When the Canons of Altenburg, in accordance with their chartered rights, wished, in 1522, to resist the appointment of a Lutheran preacher in that town, neither olden law nor the orders of the authorities availed anything with Luther, as we shall see below (p. 314 ff); “against this [the introduction of the Evangel] no seals, briefs, custom or right are valid,” he writes; it was the duty of the Elector “as a Christian ruler to encounter the wolves.” Finally, we have the outburst: “God Himself has abrogated all authority and power where it is opposed to the Evangel, ‘we must obey God rather than men’” (Acts v. 29).[924] Here we have a practical commentary on what he says when speaking of the “Word” which must make its way alone: “The Word of God is a sword, is destruction, vexation, ruin, poison, and as Amos says, like a bear in the path and a lioness in the wood.”[925] Even in his sermon on Good Works in 1520 he had made a remarkable application of the above principle of the abrogation of all authority in the case of those who ruled in defiance of God: People must not, he declares in accordance with Acts v. 29, allow themselves to be forced to act contrary to God’s law; “If a Prince whose cause is obviously unjust wishes to make war, he must not be followed or assisted, because God has commanded us not to kill our neighbour or to do him an injury.”[926] A Protestant theologian and historian of Luther remarks on this: “Luther does not, however, explain how far the responsibility, right and duty of the subject extends, and clearly had not given this matter any careful consideration.”[927] A want of “consideration” may be averred by the historian concerning all Luther’s theoretical statements on secular authority during the first period of his career. The historian will find it impossible to discover in Luther’s views on this subject the thread which, according to many modern Protestant theologians, runs through his new theories. Wilhelm Hans, a Protestant theologian, was right when he wrote in 1901: “Luther’s lack of system is nowhere more apparent than in his views concerning the authorities and their duty towards religion. The attempt to sum up in a logical system the ideas which he expressed on this subject under varying circumstances and at different times, and to bring these ideas into harmony with his practice, will ever prove a failure. It will never be possible to set aside the contradictions in his theory, and between his theory and his practice.”[928] 5. How the New Church System was Introduced A complete account of the introduction of the new ecclesiastical system will become possible only when impartial research has made known to us more fully than hitherto the proceedings in the different localities according to the records still extant.