Yet, at the time of the Diet of Augsburg, Luther, for all his inexorable determination, was not unmindful of the temporal assistance promised by the Princes. He hinted at this with entire absence of reserve in a letter, not indeed to Melanchthon, who was averse to war, but to Spalatin: “Whatever the issue [of the Diet] may be, do not fear the victors and their craft. Luther is still at large and so is the Macedonian” (i.e. Philip of Hesse, whom Melanchthon had thus nicknamed after the warlike Philip of Macedonia). The “Macedonian” seemed to Luther a sort of “Ismael,” like unto Agar’s son, whom Holy Scripture had described as a wild man, whose hand is raised against all (Gen. xvi. 12). Luther was aware that Philip had quitted the Diet in anger and was now nursing his fury, as it were, in the desert. “He is at large,” he says in biblical language, “and thence may arise prudence to meet cunning and Ismael to oppose the enemy. Be strong and act like men. There was nothing to fear if they fought with blunted weapons.”[1121] Philip’s offer of a refuge in Hesse had helped to render Luther more defiant.[1122] Exhortations such as these increased the unwillingness of his friends at Augsburg to reach any settlement by way of real concessions. All hopes of a peaceful outcome of the negotiations were thus doomed. The Reichstagsabschied which finally, on November 19, 1530, brought Parliament to an end, witnessed to the hopelessness of any lasting peace; it required, however, that the bishoprics, monasteries, and churches which had been destroyed should be re-erected, and that the parishes still faithful to Catholicism should enjoy immunity under pain of the ban of the Empire.[1123] Looking back at Melanchthon’s attitude at the Diet, we can understand the severe strictures of recent historians.