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

long silently groaned under, but the redress of
which the Diet now demanded, with certification
that if within a reasonable time a remedy was not
forthcoming, the princes would take the matter into
their own hands.
The Papal nuncio had seen and heard sufficient
to convince him that he had stayed long enough at
Nuremberg. He hastily quitted the city, leaving it to
some other to be the bearer of this ungracious
message to the Pontiff. Till the Diet should arrange
its affairs with the Pontiff, it resolved that the
Gospel should continue to be preached. What a
triumph for Protestantism! But a year before, at
Worms, the German princes had concurred with
Charles V. in the edict of death passed on Luther.
Now, not only do they refuse to execute that edict,
but they decree that the pure Gospel shall be
preached. This indicates rapid progress. Luther
hailed it as a triumph, and the echoes of his shout
came back from the Swiss hills in the joy it
awakened among the Reformers ofHelvetia.
In due course the recess, or decree, of the Diet
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