"I warned several of the princes of the Church, but some mocked me, and others turned a deaf ear. All seemed paralysed by the terror of your name. Then I published the discussion,
"And this, most Holy Father! this is the fire which is said to have set the whole world in flames!
"Now, what must I do? I cannot retract, and I see that this publication is subjecting me to inconceivable hatred in all quarters. I love not to stand forth in the midst of the world; for I am without knowledge, without talent, and far too feeble for such great things, especially in this illustrious age, in which Cicero himself, were he alive, would be obliged to hide in some obscure corner.[485]
"But in order to appease my adversaries, and respond to numerous solicitations, I here publish my thoughts. I publish them, Holy Father, that I may place myself in safety under the shadow of your wings. All who are willing will thus be able to understand with what simplicity of heart I have asked the ecclesiastical authority to instruct me, and what respect I have shown for the power of the keys.[486] If I had not managed the affair in a becoming manner, it is impossible that the most serene lord Frederick, Duke and Elector of Saxony, who shines among the friends of apostolical and Christian truth, would ever have tolerated in his university of Wittemberg a man so dangerous as I am represented to be.
"Wherefore, most Holy Father, I throw myself at the feet of your Holiness, and submit to you with all I have, and all I am. Destroy my cause, or embrace it; decide for me, or decide against me; take my life, or restore it to me, just as you please. I will recognise your voice as the voice of Jesus Christ, who presides and speaks by you. If I have deserved death I refuse not to die.[487] The earth belongs unto the Lord, and all that it contains. Let him be praised to all eternity. Amen. May he sustain you for ever and ever. Amen.
"On the day of the Holy Trinity, in the year 1518.
"Friar Martin Luther, Augustin."
What humility and truth in this fear, or rather in this confession of Luther, that his young and boiling blood had perhaps been too quickly inflamed! We here recognise the man of sincerity, who, not presuming on himself, fears the influence of passion even in those of his actions which are most conformable to the word of God. There is a wide difference between this language and that of a proud fanatic. We see in Luther an earnest desire to gain over Leo to the cause of truth, to prevent all disruption, and make this reformation, the necessity of which he proclaims, come from the very pinnacle of the Church. Assuredly, he is not the person who ought to be charged with destroying in the West that unity, the loss of which was afterwards so much regretted. He sacrificed every thing in order to maintain it; every thing but truth. It was not he, but his adversaries, who, by refusing to acknowledge the fulness and sufficiency of the salvation wrought out by Jesus Christ, are chargeable with having rent the Saviour's robe at the foot of the cross.
After writing this letter, Luther, the very same day, addressed his friend Staupitz, vicar-general of his order. It was through him he wished his "Solutions" and his epistle to reach Leo.
"I pray you," says he to him, "kindly to accept the miserable things[488] which I send you, and transmit them to the excellent pope, Leo X. Not that I would thereby drag you into the perils to which I am exposed. I wish to take all the danger to myself. Jesus Christ will see whether what I have said comes from him or comes from me—Jesus Christ, without whose will neither the tongue of the pope can move, nor the hearts of kings resolve.