f the empire, which so terrified Martin, that, if the injurious and
threatening words which were given him by Cardinal _San Sisto_, the
apostolical legate, had not thrown him into the utmost despair, it is
believed it would have been easy, by giving him some preferment, or
providing for him some honourable way of living, to make him renounce
his errors." By this we may infer that one of the true authors of the
reformation was this very apostolical legate; they had succeeded in
terrifying Luther; but they were not satisfied till they had insulted
him; and with such a temper as Luther's, the sense of personal insult
would remove even that of terror; it would unquestionably survive
it.[284] A similar proceeding with Franklin, from our ministers, is
said to have produced the same effect with that political sage. What
Guicciardini has told of Luther preserves the sentiment of the times.
Charles the Fifth was so fully persuaded that he could have put down the
Reformation, had he rid himself at once of the chief, that having
granted Luther a safeguard to appear at the Council of Worms, in his
last moments he repented, as of a sin, that having had Luther in his
hands he suffered him to escape; for to have violated his faith with a
heretic he held to be no crime.

In the history of religion, human instruments have been permitted to be
the great movers of its chief revolutions; and the most important events
concerning national religions appear to have depended on the passions of
individuals, and the circumstances of the time. Impure means have often
produced the most glorious results; and this, perhaps, may be among the
dispensations of Providence.

A similar transaction occurred in Europe and in Asia. The motives and
conduct of Constantine the Great, in the alliance of the Christian faith
with his government, are far more obvious than any one of those
qualities with which the panegyric of Eusebius so vainly cloaks over the
crimes and unchristian life of this polytheistical Christian. In
adopting a new faith as a _coup-d'etat,_ and by investing the church
with temporal power, at which Dante so indignantly exclaims, he founded
the religion of Jesus, but corrupted its guardians. The same occurrence
took place in France under Clovis. The fabulous religion of Paganism was
fast on its decline; Clovis had resolved to unite the four different
principalities which divided Gaul into one empire. In the midst of an
important battle, as for