d all
the world by our united strength. God lays hold upon the heart; and when
the heart is taken, all is won....

"I will preach, discuss, and write; but I will constrain none, for faith
is a voluntary act. See what I have done. I stood up against the pope,
indulgences, and papists, but without violence or tumult. I put forward
God's word; I preached and wrote--this was all I did. And yet while I was
asleep, ... the word that I had preached overthrew popery, so that neither
prince nor emperor has done it so much harm. And yet I did nothing; the
Word alone did all. If I had wished to appeal to force, the whole of
Germany would perhaps have been deluged with blood. But what would have
been the result? Ruin and desolation both to body and soul. I therefore
kept quiet, and left the Word to run through the world alone."(274)

Day after day, for a whole week, Luther continued to preach to eager
crowds. The word of God broke the spell of fanatical excitement. The power
of the gospel brought back the misguided people into the way of truth.

Luther had no desire to encounter the fanatics whose course had been
productive of so great evil. He knew them to be men of unsound judgment
and undisciplined passions, who, while claiming to be especially
illuminated from heaven, would not endure the slightest contradiction, or
even the kindest reproof or counsel. Arrogating to themselves supreme
authority, they required every one, without a question, to acknowledge
their claims. But as they demanded an interview with him, he consented to
meet them; and so successfully did he expose their pretensions, that the
impostors at once departed from Wittenberg.

The fanaticism was checked for a time; but several years later it broke
out with greater violence and more terrible results. Said Luther,
concerning the leaders in this movement: "To them the Holy Scriptures were
but a dead letter, and they all began to cry, 'The Spirit! the Spirit!'
But most assuredly I will not follow where their spirit leads them. May
God of His mercy preserve me from a church in which there are none but
saints. I desire to dwell with the humble, the feeble, the sick, who know
and feel their sins, and who groan and cry continually to God from the
bottom of their hearts to obtain His consolation and support."(275)

Thomas Muenzer, the most active of the fanatics, was a man of considerable
ability, which, rightly directed, would have enabled him to do good; but
he had