The Life on Martin Luther (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1856 Excerpt: ... in turn proclaimed her heretical, schismatical, and diabolical; she had excommunicated him, and he 1520. had excommunicated her, appealing to Jesus Christ as Judge. An additional requital remained. Rome had burnt his books, and he was resolved to deliver her volumes in turn to the flames; and he was well aware that if this act should be participated in by the masters and scholars of the University, it would be a demonstration to the world that Wittenberg went heart and hand with her great professor. The University reply to Eck's letter, and the bull, had been framed in the presence of Luther and Carlstadt, and in accordance with their wishes; but it was evident that an overt act of the University, marking condemnation of and secession from Rome at such a juncture, would speak with more power to the popular mind than any written document. Luther, therefore, had notices aflixed throughout Wittenberg, that on Monday the 10th December, at nine o'clock in the morning, at a spot behind the poor's house, a mile and a half from the town, the Antichristian decretals would be given to the flames. The enthusiasm elicited by the occasion even exceeded expectation. The inhabitants of Wittenberg flocked to witness the spectacle with the ready zeal of earnest partisans; and the students, not far short of six hundred in number, hastened in a troop with the still more glowing fervour of youth and scholastic interest to the place of conflagration. At the appointed time, or soon after, the pile was built up and set fire to by a Master of Arts of distinction; and then, Luther coming forward, threw first the Decretals, Clementines, Extravagants, and Canon Law, with sundry writings of Eck, Emser, and Dungersheim, and the " Summa Angelica," into the flames, and finally...