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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from The Smalcald Articles by Dr. Martin Luther: also made an inroad into purgatory among the dead, first, by
founding masses and vigils, afterwards, by indulgences and the
Golden Year, and finally souls became so cheap that he
released one for a farthing.
But all this, too, was of no avail. For although the Pope
taught men to depend upon, and trust in, these indulgences
[for salvation], yet he rendered the [whole] matter again
uncertain. For in his bulls he declares: Whoever would share
in the indulgences or a Golden Year must be contrite, and have
confessed, and pay money. Now, we have heard above that this
contrition and confession are with them uncertain and
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