been continually expounding
Christianity; traditions which were concurrent with the Scriptures,
councils and decrees of the Pope, had kept the faith in constant
agitation. Luther placed in its stead the word of Scripture, which
while it brought deliverance from a wilderness of erroneous soulless
conceptions, gave threatenings of other dangers. What was the Bible?
There were about two centuries between the oldest and the newest
writings of the holy book. The New Testament itself was not written by
Christ, nor even always by those who had received his holy teaching
from himself; it had been compiled long after his death, portions of it
might have been delivered incorrectly; all was written in a foreign
language that Germans could with difficulty understand. Expounders of
the greatest discernment were in danger of interpreting falsely if not
enlightened by the grace of God as the Apostles had been. The old
Church had brought to its assistance that sacrament which gave to the
priest's office this enlightenment; indeed the holy father assumed so
much of the omnipotence of God, that he considered himself in the right
even where his will was contrary to the Scripture. The reformer had
nothing but his weak human understanding and his prayers.

It was indeed imperative that Luther should use his reason, for a
certain degree of criticism upon the Holy Scriptures was necessary. He
did not set an equal value upon all the books of the New Testament: it
is known that he had doubts about the Revelations of St. John, and he
did not much value the Epistle of St. James; but objections to
particular parts never disturbed his faith in the whole; his belief in
the verbal inspiration of the Holy Scriptures (with the exception of a
few books) could not be shaken; they were to him what was dearest on
earth, the groundwork of his whole knowledge; he was so thoroughly
imbued with their spirit, that he lived as it were under their shadow.
The more deeply he felt his responsibility, the more intense was the
ardour with which he clung to the Scriptures.[37] A powerful instinct
for what was rational and judicious helped him over many dangers; his
penetration had nothing of the hair-splitting sophistry of the old
teachers; he despised unnecessary subtleties, and with admirable tact
he left undecided what appeared to him not essential. But if he was not
to become a frantic or godless man, nothing remained to him but to
ground his new doctrines on the