Sultan Suleiman the Second’s lust for conquest had, since 1520, become a subject of the gravest misgivings in the West. With the help of his countless warlike hordes he had, in 1521, taken Belgrad, the strong outpost of the Christian powers, and, after a terrible struggle, on December 25 of the following year, captured from the Knights of St. John the strategically so important island of Rhodes. There now seemed every likelihood of these victories being followed up. The Kingdom of Hungary, which so long and gloriously had stemmed the inroads of the infidel into Christendom, now felt itself unable to cope single-handed with the enemy and accordingly appealed to the Emperor for help. At the Diet of Nuremberg, in 1524, the Imperial Abschied of April 18 held out a promise of assistance in the near future, and even instanced tentatively the means to be adopted by the Empire. In the meantime appeals were to be made to the other Christian powers for help, so that the final resolutions concerning the plan of defence might be discussed and settled at the Spires Convention on November 11 of the same year. Luther thought it his duty to interfere in these preparations. _Against Assistance for the Turkish War._ The Diet of Nuremberg had re-enacted the Edict of Worms against Luther. It had requested the Pope to summon a “free, general Council” in some suitable spot in Germany[195] “in order that good may not be overborne by evil, and that true believers and subjects of Christ may be brought to a firm belief in a common faith.” Incensed by the renewal of the Edict of Worms against his doctrine and person, Luther at once published an angry work, “Zwey keyserliche uneynige und wydderwertige Gepott” (1524),[196] in which he declared himself against the granting of any help whatever against the Turks. He begins by saying of the authors of the new decree against Lutheranism, that surely even “pigs and donkeys could see how blindly and obstinately they were acting; it is abominable that the Emperor and the Princes should openly deal in lies.” After a lengthy discussion of the decree, he comes to the question of the help which was so urgently needed in order to repel the Turks; he says: “Finally I beg of you all, dear Christians, that you will join in praying to God for those miserable, blinded Princes, whom no doubt God Himself has placed over us as a curse, that we may not follow them against the Turks, or give money for this undertaking; for the Turks are ten times cleverer and more devout than are our Princes. How can such fools, who tempt and blaspheme God so greatly, expect to be successful against the Turks?”[197] His chief reason for refusing help against the Turks was the blasphemy against God of which the Princes of the Empire, and the Emperor, had rendered themselves guilty by withstanding his Evangel.