tion at so low an ebb as at that moment. It seemed to be all over with their destinies: but these were changed in a twinkling. After reaching the lowest stage in his career, the Wittemberg doctor instantly rose again, and from that time forth his influence went on increasing. The Lord commands, in the language of the prophet, and his servants go down into the depths and mount up again to the heavens.1

Spalatin sent for Luther to come to Lichtemberg, that at that place, in compliance with orders from Frederick, he might have an interview with him. There they talked long over the posi tion of affairs. "Should the censures come from Rome," said Luther, "I shall certainly not remain at Wittemberg."-"Take care," rejoined Spalatin, "not to be too precipitate in your journey to France !”2 He parted from him, bidding

him wait until he should hear from him. "Only recommend my soul to Christ," said Luther to his friends. "I see that my opponents strengthen themselves in their purpose of destroying me; but Christ at the same time strengthens me in that of not yielding to them."3

Luther then published the Acts of the Conference of Augsburg; Spalatin wrote to him, on the part of the Elector, not to do so, but the letter came too late, and the publication once made, the prince gave it his approbation.4 "Great God!" says Luther in the preface, "what a new, what an astonishing crime, to search for light and truth! and especially in the Church, that is to say, in truth's own kingdom."-"I send you my acts," he wrote to Link: "they are more trenchant than the lord legate doubtless looked for; but my pen is ready to give birth to much greater things. I myself know not where my

If ever an intervention of Providence could be regarded as a proof at the same time of the upright and godly intention of any man, and of the soundness of a cause, it is most surely this-so personal-so unlooked for, and so opportune; so manifest an answer to the confident trust that had just before been expressed, and to the still prayer of men's hearts: in one word, it was a truly wondrous act of the Deity for the rescue of Luther and the Reformation! -L. R.

2 Ne tam cito in Galliam irem. (L. Epp. i. p. 195.)

3 Firmat Christus propositum non cedendi in me. (Ibid.)

According to a letter of Luther's quoted by M. Michelet, the Elector seems to have changed his mind previous to the work being put to press. This hesitation on the Elector's part," says M. Michelet, "appears in a letter of Luther's: "The prince had quite put me off publishing the Acts of the Conference of Augsburg, then he permitted it, and they are printing." TR.

DISCONTENTMENT WITH CAJETAN AT ROME.

1

389

thoughts come from. In my judgment, that affair has not yet had a commencement, so far are the great folks of Rome from being able as yet to hope for its being ended. I will send you what I have written, that you may see how far I have guessed aright in believing that the Antichrist spoken of by St. Paul, is now reigning in the court of Rome. I believe I shall be able to demonstrate that he is worse at this day than the Turks themselves."

Untoward rumours now reached Luther from all quarters. One friend wrote to him that the new envoy from Rome had orders to seize him and deliver him over to the pope. Another reported this tale, that being on a journey, he happened to meet somewhere with a courtier, and that the conversation falling on the affairs that were then engrossing all Germany, the latter declared to him that he had come under an engagement to deliver Luther into the hands of the sovereign pontiff. "But the more they rage and affect violent methods," wrote the Reformer, "the less I tremble."2

People were exceedingly displeased with Cajetan at Rome, all the ill humour that was felt at the failure of this affair having vented itself in the first instance on him. The men at court in Rome, thought themselves entitled to reproach him with having been wanting in that prudence and that subtile policy which, if one was to believe them, ought to be the chief qualities of a legate, and for not having known, on so important an occasion, how to relax the stiffness of his scholastic theology. The whole blame lies upon him, it was said. His heavy pedantry has spoilt all. Why have irritated Luther by threats and insults, instead of coaxing him over by the promise of a good bishoprick, or even of a cardinal's hat?3 4 These mercenary souls

i.

3

1 Res ista necdum habet initium suum meo judicio. (Ibid. p. 193.)

2 Quo illi magis furunt, et vi affectant viam, eo minus ego terreor. (L. Epp

p. 191.)

Sarpi, Council of Trent. p, 8.

Cajetan's unpopul"He" (Cajetan)

4 According to M. Michelet in his " Memoirs of Luther," arity at Rome preceded his interview with the Reformer. "had himself," says M. Michelet, "written in favour of the lawfulness of interpreting Scripture without following the torrent of the fathers (contra torrentem S. S. Patrum). This bold opinion had made him so far suspected of heresy." See Memoires de Luther, as before, vol. i. p. 38. There is a peculiar interest, if, as, is very possible, de Vio secretly agreed with Luther in some of his opinions, in the providential appointment of the former to be the grand instru ment that was to try the latter's sincerity and steadfastness. May we not

judged of Luther by themselves. Meanwhile, this fault must be repaired. Rome must pronounce her opinion on the one hand; and, on the other, must deal tenderly with the elector, who might come to be of great service in the election of an emperor, which was speedily to take place. It being impossible for the Roman ecclesiastics to have any suspicion of the effects of Luther's strength of mind and courage, they imagined that the elector was much more implicated in the affair than he really was. The pope, therefore, resolved to adopt a different course. He caused a bull to be published in Germany by his legate, confirming the doctrine of indulgences in the precise points which had been impugned, but making no mention either of the elector or of Luther. As the Reformer had said all along, that he would submit to the decision of the Roman Church, the pope thought that he must now either keep his word, or exhibit himself as a manifest disturber of the Church and despiser of the holy apostolic see. In either case the pope, it appeared, could not fail to be a gainer; but nothing is truly gained by an obstinate resistance to the truth. In vain had the pope threatened excommunication against whosoever should teach otherwise than he ordained. It is not by such orders that an arrest can be laid upon the light, and it would have been wiser to temper by certain restrictions the pretensions of the sellers of indulgences. Hence this decree from Rome was a new blunder. By legalising crying errors, it made all wise men angry, and shut the door against Luther's return. "It was believed," says a Roman Catholic historian, a great enemy to the Reformation,1 "that this bull had been drawn up purely in the interest of the pope and of the money-collectors, who were beginning

ascribe to a secret consciousness of the general soundness of his opponent's views, the cardinal-legate's willingness to leave the question open with respect to the doctrine of grace being required in the sacraments-his apparent determination to avoid discussion on some very important points, while he permitted it in others his eagerness to subject Luther to the same absolute and abject submission to the papal system which his conscience may have rebuked him for exhibiting himself, and the evident dread with which Luther had inspired hima dread in such a case so naturally conjoined with the hatred that led him to call the Reformer a brute of deep eyes and wonderful speculations, with whom he could no longer hold debate. In the order of Divine Providence, we apprehend that the Augsburg conferences were a sifting time for both Luther and de Vio; out of which the former came more faithful and courageous, the latter more treacheous and cowardly to certain great truths, so far known to both. TR. 1 Maimburg. p. 38.

APPEAL TO A COUNCIL.

391

to find that nobody liked to pay anything for these indulgences."

Cardinal de Vio published the decree at Lintz, in Austria, on December 13th, 1518; but Luther was already safe from his attempts. On the 20th of November he had entered an appeal in the chapel of Corpus Christi at Wittemberg, from the pope to a general council of the Church. He foresaw the storm that was about to be let loose upon him; he knew that God only could conjure it away; but what he himself was called to do, that he did. No doubt he must leave Wittemberg, were it only on the elector's account, as soon as the Roman maledictions should arrive; yet he did not wish to abandon Saxony and Germany without a very public protest. He therefore composed such a protest, and that it might be ready for publication the moment that the furies of Rome should reach him, as he expresses it, he gave it to be printed on the precise condition that the bookseller should deposit all the copies with him. But greed of gain led that person to sell nearly the whole impression, while Luther was quietly waiting for the deposit. Luther was angry; but the thing was done. That bold protest found its way everywhere. Luther anew declared in it that he had no intention of saying anything against the Holy Church, or against the authority of the apostolic see, or against the pope when properly counselled. "But," he continues, "in as much as the pope, who is God's vicar on the earth, may like any other man, err, sin, lie, and that the appeal to the general council is the only safeguard against unjust actions which it is impossible to resist, I find myself obliged to have recourse to it." 1 2

2

1 Löscher, Ref. Act.

Luther at this period may be regarded as a Jansenist in regard to the doctrines of grace, only with views even more scriptural; and as a Gallican, in regard to his views of the fallibility and peccability of the pope.

The doctrine that the pope cannot err in doctrine, or in matters of fact, is too convenient not to have found many abettors among Roman Catholics down to our own day. It has been maintained in its broadest extent by the Jesuits in particular, who as the pope's own militia, naturally seek to aggrandise their immediate master at the expense of other authorities, both temporal and spiritual, even in their own church. The famous Jansenist, M. Nicole, asserts, that finding they could not directly teach the doctrine of the pope's superiority to kings, in temporal matters, (as laid down in the extravagant Unam sanctam of Boniface VIII.) without incurring an overwhelming opposition from the parliaments, &c. in France, they began to inculcate that of the pope's infallibility as clearly involving the other. "For as they never abandon what they have once undertaken," says M. Nicole in his Pernicieuses consequences de la nouvelle heresic

Here, then, we have the Reformation launched into a new sphere. It is no longer made dependent on the pope and his resolutions, but on a general council. Luther addresses himself to the whole Church, and the voice that proceeds from Corpus Christi chapel, must pass through all the Lord's flocks. It was not courage in which the Reformer was wanting, for here we have a new proof of that quality. Shall God be wanting to him? This is what we shall learn from the different periods of the Reformation which remain yet to be unfolded before us.

des Jesuites, contre le Roi et contre l'etat, "they have found ways and means of establishing this pernicious doctrine in a more adroit and dangerous manner: for not daring to propose it grossly and in itself, they labour more subtilely to establish the principles on which, by necessary consequence, it depends; well reckoning that if they can by this artifice elude the vigilance of the Magistrates and of the Sorbonne, it will be very easy for them to make the people receive as an indubitable truth what they can easily demonstrate to be a necessary consequence flowing from what they shall have previously made to pass for a Catholic truth." The doctrine seems to have fallen and risen, generally speaking, with the credit and influence of the Jesuits. Their suppression by Clement XIV. and the general outcry against them throughout Roman Catholic Europe about eighty years ago, having been followed by the reign of flagrant atheism in France, and the horrors and convulsions that so long desolated the continent thereafter, the opinion began to gain ground, that those calamities were at once the natural consequence and providential punishment of their suppression. Hence their revival by the pope in 1814, followed by the return of their extravagant tenets on the subject of papal infallibility. So boldly were these announced in France, particularly by M. Bonald during the reign of Charles X. that the Paris bar took alarm, and followed up the famous Memoire à consulter of the count de Montlosier, by obtaining the execution of the old laws against the Jesuits, so that in 1827 they were anew expelled from France. They are said to have again returned in the face of these laws and to be found at various places, not however, it may well be believed, as the hardy promulgators of any unpopular doctrines.

In maintaining that the popes could err, Luther held only what popes themselves have repeatedly confessed. In a law opinion by the king's counsellors of Louis XIV. dated June 1665, this fact is established by the recorded opinions of popes Paul IV., Adrian VI., Gregory XI., John XXII., who retracted a purely theological doctrine on the future blessedness of the redeemed, in consequence of being threatened with being treated as an heretic by king Philip of France; Clement V., Innocent III., Paschal II., Leo III., &c. Pope Honorius I. was condemned as a Monothelite by the 6th, 7th, and 8th councils; the story of his error and condemnation used to be the second lesson in the office read on St. Peter and St. Paul's eve, and the popes at one time anathematised him at their consecration. See Diurnus Ecclesiæ Romanæ, quoted in the Annales de la Société des soi-disans Jesuites, tom. v. p. 751. In short, we must attribute the resentment excited by Luther's insubordination to the pope, neither to his denying his infallibility as a principle, nor to his disowning it in fact, but to these being connected with a protest against papal corruptions of Christian doctrine and manners. TR.