The Duke replied, on Dec. 28, in a manner worthy of his status in the Empire and of the firm attitude he had maintained so far. “As a layman” he refused to enter upon a “Scriptural disputation” with Luther; it was not untrue that Luther had attacked him “harshly and contrary to the ordinance of God and the command of the Gospel”; Luther might, if he chose, compare his former severity with that of God, but he certainly would not find, “in the Gospels or anywhere in Scripture,” abusive epithets such as he employed; for him, as a sovereign, to have had to put up with such treatment from a man under the ban of the Empire, had cost him much; he had been compelled to put pressure on himself to accept “persecution for justice’ sake.” Luther’s “utterly shameful abuse of our most gracious Lord, the Roman Emperor,” made it impossible for him to be Luther’s “gracious master.” Formerly, so George admits, when Luther’s writings “first appeared, some of them had pleased him. Nor were we displeased to hear of the Disputation at Leipzig, for we hoped from it some amendment of the abuses amongst Christians.” Luther, however, in his very hearing at Leipzig, had advanced Hussite errors, though he had afterwards promised him privately to “write against them” in order to allay any suspicion; in spite of this he had written in favour of Hus and against the Council of Constance and against “all our forefathers.” He, for his part, held fast to the principle, “that all who acted in defiance of obedience and separated themselves from the Christian Churches were heretics and should be regarded as such, for so they had been declared by the Holy Councils, all of which you deny, though it does not beseem you nor any Christian.” Hence he would “trouble little” about Luther’s Evangel, but would continue to do his best to exclude it from his lands. “One cause for so doing is given us in the evil fruit which springs from it; for neither you nor any man can say that aught but blasphemy of God, of the Blessed and Holy Sacrament, of the most Holy Mother of God and all the Saints has resulted from your teaching; for in your preaching all the heresies condemned of old are revived, and all honourable worship of God destroyed to an extent never witnessed since the days of Sergius [the monk supposed to have taught Mohammed]. When have more acts of sacrilege been committed by persons dedicated to God than since you introduced the Evangel? Whence has more revolt against authority come than from your Evangel? When has there been such plundering of poor religious houses? When more robbery and thieving? When were there so many escaped monks and nuns at Wittenberg as now?”[611] etc.