His work “An den christlichen Adel,” to which we must now return in order to consider it from this particular standpoint, was composed with this object. By it he sought to rouse the rulers and those in power who had opened their hearts to the “Christian” faith, i.e. to the new Evangel, to take in hand the moral and religious reformation on the lines indicated by himself. Thus he appealed, as almost all sectarians had instinctively done from the very first, to the secular authorities and the power of the Princes in order to attain his special ecclesiastical ends. The secular Estates, already covetous of increased power and independence, were invited in these fiery pages to take their stand against the Papacy and the hierarchy, just as they would against “a destroyer of Christendom,”[47] and “to punish them severely” on account of divers disorders and “for their abuse of excommunication and their shocking blasphemies against the name of God,”[48] in short, “to put an end to the whole affair.”[49] The last words, found in the writing “On good works,” were addressed to the “King, the Princes, Nobles, Townships and people generally.” Thus to force the two powers, secular and ecclesiastical, out of their spheres, handing over the supervision of the Church to the secular authorities[50] can only be characterised as an attack upon the whole Christian and moral order of things, on the whole previous development of the Church and on the highest principles of religion. It is true that the Catholic States had already appropriated many of the rights really appertaining to the Church, but to carry their interference so far as Luther advised, had never yet occurred to them. Indeed, the subversion of order planned by Luther was so great, that the impossibility of carrying out his project must have speedily become apparent to him. As a matter of fact, the actual number of those whose hearts had been awakened by the Evangel to the extent of sharing Luther’s extreme views was not at all considerable. When anxious friends pointed out to Luther how revolutionary his undertaking was, his excuse was merely this: “I am blameless, seeing that my only object is to induce the nobles of Germany to set a limit to the encroachments of the Romanists by passing resolutions and edicts, not by means of the sword; for to fight against an unwarlike clergy would be like fighting against women and children.”[51] Hence, so long as no blood was shed, the overthrow of the legal status of the Church met with his full approval. The torrents of angry abuse which Luther soon afterwards poured forth upon those in power because they would not follow his call and allow themselves to be “awakened,” were simply proofs of the futility of his plan.