“Had Christ wanted such an Evangel, He would not have said so often: Peace be with you! St. Peter and St. Paul would not have said that the authorities must be obeyed. Thus the fruits of your teaching and Evangel fill us with horror and disgust. We are, however, ready to stake body, soul, goods and honour in defence of the true Gospel, in which may God’s Grace assist us!” After urgent admonitions offered to Luther “as New-Year wishes,” more particularly to sever his connection with the nun, he promises him his assistance should he obey him: “We shall spare no pains to obtain the clemency of our most gracious Lord the Emperor, so far as is possible to us here, and you need have no fear of any ill on account of what you have done against us, but may expect all that is good. That you may see your way to this is our hope. Amen.” Few Princes were to suffer worse treatment at Luther’s hands than Duke George. The Duke frequently retaliated by charging Luther with being a liar. He wrote, for instance, in 1531, that Luther simply bore witness to the fact that the “spirit of lying” dwelt in him, “who speaks nothing but his own fabrications and falsehood.” “You forsworn Luther,” he says to him, “you who treacherously and falsely calumniate His Imperial Majesty.”[612] Luther’s anger against the most influential Prince in the Catholic League was not diminished by the fact, that the Duke severely censured the real evils on the Catholic side, was himself inclined to introduce reforms on his own, and even, at times, to go too far. Such action on George’s part annoyed Luther all the more, because in all this the Duke would not hear of any relinquishing of ancient dogma. Hence we find Luther, quite contrary to the real state of the case, abusing George as follows: The Duke was secretly in favour of the new teaching and his resistance was merely assumed; he was opposed to the reception of the Sacrament under both kinds, only because he wished to tread under foot the whole teaching of Christ, to forbid Holy Scripture altogether and particularly to condemn St. Paul;[613] if he, Luther, were not allowed to abuse the Duke, then neither might he call the devil a murderer and a liar.[614] “He is my sworn, personal enemy,” he says, and proceeds in the same vein: “Had I written in favour of the Pope, he would now be against the Pope, but because I write against the Pope, he fights for him and defends him.”[615]