THE REFORMATION IN EUROPE 335

faith held by Christians for a thousand years and more, and
impudently concludes that all Christians up till now have erred.
I have therefore resolved to stake upon this cause all my domi-
nions, my friends, my body and my blood, and my life and
soul. After Luther's stiff-necked reply in my presence yesterday
I now repent that I have so long delayed proceedings against
him and his false doctrines. I have now resolved never again,
under any circumstances, to hear him."

This was virtually a declaration of war on the heretics,
though Luther never contemplated any attacks on the ' doc-
trines ' of the faith. When the peasants rose in revolt, os-
tensibly in his support, but really on account of insupport-
able economic burdens, he denounced the rebels, saying: " I
think that all peasants should perish rather than the princes
and magistrates, because the peasants have taken up the
sword without divine authority. The peasants are under the
ban of God and of the Emperor and may be treated as mad
dogs." At the Diet of Spier (Speyer), in 1526, it was laid
down that each ruler should 'so live, reign, and conduct
himself as he would be willing to answer before God and
His Imperial Majesty.' When another Diet at the same
place tried to reverse the decree, in 1529, on account of
growing extremism among the critics of the Church, the
princes (of Saxony, Hasse, Strassburg, etc.) protested
against interference with their religious freedom. Hence,
they were called Protestants. They put their demands in a
famous document known as the Augsburg Confession. This
divided Germany and Europe into two opposing camps, the
Protestants being mostly the followers of Luther. " German
Protestantism," as Professor Hearnshaw has observed, " was
the revolt of the Teuton against Latin domination; the rebel-
lion of the lay-mind! against clerical authority; the resent-
ment of the frugal maker of wealth at unscrupulous spolia-
tion; the rising of the free intellect against inquisitorial re-