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contained little else than fictitious reports of mi-C EN T. racles and prodigies, insipid fables, wretched quib- SECT. I.. bles, and illiterate jargon, deceived the multitude instead of instructing them. Several of these sermons are yet extant, which it is impossible to read without the highest indignation and contempt. Those who, on account of their gravity of manners, or their supposed superiority in point of wisdom and knowledge, held the most distinguished rank among these vain declaimers, had a common-place set of subjects allotted to them, on which they were constantly exercising the force of their lungs and the power of their eloquence. These subjects were, the authority of the holy mother church, and the obligations of obedience to her decisions; the virtues and merits of the saints, and their credit in the court of heaven; the dignity, glory, and love of the blessed Virgin; the efficacy of relics; the duty of adorning churches, and endowing monasteries; the necessity of good works (as that phrase was then understood) to salvation; the intolerable burnings of purgatory, and the utility of indulgences. Such were the subjects that employed the zeal and labours of the most eminent doctors of this century; and they were, indeed, the only subjects that could tend to fill the coffers of the good old mother church, and advance her temporal interests. A ministry, who would have taken it into their heads to inculcate the doctrines and precepts of the 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, such a ministry 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. The

CENT.
XVI.

The cor

XVII. The state of things, that we have been SECT. I. now describing, exhibits to our view the true causes of that incredible ignorance in religious matters, which reigned universally in all counmiserable tries, and among all ranks and orders of men ; an condition ignorance accompanied with the vilest forms of ple in gene- superstition, and the greatest corruption of manral. ners. The clergy, who presided over the rites and

rupt and

of the peo

A reforma

tion in the church ar

dently desired.

ceremonies of the church, were far from shewing the least disposition to enlighten the ignorance or to check the superstition of the times; nay, instead of opposing, they rather nourished and promoted them, as conducive to their safety, and favourable to their interests. Nor was there more zeal shewn in stemming the torrent of immorality and licentiousness, than in dispeiling 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 ascendant upon the manners of the multitude, the profits arising from expiations, satisfactions, and such like ecclesiastical contrivances, must necessarily decrease.

XVIII. Such then was the dismal condition of the church. Its corruption was complete, and the abuses that it permitted were gone to the greatest height of enormity. But in proportion to the greatness of this corruption was the ardour and impatience with which all, who were endowed with any tolerable portion of solid learnning, 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

SQ

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so far as a change in the form of ecclesiastical C E N T. government, a suppression of those doctrines, s which, however absurd, had acquired a high degree of credit by their antiquity, nor even to the abrogation of those rights 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 pontifs, to reform the corrupt manners of the clergy, and to 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 unsupportable burthens that were imposed upon them under religious pretexts. But as it was impossible to obtain any of these salutary purposes without the suppression of various absurd and impious opinions, from whence the grievances complained of sprung, and, indeed, without a general reformation of the religion that was publicly professed; so was this reformation supposed to be ardently, though silently, wished for, by all those who publicly demanded the reformation of the church in its head and in its members.

XIX. If any sparks of real piety subsisted under The Mysthis despotic empire of superstition, they were only tics. to be found among the Mystics. For this sect, renouncing the subtilty of the schools, the vain contentions of the learned, with all the acts and ceremonies of external worship, exhorted their followers to aim at nothing but internal sanctity of heart, and communion with God, the centre and source of holiness and perfection. Hence the Mystics were loved and respected by many persons, who had a serious sense of religion, and were of a tender and devotional complexion. But as they were not entirely free from the reigning superstitions, but associated many vulgar errors with their practical

SECT. I.

CEN T. practical precepts and directions; and as their exXVI. cessive passion for contemplation led them into many 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.

The dawn of a refor

adly.

CHA P. II.

The History of the Reformation, from its first beginnings, to the Confession given in at Augsburg.

I.

WH

HILE the Roman pontif slumbered in security at the head of the church, and mation rises saw nothing throughout the vast extent of his doexpect minion 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 arose, on a sudden, 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 Aisleben, in Saxony, a monk of the Augustinian Eremites, who were one of the Mendicant orders, and, at the same time, professor of divinity in the academy that had been erected at Wittemberg, a few years before this period, by FREDERIC the Wise. The papal chair was, at this 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, elector of Saxony.

The

XVI.

The bold efforts of this new adversary of the pon-C ENT. tifs were honoured with the applauses of many, SECT. I. but few or none entertained hopes of their success. It seemed scarcely possible that this puny David could hurt a Goliah, whom so many heroes had opposed in vain.

II. None of the qualities or talents that dis- Luther. tinguished Luther were of a common or ordinary kind. His genius was truly great and unparalleled; his memory vast and tenacious; his patience in supporting trials, difficulties, and labour incredible, his magnanimity invincible, and independent on the vicissitudes of human affairs; and his learning most extensive, considering 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 versed in the theology and philosophy that were in vogue in the schools during this century, and he taught them both with the greatest reputation and success in the academy of Wittemberg. As a philosopher, he embraced the doctrine of the Nominalists, which was the system adopted by his order; while, in divinity, he followed chiefly the sentiments of Augustin; but in both he preferred the decisions of Scripture, and the dictates of right reason before the authority and opinions of fallible men. It would be equally rash and absurd to represent this great man as exempt from error, and free from infirmities and defects; yet, if we except the contagious effects of the age in which he lived, and of the religion in which he had been brought up, we shall perhaps find but a few things in his character that render him liable to reproach [m].

III. The

[m] The writers who have given any circumstantial account of Luther, and his transactions are accurately enumerated by

Jo. Alb.