Protestantism in England From the Times of Henry VIII - James Aitken Wylie

variance with the opinion of the learned Fathers of
the Church…. We earnestly implore and exhort
you that you delay not a moment to seize and
exterminate this Luther, who is a rebel against
Christ; and, unless he repents, deliver himself and
his audacious writings to the flames."[12]
This shows us the fate that would probably
have awaited Luther had he lived in England:
happily his lot had been cast under a more
benignant and gracious sovereign. But Henry,
debarred in this case the use of the stake, which
would speedily have consumed the heretic, if not
the heresy, made haste to unsheathe the
controversial sword. He attacked Luther's
Babylonian Captivity in a work entitled A Defense
of the Seven Sacraments. The king's book
discovers an intimate acquaintance with mediaeval
and scholastic inventions and decrees, but no
knowledge whatever of apostolic doctrine. Luther
ascribed it to Lee, afterwards Archbishop of York;
others have thought that they could trace in it the
hand of Fisher, Bishop of Rochester. But we see no
reason to ascribe it to any one save Henry himself.
55