Indulgences: An Economy of Forgiveness > Sermon on Indulgences and Grace
![Ein freyheyt des Sermons Bebstlichen ablass vn[d] gnad belangend / Doctoris Martini Luther, wider die vorlegu[n]g So zu schmach sein vnd desselben Sermons erdichtet; Title page recto](https://exhibitions.library.columbia.edu/files/original/896be9f77c4d5fbb9ad235bff127d223.jpg)
Sermon on Indulgences and Grace
Martin Luther (1483-1546)
Nuremberg: Jobst Gutknecht, 1518
Burke Tower 03-B1950
This very popular work, Luther’s first important publication in German, appeared in spring 1518 and further develops the arguments of the Ninety-five Theses concerning the inadequacies of the indulgence system. At this date there was just a single printer in Wittenberg who was underprepared for the huge market Luther’s writings generated. To meet the demand, many of Luther’s works were printed or re-printed in other cities with more developed printing industries such as Leipzig, Augsburg, Basel, and (as here) Nuremberg.
The sermon’s final passage captures the combative tone that would characterize some of Luther’s polemical works:
“...some people reproach me as a heretic (for such a truth is quite injurious for their money boxes), I pay little heed to such babblings [and the only ones who do are] some muddled brains who have never sniffed a Bible, have never read the Christian teachers, have never understood their own teachers but rather are decaying in their riddled and fragmented opinions. For if they had understood them, they would know that they should defame no one without hearing and challenging him. Nonetheless, may God give them and us right understanding. Amen.”