"It is you," said he, "who are the cause of this revolt; it is your clamors against the Gospel, your guilty oppressions of the poor, that have driven the people to despair. It is not the peasants, my dear lords, that rise up against you--it is God himself who opposes your madness. The peasants are but the instruments he employs to humble you. Do not imagine you can escape the punishment he is preparing for you. Even should you have succeeded in destroying all these peasants, God is able from the very stones to raise up others to chastise your pride. If I desired revenge, I might laugh in my sleeve, and look on while the peasants were carrying on their work, or even increase their fury; but may God preserve me from such thoughts! My dear lords, put away your indignation, treat those poor peasants as a man of sense treats people who are drunk or insane. Quiet these commotions by mildness, lest a conflagration should arise and burn all Germany. Among these twelve articles there are certain demands which are just and equitable." This prologue was calculated to conciliate the peasants' confidence in Luther, and to make them listen patiently to the truths he had to tell them. He represented to them that the greater number of their demands were well founded, but that to revolt was to act like heathens; that the duty of a Christian is to be patient, not to fight; that if they persisted in revolting against the Gospel in the name of the Gospel, he should look upon them as more dangerous enemies than the Pope. "The Pope and the Emperor," continued he, "combined against me; but the more they blustered, the more did the Gospel gain ground. And why was this? Because I have never drawn the sword or called for vengeance; because I never had recourse to tumult or insurrection: I relied wholly on God, and placed everything in his almighty hands. Christians fight not with swords or arquebuses, but with sufferings and with the Cross. Christ, their captain, handled not the sword. He was hung upon a tree." But to no purpose did Luther employ this Christian language. The people were too much excited by the fanatical speeches of the leaders of the insurrection to listen, as of old, to the words of the reformer. "He is playing the hypocrite," said they; "he flatters the nobles. He has declared war against the Pope, and yet wishes us to submit to our oppressors."