Second Commentary on the Doctrine of Abstinence

novelty, or perhaps of a song. One must not believe that John Huss, Luther, or Calvin were superior geniuses. It is with the leaders of sects as it is with ambassadors: often mediocre minds succeed best there, provided that the conditions they offer are advantageous. I shall add a passage to be examined with more acute mental agitation, and one more suited to the present matter: k) Luther put into his Party MANY PRINCES, FOR WHOM THE SPOIL OF ECCLESIASTICAL GOODS WAS A SWEET BAIT. THE ELECTOR OF SAXONY WAS THE FIRST WHO EMBRACED HIS NEW SECT. The Palatinate, Hesse, the lands of Hanover, Brandenburg, Swabia, a part of Austria, Bohemia, Hungary, all of Silesia, and the North received this new religion. What he sets forth here, he repeats in another place: l) Luther soon became the leader of a party, and since his doctrine stripped bishops of their benefices and convents of their riches, the sovereigns followed this new convertor in a crowd. You have, if I am not mistaken, evident specimens from which it shines forth what kind of judgment the famous WRITER OF BRANDENBURG AFFAIRS holds regarding the Princes of the Germans, the Saxons in particular, who were calling back sacred things to their original and most chaste integrity.