vor of even one of the other much greater
and more necessary commandments, which are so blasphemously
mocked and scornfully rejected at Rome.

Furthermore, if all Germany were to fall on its knees, and to
pray that the pope and the Romans should keep this power, and
confirm our bishops and priests without payment, for
nothing--even as the Gospel says, "Freely ye have received,
freely give" [Matt. 10:8]--and provide all our churches with good
preachers, because they have a sufficient abundance of riches to
give money instead of taking it; and if it were urged and
pressed, that this is their duty according to divine command:
believe it surely, we should find all of them arguing with more
insistence than any one ever did before, that it is not a divine
command to go to so much trouble without pay. They would soon
find a little gloss[10] with which to wind themselves out of it,
just as they now find what they desire, to weave themselves into
it. All our beseechings would not drive them to it. But since it
means money, everything they dare to put forth must be divine
command.

[Sidenote: Roman Greed and Extortion]

The bishopric of Mainz alone, within the memory of men now
living, has bought eight pallia[11] in Rome, every one costing
about 30,000 _gulden_--not to mention the innumerable other
bishoprics, prelacies and benefices. Thus are we German fools to
be led by the nose and then they say: It is a divine command to
have no bishop without Roman confirmation. I am surprised that
Germany, which is by one-half or more in the possession of the
Church,[12] still has so much as one _pfennig_ left by reason of
the unspeakable, innumerable, insufferable Roman thieves, knaves
and robbers. It is said that Antichrist shall find the treasures
of the earth; I trow the Romanists have found them to such an
extent as to make our very life a burden. If the German princes
and the nobility will not interfere very shortly, and with
decisive courage, Germany will yet become a wilderness and be
compelled to devour itself. That would furnish the greatest
pleasure for the Romanists, who do not think of us otherwise than
as brutes, and have made a proverb concerning us at Rome:
"Squeeze the gold from German fools, in any way you can."

The pope does not prevent this scandalous villainy. They all wink
at it, yea, they think far more highly of these supreme
arch-villains than they do of the holy Gospel of God. They
pretend that we are hope