The habits of centuries still enthralled the early Reformers. Circumstances compelled them to attack some of the doctrines and customs of their Mother Church, of which at first they were inclined to regard themselves as dutiful though sorrowful sons. The logic of facts, however, soon forced them outside the Church. Then, but then only, for the authority of the Church, they substituted the authority of the Scriptures. To apply to them Luther's own words, "they had saved others, themselves they could not save." In their eyes Reason and Faith were still mortal enemies,--as unfortunately they are to this day in the eyes of a steadily diminishing number of their followers,--and they did not hesitate to demand the sacrifice of reason when it conflicted, or appeared to conflict, with the demands of faith: and that, indeed, as "the all-acceptablest sacrifice and service that can be offered to God." In a sermon in 1546, the last he delivered at Wittenberg, Luther gave vent, in language that even one of his modern admirers finds too gross for quotation, to his bitter hatred and contempt for reason, at all events when it conflicted with his own interpretation of the Scriptures, or with any of the fundamental dogmas and doctrines he had himself formulated or accepted. While even in milder moments he did not hesitate to teach that[4:1]-- "It is a quality of faith that it wrings the neck of reason and strangles the beast, which else the whole world, with all creatures, could not strangle. But how? It holds to God's word: lets it be right and true, no matter how foolish and impossible it sounds. So did Abraham take his reason captive and slay it.... There is no doubt faith and reason mightily fell out in Abraham's heart, yet at last did faith get the better, and overcame and strangled reason, the all-cruelest and most fatal enemy to God. So, too, do all other faithful men who enter with Abraham the gloom and hidden darkness of faith; they strangle reason ... and thereby offer to God the all-acceptablest sacrifice and service that can ever be brought to Him."