A second Diet at Spire, in 1529, revoked the former act of toleration,
and demanded of all the princes and estates an unconditional
surrender to the pope's decrees. This called forth the heroic
_Protest_ of those who stood with Luther. They refused to submit,
claiming that in matters of divine service and the soul's salvation
conscience and God must be obeyed rather than earthly powers. It was
from this that the name of _Protestants_ originated--a name which half
the world now honors and accepts.
The signers of this Protest also pledged to each other their mutual
support in defending their position. Zwingli urged them to make war
upon the emperor. He himself afterward took the sword, and perished by
it. Calvin, Cranmer, Knox, and even the Puritan Fathers as far as they
had power and occasion, resorted to physical force and the civil arm
to punish the rejecters of their creed. Luther repudiated all such
coercion. The sword was at his command, but he opposed its use for any
purposes of religion. All the weight of his great influence was given
to prevent his friends from mixing external force with what should
ever have its seat only in the calm conviction of the soul. He thus
practically anticipated Roger Williams and William Penn and the most
lauded results of modern freedom--not from constraint of
circumstances and personal interests, but from his own clear insight
into Gospel principles. Bloody religious wars came after he was dead,
the prospect of which filled his soul with horror, and to which he
could hardly give consent even in case of direst necessity for
self-defence; but it is a transcendent fact that while he lived they
were held in abeyance, most of all by his prayers and endeavors. He
fought, indeed, as few men ever fought, but the only sword he wielded
was "the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God."