He points out that “the common people become daily more savage and uncouth,” and that “no Christian Church can hope to stand where such rudeness and lawlessness prevail.” According to him the authority of the consistories was to embrace the whole domain of Church government. They were, however, to derive their authority direct from the sovereign, “through, and by order of, the prince of the land.” Hence “their _iudices_ were to have the right to enforce their decisions”; they were to be in a position to wield the Greater Excommunication with its temporal consequences, also to inflict bodily punishment, fines and “suitable terms of imprisonment,” and therefore to have “men-at-arms” and “a prison” at their disposal.[664] Jonas and those who agreed with him fancied that what they were setting up with the help of the secular power was a spiritual court; in reality, however, they were advocating a purely secular, coercive institution. Luther’s views differed from those of his friends in so far as he wished to see the new courts—which he frowned at and distrusted—merely invested with full powers for dealing with matrimonial suits; even here, however, he made a reservation, insisting on the abrogation of canon law. The Elector’s edict of 1539 appointing the consistories, out of consideration for Luther, was worded rather vaguely. The consistories were, “until further notice,” to see to the “ecclesiastical affairs” which “have occurred so far or shall yet occur and be brought to your cognisance.”[665] According to this their authority was received only “until further notice” from the ruler, to whom it fell to bring cases to their “cognisance,” and, who, naturally kept the execution of the sentence in his own hands. Luther, it is true, accepted the new arrangement, because, as he said, it represented a “Church court” which could take over the matrimonial cases. But forthwith he found himself in conflict with the lawyers attached to the courts because they insisted on taking their stand on canon law. To his very death, even in his public utterances, he lashed the men of the law for thus submitting themselves to the Pope and to the code against which his life’s struggle had been directed. Yet the lawyers were driven to make use of the old statutes, since they alone afforded a legal basis, and because Luther’s propositions to the contrary—on secret marriages, for instance—lacked any general recognition. The result of Luther’s opposition to the consistories was, that, so long as he lived, they remained without any definite instructions, devoid of the authority which had been promised them, and without the coercive powers they so much needed; for the nonce they were spiritual courts without any outward powers of compulsion, the latter being retained by the sovereign to use at his discretion.