The word Gospel is the equivalent of good news or tidings which God gives i to men in matters of which they are either ignorant or doubtful. . . . Those who defend the doctrines of men [i.e., the papists] say: [W]e understand the Gospel in a different way. And if there is a conflict between your understanding and ours, someone would have to decide between us and have authority to silence the one who is in error. And this they say in order to subject the interpretation of God's Word to men, thus making it possible to rebuke and suppress the evangehcal preachers. . . . Not everything, they say, is told us in the Gospels. There are many good things which are never even thought of in the Gospel. Oh you rascals - you are not instructed or versed in the Gospel, and you pick out verses from it without regard to their context, and wrest them according to your own desire. . . . Here we come upon the canker at the heart of all human systems. And it is this: we want to find support in Scripture for our own view, and so we take that view to Scripture, and if we can find a text which, however artificially, we can relate to it, we do so, and in that way we wrest Scripture in order to make it say what we want it to say. . . . The will of God is this, that he alone should be the teacher. And I intend to be taught by him and not by men, . . . For it is not for us to sit in judgment on Scripture and divine truth, but to let God do his work in and through it, for it is something which we can learn only of God. Of course, we have to give an account of our understanding of Scripture, but not in such a way that it is forced or wrested according to our own word, but rather so that we are taught by Scripture: and that is my own intention.