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which lay unheeded by his brethren, a Latin copy of the Bible. This he studied with intense eagerness, and soon began to inculcate its doctrines. His profound learning, and the fame of his eloquence, drew the attention of the most eminent scholars, and rendered him a powerful advocate of the new light which was breaking upon the world. Great, therefore, was the sensation excited in 1517 by his ninety-five propositions, openly impugning the doctrine of Indulgences.
Being called upon by many of the German nobility to defend the new doctrine, he presented himself at the diet of Worms, April, 1521, where he made an elaborate defence before the emperor, and a vast assemblage of the princes and prelates of Germany. After this he was concealed for nine months in the castle of Wirtemberg, which he called his Patmos, and then returned to Wittemberg, where he published a sharp reply to Henry VIII., who had written a book against him on the seven sacraments. In 1524 he married a nun, by whom he had three sons. Luther's greatest work, a translation of the whole Bible into the vulgar tongue, was given to the world in 1534. At length, worn out more by labour than age, this illustrious man died at his native place, 1546; having lived to see that his doctrines had taken such deep root, that no earthly power could eradicate them.
The Lutherans, of all Protestants, differ least from the Romish Church, as they affirm that the body and blood of Christ are materially present in the sacrament of the Lord's Supper, though in an incomprehensible manner; they likewise represent some religious rites and institutions, as the use of images in churches, the distinguishing vestments of the clergy, the private confession of sins, the use of wafers in the administration of the Lord’s Supper, the form of exorcism in the celebration of baptism, and other ceremonies of the like nature as tolerable, and some of them useful. The Lutherans maintain that the divine decrees respect the salvation or misery of men, in consequence of a previous knowledge of their sentiments and characters, and not as free and unconditional, and as founded on the mere will of God, which is the tenet of the Calvinists.
HUGONOTS.
The appellation Hugonots, was given to the French Protestants in 1561. During the reign of Charles the Ninth, in 1572, happened the massacre of Bartholomew, when 70,000 Protestants throughout France were butchered, in circumstances of aggravated cruelty. The famous Edict of Nantz,
