“If they do not confute us on reasonable grounds and by written proofs,” he says, on July 10, 1520, in another letter addressed to Spalatin, but really intended for the Elector, “but proceed against us by force and censures, then things will become twice as bad in Germany as in Bohemia” [an allusion to the Husite apostasy].[58] “Where then can I turn for better instruction?”[59] ... “Let His Highness the Prince,” he here writes, coming to the question of the University professorship which provided him with his means of livelihood, “put me out into the street so that I may either be better instructed or confuted.” He, for his part, is ready to resign his public appointment, retire into private life, allow others to take his place, and let all his belongings be burned. But he also thinks it just that the Elector, being personally unable to instruct him, should also refuse to act either as judge or as executioner until a (true ecclesiastical) sentence be pronounced. The principal thing is, so he says, that “the question under discussion has not been solved, and my enemies have not touched it with so much as a single word. The Prince, under these circumstances, may well refuse to punish anyone, even though he be a Turk or a Jew, for he is in ignorance whether he be guilty or not; his conscience bids him pause, and how then can the Romanists demand that he should step in and obey men rather than God?”
Thereupon Frederick, the Elector, actually wrote to Rome that Luther was ready to be better instructed from Holy Scripture by learned judges; no one could reproach him, the Prince; he was far from “extending protection to the writings and sermons of Dr. Martin Luther,” or “from tolerating any errors against the Holy Catholic faith.”[60]
At the very last moment before the promulgation of the Bull of Excommunication, Luther made offers of “peace” to the Roman Court through Cardinal Carvajal, professing to be ready to accept any conditions, provided he was left free to teach the Word, and was not ordered to retract. This step was taken to safeguard his public position and his future; Spalatin, and through him the Elector, received due notification of the fact on August 23, 1520.[61]