“If we make laws,” he continues, “they become snares for consciences and pure doctrine is obscured and set aside, particularly if those who come after are careless and unlearned.... Already during our lifetime we have seen sects and dissensions enough under our very noses, how each one follows his own way. In short, contempt for the Word on our side and blasphemy on the other [Catholic] side proclaim loudly enough the advent of the Last Day. Hence, above all, let us have pure and abundant preaching of the Word! The ministers of the Word must first of all become one heart and one soul. For if we make laws our successors will lay claim to the same authority, and, fallen human nature being what it is, the result will be a war of the flesh against the flesh.”[651] In other words Luther foresaw a war of all against all as likely sooner or later to be the result of any thoroughgoing attempt to regulate matters by means of laws as the Catholics did in their councils. He and his friends were persuaded that laws could only be made effectual by virtue of the power of the State. Melanchthon declared: “Unless the Court supports our arrangements, what else will they become but Platonic laws, to use a Greek saying?”[652] The idea to which Luther had clung so long as there was any hope, viz. to make the congregations self-governing, was but a fanciful and impracticable one; when again, little by little, he came to seek support from the secular authority, he did so merely under compulsion; he felt it to involve a repudiation of his own principles, nor could he control his jealousy when the far-reaching interference of the State speedily became manifest. In the Saxon electorate the consistories had been introduced in 1539, not so much at the instance of Luther as of the committee representing the Estates. They were to deal with ecclesiastical affairs and disputes, with complaints against, and grievances of, the clergy, but chiefly with the matrimonial cases. The earlier “Visitors” had lacked executive powers. The consistory established by the Elector at Wittenberg for the whole electorate was composed of two preachers (Jonas and Agricola), and two lawyers. Luther raised many objections, particularly to the consistory’s proposed use of excommunication; he feared that, unless they stuck to his theological views, the consistories would lead to “yet another scrimmage.” Later, however, he gave the new organisation his support. It was not till 1541 that the work of the consistories was more generally extended.[653] Luther consoled himself and Spalatin as follows for the loss of dignity which they apprehended: “The consistory will deal only with matrimonial cases, with which we no longer will or can have any more to do; also with the bringing back of the peasants to some sort of discipline and the payment of stipends to the preachers.”[654]