“I privately warned some of the dignitaries of the Church.  By some the admonition was well received, by others ridiculed, by others treated in various ways, for the terror of your name and the dread of censure are strong.  At length, when I could do nothing else, I determined to stop their mad career if only for a moment; I resolved to call their assertions in question.  So I published some propositions for debate, inviting only the more learned to discuss them with me, as ought to be plain to my opponents from the preface to my Theses. [This was, by the way, a common practise in those days among the learned professors at universities.] Yet this is the flame with which they seek to set the world on fire! . . .” (15, 401; transl. by Preserved Smith.)

Luther’s publication of the Theses was the act of a conscientious Christian pastor.  Being a priest, Luther had to hear confession.  Through the confessional he learned how the common people viewed the indulgences:  they actually believed that by buying indulgences they were freed from all the guilt and punishment of their sins.  Absolution became a plain business transaction:  you pay your money and you take your goods.  Luther wrote this to his archbishop the same day on which he published his Theses.  “Papal indulgences,” he says in the letter to Albert, Archbishop of Mayence and Primate of Germany, “for the building of St. Peter’s are hawked about under your illustrious sanction.  I do not now accuse the sermons of the preachers who advertise them, for I have not seen the same, but I regret that the people have conceived about them the most erroneous ideas.  Forsooth, these unhappy souls believe that, if they buy letters of pardon, they are sure of their salvation; likewise, that souls fly out of purgatory as soon as money is cast into the chest; in short, that the, grace conferred is so great that there is no sin whatever which cannot be absolved thereby, even if, as they say, taking an impossible example, a man should violate the mother of God.  They also believe that indulgences free them from all penalty and guilt.” (15, 391; transl. by Preserved Smith, p. 42.)

Luther had preached against the popular belief in indulgences, pilgrimages to shrines of the saints and their relics, for two years before he published his Theses.  He was confident that the Church could not countenance this belief.  Forgiveness of sins is to the penitent in heart who are sorry for their sins, and their sins are forgiven for Christ’s sake, who atoned for them, and in whom we have the forgiveness of sin by the redemption through His blood.  This is the Scriptural doctrine of penitence,—­that sorrowful, contrite, and believing attitude of the heart which is the characteristic of true Christians throughout their lives.  Through penitence we become absolved in the sight of God from all guilt and punishment of our sins, and the minister, by announcing this fact, is to convey to the penitent the assurance