Zion in Blood

While Luther and Calvin and Zwingli and the Romanists consented to the deaths of those who would not deny the Word of their Lord, some voicing restraint, struggled to invoke conscience e.g., Balthasar Hubmaier in his work Concerning Heretics and Those who burn Them. But predictably he also was burned, and his wife, who encouraged his faithfulness, was drown in the Danube:

One should overcome them with holy knowledge, not angrily but softly If they will not be taught by strong proofs or evangelic reasons, then let them be and leave them to rage. The law that condemns heretics to the fire builds up both Zion in blood and Jerusalem in wickedness This is the will of Christ who said, 'Let both grow together till the harvest, lest while ye gather up the tares ye root up also the wheat with them.'

The inquisitors are the greatest heretics of all, since, against the doctrine and example of Christ, they condemn heretics to fire, and before the time of harvest root up the wheat with the tares. For Christ did not come to butcher, destroy, and burn, but that those that live might live more abundantly.

(Hubmaier, Balthasar, Concerning Heretics and Those Who Burn Them (September, 1524). In Anabaptist Beginnings (1523-1533): A Source Book, edited by William R. Estep Jr., 47-54. Bibliotheca Humanistica & Reformatorica, vol. 16. Nieuwkoop: B. de Graaf, 1976)

But sadly this man, who opposed building “up both Zion in blood and Jerusalem in wickedness,” like the reformers spiritualized "the Israel of God.” And consequently in 1519 Regensburg, the city where he ministered, Hubmaier was instrumental in destruction of the synagogue, plundering the Jewish ghetto, and expelling the Jews. This is a sad commentary on his work that consistently included the motto Die warheit ist untödlich (Truth is Immortal).