might render valid, but appealed still to a
divine origin, men were tempted to look into their primitive charter,
and they could, without much difficulty, perceive its defect in truth
and authenticity.

In order to bestow on this topic the greater influence, Luther and his
followers, not satisfied with opposing the pretended divinity of the
Romish church, and displaying the temporal inconveniences of that
establishment, carried matters much further, and treated the religion of
their ancestors as abominable, detestable, damnable; foretold by
sacred writ itself as the source of all wickedness and pollution. They
denominated the pope Antichrist, called his communion the scarlet whore,
and gave to Rome the appellation of Babylon; expressions which, however
applied, were to be found in Scripture, and which were better calculated
to operate on the multitude than the most solid arguments. Excited by
contest and persecution on the one hand, by success and applause on the
other, many of the reformers carried to the greatest extremities their
opposition to the church of Rome; and in contradiction to the multiplied
superstitions with which that communion was loaded, they adopted an
enthusiastic strain of devotion, which admitted of no observances,
rites, or ceremonies, but placed all merit in a mysterious species of
faith in inward vision, rapture, and ecstasy. The new sectaries seized
with this spirit, were indefatigable in the propagation of their
doctrine, and set at defiance all the anathemas and punishments with
which the Roman pontiff endeavored to overwhelm them.

That the civil power, however, might afford them protection against the
ecclesiastical jurisdiction, the Lutherans advanced doctrines favorable
in some respect to the temporal authority of sovereigns. They inveighed
against the abuses of the court of Rome, with which men were at that
time generally discontented; and they exhorted princes to reinstate
themselves in those powers, of which the encroaching spirit of the
ecclesiastics, especially of the sovereign pontiff, had so long bereaved
them. They condemned celibacy and monastic vows, and thereby opened the
doors of the convents to those who were either tired of the obedience
and chastity, or disgusted with the license, in which they had hitherto
lived. They blamed the excessive riches, the idleness, the libertinism
of the clergy; and pointed out their treasures and revenues as lawful
spoil to the first invader.