to be so. So no pilgrimage can be wrong,
no matter how obviously the Devil is a participant in it. No
indulgence can be wrong, regardless of how horrible the lies
involved. In other words, there is nothing there but holiness!
Therefore to this you reply, "It is not a question of who is and
who is not condemned." They inject this irrelevant idea in order
to divert us from the topic at hand. We are now discussing the
Word of God. What Christendom is or does belongs somewhere
else. The question here is: "What is or is not the Word of God?
What is not the Word of God does not make Christendom."

We read that in the days of Elijah the prophet there was
apparently no word from God and no worship of God in Israel. For
Elijah says, "Lord, they have killed your prophets and destroyed
your altars, and I am left totally alone" [I Kings 19]. Here King
Ahab and others could have said, "Elijah, with talk like that you
are condemning all the people of God." However God had at the
same time kept seven thousand [I Kings 19]. How? Do you not also
think that God could now, under the papacy, have preserved his
own, even though the priests and monks of Christendom have been
teachers of the devil and gone to hell? Many children and young
people have died in