This protest and declaration produced a deep impression. The diet was rudely interrupted and broken into two hostile parties,--thus preluding war. The majority became the prey of the liveliest fears. As for the Protestants relying, _jure humano_, upon the Edict of Spire, and _jure divino_, upon the Bible, they were full of courage and firmness. [Sidenote: THE SUPREMACY OF THE GOSPEL.] The principles contained in this celebrated protest of the 19th April 1529, constitute the very essence of Protestantism. Now this protest opposes two abuses of man in matters of faith: the first is the intrusion of the civil magistrate, and the second is the arbitrary authority of the Church. Instead of these two abuses, Protestantism sets up above the magistrate the power of conscience; and above the visible Church the authority of the Word of God. It declines, in the first place, the civil power in divine things, and says with the Prophets and Apostles: _We must obey God rather than man._ In presence of the crown of Charles the Fifth, it uplifts the crown of Jesus Christ. But it goes farther: it lays down the principle, that all human teaching should be subordinate to the oracles of God. Even the primitive Church, by recognising the writings of the Apostles, had performed an act of submission to this supreme authority, and not an act of authority, as Rome maintains; and the establishment of a tribunal charged with the interpretation of the Bible, had terminated only in slavishly subjecting man to man in that which should be the most unfettered--conscience and faith. In this celebrated act of Spire no doctor appears, and the Word of God reigns alone. Never has man exalted himself like the Pope; never have men kept in the back-ground like the Reformers. A Romish historian maintains that the word _Protestant_ signifies _enemy of the Emperor and of the Pope_.[164] If by this it is meant that Protestantism, in matters of faith, rejects the intervention both of the Empire and of the Papacy, it is well. Even this explanation, however, does not exhaust the meaning of the word, for Protestantism rejected the authority of man solely to place Jesus Christ on the throne of the Church, and his Word in the pulpit. There has never been anything more positive, and at the same time more aggressive, than the position of the Protestants at Spire. By maintaining that their faith is alone capable of saving the world, they defended with intrepid courage the rights of Christian Proselytism. We cannot abandon this Proselytism without deserting the Protestant principle. [164] Perduelles in Pontificem ac Cæsarem.--(Pallavicini, C. T. I. p. 217.) [Sidenote: FERDINAND REJECTS THE PROTEST.]