Protestantism In Germany From the Augsburg Confession to the Peace of Passau

Provinces in 1535 united their forces and marched
against the city -- now strongly fortified. They
besieged and took it. Buckholdt was led about in
chains and exhibited in several German towns. He
was finally brought back to Munster, the scene of
his grandeur and crimes, and there subjected to an
agonising death.[5] The body of the prophet was --
after death -- put into an iron cage; and the dead
bodies of two of his followers being similarly dealt
with, all three were hung at the top of the citytower,
as a public spectacle and warning --
Buckholdt in the midst, and on either side a
companion.
Luther sought to make his countrymen
understand the lesson taught them by these
deplorable occurrences. The Gospel, he said, was
the only safe path between two abysses. Rome by
usurping authority over the moral law had opened
one abyss, the prophets of Munster by abrogating
that law had opened another. The Gospel, by
maintaining the supremacy of that law, placed the
conscience under the authority of God, its rightful
Ruler, and so gave man liberty without
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