gained new victories to the truth. A disputation which he maintained in an Augustine convent at Heidelberg, in 1518, on the merit of good works, and the use of the Aristotelian philosophy, gained him friends among the young theologians present, as Bucer, Brenz (Brentius), and others, who afterwards became celebrated as zealous advocates of reformation. The conferences of Luther with the papal legates, Cajetan, in 1518, at Augsburg, and Miltitz, in 1519, at Altenburg, in which those prelates, instead of bringing him to recant, as they were ordered, only showed their inability to support the Roman doctrines on the authority of the Bible; the scholastic discussion of Eck with Carlstadt and Luther, at Leipsic, in 1519, which lasted three weeks, and in which they warmly discussed the doctrines of free will, the authority of the pope, indulgences and purgatory, though they decided nothing, attracted a more general attention to the works of Luther, who almost every month sent forth new pamphlets and printed sermons. From the Pyrenees to the Vistula, from the gulf of Venice to the Belt, every thing by Luther or about him was eagerly read. The remarkable fulness and power of his style; his merciless humor; his acuteness and learning, daily increasing by his constant historical and exegetical studies; the irresistible force of his reasoning; and, above all, the adaptation of his doctrines to the wants of the age; the approbation of Erasmus, Pirkheimer, and other distinguished scholars; the public adherence of men like Melanchthon and Hutten; the contemporaneous and yet bolder opposition of Zuinglius and Ecolampadius, in Switzerland, to indulgences and the papacy (see Reformed Church),-made this man, who was hardly known before 1517, the champion of all enlightened men who lamented the degeneracy of the church of Christ; and as such he now spoke and acted with admirable courage. The respect for the Roman court, which was perceptible in his earlier writings, he now discarded, as the injustice of the papal pretensions had become clear to him. A glowing zeal, such as had been seen in the time of the apostles, characterized his masterly writings, addressed to the nobility of Germany, on the mass, on the Babylonish captivity, and on the freedom of a Christian. In these works he attacked the papal doctrines with the weapons of the word of God, and directed attention to the nobler, but forgotten, doctrines of the gospel. In 1520, when

Eck published the papal excommunication against him in Germany, he appealed to a general council; and when his works were burnt in Mentz, Cologne and Louvain, he publicly committed the bull of excommunication, with the papal canons and decrees, to the flames (December 10) amidst the rejoicings of the students at Wittenberg. This year and the following, 1521, are, therefore, to be regarded as the true period of the reformation in Germany; for at this time, Luther formally separated from the Roman church, and many of the principal nobles,-Hutten, Sickingen, Schaumburg, &c., the most eminent scholars, and the university of Wittenberg, to which the young men of Germany and other countries now flocked in multitudes, publicly declared in favor of his undertaking. His commanding appearance, and his bold refusal to recant at the diet of Worms (April 17, 1521),— the day of his proudest triumph (see Luther),-gave him the power and dignity of an acknowledged reformer; the edict of Worms and the ban of the emperor made his cause a political matter. We must not, however, overlook the circumstances which favored the progress of reformation. The pope had risen chiefly by the support of Germany; in his transactions with the emperor, he had generally been supported by the German princes, who thus maintained their own independence. Rome had, therefore, been obliged to court them in turn, and the emperor congratulated himself in silence, if disputes ensued between them. On the death of Maximilian I, in 1519, the elector Frederic III, who was already the most powerful German prince, held the dignity of a vicar of the empire in all the Saxon territories, and his personal influence gave him the most decisive voice in the election of the new emperor. The pope, as well as Charles V, who was chosen chiefly by his influence in 1520, was obliged to consult his wishes; the former in changing the original summons of Luther to Rome, to a conference with his legates, and the latter in suffering the reformation to go on without violent opposition, as long as it allowed itself to be responsible to the pope and the Catholic states. By his ten months' residence in the Wartburg, Luther was secured from the first consequences of the ban of the empire, and the edict of Worms had so much the less force in Saxony, as the emperor, engaged, in 1521, in the war with France, or occupied in Spain, almost wholly lost sight of religious affairs in Germany, and

each prince did what he pleased in his own territory. But that Frederic the Wise, although he did not call himself an adherent of the reformers, yet protected the heroes of the reformation, is easily explained from the concern which he took in the prosperity of the Wittenberg university, from his uprightness, his gradually increasing conviction of the justice of the views of Luther and his friend Spalatin, who managed every thing at the court of Frederic. Leo's successor, Adrian VI, who was himself desirous of a reformation, in answer to his demand for the extirpation of the doctrines of Luther, received a list of a hundred complaints from the German states assembled at the diet of Nuremberg in 1522, in which even the Catholics joined against the papal chair. The people of Wittenberg were, therefore, as little impeded in their attempts at a reform in religious worship (beginning with the mass), as those of Zürich, whose rapid progress in the change of their religious doctrines and rites found the most powerful support in the governments of the northern cantons; and Luther was even obliged to hasten from the Wartburg to quell the tumults excited by the turbulent zeal of Carlstadt. (q. v.) While he was publishing his translation of the New Testament, the fruit of his exile, which was soon followed by the Old, and Melanchthon his Loci Communes (the first, and, for a long time, the best exposition of the Lutheran doctrines, first published in 1521), serious preparations for the reform of papal abuses were made in Deux-Ponts, Pomerania, Silesia, in the Saxon cities (of which Leissnig was the first after Wittenberg), and in Suabia. Luther's liturgy had no sooner appeared, in 1523, than it was adopted in Magdeburg and Elbingen. The new church was not without its martyrs. In 1522, the inquisition in the Netherlands secured it this honor by the execution of some Augustines, who favored the new doctrines. Translations of the Bible into French and Dutch now appeared. In the very heart of France, at Meaux, a Lutheran church was organized. In vain did the Sorbonne condemn the principles of Luther; in vain was the execution of the edict of Worms against religious innovations resolved upon at the diet of Nuremberg, in 1524, and the convention of Ratisbon; in vain did George, duke of Saxony, Henry, duke of Brunswick, Austria, France, Spain, and the spiritual princes of the empire, labor to suppress the reformation by the persecu

tion of the followers of Luther in their states. The same year, Luther laid aside his cowl; monasteries were deserted; priests in Saxony and Switzerland married. In 1525, John, successor of Frederic in the Saxon electorate, Philip, landgrave of Hesse, and Albert of Brandenburg, duke of Prussia, publicly declared themselves Lutherans. All their territories, Livonia, a considerable part of Hungary and Austria (Bohemia had already been gained by the Hussites), Lüneburg, Celle, Nuremberg, Strasburg, Frankfort on the Maine, Nordhausen, Brunswick, Bremen, embraced the new doctrines, and a great number of the most respectable clergymen and theologians in Germany followed the example of Luther, who married Catharine von Bora, formerly a nun. Sweden received the reformation in 1527, under Gustavus Vasa, through the labors of Olaf and Lorenzo Petri; and its example was soon followed by the greater part of Lower Saxony and the north of Westphalia, Hamburg and Lübeck. The tranquillity of this period, resulting from the absence of the emperor, during which the reformation advanced with astonishing rapidity, and almost without any impediment, interrupted the dispute of Luther with Zuinglius and Erasmus (see these articles, and Lord's Supper) less than the apprehensions of a war, excited in 1528 by the information of a secret alliance of the Catholic states against the Protestant; and violent measures on the part of the latter were with difficulty prevented by Luther's earnest exhortations to peace. This circumstance, however, united the party in favor of reform more closely; and from their general protest against a decree of the diet of Spires, in 1529, they received, in 1541, the name of Protestants. (q. v.) They now, therefore, formed a distinct political party (Corpus Evangelicorum); and, as the emperor returned to Germany at this time in a threatening attitude, they were forced to adopt decisive measures. After the visitations undertaken for the organization of the church system, with the aid of Melanchthon's instructions and Luther's catechisms, which appeared in 1529, while the teaching of the people in schools and churches by faithful ministers was gradually improving, Melanchthon was employed to draw up a full exposition of the Lutheran doctrines; which was subscribed by the princes already united by the league of Torgau (1526) and the convention of Schwabach (1529) (see Schwabach, Articles of), transmitted to the emperor at the diet

of Augsburg in 1530, and solemnly read before a full assembly (June 25th), whence the declaration was called the Augsburg Confession. (q. v.) The emperor caused a reply from the Catholic party to be read, which was to put the question at rest; rejected the defence (Apology) of the Augsburg confession, written by Melanchthon in answer to this confutation, and insisted upon the suppression of religious innovations. A similar reply was given to Strasburg, Constance, Memmingen and Lindau, which had sent the a emperor similar paper, styled the Confession of the Four Citics, or Confessio Tetrapolitana. This conclusion of the diet was a new motive of union to the Lutherans. (For a history of subsequent events, see Smalcaldic League, Interim, and Peace, Religious.) The German Protestants were united by common political interests and a common creed, contained in the Augsburg confession, and its Apology (see Melanchthon), and illustrated by the articles of Smalcalden and the two catechisms, and finally confirmed, in 1580, by the Form of Concord. (See Concord, Form of, and Creed.) The Lutherans, or adherents of the Augsburg confession, were the three electors of the Palatinate, Saxony, and Brandenburg, twenty dukes and princes, twenty-four counts, four barons, and thirty-five imperial cities; in all eighty-six members of the empire. Sweden and Denmark (since 1536 a Protestant country), Sleswick, Pomerania, Silesia, and many important cities, on political grounds, Hesse and Bremen, from a preference for Calvinism, refused to adopt the Form of Concord. The Palatinate fell back, and the court of Berlin became Calvinistic (or Reformed). The dispute concerning the presence of the body of Christ in the sacrament of the supper (see Lord's Supper), between the Swiss and French Protestants, on one side, among whom, after the death of Zuinglius, Calvin was the champion, and the Saxon Protestants on the other, resulted in a total separation of the reformed church (q. v.) from the Evangelical Lutheran. The foundation of this difference between the two churches, so unfavorable to the progress of the reformation, was deeply laid in the diversity of the characters of their founders. Luther, more accustomed to think systematically, and to adhere implicitly to the letter of the Holy Scriptures, immediately brought every new idea, which was suggested, to the touchstone of his system, and admitted nothing which seemed to oppose that be

lief. Zuinglius, less trammelled with fixed dogmas, and more ready to follow his own judgment, was, on the other hand, more prompt to embrace those views, which at first sight appeared reasonable to him. Hence he was more in danger of adopting error as truth, while Luther was more apt to reject truth as error, lest he should renounce his faith. The east and north adhered to the opinions of Luther; the west and south followed the more liberal views of the Reformed church. The greater part of Switzerland and Geneva (1535), a great part of the population of France, particularly of the southern part (see Huguenots), England (in 1547, with the reservation of the hierarchical dignities, and with a temporary interruption, in the reign of Mary, in 1555-58), Scotland, where Knox introduced the Presbyterian form of church government, in 1560, on the Geneva model, and the United Provinces of the Netherlands, which, at one blow, gained Protestantism and freedom, belonged to the Reformed church. (See England, Church of, and Henry VIII; Knox; Netherlands; and Creed.) In Transylvania, the Lutheran confession prevailed; in Hungary, Calvinism entered with it; and in Poland, where the reformation had found numerous adherents (from 1556), the two Protestant parties, with the Moravian Brethren, concluded a convention (consensus) at Sendomir, in 1570, which united them in one political body, known as the Dissidents. (q. v.) The attempt of Gebhard, elector of Cologne, in 1582, to introduce the reformation into his archbishopric totally failed, owing to his want of prudence. Whatever dissensions may have separated the Lutherans and Calvinists at this period, they had, and still have, the fundamentals of doctrine and discipline, the spirit and the name of true Protestants in common, and every step in the progress of the reformation is to be considered as a gain to both parties. But the ill will which continued to exist between the Catholics and Protestants, even after the religious peace, eventually kindled the thirty years' war (q. v.) and devastated Germany. The peace of Westphalia established between the parties a legalized toleration; but the Protestant subjects of Catholic princes too often experienced its violation, and the Catholics in Protestant states (as the Irish) not unfrequently suffered a similar fate. (See Religious Liberty, and Catholic Emancipation. After this general outline of the history of the reformation, it remains to give some views of the influence which it

has exercised on the religion and morals, on the literary and political condition, of nations.

From what has been said, it appears that the reformation was a necessary consequence of the mental progress of the Western, and particularly of the Teutonic nations. The opposition of its enemies gave it consistency and importance. The assaults of passionate and ignorant opposers, the intrigues and violence of the Roman court, and the applause of his whole nation, urged Luther farther than he had thought of going. Circumstances, the concurrence of which human wisdom could neither produce nor prevent, favored the enterprise beyond his highest hopes. Involved in contests with adversaries whose victory seemed almost certain, and convulsed by internal dissensions (the peasants' war, and the troubles of the Anabaptists), the reformation still made. rapid progress. After it had been going on a few years, it no longer depended on its authors for the direction it should take. The influence of Protestant principles has had a large share in bringing about those improvements, which, in modern times, have extended to almost every class of society in Europe. Before the reformation, the doctrines of the church comprised a mass of propositions and precepts, the fruit of circumstances which were intended to support the divine authority of the priesthood, and rested in part on perversions of history; but the great truths which every Christian ought to know, were either neglected or adulterated, and the gospel of Jesus could hardly be recognised. In the view of Catholics, indeed, such of these doctrines as are not founded on the Bible, rest on verbal traditions, which the teachers of the church received from the apostles and fathers, and which the popes or councils, with the aid of the Holy Ghost, gradually made known (see Tradition); but their fruits bore no traces of their pretended divine origin. The place of religion was supplied, in the minds of the lower classes, by a mixture of fear and diversion, aided by a service full of mechanical ceremony and superstition. At one time, it was a timid fear of a spiritual being wielding the terrors of temporal suffering and eternal damnation; at another, delight in the ornaments of the churches and their priests; admiration of their splendid, and, for the most part, unintelligible exhibitions; sometimes the occupation of the imagination with various legends and miraculous histories, and prayers repeated in the order 46

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of the beads of the rosary, confessions, penances, fasts, pilgrimages, and rich gifts to the church of money and other valuables. The ignorance of the common people blinded them to the wretchedness of their spiritual condition; but the better informed soon perceived that the entire reference of the doctrines of the church to the support of the papal power, and of its worship to the visible images of the saints, directed nearly all the devotion of the faithful to things which do not belong to the Christian profession, and in no way promote a sincere reverence of God. No wonder that Christianity, thus perverted, became, in the eyes of many of the most distinguished divines and laymen, whose taste had been formed by the study of the classics, a subject of unmingled contempt. The ecclesiastical princes of Italy used it only as the instrument of their selfish purposes, and opposed with obstinacy a reformation of the church, which they viewed as dangerous and chimerical. An open rupture with the pope gave the reformers the power of throwing off the corruptions and foreign appendages of religion, both in doctrine and worship, and of restoring a Christianity which knows no rule of piety but the Holy Scriptures, asks nothing but faith and virtue, and, instead of being the secret possession of a privileged caste of priests, was laid open to all. The idea that there is something for which man is accountable only to himself and his God; that in religion human authority is nothing; and that it is, therefore, the duty of every one to study the Holy Scriptures, as its source, and to rest his faith on his own convictions; that acts of worship derive their whole value from the faith of the worshippers, and their obvious tendency to improve those who take part in them; in short, a living commentary on the doctrine, "God must be worshipped in spirit and in truth," was spread by the preaching, and still more by the writings of the reformers, among the whole mass of the people. Thousands of the scholars of the universities, the friends of philosophy and of classical antiquity, intelligent citizens, and discontented individuals of the lower clergy, had long been ready to share in the dissemination of these principles; princes and nobles, and even some bishops, felt the power of truth; and zeal for innovation was aroused, in the lower ranks, to such a degree, that in some places they aimed at nothing less than to burst all restraints. The success of their first appeals encouraged the reformers to

venture the second step towards the restoration of true religion by removing all obstructions to it in the forms of the church. Among these was the mockery of a sacramental consecration of priests, which elevated the sacred office above humanity, made a privileged order the legislators of the faith, and sanctioned every abuse of ecclesiastical power; the worship of saints, relics, and images, which, as it was then conducted, detracted from the reverence of the invisible God; transubstantiation, making the Son of God to be created and sacrificed daily by the hands of men, and thus justifying the worship of the host; extreme unction, and the masses for the souls of the deceased, which drew immense tributes from the fears of the dying and the grief of mourners; and a multitude of other customs, which distracted and degraded devotion. From the superstitious fables and cunning inventions of ambition, the religious spirit now turned to a faith which it might embrace without abandoning the use of reason; for the eternal truths of the gospel, by means of Luther's excellent German translation of the Bible, and accurate versions into other languages, by the sermons and liturgies founded on it in the vernacular tongues, by catechisms and comprehensive manuals, came unadulterated before the world at large. Restored once more to its original destination, the Christian ministry among Protestants devoted itself exclusively to the labor of explaining the Word of God, and applying it to spiritual improvement; of erecting schools for the neglected youth, and raising the character of those already existing, while the clergy renounced the privileges by which they had been distinguished from the laity. Every Protestant partook of the cup in the Lord's supper; every one could understand the simple celebration of divine worship, and could join in the sacred hymns. Thus, wherever Protestantism found its way, the worship of God recovered that simplicity, and warmth, and sincerity, which had characterized it among the first Christians. It became a common work, and a bond of union, in proportion as the feeling of obligation to defend the newly acquired purity of religion from dangers and attacks from without, fanned the flame of religious zeal, and strengthened the love of brethren in the faith; hence a clearer knowledge of God, and a higher tone of piety. Religion was no longer a mere subject of the imagination, but appealed to the reason and feel

ings of men, and invited close investigation. Not that this beneficial influence became at once universal and complete, or was interrupted at no period of the advance of Protestantism: the best ideas, the wisest institutions, succeed only by degrees, and are never carried into execution without the alloy of human weaknesses. If we carefully examine the period of the reformation, and the spirit which animated its first friends, we shall find it a time of contest and division, when the silent operation of the new light was blended with violent hostility towards false brethren and ever-active enemies. Hence the abusive language from the pulpits and in controversial writings, which, though abundantly provoked by the menaces, violence and intrigues of the opposite party, and excusable on account of the rude tone and contentious spirit of the age, was, nevertheless, always unfavorable to the improvement of Protestantism. Hence the extravagances of precipitate innovators, which the reformers could not resist without retaining more of the forms of the existing religion, out of regard to the consciences of the weak, than a strict application of their principles would permit. Hence that war of opinions among divines, which not only prevented the coöperation of the Swiss with the Saxon reformers, but also gave an accidental importance to certain points of comparatively small importance, which, in the future system, especially of the Lutherans, occasioned great incongruities, and left deep traces of the time of their origin. The absurd adiaphora (q. v.), so called, gave rise to violent disputes. Altars, candles, images, mass-dresses, surplices, wafers, auricular confessions, exorcism, and even the position of the words Vater unser (Our Father, in the Lord's prayer), instead of Unser Vater, became the distinguishing signs of the Lutheran party. These contests, however, must be admitted to have had a salutary influence on the settlement of particular points of doctrine, and to have contributed to excite a lively zeal for religion. In the period subsequent to the reformation, deep religious feeling always remained the characteristic of the Protestants. There was, however, a difference between the two principal parties; for the circumstance that the Lutherans still made the Lord's supper a mystery, while the Calvinists submitted every thing to reason, produced an essential variance in their religious feelings. But that levity and infidelity which were fostered by the