iterated his attacks on the papacy, and laboured to attain his object by two different methods by combating the authority of the Pope, he thrust at the prevailing superstitions, which had their foundation in that authority; and by attacking the superstitions, he gave a blow to the papal power, which, by means of them, riveted its chains about the consciences of men.

His name, as the champion of ecclesiastical reformation and religious liberty, had not only reached the Pontiff, but alarmed him; and spoke the language of threatening to him and his conclave. The secret and incessant instigations of Cajetan, eager to be revenged for his theological defeat at Augsburg, and of Eckius, equally ambitious to follow out the imagined glory which he had acquired by his ambiguous victory at Leipsic, aided by the fear of losing his influence in Germany, quickened the tardy and voluptuous exertions of Leo; convinced him that his former temporising plans would now be altogether inefficacious, and determined him to launch at the reformer that portentous thunderbolt of excommunication, the fear of which had for so many ages overawed the princes and enslaved the people of the western world. The college of cardinals was assembled; and after considerable discussion as to the most eligible and decisive measures, on the 15th of June, 1520, the bull, so long expected and finally so hostile to the intentions of its framers, was solemnly issued from the sacred college. It condemned 41 propositions selected from Luther's works, as heretical, scandalous, or

dangerous in their tendency; denounced the severest punishment against all who continued to peruse them; commanded every person, in whose possession they were, to burn them; ordered Luther himself to appear at Rome, or send a letter of recantation thither within sixty days, under pain of being excommunicated as a heretic; and threatened all who should protect or countenance him with a similar punishment.*

Eckius was commissioned to carry this bull into Germany, with letters to the university of Wittemberg, and the Duke of Saxony, requiring their co-operation in publishing it. They received these letters with coolness and fear. The university refused to give their sanction to the publication of the bull; and the Duke wished to have an order from the bishop of Merzburg; but it arrived too late, for the people prejudiced in favour of the reformation, immediately tore it in pieces, and trampled it under foot.t

This sentence neither surprised nor disconcerted Luther; but roused him to display his contemptuous abhorrence of the iniquitous procedure, and unchristian character of the court, by which it was issued. On the 17th of Nov. he renewed his appeal from the Pope to a general council; censured the vices and hypocrisy of Eckius; represented the Pope as a tyrant, and the predicted man of sin; and conjured the Emperor and the states to listen to his appeal, and to suspend the execution of the bull

*Seckend. p. 114, 115. † Beausobre, tom. ii. p. 22.

till his doctrine was examined by the word of God. But the thunder of his resentment was reserved for the bull itself, which he poured forth in two treatises written with increased vehemence and acrimony. The one, was a criticism on its style and spirit, which appeared to him so contemptible and furious, so indiscriminate in its prescription of what was true, as well as of what was false in his writings, of doctrines acknowledged by the church to be scriptural, no less than of tenets which it rejected, that he declared himself disposed to believe that it was an impious forgery of Eckius. The other, was a defence of the 41 propositions condemned by the bull; in which is the following passage, which we quote as a statement of the real cause of Luther's opposition to the popish hierarchy, in the doctrinal errors, which it supported and refused to renounce. "Had the Popes taught that we are justified by grace only, instead of inventing the doctrine of merit, and exposing heaven to sale, the church would never have risen to its present splendour; or if it had risen, it could not have stood for a single hour. For the doctrine of the cross condemns what the Pope approves, and is the only doctrine which can give courage for martyrdom. Hence, after the age of martyrs, the church declined in every thing that was its ornament and glory. The cross was exchanged for voluptuousness, poverty for opulence, ignominy for honour, till that body, which we call the church, has become more worldly, so to speak, than the world, and more carnal than carnality.

In fine, I know not a more invincible argument against the dominion of the Pope, than that he reigns independent of the cross; he labours to have all and abound; and he is not disappointed; for he has only to wish, and it is accomplished. The faithful city is become a harlot'! Verily, the reign of the true antichrist is come !"*

Nor were words his only expressions of contempt and indignation. On being informed that his writings had, according to the direction of the bull, been burnt at Rome, and in several cities of Germany, he assembled the professors, students, and principal citizens of Wittemberg, and conducting them to a place of public resort without the walls, with their assistance erected a pile of wood, on which he laid the bull of excommunication, and the decretals and canons respecting the supreme jurisdiction of the Pope, and consumed them in the flames, saying in an elevated tone, "Because thou hast troubled God's holy one, let everlasting fire destroy thee." This act, which took place on the 10th of Dec. was a solemn and public renunciation of his allegiance to the Roman see, and rendered the sentence of excommunication with which he was threatened, if he persisted in his heresy, wholly nugatory; for the man who burns the laws of his sovereign, shews that he rejects his authority; and the man who voluntarily separates himself from any society, can no longer be subject to forcible exclusion from it. Still, however, he withdrew only from the church that ascri

6....

* Seckendorf, p. 119.

bed infallibility to the Pope, not from the church as lawfully met in a general council, to the decision of which he continued to profess submission. This distinction satisfactorily accounts for the approbation with which this bold procedure was spoken of by many, who were strenuous advocates for the Roman Catholic religion. Different cities imitated the example of Wittemberg; and even at Leipsic, the Duke, though hostile to Luther, durst not interpose his authority to prevent it. The manner in which Luther justified himself, was, if possible, still more obnoxious, and aggravated rather than extenuated his former offences. He published a collection of the most indefensible tenets of the popish party, and reduced the sum of their law to this proposition. "The Pope is God upon earth, supreme in all things, heavenly, terrestrial, spiritual, and secular. All things are his, and there is none who can say to him, What dost thou ?”*

Such was the state of Luther's opinions, and such the temper of the Romish church, when the diet of the Empire met at Worms in the beginning of of 1521. Charles, who, during his absence in Spain, and immediately on his return to Germany, had been besieged by the nuncios of Rome, who urged him to condemn Luther as the Pope had done, would have followed their advice, had he not promised to hear him personally, before he came to a final decision on the cause. Frederic, the Elector of Saxony, at his request, sounded Luther as to his willingness to appear at Worms,

*Mosheim. Cent. xvi. §i. 14. Seckend. Sect. 32. and §79, p. 121.

if the Emperor should call him thither. The heroic reformer did not hesitate a single moment, but replied that he would regard the Emperor's orders as the call of heaven, which he would cheer. fully obey; but if violence was offered him, as was not improbable, he would commend himself and his cause to that God who preserved the three children in the fiery furnace."* But the number and respectability of his friends made his enemies anxious to have him condemned unheard, lest his eloquence and interest should make a too favourable impression on the diet. Jerome Alexander, one of the nuncios, accordingly used every mean to prevent his citation; wrote to Rome, requesting the Pope to threaten some and flatter others, and to furnish him with money for the same purpose; and addressed the diet in a long and laboured speech, in which he exaggerated Luther's faults, denied his virtues, deprecated his citation as disrespectful to the Pope, and promising no satisfactory result, and demanded that his writings should be burned in compliance with the bull.† When the violence of this orator defeated his object, conferences took place between the Elector through Pontanus his chancellor, and the Emperor through Glapnio his confessor, but with as little effect. In these, as well as by the advice of several men of talents and prudence, it was proposed, that several persons of acknowledged discernment, impartiality, and integrity, should have the whole subject referred to