Luther declares he cannot and will not yield those points. Cajetan's wish to send him to Rome. that the Pope is higher than the Councils, for he has recently condemned and punished the council of Basil." After some further discussion, Luther declared in relation to one of the articles in dispute, "If I yielded anything there, I should be denying Christ. I cannot, therefore, and will not yield that point, but by God's help will hold it to the end." Cardinal Cajetan could hardly restrain his temper at this bold and decisive declaration, and exclaimed with some warmth, "Whether you will or will not, you must this very day retract that article, or else for that article alone, I will proceed to reject and condemn all your doctrine." "I have no will but the Lord's," boldly declared Luther. "He will do with me what seemeth good in his sight. But had I a hundred heads, I would rather lose them all than retract the testimony I have borne to the holy Christian faith." 66 "I am not come here to argue with you," said Cajetan. "Retract, or prepare to endure the punishment you have deserved." Luther clearly perceived that it was impossible to end the affair by a conference. His adversary was seated before him as though he himself were Pope, and required an humble submission to all that he said to him, whilst he received Luther's answers, even when grounded on the holy Scriptures, with shrugs, and every kind of irony and contempt. Having, therefore, shown a disposition to withdraw: "Do you wish," said the Legate to him, "that I should give you a safe-conduct to repair to Rome ?" Nothing would have pleased Cajetan better than the acceptance of this offer. He would thus have got rid of an affair of which he began to perceive the difficulties, and Luther and his heresy would have fallen into the hands of those who would have known how to deal with them. But the reformer, who was sensible of the dangers that surrounded him even at Augsburg, took care to refuse an offer that would have delivered him up, bound hand and foot, to the vengeance of his enemies. He rejected the proposal as often as Cajetan chose to repeat it which he did several times. The Legate concealed the chagrin he felt at Luther's refusal; he assumed an air of dignity, and dismissed the monk with a compassionate smile, under which he endeavored to hide his disappointment, and at the same time, with the politeness of one who hopes to have better success another time. § 90-After two other interviews with the Legate, of which the first may be regarded as a specimen, Luther saw that his powerful opponent would listen to no argument from Scripture, and would be satisfied with nothing short of an unconditional retraction. A rumor, moreover, reached him that if he did not retract, he was to be seized and thrown into a dungeon. When the Imperial counsellors, through the Bishop of Trent, had informed the Legate that Luther was under the protection of the Emperor's safe-conduct, he had passionately replied, "Be it so, but I shall do what the Pope enjoins me." We have already seen that the Pope's orders were to secure his person, detain him in safe custody, and bring him as a Luther's departure from Augsburg. His escape from his popish adversaries. prisoner to Rome. (See page 451.) His friends advised him, before the opportunity might be irrevocably lost, to return from Augsburg. They knew Cajetan well enough to be satisfied that he would scruple at no means to get Luther into his power, and the lessons of Constance had taught them how little an emperor's safe-conduct might avail with popish moralists to save a victim from the flames. They suspected that the Legate might be even then in communication with the Emperor to induce him to revoke or to violate his safeconduct. § 91. For these reasons they advised Luther to seize the opportunity of returning to Wittemberg, and he followed their advice. They advised him to take every possible precaution, fearing, that if his departure were known, it might be opposed. He followed their directions as well as he could. A horse, that Staupitz had left at his disposal, was brought to the door of the convent. Once more he bids adieu to his brethren: he then mounts and sets out, without a bridle for his horse, without boots or spurs, and unarmed. The magistrate of the city had sent him as a guide, a horseman, who was well acquainted with the roads. This man conducts him in the dark through the silent streets of Augsburg. They direct their course to a little gate in the wall of the city. One of the counsellors, Langemantel, had ordered that it should be opened to him. He is still in the Legate's power. The hand of Rome is still over him; doubtless, if the Italians knew that their prey was escaping, the cry of pursuit would be raised :—who knows whether the intrepid adversary of Rome may not still be seized and thrown into prison? . . . At last Luther and his guide arrive at the little gate-they pass through. They are out of Augsburg; and putting their horses into a gallop, they soon leave the city far behind them. Luther urged his horse and kept the poor animal at full speed. He called to mind the real or supposed flight of John Huss, the manner in which he was overtaken, and the assertion of his adversaries, who affirmed that Huss having, by his flight, annulled the Emperor's safe-conduct, they had a right to condemn him to the flames. However, these uneasy feelings did not long occupy Luther's mind. Having got clear from the city where he had spent ten days under that terrible hand of Rome which had already crushed so many thousand witnesses for the truth, and shed so much blood,-at large, breathing the open air, traversing the villages and plains, and wonderfully delivered by the arm of the Lord, his whole soul overflowed with praise. He might well say: "Our soul is escaped as a bird out of the snare of the fowlers; the snare is broken, and we are delivered. Our help is in the name of God, who made heaven and earth.” Thus was the heart of Luther filled with joy. But his thoughts again reverted to De Vio: "The Cardinal," thought he, "would have been well pleased to get me into his power and send me to Rome. He is, no doubt, mortified that I have escaped from him. He thought he had me in his clutches at Augsburg. He thought he held me fast; but he was holding an eel by the tail. Shame that Reaches Wittemberg. these people should set so high a price upon me! They would give many crowns to have me in their power, whilst our Saviour Christ was sold for thirty pieces of silver." Luther reached Wittemberg on the 30th of October, and found on his arrival, that the disappointed Legate had written a letter to the Elector, breathing vengeance against the "contemptible monk" that had escaped him, and earnestly entreating Frederick to send him as a prisoner to Rome, or at least to banish him from his territories. The Elector refused to deliver up Luther to the tender mercies of Rome, and the Reformer appealed from the decision of the Pope to a General Council. This appeal was made at Wittemberg, in the chapel of Corpus Christi, on the 28th of November, 1518. CHAPTER VIII. LUTHER STRIKES AT THE THRONE OF ANTI-CHRIST. THE BREACH MADE IRREPARABLE. § 92.-Pope Leo dispatched another legate, Charles Miltitz, to Germany, who, warned by the result of Cajetan's mission, tried the effect of mildness, persuasion and guile; and his courtly and crafty entreaties so far availed, as to induce Luther, on the 3d of March, 1519, to write to the Pope a respectful epistle, declaring that though he could not retract his doctrines, he would "not seek to weaken, either by force or artifice, the power of the Roman church or of his Holiness." We are to remember, however, that the light burst upon. Luther's mind only by degrees. Though he had attacked with all his might the popish doctrine of indulgences and human merits, yet he had not learned, as he afterwards did, that the anti-Christian power which originated and gave to those indulgences all their efficacy, was itself a hideous usurpation, which must be struck down by the lightning of God's holy word. 66 Not long afterward, the light on this subject dawned gradually on his mind. He studied the decretals of the Popes, and the discoveries he made, materially modified his ideas. He wrote to Spalatin"I am reading the decretals of the pontiffs, and, let me whisper it in your ear, I know not whether the Pope is anti-Christ himself, or whether he is his apostle; so misrepresented, and even crucified, does Christ appear in them." At length a challenge from the scholastic Doctor Eck upon the question of the primacy of Rome brought Luther to the bold avowal of the truth he had by this time discovered, contained in the following thesis "It is by contemptible decretals of Roman pontiffs, com. Luther disputes with Doctor Eck at Leipsic, on the primacy of the Pope. posed hardly four centuries ago, that it is attempted to prove the primacy of the Roman church;-but arrayed against this claim are eleven centuries of credible history, the express declarations of Scripture, and the conclusions of the Council of Nice, the most venerable of all the councils." § 93.-Eck and Luther met as combatants at Leipsic, and the public disputation between them commenced on the 4th of July. The subject was the primacy of the Pope. "The doctor," said Eck, "requires of me a proof that the primacy of the church of Rome is of divine right; I find that proof in the words of Christ- Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church.' St. Augustine, in one of his epistles, has thus explained the meaning of the passage Thou art Peter, and on this rock, that is to say, on Peter, I will build my church.' It is true, that Augustine has elsewhere said, that by this rock we must understand Christ himself, but he has not retracted his first explanation."-"If the reverend doctor," replied Luther, "brings against me these words of St. Augustine, let him himself first reconcile such opposite assertions. For certain it is, that St. Augustine has repeatedly said, that the rock was Christ, and hardly once that it was Peter himself. But even though St. Augustine and all the Fathers should say that the Apostle is the rock of which Christ spake, I would, if I should stand alone, deny the assertion-supported by the authority of the Holy Scripturein other words by divine right-for it is written, Other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, even Christ Jesus. Peter himself calls Christ the chief-corner stone, and living rock, on which we are built up, a spiritual house." It was during this discussion that Luther ventured publicly to speak with approval of some of the doctrines of Wickliff and Huss, in the following words-" Among the articles of John Huss and the Bohemians, there are some that are most agreeable to Christ. This is certain; and of this sort is that article: 'There is only One church universal;' and again: That it is not necessary to salvation that we should believe the Roman church superior to others.' It matters little to me whether Wickliff or Huss said it. It is Truth." These words produced an immense sensation on the audience. Some expressed aloud their feelings at the temerity of a monk, in a Catholic assembly, speaking with respect of Wickliff and Huss, those execrable heresiarchs, whom the church had condemned, anathematized and burned. Luther did not give way to this burst of murmurs. "Gregory Nazianzen," continued he, with noble calmness, "Basil the Great, Epiphanius, Chrysostom, and a great many other Greek bishops, are saved; and yet they never believed that the church of Rome was superior to other churches. It does not belong to the Roman pontiffs to add new articles of faith. There is no authority for the beieving Christian but the Holy Scripture. It, alone, is of divine right. I beg the worthy Dr. Eck to grant me that the Roman pontiffs have been men, and not to speak of them as if they were Gods Horror produced among the monks by the heresies of Luther. Ulric Zwingle, the Swiss reformer As a proof of the horror produced among the blinded adherents of Rome, by the bold assertions of Luther, it is related that during this dispute at Leipsic, Luther one Sunday entered the church of the Dominicans just before high mass. There were present only a few monks, who were going through the earlier masses at the lower altars. As soon as it was known in the cloister that the heretic Luther was in the church, the monks ran together in haste, caught up the remonstrance, and, taking it to its receptacle, carefully shut it up, lest the holy sacrament should be profaned by the impure eyes of the Augustin of Wittemberg. While this was doing, they who were reading mass collected together the sacred furniture, quitted the altar, crossed the church, and sought refuge in the sacristy, as if, says a historian, the devil himself had been behind them. § 94.-At length pope Leo, who for some time had been too much occupied with intrigues relative to the election of an Emperor to succeed the deceased Maximilian, to concern himself very much about the progress of the growing heresy, awoke to the importance of striking a decisive blow. Accordingly, on the 15th of June, 1520, he issued his bull of condemnation against Luther, anathematizing his doctrines and his books, and commanding the latter to be collected and burnt wherever they could be found. In the opinion of Dr. Merle, Luther, courageous as he was, would, even after the disputation of Eck, have been silent if Rome herself had kept silence, or shown any desire to make concessions. But God had not allowed the reformation to be dependent on the weakness of man's heart; Luther was in the hands of One whose eye penetrated results. Divine providence made use of the Pope to break every link between the past and the future, and to throw the reformer into a course altogether unknown, and leading he knew not whither. The Papal bull was Rome's bill of divorce addressed to the pure church of Jesus Christ in the person of one who was then standing as her humble but faithful representative; and the church accepted it, that she might thenceforward hold only from her Head who is in heaven. Whilst at Rome, the condemnation of Luther was sought for with violent animosity, an humble priest, an inhabitant of one of the rude towns of Switzerland, who never had any intercourse with the reformer, had been deeply affected at the thought of the blow which hung over him, and whilst even the intimates of the doctor of Wittemberg were silent and trembling, this Swiss mountaineer formed the resolution to do his utmost to arrest the dreaded bull! His name was ULRIC ZWINGLE. The Swiss priest dreaded the consequences to the church of so severe a blow struck at Luther. He labored hard to induce a papal nuncio in Switzerland, who was his friend, to employ all his influence with Leo to deter him from excommunicating Luther. "The dignity of the holy See itself is concerned in it," said he; "for if things come to such a pass, Germany, enthusiastically attached to the Gospel and its teacher, will |