SOURCE: "The Progress of the Reformation," in The Theological and Miscellaneous of the Works Joseph Priestley, Vol. X, edited by J. T. Rutt, 1803. Reprint by Kraus Reprint Co.,1972, pp. 112–27.

In the excerpt below, Priestley traces Luther's increasing conflict with papal authority and the rise of his popularity with the laity.

It is something remarkable that Luther began his reformation independently of any thing that had been done before him; so that he was truly a great original in that way. He ever dreaded the reproach of heresy, and it was by slow degrees that he was brought to any connexion with those who had been denominated heretics; but the affinity between his doctrines and those of the Hussites in Bohemia could not but soon be perceived, and all his enemies eagerly propagated reports of his connexion with them. Some colour was given to them by the publication of...