"This psalm (Ps. 74) can also be interpreted as referring to our extremely bad morals, for we are as bad as the Turks or worse in the way we profane holy things. This rage of offenses in defiling holy things is lasting long enough, so that the church quite properly prays: “O God, why hast Thou cast us off unto the end? Why is Thy wrath enkindled? What things the enemy has done wickedly in the sanctuary!” Who is the enemy? The devil. But also: “A man’s foes are those of his own household” (Matt. 10:36), and “My friends and my neighbors have drawn near and stood against me” (Ps. 38:11).
First, in the distribution and handling of the church’s endowments and goods, who can enumerate the evils and abuses?
Second, in the luxury, pomp, and pride of the priests.
Third, in the foolhardy way of administering the sacraments, the Word of God, the power of the judiciary and jurisdiction. In these matters things are happening in the church of such a nature that the Lord puts up with them with more displeasure than with the blasphemies of the Turks.
Fourth. See how many monstrosities take place “in the midst of the solemnity” and whether all of God’s festival days are not being suppressed and silenced in the land? Since indeed festivals are today observed so that people may more freely do the evils that they could not do on other days because of their manual labor. Here we do not see our signs, but they put up their ensigns for signs, and they set fire to the sanctuary of God and defile it with every kind of evil lust and sins. In this way God’s name is provoked and blasphemed in our midst. Therefore God seems to have turned His right hand away from the midst of His bosom to the end.
But perhaps it does not yet appear how they have thrown it down with ax and hatchet and have cut down its gates with axes at the same time. The Turk does this in a mystical and literal manner, while we do it spiritually, as shown above in the commentary, not indeed by heretical teachings but by offensive words and deeds, in such a way that the Word of God would now seem to be preached in vain, because there are no gates through which it might enter. But axes, that is, the most serious kind of offenses, have powerfully cut them down."
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