the holy orders were the Pope’s collateral.  All its members derived what authority they possessed from the Pope; their fortunes were bound up in the Pope’s.  This priest-rule Luther overthrew by causing men to see the liberty with which Christ has made them free.  Catholic critics claim that by so doing Luther rebelled against an ordinance of God.  We have shown in chapter 18 that Luther acknowledges in the Church of Christ a ministry that exists by divine appointment.  Hence the Catholic charge that Luther revolted from God when he disputed the divine right of the hierarchy is silly.

However, Luther is said to have “recklessly encouraged the destruction of the episcopate, and openly commanded sacrilege and murder” to mobs.  The appeal of Luther that the rule of bishops be exterminated is interpreted to mean that the bishops be exterminated.  This is one of the most wanton charges that could be preferred against Luther.  By the Theses against Tetzel the attention of many prominent men in Germany was attracted to Luther.  Princes and noblemen of the Empire had for some time been studying from a secular point of view the evils which Luther had begun to attack on spiritual grounds.  These men understood the character of the Roman hierarchy much better than Luther.  They saw at once that Luther’s action would lead to serious complication that might ultimately have to be settled with the sword.  When Luther was still dreaming about convincing the Pope with arguments from Scripture, German noblemen were preparing to defend him against physical violence.  They knew that the hierarchy would not without a fierce struggle submit to any curtailment of their power.  They offered Luther armed support.  Luther recoiled with horror from this suggestion.  In a letter from the Wartburg which he wrote to his friend Spalatin who was still tarrying at Worms, Luther refers to one of these warlike knights as follows:  “What Hutten has in mind you can see [from the writings of the knight which he enclosed].  I would not like to see men fight for the Gospel with force and bloodshed.  I have answered that parson (dem Menschen) accordingly.  By the Word the world has been overcome, the Church has been preserved; by the Word it will also be restored.  As to Antichrist, he began his rule without physical force, and will also be destroyed without physical force, by the Word.” (15, 2506.) The letter from which these words are quoted is dated January 16, 1522.  Nine months before this date, on May 14, when he had been on the Wartburg about ten days, Luther writes to the same party:  “It is for good reasons that I have not answered your letter ere this:  I hesitated from fear that the report recently gone out of my being held captive might prompt somebody to intercept my letters.  A great many things are related about me at this place; however, the opinion is beginning to prevail that I was captured by friends sent for this purpose from Franconia.  To-morrow