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: [divinely] commanded or enjoined upon us concerning the dead.
Therefore all this may be safely omitted, even if it were no
error and idolatry.
The Papists quote here Augustine and some of the Fathers who
are said to have written concerning purgatory, and they think
that we do not understand for what purpose and to what end
they spoke as they did. St. Augustine does not write that
there is a purgatory nor has he a testimony of Scripture to
constrain him thereto, but he leaves it in doubt whether there
is one, and says that his mother asked to be remembered at the
altar or Sacrament. Now, all this is indeed nothing but the
|