In this remarkable providential way, the attention of the Italians had been directed to the Germans, and even to the great Reformer, who had taken part with Reuchlin. "Within two years from the time of his first appearance against indulgences his writings had found their way into Italy, where they met with a favorable reception from the learned." John Froben, the celebrated printer at Basle, writing to Luther about this time, says, "Blasius Salmonius, a bookseller at Leipsic, presented me, at the last Frankfort fair, with certain treatises composed by you, which being approved of by learned men, I immediately put to press, and sent six hundred copies to France and Spain. My friends assure me that they are sold at Paris, and read and approved of, even by the Sorbonists. Calvus, a bookseller of Pavia, himself a scholar and addicted to the Muses, has carried a great part of the impression into Italy.... In spite of the terror of pontifical bulls, and the activity of those who watched over their execution, the writings of Luther, Melancthon, Zwingle, and Bucer, continued to be circulated and read with avidity and delight in various parts of Italy. Some of them were translated into the Italian language, and, to elude the vigilance of the inquisitors, were published under fictitious names...." "Hail! faithful in Christ," wrote a Carmelite monk of Locarno to the Christians in Switzerland, "think, O think of Lazarus in the Gospels, and of the lowly woman of Canaan, who was willing to be satisfied with the crumbs which fell from the table of the Lord. As David came to the priest in a servile dress, and unarmed, so do I fly to you for the shewbread, and the armor laid up in the sanctuary. Parched with thirst, I seek the fountain of living water: sitting like the blind man by the wayside, I cry to Him that gives sight. With tears and sighs, we, who sit here in darkness, humbly entreat you who are acquainted with the titles and authors of the books of knowledge, to send us the writings of such elect teachers as you possess, and particularly the works of the divine Zwingle, the far-famed Luther, the acute Melancthon, the accurate OEcolampadius. The prices shall be paid to you through his excellency, Werdmyller. Do your endeavor that a city of Lombardy, enslaved by Babylon, and a stranger to the gospel of Christ, may be set free."
These extracts plainly show-and many more might be given-what an abundant entrance the gospel had into Italy, and at a very early period of the Reformation. And for more than twenty years the followers of Luther and Zwingle were allowed to spread the truth, publicly preach the gospel, and otherwise witness for Christ, almost unmolested. The wars, which we have had occasion to refer to in tracing the history of the Reformation in Germany, greatly affected Italy. Engrossed by foreign politics, and deeply involved in the struggle between Charles and Francis, the court of Rome disregarded, or thought exaggerated, the representations that were made to them of the progress of heresy. But these wars, so disastrous to the pope and the patrimony of St. Peter, proved an inestimable blessing to thousands of precious souls. Many of the German soldiers who followed Charles V. in his Italian expeditions, and the Swiss auxiliaries who followed the standard of his great rival, Francis I., were Protestants. "With the freedom of men," says Dr. McCrie, "who have swords in their hands, these foreigners conversed on the religious controversy with the inhabitants among whom they were quartered."
The impressions made on the people's mind, in favor of the new opinions, were greatly strengthened by the bitter and never-ending contests between the pope and the Emperor. We have seen Charles by turns an abettor of the pope, and a restraint on his authority as the fluctuations of his contest with Francis I. rendered it politic; but with the deceitfulness of Clement VII he was maddened to fury. He accused the pope of kindling the flames of war in Europe, that he might evade, what was universally called for, a general council for the Reformation of the church in its head and members. It was at this time that he threatened to abolish the jurisdiction of the pope throughout Spain; but, not satisfied with these threatenings, he sent an army into the papal territories under the command of his general, the Duke of Bourbon. Rome was besieged and sacked, and the pontiff taken prisoner, in the year 1527. "The Germans in the Emperor's army behaved with great moderation towards the inhabitants of Rome after the first day's pillage, and contented themselves with testifying their detestation of idolatry; but the Spaniards never relented in their rapacity and cruelty, torturing the prisoners to make them discover their treasures." Marching up to the palace windows of the captive pontiff, a whole band of Germans, raising their hands and voices, exclaimed, "Long live Pope Luther! Long live Pope Luther!"
Thus were the hands of the pope and his counselors filled with their own troubles, and the Reformers left tolerably free to pursue their happy work of conversion and instruction, by the good providence of God.