Luther assaulted the enthusiasts of the Reformation era with vigor: “enthusiasm lurks in Adam and his children from the beginning up to the end of the world, as a poison placed in them by teh ancient serpent, and it is the source, power and might of all heresy . . . . Thus we must firly maintain that God desires to do nothing with us men except through his outward word and sacrament. But everything which boasts that it is of the SPirit, without the word and sacrament, is of the devil.”
Where I’ve placed ellipses, Luther listed “the papacy and Mahomet” as the heresies that arise from enthusiasm. That Luther opposes papacy is hardly surprising; that he opposes it for its “enthusiasm” rather than its “sacerdotalism” is a point worth pondering.
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