ries, have obtained greater circulation than I ever expected, they have likewise sunk too deeply into the minds of multitudes to be ever recalled. Besides this,

my country, Germany, is at this time so flourishing in genius, learning and good sense, that, if I would really honour the Roman See, I should best do so by not retracting anything; seeing that such retractation would have no other effect than to disgrace the church more and more, and to furnish every man with a reason for accusing it. Those are they who have brought injury and almost infamy upon that church; those, most holy father, whom I in the midst of Germany have resisted; those who in their senseless discourses, preached in your name, have promoted nothing but the basest avarice. And then, as if this were not crime enough, they accuse me, the opponent of their monstrous proceedings, as the author of their temerity.

"And now, most holy father, I protest, before God and before the whole of God's creation, that I have never desired, nor do I now desire, to touch in any way, or undermine by any stratagem, the authority of the church and of the Pope. On the other hand, I most unreservedly confess that the authority of that church is above all things, and that there is nothing to be preferred to it either in heaven or earth, except Jesus Christ the Lord of all things.* And I beseech your highness not to believe anything different from this that any slanderer may invent concerning Luther.

"There is only one step now possible for me in this

*"Coram Deo et tota Creatura sua testor, me neque voluisse neque hodie velle Ecclesiæ Romanæ ac Beatitudinis vestræ potestatem ullo modo tangere aut quacunque versutia demoliri; quin plenissime confiteor, hujus Ecclesiæ potestatem esse super omnia, neque ei præferendum quicquam sive in cœlo sive in terris, præter unum Jesum Christum, dominum omnium."

matter, and I will take it. I most freely promise that I will henceforward abstain from this question about indulgences, and altogether hold my peace, provided my adversaries shall also repress their bombastic nonsense. I will also publish an address to the people, to instruct and move them to pay pure reverence to the Roman church, and neither to impute to it the temerity of its agents, nor to imitate that excessive asperity which I have used towards it in my contests with those pitiful fellows; and thus, by God's grace, this discord may probably be put to rest. For my own part, I had no other object than this: that our mother the church of Rome might not be polluted by the baseness of an avarice which did not belong to her; nor the people seduced into error and taught to prefer indulgences to charity. All the other considerations, being in fact indifferent, are held in less esteem by me.* But if there be anything more which I can do or learn, doubtless I will most readily perform it. May Christ preserve your holiness for evermore !"

Two days afterwards Luther wrote to Spalatin a letter containing a paragraph which may be considered as explanatory of the most obsequious portion of the above epistle: "It has never been my intention or wish to fall away from the apostolical See of Rome. Nay, I am even content that the Pope should be called, or even that he should be, the Lord of all. What is this to me, who know that even the Turk is to be honoured and endured when placed in authority?"

The letter to the Pope was written on the 5th of March, nearly two months after the conference with

*"Cætera omnia, ut sunt neutralia, a me vilius æstimantur. Si autem et plura facere potero aut cognovero sine dubio paratissimus ero?"

Miltitz. Thus was it a step taken on perfect deliberation, and as such it requires some remarks from the historian. For though it is not in any sense a satisfactory office to examine with critical minuteness the actions of great men, to weigh with a nice scale their supposed motives, to detect and proclaim their little inconsistencies, to cast stains upon the immortal vestment in which their successful deeds have robed them, and bring them nearer to the common nakedness of our poor humanity-yet in this instance the early history of the Reformation is so much the history of the individual; so much value is attached by all writers to all that he did and said at that period; so much did for the moment really depend upon his conduct and his character, that I may be permitted to bestow a short and of course impartial notice upon the document which has been just inserted.

I shall not dwell upon the motive which he there claims for his original opposition to the preaching of indulgences to defend the honour of the Roman church; nor on that which alone he assigns for refusing retractation that it would then have been useless and even prejudicial to the See: neither of these was strictly true, nor in accordance with his private and more honest declarations; yet, as neither of them was altogether false, they may very well be excused in an unprotected monk, conciliating an offended pontiff. As to the love of peace which he professed and his desire for retirement and repose and silence, I might remark that even at that moment he was meditating a public disputation at Leipsig, in which not only the whole subject of indulgences, but even the foundations of the Papal authority, were to be very boldly discussed. But I shall pass on to some other observations which are of greater importance.

In the above epistle Luther professed as high principles respecting the authority of the church and Pope, and

as unreserved an obedience to it, as were professed in the councils of Leo himself; for Prierias, who took the only remaining step and proclaimed its superiority to that of Scripture, was silenced about this time by the power which he thus unseasonably exaggerated. This profession he made in no cold or stinted terms, but with the energy and earnestness of seeming sincerity, and with the strongest disavowal of any wish or intention in any way to overthrow or undermine that monstrous authority. Yet in the December preceding (Dec. 11, 1518), in a letter to Wenceslaus Link, he wrote: "I will send you these compositions of mine, that you may judge whether I am right in my divination when I assert, that that true Antichrist mentioned by St. Paul reigns in the court of Rome, and is, as I think I can prove, a greater pest than the Turks." And only ten days after his letter to the Pope he addressed these confidential expressions to Spalatin: "I am sifting the pontifical decretals with a view to my disputation (at Leipsig); and, to whisper to you the truth, I am not determined whether the Pope be Antichrist himself or only his apostle, so cruelly is Christ (which is the truth) corrupted and crucified by him in his decretals. I am in perfect torture when I consider that the people of Christ are thus mocked, under the pretence of the laws and name of Christ."*

It may be that the influence of the Elector, who was extremely anxious for the peaceful termination of the affair, prevailed over the more secret principles of Luther. He have been moved by fear-he may may have yielded

* "Verso decreta pontificum pro mea disputatione; et, in aurem tibi loquor, nescio an papa sit antichristus ipse, vel apostolus ejus; adeo misere corrumpitur et crucifigitur Christus (id est, Veritas) ab eo in decretis. Discrucior mirum in modum, sic illudi populum Christi specie legum et Christiani nominis." Luther to Spalatin, March 13, 1519. (No. 127.)

to the awe which he yet felt for all established authority, in whatever wickedness it might be founded. Now, it is very easy to censure him for all this, and to point out the lofty language which he ought to have held, as the defender of evangelical truth. But we should first reflect that the revolution within him was then only in its progress-the struggle was yet raging in his bosom-the struggle betwixt prejudices carefully implanted by his education and fostered by his profession, and the strong natural power of reason and justice. And with Luther the conflict was peculiarly severe, for his mind was not formed to receive light impressions; what it grasped with eagerness it retained with tenacity, and, had it not been gifted with a counteracting force of extraordinary intensity, it might have continued ever, such as it once was, "steeped" in the papal principles.

Another remark that I must make is this: In this epistle Luther contracted his opposition to the church within the narrowest possible limits. He confined himself to the point to which, in his conference with Gaetan, he had professed to attach the least importance; and he placed among things indifferent (neutralia) and of low estimation those, on which he had then set the highest value. In this he did indeed follow the view in which these matters were regarded at Rome; and unquestionably he retracted nothing, and reserved his right of private judgment unimpaired. Still it was some compromise of the truth; it was some sacrifice of religious principle to consent to pass over in obsequious silence what he had so lately thought, and what he must still have thought, essential.

We may observe besides that the promises which he made and the advice which he offered were precisely those best calculated to destroy the effects of his former exertions and annul the hopes of reformation. He pro