Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

LONDON:

GILBERT & RIVINGTON, PRINTERS,

ST. JOHN'S SQUARE.

HISTORY

OF THE

REIGN

OF THE

EMPEROR CHARLES V.

WITH

A VIEW OF THE PROGRESS OF SOCIETY IN EUROPE,

FROM THE SUBVERSION OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE TO THE BEGINNING OF

THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY.

BY WILLIAM ROBERTSON, D.D.

IN THREE VOLUMES.

VOL. III.

LONDON:

PRINTED FOR T. CADELL, STRAND;

LONGMAN, ORME, BROWN, GREEN, & LONGMANS; W. T. CLARKE; J. M. RICHARDSON; HAT-
CHARD & SON; J. G. F. & J. RIVINGTON ; J. BOHN; J. CARPENTER; DUNCAN & MALCOLM;
WHITTAKER & Co.; SIMPKIN, MARSHALL, & Co.; W. H. ALLEN & Co.; E. HODGSON; BIGG
& SON; T. BUMPUS; J. DOWDING; J. BAIN; SMITH, ELDER, & Co.; H. WASHBOURNE ;

J. TEMPLEMAN; HOULSTON & STONEMAN; W. H. REID; R. MACKIE; H. G. BOHN; JAMES
BOHN F. MACPHERSON ; W. MORRISON ; G. ROUTLEDGE; J. BICKERS; L. BOOTH; C.
DOLMAN AND J. PARKER, OXFORD: AND J. & J. J. DEIGHTON, CAMBRIDGE.

THE

CALIFORNIA

HISTORY OF THE REIGN

OF THE

EMPEROR CHARLES V.

BOOK VIII.

Death of

WHILE appearances of danger daily increased, and 1546. the tempest which had been so long a gathering was Luther. ready to break forth in all its violence against the protestant church, Luther was saved, by a seasonable death, from feeling or beholding its destructive rage. Having gone, though in a declining state of health, and during a rigorous season, to his native city of Eysleben, in order to compose, by his authority, a dissension among the counts of Mansfield, he was Feb. 18. seized with a violent inflammation in his stomach, which, in a few days, put an end to his life, in the sixty-third year of his age. As he was raised up by Providence to be the author of one of the greatest and most interesting revolutions recorded in history, there is not any person, perhaps, whose character has been drawn with such opposite colours. In his own age, one party, struck with horror and inflamed with rage, when they saw with what a daring hand he overturned every thing which they held to be sacred, or valued as beneficial, imputed to him not only all the defects and vices of a man, but the qualities of a demon. The other, warmed with the admiration

CH.

VOL. III.

B

ter.

VIII.

1546.

BOOK and gratitude, which they thought he merited as the restorer of light and liberty to the Christian church, ascribed to him perfections above the condition of humanity, and viewed all his actions with a veneration bordering on that which should be paid only to those who are guided by the immediate inspiration of heaven. His charac- It is his own conduct, not the undistinguishing censure or the exaggerated praise of his contemporaries, that ought to regulate the opinions of the present age concerning him. Zeal for what he regarded as truth, undaunted intrepidity to maintain his own system, abilities, both natural and acquired, to defend his principles, and unwearied industry in propagating them, are virtues which shine so conspicuously in every part of his behaviour, that even his enemies. must allow him to have possessed them in an eminent degree. To these may be added, with equal justice, such purity and even austerity of manners, as became one who assumed the character of a reformer; such sanctity of life as suited the doctrine which he delivered; and such perfect disinterestedness as affords no slight presumption of his sincerity. Superior to all selfish considerations, a stranger to the elegancies of life, and despising its pleasures, he left the honours and emoluments of the church to his disciples, remaining satisfied himself in his original state of professor in the university, and pastor of the town of Wittemburg, with the moderate appointments annexed to these offices. His extraordinary qualities were allayed with no inconsiderable mixture of human frailty and human passions. These, however, were of such a nature, that they cannot be imputed to malevolence or corruption of heart, but seem to have taken their rise from the same source with many of his virtues. His mind, forcible and vehement in all its operations, roused by great objects, or agitated by violent passions, broke out, on many occasions, with

« AnteriorContinuar »