“I will make no long excursion here, but a short apology for one that deserved well of the _reformed_ Religion. Many of our adversaries have aspersed _Luther_, with ill words, but none so violent as our _English_ fugitives, because he doth confess it that the _Devil_ did encounter him very frequently, and familiarly, when he first put pen to paper against the corruptions of the _Church of Rome_. In whose behalf I answer: much of that which is objected I cannot find in the _Latin Editions_ of his works which himself corrected, although it appears by the quotations some such things were in his first writings set forth in the Dutch language. 2. I say no more than he confesseth ingenuously of himself in an epistle to _Brentius_, his meaning was good, but his words came from him very unskilfully, and his style was most rough and unsavoury. St. Paul says of himself, that he was _rudis sermone, rude in speech_. But Luther was not so much _ἰδιώτης τῷ λόγῳ_ the word used in Saint Paul, as _ἄγροικος_, after his _Dutch Monastical_ breeding, and his own hot freedom. By nature he had a boisterous clownish expression; but for the most part very good jewels of doctrine in the dunghills of his language. 3. If the devil did employ himself to delude and vex that heroical servant of God, who took such a task upon him, being a simple Monk, to inveigh against errors and superstitions which had so long prevailed, why should it seem strange to any man? _Ribadaneira_ sticks it among the praises of his founder _Ignatius Loiola_, that the Devil did declaim and cry out against him, (believe it every one of you at your leisure,) and why might not the Devil draw near to vex _Luther_, as well as roar out a great way off against _Loiola_? I have digrest a little with your patience, to make _Luther's_ case appear to be no outrageous thing, that weak ones may not be offended when they hear such stuff objected out of _Parsons_, or _Barclay_, or _Walsingham_, or out of _Bellarmine_ himself. If _Beelzebub_ was busy with the _Master_, what will he be with the _Servants_? When Christ did begin to lay the first corner stone of the _Gospel, then he walked into the wilderness to be tempted of the Devil._”[1] [Footnote 1: HACKET'S SERMONS.] CHAPTER CCXXXI. QUESTION AS TO WHETHER BOOKS UNDER THE TERMINATION OF “ANA” HAVE BEEN SERVICEABLE OR INJURIOUS TO LITERATURE CONSIDERED IN CONNECTION WITH LUTHER'S TABLE TALK.—HISTORY OF THE EARLY ENGLISH TRANSLATION OF THAT BOOK, OF ITS WONDERFUL PRESERVATION, AND OF THE MARVELLOUS AND UNIMPEACHABLE VERACITY OF CAPTAIN HENRY BELL.