Luther was a man of undaunted resolution, of a lively imagination, strong sense, and a considerable portion of learning. In the course of his invectives against the commerce of indulgences, he was naturally led to examine the sources of that authority by which they were dispensed. The scandalous vices of the see of Rome were delineated in their strongest colors; and men began to perceive that there could be no merit in the sight of heaven in impoverishing themselves, to furnish supplies for the luxuries, the vanities, and crimes of a selfish and ambitious pontiff. Learning and a general spirit of inquiry were making rapid advances in the kingdoms of Europe. The art of printing had wonderfully disseminated knowledge, and furnished a ready vehicle for submitting all matters of controversy to the judgment of the world at large. The doctrines of Luther, which were at first vented in his sermons, attracted the notice of Frederic, the elector of Saxony, who took him under his protection. Pope Leo, who was informed of his tenets, was at first inclined to pass the matter over without observation, as in truth his holiness had very little inclination to perplex himself with disputes of that kind. It became necessary, however, from the remonstrances of the more zealous part of the clergy, to take some notice of these new propositions of Luther, and to condemn them by a papal bull. The consequence was, that Luther, inflamed with zeal and indignation, no longer kept any measures with the see of Rome. He composed a book, which he entitled "The Babylonish Captivity," in which he applied to the popedom all those flaming characters and dreadful denunciations of divine vengeance contained in Scripture against the impieties and adulteries of the whore of Babylon. He inveighed against private masses, that is to say, such as any man could purchase for a small piece of money to be said for his soul, or that of his friend: Transubstantiation he exploded, as neither the doctrine nor the word was to be found in Scripture. Luther indeed acknowledged that the body of our Savior was present in the sacrament of bread and wine, but very reasonably denied that the bread and wine were actually changed into flesh and blood. The Dominicans in Germany ordered this work of Luther's to be burnt by the hand of the public executioner. But the reformer was not intimidated: he, on his part, caused the pope's bull and the decretals to be burnt in the market-place at Wittemberg. He began to be supported by a very formidable party in Germany, and he every day opened some new battery of attack against the tenets of the Romish religion. The vows of the priests and their celibacy were represented as diabolical institutions, in opposition to the direct commands of God Almighty. The refusal of the

clearly shown that the fact on which it is founded, viz., that the exclusive right of sale was taken from the Augustines and bestowed on the Dominicans, is false -See the Translation of Mosheim, vol. ii., p. 17. 4to. edit.

communion in wine to the people, was treated as a similar piece of impiety, in violation of the express injunctions and example of our Savior. In short, Luther disputed openly every one of the tenets of the Romish church, for which no express authority could be pointed out in the Word of God.

One of the first champions of the see of Rome, who took up his pen against Luther, was Henry VIII., king of England-the person who we shall see became a few years afterwards the most inveterate enemy of the pope's jurisdiction. Henry had been educated in all the subtleties of the schools, and was fond of passing for a man of learning, and an adept in the vain philosophy of the times. He asked leave of Leo to read and to examine the works of Luther, which at that time were prohibited under pain of excommunication; and in a short time he composed a treatise in defence of the seven sacraments, against the attacks of Luther, which was received by pope Leo (who very probably never read it) with the highest approbation. Henry and his successors (in return for this service done to the church) had the title given them of Defenders of the Faith.

Meantime the rest of Europe took very little share in these disputes, which were confined almost solely to Germany. Charles V. was obliged to keep on good terms with the pope, who gave him his assistance against the attempts of Francis I. upon Italy. He therefore found it necessary to declare against the tenets of Luther, and he summoned him to attend an imperial diet at Worms, and there give an account of his new doctrines. The reformer appeared and pleaded his cause with great spirit and resolution. It is said, that the pope's nuncio solicited Charles, who had given Luther a safe conduct, to deliver him up to the court of Rome, as his predecessor Sigismund had behaved by John Huss in the like circumstances: but Charles made answer, that he did not choose to have cause to blush like Sigismund; and he permitted Luther, though condemned by the council, to avail himself of his protection and escape into Saxony. The elector of Saxony was now his avowed friend and patron. He found his disciples daily increasing: the mass was abolished in the town of Wittemberg, and soon after through all Saxony. The images of the saints were broken to pieces; the convents were shot up; the monks and nuns returned to a life of freedom ; and Luther, to enforce his doctrines by his own example, married a nun him lf. It should be acknowledged, to the honor of the reformed religion, that those priests who now returned to the worl 1, gave no handle to their adversaries to reproach them with making an improper use of their freedom. So far from it, that the manners of the reformed clergy are universally acknowledged to have exhibited a very striking contrast to the dissolute and scandalous practices which had long prevailed in the monasteries.

The celebrated Erasmus, whose skeptical turn of mind and

strong ironical talent had, before the appearance of Luther, paved the way for his doctrines by many oblique sarcasms against the abuses of the Romish church, has enumerated in one of his works what he esteems to have been capital errors in the measures taken against Luther by the see of Rome. These may be reduced to six articles, as to some of which the judgment of Erasmus is certainly right; in others, perhaps, disputable. The first error was, that the see of Rome permitted those theses about indulgences to be disputed in sermons before the people. 2. That they opposed to Luther only some mendicant friars, who were but so many declaimers and trumpets of slander. 3. Says he, they should have silenced the preachers of both parties, and appointed learned, prudent, and peaceable men, who would have calmly and temperately instructed the people, and recommended unanimity and the love of the gospel. 4. It was a capital error, that neither party would yield or give up the smallest or most trifling article. 5. The cruelties of the catholics against the Lutherans promoted the success of their doctrines. 6. The most effectual means of persuading men of the truth of their religion, would have been to have seriously amended their lives, and showed an example of penitence and real sanctity.* The three last of these articles are, without doubt, most justly a reproach to the catholics, and are perfectly unanswerable; but the others, perhaps, could not be avoided, considering the state of the church at that time and the opinions of mankind. Hence, Bayle has made a very just inference when he concludes that Luther's design could not have found a more favorable juncture.

Switzerland was the first of the European countries that followed the example of Germany. Zuinglius, a priest of Zürich, carried matters even further than Luther, and denied absolutely that the bread and wine in the holy sacrament partook in any degree of the substance of the body and blood of Christ. The authority of this pastor over his native city was very remarkable. He was accused before the senate, and the cause being tried in form, a plurality of voices declared in Zuinglius's favor. The sentence was intimated to the people of Zürich, and in a moment they all declared themselves of the reformed religion. churches were purified, the images pulled down, and the mass abolished.

The

Some years after this, the city of Berne determined this cause in a manner still more solemn. The Romish religion was condemned by the senate, after a disputation which lasted two months. The sentence was notified to the whole canton, and

* "There is no better way," savs Lord Bacon, “to stop the rise of new sects and schisms, than to reform abuses, compound the lesser differences, proceed mildly from the first; refrain from sanguinary persecutions, and rather to soften and win the principal leaders, by gracing and advancing them, than to enrage them by violence and bitterness."-Bacon's Moral Essays, sect. i., essay xii.

An

most cheerfully received; and the people of Basle soon after compelled their senate to pronounce a like decree. Five of the smallest cantons in Switzerland were yet zealous adherents to the church of Rome, and took up arms in defence of their faith. army of protestants was levied in order to convert them, but Zuinglius, at their head, was unfortunately killed and his party defeated. The catholics, who considered him as a detestable heretic, ordered his body to be cut in pieces and burnt to ashes.

Meantime Lutheranism was making its progress towards the north of Europe. Religion was the cause of a very great and important revolution at this time, in the kingdoms of Sweden and Denmark. Sweden, Denmark, and Norway had been united under Margaret of Waldemar, in the year 1397. The Swedes endeavored to break this union, in the year 1452. They rose in rebellion, and unanimously chose their great marshal, Charles Canutson, for their king. They were, however, forced again to submit to the yoke of Denmark. Being again oppressed, they rebeld once more, and clected for themselves a governor, at the time when Christiern II., a most tyrannical prince, was raised to the throne of the united kingdoms. Trollo, the archbishop of Upsal, in Sweden, carried on a correspondence with the tyrant to extinguish the liberties of his native country. The great senate of Sweden deposed him on that account from his episcopal dignity. The prelate had recourse to Leo X., who granted him a bul, laying the kingdom under a sentence of excommunication. The king and his primate, armed with this instrument of vengeance, set out for Stockholm. The affrighted Swedes returned o their allegiance, acknowledged the authority of Christiern, and Trollo was restored to his episcopal functions. Seven hostages were given as a security of the loyalty of the Swedes, and among these was the young Gustavus Vasa, who was destined to be the deliverer of his country. After this accommodation, so favorable to Calistiera, the pilipal senators and nobles were invited by ve monarch to aɔ cateita'ament. Amidst the most unbounded fe.ivity, the archbishop male his entry, the pope's bull in his Lad, and in the Lame of the church demanded satisfaction for the usage le bil sustained. The sentence of excommunication was read alou, and the tyrant Christorn ordered his guards to seize the whole senate and nobility. Ninety-four senators, and an immense nu aber of the nobility and citizens, were put to death without mercy, and the whole city of Stockholm was a scene of carnage. Among those who were the victims to this infernal reveng was Erie Vasa, the father of young Gustavus, and nephew to Charles Canutson. It was the good fortune of this youth to escape from prison; he fled to the mountains of Dalecarla, wieere he concealed himself in the disguise of a workman in the tunes. By de zes he opened his project to his com panions, discovered to them his name and rank, and soon attached

to himself a considerable number of adherents. The city of Lubeck furnished them with arms, and he was joined by such numbers, that at length he took the field against the generals of Christiern, gained some advantages, and recovered a considerable part of the country. That inhuman tyrant took a revenge worthy of himself; he caused the mother and sister of Gustavus, whom he had long confined in prison, to be sewed up in a sack and thrown into the sea.

The Danes themselves, irritated by the oppressions of Christiern, determined at length to throw off the yoke. His uncle Frederic, duke of Holstein, headed the insurrection, and Denmark, by the voice of the chief nobility and senators, pronounced a formal sentence of deposition, which they transmitted to Christiern in his palace at Copenhagen. A single magistrate entered his presence, and delivered to him his sentence, which he obeyed like a coward, as he had reigned like a tyrant. He betook himself to Flanders, where he in vain solicited assistance from his father-in-law, the emperor Charles V., to regain his kingdom. The duke of Holstein was elected king of Denmark and Norway; and Gustavus Vasa, the deliverer of his country, was rewarded with the crown of Sweden, which had formerly been held by his grand-uncle, Charles Canutson.

The bull of Leo X., and its bloody consequences, had entirely alienated the minds of the Swedes and Danes from the religion of Rome. Gustavus was a convert to the opinions of Luther,. whose tenets had made considerable progress in the northern kingdoms. Frederic, king of Denmark, concurred with him in the design, and they found it no difficult matter to establish the reformed religion in place of the catholic. The clergy were the more easily reconciled to it as the episcopal hierarchy was preserved, though the revenues of the bishops and their ecclesiastical jurisdiction were considerably retrenched. Gustavus Vasa reigned in peace for a long term of years; and, though an absolute monarch, contributed greatly to the happiness and azzrandizement of his kingdom. He was the first who made foreign nations sensible of the weight which Sweden might have in the affairs of Europe, at the time when, as we have seen, European policy was putting on a new face, and when the idea first arose of establishing a balance of power.

While the tenets of Luther were thus rapidly gaining ground in the North, the following fact will convince us, that he arrogated to himself an authority, very little short of that of the pope, in Germany.

Philip, the landgrave of Hesse Cassel, had taken a disgust at bis wife, a princess of the house of Saxony, who he alleged was intolerably ugly, and addicted to drunkenness. The secret was, that he had fallen in love with a young lady of the name Saal, whom he wanted to marry. Luther at this time, with five of his