of souls, he must beware of giving a rash
answer, and must therefore humbly entreat further time for
consideration. After a short deliberation the Emperor instructed Eck to
reply that he would, out of his clemency, grant him a respite till the
next day.

So Luther had again, on April 18th, a Thursday, to appear before the
diet. Again he had to wait two hours till six o'clock. He stood there in
the hall among the dense crowd, talking unconstrained and cheerfully
with the ambassador of the diet, Peutinger, his patron at Augsburg.
After he was called in, Eck began by reproaching him for having wanted
time for consideration. He then put the second question to him in a form
more befitting and more conformable with the wishes of the members of
the diet: "Wilt thou defend _all_ the books acknowledged by thee to be
thine, or recant some part?" Luther now answered with firmness and
modesty, in a well-considered speech. He divided his works into three
classes. In some of them he had set forth simple evangelical truths,
professed alike by friend and foe. Those he could on no account retract.
In others he had attacked corrupt laws and doctrines of the papacy,
which no one could deny had miserably vexed and martyred the consciences
of Christians, and had tyrannically devoured the property of the German
nation: if he were to retract these books, he would make himself a cloak
for wickedness and tyranny.

In the third class of his books he had written against individuals who
endeavored to shield that tyranny and to subvert godly doctrine. Against
these he freely confessed that he had been more violent than was
befitting. Yet even these writings it was impossible for him to retract
without lending a hand to tyranny and godlessness. But in defence of his
books he could only say in the words of the Lord Jesus Christ: "If I
have spoken evil, bear witness of the evil; but if well, why smitest
thou me?" If anyone could do so, let him produce his evidence and
confute him from the sacred writings, the Old Testament and the Gospel,
and he would be the first to throw his books into the fire. And now, as
in the course of his speech he had sounded a new challenge to the
papacy, so he concluded by an earnest warning to Emperor and empire,
lest, by endeavoring to promote peace by a condemnation of the divine
Word, they might rather bring a dreadful deluge of evils, and thus give
an unhappy and inauspicious beginning to the reign of the noble young