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

its doctrines. It was the purity of apostolic doctrine,
equipped in the simplicity of apostolic organizaton.
Thus it disposed of the claims of the Romish
Church to antiquity by attesting itself as more
ancient than it. But though ancient, it was not like
Rome borne down by the corruptions and
decrepitudes of age; it had the innate celestial vigor
of the primitive Church whose representative it
claimed to be. Young itself, it promised to bestow a
second youth on the world.
Besides the main object of this visitation,
which was the planting of churches, a number of
subsidiary but still important ends were gained. We
are struck, first of all, by the new light in which
this visitation presents the character of the
Reformer. Luther as a controversialist and Luther
as an administrator seem two different men. In
debate the Reformer sweeps the field with an
impetuosity that clears his path of every
obstruction, and with an indignation that scathes
and burns up every sophist and every sophism
which his logic has overturned. But when he goes
forth on this tour of visitation we hardly know him.
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