Forty-one propositions, extracted | of the pope's power, as well as the out of Luther's works, were there- subordination of all secular jurisin condemned as heretical, scanda-diction to his authority, he pubdalous, and offensive to pious lished these with a commentary, ears; all persons were forbidden pointing out the impiety of such to read his writings, upon pain of tenets, and their evident tendency excommunication: such as had to subvert all civil government. any of them in their custody were commanded to commit them to the flames; he himself, if he did not within sixty days publicly recant his errors, and burn his books, was pronounced an obstinate heretic, excommunicated, and delivered to Satan for the destruction of the flesh; and all secular princes were required, under pain of incurring the same censure, to seize his person, that he might be punished as his crimes deserved.

Luther was not in the least disconcerted by this sentence, which he had for some time expected. He renewed his appeal to his general council; declared the pope to be that antichrist or man of sin whose appearance is foretold in the New Testament; declaimed against his tyranny with greater vehemence than ever; and at last, by way of retaliation, having assembled all the professors and students in the university of Wittemberg, with great pomp, and in the presence of a vast multitude of spectators, he cast the volumes of the canon law, together with the bull of excommunication, into the flames. The manner in which this action was justified gave still more offence than the action itself. Having collected from the canon law some of the most extravagant propositions with regard to the plenitude and omnipotence

On the accession of Charles V to the empire, Luther found himself in a very dangerous situation. Charles, in order to secure the pope's friendship, had determined to treat him with great severity. His eagerness to gain this point rendered him not averse to gratify the papal legates in Germany, who insisted, that, without any delay, or formal deliberation, the diet then sitting at Worms ought to condemn a man whom the pope had already excommunicated as an incorrigible heretic. Such an abrupt manner of proceeding, however, being deemed unprecedented and unjust by the members of the diet, they made a point of Luther's appearing in person, and declaring whether he adhered or not to those opinions which had drawn upon him the censures of the church. Not only the emperor, but all the princes through whose territories he had to pass, granted him a safe-conduct; and Charles wrote to him at the same time, requiring his immediate attendance on the diet, and renewing his promises of protection from any injury or violence. Luther did not hesitate one moment about yielding obedience; and set out for Worms, attended by the herald who had brought the emperor's letter and safe-conduct. While on his journey, many of his friends, whom the fate of Huss,

under similar circumstances, and
notwithstanding the same security
of an imperial safe-conduct, fill-
ed with solicitude, advised and
intreated him not to rush wanton-
ly in the midst of danger. But
Luther, superior to such terrors,
silenced them with this reply: "I
am lawfully called," said he, "to
appear in that city; and thither I
will
go
in the name of the Lord,
though as many devils as there are
tiles on the houses were there com-
bined against me."

of this pestilent heresy, who was now in their power, to deliver the church at once from such an evil. But the members of the diet refusing to expose the German integrity to fresh reproach by a second violation of public faith, and Charles being no less unwilling to bring a stain upon the beginning of his administration by such an ignominious action, Luther was permitted to depart in safety. A few days after he left the city, a severe edict was published in the emperor's name, and by authority of the diet, depriving him, as an obstinate

and excommunicated criminal, of all the privileges which he enjoyed as a subject of the empire; forbidding any prince to harbour or protect him; and requiring all to seize his person as soon as the term specified in his protection should be expired.

The reception which he met with at Worms was such as might have been reckoned a full reward of all his labours, if vanity and the love of applause had been the principles by which he was influenced. Greater crowds assembled to behold him than had appeared at the emperor's public. entry; his apartments were daily filled with princes and personages of the But this rigorous decree had no highest rank; and he was treated considerable effect; the execution with an homage more sincere, as of it being prevented partly by well as more flattering, than any the multiplicity of occupations which pre-eminence in birth or which the commotions in Spain, condition can command. At his together with the wars in Italy appearance before the diet he be- and the Low Countries, created to haved with great decency and with the emperor; and partly by a equal firmness. He readily ac- prudent precaution employed by knowledged an excess of acri- the elector of Saxony, Luther's mony and vehemence in his con- faithful patron. As Luther, on troversial writings; but refused to his return from Worms, was passretract his opinions, unless he were ing near Altenstrain, in Thurinconvinced of their falsehood, or gia, a number of horsemen, in to consent to their being tried by masks, rushed suddenly out of a any other rule than the word of wood, where the elector had apGod. When neither threats nor pointed them to lie in wait for intreaties could prevail on him to him, and, surrounding his comdepart from this resolution, some of pany, carried him, after dismissthe ecclesiastics proposed to imitate ing all his attendants, to Wortthe example of the council of Con- burg, a strong castle, not far disstance, and, by punishing the author "tant,. There the elector ordered

him to be supplied with every | quite changed the doctrine and thing necessary or agreeable; but discipline of the church at Witthe place of his retreat was care- temberg; all which, though not fully concealed, until the fury of against Luther's sentiments, was the present storm against him be- yet blamed by him, as being rashly gan to abate, upon a change in and unseasonably done. Lutherthe political system of Europe. anism was still confined to GerIn this solitude, where he remain- many; it was not got to France ́: ed nine months, and which he and Henry VIII of England made frequently called his Patmos, after the most rigorous acts to hinder it the name of that island to which || from invading his realm. Nay, he the apostle John was banished, he did something more; to shew exerted his usual vigour and in- his zeal for religion and the holy dustry in defence of his doctrines, see, and perhaps his skill in theoor in confutation of his adversa-logical learning, he wrote a trearies; publishing several treatises, tise Of the Seven Sacraments, `awhich revived the spirit of his fol-gainst Luther's book Of the Caplowers, astonished to a great de- tivity of Babylon, which he pregree, and disheartened at the sented to Leo X, in October, 1521. sudden disappearance of their The pope received it very favourleader. ably, and was so well pleased with the king of England, that he complimented him with the title of Defender of the Faith. Luther, however, paid no regard to his kingship, but answered him with great sharpness, treating both his person and performance in the most contemptuous manner. Henry complained of Luther's rude usage of him to the princes of Saxony and Fisher, bishop of Rochester, replied to his answer, in behalf of Henry's treatise; but neither the king's complaint, nor the bishop's reply, were attended with any visible effects.

Luther, weary at length of his retirement, appeared publicly again at Wittemberg, upon the 6th of March, 1522. He appeared, indeed, without the elector's leave; but immediately wrote him a letter to prevent his taking it ill. The edict of Charles V, severe as it was, had given little or no check to Luther's doctrine; for the emperor was no sooner gone into Flanders, than his edict was neglected and despised, and the doctrine seemed to spread even faster than before. Carolostadius, in Luther's absence, had pushed things on faster than his leader, and had attempted to abolish the use of mass, to remove images out of the churches, to set aside auricular confession, invocation of saints, the abstaining from meats; had allowed the monks to leave the monasteries, to neglect their wows, and to marry; in short, had

Luther, though he had put a stop to the violent proceedings of Carolostadius, now made open war with the pope and bishops; and, that he might make the people despise their authority as much as possible, he wrote one book against the pope's bull, and another against the order falsely called

and so religious a nation could be seduced by a wretched apostate friar; that nothing, however, could be more pernicious to Christendom; and that, therefore, he exhorts them to use their utmost endeavours to make Luther, and the authors of these tumults, return to their duty; or, if they re

proceed against them according to the laws of the empire, and the severity of the last edict.

the Order of Bishops. The same year, 1522, he wrote a letter, dated July the 29th, to the assembly of the states of Bohemia; in which he assured them that he was labouring to establish their doctrine in Germany, and exhorted them not to return to the communion of the church of Rome; and he published also this year a transla-fuse, and continue obstinate, to tion of the New Testament in the German tongue, which was afterwards corrected by himself and Melancthon. This translation hav- The resolution of this diet was ing been printed several times, published in the form of an edict, and being in every body's hands upon the 6th of March, 1523; Ferdinand, archduke of Austria, but it had no effect in checking the emperor's brother, made a the Lutherans, who still went on very severe edict, to hinder the in the same triumphant manner. farther publication of it; and for- This year Luther wrote a great bad all the subjects of his impe- many pieces; among the rest, one rial majesty to have any copies of upon the dignity and office of the it, or of Luther's other books. supreme magistrate; which FreSome other princes followed his deric, elector of Saxony, is said example; and Luther was so an-to have been highly pleased with. gry at it, that he wrote a treatise He sent, about the same time, a Of the Secular Power, in which he writing in the German language accuses them of tyranny and im- to the Waldenses, or Pickards, in piety. The diet of the empire Bohemia and Moravia, who had was held at Nuremberg, at the applied to him "about worshipping end of the year, to which Hadrian the body of Christ in the euchaVI sent his brief, dated No- rist." He wrote, also, another vember the 25th; for Leo X died book, which he dedicated to the upon the 2d of December, 1521, senate and people of Prague, and Hadrian had been elected" about the institution of minispope upon the 9th of January ters of the church." He drew following. In his brief, among up a form of saying mass. He other things, he observes to the wrote a piece, entitled, An examdiet how he had heard, with grief, ple of popish doctrine and divinity; that Martin Luther, after the sen- which Dupin calls a satire against tence of Leo X, which was order- nuns, and those who profess a moed to be executed by the edict of nastic life. He wrote also against Worms, continued to teach the the vows of virginity, in his presame errors, and daily to publish face to his commentary on Cor. i, books full of heresies; that it ap-8, and his exhortations here were, peared strange to him that so large it seems, followed with effect;

for, soon after, nine nuns, among Hadrian. Clement VII's legate whom was Catherine de Bore, represented to the diet of Nueloped from the nunnery at Nimpt-remberg the necessity of enforc schen, and were brought, by the ing the execution of the edict of assistance of Leonard Coppen, a Worms, which had been strangely burgess of Torgau, to Wittemberg. neglected by the princes of the Whatever offence this proceeding empire; but, notwithstanding the might give to the Papists, it was legate's solicitations, which were highly extolled by Luther; who, very pressing, the decrees of that in a book written in the German diet were thought so ineffectual, language, compares the deliver- that they were condemned at ance of these nuns from the Rome,and rejected by the emperor. slavery of a monastic life to that of the souls which Jesus Christ has delivered by his death. This year Luther had occasion to canonize two of his followers, who, as Melchior Adam relates, were burnt at Brussels, in the beginning of July, and were the first who His marriage, however, did not suffered martyrdom for his doc-retard his activity and diligence in trine. He wrote also a consola- the work of reformation. He retory epistle to three noble la- vised the Augsburg confession of dies at Misnia, who were ba- faith, and apology for the Pronished from the duke of Saxony's testants, when the Protestant relicourt at Friburg, for reading his gion was first established on a firm basis. See PROTESTANTS and REFORMATION.

books.

In October, 1524, Luther flung off the monastic habit; which, though not premeditated and designed, was yet a very proper preparative to a step he took the year after: we mean his marriage with Catherine de Bore.

In the beginning of the year 1524, Clement VII sent a legate After this, Luther had little into Germany to the diet which else to do than to sit down and was to be held at Nuremberg.contemplate the mighty work he Hadrian VI died in October, 1523, had finished; for that a single and was succeeded by Clement monk should be able to give the upon the 19th of November. A church so rude a shock, that there little before his death, he canon-needed but such another entirely ized Benno, who was bishop of to ovethrow it, may very well Meissen, in the time of Gregory seem a mighty work. He did, VII, and one of the most zealous indeed, little else; for the redefenders of the holy see. mainder of his life was spent in ther, imagining that this was done exhorting princes, states, and unidirectly to oppose him, drew up a versities, to confirm the reformapiece with this title, Against the tion which had been brought new idol and old devil set up at about through him; and publishMeissen, in which he treats the ing from time to time such writmemory of Gregory with great ings as might encourage, direct, freedom, and does not spare even and aid them in doing it. The

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