“Mark this well,” he declared as early as 1520 in his work “Von dem Bapstum tzu Rome,” of all that is ordered of God not one jot or tittle is observed at Rome; indeed, they mock at it as folly when anyone pays any attention to it. They don’t mind a bit that the Gospel and the faith of Christ are perishing throughout the world, and would not lift a finger to prevent it.[348] The Popes are simply “Epicureans,” so that, naturally, almost all those who return from Rome bring back home with them an “Epicurean faith.” “For this at least is certain, viz. that the Pope and the Cardinals, together with their schools of knaves, believe in nothing at all; in fact, they smile when they hear faith mentioned.”[349] “What cares the Pope about prayer and God’s Word? He has his own god to serve, viz. the devil. But this is a mere trifle.... What is far worse, and a real masterpiece of all the devils in hell, is, that he usurps the authority to set up laws and articles of faith.... He roars, as though chock-full of devils, that whosoever does not obey him and his Romish Church cannot be saved.... Papistically, knavishly, nay, in a truly devilish way, does the Pope, like the stupid scoundrel he is, use the name of the holy Roman Church, when he really means his school of knaves, his Church of harlots and hermaphrodites, the devil’s own hotchpotch.... For such is the language of his Romish Church, and whoever has to do with the Pope and the Roman See must first learn this or else he fares badly. For the devil, who founded the Papacy, speaks and works everything through the Pope and the Roman See.”[350] His “Heer-Predigt widder den Türcken,” in 1529, supplied him with the occasion for the following aside: “The Pope’s doctrine is mere spiritual murder and not one whit better than the teaching and blasphemy of Mohammed or the Turks.... We have nothing but devils on either side and everywhere.”[351] “They even try to force us poor Christians at the point of the sword to worship the devil and blaspheme Christ. Other tyrants have at least this in their favour, that they crucify the Lord of Glory ignorantly, like the Turks, the heathen and the Jews ... but they [the Papists], say: We know that Christ’s words and acts testify against us, but nevertheless we shall not endure His Word, or yield to it.”[352] “I believe the Pope is the devil incarnate in disguise; for he is Antichrist. For, as Christ is true God and man, so Antichrist is the incarnation of the devil.”[353]