thus driven to extremes his bold genius prompted him to the latter. Instead of repeating his former professions, he now discovered that the Roman pontiff, like other men, might fall into error; and he appealed, by a new instrument, from the authority of Leo X. to that of a general council.* The bare mention of such a council is, to the court of Rome, equivalent to a declaration of war; 50 but the important events which occurred at this period, turned the attention of Europe from theological discussions to political debates; and Luther was suffered, without any great interference from the church of Rome, to proceed in that course of conduct from which every effort hitherto made to deter him had only served as an encouragement to him to persevere.

The success which Luther experienced is chiefly to be attributed to two circumstances, of which he availed himself with uncommon dexterity, to increase the number of his adherents, and to give respectability to his cause. He was himself a man of considerable learning; and although his chief proficiency was in ecclesiastical and scholastic studies, yet he was not destitute of some acquaintance with polite literature, and was perfectly aware of the advantages which he should obtain by combining his own cause with that of the advancement of learning, and thereby securing the favour and assistance of the most eminent scholars of the time. In the letter already cited, written by him to Melancthon, on his leaving Wittemberg to repair to Augsburg, this object is apparent; and many other indications of it appear in his works. His friends are always represented by him as the friends and patrons of liberal studies; and his adversaries are stigmatised, in the most unqualified terms, as stupid, illiterate, and contemptible. Notwithstanding the gravity of his cause, he is at some times sarcastically jocular; and his parody on the first lines of the Eneid, whilst it shews that he was not unacquainted with profane writers, contains an additional proof of his endeavours to mark his enemies as the enemies of all improvement. On this account he sought with great earnestness, in the commencement of his undertaking, to attach Erasmus to his cause, as he had already done Melancthon. 52 And although, by the

* Vide Luth. Op. p. 179.

vio.ence of his proceedings, and the overbearing manner in which he enforced his own peculiar opinions, he afterwards lost, in a great degree, the support of that eminent scholar; yet he has himself acknowledged, that the credit and learning of Erasmus were of no inconsiderable service to him. This attempt to unite the cause of literature with that of reform, is also frequently noticed by Erasmus. "I know not how it has happened," says he, "but it is certain that they who first opposed themselves to Luther, were also the enemies of learning; and hence its friends were less averse to him, lest by assisting his adversaries they should injure their own cause. Erasmus could, however, have been at no loss to know how this was effected, for certainly no one contributed to it in so eminent a degree as himself; as may sufficiently appear from numerous passages in his letters, in which he has most forcibly inculcated these sentiments. * Afterwards, indeed, when the inflexible temper of Luther had given offence to Erasmus, and when, perhaps, the danger of adhering to him had increased, Erasmus endeavoured to frustrate the effects of his former labours, and to convince his friends that the cause of learning, of which he considered himself and Reuchlin as the patrons in Germany, had no connexion whatever with that of Luther. But the opinion was now too deeply impressed on the public mind, and all his efforts served rather to establish than to obliterate it. The advantages which Luther derived from this circumstance are incalculable. His adversaries were treated with derision and contempt; and the public opinion was so strongly in his favour that his opponents could scarcely find a printer in Germany who would publish their works. Nor is it improbable, that the same reasons which attached the most eminent scholars in Germany to the cause of Luther, operated also in Italy to prevent that opposition which might otherwise have defeated his success, or at least have retarded his progress. For Sadoletti, Bembo, and the rest of the Italian scholars kept aloof from the contest, unwilling to betray the interests of literature by defending the dogmas of religion; and left the vindication of the church to scholastic disputants, exasperated

* Erasmus was accused of having laid the egg which Luther hatched. This appears in his letter to Joannes Cæsarius, 7 Kal. Jan. 1524.

bigots, and illiterate monks, whose writings, for the most part, injured the cause which they were intended to defend.

The other method adopted by Luther, to increase the number and secure the attachment of his friends, appeared in his continual protestations that he was at all times ready to submit his opinions to the test of reason and Scripture, and to the decision of enlightened and unprejudiced judges. Bold, and even sarcastic as his propositions were, he affected to offer them only as questions for disputation, of the truth of which he was not himself, in all cases, fully convinced; and whilst he challenged the strictest inquiry of his adversaries, he deprecated, as unjust and tyrannical, the adoption of any severe measures against him, until his errors were clearly demonstrated. Declarations apparently so just and reasonable gained him many powerful friends. Even his sovereign and great patron, the elector of Saxony, seems to have considered this as a decisive proof of a rectitude of his views. After assuring the cardinal Riario, in a letter which bears the date of August, 1518, that he had not even perused the controversial works of Luther, he adds, “I am informed, however, that he has always been ready to make his appearance before impartial and prudent judges, and to defend his doctrines; and that he avows himself willing, on all occasions, to submit to, and embrace those more correct opinions, which may be taught him on the authority of the Holy Scriptures. In the axioms of Erasmus, in which he seems to have suggested to Luther some of the leading points on which he ought more particularly to insist, we find the same sentiment repeated.* It is also occasionally referred to in the letters of Erasmus, in such a manner as to shew that this part of the conduct of Luther had contributed, in a great degree, to secure the favour and concurrence of that eminent scholar.

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papal bulls may have more weight," says he, " but a book filled with arguments, derived from the sacred writings, and which pretends to teach only and not to compel, will always be preferred by men of real learning; for a well-informed mind is easily led by reason, but does not readily submit to authority.† This conduct on the part of Luther, at the same time that it confirmed the attachment of his friends, depressed and injured

Luth. Op. tom. ii. p. 314. † Erasm. Ep. lib. xv. ep. 5 p. 690.

the cause of his opponents; who, by declining the challenge, gave rise to suspicions that they were unable to defend by reason those doctrines which they wished to enforce by violence and by threats. Plausible, however, as this conduct may appear on the part of Luther, it must be confessed that its success was much beyond what might reasonably have been expected from it; and that it was, in fact, little more than a veil thrown over the eyes both of his enemies and his friends. Both parties might, without any extraordinary sagacity, have perceived that between an entire obedience to the decrees of the Roman church, and a direct opposition to them, there is no medium. To doubt the supreme authority of the holy see in matters of faith, to call upon her to defend her doctrines by arguments, to question the rectitude of those opinions which have been silently and respectfully assented to for ages, to assert those of a contrary tenor, to enforce them not only by reason and scripture, but by sarcasm and abuse, and finally to impeach the authority of the church herself, by requiring the dispute to be heard by impartial judges, is to throw off all obedience, and to appear in open rebellion. Could the supreme pontiff lay aside his infallibility, and, surrounded by the venerable college of cardinals, enter into a dispute with a German monk on questions which involved both the spiritual and temporal authority of the holy see ? Could the successor of S. Peter betray the interests of his high office, and consent to submit the decision of points of faith to any inferior tribunal ? Was it to be tolerated, that an obscure individual should be allowed to range at large through the Holy Scriptures, the decisions of councils, and the decretals and bulls of two hundred successive pontiffs, in order to convict the church herself of error, and to combat her with her own weapons? If it had been possible that the pontiff and his advisers could have stooped to this humiliation, he must have appeared to the world as a self-convicted impostor, and the triumph of Luther would have been complete. But although the pope and his adherents were in no danger of disgracing themselves, by submitting their cause to the test of reason and scripture, yet they imprudently suffered themselves to be discountenanced and repulsed by the bold attitude and daring approach of their adversary; and Luther, individually, for a long time balanced

the scale against the whole Christian world, and at length broke the beam which he could not wholly incline in his favour. Warmly as the Protestant writers have inveighed against the arrogance and unbending pride of the cardinal of Gaeta, and the other opponents of Luther, 53 it is sufficiently clear, that the cause of the church was rather injured by the condescension and moderation which he experienced, as well as by the writers who entered with him into discussions on contested dogmas and intricate points of faith. The first measure adopted by Luther in the publication of his propositions at Wittemberg, was sufficiently hostile to have justified the pontiff in calling upor him for an unqualified submission, and in case of refusal or hesitation, to have separated him, as an infected limb, from the body of the church. Of the feeble conduct of the Roman see, both on this and on other occasions, Luther was well aware; and had employed his time to such advantage, that before Leo assailed him with the thunders of the Vatican he was already prepared to obviate their effects; to retort violence for violence, and abuse for abuse. Throughout all his writings, this great reformer has represented his own cause as the cause of truth, of religion, of justice, and of sound learning; and by the skilful management of these topics, his efforts were, in a great measure, crowned with success. Being thus aware of the weapons to which he owed his victory, he was enabled, after he had once established himself in the public opinion, to defend himself against those who presumed to differ from him, as he had before differed from the church of Rome; and the conduct of Luther, in enforcing his own peculiar dogmas, and silencing those who opposed his tenets, may justify the assertion, that if he had been pope instead of Leo X., he would have defended the church against a much more formidable adversary than the monk of Wittemberg.