zealous Luther, an heroical Luther, as [6425]Dithmarus Calls him, dare
touch the monks' bellies, all is in a combustion, all is in an uproar:
Demetrius and his associates are ready to pull him in pieces, to keep up
their trades, [6426] "Great is Diana of the Ephesians:" with a mighty shout
of two hours long they will roar and not be pacified.

Now for their authority, what by auricular confession, satisfaction,
penance, Peter's keys, thunderings, excommunications, &c., roaring bulls,
this high priest of Rome, shaking his Gorgon's head, hath so terrified the
soul of many a silly man, insulted over majesty itself, and swaggered
generally over all Europe for many ages, and still doth to some, holding
them as yet in slavish subjection, as never tyrannising Spaniards did by
their poor Negroes, or Turks by their galley-slaves. [6427]"The bishop of
Rome" (saith Stapleton, a parasite of his, _de mag. Eccles. lib. 2. cap.
1._) "hath done that without arms, which those Roman emperors could never
achieve with forty legions of soldiers," deposed kings, and crowned them
again with his foot, made friends, and corrected at his pleasure, &c.
[6428] "'Tis a wonder," saith Machiavel, _Florentinae, his. lib. 1._ "what
slavery King Henry II. endured for the death of Thomas a Beckett, what
things he was enjoined by the Pope, and how he submitted himself to do that
which in our times a private man would not endure," and all through
superstition. [6429]Henry IV. disposed of his empire, stood barefooted with
his wife at the gates of Canossus. [6430]Frederic the Emperor was trodden
on by Alexander III., another held Adrian's stirrup, King John kissed the
knees of Pandulphos the Pope's legate, See. What made so many thousand
Christians travel from France, Britain, &c., into the Holy Land, spend such
huge sums of money, go a pilgrimage so familiarly to Jerusalem, to creep
and crouch, but slavish superstition? What makes them so freely venture
their lives, to leave their native countries, to go seek martyrdom in the
Indies, but superstition? to be assassins, to meet death, murder kings, but
a false persuasion of merit, of canonical or blind obedience which they
instil into them, and animate them by strange illusions, hope of being
martyrs and saints: such pretty feats can the devil work by priests, and so
well for their own advantage can they play their parts. And if it were not
yet enough, by priests and politicians to delude mankind, and crucify t