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

and that if Zwingli, who had more stringent
opinions on the point of limiting Church action to
Church agencies than Luther, made the Council of
Two Hundred the representative of the Church in
Zurich, the latter might be held excusable in
making the princes the representative of the Church
in Germany, more especially when so many of the
common people were as yet too ignorant or too
indifferent to take part in the matter.
On the 22nd October, 1526, Luther moved the
Elector John of Saxony to issue a commission of
visitation of his dominions, in order to the
reinstitution of the Church, that of Rome being
now abolished. Authorized by the elector, four
commissioners began the work of Church
visitation. Two were empowered to inquire into the
temporalities of the Church, and two into her
ecclesisstical condition, touching schools, doctrine,
pastors. The paper of instructions, or plan
according to which the Church in the Electorate of
Saxony was to be reinstituted, was drawn up by
Melancthon. Luther, Melancthon, Spalatin, and
Thuring were the four chief commissioners, to each
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