In 1522 he had written in quite a different strain to his Elector. At that time the critical question of the latter’s attitude towards the Imperial authority and of the protection to be afforded Luther against the Emperor was under discussion. “In the sight of men it behoves Your Electoral Highness to act as follows: As Elector to render obedience to the power established and allow His Imperial Majesty to dispose of life and property in the towns and lands subject to Your Electoral Highness, as is right and in accordance with the laws of the Empire; nor to oppose or resist, or seek to place any obstacle or hindrance in the way of the aforesaid power should it wish to lay hands on me or kill me.... If Your Electoral Highness were a believer, you would see in this the glory of God, but since you are not yet a believer, you have seen nothing so far.”[919] This, compared to the summons to resistance, spoken of above, reads like an invitation to submit with entire patience to those who were persecuting the Evangel. It is true that the then position of affairs to some extent explains the case. The writer was well aware that the Elector might be relied upon to protect him, he also knew that a little temporary self-restraint in his demands would do his cause no harm, and that a profession of entire readiness to sacrifice himself would be most conducive to his interests.[920] But from this time the opinion that, in the pressing interests of the gospel, it was permissible to make use of violence against the authorities and their worldly regulations, breaks out repeatedly, and, in spite of the reticence he frequently displays and of his warnings against rebellion and revolt, he is quite unable to conceal his inner feeling. Many passages of an inflammatory character have already been instanced above and might be cited here.[921] The opposition smouldering in his breast to the conduct of the authorities in the matter of religious practices differing from their own, comes out very strongly at an early period. Though he declared that he had no wish to interfere, yet, even in 1522, he requested Frederick the Elector of Saxony, through the intermediary of Spalatin,[922] to have Masses prohibited as idolatrous, “an interference in religious matters on the part of the authorities,” as Fr. Paulsen remarks, “which it is difficult to reconcile with the position which Luther assigns to them in 1523 in his work ‘On the secular power.’”[923] Paulsen also recalls the statement (above, p. 300) that a sovereign may not even order his subjects to surrender the book of the gospels, and that whoever obeyed such an order was handing over Christ to Herod. It is true, he concludes, that here the order would have emanated from “Popish authorities.”