Book I. From the year 1517 to the year 1520

Brief Summary : — The beginning of Luther's disputes. — His agitations. — His submissions to the Church and Pope. — The foundations of his Reformation laid in imputed justice ; his unheard of propositions; his condemnation.— His passion, furious threats, vain prophecies, and the miracles of which he boasts. — The Papacy to be overthrown all of a sudden, without violence. — He promises he will not permit men to rise in arms for the maintenance of his Gospel.

1. — A reformation of the Church, desired many ages ago.

A reformation of ecclesiastical discipline had been desired several ages since. " Who will grant me,"" says St. Bernard, " before I die, to see the church of God such as she had been in the primitive times¹ ?" If this holy man had any thing to regret at his death, it was, that he had not witnessed so happy a change. During his whole life he bewailed the evils of the church : he never ceased to admonish the people, the clergy, the bishops, and the Popes themselves of them. Nor did he conceal his sentiments on this subject from his own religious, who partook of his affliction in their solitude, and extolled the Divine goodness in having drawn them to it so much the more gratefully, as the world was more universally corrupted-}-. Disorders had still increased since that time. The Roman church, the mother of churches, which for nine whole ages had, by setting the example of an exact observance of ecclesiastical discipline, maintained it throughout the universe to her utmost power, was not exempt from evil ; and from the² time of the council of Vienne, a great prelate, commissioned by the Pope to prepare matters there to be discussed, laid it down as a groundwork to this holy assembly, " to reform the church in the head and members." The great schism which happened soon after made this saying common, not only with particular doctors, Gerson, or Peter D'Aily, and other great men of the time, but also with the councils ; and nothing was more frequently repeated in those of Pisa and Constance. What happened in the council of Basil, where a reformation was unfortunately eluded, and the church reinvolved in new divisions, is well known. The disorders of the clergy, chiefly those of Germany, were represented in this manner to Eugenius IV. by Cardinal Julian. " These disorders," said he, " excite the hatred of the people against the whole ecclesiastical order, and should they not be corrected, it is to be feared lest the laity, like the Hussites, should rise against the clergy, as they loudly threaten us³." If the clergy of Germany were not quickly reformed, he predicted, that after the heresy of Bohemia, and when it would be extinct, another still more dangerous would soon succeed ; for it will be said, proceeded he, " that the clergyf are incorrigible, and will apply no remedy to their disorders. When they shall no longer have any hopes of our amendment," continued this great Cardinal, " then will they fall upon us. The minds of men are pregnant with expectation of what measures will be adopted, and are ready for the birth of something tragic. The rancour they have imbibed against us becomes manifest ; they will soon think it an agreeable sacrifice to God to abuse and rob ecclesiastics, as abandoned to extreme disorders, and hateful to God and man. The little respect now remaining for the ecclesiastical orders will soon be extinguished. Men will cast the blame of these abuses on the court of Rome, which will be considered the cause of them, because it had neglected to apply the necessary remedy." He afterwards spoke more emphatically : " I see," said hej, " the axe is at the root : the tree begins to bend, and instead of propping it whilst in our power, we accelerate its fall.1' He foresees a speedy desolation in the German clergy. The desire of depriving them of their temporal goods would form the first spring of motion. " Bodies and souls," said he, "will perish together. God hides from us the prospect of our dangers, as he is accustomed to do with those whom he destines for punishment : we run into the fire which we see lighted before us."

2. — This desired reformation regarded not faith, but only discipline.

Thus, in the fifteenth century, did this Cardinal, the greatest man of his time, lament the abuses of those days, and foresee their alarming consequences. He seems to have foretold those evils in which Luther was about to involve all Christendom, beginning with Germany. Nor was he mistaken, when he supposed that a reformation which was despised, and a hatred redoubled against the clergy, would speedily bring forth a sect more terrible to the church than that of the Bohemians. Under the banner of Luther appeared this sect, and in assuming to themselves the title of Reformed, they boasted they had realized the wishes of Christendom, because a reformation had been long desired by the Catholic world, people, doctors, and prelates. In order to justify this pretended reformation, whatever had been said by the writers of the church against the disorders of the clergy and people, was collected with great industry.

But here is a manifest deceit in the passages cited ; not one of these doctors even for once thought of changing the faith of the church, or of correcting her worship, which chiefly consisted in the sacrifice of the altar, or of subverting the authority of her prelates, and chiefly that of the Pope, which was the great end of this new reformation as founded by Luther.

3. — The testimony of St. Bernard.

Our reformers cite to us St. Bernard, who enumerating the grievances of the church, all those she sustained at the beginning during the persecutions, and those she suffered from heresies in their progress, and those she was exposed to in latter days, through the corruption of morals, allows the latter to be far more frightful⁴, because they corrupt the very vitals, and spread infection through all the members of the church : whence, concludes this great man, the church may truly say with Isaiah, " her bitterest and most painful bitterness is in peacef ;" when left in peace by infidels, and unmolested by heretics, she is most dangerously assaulted by the depraved morals of her own children." Even this were sufficient to show that he did not deplore, as the reformers did, the errors into which the church had fallen, since, on the contrary, he represented it as safe on that side ; but such

I.] THE VARIATIONS, ETC 21 evils only as proceeded from relaxed discipline : accordingly, when, instead of discipline, the dogmas of the church were attacked by turbulent and restless men, — such as Peter of Bruis, as Henry, as Arnauld of Bresse, — this great man would not suffer one of them to be weakened, but fought invincibly for the faith of the church, and the authority of the prelates⁵.

4. — The testimony of Gerson, and Cardinal Peter D'Aily, Bishop of Cambray.

It was so with the other Catholic doctors, who in the succeeding ages lamented abuses, and demanded a reformation of them. Gerson was the most celebrated of these, and now proposed with more energy a reformation of the church in her head and members. In a sermon, which he made after the council of Pisa, before Alexander the Fifth, he introduces the church demanding of the Pope a reformation and re-establishment of the kingdom of Israel ; but to show he complained of no error that could be observed in the doctrine of the church, he addresses the Pope in these words: " Why," says he, " do you not send to the Indiansf, whose faith may have been easily corrupted, as they are not united to the church of Rome, whence certainty of faith must be derived ?" His master, Cardinal Peter D'Aily, sighed also for a reformation, but he fixed its foundation on a principle entirely different from that on which Luther would establish it, since he himself wrote to Melancthon, " that sound doctrine could not subsist, whilst the authority of the Pope existed ;" and, on the contrary, the Cardinal thought " that the members of the church being separated from their head, during the schism, and there being no administrator, and apostolic director, namely, no Pope, that all the church acknowledged no hope could be entertained of effecting a reformation |." Thus one made the reformation to consist in the subversion of the papacy, and the other in the perfect re-establishment of that sacred authority, which was instituted by Jesus Christ to preserve unity amongst his members, and retain all in their respective duties.

5. — Two ways of desiring the reformation of the Church. There were then two different sorts of persons, who called for f Gcrs. Serm. de Ascens. Dom. ad Alex. V, vol. ii. p. 131.⁶

the reformation ; one, the truly peaceable and true children of the church, without bitterness bewailed her grievances, and, with respect, proposed a reformation of them, and in humility bore with a delay. Far from desiring to effect this object by schism, they, on the contrary, looked on schism as the greatest of all evils. In the midst of these abuses, they admired the providence of God, who, according to his promises, knew how to preserve the faith of the church. And, though they could not accomplish a reformation of morals, free from all bitterness and passion, they deemed themselves happy that nothing prevented them from accomplishing it in themselves. These were the strong ones of the church, whose faith no temptation could shake nor induce to deviate from unity. Besides these, there were proud spirits, who, struck with the disorders they saw prevailing in the church, especially in her ministers, did not believe the promises of her eternal duration could subsist in the midst of such abuses ; whereas, the Son of God had taught to respect the chair of Moses, notwithstanding the evil actions of the Scribes and Pharisees who sat therein⁷. These became proud, and thereby weak, yielding to the temptation which inclines to hate the chair itself, in hatred to those who sat upon it ; and, as if the wickedness of man could make void the work of God, the aversion they had conceived against the teachers, made them both hate the doctrines they taught, and the authority they had received from God to teach.

Such were the Vaudois and Albigenses ; such were John WicklifFe and John Huss. The ordinary bait by which they induced weak souls into their nets, was the hatred with which they inspired them against the pastors of the church. Influenced by this spirit of bitterness, they sighed for a rupture. It is not therefore surprising that, in the time of Luther, when invectives and animosities were carried to the highest pitch, the most violent schism and apostacy of course ensued, that, perhaps, till then had ever been seen in Christendom.

6. — Luther's commencements and qualities.

Martin Luther, an Augustinian Friar, by profession Doctor and Professor of Divinity in the University of Wittemberg, first excited these commotions. The two parties which called themselves reformed, have equally acknowledged him

• Matth. xxiii.2. 3.

I.] THE VARIATIONS, ETC. 23 to be the author of this new reformation. Not only his followers, the Lutherans, vied with each other in extolling him, but even Calvin, often admires his virtues, his magnanimity, his constancy, and the incomparable industry with which he opposed the Pope. He is the trumpet, or rather he is the thunder, he is the lightning that awaked the world from their lethargy : it was not Luther that spoke, but God that thundered from his mouth*.

True it is, he had a strength of genius, a vehemence in his discourses, a lively and impetuous eloquence, which captivated the people and bore all before him, an extraordinary boldness when supported and applauded, with an air of authority which made his disciples tremble, insomuch that neither in little things, nor in great, dared they venture to contradict him.

Here I should relate the beginnings of the quarrel in ,r]7 1517, were they not known by all mankind. For who is ,'r, „* ignorant of the publication of the Indulgences of lriq' Leo X., and the jealousy of the Augustinian Friars against the Dominicans, who, on this occasion, were preferred to them ? Who does not know that Luther, an Augustinian Doctor, being selected to maintain the credit of his order, first attacked the abuses many made of indulgences, and the extravagances that were uttered from the pulpit on that subject ? But he had too much fire to keep himself within these limits: from the abuses of the thing, he came to the thing itself. He went on step by step, and though always diminishing indulgences and reducing them almost to nothing by his mode of explaining them, however, he seemed to agree with his adversaries in the essential part ; for when he began to write his propositions, one of them was couched in the following terms : " Whoever denies the truth of the indulgences of the Pope, let him be accursedf."

7. — The ground-work of Luther's Reformation — What impuled Justice, and Justification by Faith mean.

Meanwhile, one subject led him on to another. As that of justification and of the efficacy of the sacraments bordered nearly upon indulgences, Luther fell on these two articles ; and this dispute soon became the most important.

Justification is that grace which, remitting to us our sins, at the same time renders us agreeable to God. Till then, it had been believed that what wrought this effect proceeded indeed from God, but yet necessarily existed in man ; and that to be justified, — namely, for a sinner to be made just, — it was necessary he should have this justice in him ; as to be learned and virtuous, one must have in him learning and virtue. But Luther had not followed so simple an idea. He would have it, that what justifies us and renders us agreeable to God was nothing in us ; but we were justified because God imputed to us the justice of Jesus Christ, as if it were our own, and because by faith we could indeed appropriate it to ourselves.

8. — Luther 's special Faith, and the certainty of Justification.

But the mystery of this justifying faith had something in it that was very singular. It did not consist in believing in general in a Saviour, his mysteries, and his promises ; but in believing most assuredly, each one in his heart, that all our sins are forgiven us. " We are justified," said Luther without ceasing, "from the time we with certainty believe ourselves so." The certainty which he required was not that moral certainty alone, which, grounded on reasonable motives, excludes trouble and perturbation ; but an absolute and infallible certainty, by which the sinner is to believe himself justified with the same faith as he believes Christ came into the world.

^Without this certainty there was no justification for the faithful ; for they were told they could neither call on God nor trust in him alone, whilst they had the least doubt, not merely of the Divine goodness in general, but of that particular goodness by which God imputes to each of us the justice of Jesus Christ ; and this is what he called special faith.

9. — According to Luther, man is assured of his Justification, without being assured of his Repentance.

Here anew difficulty arose, whether, in order to be assured of his justification, it was necessary, at the same time, that man should be satisfied with the sincerity of his repentance. This immediately occurred to every one ; and, since God promised to justify the penitent only/ if we are assured of our justification j it seems necessary that we should be certain of

1.] THK VARIATIONS, ETC. 25 the sincerity of our repentance. But Luther abhorred this last certainty ; and so far from being assured of the sincerity of repentance, " one was not even assured," said he, "by reason of the most hidden vice of vain-glory or self-love, that he did not commit many mortal sins in his very best actions⁸."

Luther went still much farther; for he had invented this distinction between the works of God and those of men, " that the works of men, however beautiful in appearance, might seemingly be good, yet were they grievous sins; on the other hand, the works of God, however deformed in appearance, might seemingly be bad, yet were they of an eternal meritf." Deceived by his antithesis and by this play of words, Luther imagined that he had discovered the true difference between the works of man and those of God ; not reflecting that the good works of men are also the works of God, who, by his grace, produces them in us, which, according to Luther himself, should give them an eternal merit ; but this is what he was resolved to avoid, — on the contrary concluding " That all the works of the just would be mortal sins were they not fearful of their being so ; nor could there be any avoiding presumption, or having a true hope if, in every action they performed, they did not fear damnation^."

Repentance, doubtless, is not compatible with mortal sins actually committed ; for to be truly repentant of some grievous sins, and not of all, or to be sorry for them, whilst one commits them, is impossible. If, therefore, we are never certain, that in every good work we fall not into divers grievous sins — if, on the contrary, we ought to fear our constantly falling into such, we can never be assured of being truly penitent ; and could we be assured of this, we need not, as Luther prescribes, fear damnation, unless we at the same time believe that God, contrary to his promise, would condemn to hell the contrite of heart. And if, on account of his own want of disposition, of which he was not assured, a sinner should happen to call in doubt his justification, Luther told him he was not assured of his good disposition, nor did he know, for example, whether he were truly penitent, truly contrite, truly afflicted for his sins ; yet he was not the less assured of his entire justification, because it depended not on any good disposition on his part. On this account this new Doctor declared to the sinner, " Believe firmly that thou art absolved, and thou art so, whatever be thy contrition ||."

f Prop. Heidls. 1518. Prop. 3,4, 7, 11. J Ibid.⁹

This is equivalent to saying, whether you be penitent or not, yon need not concern yourself. All consists, said he continually, " in believing, without hesitation, that you are absolved ;" whence he concluded, whether the priest baptized or gave you absolution in earnest or in jest, is a matter of no consequence¹⁰ ; because in the Sacraments there was only one thing to fear, namely, the not believing strongly enough that all your crimes were forgiven you, when you had once wrought on yourself to believe so.

10. — The inconsistency of this Doctrine.

The Catholics perceived that this doctrine laboured under a most grievous difficulty, because the believer, being obliged to hold himself assured of his justification, and not of his repentance, consequently ought to believe he might be justified in the sight of God, though he were not truly penitent, which opened the way to impenitence.

• True it is, however (for nothing ought to be concealed), that Luther did not exclude from justification a sincere repentance, namely, the horror of sin, and the will to do good, and, in short, the conversion of the heart, and judged it as absurd, as we do, to be justified without contrition or repentance. Between him and Catholics, on this head, there appeared no difference, unless that the Catholics called these acts the dispositions of the sinner to justification, and Luther judged he styled them more justly, the necessary conditions. But this subtle distinction, at bottom, did not extricate him from the difficulty ; for these acts are essential for the remission of sin, name them as you will, either condition, or disposition, or necessary preparation: so that the question still returned, How Luther could say the sinner ought to believe most assuredly that he was absolved, be his contrition what it may, that is, be his repentance what it may ; as if the being penitent, or not, were a thing quite indifferent to the remission of sins.

11. — Whether toe may be assured of our Faith, without being assured of our Repentance.

Here, then, was the great difficulty in the new dogma, or, in modern phrase, the new system of Luther. How was it possible to have assurance of the entire remission of sin, when not assured, nay, it was impossible one should be

I.] THE VARIATIONS, ETC. 27 certain of true repentance, and true conversion ? But it was enough, said Luther, one was assured of faith. A new difficulty, to be assured of faith, and not of repentance ; which faith, according to Luther, always produces. " But," answers he, " the faithful can say ' I believe¹¹,' and thereby his faith becomes sensible to him ;" as if the same person might not in like manner say, " I repent,1' and so become alike assured of his repentance. " If, lastly, it be replied that the doubt will still remain, whether he repent or not as he ought to do, I say the same of faith ; and the sum of the whole is this, — that the sinner must rest assured of his justification, without the possibility of an assurance that he hath fulfilled as he ought that necessary condition of obtaining it, which God required at his hands."

Here there was a new labyrinth. Although faith did not, in the opinion of Luther, dispose to justification (for he ever had an aversion to these dispositions), it was, however, the necessary condition, and the only means of appropriating to us Jesus Christ and his justice. If, therefore, after all the efforts that a sinner makes,in order to persuade himself fully that his sins are forgiven him through his faith, this question could arise within, Who will tell me, weak and imperfect as I am, whether or not I have that true faith which changes the heart ? This is a temptation, according to Luther. We must believe, that by faith all our sins are forgiven us, without troubling ourselves whether this faith be such as God requires ; nay, without so much as thinking of it. For this thought alone would be making the grace of justification depend on a thing which may be in us ; which the gratuitousness, as I may say, of justification, according to him, would not suffer.

12. — The Security which Luther blames.

With this certainty of the remission of sin, advanced by Luther, he however declared there was a certain state dangerous to the soul, which he called security. " Let the faithful take care," says he, *' that they come not to a security ;" and immediately after, " There is a detestable arrogance and security in those who flatter themselves, and are not truly afflicted for their sins, which are still deeply rooted in their mindsf." If to these two theses of Luther, we join that in which he said, as has been seen already, that, on account of self-love, one could never be assured iie did not commit many mortal sins in his very best actions, insomuch that he ought always to fear damnation¹², it might seem that this Doctor, at bottom, agreed with Catholics, and that this certainty, which he lays down, was not to be taken, as it has been by me, in the most rigorous sense. But in that we should be deceived; Luther literally maintains these two propositions, which appear so contrary — " Man is never assured that he grieves for his sins as he ought to do ; and he must rest assured that he has gained the forgiveness of them." Whence follow those two propositions, which seem not less opposite : certainty is to be admitted, security is to be feared. But what is, then, this certainty, if it be not security ? This was the inexplicable knot of the doctrine of Luther, which never could be unravelled.

13.' — The Answer of Luther, by the distinction of two kinds of Sin.

For my part, all I could ever find in his works tending to unfold this mystery, is the distinction he makes between sins committed with knowledge, and those committed " without knowledge and against conscience — lapsus contra conscientiam.Y'' It seems, therefore, that Luther would have said, a Christian cannot be assured of his being exempt from sins of the first kind, but may be so with regard to the second ; and if in the committing these he held himself assured of the remission of his sins, he fell into that pernicious security condemned by Luther ; whereas, avoiding them, he may have a full assurance that all the rest, even the most hidden, are forgiven him ; which is sufficient for that certainty which Luther would establish.

14. — The Difficulty still remains.

But still the difficulty returned ; for, according to Luther, it remained indubitable that it is never known by man whether this vice of self-love, so hidden, does not infect the best of all his actions : on the contrary, in order to avoid presumption, he must look upon it as unquestionable that they are mortally infected with it : " that he flatters himself;" and that when he believes himself ' ' truly grieved for his offences," it does not follow that he really is as much so as is necessary for the remission of them. If this be so, whatever he may think he feels within himself, he never knows whether sin reigns not in his heart, the more dangerously the more hidden

-J- Lulli. Thcniat. v. i. p. 490, Conf. Aug. cap. dcbon, op. Synt. Gen. 2. part. p. 21.

I.] THE VARIATIONS, ETC. 29 it is. We must, therefore, be brought to believe we may be reconciled to God whilst sin predominates in us, or there never will be any such thing as certainty.

15. — The Contradiction of the Doctrine of Luther.

Thus all we are told of the certainty man may have with respect to sin committed against conscience, is nothing to the purpose. Luther should have gone farther, and acknowledged that this sin which hides itself, this secret pride, this self-love, which lurks in so many shapes, and even assumes the form of virtue, may be, perhaps, the grand obstacle to our conversion, and the inevitable subject of that continual fear which, after St. Paul, is taught by Catholics. The same Catholics observed, that the answers on this subject were manifestly contradictory. Luther had advanced this proposition: "No man should answer the priest that he is contrite, that is, penitent¹³." And as the proposition seems very strange, he cites these passages to support it: "I am not conscious to myself of anything, and yet I am not on that account justifiedf." David says, " Who knoweth his sinst ?" St. Paul says, " He that commendeth himself is not approved, but he whom God commendeth §." From these texts Luther concluded that no sinner is so qualified as to answer the priest, " I am truly penitent ;" and understanding it rigorously, and for an entire certainty, he was right. According to him, therefore, man was not absolutely assured he was penitent. According to him, however, he was absolutely certain his sins were forgiven him ; he was absolutely certain, therefore, that forgiveness is independent of repentance. Catholics laboured in vain to understand these novelties : here is a prodigy, say they, in doctrine and morals, nor can the church bear this scandal |(.

16. — The Sequel of the Contradictions of Luther.

"But," said Luther, " we are assured of our faith, and faith is inseparable from contrition." To which was replied, " Allow, therefore, the faithful to answer for their contrition equally with their faith, or prohibiting one, prohibit the other." " But," proceeded he, " St. Paul has said, ' Examine yourselves whether you be in the faith ; prove yourselves.' ^| Therefore we feel faith,1' concluded Luther: "Therefore we feel it not," concluded his adversaries. If it be a matter

(> 'J Cod x. \6. || Ibidem ad Prop. 12, 1 I. f 2 Cor. xiii. 5.

30 THE HISTORY OP [BOOK of proof, if a subject of examination, it is not a thing we know from feeling, nor, as they say, from conscience. That which is called faith, continued they, may be, perhaps, nothing more than an illusory image of it, and a weak repetition of what has been read in books, or heard from the mouths of others. In order to be certain we have that lively faith which works the true conversion of the heart, we ought to be sure that sin no longer reigns in us ; which Luther neither can nor will guarantee to us, whilst he guarantees what depends thereon, namely, the forgiveness of sins. Here is the contradiction, and the inevitable weakness of his doctrine.

17. — The Continuation of them.

Nor let this text of St. Paul be alleged : i{ What man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man, which is in him * ?" True it is, no other creature, neither man nor angel, sees anything in us but what we see : but it follows not from that we ourselves do always see it ; otherwise, how could David have said what Luther objected — " Who knoweth his sins P" These sins, are they not in us ? And since it is certain we do not always know them, man will be always a mystery to himself, and his own mind an eternal and impenetrable subject of doubt. It is therefore manifest folly to seek for a certainty of the forgiveness of our sin, if we be not certain that we have entirely withdrawn our hearts from it.

18. — Luther forgot all that he had said well at the beginning of the Dispute.

At the beginning of the dispute Luther spoke much better ; for here are his first theses on Indulgences, in 1517, and at the first rise of the discussion : " None is assured of the truth of his confession, much less of the fullness of his pardonf." At that time, on account of the inseparable union of repentance and forgiveness, he acknowledged that the uncertainty of the one implied that of the other. He afterwards changed,but from good to bad ; still retaining the uncertainty of contrition, he took away the uncertainty of forgiveness, and no longer allowed forgiveness to be dependant on repentance. Thus Luther reformed himself; such was his progress, as his anger against the church increased, and as he sunk deeper into schism. In everything he made it his study to take the reverse of the sentiments of the church. Far from endea-

I.] THE VARIATIONS, ETC. 31 vouring, as we do, to inspire sinners with a fear of the judgments of God, to excite repentance in them, Luther went to such excess as to say, " That contrition, which looked back, in the bitterness of heart, on years past, weighing¹⁴ the grievousness of sins, their deformity, their multitude, beatitude lost, and damnation incurred, served only to make men greater hypocrites¹⁵ ;" as if it were hypocrisy in the sinner to rouse himself from insensibility. But, perhaps, he meant no more than that these sentiments of fear were not sufficient, unless they are united with faith and the love of God. I acknowledge he afterwards explains himself thusf, but in contradiction to his own principles; for, on the contrary, he required (and this, as we shall hereafter see. is one of the fundamentals of his doctrine) that forgiveness of sin should precede love ; and to establish this, abused the pai*able of the two debtors in the Gospel, of whom our Saviour said, " He to whom is forgiven the greatest debt loveth rftostf." From this Luther and his disciples concluded, one did not love till after the debt, namely, the sin, was remitted to him. Such was the great indulgence preached by Luther, and opposed by him to those that were published by the Dominicans, and granted by Leo X. No occasion for exciting fear, no necessity for love ; to be completely justified from all kind of sins, man required no more than to believe without hesitation that they were all forgiven him, and in a moment the affair was settled.

19. — Luther s strange doctrine concerning the war against the Turks.

Amongst the extraordinary things which he every day advanced, there was one that astonished the whole Christian world. Whilst Germany, threatened with the formidable arms of the Turk, was all in motion to oppose him, Luther established this principle — " That it was necessary, not only to will what God requires us to will, but all absolutely that God himself wills." Whence he concluded, " that to fight against the Turk, was to resist the will of God, who designed to visit us §."

% Luc. vii. 42, 43. § Prop. 1517, 9S, f. 50,

20. — Luther's outward humility, and his submission to the

Pope.

In the midst of --so many bold propositions, nothing in the exterior was more humble ihan he — a man timid and reth¹⁶ed. He said *, " By force he had been drawn into the world, and rather by chance than design, thrown into those troubles." His style had nothing uniform, was even unpolished in some places, and this on purpose. So far from promising immortality to his name and writings, he had never so much as sought it. Nay, he waited the decision of the Church respectfully, so far as to declare expressly, " should he not abide by her judgment, he consented to be treated as a heretic." In a word, all he said breathed his submission, not only to the council, but to the holy see, and the Pope himself, who, moved by the clamour which the novelty of the doctrine had excited over all the church, had taken cognizance of the cause ; and thus it was, that Luther appeared most respectful. " I am not so rash," said hef, " as to prefer my private opinion to that of all other men." As to the Pope, this is what he wrote to him in 1518, on Trinity Sunday : " Whether you give life or death, call me this or that way, approve or reprove as best seems fitting, I will hearken to your voice, as to that of Christ himself!." For three entire years, all his discourses were filled with similar protestations : nay more, he referred himself to the decision of the universities of Basil, Fribourg, and Louvain. Awhile after, he joined that of Paris ; nor was there a tribunal in the church which he would not acknowledge.

21. — The reasons on which he grounded his submissio?i.

What he uttered concerning the authority of the holy see had the appearance of sincerity ; for the reasons which he assigned for his attachment to this great see were, indeed, the most capable of affecting a Christian heart. In a book which he wrote against Sylvester Prierius, a Dominican, he begins with citing these words of Jesus Christ, " Thou art Peter," and these, " Feed my sheep." The whole world, says he, confesses, that from these texts proceeds the authority of the Pope. In the same place, after saying that the faith of the whole world ought to be regulated by that which the church of Rome professes, he thus proceeds: " I give f Coat. Prieri. t. i. f. 177. J Protest. Luth. t. i. f. 195.

I.] THE VARIATIONS, ETC. 33 thanks to Jesus Christ, for preserving on earth this only church by a great miracle, and which alone may demonstrate that our faith is true, insomuch as never, by any one decree, hath she departed from the true faith." Even after the ardour of dispute had shaken a little these good principles, "the consent of all the faithful retained him in a reverence for the authority of the Pope." " Is it possible," said he, "for Jesus Christ not to be with this great number of Christians * ?" Thus he condemned the Bohemians, who separated from our communion, and protested it should never be his fate to fall into a like schism.

22. — His sallies of passion, for which he begs -pardon.

However, there was something haughty and violent perceptible in all his writings. But though he attributed his passion to the violence of his adversaries, whose excesses, in that way, were not inconsiderable, yet he asked pardon for it. f¹⁷ I acknowledge " (thus he wrote to Cardinal Cajetan, legate then in Germany) " I have been transported indiscreetly, and have been wanting in due respect to the Pope. I am sorry for it. Though urged to it, I should not have answered the fool that wrote against me, according to his folly. Be so good," continued he, "as to represent the matter to the holy father ; I desire no more than to hear the voice of the church, and to obey it."

23. — A new protestation of submission to the Pope. — He offers Leo X. and Charles V. to be silent for the future.

After his citation to Rome, and whilst appealing from the Pope ill informed to the Pope well informed, he did not cease to say, " that the appeal, inasmuch as it regarded him, did not seem necessary to him," he always abiding submissive to the judgment of the Pope, yet excused his going to Rome on account of the expense f. And moreover, said he, this citation before the Pope was needless to a man who waited for nothing but the decree of the Pope, in order to comply with it %.

In the course of this proceeding, on Sunday, the 28th of November, he appealed from the Pope to the council ; but in his act he persisted in always Saying, " that he neither presumed to doubt the supremacy or authority of the holy see, nor yet to say anything contrary to the power

VOL. I. D of the Pope well advised and well informed." And, indeed, on the third of March, 1519, he wrote again to Leo X., that " he did not design in anywise to interfere with his authority, or that of the church of Rome *." And, provided a similar injunction were laid on his adversaries, he bound himself, as he had all along done, to an eternal silence ; for he could not bear a partial judgment ; and, if we may believe him, he would have remained satisfied with the Pope, had he but imposed on both parties an equal silence. So little was this reformation, so much boasted of since, deemed by him necessary to the welfare of the church. As for retractation, he would never hear it mentioned, however sufficient matter there was for it, as observed above. And yet, so far from exaggerating, I do not tell the whole. But, said he, " being once engaged, his Christian reputation would not suffer him to abscond in a corner, ', or to retreat. This was his excuse after the rupture commenced ; but, during the contest, he assigned one, the more probable as it was more submissive. " For, after all," said he, •' I see not what use would be my retractation, since it is not what I have said, but what the church will say to me, whom I shall not pretend to answer as an adversary, but to hear as a disciple f."

In the beginning of the year 1520, he spoke somewhat 1 ^9f) higner > tne contest, too, grew warmer, and the party was increased. He wrote, therefore, to the Pope, — "I abhor disputes; I will attack no man, n©r be myself attacked ; if I be, having Jesus Christ for my lord and master, they shall not go unanswered : as for recanting what I have said, let no man look for it. Your holiness, with one word, may terminate all these contests, by bringing the cause to your own tribunal, and imposing silence on both parties J." This is what he wrote to Leo X., dedicating to him, at the same time, the Book of Christian Liberty, full of new paradoxes, the dreadful effects of which we shall soon witness. The same year, after the universities of Louvain and Cologne had censured this, and the other books of Luther, he complained thus : " Wherein hath Leo, our holy father, offended these universities, that they should snatch out of his hands a book dedicated to his name, and laid at his feet, there to await his sentence?" In short, lie wrote to Charles V., " that he would be an humble and obedient son of the Catholic Church, even unto death ; and promised to hold his j)eace, if his enemies would but let him §.w He called

;|; Ad Leon. X. t. ii. f. 2-G. § Luth. ad Car. V. ib. 44.

F.j THE VARIATIONS, ETC. 35 the whole universe, and the two greatest powers thereof to witness, that these disputes might be terminated ; and to this he bound himself in the most solemn manner.

24. — He is condemned by Leo. X., and flies into horrible excesses.

But this affair had made too great a noise to be dissembled. The sentence issued from Rome ; Leo X. published his bull of condemnation, dated June 18, 1520; and, at the same time, Luther forgot all his submissions, as if they had been empty compliments. From that time he became furious ; clouds of libels were scattered against the bull : first, appeared his notes and comments on it, filled with contempt ; a second pamphlet, bore this title, " Against the execrable Bull of Antichrist," which he concluded with these words, " In the same manner that they excommunicate me, I excommunicate them again *." Thus did this new Pope pass sentence. He put out a third in u defence of the articles condemned by the bullf." Far from retracting any of his errors, or in the least moderating his excesses, he went beyond them, and confirmed everything, even to this proposition, namely, Every Christian woman or child, in the absence of the priest, may u absolve, in virtue of these words of Jesus Christ, — All that he shall unbind, shall be unbound ;" even to that wherein he said, that to fight against the Turk was to resist God. Instead of correcting so scandalous a proposition, he maintained it anew, and assuming the tone of a prophet, spoke thus : " If the Pope be not brought to an account, Christendom is ruined ; he that can, let him flee to the mountains ; or let this Roman homicide be slain. Jesus Christ shall destroy him by his glorious coming ; it shall be he, and no other % " Thus, borrowing the words of the prophet Isaiah, " Oh Lord," cried out this new prophet, " who believeth in thy word ?" And concluded, in delivering to men this commandment, as an oracle sent from heaven : " Forbear ye to make war against the Turk, until the name of the Pope be taken from beneath the heavens ; I have said it."

25. — His fury against the Pope and those Princes tcho supported him.

This was plainly declaring to them, that henceforward the Pope was to be held as their common enemy, against whom

D 2¹⁸¹⁹ all were to unite. But Luther spoke much plainer afterwards : when disappointed that these prophecies did not proceed fast enough, he endeavoured to accelerate their accomplishment by these words ; " The Pope is a wolf, possessed by an evil spirit ; from every village and every borough men must assemble against him ; neither the sentence of the judge, nor the authority of a council must be waited for ; no matter if Kings and Caesars make war in his behalf ; he that rises in arms under a thief, does it to his own cost. Kings and Caesars bear not themselves guiltless, by saying they are the defenders of the church, because they ought to know what is the Church²⁰." In short, whoever had believed him, must have set all on fire, and i-educed to one heap of ashes, both Pope and princes that supported him ; and what is still more strange, as many propositions as we have seen were as many theses of divinity, which Luther undertook to maintain. Nor was this an orator whom the warmth of the harangue might have betrayed into indeliberate conclusions ; but a doctor, that dogmatized in cold blood, and erected all his frenzies into theses.

Although he did not, as yet, exclaim quite so high in that libel which he published against the Bull, yet the commencement of that intemperance might have been discovered in it ; and it was the same passion which made him say, on the subject of the citation on which he did not appear, " I defer my appearing there, till I am followed by five thousand horse, and twenty thousand foot ; then will I make myself be believedf." All was of this character: and through his whole discourse appeared mockery and violence ; the two marks of exasperated pride.

He was reproved in the Bull, for maintaining some of the propositions of John Huss ; instead of excusing himself, as he would have done heretofore, " It is true," said he to the Pope, "all that you condemn in John Huss I approve; all that you approve I condemn. Here is the recantation you enjoin me; do you require more j ?"

The most burning fevers cause not more frantic ravings. This was called by the party the height of courage ; and Luther, in the notes he made on the Bull, told the Pope under the name of another, " We know full well that Luther will not bate you an inch, because so great a courage cannot relinquish the defence of the truth he has once undertaken §."

I.] THE VARIATIONS, ETC. 37

When, through hatred that the Pope had caused his works to be burned at Rome, Luther, in his turn, caused the Decretals to be burnt at Wittemberg ; the acts recording this exploit, ordered by him to be registered, said, " That he had held forth with a surprising beautifulness of diction, and a happy elegance, in his mother tongue²¹.1' With this charm he ravished and led away mankind. But, above all, he forgot not to mention it was not enough to have burnt those Decretals, and it had been much more to the purpose, if the like had been done to the Pope himself ; " that is to say," added he, moderating a little his expression, " to the Papal chair."

26. — How Luther came at last to reject the authority of the Church.

When I consider so much passion after so much humility, I am at a loss whence this apparent humility could proceed in a man of such temper. Was it from artifice and dissimulation ? Rather, was it not that pride, unacquainted with itself in its beginnings, and fearful at first, hides behind its contrary, till an occasion presents of appearing to advantage ?

After the rupture was opened, Luther himself confesses li that in the beginning he was like one in despair, nor could man comprehend from what weakness God had raised him to such a courage ; nor how, from such trembling, he came to so great strengthf."

Whether God or the occasion made this change, I shall leave to the judgment of the reader, and, for my part, am content with the fact which Luther owns during this alarm : in one sense, it is very true that his humility was not feigned. What might cause one, however, to suspect artifice in his discourses, is, that occasionally he forgot himself so far as to say, "that he never would change his doctrine; and though he had referred his whole dispute to the determination of the supreme bishop, it was because respect ought to be observed towards him who bore so great a charge J." But whoever shall reflect on the interior conflicts of a man, whom pride on one side, and the remains of faith on the other, never ceased to distract interiorly, will not consider it at all impossible that such different sentiments should appear alternately in his writings. Be that

% Pio. Lect, t. i. f. 212.²²

as it may, it Is certain the authority of the Church restrained him for a long time, nor can we read without indignation, as well as pity, what he writes regarding it. " After," says he, M I had gotten the better of all the arguments which were opposed to me, one remained still which, with extreme difficulty and great anguish, I could scarce conquer even with the assistance of Jesus Christ; namely, that we ought to hear the church²³." Grace, I may say, with reluctance abandoned this unhappy man. He prevailed at length ; and to complete his blindness, mistook Jesus Christ's abandonment of him, for the immediate assistance of his hand. Who would have thought, that refusing presumptuously to hear the church, contrary to the express command of Christ, should be attributed to the grace of Christ? After this fatal victory, which cost Luther so dear, he cries out like one set free from irksome bondage, " Let us break their bands asunder, and cast their yoke from us f ;" for he made use of these words in answering the Bull ; and in his last struggle to shake off church authority, not reflecting that this inauspicious canticle is what David put into the mouth of rebels, whose conspiracies were against the Lord, and against his anointed, Luther, in his blindness, applies it to himself, exulting .that, exempt from all constraint, he may henceforward speak and decide, as he wishes, in all things. His despised submissions rankle in his breast; — he keeps no temper; — his sallies, that should scandalize his disciples, encourage them ; they catch, by hearing, the contagious phrenzy; so rapid a motion reaches soon to a great distance; and numbers look on Luther as sent by God for the reformation of mankind.

27. — Luther's Letter to the Bishops — his pretended extraordinary mission.

Then he applies himself to maintain his mission as extraordinary and divine. In a letter he wrote to the bishops, " falsely so styled," said he, he assumed, the title of Ecclesiastes or Preacher of Wittemberg, which none had ever given him ; nor does he pretend anything else, but that he gave it himself ; that so many bulls, and so many excommunications, so many condemnations from the pope and emperor, had stript him of all his former titles, and defaced the character of the beast in him ; yet he could not remain without a title, and

I.] THE VARIATIONS, ETC. 39 had therefore given himself this, as a token of the ministry to which God had called him, and which he had received not from man, nor by man, but by the gift of God, and by the revelation of Jesus Christ*. Here we have his vocation as immediate, and as extraordinary, as that of St. Paul. On this foundation, at the beginning, and throughout the entire body of the letter, he qualifies himself " Martin Luther, by the grace of God, Ecclesiastes of Wittembergi*;" and declares to the bishops, lest they should pretend ignorance, that this is his own title which he bestows on himself, with an egregious contempt of them and Satan ; and that he might, with as good a claim, have called himself evangelist hy the grace of God ; for Jesus Christ most certainly named him so, and considered him as Ecclesiastes.

By virtue of this celestial mission he did every thing in the church : he preached, he visited, abrogated some ceremonies, left others remaining, instituted and deposed. He that never was more than a priest, dared to make, I do not say other priests, which itself would be an attempt unheard of in the entire Church since the origin of Christianity ; but what is much more unheard of, even a bishop. It was deemed expedient by the party to invade the bishopric of Nuremburg. Luther went to this city, and by a new consecration ordained Nicholas Amsdorf bishop of it, whom he had already made minister and pastor of Magdeburg. He did not, therefore, make him bishop, in the sense he sometimes calls by that name all pastors, but he made him bishop, with all the prerogatives annexed to this sacred name, and gave him that superior character which himself had not : but all was comprised in his extraordinary vocation ; and an evangelist, sent immediately from God like another Paul, could do all he pleased in the church.

28. — Luthefs arguments against the A?iabaptistsi who : preached without ordinary mission and miracles.

Such attempts as these, I know very well, are esteemed nothing in the new reformation. These vocations and missions, so much respected in all ages, are nothing more, after all, than formalities to these new doctors, who require only what they call essentials ; but these formalities established by God, preserve what is essential. They are formalities, if they please, but in the same sense the sacraments are so — divine formalities, which are the seals of the promise, and * Ep. ad falso nominat. ordin. Episcoporum, 1. ii. f. 305. t Ibid. 14. 220.

the instruments of grace. Vocation, mission, succession, lawful ordination,' are alike with them to be called formalities. By these sacred formalities God seals the promise he made to his church of preserving her for ever. " Go, teach and baptize ; and lo, 1 am with you always, even to the end of the world²⁴ :" with you, teaching and baptizing ; not with you here present only, and whom I have immediately chosen, but with you in the persons of those who shall be for ever substituted in your place by my appointment. Whoever despises these formalities of legitimate and ordinary missions, may, with the same reason, despise the sacraments, and confound the whole order of the church. And without entering further into this subject, Luther, who said he was sent with an extraordinary title immediately from God as an evangelist and apostle, was not ignorant himself that that extraordinary vocation ought to be confirmed by miracles. Therefore, when Muncer, with his Anabaptists, assumed the title and function of a pastor, Luther would not suffer the question to turn on what he might call essential, or admit he should prove his doctrine from the Scriptures ; but ordered he should be asked, " Who had given him commission to teach V " Should he answer — God ; let him prove it," says Luther, " by a manifest miracle ; for when God intends to alter any thing in the ordinary form of mission, it is by such signs that he declares himselff."

Luther had been educated in good principles, and could not avoid sometimes returning to them. Witness the treatise which he wrote of the authority of magistrates, in 1534. This date is remarkable, forasmuch as four years after the Augsburg Confession, and fifteen after the rupture, it cannot be said that the Lutheran doctrine had not at that time taken its form; and yet Luther there declared again, " That he had much rather a Lutheran should leave the parish, than preach there against his pastor's consent ; that the magistrate ought not to suffer either private assemblies, or any to preach without lawful vocation ; if they had suj)pressed the Anabaptists when they began to spread their doctrine without vocation, the many evils which desolated Germany would have been prevented ; that no man truly pious should undertake anything without vocation, which ought to be observed so religiously, that even a gospeller (for so he calls his own disciples) might not preach in the parish of a papist or a heretic, without the consent of him who was pastor of it;" " which he spoke," proceeds he, " in warning to the magistrates, that * Mat. xxviii. 20. + Sleid. lib. v. Edit. 1555—69. In Ps. Jxxxii.de Magis. t. iii.

I.] THE VARIATIONS, ETC. 41 they might shun those prattlers, who brought not good and sure testimonials of their vocation, either from God or men; without this, though they preached the pure gospel, or were angels dropt from heaven, yet they ought not to be admitted." This is to say, sound doctrine is not sufficient ; but, besides this, one of two things is requisite, either miracles to testify God's extraordinary vocation, or the authority of those pastors who were already qualified to confer the ordinary vocation in due form.

When Luther wrote this, he was well aware it might be asked, whence he himself had received his authority ? and therefore answered, " He was a doctor and a preacher who had not intruded himself, nor ought he to cease to preach, after it had been forced upon him, neither could he dispense with himself in teaching his own church ; but for other churches, he did no more than communicate his writings to them, which was but what charity required."

29. — What were the miracles by which Luther 'pretended to authorize his mission.

But when he spoke with this assurance of his church, the question was, who had given him a charge of it ; and how that vocation, which he had received with dependance, on a sudden became independent of the whole ecclesiastical hierarchy ? However that be, Luther, for this time, was willing his vocation should be ordinary, at other times, when he was more sensible of the impossibility of maintaining it, he styled himself, as above, God's immediate envoy, and boasted he was deprived of all these titles which had been conferred on him by the church of Rome, that he might enjoy so celestial a vocation. Then, as for miracles, he was at no loss : he would have the great success of his preaching considered miraculous ; and, at his renouncing the monastic life, he wrote to his father, who seemed a little shocked at this change, that God had withdrawn him from that state by visible miracles. " Satan," says he, " seems to have foreseen from my infancy all that one day he was to suffer from me. Is it possible, that I, of all mortals, should be the only one he attacks at this time ? Formerly, you were desirous of taking me from the monastery ; God hath taken me thence without you. I send you a book wherein you will see, by how many miracles and extraordinary instances of his power he hath absolved me from monastic vows *." These wonders

" De Vot. Monas, ad Johannem Lut. Parent, suum. t. ii. 263.

42 THE HISTORY OP [BOOK and prodigies were not only the boldness, but also the unlooked for success of his undertaking. It was this he gave for miraculous, and his disciples were persuaded of it.

30. — Sequel of Luthefs boasted miracles.

They even accounted it supernatural that a petty monk had conceived the courage to attack the Pope, and stood intrepid amidst so many enemies. The people took him for a hero, a man from heaven, when they heard him defy threats and dangers, and say, "though he absconded for a while, the devil knew full well" (a fine witness) " it proceeded not from fear ; — that when he appeared at Worms before the emperor, nothing was capable of terrifying him ; and though he had been assured of meeting there as many devils ready to seize him as were tiles on the house-tops, he would have dared them all with the like resolution²⁵." These were his ordinary expressions. He had always in his mouth the devil and the pope, as enemies he was about to crush; and his disciples discovered in these words a divine ardour, a celestial instinct, and the enthusiasm of a heart influenced with the glory of the gospel.

When some of his party undertook, as we shall see, during his absence, and without consulting him, to destroy images at Wittemberg, — " I am quite unlike these new prophets," said he, " who think they do something marvellous and worthy of the Holy Ghost, when they pull down statues and pictures. For my part, I have not lent my hand to the overthrowing of the least single stone; I have set fire to no monastery, yet, by my mouth and my pen, almost all monasteries have been laid waste ; and the report is public that I alone, without violence, have done more injury to the Pope, than any King could have done with all the power of his kingdomf." These were the miracles of Luther. His disciples admired the force of this plunderer of monasteries, never reflecting that this formidable strength might be the same with that of the angel whom St. John calls the " destroyer J."

31. — Luther acts the Prophet : promises to destroy the Pope immediately without suffering the taking of arms.

Luther assumed the tone of a prophet against those who opposed his doctrine. After admonishing them to submit

I.] THE VARIATIONS, ETC. 43 to it, he threatened at last to pray against them. " My prayers," said he, "will not be Salmoneus's thunder, no empty rumbling in the air. Luther's voice is not to be stopt so, and I Avish your highness find it not to your cost *." Thus he wrote to the Prince of the House of Saxony. " My prayer," continued he, "is an impregnable bulwark, more powerful than the devil himself. Had it not been for that, long ago, Luther would not be so much as spoken of; and men will not stand astonished at so great a miracle !" When he threatened any with the divine judgments, he would not have it believed he did it upon general views. You would have said that he read it in the book of fate. Nay, he spoke with such certainty of Papacy's approaching downfal, that his followers no longer doubted of it. Upon his assertion, it was deemed certain that two antichrists, the Pope and the Turk, were clearly pointed out in Scripture. The Turk was just falling, and the attempts he was then making in Hungary were to be the last act of this tragedy. As for the Papacy, it was just expiring, and the most he could allow was two years reprieve : but above all, let them beware of employing arms in this work. Thus he spoke, whilst yet but weak ; and prohibited all other weapons than the word, in the cause of his gospel. The Papal reign was to expire on a sudden by the breath of Jesus Christ; — namely, by the preaching of Luther. Daniel was express on the point ; St. Paul left no doubt ; and Luther, their interpreter, would have it so. Such prophecies are still in fashion. The failure of Luther prevents not our ministers from venturing at the like event now ; they know the infatuation of the vulgar, ever destined to be charmed with some spell. These prophecies of Luther stand in his works upon record to this day, an eternal evidence against those who so lightly gave them credit +. Sleidan, his historian, relates them with a serious air. He lavishes all the elegance of his fine style, all the purity of his polished language, to represent to us a picture which Luther had dispersed throughout Germany j, the most foul, the most base, the most disgraceful that ever was. Yet, if we believe Sleidan, it was a prophetic piece ; nay, the accomplishment of many of Luther's prophecies had been seen already, and the remainder of them was still in the hands of God.

Luther was not looked on as a prophet by the people

X Sleid. 1. iv. 70. xiv. 225. xvi. 261, &c.²⁶

alone. The learned of the party would have him esteemed such. Philip Milancthon, who, from the beginning of the disputes, had entered himself on the list of his disciples, and was the most able as well as the most zealous of them all, conceived at first a firm persuasion that there was something in this man extraordinary and prophetic ; and, notwithstanding all the weaknesses he discovered in his master, he was a long time before he could relinquish the conviction ; and, speaking of Luther, he wrote to Erasmus, "you know we ought to prove and not to despise prophecies²⁷."

32. — The boastings of Luther, and the contempt he entertained for all the Fathers.

This their new prophet, however, fell into unheard-of extravagances. He was always in extremes. Because the prophet made terrible invectives by God's commandment, he becomes the most profuse of abusive language, and the most violent of men. Because St. Paul, for man's good, had extolled the gifts of God in his own ministry with that confidence which proceeded from manifest, truth, confirmed by divine miracles from above, Luther spoke of himself in such a manner, as made all his friends blush for him. They, however, grew accustomed to it, and called it magnanimity, admired the holy ostentation, the holy vauntings, the holy boasts of Luther ; and Calvin himself, though prejudiced against him, styled them sof. Elated with his learning, superficial in reality, but great for the time, and too great for his salvation and the peace of the church, he set himself above all mankind, not his contemporaries only, but the most illustrious of past ages.

In the cpiestion of free will, Erasmus objected to him the consent of the Fathers and all antiquity. " You do very well," said Luther ; " boast to us of ancient Fathers, and rely on what they say, when you have seen that all of them together have neglected St. Paul ; and buried in a carnal sense, have kept themselves, as on set purpose, at a distance from this morning star, or rather from this sun.'1 And again : " What wonder that God hath left all the nations of the earth, and all the churches, to go after their own ways ?" What a consequence ! If God abandoned the gentile world to the blindness of their hearts, does it follow that churches, delivered from it with such care, must be abandoned like them. Yet this is what Luther says in his book of " Man's Will enslaved." And what deserves still more to be observed

I.] THE VAEIA.TIONS, ETC. 45 here, is, that in what he there maintains, not only against all the Fathers, and all the churches, but against all mankind, and their unanimous consent, — namely, that there is no such thing as free will, he is abandoned, as will be seen, by all his disciples, and that even in the Confession of Augsburg ; which shows to what excess his rashness was carried, since he treated with such outrageous contempt all churches and Fathers, in a point where he was so manifestly in error. The praises which these holy doctors have, \vith one voice, bestowed on chastity, rather disgust than move him. St. Jerome is not to be endured for recommending it. He pronounces that all the holy Fathers, together with him, would have done much better, if they had married. In other matters he is not less extravagant. In a word, Fathers, Popes, councils, general and particular, in everything and everywhere, are esteemed nothing by him, unless they concur in his sentiments. He disposes of them in a moment, by quoting Scripture, interpreted in his own way, as if, before his time, men had been ignorant of Scripture ; or the Fathers, who so religiously kept and studied it, sought not, but neglected, its true sense.

33. — His buffoonery and extravagances.

To such a degree of extravagance did Luther now arrive : from that excessive modesty he professed at first, he passed to this extreme. What shall I say of his buffooneries, no less scandalous than degrading, with which he stuffed his writings ? Let but one of his most partial disciples take the trouble to read that one discourse he composed against the Papacy, in the time of Paul III., certain I am he would blush for Luther. He will there find throughout the whole, I do not say so much fury and transport, but such wretched puns, such low jests, and such filthiness, and that of the lowest kind, as is not heard but from the mouths of the most despicable of mankind. " The Pope," says he, " is so full of devils, that he spits and blows them from his nose." Let us not finish what Luther was not ashamed to repeat thirty times. Is this the language of a reformer ? But the Pope was in question : at that name alone he fell into all his fury, and he was no longer master of himself. But may I venture to relate what follows in this foolish invective ? It must be done, though abhorrent to my feelings, that it may appear, for once, into what paroxysm of fury the chief of this new reformation fell. I will, then, force myself to transcribe these words, addressed by him to the Pope: — "My little

Paul, my little Pope, my little ass, walk gently: 'tis freezing ; thou wilt break a leg ; thou wilt befoul thyself; and they will cry out, O the devil! how the little ass of a Pope has befouled himself * ! " Pardon me, Catholic readers, for repeating these irreverences. Pardon me, too, ye Lutherans, and reap at least the advantage of your own confusion. But after these foul ideas, it is time to see the beautiful parts. They consist in thus playing on words : ccelestissimus, scelestissimus ; sanctissimus, satanissiinus : and it is what you find in every line. But what will you say of this fine figure ? " An ass knows that he is an ass, a stone knows that it is a stone ; but these little asses of Popes do not know that they are asses -f-." And lest the same should be returned upon him, he obviates the objection : " And," says he, " the Pope cannot take me for an ass ; for he knows very well that, through God's goodness, and by his particular grace, I am more learned in Scripture than he and all his asses put together |." To proceed; here the style begins to rise: a Were I a sovereign of the empire, [where will this fine beginning lead him ?] I would make but one bundle of both pope and cardinals, and place them altogether in the little ditch of the Tuscan sea; this bath would cure them, I pass my word for it, and give Jesus Christ for security §." Is not the sacred name of Jesus Christ brought in here much to the purpose ? Enough is said ; let us be silent, and tremble under the dreadful judgments of God, who, in punishment of our pride, has permitted that such gross intemperance of passion should have so powerfully swayed to seduction and error.

34. — Sedition and violence.

I say nothing of seditions and plunderings, the first fruits of the preachings of this new evangelist. These served but to foment his vanity. The gospel, said he, and his disciples after him, has always caused disturbances, and blood is necessary for its establishment ||. Calvin defends himself the same way. Jesus Christ, all of them cried out, came to send a sword into the midst of the world •[[. Blind ! not to perceive, or unwilling to learn, what sword was sent by Jesus Christ, and what blood was shed on his account. True it is, the wolves, in the midst of whom Christ sent his disciples, were to spill the blood of his innocent sheep ; but did he say the sheep should cease to be sheep — should form sedi-

I.] THE VARIATIONS, ETC. 47 tious confederacies, and, in their turn, spill the blood of the wolves ? The sword of persecutors was drawn against his faithful ; but did they draw the sword, — I do not say to assault their persecutors, — but to defend themselves against their onsets ? In a word, seditions were raised against the disciples of Jesus Christ ; but the disciples of Jesus Christ, during three hundred years of an unmerciful persecution, never so much as raised one. The gospel rendered them modest, peaceable, submissive to the lawful powers, even though these powers were hostile to the faith ; and filled them with true zeal — not that bitter zeal which opposes sourness to sourness, arms to arms, violence to violence. Supposing, then, if they please, Catholics to be unjust in persecuting ; those who gave themselves out for reformers, on the model of the church apostolic, ought to have begun their reformation with an invincible patience : but, on the contrary, said Erasmus, who witnessed the birth of their beginning, " I behold them coming out from their sermons, with fierce looks and threatening countenances, like men that just came from hearing bloody invectives and seditious speeches.'" Accordingly, we find "these evangelical people always ready to rise in arms, and equally as good at righting as disputing *." Perhaps the ministers may grant us, that the Jewish and the idol priests gave room for as bitter satires as those of the church of Rome, however hideous they may represent them to have been. When did it ever happen that St. Paul's new converts, on their return from hearing his sermons, fell to pillaging the houses of these sacrilegious priests, as the auditors of Luther and his disciples have been known to do so frequently at their separation, promiscuously flying to the plunder of all ecclesiastics, without distinction of good or bad ? What do I say of idol priests ? The very idols themselves were spared, in some measure, by the Christians. When did it happen at Ephesus or Corinth, when they absconded, after St. Paul's or the apostles' preaching, that they overthrew so much as one of them ? On the contrary, the town-secretary of Ephesus bears witness to his fellow-citizens, that St. Paul and his companions " did not blaspheme against their goddess f ; " namely, that they spoke against false deities, without raising disturbances, or breaking the public peace. Yet I cannot but believe the idols of Jupiter and Venus were full as odious as the images of Jesus Christ, of his blessed mother, and his saints, which our reformers trampled under foot.

48 THE HIST0HV of [book²⁸²⁹³⁰

Footnotes

1. Bern.Epist, 257, ad Eugen. Papain, nunc 238. N. 6. ↩

2. Gnil. Durand.Episc. ftlimat. Speculator dictus, Tract, de Modo Gen. Cone, celeb, tit. 1. part. J ejusd. part. Tit. 33, &c. ↩

3. Epist. 1. Julian Curd, ad Eug. iv. inter Op. JEn. Silv. p. GC. •f Ibidem. X Ibidem. ↩

4. Bern. Serin. 33. in Cant. N. 10. t Isaiae xxxviii. 17. ↩

5. Bern. Serm. G5, 6C in Cant. ↩

6. Ibid. 137. ↩

7. Calv. II. Def. Cont. Vestph. Opusc. F. 785—7S7, ct seq. Resp. Cont.'Pigh. Ibid. l'ol. 137—141, &c. f Prop. 1517. 71. vol. i. Vitcb. ↩

8. Luther, T. i. Prop. 1518. Prop. 48. ↩

9. Serm. de liidulg; v. i. p. 02. ↩

10. Prop. 1518. Ibid. Serm. de Indulg. ↩

11. Ass. artic. damnat v. ii. ad Prop. 14, t 5 Disp. 1538. Prop. 44. 45. 1. T. ↩

12. Prop. 1518, 48, v. i. ↩

13. Assert, art. Damtiat. ad art. 1 1. T. ii. -j- 1 Cor. iv\ 1. ;j; P>. xviii. 13. ↩

14. 1 Cor, ii. 2. f Prop, 1517. Prop. 20. T. I, f. 50. ↩

15. Serm. de Indul. f Adver. exerr. Anticrislt. Bull. t. ii. fol.93< ↩

16. Resol. de Pot. Papae. Petf. T. 1. f. 310. Praef. oper. ibid. 2. ↩

17. Disput. Lips. t. i. f. 251. t Ad Card. Cajetan. J Ibid. ↩

18. Luth. ad Leon. X. 1519. t Ad Card. Caj. t. i. p. 216. ↩

19. T. i. 83, 91. | Assert, art. per Bull, damnat, % Ibid, t. ii. Prop. 33. ↩

20. Disp. 1540, Prop. 59, et seq. t. i. f. 407. t Adv. execr, Antchr. Bull. t. ii. f. 91. J Ibidem, Prop. 30. f. 109. ↩

21. Not. in Bull. t. ii. f. 56. ↩

22. Exust. acta, t. ii. f . 123. + Preef. Op. t, i. f. 4D, 50, et seq. ↩

23. Praef. Oper. Luth. t. i. f. 49. f Not. in Bull, t. i. f. 63. Ps. ii, 3. ↩

24. Ep. ad Frid. Sax. Ducem. apud Chyt. 1, x. p. 247. f Fridcr. Due. Elect. &c, t. vii. p. 507 — 509. % Apoc. ix. 11. ↩

25. Ep. ad George Due. Sax. t. ii. f. 491. ↩

26. Assert, art. Damnat. t. v. f. 3. ad Prop. 3. ad Prop. 33. Ad. lib. Amb. Cathar. ib. f. 161. Cont. Reg. Aug. ib. 331, 332, et seq. ↩

27. Mel. lib. iii. Epist. 65. * Defen. Cont. Vestpb. opusc. f. 788. ↩

28. Papapismus. f Ibid. % Adv. Papism., p. 474. ↩

29. Ibid." || Pe Serv, Art. f.431, &c. f Matt, x, 34—47. ↩

30. Lib. xix. 113, 24, 31, 47. p. 2053, &c, f Acts xix. 37. ↩