Ib.

  My simple opinion is (said Luther) and I do believe that Christ for us
  descended into hell, to the end he might break and destroy the same,
  as in Psalm xvi, and Acts ii, is shewed and proved.

Could Luther have been ignorant, that this clause was not inserted into the Apostle’s Creed till the sixth century after Christ?  I believe the original intention of the clause was no more than ’vere mortuus est’—­in contradiction to the hypothesis of a trance or state of suspended animation.

Chap.  VII. p. 122.

When Christ (said Luther) forbiddeth to spread abroad or to make known his works of wonder; there he speaketh as being sent from the Father, and doth well and right therein in forbidding them, to the end that thereby he might leave us an example, not to seek our own praise and honor in that wherein we do good; but we ought to seek only and alone the honor of God.

Not satisfactory.  Doubtless, the command was in connection with the silence enjoined respecting his Messiahship.

Chap.  VIII. p. 147.

Doctor Hennage said to Luther, Sir, where you say that the Holy Spirit is the certainty in the word towards God, that is, that a man is certain of his own mind and opinion; then it must needs follow that all sects have the Holy Ghost, for they will needs be most certain of their doctrine and religion.

Luther might have answered, “positive, you mean, not certain.”

Chap.  IX. p. 160.

But who hath power to forgive or to detain sins?  Answer; the Apostles and all Church servants, and (in case of necessity) every Christian.  Christ giveth them not power over money, wealth, kingdoms, &c; but over sins and the consciences of human creatures, over the power of the Devil, and the throat of Hell.

Few passages in the Sacred Writings have occasioned so much mischief, abject slavishness, bloated pride, tyrannous usurpation, bloody persecution, with kings even against their will the drudges, false soul-destroying quiet of conscience, as this text, ‘John’ xx. 23. misinterpreted.  It is really a tremendous proof of what the misunderstanding of a few words can do.  That even Luther partook of the delusion, this paragraph gives proof.  But that a delusion it is; that the commission given to the Seventy whom Christ sent out to proclaim and offer the kingdom of God, and afterwards to the Apostles, refers either to the power of making rules and ordinances in the Church, or otherwise to the gifts of miraculous healing, which our Lord at that time conferred on them; and that ‘per figuram causce pro effecto’, ‘sins’ here mean diseases, seems to me more than probable.  At all events, the text surely does not mean that the salvation of a repentant and believing Christian depends upon the will of a priest in absolution.

Ib. p. 161.