In Germany from the Leipsic Disputation to the Diet at Worms - James Aitken Wylie

hitherto been in vain, or rather had just the opposite
effect. The alarm in the Vatican was great. The
champions sent by Rome to engage Luther had one
after another been discomfited. Tetzel, the great
indulgence-monger, Luther had put utterly to rout.
Cajetan, the most learned of their theologians, he
had completely baffled. Eck, the ablest of their
polemics, he had vanquished; the plausible Miltitz
had spread his snares in vain, he had been
outwitted and befooled; last of all, Leo himself had
descended into the arena; but he had fared no better
than the others; he had been even more
ignominiously handled, for the audacious monk
had burned his bull in the face of all Christendom.
Where was all this to end? Already the See of
Rome had sustained immense damage. Pardons
were becoming unsaleable. Annats and
reservations and first-fruits were, alas! withheld;
holy shrines were forsaken; the authority of the
keys and the ancient regalia of Peter was treated
with contempt; the canon law, that mighty
monument of Pontifical wisdom and justice, which
so many minds had toiled to rear, was treated as a
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