rsons. About
the end of this year, Luther published a book, in which he contended for
the communion being celebrated in both kinds; which was condemned by the
bishop of Misnia, January 24, 1520. While Luther was labouring to excuse
himself to the new emperor and the bishops of Germany, Eccius had gone
to Rome, to solicit his condemnation; which, it may easily be conceived,
was now become not difficult to be attained. Indeed the continual
importunities of Luther's adversaries with Leo, caused him at length to
publish a formal condemnation of him, and he did so accordingly, in a
bull, dated June 15, 1520; this was carried into Germany, and published
there by Eccius, who had solicited it at Rome; and who, together with
Jerom Alexander, a person eminent for his learning and eloquence, was
entrusted by the pope with the execution of it. In the meantime, Charles
V. of Spain, after he had set things to rights in the Low Countries,
went into Germany, and was crowned emperor, October the 21st, at
Aix-la-Chapelle. The diet of Worms was held in the beginning of 1521;
which ended at length in this single and peremptory declaration of
Luther, that "unless he was convinced by texts of scripture or evident
reason (for he did not think himself obliged to submit to the pope or
his councils,) he neither could nor would retract any thing, because it
was not lawful for him to act against his conscience." Before the diet
of Worms was dissolved, Charles V. caused an edict to be drawn up, which
was dated the 8th of May, and decreed that Martin Luther be, agreeably
to the sentence of the pope, henceforward looked upon as a member
separated from the church, a schismatic, and an obstinate and notorious
heretic. While the bull of Leo X. executed by Charles V. was thundering
throughout the empire, Luther was safely shut up in the castle of
Wittemberg; but weary at length of his retirement, he appeared publickly
again at Wittemberg, March 6, 1522, after he had been absent about ten
months. Luther now made open war with the pope and bishops; and, that he
might make the people despise their authority as much as possible, he
wrote one book against the pope's bull, and another against the order
falsely called "the order of bishops." He published also, a translation
of the "New Testament" in the German tongue, which was afterward
corrected by himself and Melancthon. Affairs were now in great confusion
in Germany; and they were not less so in Italy, for a