In one of Luther’s main books, On the Freedom of the Christian, he outlines some of his views. His most important teaching was that faith alone without works justifies saves and sets free. His belief is that humans are weak and that the law shows us what is good but does not give is the power to follow them, and that through them we are shown our inability to do good and may despair of our own strength. But if you believe in Christ grace, peace, justification and liberty are promised to you. A second point was that we should know God to be truthful and worthy of belief. The soul that believes in the promises of God, and holds him to be true and righteous, can give God no higher glory. Whereas you can give God no greater injustice than to not believe in His promises, which could only make God out to be a liar or to distrust Him and His word. His third point is to unit your soul to God so that you may be filled with Christs grace, life, and salvation and that Christ would take your sin, death, and condemnation. Thus by these things, the believing soul, by the pledge of its faith in Christ, would become free from all sin, be fearless of death, safe from hell, and endowed with eternal righteousness, life, and salvation in Christ.
John Calvin was another protestant reformer who had very similar beliefs as Luther but whereas Luther was unwilling to make a statement on the predestination of people to hell Calvin explicitly stated that God chose some people to go to heaven and some people to go to hell. He became the leader of the town of Geneva where things such as dancing, playing cards, or drinking in a tavern could get you thrown in jail and people were encouraged to spy on their neighbors to see if they had any Catholic or ungodly tendency’s. Despite these harsh sounding conditions people came from all over to live in Geneva, perhaps as a sort of spiritual oasis from the strife of monarchs and kings.