CEN T.of the latter alone could be attended with no lastXVI. SECT. I. ing fruits. To these prudent admonitions this excellent reformer added the influence of example, by applying himself with redoubled industry and zeal, to his German translation of the Holy Scriptures, which he carried on with expedition and success [u], with the assistance of some learned and pious men, whom he consulted in this great and important undertaking. The event abundantly shewed the wisdom of LUTHER'S advice, For the different parts of this translation, being successively and gradually spread among the people, produced sudden and almost incredible effects, and extirpated, root and branch, the erroneous principles and superstitious doctrines of the church of Rome from the minds of a prodigious number of persons.

Leo X. succeeded by

XIX. While these things were transacting, LEO Adrian VI. X. departed this life, and was succeeded in the in the year pontificate by ADRIAN VI. a native of Utrecht. Diet of Nu- This pope, who had formerly been preceptor to remberg. CHARLES V. and who owed his new dignity to the

1522.

good offices of that prince, was a man of probity. and candor, who acknowledged ingenuously that the church laboured under the most fatal dis

orders,

ambition; and it appears evidently in several of his letters. On the other hand, it must be owned, that Carlostadt was rash, violent, and prone to enthusiasm, as appears by the connexions. he formed afterwards with the fanatical anabaptists, headed by Munzer. His contests with Luther about the eucharist, in which he manifestly maintained the truth, shall be mentioned in their proper place.

[u] On this German translation of the Bible, which contributed more than all other causes, taken together, to strengthen the foundations of the Lutheran church, we have an interesting history composed by Jo. Frid. Mayer, and published in 4to at, Hamburg, in the year 1701. A more ample one, however, was expected from the labours of the learned J. Melchior Kraft, but his death has disappointed our hopes. See Jo. Alb. Fabricii Centifolium Lutheran. par. I. p. 147. & par. II. p. 617..

XVI.

orders, and declared his willingness to apply the C ENT. remedies that should be judged the most adapted SECT. I. to heal them [w]. He began his pontificate by sending a legate to the diet, which was assembled at Nuremberg in 1522. FRANCIS CHEREGATO, the person who was intrusted with this commission, had positive orders to demand the speedy and vigorous execution of the sentence that had been pronounced against LUTHER and his followers at the diet of Worms; but, at the same time, he was authorised to declare that the pontif was ready to remove the abuses and grievances that had armed such a formidable enemy against the see of Rome. The princes of the empire, encouraged by this declaration on the one hand, and by the absence of the emperor, who, at this time, resided in Spain, on the other, seized this opportunity of proposing the summoning a general council in Germany, in order to deliberate upon the proper methods of bringing about an universal reformation of the church. They exhibited, at the same time, an hundred articles, containing the heaviest complaints of the injurious treatment the Germans had hitherto received from the court of Rome, and, by a public law, prohibited all innovation in religious matters, until a general council should decide what was to be done in an affair of such high moment and importance [x]. As long as the German princes were unacquainted with, or inattentive to, the measures that were taken in Saxony for founding a new church in direct opposition to that of Rome, they were zealously unanimous in their endeavours to set bounds to the papal authority and jurisdiction, which they all looked

upon

[w] See Caspar. Burmanni Adrianus VI. sive Analecia Historica de Adriano VI. Papa Romano, published at Utrecht in 4to, in the year 1727.

[c] See Jac. Frid, Georgii Gravamina Germanorum adverjus Sedem Romanam, lib. ii. p. 327.

CENT. upon as overgrown and enormous: nor were they SESTI at all offended at LUTHER'S contest with the Ro

XVI.

Clement

I. man pontif, which they considered as a dispute of a private and personal nature.

ed pope in the year

1524.

XX. The good pope ADRIAN did not long enVII. clect- joy the pleasure of sitting at the head of the church. He died in the year 1523, and was succeeded by CLEMENT VII. a man of a reserved character, and prone to artifice [y]. This pontif sent to the imperial diet at Nuremberg, in the year 1524, a cardinal-legate, named CAMPEGIUS, whose orders, with respect to the affairs of LUTHER, breathed nothing but severity and violence, and who inveighed against the lenity of the German princes in delaying the execution of the decree of Worms, while he carefully avoided the smallest mention of the promise ADRIAN had made to reform the corruptions of a superstitious church. The emperor seconded the demands of CAMPEGIus by the orders he sent to his minister to insist upon the execution of the sentence which had been pronounced against LUTHER and his adherents at the diet of Worms. The princes of the empire, tired out by these importunities and remonstrances, changed in appearance the law they had passed, but confirmed it in reality. For while they promised to observe, as far as was possible, the edict of Worms, they, at the same time, renewed their demands of a general council, and left all other matters in dispute to be examined and decided at the diet that was soon to be assembled at Spire. The pope's legate, on the other hand, perceiving by these proceedings, that the German princes in general were no enemies to the Reformation, retired to Ratisbon, with the bishops and those of the princes that adhered to the cause of

[] See Jac. Zeigleri Historia Clementis VII. in Jo. Ceorgii Schelhornii Amanitates Histor. Eccles. tom. ii. p. 219.

XVI.

of Rome, and there drew from them a new decla- C ENT. ration, by which they engaged themselves tos CT. I. execute rigorously the edict of Worms in their respective dominions.

and Zuin

XXI. While the efforts of LUTHER towards Carlstadt the reformation of the church were daily crowned gle. with growing success, and almost all the nations seemed disposed to open their eyes upon the light, two unhappy occurrences, one of a foreign, and the other of a domestic nature, contributed greatly to retard the progress of this salutary and glorious work. The domestic, or internal incident, was a controversy concerning the manner in which the body and blood of Christ were present in the eucharist, that arose among those whom the Roman pontif had publicly excluded from the communion of the church, and unhappily produced among the friends of the good cause the most deplorable animosities and divisions. LUTHER and his followers, though they had rejected the monstrous doctrine of the church of Rome with respect to the transubstantiation, or change of the bread and wine into the body and blood of CHRIST, were nevertheless of opinion, that the partakers of the Lord's supper received, along with the bread and wine, the real body and blood of Christ. This, in their judgment, was a mystery, which they did not pretend to explain [x]. CARLOSTADT, who was was LUTHER'S colleague, understood the matter quite otherwise, and his doctrine, which was afterwards illustrated and confirmed

[x] Luther was not so modest as Dr Mosheim here represents him. He pretended to explain his doctrine of the real presence, absurd and contradictory as it was, and uttered much senseless jargon on this subject. As in a red hot iron, said he, two distinct substances, viz. iron and fire, are united, so is the body of Christ joined with the bread in the eucharist. I mention this miserable comparison to shew into what absurdities the towering pride of system will often betray men of deep sense and true genius.

XVI.

SECT. I.

66

CEN T. confirmed by ZUINGLE with much more ingenuity than he had proposed it, amounted to this: That the body and blood of Christ were not really present in the eucharist; and that the "bread and wine were no more than external signs, or symbols, designed to excite in the "minds of Christians the remembrance of the "sufferings and death of the divine Saviour, and "of the benefits which arise from it [a]." This opinion was embraced by all the friends of the Reformation in Switzerland, and by a considerable number of its votaries in Germany. On the other hand, LUTHER maintained his doctrine, in relation to this point, with the utmost obstinacy; and hence arose, in the year, 1524, a tedious and vehement controversy,which, notwithstanding the zealous endeavours that were used to reconcile the contending parties, terminated, at length, in a fatal division between those who had embarked together in the sacred cause of religion and liberty.

The war of

the peasants.

XXII. To these intestine divisions were added the horrors of a civil war, which was the fatal effect of oppression on the one hand, and of enthusiasm on the other; and, by its unhappy consequences, was prejudicial to the cause and progress of the Reformation. In the year 1525, a prodigious multitude of seditious fanatics arose, like a whirlwind, all of a sudden, in different parts of Germany, took arms, united their forces, waged war against

[a] See Val. Ern. Loscheri Historia motuum inter Lutheranos et Reformatos, par. I. lib. i. cap. ii. p. 55.-See also, on the other side of the question, Scultet's Annales Evangelii, published by Von der Hardt, in his Historia Liter. Reformat. p. 74.-Rud. Hospinianus, and other reformed writers, who have treated of the origin and progress of this dispute. It appears from this representation (which is a just one) of the sentiments of Zuingle concerning the holy sacrament of the Lord's supper, that they were the same with those maintained by Bishop Hoadly, in his " Plain Account of the Nature and Design of the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper."