REFORMATION. 



Luther and his adherents; but appealed 

 to the Elector of Saxony, and requested, 

 that if Luther still persisted in his oppo- 

 sition to the church, he might be either 

 sent to Rome, or, at least, banished from 

 his dominions. The Elector refused to 

 comply with either of these requests; 

 and the work of reformation was suffered 

 to go on. 



As it was impossible that the vicar of 

 Christ should enter into a formal dispute 

 with the monk of Wittemberg, nothing 

 now remained, but either to adopt the 

 decisive measure of excommunicating 

 the unbending reformer, or to put his 

 professions of obedience to the test, by a 

 formal decree against his doctrines, and 

 by a papal bull, expressly declaring, that 

 as the Pope is the successor of St. Peter, 

 and vicar of Christ upon earth, he hath 

 an undoubted power of granting indul- 

 gences, which avail as well the living as 

 the dead in purgatory ; and that this doc- 

 trine is essential to the salvation of every 

 true and obedient son of the church. Ac- 

 cordingly, a bull, to this purport, was 

 signed on the 7th day of November, 1518, 

 and published throughout the Christian 

 world. This put the sincerity and bold- 

 ness of Luther to the test, who soon de- 

 cided concerning the measures he should 

 adopt, either of instant and unqualified 

 submission, or open contumacy. Luther 

 determined upon the latter, and com- 

 menced hostilities against the infallibility 

 of the Pope, by an appeal from the au- 

 thority of the supreme head to a general 

 council. Here then commenced that 

 schism which caused even the vicar of 

 Christ to tremble, and which laid a train 

 under the foundations of spiritual domi- 

 nation and superstition, that must one 

 day not only agitate and deform the su- 

 perstructure, as it already has done, but 

 finally destroy the whole fabric, and leave 

 not one stone upon another that shall not 

 be thrown down. 



Nothing now could have prevented the 

 immediate destruction of Luther and his 

 adherents, had not the attention of Europe 

 been drawn aside from theological dis- 

 putes to subjects of political discussion 

 and debate. Luther was therefore suffer- 

 ed, without any great interference, to 

 proceed in the work in which he had en- 

 gaged. By voluntarily offering to submit 

 his opinions to the decisions of reason 

 and revelation, and by making common 

 cause with the friends of freedom and 

 literature, his success exceeded even the 

 most sanguine expectations of his warm- 

 est friends. In what manner Luther con- 



ducted himself after he had succeeded hi 

 establishing a new system of religious 

 faith and discipline, and what were the 

 peculiarities of his creed, the reader will 

 have observed in the articles LUTHE- 

 RANS, and PROTESTANTS. See also RO- 

 MAN CATHOLICS. 



From Germany, by the writings of Lu- 

 ther, and from Switzerland, by the zeal 

 and perseverance ot Zuinglius, the work 

 of reform proceeded to spread itself over 

 Denmark, Sweden, Geneva, Holland, Eng- 

 land, and Scotland. In France, Spain, 

 and Italy, the reformation made compara- 

 tively but little progress. The same also 

 is to be observed of Poland and Russia. 

 The names of the principal reformers are 

 the following, and we are induced to enu- 

 merate them, that by consulting the vari- 

 ous biographical accounts that have, from 

 time to time, been published of them, 

 out- readers may enter more minutely into 

 this very important branch of modern 

 history : 



Luther, Erasmus, and Melancthon ; Cal- 

 vin, Zuinglius, and Oecoiampadins : Bui- 

 linger, Beza, and Martyr. In England, 

 Henry VIII. Edward VI.'Ridley, Lat.mer, 

 Hooper, Cranmer, and Queen Elizuheth. 

 In Scotland, the reformation was f >r\v aid- 

 ed by the zeal and industry of Knox. 

 These are the names of some of those 

 men to whom the religious world is at 

 this time indebted for that freedom of 

 thought, and many of those Christian 



Erivileges, with which it is so eminently 

 ivoured. 



That in every instance the motives of 

 the reformers were pure, we do not con- 

 tend ; nor are we disposed to conceal the 

 fact, that many of them possessed a spi- 

 rit of intolerance inconsistent with the 

 principles of entire liberty. The priestly 

 audacity of Luther, the time-serving po- 

 licy of the learned Erasmus, the censura- 

 ble timidity of Melancthon, and, above 

 all, the fiery spirit and persecuting zeal 

 of Calvin, which condemned to the flames 

 one of the best men of his age, M. Serve- 

 tus, who had presumed to express his 

 doubts concerning the Trinity, are so 

 many blots in the history of the reforma- 

 tion, which Christians of our own time 

 would do well carefully to avoid. For a 

 brief, but elegant, account of the causes 

 and progress of the reformation by Lu- 

 ther, the reader may consult the invalua- 

 ble work of Mr. Roscoe, entitled The Life 

 and Pontificate of Leo the Tenth ; vols. 

 iii. and iv. He should also peruse Bur- 

 net's History of the Reformation, and Dr. 

 Robertson's History of Charles the Fifth. 



