The Romanists have, with great adroitness, drawn three walls round themselves, with which they have hitherto protected themselves, so that no one could reform them, whereby all Christendom has fallen terribly.

First, if pressed by the temporal power, they have affirmed and maintained that the temporal power has no jurisdiction over them, but, on the contrary, that the spiritual power is above the temporal.

Secondly, if it were proposed to admonish them with the Scriptures, they objected that no one may interpret the Scriptures but the Pope.

Thirdly, if they are threatened with a council, they pretend that no one may call a council but the Pope…

Now may God help us, and give us one of those trumpets that overthrew the walls of Jericho, so that we may blow down these walls of straw and paper, and that we may set free our Christian rods for the chastisement of sin, and expose the craft and deceit of the devil, so that we may amend ourselves by punishment and again obtain God’s favour.

Let us, in the first place, attack the first wall.

It has been devised that the Pope, bishops, priests, and monks are called the spiritual estate; princes, lords, artificers, and peasants, are the temporal estate. This is an artful lie and hypocritical device, but let no one be made afraid by it, and that for this reason: that all Christians are truly of the spiritual estate, and there is no difference among them, save of office alone. As St. Paul says (i Cor. xii), we are all one body, though each member does its own work, to serve the others, This is because we have one baptism, one Gospel, one faith, and are all Christians alike; for baptism, Gospel, and faith, these alone make spiritual and Christian people.

As for the unction by a pope or a bishop, tonsure, ordination, consecration, and clothes differing from those of laymen-all this may make a hypocrite or an anointed puppet, but never a Christian or a spiritual man. Thus we are all consecrated as, priests by baptism, as St. Peter says: ‘Ye are a royal priesthood, a holy nation (i Pet. ii. 9); and in the book of Revelation: ‘and hast made us unto our God (by Thy blood) kings and priests’ (Rev. v. io). For, if we had not a higher consecration in us than pope or bishop can give, no priest could ever be made by the consecration of pope or bishop, nor could he say the mass or preach or absolve. Therefore the bishop’s consecration is just as if in the name of the whole congregation he took one person out of the community; each member of which has equal power, and commanded him to exercise this power for the rest; in the same way as if ten brothers, co-heirs as king’s sons, were to choose one from among them to rule over their inheritance, they would all of them still remain-kings and have equal power, although one is ordered to govern. And to put the matter more plainly, if a little company of pious Christian laymen were taken prisoners and carried away to a desert, and had not among them a priest consecrated by a bishop, and were there to agree to elect one of them and were to order him to baptise, to celebrate the mass, to absolve and to preach, this man would as truly be a priest, as if all the bishops and all the popes had consecrated him. That is why, in cases of necessity, every man can baptise and absolve, which would not be possible if we were not all priests. This great grace and virtue of baptism and of the Christian estate they have quite destroyed and made us forget by their ecclesiastical law . . .

Since then the temporal power is baptized as we are, and has the same faith and Gospel, we must allow it to be priest and bishop, and account its office an office that is proper and useful to the Christian community. For whatever issues from baptism may boast that it has been consecrated priest, bishop, and pope, although it does not beseem everyone to exercise these offices. For, since we are all priests alike, no man may put himself forward or take upon himself without our consent and election, to do that which we have all alike power to do.

For if a thing is common to all, no man may take it to himself without the wish and command of the community. And if it should happen that a man were appointed to one of these offices and deposed for abuses, he would be just what he was before. Therefore a priest should be nothing in Christendom but a functionary; as long as he holds his office, he has precedence of others; if he is deprived of it, he is a peasant or a citizen like the rest. Therefore a priest is verily no longer a priest after deposition. But now they have invented characters indelibles, and pretend that a priest after deprivation still differs from a simple layman. They even imagine that a priest can never be anything but a priest-that is, that he become a layman. All this is nothing but mere ordinance of human invention.

It follows then, that between laymen and priests, princes and bishops, or, as they call it, between spiritual and temporal sons, the only real difference is one of office and function, and not of estate. . . .

. . . Therefore I say, Forasmuch as the temporal power has been ordained by God for the punishment of the bad and the protection of the good, we must let it do its duty throughout the whole Christian body, without respect of persons, whether it strike popes, bishops, priests, monks, nuns, or whoever it may be….

Whatever the ecclesiastical law has said in opposition to this is merely the invention of Romanist arrogance. . . .

Now, I imagine the first paper wall is overthrown, inasmuch the temporal power has become a member of the Christian body; although its work relates to the body, yet does it belong to the spiritual estate. . . .

The second wall is even more tottering and weak: that they end to be considered masters of the Scriptures. . .

If of our faith is right, ‘I believe in the holy Christian church,’ the Pope cannot alone be right; else we must say, ‘I believe in the Pope of Rome,’ and reduce the Christian Church to one man, which is a devilish and damnable heresy. Besides that, we are all priests, as I have said, and have all one faith, one Gospel, one Sacrament ; how then should we not have the power of discerning and judging what is right or wrong in matters of faith? …

The third wall falls of itself, as soon as the first two have fallen; for if the Pope acts contrary to the Scriptures, we are bound to stand by the Scriptures to punish and to constrain him, according to Christ’s commandment. ‘tell it unto the Church’ (Matt. xviii. 15-17). . . .

If then I am to accuse him before the Church, I must collect the Church together. . . .

Therefore when need requires, and the Pope is a cause of offence to Christendom, in these cases whoever can best do so, as a faithful member of the whole body, must do what he can to procure a true free council. This no one can do so we as the temporal authorities, especially since they are fellow-Christians, fellow-priests. . . .

In regard to infant baptism we hold and confess, first, that it is a self-begotten rite and human righteousness; for in all the New Testament there is not a word said or commanded about baptizing infants, by Christ nor by the apostles.

Secondly, that it is a breaking and tearing to pieces of the ordinance of Christ; for he has commanded that the gospel should be preached and that those should be baptized who believe, Matt. 28:19; Mark 16:15. But here they baptize without divine command, without the preaching of the word, without knowledge, faith, repentance, new life, and without all consciousness and knowledge, yet it is called by the learned a holy, glorious work and a Christian baptism and sacrament.

Thirdly, that it is a vain consolation and boasting of all the unrighteous; for, although they do not understand the word of God, do not know the truth and lead a licentious, carnal life, yet they boast themselves to be baptized Christians.

Since infant baptism is such a pernicious superstition that it entirely destroys the Lord’s baptism, and as the poor, blind world suffer themselves to be misled and consoled therewith, and as, besides, there is connected with it such fearful blasphemy, hypocrisy, adjuration; witchcraft and abuse of the glorious name of God that a god-fearing heart may well be astounded thereat, therefore it is that we so strenuously oppose infant baptism, and openly confess that it is not of God or of his word but of anti-Christ and of the bottomless pit.

Luther writes in a book on “Human doctrine” that that which is not commanded of God in religious matters of faith, is forbidden.” Again, concerning the 12th chapter of Genesis he says, “That we should not accept any doctrines without certain reasons from the divine word.”

Daniel writes, “Worship, without the word of God, is idolatry.”

Philip Melancthon (Protestant theologian), in a book on the Jurisdiction and authority of the church, says, “That all worship which is not instituted of God by his express word, is false and wrong, let it be glozed over ever so much.”

Here Luther and Melancthon have rightly expressed themselves according to the Scripture, although alas, they did not practice upon it. For if we read and well consider the Scriptures then we clearly find how pointedly God has commanded us that we shall not institute a religion of our own choice, but that we should do as he has commanded…

Last year, dearest brethren, I wrote to you from Cagoxima [Kagoshima, a city and region in Japan] concerning our voyage, our arrival in Japan, and what had been done in the interests of Christianity up to that time. Now I will relate what God had done by our means since last year. On our arrival at the native place of our good Paul, we were received very kindly indeed by his relations and friends. They all of them became Christians, being led by what Paul told them; and that they might be thoroughly confirmed in the truth of our religion, we remained in that place a whole year and more. In that time more than a hundred were gathered into the fold of Christ. The rest might have done so if they had been willing, without giving any offence to their kinsfolk or relations. But the bonzes (Buddhist monks) admonished the prince (who is very powerful, the lord of several towns), that if he allowed his people to embrace the Christian religion, his whole dominion would be destroyed, and the ancestral gods of the country, which they call pagodas, would come to be despised by the natives. For the law of God was contrary to the law of Japan, and it would therefore result that any who embraced that law would repudiate the holy founders of the ancient law of their forefathers, which could not be done without great ruin to the town and realm. Let him look, therefore, with reverence on those most holy men who had been the legislators of Japan, and, considering that the law of God was opposed and hostile to the law of his fathers, let him issue an edict forbidding, under penalty of death, that any one in future should become a Christian. The prince was moved by this discourse of the bonzes, and issued the edict as they had requested.

The interval after this was spent in instructing our converts, in learning Japanese, and in translating into that tongue the chief heads of the Christian faith. We used to dwell shortly on the history of the creation of the world, as seemed useful for the men we had to deal with, as, for instance, that God was the Maker and Creator of the universe, a truth which they were entirely ignorant of, and the other truths necessary for salvation, but principally the truth that God had taken on Himself the nature of man. On this account we translated diligently all the great mysteries of the life of Christ until His Ascension into heaven, and also the account of the last Judgment. We have now translated this book, for such it was, into Japanese with great labor, and have written it in our own characters. Out of this we read what I have mentioned to those who came to the faith of Christ, that the converts might know how to worship God and Jesus Christ with piety and to their souls’ health. And when we went on to expound these things in our discourses, the Christians delighted in them very much, as seeing how true the things were which we had taught them. The Japanese are certainly of remarkably good dispositions, and follow reason wonderfully. They see clearly that their ancestral law is false and the law of God true, but they are deterred by fear of their prince from submitting to the Christian religion.

When the year came to an end, seeing the lord of the town to be opposed to all extension of our religion, we determined to pass to another place. We therefore bade farewell to our converts; they loved us so much that they shed many tears, and giving us great thanks for having shown them the way of eternal salvation at the cost of so much labour of our own, were very sorrowful at our departure. We left with them Paul, their own townsman, who is an excellent Christian, to finish their instruction in the precepts of religion. We then went to another town, where the lord of the place received us very kindly; there we remained a few days, and made about a hundred Christians. None of us knew Japanese; nevertheless, by reading the semi-Japanese volume mentioned, and talking to the people, we brought many of them to the worship of Christ.

I charged Cosmo Torres with the care of these converts, and went on with Joam Fernandez to Yamaguchi, the seat of a very wealthy daimyo, as he is thought among the Japanese. The city contains more than ten thousand households; all the houses are of wood. We found many here, both of the common people and of the nobility, very desirous to become acquainted with the Christian law. We thought it best to preach twice a day in the streets and cross roads, reading out parts of our book, and then speaking to the people about the Christian religion. Some of the noblemen also invited us to their houses, that they might hear about our leligion with more convenience. They promised of their own accord, that if they came to think it better than their own, they would unhesitatingly embrace it. Many of them heard what we had to say about the law of God very willingly; some, on the other hand, were angry at it, and even went so far as to laugh at what we said. So, wherever we went through the streets of the city, we were followed by a small crowd of boys of the lowest dregs of the populace, laughing at us and mocking us with some such words as these: “There go the men who tell us that we must embrace the law of God in order to be saved, because we cannot be rescued from destruction except by the Maker of all things and by His Son! There go the men who declare that it is wicked to have more than one wife!” In the same way they made a joke and play of the other articles of our religion.

We had spent some days in this office of preaching, when the king, who was then in the city, sent for us and we went to him. He asked us wherever did we come from? why had we come to Japan? And we answered that we were Europeans sent thither for the sake of preaching the law of God, since no one could be safe and secure unless he purely and piously worship God and His Son Jesus Christ, the Redeemer and Saviour of all nations. Then the king commanded us to explain to him the law of God. So we read to him a good part of our volume; and although we went on reading for an hour or more, he listened to us diligently and attentively as long as we were reading, and then he sent us away. We remained many days in that city, and preached to the people in the streets and at the cross roads. Many of them listened to the wonderful deeds of Christ with avidity, and when we came to His most bitter death, they were unable to restrain their tears. Nevertheless, very few actually became Christians.

Once I (the devil) piped here and there
with such pipes, which where very numerous.
I piped many fairy tales, dreams and fantasies.
Now it’s over and the pipes destroyed (by the Lutheran reformation)
which makes me sad and angry.
But I hope this won’t last long
because in the world there is enough haughtiness,
sin, fraud and ruse.