§ 1. Revelation 14:6 reads as follows: “And I saw an angel flying through the midst of heaven, having the eternal Gospel, to evangelize those who sit upon the earth and every nation and tribe and tongue and people, saying with a loud voice: Fear the Lord and give him honor, because the hour of his judgment has come; and adore him who made heaven and earth, the sea and all things which are in them, and the fountains of waters. And another angel followed, saying: Fallen, fallen is that great Babylon, which made all nations drink from the wine of the wrath of her fornication. And a third angel followed them, saying with a loud voice: If anyone shall adore the beast and its image, and shall receive its mark upon his forehead or upon his hand, he shall drink from the wine of the wrath of God, which has been mixed
with pure wine in the cup of his wrath, and he shall be tormented with fire and sulfur in the sight of the holy angels and before the sight of the Lamb.”
For the jubilators this angel is Luther; he is not Luther for the older Lutherans or for the Calvinists. Many have used these words as the theme of sermons, especially Matthias Hoë, the Saxon Archpreacher, in five sermons On Luther the Wonder-Man and Triumphant, to whom I see the others fawning as a man to be venerated on account of his power at court. But it is marvelous that in so many sermons they do not prove by even one argument that Luther is the angel; they only affirm it and, as if it were certain, draw consequences from it and proclaim exclamations. Yet he is so foolish as to suppose that he preserves the Augsburg Confession intact or teaches the Gospel from Luther’s opinions. For this reason in the first sermon he inveighs angrily against the Calvinists. Very many others occupied with this argument have interpreted this angel as Luther. Their reasoning is this: The angel who, flying through the midst of heaven, bears the book of the eternal Gospel must be heard. But that angel is Luther; therefore Luther must be heard; therefore the Pontiff is Antichrist.
Everyone sees that the whole difficulty consists in the minor premise. For if this is so, all of us must depart from the ancient faith; the Calvinists also must set sail back toward the Lutherans, from whom most of them departed.
Therefore it must first be considered diligently and in the fear of God whether this article is contained in the word of God: “Luther is the angel who possesses the book of the eternal Gospel.” And if it is not in sacred Scripture, does it follow from it by an evident consequence? Our jubilators act ridiculously when, by praising Luther hyperbolically, contrary to truth and beyond faith, they suppose that they have finished the matter if they have invented some similarities between the two. The little pigs of Epicurus once praised Epicurus in his gardens with greater probability, believing him to have fallen, as it were, from heaven, than the worshipers of Luther transfer these oracles to Luther.
The reasons why I think thus are many.
The first. Because no one except a few Lutherans has interpreted the prophecy in this manner. Moreover, they agree in no manner. For Hutter, in the book On the Sacrifice, judges Luther to be the first angel; others judge the first angel to be Luther, but determinately insofar as he preached against indulgences; the other angel to be the same Luther when he reveals and condemns Antichrist; and the third angel to be Luther and the Lutherans who opposed the Interim and all compromises with the Pope. Third, the Calvinists have supposed that John Wycliffe, the Angelic Doctor, was this book-bearing angel. Thus Pareus on this passage:
“This angel is the English Doctor John Wycliffe, public Professor at the University of Oxford, a man most renowned throughout the whole world. When the whole West, marveling, followed the Roman beast, in the year 1371 he began in England to thunder against Antichrist in sermons and writings, teaching from the Gospel that there ought not to be any supreme Bishop in the Church of Christ; that the Pope is not the vicar of Christ but Antichrist; that his privileges, bulls, dispensations, and indulgences are empty, useless, and impious; that political dominion should not be given to spiritual men,” and so forth.
Thus there is scarcely room for doubt that the Anabaptists will call their own men by the same name, the Socinians will call Ostorod, others Schwenckfeld; certainly no one among the others will deem Luther worthy of so great an honor. Therefore it is not fitting to rely upon this foundation to establish the faith, since the matter has not yet been proved.
The second reason. The nature of an angel differs exceedingly from the morals of Luther. I am unwilling to repeat the best-known things from his table-talk and his obscene language, which the whole world of Germany casts against him, and which posterity here and there, from shame at such great αἰσχρολογίας, erased. I ask only this: let Luther the Angelic be read. No other speech will be needed.
The third reason. He does not fly through the midst of heaven, ἐν μεσουρανήματι—that is, in a conspicuous place throughout the whole world—but in one part alone, which nevertheless was soon cut into fragments; and now even the name of the Lutheran Gospel is nearly extinguished, for the matter has long since gone away into nothing. For how small is the part of Germany in which the name of Lutheranism remains intact! And in those very corners it trembles most wretchedly under alien heresies; indeed, it is so despised that nothing is more abject than the ministers who worship Luther. As a prompt witness take the aged Paul Laurentius, preacher at Meissen, jubilee sermon 2, page 47: “Now churches are attended neither so diligently nor so piously, and sermons are heard less; everywhere men believe that they can learn these things by themselves. Not only do those eager to hear new things so disdain the office of preaching that many utterly refuse to allow their sons to enter the number of Preachers, but many sons of preachers also, after they have been raised to other degrees of honors and offices, are ashamed that they were begotten while their father was a preacher.” Thus not even the adherents of Lutheranism regard their own preachers as angels of this kind, but hold them in contempt and derision as actors and patchers of lies.
The fourth reason. Luther’s Gospel is not eternal; for no one knew it before Luther, and Luther survived it. If anyone denies this, he must name even one man before Luther, with Luther, or after Luther who agreed with Luther. Indeed, it must be shown that Luther remained consistent with himself—a thing which not even the Lutherans believe. The words of Pareus, book 4, chapter 13, On the Lord’s Supper, are:
“Nor do I assume for myself judgment concerning so great a man and God’s singular instrument against the papacy. At least, as regards this question, I shall say what I have answered more than once when asked and what his writings and the histories confirm: Luther must be distinguished from Luther. For he was a man who in controversy was often more fervent—as customarily happens to great intellects—than circumspect or observant of truth and right.
“Embrace him as an Augustinian until the year 24.
“Do not hold him as a Synecdochist until the year 29.
“Accept his Concord until the year 43.
“But flee him confessing little until the year 44.
“Again endure him confessing until the year 46.”
Therefore that Gospel is not eternal which belongs now to an Augustinian, now to a Synecdochist, now to a man agreeing with Zwingli, then to one confessing little and perversely, and finally to one confessing his error, yet not without another error even when confessing an error.
Nevertheless, they object to us that Luther is therefore the angel because his flight was free from the Pope’s jurisdiction. But this argument is of no weight. For all the heresies which formerly, and all those which
now have emerged from hell, have usurped that liberty and license, although otherwise they are slaves of sin. Nor is it praiseworthy to despise the judgment of the Church and antiquity and to strive for glory under one’s own auspices by an unaccustomed way. On this account, however, his flight was Icarian, and he fell into the Saxon papacy, as the Calvinist Clebitius writes; and Melanchthon complains that an iron yoke was imposed in place of a wooden one. But if the Ministers could see the truth, they would certainly perceive, more clearly than the sun, that there was and is greater liberty of teaching among us than among those who, bound by so many chains, imagine that they are apocalyptic Daedaluses. Do they not receive laws for teaching from kings and courts? I entreat them to examine the acts of Marburg from the year 1606, Antwort auff den Historischen Bericht der Marpurgischen Kirchhändel, pages 49 and 50. The most illustrious Landgrave of Hesse explains to the Lutherans who refused to yield their Churches and ministry his own right. The exiles themselves relate the matter in these words:
Dass wir aber vns beschweren/ vnsere Diensten selbsten Ihr. Furstl. Gn. auffzutragen/ vnd zu resignieren/ käme Ihr das wunderbarlich für/ da sie uns noch nie nicht angenommen/ sondern es weren solche Aempter allbereits loss gestorben mit dem Herrn/ dem wir zuuor gedienet/ vnd ipso facto vns resigniert.
“That we are aggrieved at ourselves delivering and resigning our ministries to His Princely Highness appeared astonishing to him, since he had not yet accepted us; rather, all those offices had become vacant and expired with the death of the former lord whom we had served, and by that very fact had been resigned to His Highness.” Behold the liberty of angels flying through the midst of heaven. Secular princes can not only dismiss, receive, and issue commands concerning preaching; rather, with their death, just as the palatine offices of scribes and grooms cease, so also do the ministries of preachers, and they are not valid except by the will and acceptance of the new lord.
The sixth reason. The speech of this angel and that of Luther do not agree. The angel’s words are: “Fear the Lord and give him honor, because the hour of his judgment has come; and adore him who made heaven and earth and the sea and all things which are in it and the fountains of waters.”
Luther’s word is that the fear of God is pernicious and makes men greater sinners. He prohibits Christ from being considered as judge and avenger.
Then he teaches a confidence which excludes all fear. The angel commands that the Lord be feared because the hour of his judgment has come. But both Lutherans and Calvinists judge that to fear the judgment of God and the punishments decreed by his judgment is a murmuring against God and leads to despair. Yet this angel by no means exhorts men to crimes and blasphemies.
Nor is that angel Wycliffe, as Pareus supposes. For this angel does not teach heresies, but Wycliffe brought forth many heresies which even Pareus cannot deny are heresies. In Sessions 8 and 45 of the Council of Constance, forty-five articles which the Council condemned are numbered, and Pareus also ought to condemn some of these:
The fourth article: If a Bishop or Priest is in mortal sin, he does not ordain, consecrate, confect, or baptize.
The sixth: God ought to obey the Devil.
The tenth: It is contrary to sacred Scripture that ecclesiastical men should possess property.
The eleventh: No Prelate ought to excommunicate anyone unless he first knows that he has been excommunicated by God; and he who excommunicates in this manner thereby becomes a heretic and excommunicate.
The fifteenth: No one is a civil Lord, no one a Prelate, and no one a Bishop while he is in mortal sin.
The seventeenth: Common people can correct offending Lords according to their own judgment.
The twenty-seventh: All things happen from absolute necessity.
The twenty-ninth: Universities, schools, Colleges, degrees, and Masterships in them are empty things introduced by paganism and profit the Church as much as the Devil does.
The forty-third: Oaths made to confirm human contracts and civil commerce are unlawful.
The forty-fifth: All religious orders without distinction were introduced by the Devil.
Others have collected other teachings: that marriage between brothers and sisters is lawful by divine law and prohibited only by human ordinance, thus book 4 of the Trialogue, chapter 20. And this, which is altogether blasphemous: that any creature whatsoever can be and be called God, because its perfection is in God as in its cause, and indeed in an ideal and exemplary manner.
But what of the fact that he acknowledges true Pontiffs down to Urban, while Calvin thinks Gregory was the last, and others begin the Antichristians with Linus and Cletus? His words are in error 9: “After Urban VI no other Pontiff is to be received.” But he had communion with Urban. Therefore, if Wycliffe is a true angel, all the Preachers are condemned because they possess property—not as much as they would wish, but as much as the court permits.
He retained many Catholic teachings which the Calvinists detest. In book 2, chapter 4, and book 3, chapter 2, he acknowledges merit.
He places faith in the intellect and distinguishes it from hope, book 3, chapter 2, which is contrary to the Calvinists.
He says in the same place that faith possesses merit.
He distinguishes faith and hope in three ways, book 3, chapter 3: 1. hope concerns only eternal reward; faith concerns every other truth. 2. Hope rests in a certain act midway between doubt and belief. 3. Hope concerns only a possible good; faith also concerns evil. These things are contrary to Calvin.
In chapter 3, book 3, he says that God approves and necessitates sin, and thus necessitates a peccable creature to sin. Many Calvinists deny this, and rightly.
In chapter 5 he says that grace is extinguished by some sin. In this part, therefore, he is rigorous.
In chapter 6 he says that many of the foreknown—that is, the reprobate—are presently in grace.
In book 4, chapter 1, he acknowledges seven Sacraments.
In book 4, chapter 20, he calls Matrimony a venerable Sacrament.
In book 4, chapter 22, he acknowledges purgatory.
In book 4, chapter 24, he calls contrition sorrow sufficient for the erasure of sin, and says that to repent is to lament sins and not to commit things which must be lamented.
He teaches these and other things alien to present-day Calvinism, so that Pareus appeared more ridiculous to me when he canonized Wycliffe and made him an angel than when he said that Calvinists and Lutherans disagree in only one article, and not in that whole article. But a most black demon cannot be made into an angel without enormous lies.
Nevertheless Pareus excuses himself: “Brichmann’s conjecture does not displease me: that by this flight is signified the imperfection of the doctrine first brought forth by those Doctors. For although they saw and reproved the grosser errors of the Pope, nevertheless something of the earthly dregs still adhered to them in many things, so that they could not raise themselves upon full wings into the highest heaven. For just as a man who has long lain hidden in darkness, suddenly coming forth into the light, sees all things with dimmed eyes, so those who had been detained in the darkness of so many centuries of papacy could not immediately behold the light of the Gospel except with dimmed eyes.”
But first, this is absurd: that an angel should be so ignorant, so blasphemous, and should be sent as a Teacher to all who sit upon the earth, over every tribe and nation and tongue and people; that an angel, I say—a universal Teacher of the world, holding the eternal Gospel and sent so solemnly by God—should carry about so many errors under the name of the eternal Gospel. If, therefore, the angels err in so many matters, there is no reason why we should believe them. For Wycliffe agreed with us in more matters than with the Calvinists.
Moreover, since that angel comes at the time when the second beast makes men adore the image of the first beast; since, according to the adversaries, the first beast is the Empire or Emperor and the other is the Pope or papacy; and since the Pope has not yet commanded the image of the Emperor or Empire to be adored or his mark to be borne, that angel has not yet come either. Therefore he was not Wycliffe. Accordingly, those three angels will be three principal Teachers in the time of Antichrist, who will oppose the beast and promulgate true doctrine.