In what direction his thoughts were then turning may be gathered from what he says to the Landgrave in the same letter concerning his writings; the latter had asked him, he says, for a controversial booklet, “as a consolation for the weak”; he intended “in any case to publish a booklet shortly ... admonishing all consciences, that no subject was bound to render obedience should His Imperial Majesty persist”; and in which he will prove that the Emperor’s demands are “blasphemous, murderous and diabolical”—still, the booklet was not to be termed “seditious.” He here is referring either to the “Auff das vermeint Edict” or to the “Warnunge.” We have already spoken of the revolutionary character of the language he used in these tracts published in the early part of 1531, and, subsequently, in the reply “Widder den Meuchler zu Dresen.”[142] What he was there to advocate goes far beyond the limits of mere passive resistance. He was at first unwilling to declare his views at Torgau. Not to contradict what he had previously said, he protested that the question did not concern him, since, as a theologian, his business was to teach Christ only. As regards secular matters, he could only counsel compliance with the law and, on the matter of forcible resistance to the Emperor, that any action taken should be conformable to the “written laws.” “But what these laws were he neither knew nor cared.”[143] The assembled lawyers were, however, loath to leave Torgau without having reached an understanding, and submitted another statement to Luther and his colleagues, requesting their opinion on it. In this document they had sought to prove, from sources almost exclusively canonical, that it was lawful to resist the Emperor by force, because “he proceeds and acts contrary to law,” not being a judge in matters of religion, and that, even if he were such a judge, he had no right to do anything on account of the appeal to a Council. They urged that it was necessary to “obey God and evangelical truth rather than men,” and that the Emperor was “no more than a private individual so far as the ‘cognition’ and ‘statution’ of this matter went ... nor does the ‘execution’ come within his province.” For the sake of the salvation of souls the Emperor was not to be regarded as “judge in the matter of our faith,” for his “injustice is undeniable, manifest, patent and notorious, yea, more than notorious.”[144]