After Luther’s death things were changed. The consistories both in the Saxon Electorate and in most other places where they had been copied became exclusively organs of Church government by the State, though still composed of theologians and lawyers. In 1579 and 1580 the end which Luther had foreseen arrived. “The last things became, as a matter of fact, worse than the first,” as he himself had predicted, nay, as the result of his own action; Satan has introduced “into the Church the counsels and the authority of government officials” (above, p. 182). This change, which in reality was the realisation of the ideas of Jonas, Melanchthon and Chancellor Brück, leads Rud. Sohm, after having portrayed in detail the circumstances, to exclaim: “The sovereign as head of the Church! How can such a thing be even imagined? The Church of Christ, governed solely by the word of Christ ... and by command of the ruler of the land.”[666] Speaking of the disorder in Luther’s Church, which recognised no canon law, the Protestant canonist says: “Canon law was needed to assist the Word; well, it came, but only to establish the lord of the land as lord also of the Church.” “The State government of the Church is in contradiction with the Lutheran profession of faith.” “If, however, the Church is determined to be ruled by force, then the ruler must be the secular authority.”[667] The secular authorities to which Protestantism looked for support had been well organised throughout the Empire by the League of Schmalkalden. Subsequent to 1535 the warlike alliance had been extended for a further ten years. In 1539 the state of things became so threatening, that Luther feared lest the Catholic princes should attack the Protestants. In a sermon he referred to the “fury of Satan amongst the blinded Papists who incite the Emperor and other kings against the Evangel”; he, however, also added, that “we, by our boundless malice and ingratitude, have called down the wrath of God.” They ought to pray, “that the Emperor might not turn his arms against us who have the pure Word of Christ.”[668] As a matter of fact, however, the Emperor and the Empire were not in a position even to protect themselves against the wanton behaviour of the innovators. Amongst the outward provisions made for the future benefit of the new Church, the League of Schmalkalden deserves the first place. In the very year before his death Luther took steps to ensure the prolongation of this armed alliance.[669] Among the efforts made at home to improve matters a place belongs to Luther’s attempts to introduce a more frequent use of excommunication. _Luther seeks to introduce the so-called Lesser Excommunication_