As early as 1527 he had had occasion to complain of the Erfurt Councillors; they had not the courage “to go to the root of the matter”; they tolerated the “dissensions” in the town arising from the divergent preaching of the “Evangelicals” and the “Papists,” instead of “making all the preachers dispute together and silencing those who could not make good their cause.”[1218] Since the Convention of Hamelburg in 1530[1219] both forms of worship had been tolerated in the town. To the great vexation of Johann Lang and the other preachers the quick-witted Franciscan, Conrad Kling, an Erfurt Doctor of Theology (above, vol. v., p. 341), delivered in the Spitalkirche sermons which were so well attended that the audience overflowed even into the churchyard. Catholic citizens of standing in the town and possessed of influence over the Council, spread the report that the Lutheran preachers were intruders who had no legitimate mission or call, and had not even been validly appointed by the Council. In consequence of this, Luther, with Melanchthon and Jonas, addressed a circular letter in 1533 to his old friend Lang and the latter’s colleagues, in which he encourages them to stand firm and not to quit the town; he points out that their call, in spite of all that was alleged, had been “with the knowledge of the magistracy,” and not the result of “intrigue.”[1220] It is plain from this letter that the tables had to some extent been turned on Lang and his followers who had once behaved in so high-handed a manner at Erfurt,[1221] and that they were now tasting “want and misery” as well as contempt. In vain did the preachers attempt to shake off the authority of the Council by claiming to hold their commission from God. Some while after, owing to the further efforts of Kling and his friends, the situation of the Lutherans became even worse; it was then that Frederick Myconius, Superintendent at Gotha, took their side and persuaded Luther to write the above memorandum of Aug. 22(?), 1536, on the True Church of Christ at Erfurt. This was signed by Melanchthon, Bugenhagen, Jonas and Myconius, and may have been the latter’s work. The document is highly characteristic of Luther’s tactics in the shifty character of the proofs adduced to prove the call of the Erfurt pastors. It did not succeed in inducing the Council to grant the preachers independence or to abrogate the restrictions of which they complained, although, as Enders remarks, “it exalted the spiritual power as supreme over the secular.”[1222]