does not love the man, who, so far as I know is the only man in Germany, that by his authority, learning, and piety, has furnished an example of what a bishop ought to be? If the Christian world could but produce ten persons of a similar stamp and cast of thinking (συμφράδμονες), as Homer says, I should not doubt of seeing the kingdom of Christ in some measure restored."

CHAP. V.

ཡིས་བརན་་་

A. D. 1520, 1521.

The Pope's Bull against Luther.-His retaliationDiet of Worms-Luther's seizure and imprisonment at the Castle of Wartenberg-Feelings of Melancthon-Condemnation of Luther by the Sorbonne— Melancthon's Satirical Rejoinder-His publication under the feigned name of Thomas Placentinus— His Declamation on the Study of Paul-Extracts from his Loci Communes, or Theological Common Places-Transactions relative to the Abolition of Private Masses.

RETURNING from the disputations at Leipsic, Eckius resolved if possible to ruin Luther, and pursued his purpose with inveterate malignity and unremitting zeal. He flew to Rome, implored Leo X. to excommunicate this heretic and obtained the vigorous co-operation of the Dominicans then in high favour at court, who were willing to revenge the quarrel of their brother Tetzel.

At length on the fifteenth of June 1520, the Pope issued a Bull against Luther, in which

after calling upon Christ, St. Peter, St. Paul, and all the saints to interpose in behalf of the church (b) forty-one propositions are extracted from his writings, and condemned as pestilential, scandalous and offensive to pious minds; all persons are interdicted from reading them upon pain of excommunication, and unless the heretic should present himself at Rome within sixty days in order to take his trial before the

supreme

...

(b) "LEO EPISCOPUS, SERVUS SERVORUM DEI. Ad perpetuam rei memoriam. EXSURGE DOMINE et judica causam tuam: memor esto improperiorum tuorum eorum quæ ab insipientibus fiunt tota die ...... EXSURGE PETRE et pro pastorali cura præfata, ut præfertur, tibi divinitus demandata, intende in causam sanctæ Rom. Ecclesiæ matris omnium Ecclesiarum ac fidei magistræ, quam tu, jubente Deo, tuo sanguine, consecrâsti...... EXSURGE tu quoque, quæsumus, PAULE, qui eam tua doctrina ac pari martyrio illuminâsti atque illustrasti. Jam enim surgit novus Porphyrius. . . . . . ExSURGAT, denique, OMNI SANCTORUM AC RELIQUA UNIVERSALIS ECCLESIA, cujus vera sacrarum literarum interpretatione posthabita, quidam quorum mentem pater mendacii excæcavit, ex veteri hæreticorum instituto, apud semetipsos sapientes, scripturas easdem aliter quam Spiritus Sanctus flagitet, proprio duntaxat sensu, ambition's, auræque popularis causa (teste Apostolo) interpretantur, imo vero torquent et adulterant, ita ut juxta Hieronymum, jam non sit Evangelium Christi, sed hominis, aut quod pejus est, diaboli. EXSURGAT, inquam, præfata sancta ecclesia Dei, et unà cum beatissimis apostolis præfatis apud Deum omnipotentem intercedat, ut purgatis ovium suarum erroribus, eliminatisque a fidelium finibus hæresibus universis ecclesiæ suæ sanctæ parem et unitatem conservare dignetur." BULLA LEONIS X.

L

Pontiff, he is fully EXCOMMUNICATED. But these menaces were ineffectual; in many places the decree was delayed or evaded-even at Leipsic it was violently opposed and at Erfurt it was forcibly wrested from Eckius, torn in pieces and thrown into the river by a body of academicians. Many of the Roman Catholic writers condemn the imprudence of Leo in this and other hasty proceedings against the Saxon Reformer, but it is more than probable that had the effect been different, they would have spared the Tiara.

Immediately previous to the publication of this celebrated anathema, Luther had been offered an asylum from his persecutors by Sylvester Schaumberg, a Franconian knight, whose son was under the tuition of Melancthon. "I offer you," said he, " my own protection, and that of one hundred noblemen in Franconia, with whom you can live in safety until your doctrine has undergone a deliberate investigation." The state of his mind at this critical juncture may be ascertained from his own language to his friend Spalatine the Elector's secretary, upon transmitting to him the generous letter of Schaumberg. "As for me the die is cast. I equally despise the favour and fury of Rome, I have no longer any wish to be connected with or reconciled to them. Let them condemn me and burn my books, and if I do not in return publicly condemn and burn the

whole pontifical code, it will only be from want of fire." In fact, on the tenth of December 1520, in the presence of an immense concourse of people of all ranks, he committed the Bull of Leo, the decretals of the Pontiffs and other similar documents to the flames, in testimony of his everlasting separation from the Romish Communion. Nor did he neglect to use the pen as well as the torch, by which he appealed from the Pope to a general council, and exposed the pretensions and corruption of the church of Rome in several tracts. A second Bull was issued against him in the month of January 1521, in which the Pope styles himself "the divinely appointed dispenser of spiritual and temporal punishments:" it consisted of a recapitulation of the preceding Bull, and a formal excommunication of Luther.

During these transactions the Elector Frederic acted with a prudence and discretion which proved eminently serviceable to the Reformation. Had he been less the friend of Luther and of truth, he would have delivered him up to his enraged adversaries; had he been more zealous it would have been equally fatal by exposing himself to the papal anathemas, and the infant cause, which he secretly and therefore effectually patronized, to almost inevitable destruction. His conduct and character cannot be more accurately depicted than in the words