Martin Luther, an Austin friar, professor in the university of Wittemberg, resenting the affront put upon his order, began to preach against these abuses in the sale of indulgences; and being naturally of a fiery temper, and provoked by opposition, he proceeded even to decry indulgences themselves; and was thence carried, by the heat of dispute, to question the authority of the pope, from which his adversaries derived their chief arguments against him.[***] Still, as he enlarged his reading, in order to support these tenets, he discovered some new abuse or error in the church of Rome; and finding his opinions greedily hearkened to, he promulgated them by writing, discourse, sermon, conference; and daily increased the number of his disciples.

All Saxony, all Germany, all Europe, were in a very little time filled with the voice of this daring innovator; and men, roused from that lethargy in which they had so long slept, began to call in question the most ancient and most received opinions.

The elector of Saxony, favorable to Luther's doctrine, protected him from the violence of the papal jurisdiction: the republic of Zurich even reformed their church according to the new model: many sovereigns of the empire, and the imperial diet itself, showed a favorable disposition towards it: and Luther, a man naturally inflexible, vehement, opinionative, was become incapable, either from promises of advancement or terrors of severity, to relinquish a sect of which he was himself the founder, and which brought him a glory superior to all others--the glory of dictating the religious faith and principles of multitudes.
* See note D, at the end of the volume.
** Father Paul, lib.

i.
*** Father Paul.

Sleidan The rumor of these innovations soon reached England and as there still subsisted in that kingdom great remains of the Lollards, whose principles resembled those of Luther, the new doctrines secretly gained many partisans among the laity of all ranks and denominations.