purgatory, transubstantiation, auricular confession, absolution, the fundamental idea which lay at the bottom of the whole movement came into relief, the right of individual judgment; how Luther was now excommunicated, A.D. 1520, and in defiance burnt the bull of excommunication and the volumes of the canon law, which he denounced as aiming at the subversion of all civil government, and the exaltation of the papacy; how by this skillful manoeuvre he brought over many of the German princes to his views; how, summoned before the Imperial Diet at Worms, he refused to retract, and, while he was bidden in the castle of Wartburg, his doctrines were spreading, and a reformation under Zwingli broke out in Switzerland; how the principle of sectarian decomposition embedded in the movement gave rise to rivalries and dissensions between the Germans and the Swiss, and even divided the latter among themselves under the leadership of Zwingli and of Calvin; how the Conference of Marburg, the Diet of Spires, and that at Augsburg, failed to compose the troubles, and eventually the German Reformation assumed a political organization at Smalcalde.  The quarrels between the Lutherans and the Calvinists gave hopes to Rome that she might recover her losses.

Leo was not slow to discern that the Lutheran Reformation was something more serious than a squabble among some monks about the profits of indulgence-sales, and the papacy set itself seriously at work to overcome the revolters.  It instigated the frightful wars that for so many years desolated Europe, and left animosities which neither the Treaty of Westphalia, nor the Council of Trent after eighteen years of debate, could compose.  No one can read without a shudder the attempts that were made to extend the Inquisition in foreign countries.  All Europe, Catholic and Protestant, was horror- stricken at the Huguenot massacre of St. Bartholomew’s Eve (A.D. 1572).  For perfidy and atrocity it has no equal in the annals of the world.

The desperate attempt in which the papacy had been engaged to put down its opponents by instigating civil wars, massacres, and assassinations, proved to be altogether abortive.  Nor had the Council of Trent any better result.  Ostensibly summoned to correct, illustrate, and fix with perspicacity the doctrine of the Church, to restore the vigor of its discipline, and to reform the lives of its ministers, it was so manipulated that a large majority of its members were Italians, and under the influence of the pope.  Hence the Protestants could not possibly accept its decisions.

The issue of the Reformation was the acceptance by all the Protestant Churches of the dogma that the Bible is a sufficient guide for every Christian man.  Tradition was rejected, and the right of private interpretation assured.  It was thought that the criterion of truth had at length been obtained.