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

Wolfgang, Prince of Anhalt, came last.
"I would rather renounce my subjects and my
States," said he, when he took the pen to sign, "I
would rather quit the country of my fathers staff in
hand, than receive any other doctrine than that
which is contained in this Confession." The
devotion of the princes inspirited the theologians.
Of the cities only two as yet subscribed the
Confession, Nuremberg and Reutlingen. Those we
have mentioned were the nine original subscribers.
The document received a number of signatures
afterwards; princes, ecclesiastics, and cities pressed
forward to append their names to it. The ministers,
one may think, ought to have had precedence in the
matter of subscription. But the only names which
the deed bore when carried to the Diet were those
of the seven princes and the two cities, all lay
signatures. One great end, however, was gained
thereby: it gave grand prominence to a truth which
for ages had been totally lost sight of, and
purposely as profoundly buried. It proclaimed the
forgotten fact that the laity form part of the Church.
Rome practically defined the Church to be the
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