time when this was
written Luther was expecting the bull of excommunication and the ban of
the empire, and for several years it appeared doubtful whether he would
escape the treatment he condemned. He lived in constant fear of
assassination, and his friends amused themselves with his terrors. At
one time he believed that a Jew had been hired by the Polish bishops to
despatch him; that an invisible physician was on his way to Wittenberg
to murder him; that the pulpit from which he preached was impregnated
with a subtle poison.[197] These alarms dictated his language during
those early years. It was not the true expression of his views, which he
was not yet strong enough openly to put forth.[198]

The Zwinglian schism, the rise of the Anabaptists, and the Peasants' War
altered the aspect of affairs. Luther recognised in them the fruits of
his theory of the right of private judgment and of dissent,[199] and the
moment had arrived to secure his Church against the application of the
same dissolving principles which had served him to break off from his
allegiance to Rome.[200] The excesses of the social war threatened to
deprive the movement of the sympathy of the higher classes, especially
of the governments; and with the defeat of the peasants the popular
phase of the Reformation came to an end on the Continent. "The devil,"
Luther said, "having failed to put him down by the help of the Pope, was
seeking his destruction through the preachers of treason and
blood."[201] He instantly turned from the people to the princes;[202]
impressed on his party that character of political dependence, and that
habit of passive obedience to the State, which it has ever since
retained, and gave it a stability it could never otherwise have
acquired. In thus taking refuge in the arms of the civil power,
purchasing the safety of his doctrine by the sacrifice of its freedom,
and conferring on the State, together with the right of control, the
duty of imposing it at the point of the sword, Luther in reality
reverted to his original teaching.[203] The notion of liberty, whether
civil or religious, was hateful to his despotic nature, and contrary to
his interpretation of Scripture. As early as 1519 he had said that even
the Turk was to be reverenced as an authority.[204] The demoralising
servitude and lawless oppression which the peasants endured, gave them,
in his eyes, no right to relief; and when they rushed to arms, invoking
his name as their