inflamed it still further, when they aggravated former oppressions by recent perfidy. There was, indeed, no part of Christendom, wherein the whole machinery of the apostolical chancery* had worked with such pernicious efficacy as in Germany. The privileges of the Jubilee, so fruitful to the See which granted, so expensive to the districts which enjoyed them, were dispensed during the schism principally to that country; the fathers of Constance and Basle published, though they failed to remove, its complaints and the circumstances of its oppression; and the Hundred Grievances't which were afterwards presented to the Diet of Nuremberg (in 1523) formed only a catalogue of hereditary wrongs, the subjects of perpetual remonstrance, and of remonstrance which was perpetually despised. The People of The papal usurpations enumerated in that celebrated document are severally placed under three heads such as tended to enthral the people; such as impoverished and despoiled them; such as withdrew them from the secular jurisdiction. Thus the interests of the people were become the foundation of the remonstrances of their rulers; thus, too, was it in their affections that the Reformer had fixed his surest asylum‡. At a somewhat earlier moment (on April 1, 1520), Frederic, Elector of Saxony, addressed to his Envoy at Rome the following remarkable expressions :Germany is no longer such as it has been; it is full of accomplished men in all the sciences. The people exhibit an extraordinary passion for reading the Scriptures; and if the Court of Rome shall obstinately persist in rejecting the offers of Luther and in treating the affair with haughtiness, instead of replying to his arguments, she must prepare for troubles which will hardly be appeased, and for revolutions which will be no less fatal to herself than to others.' To this wise admonition Leo X. addressed a reply, in which he designated Luther as the most wicked and detestable of all heretics-a man who had no other mission than that which he had received from the Devil!' 6 herself The condition of Germany being such as the Elector represented it, and the disposition of the Vatican such as is betrayed in the answer of the Pope, it is not difficult to comprehend the nature or the result of the conflict which followed. On the one side, we are led to expect a succes * About the time of the Diet of Augsbourg (in 1518) an archbishop of Mayence declared, during his last moments, that his greatest regret in dying was to leave to his poor subjects the burden of buying the pallium of his successor. About 27,000 florins appear to have been advanced on these occasions, and it was chiefly levied upon the poor. Robertson asserts (Hist. Charles V.) that companies of merchants openly bought the benefices of different districts from the Pope's agents, and retailed them at advanced prices. + The Centum Gravamina comprehended the following abuses:-Payments for dispensations and absolutions; sums of money drawn by indulgences; appeals to Rome; reservations, commendams, annates; exemptions of ecclesiastics from the legal punishments; excommunications and unlawful interdicts; secular causes tried before ecclesiastical tribunals; great expenses in consecrating churches and cemeteries; pecuniary penance; fees for sacraments, burials, &c. P. Paolo, Hist. Concil. Trident, lib. i. n. 65. On Aug. 23, 1520, Luther wrote to Spalatin,' that he dreaded neither censures nor violence; that he had a safe asylum in the hearts of the Germans, and that his enemies should beware, lest, in destroying one adversary, they should give birth to many.' Beausobre, Hist. de la Réformation. liv. ii. The world (said Erasmus in 1521, in his Advice to the Emperor) is weary of the ancient theology, which is only a mass of useless questions and vain subtleties, in which the sophists exercise their ingenuity. The people are thirsting for the doctrine of the Gospel, and if it shall be attempted to close the source against them, they will open it for themselves by force.' This letter is translated by Beausobre. Hist. Réf. liv. iv. 3A 2 sion of just demands commencing in moderation, and rising in exact proportion to the contempt with which they were rejected-on the other, a fierce and selfish determination to maintain the established system in its full integrity, without distinction of good or evil, of use or abuse, of truth or falsehood, of divine or human authority. And the conclusion was such as must certainly follow, sooner or later, from collision between such principles. When the train is thus prepared, the moment of explosion will commonly depend on what is called accident; and thus Conclusion. it will frequently arrive when it is least expected. Thus was it in the beginning of the Reformation. Never was the Court of Rome more confident in the sense of security, than at that instant. The various heresies which had so long disturbed the Church were, for the most part, dismayed and silenced; the complaints and petitions of the faithful had long been rejected with insolent impunity; the Council which had last been held had effaced by its subservience the memory of Basle and Constance; and the warnings of Julian Cesarini were despised or forgotten. The temporal monarchy of Rome was more firmly established than at any former period, and her power and influence were still considerable in every part of Europe-her ecclesiastical agents were never more numerous or more zealous in her service. The pillars of her strength were visible and palpable, and she surveyed them with exultation from her golden palaces; but she did not so readily discern the moral causes which were combining for her dissolution, and slowly and secretly sapping the foundations of her pride. The qualities of Leo X., though not despicable, were not calculated for that crisis-fond of letters, devoted to pleasure, contemptuous of morality— ignorant of the science, careless of the duties, neglectful even of the decencies, of religion; vain, extravagant, necessitous and venal, he had not the character which could prevent the rebellion, or crush the rebel. Tempered in the schools of courtly negociation, the weapons of the Vatican were of no service against a popular enemy; and the Pope himself at length condescended to complain*, that the present disease was not in the princes and great prelates, with whom familiarity and interest prevailed, but in the people, with whom it was necessary to use reality, and make a true reformation.' In that people, so long the object of pontifical contempt and spoliation, new energies had insensibly replaced the incurious and servile ignorance of former days. An occasion and an instrument were alone required to bring them into action. The former was furnished by the vices and blindness of the Church; the latter was raised up by Providence in the person of Luther. Yet Luther himself, endowed as he was with great and ardent qualities, was but the voice that called the labourers to their office. The abuses were so ripe and pregnant, and the perception of them so deep and so general, that, even had Luther never been born, the harvest could not long have needed bold and holy ministers to gather it. 'I do not doubt, (they are the words of the Reformer himself addressed to Melancthon,) that if we are unworthy to bring this work to its conclusion, God will raise up others, worthier than we are, who will accomplish it.' *Padre Paolo, Hist. Concil. Trident, liv. i. The succession of the earliest Bishops of Rome and the duration of their government are involved in inexplicable confusion. We have followed Spanheim. + The Indiction was a cycle of three lustres, or a revolution of fifteen years. It was instituted by Constantine soon after his victory over Maxentius (September 24, 312), and the financial accounts for the payment of tribute were regulated by this term. At the Council of Nice the method of Indiction was substituted for that of Olympiads. The year of the first Indiction began January 1, 313; consequently, to find this Indiction, subtract 312 from the given year, or add three to it; divide the difference, or sum by 15, and the remainder, if any, will be the year of the Indiction. The Popes still use this cycle in their bulls and diplomas. The italics designate the Councils held General by the Latin Church. *Neither the fifth nor sixth general council had published any canons respecting ecclesiastical discipline or religious ceremonies. To supply this defect, Justinian II. assembled another in a hall of the Imperial Palace, called Trullus (Cupola); and it was called Quini-Sextum, as being supplementary to the fifth and sixth. It passed one hundred and two laws, of which six are in opposition to certain rites and opinions of Rome; on which account the Latins do not hold it general. Mosh., cent. vii. p. 2, ch. 5. |