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VIII. The raging thirst of dominion that inflamed these pontiffs, and their arrogant endeavours to crush and oppress all who came

the most dire and formidable anathemas against Louis and other princes, had not death carried off this audacious pontiff in 1512, in the midst of his ambitious and vindictive pro-within the reach of their power, were accompa

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nied with the most insatiable avarice. All the VII. He was succeeded, in 1513, by Leo X., provinces of Europe were, in a manner, drained of the family of Medicis, who, though of a to enrich these spiritual tyrants, who were milder disposition than his predecessor, was perpetually gaping after new accessions of equally indifferent about the interests of reli- wealth, in order to augment the number of gion and the advancement of true piety. He their friends and the stability of their dominion. was a protector of men of learning, and was And, indeed, according to the notions comhimself learned, as far as the darkness of the monly entertained, the rulers of the church age would admit. His time was divided be- seemed, from the nature of their character, to tween conversation with men of letters and have a fair pretence for demanding a sort of pleasure, though it must be observed that the tribute from their flock; for none can deny to greatest part of it was consecrated to the latter. the supreme governors of any state (and such He had an invincible aversion to whatever was was the character assumed by the popes) the accompanied with solicitude and care, and dis- privilege of levying tribute from those over covered the greatest impatience under events whom they bear rule. But, as the name of of that nature. He was remarkable for his tribute obviously tended to alarm the jealousy prodigality, luxury, and inprudence, and has and excite the indignation of the civil magiseven been charged with impiety, if not athe-trate, the pontiffs were too cunning to employ ism. He did not, however, lose sight of the it, and had recourse to various stratagems and grand object which the generality of his pre- contrivances to rob the subject without shockdecessors had so much at heart,—that of pro-ing the sovereign, and to levy taxes under the moting and advancing the opulence and gran- specious mask of religion. Among these condeur of the Roman see; for he took the utmost trivances, the distribution of indulgences, which care that nothing should be transacted in the enabled the wealthy to purchase impunity for Lateran council, (which Julius had assembled their crimes by certain sums applied to reliand left sitting,) that had the least tendency to||gious uses, held an eminent rank. This traffic favour the reformation of the church; and, in a conference which he had with Francis I., king of France, at Bologna, he engaged that monarch to abrogate the Pragmatic Sanction,* which had been so long odious to the popes, and to substitute in its place another body of laws, more advantageous to the papacy; which he accordingly imposed upon his subjects under the title of the Concordat, but not without their utmost indignation and reluctance.†

was renewed whenever the coffers of the church were exhausted. On these occasions, indulgences were warmly recommended to the ignorant multitude under some new and specious, yet fallacious pretext, and were greedily sought, to the great detriment both of individuals and of the community.

IX. Notwithstanding the veneration and homage that were paid to the Roman pontiffs, they were far from being universally reputed infallible in their decisions, or unlimited in We have mentioned this Pragmatic Sanction, their authority. The wiser part of the GerCent. XV. part ii. chap. ii. sect. xvi. note (c,) and man, French, Flemish, and British nations, given there some account of its nature and design. considered them as liable to error, and bounded This important edict is published at large in the eighth volume of the Concilia Harduini, as is the Pragmatic Sanction. He observes, that by the king's Concordat in the ninth volume, and in Leibnitz' Man-being invested, by the Concordat, with the privilege tissa Codicis Diplomat. part i. ii. The history of these two pieces is given in an ample and accurate manner by Bishop Burnet, in his History of the Reformation, vol. iii.-See also, on the same subject, Boulay's Hist. Acad. Paris, tom. vi.-Du Clos, Histoire de Louis XI.-Histoire du Droit Ecclesiastique Francois, tom. i. Diss. ix.-Menagiana, tom. iii.

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of nominating to the bishoprics and vacant benefices of the first class, many corruptions and abuses were prevented, which arose from the simoniacal practices that prevailed almost every where, while, according to the Pragmatic Sanction, every churchr chose its bishop, and every monastery its abbot: He observes, moreover, that this nomination was the natural right of the crown, as the most considerable part of the great benefices had been created by the kings of France; and he insists particularly on this consideration, that the right which Christian communities have to choose their leaders, cannot be ex

The king went in person to the parliament to offer the Concordat to be registered; and letters patent were made out, requiring all the judges and courts of justice to observe this act, and see it executed. The parliament, after deliberating a month upon this important matter, concluded not to regis-ercised by such large bodies without much confusion ter the Concordat, but to observe still the Pragmatic Sanction, unless the new edict should be received and established in as great an assembly as that was, which published the other in the reign of Charles VII.; and when by violence and force they were obliged to publish the Concordat, they joined to this publication a solemn protest, and an appeal from the pope to the next general council; into both which measures the university and the clergy entered with the greatest alacrity and zeal. But royal and papal despotism at length prevailed.

The chancellor Du-Prat, who was principally concerned in promoting the Concordat, has been generally regarded as an enemy to the liberties of the Gallican church. The illustrious and learned president Henault has not, however, hesitated to defend his memory against this accusation, and to justify the Concordat as an equitable contract and as a measure attended with less inconvenience than the VOL. II.-2

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and many inconveniences; and that the subjects, by entrusting their sovereign with the government of the state, invest him, ipso facto, with an authority over the church, which is a part of the state, and its noblest branch. See Henault's Abrege Chronologique de l'Histoire de France, in the particular remarks that are placed at the end of the reign of Louis XIV.

The most specious objection that was made to the Concordat was this: that, in return for the nomina. tion to the vacant benefices, the king granted to the popes the annates, or first-fruits, which had so long been complained of as an intolerable grievance. There is, however, no mention of this equivalent in the Concordat; and it was by a papal bull that succeeded this compact, that the pontiffs claimed the payment of the first-fruits, of which they had put themselves in possession in 1316, and which had been suspended by the Pragmatic Sanction.

by law. The councils of Constance and Basil || their order, rushed headlong into the shamehad contributed extremely to rectify the notions of the people in that respect; and from that period all Christians, except the superstitious monks and parasites of Rome, were persuaded that the pope was subordinate to a general council, that his decrees were not infallible, and that the council had a right to depose him, whenever he was convicted of gross errors or enormous crimes. Thus were the people, in some measure, prepared for the reformation of the church; and hence arose that ardent desire, that earnest expectation of a general council, which filled the minds of the wisest and best Christians in this century. Hence also the frequent appeals which were made to this approaching council, when the court of Rome issued any new edict, or made any new attempt repugnant to the dictates of piety and justice.

X. The licentious examples of the pontiffs were zealously imitated in the lives and manners of the subordinate rulers and ministers of the church. The greatest part of the bishops and canons passed their days in dissolute mirth and luxury, and squandered away, in the gratification of their lusts and passions, the wealth that had been set apart for religious and charitable purposes. Nor were they less tyrannical than voluptuous; for the most despotic princes never treated their vassals with more rigour and severity, than these spiritual rulers employed toward all who were under their jurisdiction. The decline of virtue among the clergy was attended with the loss of the public esteem; and the most considerable part of that once respected body became, by their sloth and avarice, their voluptuousness and impurity, their ignorance and levity, contemptible and infamous, not only in the eyes of the wise and good, but also in the general judgment of the multitude.* Nor could the case be otherwise as matters were now constituted; for, as all the offices and dignities of the church had become venal, the way of preferment was inaccessible to merit, and the wicked and licentious were rendered capable of rising to the highest ecclesiastical honours.

XI. The prodigious swarms of monks that overspread Europe were justly considered as burthens to society, and occasioned frequent murmurs and complaints. Nevertheless, such was the genius of the age, of an age that was emerging from the thickest gloom of ignorance, and was suspended, as it were, in a dubious situation between darkness and light, that these monastic drones would have remained undisturbed, had they taken the least pains to preserve any remains even of the external air of decency and religion, that used to distinguish them in former times. But the Benedictine and other monkish fraternities, who were invested with the privilege of possessing certain lands and revenues, broke through all restraint, made the worst possible use of their opulence, and, forgetful of the gravity of their character and of the laws of

*See Cornelii Aurelii Gaudani Apocalypsis, seu Visio Mirabilis super miserabili Statu Matris Ec clesiæ, in Casp. Burmanni Analect Hist. de Hadri ano VI. p. 245, printed at Utrecht in 1727.

less practice of vice in all its various kinds and degrees. On the other hand, the Mendicant orders, and especially those who followed the rules of St. Dominic and St. Francis, though they were not carried away with the torrent of licentiousness that was overwhelming the church, lost their credit in a different way; for their rustic impudence, their ridiculous superstitions, their ignorance, cruelty, and brutish manners, tended to alienate from them the minds of the people, and gradually diminished their reputation. They had the most barbarous aversion to the arts and sciences, and expressed a like abhorrence of certain eminent and learned men, who, being eagerly desirous of opening the paths of science to the pursuit of the studious youth, recommended the culture of the mind, and attacked the barbarism of the age in their writings and in their discourse. This is sufficiently evident from what happened to Reuchlinus, Erasmus, and other learned men.

XII. Among all the monastic orders, none enjoyed a higher degree of power and authority than the Dominican friars, whose credit was great, and whose influence was very widely extended. This will not appear surprising, when we consider that they filled very eminent stations in the church, presided every where over the terrible tribunal of the inquisition, and had the care of souls, with the function of confessors, in all the courts of Europe; a circumstance which, in those times of ignorance and superstition, manifestly tended to put most of the European princes in their power. But, notwithstanding all this credit and authority, the Dominicans had their enemies; and about this time their influence began to decline. Several marks of perfidy, that appeared in the measures they employed to extend their authority, justly exposed them to the public indignation. Nothing could be more infamous than the frauds they practised to accomplish their purposes, as may be seen, among other examples, by the tragedy which they acted at Bern'in 1509.* They

*This most impious fraud is recorded at length by Ruchat, at the end of the sixth volume of his Histoire de la Reformation en Suisse; and also by Hottinger, in his Histor. Eccles. Helvet. tom. I. There is also a compendious, but distinct, narration of this infernal stratagem, in bishop Burnet's Travels through France, Italy, Germany, and Switzerland. The stratagem in question was the consequence of a rivalry between the Franciscans and Dominicans, and more especially of their controversy concerning the immaculate conception of the Virgin Mary. The former maintained that she was born without the blemish of original sin; the latter asserted the contrary. The doctrine of the Franciscans, in an age of darkness and superstition, could not but be popular; and hence the Dominicans lost ground from day to day. To support the credit of their order, they resolved, at a chapter holden at Wimpfen in 1504, to have recourse to fictitious visions and dreams, in which the people at that time had an easy faith; and they determined to make Bern the scene of their operations. A person named Jetzer, who was extremely simple, and much inclined to austerities, and who had taken their habit as a lay-brother, was chosen as the instrument of the delusions they were contriving. One of the four Dominicans, who had undertaken the management of this plot, conveyed himself secretly into Jetzer's cell, and about midnight appeared to him in a horrid figure, surrounded with howling dogs, and seeming to blow fire from his nostrils, by the means of a box of

were perpetually employed in stigmatizing, with the opprobious mark of heresy, numbers of learned and pious men, in encroaching upon the rights and property of others to augment their possessions, and in contriving the most iniquitous snares and stratagems for the destruction of their adversaries; and they were the principal counsellors by whose instigation and advice Leo X. was determined to that most rash and imprudent measure, even the public condemnation of Luther.

XIII. The principal places in the public schools of learning were filled very frequently by monks of the mendicant orders. This unhappy circumstance prevented their emerging from that ignorance and darkness which had so long enveloped them; and it also rendered

love, by imprinting on him the five wounds that pierced Jesus on the cross, as she had done before to St. Lucia and St. Catharine. Accordingly, she took his hand by force, and struck a large nail through it, which threw the poor dupe into the greatest torment. The next night this masculine virgin brought, combustibles which he held near his mouth. In this as she pretended, some of the linen, in which Christ frightful form he approached Jetzer's bed, told him had been buried, to soften the wound, and gave Jetthat he was the ghost of a Dominican, who had been zer a soporofic draught, which had in it the blood of killed at Paris, as a judgment of Heaven for laying an unbaptized child. soine grains of incense and of aside his monastic habit; that he was condemned to consecrated salt, some quicksilver, the hairs of the purgatory for this crime; adding, at the same time, eye-brows of a child, all which, with some stupithat, by his means, he might be rescued from hisfying and poisonous ingredients, were mingled by misery, which was beyond expression. This story, the prior with magic ceremonies, and a solemn dedi. accompanied with horrible cries and howlings, terri- cation of himself to the devil in hope of his succour. bly alarmed poor Jetzer, and engaged him to promise This draught threw the poor wretch into a sort of to do all that was in his power to deliver the Domi- lethargy, during which the monks imprinted on his nican from his torment. Upon this the impostor body the other four wounds of Christ in such a mantold him, that nothing but the most extraordinary ner that he felt no pain. When he awoke, he found, mortifications, such as the discipline of the whip, to his unspeakable joy, these impressions on his performed during eight days by the whole monastery, body, and came at last to fancy himself a represenand Jetzer's lying prostrate in the form of one cru- tative of Christ in the various parts of his passion. cified in the chapel during mass, could contribute to He was, in this state, exposed to the admiring mulhis deliverance. He added, that the performance of titude on the principal altar of the convent, to the these mortifications would draw down upon Jetzer great mortification of the Franciscans. The Domithe peculiar protection of the Blessed Virgin; and nicans gave him some other draughts, that threw concluded by saying, that he would appear to him him into convulsions, which were followed by a again, accompanied with two other spirits. Mornvoice conveyed through a pipe into the mouths of ing was no sooner come, than Jetzer gave an account two images, one of Mary, the other of the child of this apparition to the rest of the convent, who Jesus; the former of which had tears painted upon unanimously advised him to undergo the discipline its cheeks in a lively manner. The little Jesus askthat was enjoined him; and every one consented to ed his mother, by means of this voice, (which was bear his share of the task imposed. The deluded that of the prior,) why she wept; and she answered, simpleton obeyed, and was admired as a saint by the that her tears were occasioned by the impious manmultitudes that crowded about the convent, while ner in which the Franciscans attributed to her the the four friars who managed the imposture, magni- honour that was due to him, in saying that she was fied, in the most pompous manner, the miracle of conceived and born without sin. this apparition, in their sermons and in their conversation. The night after, the apparition was renewed with the addition of two friars, dressed like devils; and Jetzer's faith was augmented by hearing from the spectre all the secrets of his life and thoughts, which the impostors had learned from his confessor. In this and some subsequent scenes, the impostor talked much of the Dominican order, which he said was peculiarly dear to the Blessed Virgin; he added, that the Virgin knew herself to be conceived in original sin; that the doctors who taught the contrary were in purgatory; that the blessed Virgin abhorred the Franciscans for making her equaled to be so. But the Dominicans, suspecting that he with her son; and that the town of Bern would be destroyed for harbouring such plagues within its walls. In one of these apparitions, Jetzer imagined that the voice of the spectre resembled that of the prior of the convent, and this was not a mistake; but, not suspecting a fraud, he gave little attention to this. The prior appeared in various forms, sometimes in that of St. Barbara, at others in that of St. Bernard; at length he assumed that of the Virgin Mary, and, for that purpose, clothed himself in the habits that were employed to adorn her statue on the great festivals; the little images, that on these days are set on the altars, were used for angels, which, being tied to a cord that passed through a pulley over Jetzer's head, rose up and down, and danced about the pretended virgin to increase the delusion. The Virgin, thus equipped, addressed a long discourse to Jetzer, in which, among other things, she told him that she was conceived in original sin, though she had remained but a short time under that blemish. She gave him, as a miraculous proof of her presence, a host, or consecrated wafer, which turned from white to red in a moment; and after various visits, in which the greatest enormities were transacted, the Virgin-prior told Jetzer, that she would give him the most affecting and undoubted marks of her Son's

The apparitions, false prodigies, and abominable stratagems of these Dominicans, were repeated every night; and the matter was at length so grossly overacted, that, simple as Jetzer was, he at last discovered it, and had almost killed the prior, who appeared to him one night in the form of the Virgin with a crown on her head, The Dominicans, fearing, by this discovery, to lose the fruits of their imposture, thought the best method would be to own the whole matter to Jetzer, and to engage him, by the most se. ducing promises of opulence and glory, to carry on the delusion. He was persuaded, or at least appear

was not entirely gained over, resolved to poison him. His constitution was so vigorous, that though they gave him poison five times, he was not destroyed by it. One day they sent him a loaf prepared with some spices, which growing green in a day or two, he threw a piece of it to a wolf's whelps that were in the monastery, and it killed them immediately. At another time they poisoned the host; but as he vomited it soon after he had taken it, he escaped once more. In short, there were no means of securing him, which the most detestable impiety and barbarity could invent, that they did not put in practice, till, finding at last an opportunity of getting out of the convent, he threw himself into the hands of the magistrates, to whom he made a full discovery of this infernal plot. This intelligence being sent to Rome, commissaries were ordered to examine the affair; and the whole imposture being fully proved, the four friars were solemnly degraded from their priesthood, and were burned alive on the last day of May, 1509. Jetzer died some time after at Constance, having poisoned himself, as was believed by some. Had his life been taken away before he had found an opportunity of making the discovery already mentioned, this execrable and horrid plot, which, in many of its circumstances, was conducted with art, would have been handed down to posterity *See Bilib. Pirkheimeri Epistola ad Hadrianum as a stupendous miracle. This is a very brief account Pontif. Maxim. de Dominicanorum flagitiis, in operi- of the matter; such as are desirous of a more circumbus ejus, p. 372. This letter is also to be found instantial relation of this famous imposture, may conGerdesii Intr. ad Hist. Renov. Evangel. t. i. p. 170. sult the authors mentioned in the beginning of this Append.

note.

the consciences of men, except in those cases where doctrines were adopted that seemed detrimental to the supremacy of the apostolic see, or to the temporal interests of the sacerdotal and monastic orders. Hence it is, that we could mention many Christian doctors before Luther, who inculcated not only with impunity, but even with applause, the very same tenets that afterwards drew upon him such heavy accusations and such bitter reproaches; and it is beyond all doubt, that this great reformer might have propagated these opinions without any danger of molestation, had he not pointed his warm remonstrances against the opulence of Rome, the overgrown fortunes of the bishops, the majesty of the pontiffs, and the towering ambition of the Dominicans.

them inaccessible to that auspicious light of improved science, whose salutary beams had already been felt in several of the European countries. The instructors of youth, dignified with the venerable titles of artists, grammarians, philosophers, and dialecticians, loaded the memories of their laborious pupils with a certain quantity of barbarous terms, arid and senseless distinctions, and scholastic precepts, delivered in the most inelegant style; and all such as could repeat this jargon with readiness and rapidity, were considered as men of uncommon eloquence and erudition. The whole body of the philosophers extolled Aristotle beyond measure, while scarcely any studied him, and none understood him; for what was now exhibited, as the philosophy of that celebrated sage, was really nothing more than a confused XVI. The public worship of the Deity was and motley heap of obscure notions, sentences, now no more than a pompous round of external and divisions, which even the public doctors ceremonies, the greatest part of which were and heads of schools were unable to compre-insignificant and senseless, and much more hend; and if, among these thorns of scholastic adapted to dazzle the eyes than to touch the wisdom, there was any thing that had the ap-heart. Of those who were at all qualified to pearance of fruit, it was crushed and blasted administer public instruction to the people, the by the furious wranglings and disputes of the number was not very considerable; and their Scotists and Thomists, the Realists and Nomi- discourses, which contained little beside ficnalists, whose clamours and contentions were titious reports of miracles and prodigies, inunhappily heard in all the European colleges. sipid fables, wretched quibbles, and illiterate XIV. The wretched and senseless manner jargon, deceived instead of instructing the of teaching theology in this century, may be multitude. Several of these sermons are yet learned from many books yet extant, which extant, which it is impossible to read without were written by the divines of that period, and the highest indignation and contempt. Those which, in reality, have no other merit than who, on account of their gravity of manners, their enormous bulk. There were very few or their supposed superiority in point of wisdom expositors of the Scriptures during this century; and knowledge, held the most distinguished and scarcely any of the Christian doctors had rank among these vain declaimers, had a coma critical acquaintance with the sacred oracles. mon-place set of subjects allotted to them, on This kind of knowledge was so rare, that, which they were constantly exercising the when Luther arose, there could not be found, force of their lungs and the power of their even in the university of Paris, which was re- eloquence. These subjects were, the authority garded as the first and most famous of all the of the holy mother church, and the obligation public schools of learning, a single person of obedience to her decisions; the virtues and qualified to dispute with him, or oppose his merits of the saints, and their credit in the doctrine upon a scriptural foundation. Any court of heaven; the dignity, glory, and love commentators, that were at this time to be of the blessed Virgin; the efficacy of relics; the found, were such as, laying aside all attention duty of adorning churches, and endowing moto the true meaning and force of the words of nasteries; the necessity of good works (as that Scripture, which their profound ignorance of phrase was then understood) to salvation; the the original languages and of the rules of criti- intolerable burnings of purgatory, and the cism rendered them incapable of investigating, utility of indulgences. Such were the topics gave a loose to their vain and irregular fancies, that employed the zeal and labours of the in the pursuit of mysterious significations. The most eminent doctors of this century; and they greatest part of the public teachers belonged were, indeed, the only subjects that could tend to the classes of divines, already mentioned to fill the coffers of the good old mother church, under the titles of Positivi and Sententiarii, and advance her temporal interests. Miniswho were extremely fond, the former of load-ters who would have taken it into their heads ing their accounts, both of the truths and pre-to inculcate the doctrines and precepts of the cepts of religion, with multiplied quotations and authorities from the writings of the ancient doctors; the latter of explaining the doctrines of the Gospel by the rules of a subtile and intricate philosophy.

XV. It must at the same time be observed, that the divines of this century disputed with great freedom upon religious subjects, even upon those which were looked upon as most essential to salvation. There were several points of doctrine, which had not yet been determined by the authority of the church; nor did the pontiffs, without some very urgent reason, restrain the right of private judgment, or force

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Gospel, to exhibit the example of its divine author, and the efficacy of his mediation, as the most powerful motives to righteousness and virtue, and to represent the love of God and mankind as the great duties of the Christian life, would have been very unprofitable servants to the church and to the papacy, however they might have promoted the cause of virtue and the salvation of souls.

XVII. From this state of affairs we may draw conclusions respecting the true causes of that incredible ignorance in religious matters, which reigned in all countries, and among all ranks and orders of men; an ignorance accom

from the reigning superstitions, but associated many vulgar errors with their practical precepts and directions;-and as their excessive passion for contemplation led them into chimerical notions, and sometimes into a degree of fanaticism that approached to madness more effectual succours than theirs were necessary to combat the inveterate errors of the times, and to bring about the reformation that was expected with such impatience.

panied with the vilest forms of superstition, || sense of religion and a devotional frame of and the greatest corruption of manners. The mind. Yet, as they were not entirely free clergy were far from showing the least disposition to enlighten the ignorance, or to check the superstition of the times; which, indeed, they even nourished and promoted, as conducive to their safety, and favourable to their interests. Nor was there more zeal shown in stemming the torrent of immorality and licentiousness, than in dispelling the clouds of superstition and ignorance; for the prudence of the church had easily foreseen, that the traffic of indulgences could not but suffer from a diminution of the crimes and vices of mankind, and that, in proportion as virtue gained an ascendency upon the manners of the multitude, the profits arising from expiations, satisfactions, and the like ecclesiastical contrivances, would necessarily decrease.

CHAPTER II.

The History of the Reformation, from its Commencement to the Confession of Augsburg.

I. WHILE the Roman pontiff slumbered in security at the head of the church, and saw nothing throughout the vast extent of his dominion but tranquillity and submission; and while the worthy and pious professors of genuine Christianity almost despaired of seeing that reformation on which their most ardent desires and expectations were bent; an obscure and inconsiderable person suddenly offered himself to public view in the year 1517, and laid the foundation of this long-expected change, by opposing, with undaunted resolution, his single force to the torrent of papal ambition and despotism. This extraordinary man was Martin Luther, a native of Eisleben in Saxony, a monk of the Augustinian Eremites, (one of the Mendicant orders,) and, at the same time, professor of divinity in the university which had been erected at Wittenberg, a few years before this period, by Frederic the Wise. The papal chair was, at that time, filled by Leo X.; Maximilian I., a prince of the house of Austria, was king of the Romans and emperor of Germany; and Frederic, already mentioned, was elector of Saxony. The bold efforts of this new adversary of the pontiffs were honoured with the applause of many; but few or none entertained confident hopes of his success. It seemed scarcely possible that this puny David could hurt a Goliah, whom so many heroes had opposed in vain.

XVIII. Such was the dismal condition of the church. Its corruption was complete, and the abuses which its rulers permitted had reached the greatest height of enormity. Proportioned to the greatness of this corruption was the impatient ardour with which all, who were endowed with any tolerable portion of solid learning, genuine piety, or even good sense, desired to see the church reformed and purged from these shocking abuses; and the number of those who were affected in this manner was very considerable in all parts of the western world. The greatest part of them, indeed, were perhaps over-moderate in their demands. They did not extend their views to a change in the form of ecclesiastical government, a suppression of those doctrines, which, however absurd, had acquired a high degree of credit by their antiquity, or even to an abrogation of those rites and ceremonies, which || had been multiplied in such an extravagant manner, to the great detriment of true religion and rational piety. All they aimed at was, to set limits to the overgrown power of the pontiffs, reform the corrupt manners of the clergy, and prevent the frauds that were too commonly practised by that order of men; to dispel the ignorance and correct the errors of the blinded multitude, and to deliver them from the heavy and insupportable burthens II. The qualities or talents that distinguishwhich were imposed upon them under reli-ed Luther were not of a common or ordinary gious pretexts. But as it was impossible to ob- || kind. His genius was truly great and unpatain any of these salutary purposes without the ralleled; his memory vast and tenacious; his suppression of various absurd and impious patience in supporting trials, difficulties, and opinions, from which the grievances complain- labour, incredible; his magnanimity invincible, ed of sprang, or, indeed, without a general re- and unshaken by the vicissitudes of human formation of the religion that was publicly pro-affairs; and his learning most extensive, consifessed, this was supposed to be ardently, though silently wished for, by all those who openly demanded the reformation of the church in its head and in its members.'

dering the age in which he lived. All this will be acknowledged, even by his enemies, at least by such of them as are not totally blinded by a spirit of partiality and faction. He was deeply XIX. If any sparks of real piety subsisted versed in the theology and philosophy that under this despotic empire of superstition, they were in vogue in the schools during this cenwere only to be found among the Mystics; for tury, and he taught them both with great this sect, renouncing the subtlety of the schools, reputation and success in the university of the vain contentions of the learned, and all the Wittenberg. As a philosopher, he embraced acts and ceremonies of external worship, ex- the doctrine of the Nominalists, which was the horted their followers to aim at nothing but in-system adopted by his order; while, in divinity, ternal sanctity of heart, and communion with he followed chiefly the sentiments of Augustin; God, the centre and source of holiness and but in both he preferred the decisions of Scripperfection. Hence they were loved and re-ture, and the dictates of right reason, to the spected by many persons, who had a serious authority and opinions of fallible men.

It

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