, without the
deeds of the Law. The principles which he had timidly uttered in the
Theses led to bolder declarations later, when the full light of the
blessed Gospel had come to him. It brought him the curse of the Pope in
the bull _Exsurge, Domine!_ of June 15, 1520. The following estimate by
a recent Catholic writer is a fair sample of the sentiments cherished by
official Rome for Luther: "From out the vast number whom the enemy of
man raised up to invent heresies, which, St. Cyprian says, 'destroy
faith and divide unity,' not one, or all together, ever equaled or
surpassed Martin Luther in the wide range of his errors, the ferocity
with which he promulgated them, and the harm he did in leading souls
away from the Church, the fountain of everlasting truth. The heresies of
Sabellius, Arius, Pelagius, and other rebellious men were insignificant
as compared with those Luther formulated and proclaimed four hundred
years ago, and which, unfortunately, have ever since done service
against the Church of the living God. In Luther most, if not all, former
heresies meet, and reach their climax. To enumerate fully all the
wicked, false, and perverse teachings of the arch-heretic would require
a volume many times larger than the Bible, and every one of the lies and
falsehoods that have been used against the Catholic Church may be traced
back to him as to their original formulator." The cause for this
undisguised hatred of Luther is chiefly Luther's teaching of
justification by faith, without works. In its Sixth Session the Council
of Trent condemned the following doctrines:

_On Free Will:_ Canon IV: "If any one says that the free will of man,
when moved and stirred by God, cannot, by giving assent, cooperate with
God, who is stirring and calling man, so that he disposes and prepares
himself for obtaining the grace of justification, or that he cannot
dissent if he wills, but, like some inanimate thing, does absolutely
nothing and is purely passive,--let him be accursed."

_On Justification:_ Canon IX: "If any one says that the ungodly are
justified by faith alone, in the sense that nothing else is required on
their part that might cooperate to the end of obtaining the grace of
justification, and that it is in no wise necessary that they be prepared
and disposed (for this grace) by a movement of the will,--let him be
accursed."

Canon XI: "If any one says that man is justified either by the
imputation of the righteousness of Ch