From the Diet of Worms to the Augsburg Confession - James Aitken Wylie

Charles to abolish no law, change no doctrine, and
omit no rite of the Roman Church, and to proceed
in accordance with the Edict of Worms; which was
as much as to say, Unsheath your swords, and set
about the instant and complete purgation of
Germany from Luther and Lutheranism, under
penalty of being yourselves visited with a like
infliction by the arms of the Empire. How they
were to escape from this dilemma, save by a return
to the obedience of the Pope, they could not at that
moment see. As they turned first to one hand, then
to another, they could descry nothing but
unscaleable cliffs, and fathomless abysses. At
length deliverance appeared to dawn in the most
unexpected quarter of all. They had never looked to
Rome or to Spain, yet there it was that they began
to see escape opening to them. The emperor and
the Pope, they were told, were at variance: so then
they were to march through the sundered camp of
their enemies. With feelings of wonder and awe,
not less lively than those of the Hebrew host when
they saw the waves beginning to divide, and a
pathway to open from shore to shore, did the
Lutheran chiefs and their followers see the host of
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