Then Luther's voice began to be heard again. He saw that it was a decisive moment, and that he ought now to give the impulse that would gain religious liberty. He boldly demanded this liberty of the Roman-catholic princes of the diet;[601] and at the same time endeavoured to make his friends quit Augsburg. Jesus Christ had been boldly confessed. Instead of that long series of quarrels and discussions which was about to become connected with this courageous act, Luther would have wished for a striking rupture, even should he seal with his blood the testimony rendered to the Gospel. The stake, in his idea, would have been the real catastrophe of this tragedy. "I absolve you from this diet, in the name of the Lord,"[602] wrote he to his friends. "Now home, return home, again I say home! Would to God that I were the sacrifice offered to this new council, as John Huss at Constance!"[603] [601] Epistle to the Elector of Mentz. (Ibid. p. 74.) [602] Igitur absolvo vos in nomine Domini ab isto conventu. (L. Epp. iv. p. 96.) [603] Vellem ego sacrificium esse hujus novissimi concilii, sicut Johannes Huss Constantiæ. (Ibid. p. 110.) But Luther did not expect so glorious a conclusion: he compared the diet to a drama. First, there had been the exposition, then the prologue, afterwards the action, and now he waited for the tragic catastrophe, according to some, but which, in his opinion, would be merely comic.[604] Everything, he thought, would be sacrificed to political peace, and dogmas would be set aside. This proceeding, which, even in our own days, would be in the eyes of the world the height of wisdom, was in Luther's eyes the height of folly. [604] Sed catastrophen illi tragicam, nos comicam expectamus. (Ibid. p. 85.) [Sidenote: SONG OF TRIUMPH.] It was the intervention of Charles which especially alarmed him. To withdraw the Church from all secular influence, and the governments from all clerical influence, was then one of the dominant ideas of the great Reformer. "You see," wrote he to Melancthon, "that they oppose to our cause the same argument as at Worms, to wit, still and for ever the judgment of the Emperor. Thus Satan is always harping on the same string, and that emaciated strength[605] of the civil power is the only one which this myriad-wiled spirit is able to find against Jesus Christ." But Luther took courage, and boldly raised his head. "Christ is coming," continued he; "he is coming, sitting at the right hand......Of whom? not of the Emperor, or we should long ago have been lost, but of God himself: let us fear nothing. Christ is the King of kings and the Lord of lords. If he loses this title at Augsburg, he must also lose it in all the earth, and in all the heavens." [605] Sic Satan chorda semper oberrat eadem, et mille-artifex ille non habet contra Christum, nisi unum illud elumbe robur. (Ibid. p. 100.)