We must here revert to some of Luther’s Statements concerning the triumphant progress of the Evangel and the determined resistance to be offered to all opposing forces—solemn declarations which attain their full meaning only in the light of his idea of his own Divine mission. We give the gist of the passages already quoted in detail elsewhere. These passages, which reek of revolution, are altogether inspired by the glowing idea of his heavenly mission apart from which they are scarcely comprehensible. “If war is to come of it, let it come,” etc. “Princely foes are delivered up to us as a holocaust in order that they may be rewarded according to their works”; God will “deliver His people even from the fiery furnace of Babylon.”[333] “Let things run on merrily and be prepared for the worst,” “whether it be war or revolt, as God’s anger may decree.”[334] “Let justice take its course even should the whole world fall into ruins.”[335] “It is said, ‘If the Pope fall, Germany will perish.’[336] But what has this to do with me?” “It is God’s Word. Let what cannot stand, fall, and what is not to remain, pass away.” “It is a great thing,” he continues, “that for the sake of the young man [the Divine Redeemer] this Jewish Kingdom and the Divine Service which had been so gloriously instituted and ordered should fall to the ground.” Not Christ alone, he says, had spoken of His work in the same way that he (Luther) did of his own, but St. Paul also, in spite of his grief over the Jews, had, like himself, constantly declared: “The Word is true, else everything must fall into ruins; for He Who sent me and commanded me to preach, will not lie.”[337] His followers recalled his words, that it were better “all churches, convents and foundations throughout the world should be rooted out” than that “even one soul should be seduced by such [Popish] error.”[338] And again: “Are we to forswear the truth?” “Would it be strange were the rulers, the nobles and laity to fall upon the Pope, the bishops, priests and monks and drive them out of the land?” They had brought it upon themselves and it was necessary “to pray for them.”[339] But prayer might not suffice. If no improvement took place, then “a general destruction of all the foundations and convents would be the best reformation.”[340] These outbursts date almost all from the time of the Diet of Augsburg, or that immediately succeeding it. They might, however, be compared with some earlier utterances not one whit less full of fanaticism; for instance, where he says to the Elector, in 1522: “Not only the spiritual but also the secular power must yield to the Evangel, whether willingly or unwillingly”;[341] or the opening sentences of his “Bull of the Evening Feed of our Most Holy Lord the Pope” (1522): “After having had to put up with so many hawkers of bulls, cardinals ... and the countless horde of extortioners and swindlers and knaves whom the Rhine would hardly suffice to drown ...!”[342]