epudiation of study and learning and all
proper church order; and the Sacramentarians, with their insidious
rationalism against the plain Word,--were not to be entrusted with
the momentous interests with which the cause of the Reformation was
freighted. And hence, at the risk of the Elector's displeasure and at
the peril of his life, Luther came forth from his covert to withstand
the violence which was putting everything in jeopardy.

Grandly also did he reason out the genuine Gospel principles against
all these parties. He comprehended his ground from centre to
circumference, and he held it alike against erring friends and
menacing foes. The swollen torrent of events never once obscured his
prophetic insight, never disturbed the balance of his judgment, never
shook his hold upon the right. With a master-power he held revolutions
and wars in check, while he revised and purified the Liturgy and Order
of the Church, wrought out the evangelic truth in its applications to
existing things, and reared the renewed habilitation of the pure Word
and sacraments.

GROWTH OF THE REFORMATION.

It was now that Pope Leo died. His glory lasted but eight years. His
successor, Adrian VI., was a moderate man, of good intentions, though
he could not see what evil there was in indulgences. He exhorted
Germany to get rid of Luther, but said the Church must be reformed,
that the Holy See had been for years horribly polluted, and that the
evils had affected head and members. He was in solemn earnest this
time, and began to change and purify the papal court. To some this was
as if the voice of Luther were being echoed from St. Peter's chair,
and Adrian suddenly died, no man knows of what,[16] and Clement VII.,
a relative of Leo X., was put upon the papal throne.

In 1524 a Diet was convened at Nuremberg with reference to these same
matters. Campeggio, the pope's legate, thought it prudent to make his
way thither without letting himself be known, and wrote back to his
master that he had to be very cautious, as the majority of the Diet
consisted of "great Lutherans." At this Diet the Edict of Worms was
virtually annulled, and it was plain enough that "great Lutherans" had
become very numerous and powerful.

Luther himself had become of sufficient consequence for Henry VIII.,
king of England, to write a book against him, for which the pope gave
him the title of "Defender of the Faith," and for which Luther repaid
him in his own coin. Erasm