He proceeds to indicate plainly that one of the main obstacles to such a union was Luther’s rude and offensive behaviour towards the Swiss theologians: Luther had undoubtedly heaped abuse on “guiltless brethren.” But with this sort of thing, inevitable in his case, it would be necessary to put up. “Will it not be better for us to let this pass than to involve so many Churches in even worse scandals? Could I, without grave damage to the Churches, do something to stop all this vituperation, then assuredly I should not fail to do so.”[637] Unfortunately the peacemaker’s efforts could avail nothing against a personality so imperious and ungovernable as Luther’s. Bucer continued nevertheless to further the idea of a Protestant council, though, so long as Luther lived, only with bated breath. He endeavoured at least to interest the Landgrave of Hesse in his plan for holding small synods of theologians. It was the want of unity in the matter of doctrine and the visible decline of discipline that drove him again and again to think of this remedy. On Jan. 8, 1544, he wrote to Landgrave Philip: In so many places there is “no profession of faith, no penalties, no excommunication of those who sin publicly, nor yet any Visitation or synod. Only what the lord or burgomaster wished was done, and, in place of one Pope, many Popes have arisen and things become worse and worse from day to day.” He reminds the Prince of the proposal made at Schmalkalden; because nothing was done to put this in effect, scandals were on the increase. “We constantly find that scarcely a third or fourth part communicate with Christ. What sort of Christians will there be eventually?”[638]—In the same way he tells him later: Because no synods are held “many things take place daily which ought really greatly to trouble all of us.”[639] In Würtemberg and in some of the towns of Swabia the authorities were dissuaded by the groundless fear lest the preachers should once more gain too much influence; this was why the secular authorities were averse to synods and Visitations; but “on this account daily arise gruesome divisions in matters of doctrine and unchastity of life; we find some who are daily maddened with drink and who give such scandal in other matters that the enemies of Christ have a terrible excuse for blaspheming and hindering our true Gospel.... At the last Schmalkalden meeting all the preachers were anxious that synods and Visitations should be ordered and held everywhere. But who has paid any heed to this?” And yet this is the best means whereby “our holy religion might be preserved and guarded from the new Papists amongst us, i.e. those who do not accept the Word of God in its purity and entirety, but explain it away, pull it to pieces, distort and bend it as their own sensual passions and temptations move them.”[640]