Pastors warn their flock that if they do not send tribute to Rome, trees will walk and crops will blight. They make them dread the fire of purgatory, which eats to the bone; they ask, can you bear to see your dead folk burning—your helpless old mother, your dead little children, bound in agony and screaming for your prayers? Now it is hard for them to hear the gospel news: there is no purgatory, only judgement. God is not a market trader, selling mercy by the pound. You cannot buy salvation, nor can you delegate a monk to work out your salvation for you.
