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Rh the Elector protected Luther, not only on account of his affection for his newly founded University of Wittemberg, on which he shed so much lustre, but also through hatred to the Elector Albert, of Mayence, Luther's most determined enemy. This protector of Luther, however, met with a dreadful death, as if to mark the judgment of God. While hunting, he was attacked with apoplexy, accompanied with dreadful convulsions; Luther and Melancthon immediately posted off to assist, or rather to ruin him, in his last agony, but they could not obtain from him a single word; he had lost the use of all his senses, the most dreadful convulsions racked every one of his limbs, his cries were like the roar of a lion, and he died without sacraments, or without any signs of repentance.

11. On the 9th of November, 1518, Leo X. published a Bull, on the validity of indulgences, in which he declared that the Supreme Pontiff alone had the right of granting them without limitation, from the treasures of the merits of Jesus Christ; that this was an article of Faith, and that whoever refused to believe it should be excluded from the communion of the Church. , a man of great learning, and Pro-Chancellor of Ingoldstad, began to write about this time, and subsequently, in 1519, he had a conference with Luther, through the instrumentality of Duke George, uncle of the Elector Frederick, a good Catholic. This conference took place in Duke George's city of Leipsic, and in his own palace. After debating on many questions there, they agreed to leave the whole matter to the decision of the Universities of Erfurt and Paris. The University of Paris, after an examination of the writings on each side, received the doctrine of Ecchius, and condemned that of Luther. One hundred and four of his propositions were censured, which excited his ire to a great pitch against that University. The following year there was another conference between Luther, accompanied by Carlostad and Ecchius, in which, in six discussions, the doctrines of free-will, of grace, and of good works, were argued by Carlostad. Luther followed, and disputed on Purgatory, the power of absolving sins, reserving cases, the primacy of the Pope, and indulgences. In this conference, his doctrines were not so heretical as soon after the dispute, for then the force of truth obliged him to admit the Papal primacy, though he said it was of human, not divine right; he also acknowledged a Purgatory, and did not altogether reject indulgences, solely condemning the abuse of them. The same year his doctrines were condemned by the Universities of Cologne and Louvain.

12. In the year 1519, the Emperor Maximilian I. died, and there was an interregnum of six months, during which Luther gained many adherents in Wittemberg, not only among the youth