The Leipsic disputation was the grand intellectual contest of the Reformation, and developed its great idea--the only great principle, around which all sects and parties among the Protestants rally. This is the idea, that _the Scriptures are the only ultimate grounds of authority in religion, and that, moreover, every man has a right to interpret them for himself_. The rights of private judgment--that religion is a matter between the individual soul and God, and that every man is answerable to his own conscience alone how he interprets Scripture--these constitute the great Protestant platform. Different sects have different views respecting justification, but all profess to trace them to the Scriptures. Luther's views were similar to those of St. Augustine--that "man could be justified by faith alone," which was _his_ great theological doctrine--a doctrine adopted by many who never left the communion of the Church of Rome, before and since his day, and a doctrine which characterized the early reformers, Zwingle, Calvin, Knox, Cranmer, and the Puritans generally. It is as absurd to say that Luther's animating principle in religion was not this doctrine, as it is unphilosophical to make the reformation consist merely in its recognition. After Luther's convictions were settled on this point, and he had generally and openly declared them, the main contest of his life was against the papacy, which he viewed as the predicted Antichrist--the "scarlet mother of abominations." It is not the object of the writer of this History to defend or oppose Luther's views, or argue any cause whatever, but simply to place facts in their true light, which is, to state them candidly.