s
there is a hell, the Rome of those days was its mouth.[3]

FOOTNOTES:

[3] Bellarmine, an honored author of the Roman Church, one competent
to judge concerning the state of things at that time, and not
over-forward to confess it, says: "For some years before the Lutheran
and Calvinistic heresies were published there was not (as contemporary
authors testify) any rigor in ecclesiastical judicatories, any
discipline with regard to morals, any knowledge of sacred literature,
any reverence for divine things: THERE WAS ALMOST NO RELIGION
REMAINING."--_Bellarm._, Concio xviii., Opera, tom. vi. col. 296,
edit. Colon., 1617, apud _Gerdesii Hist. Evan. Renovati_, vol. i. p.
25.

LUTHER AS TOWN-PREACHER.

On his return the Senate of Wittenberg elected him town-preacher. In
the cloister, in the castle chapel, and in the collegiate church he
alternately exercised his gifts. Romanists admit that "his success was
great. He said he would not imitate his predecessors, and he kept his
word. For the first time a Christian preacher was seen to abandon the
Schoolmen and draw his texts and illustrations from the writings of
inspiration. He was the originator and restorer of expository
preaching in modern times."

The Elector heard him, and was filled with admiration. An old
professor, whom the people called "the light of the world," listened
to him, and was struck with his wonderful insight, his marvelous
imagination, and his massive solidity. And Wittenberg sprang into
great renown because of him, for never before had been heard in Saxony
such a luminous expositor of God's holy Word.

LUTHER MADE A DOCTOR.

On all hands it was agreed and insisted that he should be made a
doctor of divinity. The costs were heavy, for simony was the order of
the day and the pope exacted high prices for all church promotions;
but the Elector paid the charges.

On the 18th of October, 1512, the degree was conferred. It was no
empty title to Luther. It gave him liberties and rights which his
enemies could not gainsay, and it laid on him obligations and duties
which he never forgot. The obedience to the canons and the hierarchy
which it exacted he afterward found inimical to Christ and the Gospel,
and, as in duty bound, he threw it off, with other swaddling-bands of
Popery. But there was in it the pledge "to devote his whole life to
the study, exposition and defence of the Holy Scriptures." This he
accepted, and ever referred to as his sacred ch