to preserve the ancient constitution of the empire from being impaired or dissolved by their irregular and licentious conduct. Though the emperor did not name the persons whom he charged with such high crimes, and destined to be the objects of his vengeance, it was obvious that he had the Elector of Saxony and the Landgrave of Hesse in view. Their deputies considering what he had said as a plain declaration of his hostile intentions, immediately retired from Ratisbon." The diet soon after broke up (on the 24th of July), and both parties openly prepared for war.

On the emperor's conduct in all this business we must pronounce, that the meanness, deceit, and tyranny by which it was characterized, are in the highest degree offensive to every sentiment of honour and justice. Yet all is vindicated, and even applauded, both by Pallavicini and Maimbourg, because it was to serve the church! Nothing could have been more agreeable to our feelings, than to have seen Charles, after all his artifice and contrivance, taken unprepared, and defeated at the head of the troops which he had got together, and the forces of his prompter, the pope, cut off before they could reach the scene of action; all which had wellnigh taken place, and, humanly speaking, might easily have been effected. Thus the liberty of Germany might have been established, and the Protestant religion placed in security. This would have exactly met our wishes; but to that higher Wisdom which controls all occurrences, and watches with an eye of special regard over the affairs of the church, it seemed good to permit a widely different course of events. It pleased Him, indeed, ultimately to establish the cause of the German Protestants in safety but, according to the anticipations which we have repeatedly seen the leading reformers entertaining, their church was to be previously humbled and purified. It was His good pleasure also to bring down the pride, and to disappoint the ambition of Charles V., as effectually, and in as mortifying a manner, as if it had been accomplished by the elector and the landgrave; but it was to be by the hand of a man of far less principle than either of them, whom the emperor himself was, with the most unsuspecting confidence, nourishing up to execute both these great designs of Providence. Here then we are strikingly taught to commit our ways to God, to leave all with him, and in faith and

patience to wait the unfolding of his dispensations, who will infallibly bring about the events most to be desired in the time and by the means which are the best to be chosen.

Such were, in fact, the sentiments with which the pious Elector of Saxony received the news of the emperor's virtual denunciation of him as a rebel, whom he would forthwith proceed to punish as he deserved. In directing his deputies quietly to withdraw from Ratisbon, he said," he had merited no such treatment from the emperor's hands; that, whatever might be pretended, his religion was the real cause of it; and that he committed the event to God, who would undoubtedly direct the whole to the glory of his own name. By his grace," he added, "I have resolved to persevere even to the end in the confession of his word and truth, though it should be at the risk of my person, my life, and all that I possess." He rejoiced to hear that the confederates were not dispirited! he relied on the Divine aid; and, in conjunction with the landgrave, resolved to do every thing in his power for the common cause.

Two honourable instances of states which joined the Protestant cause, even in its present perilous circumstances, demand to be here recorded. One of these was the Palatinate of the Rhine. We have before related the reformation of the Upper Palatinate, or that of Bavaria. In the year 1545, the Lower Palatinate, or Palatinate of the Rhine, which is of much superior importance, its prince enjoying the electoral dignity, followed the example. Frederic the present elector had married the emperor's niece, the daughter of Christiern King of Denmark. He was a great favourite with the emperor, and had been repeatedly employed by him in his transactions with the Protestants: the consequence of which was, very contrary to what had been intended, that he became strongly impressed in favour of their principles. He succeeded his brother Lewis in the year 1544. Like many others, he had indulged in the hope that a general reformation, or at least a legal establishment of the reformed religion, would be the result of so many conferences and so much discussion; and he was willing to wait for this happy Finding all these, however, issue in nothing, he thought himself called, at length, to countenance by his authority the system which he approved, and to gratify the

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wishes of his subjects, who, by their intercourse with the Protestant states, had universally imbibed their opinions. In all this he was materially prompted and aided by his relation and destined successor, Otho Henry, of whom mention has been made in speaking of the other Palatinate.

The case of Leutkirk, a free imperial city of Suabia, is still more honourable, because its avowal of the principles of the reformation was made when the danger had still further increased, and notwithstanding formidable opposition, both from persons possessing civil authority in the city, and from powerful eclesiastical establishments in the neighbour- . hood. The thirst after evangelical truth appears to have been first excited here by the publication of the Confession of Augsburg, in the year 1531: but it was strenuously resisted by Faber, a native of the place-the same who was afterward raised to the see of Vienna for his opposition to Luther. By his influence a faction was kept up in the city, which effectually withstood the public reception of the reformation till the year 1546, when the opposition was overborne; not, it must be confessed, without some disorders taking place. Protestantism was then introduced, and, notwithstanding many conflicts and some reverses, it has been maintained there to this day.

CHAPTER XXV.

Closing Transactions of Luther's Life-His Death-His Character-His later Writings.

We now proceed more particularly to describe the closing scenes of Luther's life.

He completed his sixty-second year in the month of November, 1545; and he did not survive that period so much as three months. For some years previously he seems scarcely to have written a letter in which he did not anticipate his approaching dissolution; and often his expressions of desire for his dismissal, and for the heavenly rest, are very ardent. Indeed, he had, in his many and increasing infirmities, sufficient warning that the time of his departure

was at hand. He was troubled with excruciating pains in the head, which nearly deprived him of the sight of one eye; his legs swelled, and he suffered severely from the stone. His enemies, however, were not able to wait with patience for an event which could not now be far distant; and a pretended account of his death, as having been accompanied with "a miracle, wrought by God for the honour of Christ, the terror of the wicked, and the comfort of good men," was in the year 1545 printed and circulated in Italy. The story is so absurd that it hardly deserves to be repeated, except to show what some men were wicked enough to invent, and others weak enough to receive at that time. It set forth that Luther, finding death approaching, had called for the sacrament, and immediately after receiving it had expired; that before his death he had desired that his corpse might be placed upon the altar, and there receive Divine honours-which desire, however, had not been complied with; that when his body was interred a tremendous storm arose, which threatened destruction to every thing around, and that the affrighted spectators looking up saw the host, which the impious man had presumed to receive, hovering in the air; that this having been taken with great reverence and deposited in a sacred place, the tempest ceased, but at night returned with still greater fury; that in the morning, the grave being opened, no vestige of the body could be found, but a horrible stench of brimstone proceeded from the place, by which the health of the bystanders was seriously affected; and that the consequence of all this had been, the return of many persons into the bosom of the Catholic Church. The paper containing this account was brought to Luther, and he caused it to be reprinted with this addition, "I, Doctor Martin Luther, testify under my hand, that I have received this extravagant fiction this 21st day of March, and read it with great pleasure-except for the abominable lies against the Divine Majesty which it contains. It gratifies me exceedingly to find myself so obnoxious to Satan, and to his agents, the pope and papists. May God convert and recover them from the power of the devil! or, if my prayers for them must be in vain, owing to their having committed the sin unto death,' then may God grant that they may soon fill up their measure, and that they may find their joy and

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comfort only in writing such tales as this! Let us leave them alone they go whither they have chosen to go. shall see whether they can be saved; and how they will repent them of the lies and blasphemies with which they fill the world."

It would certainly have been highly gratifying to record, that in the closing period of Luther's life the ruggedness of his temper had been softened down, and that his latter days were passed only in peace and love. Fidelity, however requires us to acknowledge, that painful traces of asperity still occasionally appear, and those inflamed, and at the same time partially, though only partially, excused by the irritability produced by age and growing infirmities. The sacramental controversy still vexed him, and he was not a little displeased at Melancthon, for being less severe than himself in his judgment of the Zwinglians. The elector, however, successfully interfered to compose this difference. But several other things in the state of Wittemberg much disturbed his mind; particularly the corruption of manners, and the number of clandestine marriages contracted by the students, which, being confirmed by the legal authorities (who still acted upon the pontifical regulations concerning such subjects), threatened to be very injurious to the university itself. Luther, in consequence, rather suddenly left Wittemberg and went to Leipzig; visited George of Anhalt at Mersberg, Amsdorf at Naumburg, and other friends; and was not at all inclined to return home-urging that this was "the last year of his life, and he wished to spend it at a distance from scenes which disquieted him." Much allowance is certainly due to an aged man, who had passed such a life of labour and conflict as, Luther had done, and who now, in the midst of many personal afflictions, sought repose. His indisposition to return was, however, overcome. The elector wrote to him with exquisite tenderness and prudence; the university likewise addressed him, and he yielded to their united entreaties. Indeed, it seems clear from this, and from what are known to have been the closing occupations of his life, that his dejection and discontent were but transient-the passing shade rather than the settled colour of his mind, the usual tone and temper of which he ere long recovered.