perate revolt; and he was suffered to proceed step by step, in undermining the constitution of the church, till the remedy applied at last came too late. to produce any effect.

But whatever advantages Luther's cause derived either from the mistakes of his adversaries, or from his own good conduct, the sudden progress and firm establishment of his doctrines, must not be ascribed to these alone. The same corruptions in the church of Rome which he condemned, had been attacked long before his appearance, and the same opinions which he now propagated, had been published in different places, and were supported by the same arguments. Waldus in the twelfth century, Wickliff in the fourteen already mentioned, and Huss in the fifteenth, had inveighed against the errors of popery with great boldness, and confuted them with more ingenuity and learning than could have been expected in those illiterate ages in which they flourished. But all these premature attempts towards a reformation proved abortive. Such feeble lights, incapable of dispelling the darkness which then covered the church, were soon extinguished: and through the doctrines of these pious men produced some effects, and left some traces in the country where they were taught, they were neither extensive nor considerable. Many powerful causes contributed to facilitate Luther's progress, which either did not exist, or did not operate with full force in their days; and at the critical and mature juncture when he appeared, circumstances of every kind concurred in rendering each step he took successful.

The long and scandalous schism which divided the church, during the latter part of the fourteenth, and the beginning of the fifteenth centuries, had a great effect in diminishing the veneration with which the world had been accustomed to view the papal dignity. Two or three contending pontiffs roaming about Europe at a time, fawning on the princes whom they wanted to gain, squeezing the countries which acknowledged their authority, excommunicating their rivals, and cursing those who adhered to them, discredited their pretensions to infallibility, and exposed both their persons and their office to contempt. The laity, to whom all parties appealed, came to learn that some right of private judgment belonged to them, and acquired the exercise of it so far as to chuse, among these infallible guides, whom they would please to follow. The proceedings of the councils of Constance and Basil, spread still wider this derespect for the Romish see, and by their bold exertion of authority in deposing and electing popes, taught the world that there was in the church

a jurisdiction superior even to the papal power, which they had long believed to be supreme.

The wound given on that occasion to the papal authority was scarce healed up, when the pontificates of Alexander VI. and Julius II. both able princes, but detestable ecclesiastics, raised new scandal in Christendom. The profligate morals of the former in private life; the fraud, the injustice and cruelty of his public administration, place him on a level with those tyrants, whose deeds are the greatest reproach to human nature. The latter, though a stranger to these odious passions which prompted his predecessor to commit so many unnatural crimes, was under the dominion of a restless and ungovernable ambition, which scorned all considerations of gratitude, of decency, or of justice, when they obstructed the execution of his schemes. It was scarce possible to be firmly persuaded, that the infallible knowledge of a religion, whose chief precepts are purity and humility, was deposited in the breasts of the impious Alexander, or the overbear ing Julius. The opinion of those who exalted the authority of a council above that of the pope spread wonderfully under their pontificates: and as the Emperor and French king, who were actually engaged in hostilities with these active pontiffs, permitted and even encouraged their subjects to expose their vices with all the violence of invective, and all the petulance of ridicule, and men's ears becoming accustomed as it were to these, were not shocked to hear Luther treat the papal power in the most ludicrous terms.

Nor did satire operate against the pope only. Many of the dignified secular clergy, being the younger sons of noble families, who had assumed the ecclesiastical function for no other reason but that they found in the church people accustomed to idleness, neglected the duties of their office, and indulged themselves without reserve or fear, in all those vices which generally spring from an immoderate degree of wealth.

Though the preachers were prevented by their poverty from imitating the expensive luxury of their superiors, yet gross ignorance and low debauchery rendered them as contemptible as the others were odious. The severe and unnatural case of celibacy, to which both were equally subject, occasioned such irregularities, that in several parts of Europe, the priests were permitted to keep concubines. was this to be found only in the warmer climates, where the passions are supposed to be more violent than in the northern regions. It even extended to the north of Scotland, where some of the old bishops ́ had

Nor

had three or four natural, children; and lord Hales has mentioned an instance, and produced the record of one Hepburn, bishop of Murray, having five natural children legitimated by patent in one day.

The degeneracy of men among the ecclesiastics might perhaps, have been tolerated with more indulgence if their exorbitant riches and power, had not enabled them at the same time to oppress all the other orders of men. It is the genius of superstition, fond of every thing pompous or grand, to set no bounds to its liberality towards persons whom it esteemed sacred, and to think its expressions of regard defective, unless it hath raised them to the height of wealth and authority. Hence flowed the extensive revenues and jurisdiction possessed by the church in every country in Europe, and which were become intolerable to the laity, from whose undecerning bounty they were at first derived.

The burden, however, had fallen very heavy on Germany; for although the people of that extensive empire are naturally brave, and not much addicted to levity, tenacious of their ancient customs, and strenuous supporters of their liberties, yet they had fallen into the prevailing error, and were ruled by the court of Rome, not as children under paternal jurisdiction, but as wretched slaves, who were to be fleeced of all their wealth, in order to maintain a great number of indolent priests in luxury, idleness, sensuality, and all sorts of debauchery.

While the clergy asserted their own pretensions with so much zeal, they daily encroached on those of the laity. All causes relative to matrimony, to wills, usury, legitimacy, and even to their own revenues, were to be decided in their own courts. Nay, they were not satisfied with this amazing power, they actually attempted to bring before themselves the cognizance of all civil causes, and to become judges between men in disputes concerning civil property. They had engrossed to themselves almost the whole system of human learning; for the laity were more intent on martial atchievements, than on cultivating their rational faculties, which was one of the means by which they were kept in a state of ignorance.

The penalties inflicted by the ecclesiastical courts, added great dignity to the judges, and filled the minds of the people with terror.

The censure of

excommunication was originally designed to preserve the purity of the church, that obstinate offenders, whose impious tenets, or prophane lives, were a reproach to Christianity, might be cut off from the society of the faithful. This the corrupt church

men took care to improve to their own advantage, and inflicted their censures on the most frivolous pretensions. Whoever incurred their displeasure were excluded from all the privileges of Christian, and deprived of their rights as men and citizens, and the dread of this rendered even the most fierce and turbulent spirits obsequious to the authority of the church.

Grievous, however, as these encroachments of the clergy might have been, yet they could have been borne with much longer by the Germans, had the revenues been bestowed upon their own countrymen, but quite the reverse took place. The popes had, for several ages, pretended a title to fill up all vacant bishoprics, and for that purpose they seized on the rights of the secular princes in Germany by sending some of their Italian creatures to take possession of the most oppulent church livings. Here these Italians received vast sums of money without doing any duty to entitle them to such a reward, and they exercised such an unlimitted authority as none but slaves could endure. The pope's favourite mistresses sold the benefices to those who bid the most money for them, for the holy head of the church loved women as much as the grand seignor. These scandalous practices were not carried on in secret, they were done publicly, and the avarice of the church of Rome triumphing over its former prejudices, pious men beheld with silent regret these simonial practices, so unworthy the character of those who pretended to be the ministers of a Christian church, while politicians complained of the exportation of so much money to support idle priests, whose scandalous lives had totally made them odious to all ranks of people by degrading their character even below the meanest of the human creation.

Such were the dissolute manners, the exorbitant wealth, power and privileges of the clergy before the reformation; such the oppressive tigour of that dominion which the popes had established over the Christian world; and such the sentiments that prevailed concerning them in Germany, and in the rest of Europe about the beginning of the sixteenth century. Nor has this sketch been taken from the parties concerned in that age, who might possibly have been led into prejudices in consequence of their violent opposition of each other; it is formed upon more authentic evidence, upon the memorials and remonstrances of the imperial diets cooly enumerating the grievances under which the empire groaned, begging earnestly for redress. Dissatisfaction must have risen to a great height, when these grave and

solemn

solemn assemblies exposed the crimes with so much acrimony, and if they demanded the abolition of these enormities with so much vehemence, we may be assured, they uttered their sentiments and decrees in more bold and virulent expressions.

To men thus prepared for shaking off the arbitrary papal yoke, Luther addressed himself with almost certainty of success. As they had long felt its weight and borne it with impatience, they listened with joy to the first proposal for their deliverance. Hence proceeded the fond and eager reception his doctrines met with, and the rapidity with which they spread over all the provinces of Germany. Even the impetuosity and fierceness of Luther's spirit, his confidence in asserting his own opinions, and the contempt with which he treated all who differed from him, which in ages of more moderation have been reckoned defects in the character of that reformer, did not appear excessive to his contemporaries, whose minds were strongly agitated by those interesting controversies which he carried on, and who themselves had endured the rigour of papal tyranny, and seen the corruptions of that church against which he exclaimed.

But besides all the means already mentioned, which contributed toward facilitating Luther's undertakings in bringing about the reformation, there were some others not hitherto mentioned. Among these one of the chief was the art of printing, which took its rise about half a century before his time. By this fortunate discovery, the facility of acquiring and of propagating knowledge, was wonderfully encreased, and Luther's books, which must otherwise have made their progress very slowly and with uncertainty, in distant countries, spread at once over all Europe. Nor were they read only by the rich and the learned, who alone had access to books before that invention; they got into the hands of the people, who upon their appeal to them as judges, ventured to examine and reject many doctrines which they had been enjoined to believe under the severest penalty. The eyes of the people began to open gradually, they saw the impositions that had been put upon them by designing priests, and they were glad to patronize a man who bid fair to restore them to their natural liberty.

But Luther was not alone in opposition to the measures of the court of Rome. The great Erasmus, who was his contemporary, without being a Protestant in possession, let loose the whole force of his satire on the errors and superstitions of popery. His acute judgement and vast erudition enabled him to discover many errors, both in the doctrine and worship of the church of Rome.

Some of these he confuted with great solidity of reason and force of eloquence; others he treated as objects of ridicule, and turned against them the inestimable torrents of popular and satirical wit, of which he had a great command. There was scarce any opinion or practice in the Romish church which Luther sought to reform, but had been previously animadverted upon by Erasmus, and had afforded him either matter for censure or raillery..

Various circumstances, however, concurred in hindering Erasinus from pursuing the same course as that which Luther embarked in. The natural timidity of his temper; his want of that force of mind which alone can prompt a man to assume the character of a reformer; his excessive deference for persons m high stations; his dread of losing the pensions and other emoluments which their liberality had conferred upon him; his extreme love of peace, and hopes of reforming abuses gradually, and by gentle methods; all concurred to induce him to repress that zeal which he had once manifested against the errors of the church, and to assume the character of a mediator between Luther and his opponents.

The diet of the German empire was summoned to meet at Worms, an imperial city, to consider of Luther's opinions, and thither this great and illustrious reformer was summoned to make his personal appearance. In vain did his friends persuade him that he was in danger, he went in conscious innocence, snd smiled at the menaces of his enemies. The reception he met with at Worms, was such as might have filled his mind with pride, had he acted from any other motives than such as were purely evangelical. Greater crowds assembled to see him than had been there when the emperor made his public entry, and in this there was nothing at all remarkable; for here was a poor monk who had boldly stood up against the whole thunders of the vatican, had braved the imperial power so far as it related to matters of religion, and had ridiculed the superstitions of the church and court of Rome with. all the acrimony of the severest satire.

It is true, the emperor had interest sufficient in the diet to get a severe decree passed against him, but his sovereign, the elector of Saxony, who had been his friend at the beginning, stood by him to the last. His opinions were gladly embraced by many great persons in Germany, they spread far and wide among the populace; learned ecclesiastics joined him, and princes, to their everlasting honour, stood up in the defence of what they sincerely believed to be the doctrines of divine revelation.

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