would not have escaped, were it not for the Elector Frederick, who bribed the soldiers who escorted him, and had him conveyed to a place of security. A report was then spread abroad, that Luther was imprisoned before the expiration of the safe conduct, but the Elector had him conveyed to the Castle of Watzberg, near Alstad, in Thuringia, a place which Luther afterwards called his Patmos. He remained there nearly ten months, well concealed and guarded, and there he finished the plan of his heresy, and wrote many of his works. In the works written here, Luther principally attacked the scholastic Theologians, especially St. Thomas, whose works, he said, were filled up with heresies. We should not wonder he called the works of St. Thomas heretical, who centuries before had confuted his own pestilential errors[1].
15. In the year 1529, another Diet was held in the city of Spire, by the Emperor's orders, in which it was decided, that in these places in which the edict of Worms was accepted, it should be observed; but that wherever the ancient religion was changed, and its restoration could not be effected without public disturbances, matters should remain as they were until the celebration of a General Council. It was, besides, decided that Mass should freely be celebrated in the places infected with Lutheranism, and that the Gospel should be explained, according to the interpretation of the Fathers approved by the Church. The Elector Frederick of Saxony, George of Branderburg, Ernest and Francis, Dukes of Luneburg, Wolfgang of Anhalt, and fourteen confederate cities (thirteen, according to Protestant historians), protested against this Decree, as contrary to the truth of the Gospel, and appealed to a future Council, or to some judge not suspected, and from this protest arose the famous designation of Protestant[2].
16. The same year another Conference, composed of Lutherans and Zuinglians, or Sacramentarians, was held in Marpurg, under the patronage of the Landgrave of Hesse, to endeavour to establish a union between their respective sects. Luther, Melancthon, Jonas, Osiander, Brenzius, and Agricola appeared on one side, and Zuinglius, Ecolampadius, Bucer, and Hedio, on the other. They agreed on all points, with the exception of the Eucharist, as the Zuinglians totally denied the Real Presence of Christ. Several other Conferences were held to remove, if possible, the discussion of doctrine objected to then by the Catholics, but all ended without coming to any agreement. In this the Providence of God is apparent; the Roman Church could thus oppose to the innovators that unity of doctrine she always possessed, and the heretics were always confounded on this point[3]. About this period Luther married an abbess of a convent. His fellow-heresiarch Zuinglius, also a priest,
