Soon after Luther's return from Wartburg, the States of the empire assembled in Diet at Nuremberg. The bishops, who formed a numerous portion of the assembly, called loudly for the execution of the sentence which had been given against the arch-heretic. But after some altercation, and without coming to any agreement, the diet was adjourned till the autumn following.
Meanwhile the Reformer, in open defiance of the papal excommunication and the imperial edict, was going on steadily with his own proper work, preaching and writing, and Melancthon with his theology. It may be justly said of this period that "the word of God mightily grew and prevailed." Monks left their monasteries, and became active instruments in propagating the gospel; and Luther mentions, in a letter to Spalatin, the escape of nine nuns from their convents, among whom he speaks of Catherine von Bora, who afterward became his wife. New services of worship were being gradually introduced into what were now termed Lutheran churches, but with great delicacy and tenderness. As a wise man, Luther exercised great patience towards those who were but creeping slowly out of the old system into the new. After his noble stand at Worms, he appears very little in what we may call the outworks of the
Reformation. There he witnessed for God and His truth as few men have ever done. There is a grandeur and a moral sublimity in his position on that occasion which stands alone in his history. The true moral glory of the Reformation declines from that moment. The political element enters, and soon predominates. The outward aggressive action and the protection of the reformed churches fall into the hands of the temporal princes. This was the failure, the sad failure, the original sin, of the Reformers. But we shall see it more fully when we examine the epistle to Sardis.
The attention of the new pope, Adrian VI., had been turned to the affair of Luther, and to the restoration of the peace of the church. He professed to lament the great abuses of the papal See under his predecessor, and decided on adopting a different line of policy. On the 25th of November, 1522, he addressed a "Brief" to the diet re-assembled at Nuremberg. He deplored the ravages of the church through the perversity of a heretic, whom neither the paternal admonition of Leo nor his condemnation, confirmed by the edict of Worms, had been able to silence. He entreated the sovereigns to have recourse to the sword; he reminded them how God had punished Dathan and Abiram for their resistance to the high priest, and pressed upon them the noble example of their pious ancestors, who had, by an act of perfect justice, delivered the world from the heretics, Huss and Jerome, who were even at this moment revived in Luther.