Page:History of Heresies (Liguori).djvu/269

Rh which flowed from the pen of the former, and accordingly summoned him to Rome to defend himself. Luther excused himself on the plea of delicate health, and the want of means to undertake so long a journey, and added, that he had strong suspicions of the Roman judges; he also induced the Duke of Saxony, and the University of Wittemberg, to write to his Holiness to the same effect, and to request him to appoint judges in Germany to try the cause. The Pope dreaded to entrust the case to the decision of the Germans, as Luther already had a powerful party in his own country; he therefore sent as his Legate a latere, Thomas Vio, called Cardinal Cajetan, commissioning him to call on the secular power to have Luther arrested, and to absolve him from all censures in case he retracted his errors, but should he obstinately persist in maintaining them, to excommunicate him.

8. On the Legate's arrival in Augsburg, he summoned Luther before him, and imposed three commandments on him: First.—That he should retract the propositions asserted by him. Secondly.—That he should cease from publishing them; and finally, that he should reject all doctrines censured by the Church. Luther answered that he never broached any doctrine in opposition to the Church; but Cajetan reminded him that he denied the treasure of the merits of Jesus Christ and his saints, in virtue of which the Pope dispensed indulgences, as Clement VI. declared in the Constitution Unigenitus; that he also asserted that to obtain the fruit of the sacraments it was only required to have the faith of obtaining them. Luther made some reply, but the cardinal, smiling, said he did not come to argue with him, but to receive his submission, as he had been appointed. Luther was alarmed at finding himself in Augsburg, then totally Catholic, without a safe conduct (although Noel Alexander says he obtained one from Maximilian; Hermant, Van Ranst, and Gotti deny it, and Varillas wonders at his boldness in presenting himself without it), and asked time for reflection, which was granted him, and on the following day he presented himself before the Legate, together with a notary public, and four senators of Augsburg, and presented a writing signed with his own hand, saying that he followed and revered the Roman Church in all her acts and sayings, past, present, and to come, and that if ever he said anything against her, he now revoked and unsaid it. The cardinal, well aware that he had written several things which were not in accordance with the Catholic Faith, wished to have a still more ample retractation, but still he flattered himself that the one obtained was so much gained. Luther, however, soon slipped through his fingers, for he then persisted that he had neither