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

monk from his path? He will try. He convokes
(1526) a Diet to meet at Spires, avowedly for the
purpose of having the edict executed. It is their
edict not less than his, for they had concurred with
him in fulminating it; surely the princes will sleep
no longer over this affair; they will now send home
the bolt! Not yet. The Diet of Spires did exactly the
opposite of what Charles meant it should do. The
majority of the princes were friendly to Luther,
though in 1521 they had been hostile to him; and
they enacted that in the matter of religion every
State should be at liberty to do as it judged best.
The Diet that was to unchain the furies of
Persecution, proclaims Toleration.
The war-clouds at this time hang heavy over
Christendom, and discharge their lightnings first on
one country, then on another; but there is a space of
clear sky above Wittenberg, and in the interval of
quiet which Saxony enjoys, we see commissioners
going forth to set in order the Churches of the
German Reformation. All the while this peaceful
work of upbuilding is going on, the reverberations
of the distant thunder-storm are heard rolling in the
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