26. I cannot submit my faith either to the pope or to the council, because it is as clear as the day that they have frequently erred and contradicted each other. Unless, therefore, I am convinced by the testimony of scripture, or by the clearest reasoning--unless I am persuaded by means of the passages I have quoted,--and unless they thus render my conscience bound, by the word of God, I can not and will not retract, for it is unsafe for a Christian to speak against his conscience. HERE I STAND, I CAN DO NO OTHER, MAY GOD HELP ME! AMEN! 27. Luther was protected by a safe conduct from the emperor--a written guarantee pledging the faith and honor of the empire for his safety for a limited length of time--or doubtless he would have been burned at the stake for his adherence to his doctrines and his defiance of the pope. Indeed, some members of the diet advised the violation of the safe conduct, as the word of honor given to an heretic, according to the morals of the age, was not binding. Charles V, however, {217} would not listen to such perfidy. He dismissed Luther to return to Wittenberg in accordance with the terms of his safe conduct; at the same time condemning him as an heretic misled by his own folly. He forbade him on his return to Wittenberg to cause the least disorder among the people, and then promised the representatives of the pope that he would proceed against him and his adherents as contumacious heretics, by excommunication, by interdict and by every means calculated to destroy them. 28. Luther's Confinement at Wartburg.--Prince Frederic, the Wise, fearing that Luther would fall a prey to his enemies, in the storm which he saw gathering about him, had him intercepted on his way back to Wittenberg, by persons in disguise, who carried him to the castle of Wartburg [Wart-berg], where he was concealed ten months. The extremes into which some of his followers went, both in doctrine and in opposition to the Catholics, at last called him from his place of retirement, in order to restrain them and correct the abuses to which some of his doctrines gave birth.