Volume 1
The works of Sir Thomas Browne / edited by Charles Sayle.
- Browne, Thomas, Sir, 1605-1682.
- Date:
- 1927
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: The works of Sir Thomas Browne / edited by Charles Sayle. Source: Wellcome Collection.
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![PART I. appears. 5. Epist. Theod. Bezce Edmundo Grindallo Ep. Lon- Stct. a. dinens. Wherein 1 dislike nothing hut the Name] that is Lutheran, Calvinist, Zuinglian, etc. ’ Now the accidental occasion wherein, etc.] This is graphically described by Thuanus in his History : but because his words are too large for this purpose, I shall give it you somewhat more briefly, according to the relation of the Author of the History of the Council of Trent. The occasion was the necessity of Pope Leo the Tenth, who by his profusion had so exhausted the Treasure of the Church, that he was constrained to have recourse to the publishing of Indulgences to raise monies: some of which he had destined to his own Treasury, and other part to his Allyes, and particularly to his Sister he gave all the money that should be raised in Saxony ; and she, that she might make the best profit of the donation, commits it to one Arem- boldus, a Bishop to appoint Treasurers for these Indulgences. Now the custome was, that whensoever these Indulgences were sent into Saxony, they were to be divulged by the Fryars Eremites (of which Order Luther then was), but Aremboldus his Agents thinking with themselves, that the Fryars Eremites were so well acquainted with the trade, that if the business should be left to them, they should neither be able to give so good an account of their Negotiation, nor yet get so much themselves by it as they might do in case the business were committed to another Order; they thereupon recommend it to (and the busi¬ ness is undertaken by) the Dominican Fryars, who performed it so ill, that the scandal arising both from thence, and from the ill lives of those that set them on work, stirred up Luther to write against the abuses of these Indulgences ; which was all he did at first; but then, not long after, being provoked by some Sermons and small Discourses that had been published against what he had written, he rips up the business from the beginning, and publishes xcv Theses against it at Wittenberg. Against these Tekel a Dominican writes; then Luther adds an explication to his. Eckius and Prierius Dominicans, thereupon take the con¬ troversy against him : and now Luther begins to be hot; and because his adversaries could not found the matter of Indul¬ gences upon other Foundations then the Popes power and infallibility, that begets a disputation betwixt them concerning the Popes power, which Luther insists upon as inferiour to that of a general Council; and so by degrees he came on to oppose the Popish Doctrine of Remission of sins, Penances, and Pur¬ gatory ; and by reason of Cardinal Cajetans imprudent manage¬ ment of the conference he had with him, it came to pass that he rejected the whole body of Popish doctrine. So that by this we may see what was the accidental occasion wherein, the slender means whereby, and the abject condition of the person](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b31363349_0001_0024.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
