they had imposed upon themselves, easily imbibed the most inveterate prejudices against the austerities and mortifications which the Reformers endeavoured to abolish. In the end, an enlightened and daring policy relieved one half of Christendom from the thraldom of religious abjurations, unsocial seclusions, unnatural restraints, and many ridiculous superstitions; though that these ends could not have been accomplished without a total abolition of such societies as have just been described, is a matter by no means clear.

SECTION VII.

Sketch of the Origin of the Reformation
in Germany.

THIS is, perhaps, the most difficult, because the most delicate, point, of the whole Catholic history. It is hardly possible to touch upon it, without incurring the risk of giving offence to one or other, perhaps, both, of the two great bodies into which the Christian world has been divided by that event. Nor is it easy to exhibit the subject in any new point of view. The facts, however, being well known, there will be less occasion to enlarge.

It is not intended, in this section, to trace the

progress of the Reformation in the various countries where it has been received. Neither do I pretend to give any farther history of that great event than is absolutely needful to connect the striking lineaments of this portrait.

We have already seen the ill use which was made of the promulgation of Indulgences; and the ground it afforded on which to attack, with advantage, the Church and Court of Rome. This attack commenced in the year 1517. Martin Luther, a friar of the Augustine Order, first opened the warfare; and his conduct was very generally approved by the people; by some princes, bishops, divines, cardinals, and even by several monks. Making common cause, as he pretended, with the friends of literature, he attached to his standard numerous learned and intelligent men. Even Erasmus, perhaps, the most profoundly learned man of the age, once entertained a favourable opinion of Luther's principles. He, at first, believed that Almighty God had raised him up to reform the Church; but his opinion of our Reformer changed, when he perceived that it was not only against abuses, but even against the very vitals of the Church, that he meditated a serious attack. The rashness and precipitation of Luther but ill accorded with the mild and moderate views of Erasmus; and though he complained, that Luther's adversaries loaded him with calumnies, instead of answering his arguments; and that

they cried him down as a heretic, instead of amending their own manners, he could never reconcile his mind to the war which Luther waged with what was deemed the fundamental doctrines of religion. The moderation of Erasmus displeased both parties, and he was loaded with every opprobrious epithet an enraged bigotry could suggest.

On the 30th September, 1517, Luther delivered ninety-five propositions, in which he censured, in the boldest manner, the extravagant conduct and extortions of the papal commissioners for the sale of Indulgences. These propositions were promulgated at Wittemberg, at the college in which he was a doctor. Ignorant of a stipulation made between Leo X. and Albert of Brandenburg, by which the latter should retain one half of the profits arising from these indulgences, Luther addressed a letter of remonstrance to this elector; but, as might naturally have been supposed, no regard was paid to his complaints. Exasperated by this neglect, he next published to the world the Propositions he had read in the Church of Wittemberg. They contained many censures on the Pope himself, but were rendered as palatable as possible by repeated expressions of obedience to the papal authority and the doctrines and decisions of the Church.

On the first appearance of these Propositions,

N

Tetzel, the principal vender of the Indulgences by the appointment of the elector of Mentz, endeavoured to defend a traffic in which he had so much personal interest. To effect this purpose, he published a set of counter-Propositions, and then publicly burned those by Luther. The friends of Luther, in the same spirit of destruction, rejoined, by burning eight hundred copies of Tetzel's Propositions in one of the public squares of Wittemberg. This conduct Luther had the moderation or good sense to lament; and he affirmed, that it was adopted without his knowledge.

Among the opponents of Luther, at this early stage of the schism, we may notice Johannes The one was Eccius, and Silvestro Prierio. Vice-Chancellor of Ingoldstadt, and the other Master of the Apostolic Palace and InquisitorGeneral. The attacks of these writers against the innovating spirit of Luther, were made in a manner but little calculated to effect the purposes for which they were intended; and he did not fail to describe his opponents as liars and blasphemers, engaged in the service of the devil; asserting, at the same time, that if the Pope and his cardinals should give their support to such doctrines as were maintained in the books of Prierio, Rome itself must be the seat of Antichrist.

Leo X., confiding in the professions of Lu

ther, who had declared to him, "that he would regard whatever came from him as delivered by Christ himself," took no immediate steps to curb the zeal of the Reformers, nor to remove the cause of their just complaints. At length, however, the indolent Pontiff roused from his danger; and, in 1518, he summoned Luther to appear before him at Rome, within sixty days, there to answer the questions which should be proposed to him by Prierio, his virulent opponent.

It required no extraordinary degree of penetration to perceive what must be the issue of a trial, wherein the judge and the plaintiff were one and the same person. Accordingly, Luther made sufficient interest to have his cause heard in Germany. Tomaso de Vio, Cardinal of Gaeta, the Pope's legate at the diet of Augsburg, was empowered to summon Luther before him; and, if he should persist in his errors, to hold him in custody till further instructions should be sent from Rome. It was of small consequence to Luther, whether his cause should be heard before the prejudiced and interested Prierio at Rome, or by the equally interested Dominican Cardinal of Gaeta, in Germany. Whatever might have been the lenient principles at first cherished by the Pope, this precipitate and rash determination gave great and just cause of offence to Luther and his friends. No alternative, however, remained; and Luther, having