Wicklifi'e, Huss, Jerome of Prague, and others, had laid the seeds of the Reformation, which Luther nourished with great warmth. The scandalous extolling of indulgences gave the first occasion to all the contradiction that followed between Luther and the church of Rome; in which, if the corruptions and cruelty of the clergy had not been so visible and scandalous, so small a matter could not have produced such a revolution: but any crisis will put ill humours into a ferment.