The disease continued to spread, and no one stood forward to check it. Luther was far from Wittemberg. Confusion and ruin had taken hold of the city. The Reformation had seen an enemy spring from its own bosom more formidable than popes and emperors. It was on the very verge of the abyss. Luther! Luther! was the general and unanimous cry at Wittemberg. The citizens called for him earnestly; the professors desired his advice; the prophets themselves appealed to him. All entreated him to return.[119] [119] Lutherum revocavimus ex heremo suo magnis de causis. Corp. Ref. i. 566. We may imagine what was passing in the reformer's mind. All the terrors of Rome were nothing in comparison with what now wrung his heart. It is from the very midst of the Reformation that its enemies have gone forth. It is preying upon its own vitals; and that doctrine which alone brought peace to his troubled heart becomes the occasion of fatal disturbances to the Church. [Sidenote: LUTHER DOES NOT HESITATE.] "If I knew," he had once said, "that my doctrine injured one man, one single man, however lowly and obscure (which it cannot, for it is the Gospel itself), I would rather die ten times than not retract it."[120] And now a whole city, and that city Wittemberg, is falling into disorder! True, his doctrine has no share in this; but from every quarter of Germany voices are heard accusing him of it. Pains more keen than he had ever felt before assail him now, and new temptations agitate him. "Can such then be the end of this great work of the Reformation?" said he to himself. Impossible!--he rejects these doubts. God has begun,......God will perfect the work. "I creep in deep humility to the grace of the Lord,"[121] exclaimed he, "and beseech him that his name may remain attached to this work; and that if anything impure be mixed up with it, he will remember that I am a sinful man." [120] Möchte ich ehe zehn Tode leyden. _Wieder Emser._ L. Opp. xviii. 613. [121] Ich krieche zu seiner Gnaden. L. Opp. xviii. 615.