REFORMATION. 



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among others, John Tetzel, a Dominican monk of 

 Leipsic, experienced in the business, who went 

 about from place to place, carrying on his trade 

 with the most unblushing impudence, and extolling 

 his certificates above the papal bulls, (which re- 

 quired repentance) as unconditional promises of 

 the forgiveness of sins in time and eternity. The 

 buyers were numerous, and the gain great ; for the 

 illiterate people still venerated highly their ancient 

 superstitions ; and the easy absolution from the 

 deepest guilt, and relief from temporal penance and 

 eternal punishment, for a few groschen, were allur- 

 ing to the rude multitude. (See Indulgence.) 

 When Tetzel commenced his traffic at Juterbogk, in 

 1517, purchasers flocked to him from Wittenberg, 

 which was in the neighbourhood, and there, show- 

 ing their certificates to their confessors denied ail 

 necessity for new penances. Luther set his face 

 against this abuse, first in his sermons, (for he per- 

 formed the duties of a preacher, as well as profes- 

 sor,) and afterwards, (in order to prepare the way 

 for an academic disputation on the subject accord- 

 ing to long established usage,) in ninety-five theses, 

 or questions, which he affixed to the door of the 

 great church, October 31, 1517. In these he de- 

 clared himself warmly against the abuse of indul- 

 gences, displayed a lively zeal for the Holy Scrip- 

 tures, and for the honour of the church and the 

 pope, and concluded with a prayer for instruction. 

 His sermons on indulgences were published in 

 German, and, in a few weeks, were spread over all 

 Germany. His theses were in Latin, and were soon 

 spread through other Christian nations. Luther 

 also urged his spiritual superiors and the pope, to 

 put a stop to the traffic of Tetzel, and to reform the 

 corruptions of the church in general, in letters at 

 once bold and respectful. With the exception of 

 Scultetus, bishop of Brandenburgh, no one made 

 him a becoming answer. On the contrary, the most 

 absurd libels, full of extravagant assertions of the 

 power of the pope and his indulgences, were brought 

 forward by Tetzel., (in whose name Conrad Wimpi- 

 na, professor of theology at Frankfort on the Oder, 

 took up his pen,) by the Augustine Sylvester Prie- 

 rias, a courtier of the pope at Rome, and by Jacob 

 Hogstraaten, the supreme inquisitor at Cologne, 

 who had been rendered contemptible by his dispute 

 with Reuchlin ; but these, and the virulent Notes 

 of Eckius (Eck) of Ingolstadt, against Luther, were 

 too miserable to escape the ridicule of tne well in- 

 formed, and only drew attention to his bold enter- 

 prise. The severe replies, in which he exposed the 

 weakness of these advocates for indulgences, and 

 his Resolutiones, by which he illustrated his theses, 

 gained new victories to the truth. A disputation 

 which he maintained in an Augustine convent at 

 Heidelberg in 1518, on the merit of good works, and 

 the use of the Aristotelian philosophy, gained him 

 friends among the young theologians present, as 

 Hucer, Brenz (Brentius), and others who afterwards 

 became celebrated as zealous advocates of refor- 

 mation. The conferences of Luther with the papal 

 legates, Cajetan, in 1518, at Augsburg, and Miltitz 

 in 1519. at Altenburg, in which those prelates, in- 

 stead of bringing him to recant, as they were or- 

 dered, only showed their inability to support the 

 Roman doctrines on the authority of the bible ; the 

 scholastic discussion of Eck with Carlstadt and Lu- 

 ther, at Leipsic, in 1519, which lasted three weeks, 

 and in which they warmly discussed the doctrines of 

 freewill, the authority of the pope, indulgences and 

 purgatory, though they decided nothing attracted 

 a more general attention to the works of Luther, 

 who almost every month sent forth new pamphlets 

 and printed sermons. From the Pyrenees to the 



Vistula, from the gulf of Venice to the Belt, every 

 thing by Luther or about him was eageny reaJ. 

 The remarkable fulness and power of his style ; his 

 merciless humour ; hisacutenessand learning daily 

 increasing by his constant historical iinil exegetical 

 studies ; the irresistible force of his reasoning ; and 

 above all,the adaptation of his doctrines to the wants 

 of the age : the approbation of Erasmus, Pirkhei- 

 mer, and other distinguished scholars ; the public 

 adherence of men like Melanchthon and Hutten ; 

 the contemporaneous, and yet bolder opposition of 

 Zuinglius and OZcolampadius, in Switzerland, to in- 

 dulgences and the papacy (see Reformed Church) 

 made this man, who was hardly known before 

 1517, the champion of all enlightened men who la- 

 mented the degeneracy of the church of Christ ; and 

 as such he now spoke and acted with admirable 

 courage. The respect for the Roman court, which 

 was perceptible in his earlier writings, he now dis- 

 carded as the injustice of the papal pretensions had 

 become clear to him. A glowing zeal, such as had 

 been seen in the time of the apostles, characterized 

 his masterly writings, addressed to the nobility of 

 Germany, on the mass, on the Babylonish captivity, 

 and on the freedom of a Christian. In these works 

 he attacked the papal doctrines with the weapons of 

 the word of God, and directed attention to the nobler 

 but forgotten doctrines of the gospel. In 1520, when 

 Eck published the papal excommunication against 

 him in Germany, he appealed to a general council ; 

 when his works were burnt at Mentz, Cologne and 

 Louvain, he publicly committed the bull of excom- 

 munication, with the papal canons and decrees, to 

 the flames (December 10) amidst the rejoicings of 

 the students at Wittenberg. This year and the fol- 

 lowing, 1521, are, therefore, to be regarded as the 

 true period of the reformation in Germany; for at 

 this time, Luther formally separated from the Ro- 

 man church, and many of the principal nobles 

 Hutten, Sickingen, Schaumburg, &c., the most 

 eminent scholars, and the university of Wittenberg, 

 to which the young men of Germany and other 

 countries now flocked in multitudes, publicly de- 

 clared in favour of his undertaking. His com- 

 manding appearance, and his bold refusal to recant 

 at the diet of Worms, (April 17, 1521,) the day of 

 his proudest triumph, (see Luther,) gave him the 

 power and dignity of an acknowledged reformer; 

 the edict of Worms and the ban of the emperor, 

 made his cause a political matter. We must not, 

 however, overlook the circumstances which favoured 

 the progress of reformation. The pope had risen 

 chiefly by the support of Germany ; in his transac- 

 tions with the emperor, he had generally been sup- 

 ported by the German princes, who thus maintained 

 their own independence. Rome had, therefore, 

 been obliged to court them in turn, and the empe- 

 ror congratulated himself in silence, if disputes en- 

 sued between them. On the death of Maximilian 

 I. in 1519, the elector Frederic III., who was al- 

 ready the most powerful German prince, held the 

 dignity of a vicar of the empire in all the Saxon 

 territories, and his personal influence gave him the 

 most decisive voice in the election of the new em- 

 peror. The pope, as well as Charles V., who was 

 chosen chiefly by his influence, in 1520, was obliged 

 to consult his wishes : the former in changing the 

 original summons of Luther to Rome, to a conference 

 with his legates, and the latter in suffering the refor- 

 mation to go on without violent opposition, as Ions; 

 as it allowed itself to be responsible to the pope and 

 the Catholic States. By his ten months' residence 

 in the Wartburg, Luther was secured from the first 

 consequences of the ban of the Empire, and the 

 edict of Worms liad so much the less force in Sax- 



