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

evoked the famous Protest of the Lutheran princes.
Protestantism had now become the public creed of
the princes, States, and Churches of one half of
Germany. It was idle longer to talk of the Edict of
Worms; from this time forward Protestantism,
could be suppressed only at the cost of a civil war.
Nevertheless, the emperor did make another
attempt, the sixth, to execute the redoubtable edict,
which so far had been formidable only to himself.
Charles had just triumphed over the "Holy
League," and sealed his new alliance with the Pope
by the promise of turning the whole influence of
his policy, and should that not sufilce, the whole
force of his arms, to the extermination of
Protestantism. In order to fulfill that promise he
convokes the Diet of Augsburg, 1530, and goes
thither in person to make sure that this time his
project shall not miscarry. It is now that he puts the
top-stone upon the fabric which he had hoped to
raze. The Augsburg Confession, prepared in
prospect of this assembly, and read before the
emperor and the Diet, formed the culmination of
the German Reformation.
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