Pierre Michel Bruneau
The time has come to separate ourselves from those who are even now beginning to disown the reformation as overly divisive, and who are starting to attack the character of the reformers without appreciating how God has used them. Many are those who are quick to find whatever flaws they can find in the reformers in order to crucify them and their ministries. In doing this they strain out gnats while they swallow a camel. They forget that these reformers put their lives at risk, and they forget that everyone prior to Martin Luther who advocated for reform was tortured, killed, or imprisoned, or a combination of these things. They forget about the flow of German money from peasants’ purses going to Italy to build Saint Peter’s Basilica. They forget how difficult it was to have sound judgment at a time when papal tyranny was at its height. They forget that Martin Luther decided to stay in Wittenberg (in 1527) when the plague struck in order to give encouragement to those affected in the hour of death while the elector ordered others to flee to Jena for refuge. They forget that at one time the pope ordered entire villages of Jews to be wiped out, at another time he ordered an entire city of Albigensians to be wiped out, and that for many centuries the inquisitions tortured, imprisoned or killed anyone who did not submit to popery. They forget about the Huguenots who were slaughtered throughout France. They no longer hear the cries of the Waldensians as they are thrown off of the edge of a cliff or burned alive in a cave. They no longer hear the weeping nor feel compassion for the tears of families who have been separated from their children because they have been kidnapped from them, never to see them again. I have never heard of a more cruel persecution against the church than what has happened under the tyranny of the pope. Come forward then, all you critics of the reformers, and tell me if you are so arrogant as to think that you would have done better if you would ha
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