Thus Ambrose Blaurer, the spokesman of the innovation in Würtemberg, laments, in 1523, that Luther’s enemies quite rightly made capital out of the hateful language employed in his controversial writings. “They wish to make this honey [Luther’s teaching] bitter to us because Luther is so sharp, pugnacious and caustic, ... because he scolds and rants.... Verily this has often displeased me in him, and I should not advise anyone to copy him in this respect. Nevertheless I have not rejected his good, Christian teaching.”[394] Matthew Zell, also a Lutheran, wrote in 1523: “Nothing has turned me more against Luther and pleased me less in him, and the same is true of other good men, than the hard, aggressive and bitter vindications and writings which he has composed against even his own friends, not to speak of the Pope, the bishops and others whom he has attacked so violently and so derisively that hardly has anything sharper, more violent and mocking ever been read.”[395] Carlstadt, Luther’s friend, and later theological opponent, underwent such rough treatment at his hands, that a modern Protestant writer on Carlstadt says of the chief work Luther directed against him: Its characteristic feature is the wealth of personal invective.... Though attempts have been made to explain the terrible bitterness of his polemics by Luther’s disposition and the difficulty of his situation at the time the work was composed, yet the deep impression left by his controversial methods should not be overlooked. From that time forward they were generally imitated by the Lutheran party, even in disputes among themselves, and made to serve in lieu of true discussion; that such a procedure was entirely alien to Christian charity seems not to have been noticed. The author also refers and, with even greater reason, to the attacks against the “Papists,” “to the constantly recurring flood of abusive language, insults, misrepresentations and suspicions which the reformer poured upon his foes.” He made use of “his extraordinary command of language,” to accuse Zwingli, after his death, most maliciously of heresy.[396] Amongst other opponents of the new faith, Erasmus, in a writing addressed to Luther, says: “Scarcely one of your books have I been able to read to the end, so great and insatiable is the tendency to libel which they display (‘_insatiata conviciandi libido_’). If there were only two or three libels one might think you had given vent to them without due consideration, but as it is, your book swarms with abuse on every page (‘_scatet undique maledictis_’). You begin with it, go on with it, and end with it.”[397] Thomas Murner says, in a reply to Luther, as early as 1520, “I see and understand that you are angry. Therefore it will be best for me to keep cool in order that it may not be said that we both are mad. You really go too far.”[398]