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

affected each of them very differently.
Melanchthon it almost overwhelmed in despair;
Charles it stung into a morose and gloomy
determination to avenge himself on a cause which
had thrust itself into the midst of his great projects
to thwart and vex him; Luther, on the other hand, it
inspired with courage, we might say with defiance,
if we can so characterise that scornful yet holy
disdain in which he held all who were warring
against Protestantism, from Charles down to Dr.
Eck and Cochlaeus. As regards Luther and
Melanchthon, the difference between them was
this: Melanchthon thought that the sword of the
emperor would kill the cause, Luther knew that it
would kill only its adherents, and through their
death give life to the cause. The cause was God's:
of this he had the firmest possible conviction. That
surely meant victory. If not, it came to this, that the
King of Heaven could do only what the King of
Spain permitted Him to do; and that Christ must go
forward or must turn back, must uphold this cause
and abandon that, as the emperor willed–in other
words, that Charles and not God was the ruler of
the world.
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