They could not effect an agreement. Thus time passed on, and Melanchthon, in the meantime, wrote three discourses in the German language. The _first_ treated of the right of defence, if they should be attacked by their enemies; the _second_ showed that upright persons could not take up arms against the Protestants; and the _third_, that all the godly must assist them. Some disputed the right of waging war against the Emperor. Two years ago the Wittenbergers had declared the lawfulness of this step, maintaining that the Gospel did not oppose natural rights or public laws. All hopes of an agreement diminished more and more, and he was obliged to write to Camerarius, on April 5th: "We have here been weaving the veil of Penelope. If we have rejected one form of peace, another is laid before us, which merely differs from the preceding one in words, but not in sense. Some maintain that they are treacherously procrastinating this matter, but this has not frightened us as yet. I hope that the Empire may remain undisturbed, although no fair conditions could yet be obtained from the Imperial orator. He demands that we should not receive any new confederates. This shameful condition is introduced again and again, with new sophistries, although it has been rejected repeatedly. In this you have the entire history of the Convention. In the beginning, I disputed concerning a number of points; but when the Imperial ambassador made such unreasonable demands, I ceased; and if no truce is made, we shall publish the reasons which induced us to reject those demands." For this purpose he had prepared his three German discourses. Luther understood the state of things very well when he wrote; that one party wished an open door for the Gospel, and the other locked it; and the matter was now so, that Christ and Belial must be united, or one must yield to the other.