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

of Nuremberg reached the Seven-hilled City, and
was handed in at the Vatican. The meek Adrian
was beside himself with rage. Luther was not to be
burned! a General Council was demanded! a
hundred grievances, all duly catalogued, must be
redressed! and there was, moreover, a quiet hint
that if the Pope did not look to this matter in time,
others would attend to it. Adrian sat down, and
poured out a torrent of invectives and threatenings,
than which nothing more fierce and bitter had ever
emanated from the Vatican. Frederick of Saxony,
against whom this fulmination was thundered, put
his hand upon his sword's hilt when he read it.
"No," said Luther, the only one of the three who
was able to command his temper, "we must have
no war. No one shall fight for the Gospel." Peace
was preserved.
The rage of the Papal party was embittered by
the checks it was meeting with. War had been
averted, but persecution broke out. At every step
the Reformation gathered new glory. The courage
of the Reformer and the learning of the scholar had
already illustrated it, but now it was to be glorified
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