papal
authority. With a rapidity probably unexpected by him, his acts excited
public attention so strongly, that, though the pope was at first
disposed to regard the whole affair as a mere monkish squabble for
gains, it soon became obvious, from the manner in which the commotion
was spreading, that something must be done to check it. The pope
therefore summoned Luther to Rome to answer for himself; but through the
influence of certain great personages, and receiving a submissive letter
from the accused, he, on reconsideration, referred the matter to
Cardinal Cajetan, his legate in Germany. The cardinal, on looking into
the affair, ordered Luther to retract; and now came into prominence the
mental qualities of this great man. Luther, with respectful firmness,
refused; but remembering John Huss, and fearing that the imperial
safe-conduct which had been given to him would be insufficient for his
protection, he secretly returned to Wittenberg, having first, however,
solemnly appealed from the pope, ill informed at the time, to the pope
when he should have been better instructed. Thereupon he was condemned
as a heretic. Undismayed, he continued to defend his opinions, but,
finding himself in imminent danger, he fell upon the suggestion which,
since the days of Philip the Fair, had been recognized as the true
method of dealing with the papacy, and appealed to a general council as
the true representative of the Church, and therefore superior to the
pope, who is not infallible any more than St. Peter himself had been. To
this denial of papal authority he soon added a dissent from the
doctrines of purgatory, auricular confession, absolution. [Sidenote: The
right of individual judgment asserted.] It was now that the grand idea
which had hitherto silently lain at the bottom of the whole movement
emerged into prominence--the right of individual judgment--under the
dogma that it is not papal authority which should be the guide of life,
but the Bible, and that the Bible is to be interpreted by private
judgment. Thus far it had been received that the Bible derives its
authenticity and authority from the Church; now it was asserted that the
Church derives her authenticity and authority from the Bible. At this
moment there was but one course for the Italian court to take with the
audacious offender, for this new doctrine of the right of exercising
private judgment in matters of faith was dangerous to the last extreme,
and not to be tole