Chapter XXVI. That the Secondary Aim of Syncretism Is Twofold: the Overthrow of the Lutherans and the Servitude of Calvinist Princes — Ten Books of Politics

§1

Once the Pontiff has been killed together with his defenders, after they have devoured his flesh, burned many of them, blocked the bed of the Tiber with corpses, and brought back the times of Sulla, in which the foremost fell into the river and the highest upon their bodies, they will then turn the sword against their Lutheran fellow soldiers and, with a Cadmean battle, offer funeral rites to Roman shades. For if the simple Pope and simple Papists had to be finished off so atrociously, what will they say that double popes and double Papists deserve? For Calvinist ministers are accustomed to call the Lutherans thus, as I proved in the book concerning their union.

Next, they will possess against the Lutherans themselves the same causes for waging war which impelled them to Syncretism and conflict against Catholics. They will say that their princes ought to resist Lutheran tyranny, obstructing it even with the sword and by force and breaking idols; for Pareus thinks that the Lutherans too patronize idols, on Romans 1, Doubt 18. Thirdly, the Lutherans judge that Calvinists must be prosecuted by war; but who would believe that Calvinists will deliberate more benignly concerning their enemies, whom they have experienced to have thought about them only with the greatest cruelty? Joachim Westphal cries out that whoever is found to favor Calvinists must be exterminated from the whole world. He glories that he wrote: “Calvinists are to be refuted by the magistrate with the sword rather than with the pen.” He is the author of the advice “that magistrates interdict from water and fire not merely professors of Zwinglian doctrine but also those who approve it”—so Calvin reports in his Final Admonition to Westphal.

For the sake of order I now touch this part lightly; in their proper place I shall produce the Lutherans themselves pleading their cause, for among all causes this is the principal one. Therefore nineteen reasons from the judgment of the Lutherans will explain the cause. Yet lest the Calvinist agitators think they can so cover and suppress the purpose of their mind that it does not issue forth among the people and become known, I shall deal briefly with them, and so gently that they cannot take offense, so truly that they cannot answer.

§2

Come then: let there be peace; let Syncretism coalesce. You wish to provide for the Lutherans; you account it an abomination that fraternity be rent. Once we have been killed, you promise to live peacefully with them forever. If you do not knowingly and willingly deceive them, come then: as spokesman for all Lutherans, I pray and entreat this one thing. Allow them to retain their place in the Electoral March for even one month. I do not pray that they remain forever; this is too much. I demand some interval for flight and a small loan of time. Let them possess that pledge of your humanity and Syncretism; do not expel those whom you greatly desire to be so closely joined with you. If I obtain this, I shall become a herald of your moderation; if it is denied, I do not see what the Lutherans can hope for. Will you yield lands and inheritances to those whom you have begun to expel so precipitately and eagerly that by your importunity you have driven the wretched men into madness—men to whom you have not granted even a precarious possession for a time? If you proceed to oppress them by secular power, what may they expect when conquered, when even now, while fortune stands, they suffer such dire things; when even now, while the flatteries of Syncretism solicit them, they experience exiles, proscriptions, and prisons?

§3

But what if I make plain from Pareus that not only can the Lutherans not be safe while Calvinists live, but even Calvinist kings and princes themselves cannot evade the deceits and violence of their ministers unless they serve a servitude? So great is the perversity of the Zwinglian possession that it turns the sword against its own entrails when the material for cruelty directed against foreigners is withdrawn. Pareus teaches thus on Romans 13, Proposition 2: “Subjects—not private persons, but those established in an inferior magistracy—can by right defend themselves, the state, and the Church, or true religion, even by arms against a superior magistrate,” upon these conditions:

I. When the superior magistrate degenerates into a tyrant.

II. Or when he wishes by force to compel them or other subjects to manifest idolatry and blasphemies.

III. When an atrocious injury is inflicted upon them.

IV. If they cannot otherwise be secure in fortune, life, and conscience.

V. That under the pretext of religion or justice they do not seek their own interest.

VI. With ἐπιείκεια [equity] always preserved, and with the restraint of blameless protection according to the laws.

From these conditions Lutheran and Calvinist princes can fashion their arguments.

First. If a Calvinist consistory judges me a tyrant, it will think it lawful, whenever it pleases, to arm a praetor against me. But it will call me a tyrant if I tolerate and foster rigid Ubiquitarians and savage enemies of the truth—if I exterminate Calvinists.

Second. With how great a license will it establish that decree of its own: that a satrap may defend his own church against a superior magistrate? If Calvinists assemble a little church at Wittenberg or Leipzig, will a consul or satrap be able by good right to defend it by arms against the Elector? No one is ignorant how widely that statement extends—“I defend the Church; I protect the true religion”—unless he is so much a stranger in Europe that he does not know by how many religions the true faith is claimed. If a sword has been given to an inferior magistrate against a superior in that cause, they must concede that the prince of Saxony could once have been killed by Crellius.

Third. “If he wishes to compel them to manifest blasphemy.” Namely, if anyone teaches impanation and ubiquity in Lutheran fashion, and commands men to subscribe to those articles or to cease from condemning them, according to Pareus’s judgment that prince can be killed by his own praetor.

Fourth. “If an atrocious injury is inflicted.” Surely it is an atrocious injury to give subjects in church, in place of heavenly bread and the saving Eucharist, excrement of which the Devil himself ought to be ashamed in hell. Beza says the Lutherans do this; see the Defense of the Men of Pforzheim, page 205. Therefore he judges that princes who exclude Zwinglian loaves and morsels from their dominions and protect the Lutheran Supper by their authority and arms inflict an atrocious injury.

Fifth. “If they cannot otherwise be secure in conscience.” But when will men say that they are secure in their most holy conscience? When in fortune and life? If in the best faith the Lutherans yield their ministries to them; if they abandon everything; if they are not burdensome to the occupiers of their property; if it is granted them freely to teach, rebuke adversaries, convene councils, and arm consistories. I have never doubted that Pareus himself never approved for himself what he demands that we believe: that a praetor driven mad by Zwinglianism, if he thinks that while his own prince lives he cannot be secure in conscience, has obtained the right and power of life and death over his lord.

For what if his conscience is as cauterized as Calvin’s back? What if it is fanatical? What if impious? What if Calvinist? Will the life of a Lutheran prince depend to such a degree upon the conscience of a Calvinist subject? What if the latter professes that his conscience is injured because the sacraments are not given according to the Genevan rite; because he does not hear pleasant sermons which ascribe crimes to GOD; because he is forbidden to educate and initiate his children in Genevan rites? Will he procure the security of his conscience by the danger of the prince, sanctity by the blood of the magistrate, and safety by the death of those who rule him? I leave these things for magistrates to consider; I proceed to other matters. He produces five reasons to prove his proposition, by which he overturns the exception concerning the ἐπιείκεια [equity] of blameless defense.

§4

Reason I. “Because the superior magistrate is subject to divine laws and those of his state. For it would be manifest impiety and wickedness for a magistrate, however exalted, to wish to exempt himself from the laws. This is evident because the king is commanded to read Deuteronomy, or the divine law, Deuteronomy 17; Joshua 1:8. Therefore God wishes the king to be subject to divine laws. But the law of GOD not only prohibits tyranny but also commands it to be lawfully restrained: ‘Whoever sheds man’s blood,’ etc. Likewise, the Emperor testifies in the Code that he does not wish his decrees to possess a place in judgments contrary to law, but that they ought to be void if perhaps they are recognized to depart from justice. And in Book 4 of the Code, On the Laws of Princes: ‘So worthy of the majesty of a ruler is the declaration that the prince professes himself bound by the laws.’ Therefore even the tyrannies and brigandage of a superior magistrate ought to be restrained by the ordinary power, which in any polity is either the inferior magistrate or the consent of the people.”

II. “Because it is no less the duty of an inferior than of a superior magistrate to defend the life and safety of subjects against atrocious injuries and the unjust force of brigands and tyrants, whether foreign or domestic.” This is proved: “Because of them too it is said: ‘He is the minister of God to you for good; he is not a terror to good works, but to evil. He does not bear the sword in vain; he is an avenger unto the wrath of God against him who does evil.’ Therefore when a superior magistrate does evil, and acts with atrocious injuries against subjects or blasphemies against God, the inferior ought to be an avenger unto wrath,” etc. Likewise, “because inferior magistrates are therefore joined to superiors, both so that they may be associates in government and so that they may moderate the latter’s excessive license. Therefore, when they restrain it, they employ the authority and sword divinely entrusted to them through a legitimate calling.”

III. “Those whose office it is to establish magistrates also have the office of restraining or removing those who advance outrageously, unless they desist from advancing against God and the state. But magistrates are established either by the consent of the people, by the senate, by electors, or by other magistrates. Therefore these act rightly when they restrain or remove those who advance outrageously.”

IV. “From a similar case: a mad magistrate is rightly removed by public authority, as Nebuchadnezzar, turned into a mad beast, was cast out from human fellowship, Daniel 4:31. But an atrocious assailant and tyrant is like a madman.”

V. “Approved examples, both sacred and profane, confirm the same. In the history of the Judges, the Israelites are often read to have risen through their judges, with God’s approval, against neighboring tyrants by whom they were cruelly treated. Hezekiah, a pious king, revolted from the Assyrian tyrant, and when attacked by him in war, defended himself against him by arms, 2 Kings 18. It does not matter that these were foreign tyrants, for domestic tyrants differ in nothing from foreign ones; indeed, they are to be restrained more because they are perjured and more harmful. Thus the people resisted the foolish King Saul when he wished to slaughter his son Jonathan, 1 Samuel 14:15. Ahikam defended the prophet Jeremiah against King Jehoiakim when he wished to kill him, Jeremiah 26:24. The centurions and princes removed the tyrant Athaliah, 2 Kings 11. The Maccabees defended themselves and the state by arms against the Macedonian tyrants. Thrasybulus drove the Thirty Tyrants from Athens. By public consent the Romans expelled kings who ruled shamefully; they often compelled consuls to abdicate the magistracy; they judged the tyrants Nero and Maximinus public enemies and removed them. The Electors deposed the idle and luxurious Wenceslaus from the Empire, putting in his place Rupert, Elector Palatine, founder of the cathedral church of this town, in the year 1400.”

Finally, Trajan is praised in Dio because, when handing the sword to the praetorian prefect, he said: “Use this for me if I command just things; against me if unjust things.”

§5

Since the matter itself teaches how such splendid arguments open a door to the crime and audacity of the wicked for destroying the safety of princes, I ought to say no more. What then? A prince is subject to the laws of his state? Let it be so; I do not now dispute this. Is he also subject to the law in such a way that he ought to pay penalties to the state, and that legal proceedings ought to be taken against him as soon as he transgresses? You indeed think so: “Because,” he says, “the law of God commands tyranny lawfully to be restrained: whoever sheds man’s blood,” etc.; “therefore a superior magistrate ought to be restrained by an inferior.” If, therefore, a Lutheran prince is liable for some offense sanctioned by capital punishment, Pareus judges by force of divine law that he must be killed. For this is the tendency of the statement: “Whoever sheds man’s blood, his blood too must be shed, for homicide cannot otherwise be expiated except by the blood of him who shed another’s blood.”

And just as it is the prince’s office to suppress brigandage, blasphemies, adulteries, and much more heresies and idolatry by force and even, if necessary, by the sword, so by Pareus’s counsel Calvinist nobles will proceed with the sword against Lutheran princes if they protect and defend ubiquity; if they establish idols or images in a church; if they practice Cyclopean dismemberment; if they believe what the Soft in Belgium believe, and thus seem to be sectarians, heretics, atheistic sectarians, to be promptly suppressed in the very blade. Those who think thus will never lack a legal action against their own princes, and never a design for accomplishing such great audacity.

§6

But what does the second argument permit a Lutheran prince against Calvinism? Indeed, what does it not permit Calvinism against a prince? “When the superior magistrate does what is evil,” he says, “the inferior ought to be an avenger unto wrath.” But if a Lutheran or Calvinist prince is arraigned before the consistorial tribunal of the Zwinglian ministry, it will be difficult to prevail in the cause under an unjust judge. “You do evil,” they will say to the Lutheran. “You proscribe Calvinist ministers and advance Ubiquitarians, turbulent enemies of truth; you summon ancient heresies from hell; you worship a bread-made God; you hold a Cyclopean feast and tear your God with your teeth.

“Go, lictor: veil his head, scourge him within or outside the pomerium, hang him upon the unlucky tree. Beware of suspecting that any punishment is excessive or unjust, for they are double Papists.”

He does not fear to add that inferior magistrates were joined to superiors in order to moderate the latter’s excessive license; therefore, when they restrain it, they employ the authority and sword entrusted to them through a legitimate calling. If these things are true, those men are not merely helpers of princes but princes of princes—indeed, executioners of princes. For on departing from Pareus’s Museum, what will a satrap swear to his prince? Namely, that he is an associate in government, a moderator of the prince’s license, and that he will use his sword against him if he transgresses.

But what does it concede to the prince against these petty tyrants? Are they inviolable and sacred like tribunes of the plebs? Can they not command the prince, drag men to prison, and kill? Therefore those who hold in their hand not only the authority but also the life of the prince are exempt from his dominion. But you will say: “This is so if the prince has bound himself by crime—if he has done what is evil.” Nor are they so mad as to profess that punishments must be established for good deeds and virtue; nor is it necessary for me, although they have often done this, to accuse so great an insolence on their part. I assert and confirm this: under that royal power of praetors, consuls, and satraps, the life of a Lutheran prince is not to be valued at one as. For they long ago decreed that he does evil; they judged him an enemy when they said he was a defender and patron of horrible heresies and a persecutor of truth.

They will arrogate the same right to themselves from the third argument; for whenever it pleases them to kill, they will allege that the Lutherans advance outrageously against God and the state. Nor will the censure of a consistory expose only Lutherans to the swords of petty rulers; it will not spare the Calvinists themselves.

William Ames, a champion of the more rigid Puritanism, furnished an example. I have not seen his book against the bishops of England; I shall transcribe what Nicholas Grevinchovius cites from it in his preface:

“But the rest”—those, namely, who are not Rigid Puritans but Anglo-Papists, as are the bishops of Britain—“are notable gamblers, strenuous drinkers, men who treat the duties of religion as of no importance, practiced peddlers corrupted by the perverse ambitions of the Papists, impious swearers, and, finally, vain, unjust, shameful men and all sons of Belial. And these men not only act as commanders of the army but almost alone fill the camp; for they often make Marian mules of the simpler men whom they possess among the freeborn, while they abuse their labor to supply wood to the soldiers after the manner of camp servants. But the breasts and heads of those Euclios who still obstinately struggle against Puritanism must be purged with hellebore. Moreover, those laws through whose favor and force some ministers were driven from their goods and seats, etc., whatever they may be, incur the same reproach as the decrees of the Athenians, concerning which Xenophon complained: ἕλοντο τοῖς πονηροῖς ἀμείνον πράττειν, ἢ τοῖς χρηστοῖς [they chose that the wicked should fare better than the good]. Nor, that you may know it, are those ancient decrees or counsels of the forefathers,” etc.

“Certain canons were fashioned with evil deceit in fraud of the laws, condemned by the parliamentary senate, truly criminal, which at last their authors enforce against the ministers unwillingly, not without shame, and by transferring the blame to others—if you except certain fierce and savage men who appear altogether to have cast off shame. Furthermore, most of those constitutions were deliberately enacted to disturb and ensnare the quiet of the land. This is evident even from the fact that they not only retained certain putrid relics of the Papists, but delivered them fortified by every means and surrounded by dense anathemas taking effect from the very deed, striving especially to establish those corruptions which they knew almost all good men abhorred. Thus they have now made it manifest that they do not fail to know their own vices but love them: prison-guards gaping after plunder, armed with omnipotent Vulcan, devouring rich pasture, trampling under their feet what remains of the pasture, attacking with their horns the sheep affected by disease, until they have scattered them and driven them outside; ascending the criminal ladder of Antichrist through the unequal grades of churches and ecclesiastics in jurisdiction, impelled by the Antichristian spirit while they arrogate this to themselves, that they should be accounted pastors of pastors—men whom you could rightly call Catos or dragons, in doubt which. And thus either this pretended order of bishops must be removed from the midst, or the Pope must be summoned again from hell.”

These things he casts, as if from a wagon, against that order which Royal Majesty itself venerates as holy and which the nobles of the kingdom esteem.

§7

You have heard Ames, who laid the first rudiments of his abusive speech in assailing the king himself through the bishops.

Does he doubt here that those bishops are atheists and the most criminal of men? Is it not doing evil to do those things Ames writes? Is not the innocent king not merely their defender but their restorer, patron, author, and adorner? Can or dare they do those things without the king? What, then, do we think this man would do if he employed the right of the inferior magistrate? The reasoning is complete. Those bishops do what is evil; the king established, venerates, protects, and assists them. Therefore the sword divinely entrusted to me must be directed against the king. For who, when the criminal ladder of Antichrist lay prostrate in Scotland and tottered in England, raised it and supported it by the opposition of royal power and authority, unless it was the Most Serene King James? “He does what is evil,” says Ames. “Therefore it belongs to his satrap to be an avenger unto wrath,” Pareus adds.

He commands madmen to be driven out. But the Calvinists think the Lutherans mad.

“Nor will Westphal effect anything by his mad tumult,” etc., says Calvin in the Final Admonition in the same place: “to rise with a frenzied impulse”; “the man’s intemperance is obstinate.” The Heidelberg Consolators expressly endeavor to demonstrate that Jakob Andreae and Osiander are mad. In the program of his apology, Grynaeus thinks that the magistrate is affected by the most atrocious insult through the sides of those who teach piously. Therefore they will refer to the magistrate everything that the preachers rave and will cry that the magistrate of the Lutherans is assailed by the disease which is accustomed to be spat forth. For nothing is holy, nothing immune, which audacity driven by the evils of superstition does not break through.

§8

Thus far we have heard the arguments; let us see the examples. “In the history of the Judges the Israelites are often read to have risen through their judges, with God’s approval, against neighboring tyrants by whom they were cruelly treated.” Therefore an inferior magistrate can kill a superior, because domestic tyrants are to be restrained more, since they are perjured and more harmful. I seem to hear the declaration of the briganding consistory: One judge killed a king who cruelly treated the Israelites; let one satrap kill a Lutheran prince who exterminates Calvinist ceremonies.

Hezekiah rebelled against the Assyrian king. Therefore an inferior magistrate can fight against a superior if the latter sustains the criminal ladder of Antichrist and, impelled by the Antichristian spirit, arrogates this to himself: that he should be accounted pastor of pastors, that is, head of the Church.

The centurions killed Athaliah; therefore a praetor can rightfully kill a prince. Thrasybulus drove out the Thirty Tyrants; the Romans expelled their kings and compelled their consuls to abdicate; they removed Nero and Maximinus. Why, therefore, should Calvinists not cut Lutheran princes in two—Ubiquitarians liable to the gravest crimes, intolerable to any Christian man—and introduce into their patrimonies and dominion pious men who are masters of their own mind?

Wenceslaus was stripped of the Empire because of idleness. Therefore an inferior magistrate will be able to deprive a superior of his dominion. What, then, if a Calvinist prince does not attack Lutheranism sharply enough? If he publishes more merciful edicts for Lutherans? If he seems more inclined toward the cause of the sectarians—that is, the Soft—as the Estates are? If the royal admonition has not aroused his sluggishness? Evidently a danger equal to the Pope’s threatens him: the same that threatens the Lutheran, the double Papist, and the bishops of England who ascend the criminal ladder of Antichrist so that they may be pastors of pastors.

But what need is there of more? I produce Pareus’s testimony against the author himself. He denies that Lutherans should be tolerated. “A Christian magistrate,” he says on Romans 13, “ought not to permit confusion in religion, but to protect and defend the true religion alone.” But in Pareus’s mind Rigid Calvinism alone is the true religion; therefore he ought to protect and defend it alone. And Proposition 4: “Christian princes ought by edicts and punishments to obstruct blasphemies, heresies, idols, sacrileges,” etc. “Because they obstruct the good and safety of subjects, they therefore rightly exterminate the Papacy. Because they are evil works, princes ought therefore to be a terror to them.” Let not the Lutheran prince lose confidence here unless Pareus says that the Lutherans possess blasphemies, heresies, idols, and sacrileges. For in Chapter 28 he says that paradoxes and dogmas far more horrible and false than those which they reproach to the Calvinists can be collected from the Lutherans’ own books. He says the Lutherans are called by his party Marcionites, Manichaeans, Nestorians, Eutychians, Capernaïtes, flesh-eaters, Ubiquitarians, and Flacians. Are not the Marcionites blasphemous? The Manichaeans more than heretics? The Capernaïtes and flesh-eaters idolaters, or, as the Zwinglians are accustomed to call them, ἀρτολάτραι [bread-worshippers]? Are not the Flacians sacrilegious? And the Nestorians and Eutychians most especially so? Indeed, are not all those men all these things? Therefore a prince ought to restrain them by punishments. Consequently they will effect this as soon as they have the power. For whoever opposes the consistory will fall by the sword.

§9

These things are so clear that Pareus cannot deny them, so turbulent and seditious that he has not attempted to defend them. Yet a man was found German in tongue, Cretan in mind, who not only defends those dangerous things but, as is the custom of desperate wickedness, attacks me without provocation. He suppressed his name and betrayed his character; and although he aims at others, he nevertheless pursues me. The judgment is yours, reader.

First, Pareus speaks thus on page 316 of the Irenicum: “But this is the thing concerning which not only we labor, but undoubtedly all pious and prudent men understand that the greatest labor must be expended in this business: that, when at last a pious and true union of all the Evangelical Estates and theologians, however many there are within or outside the Roman Empire, has been effected, the horrible schism and deadly discord may be removed; the course of the Gospel may no longer be obstructed by the fault of the Evangelicals but everywhere be advanced so much more expeditiously; the calumnies of the Papists concerning the WAR of the fifth GOSPEL—with which they fill their notorious pages and whole books—may be beaten back by the truth itself; finally, that the tyranny of the Roman Antichrist, whose power has thus far grown and grows daily in the Roman Empire through nothing more than our discord—where we see now this city, now that territory or province, forced again under its yoke by deceit and arms, without any distinction whether Lutherans or Calvinists were there (of which Eastern Francia, Austria, Styria, Carinthia, Hungary, Troppau, Donauwörth, etc., can serve as evidence for all)—may be opposed so much more strongly and promptly by united vows, counsels, and acts.”

§10

Here I complained, first, that Pareus accounted the Lutherans mushrooms, since, by naming a few regions that had returned to the ancient faith, he did not think it could come into their minds how many principalities had defected from Lutheranism to Calvinism.

Second, I said that his statement that they were forced by deceits and arms under the tyranny of Antichrist was an accusation; I proved this, and before me our Scherer proved it against Utzinger. Here the Anonymous answers: “Whether that change was made without deceits and arms must be gathered from history.” But history has now taught that neither Julius in Eastern Francia nor the other princes employed deceits or arms. A notable defense! Pareus says that provinces were forced under the yoke by deceits and arms; Pareus’s defender says that histories must be consulted

to discover whether Pareus lies. If I wished to speak openly, I would say that he lies. But I prefer to spare ill-omened words.

Third, I said that these were tribunician and seditious harangues. He answers—as one for whom saying anything is answering—that the purpose of the Irenicum is not to describe the machinations of Catholics, but to warn that this is the reason for union: lest Catholics cast against them the war of the fifth Gospel, not so that harm may be done to any Estate.

So tortuously speaking a cunning must be dragged into the open. The words of Pareus both complain about the war of the fifth Gospel and then threaten war against Catholics. “Finally,” he says, “that the tyranny of the Roman Antichrist,” etc., “may be opposed so much more strongly and promptly by united vows, counsels, and acts.”

To oppose tyranny thus is not merely to resist speeches about the war of the fifth Gospel, but to do certain other things. Eastern Francia was reformed; Pareus establishes this as an example of pontifical tyranny, complains that it was forced under the yoke, and teaches that this tyranny, exercised by the excellent Bishop Julius, must be opposed. Was he, then, to be obstructed and the religious peace violated? Why do you advise this to the Lutherans? The kingdom of Sweden, the Palatinate, margraviates, electorates, landgraviates, and other dominions defected from Lutheranism; and will the Lutherans not oppose it? Will they receive Calvinism, seven times worse than Papism?

Fourth, I said that “by united vows, counsels, and acts” was seditious and, if princes followed Pareus’s counsel, would shortly inundate Germany with blood.

The defender answers: “By united vows, counsels, and ecclesiastical acts of sermons, disputations, and theological writings.” He adds: “It is therefore manifest that the word ‘acts’ is twisted by both calumniators, as also by Contzen the Jesuit of Mainz, altogether contrary to Christian sincerity, into political and rebellious acts,” etc. It is not twisted in that direction, but carried along a straight path. For, first, “by vows, counsels, and acts,” or mit Rat und Tat, possesses this meaning: that vows and counsels precede and deeds follow. Next, sermons and writings are counsels rather than acts; therefore other acts must be sought. Third, he requires the union not merely of theologians but of all. But the acts of the Evangelical Estates are not sermons, disputations, and writings; they are also wars and threats of wars.

Fourth, Pareus treats here not of the concord of the Evangelicals but of Syncretism, as he began to do in Chapter 12 of the treatise. For he says: “That, while a synod and full concord are being procured, the Evangelicals meanwhile ought to unite in pious Syncretism and mutual toleration, and stand together against the Papacy.” But Syncretism has need not of sermons, disputations, and writings but of dissimulation and silence; for by those acts Syncretism is obstructed, not procured.

Fifth, he says tyranny must be opposed by counsels. But by whose counsels? Not merely those of theologians but also of Estates. Yet the counsels of the Evangelical Estates do not appear to concern only the contentions of theologians, but alliances, expenditure, war to be undertaken, etc. Within a few years there have been several assemblies of allied princes, and various counsels were discussed so that the pontifical party might be opposed. I now ask whether the objects of those counsels were acts, or means sought for the end. If Pareus answers that they were acts, I shall ask what sort of acts: whether there was disputation or decision there merely concerning sermons, writings, and disputations of theologians, or also concerning other matters; and whether Pareus included these matters also when he said “counsels and acts.”

Even if Pareus can be so shameless as to say that they treated only of ecclesiastical acts among themselves, his kindred nevertheless will not permit it, lest by lying against the conscience of all the Estates he become incapable of giving testimony. But Pareus approved non-ecclesiastical acts of the Evangelical Estates and understood them in this place, since he commends the alliance of the princes as holy.

Next, in the fourth motive the Saxons deny that union with the Calvinists is to be made so that the Papists can be resisted more strongly. They prove it from 2 Chronicles 19:2. Pareus asks in his response to Motive 16 whether the Lutherans not only dissuade their princes from fellowship with Calvinists but also openly counsel them in published writings that in diets and public negotiations they must seek the intimacy of the Papists but avoid association with orthodox—Calvinist—princes. He attacks these men and wishes the Lutherans in diets and public negotiations to adhere to the Calvinists, undoubtedly to agree in decrees and execute what has been resolved. Therefore he extends “acts” to all those things. And if princes follow his counsel, Europe will soon swim in blood. For that dispute will not remain within words or pamphlets.

§11

The second passage is in the commentary on Hosea, where he addresses the Most Illustrious Landgrave of Hesse, who was expelling Lutherans, in this way: “Well done, divine hero; perform the work of the Lord which you confidently perform.” Here I said nothing either against the Most Illustrious Landgrave or in favor of the Lutherans. I merely warned that the exhortation of that aged flatterer was not consonant with the Irenicum. For why do you recommend peace, Syncretism, and toleration? You flatter the Lutherans and canonize the prince who strips them of every office, so that, when the Lutherans have been expelled, he may be both a hero and a divine hero and perform the work of the Lord? They were dexterously expelled, but in such a way that no tumult arose.

They answer: in that reformation there were only three points. Three are named, but in those three and through those three Calvinism was introduced and Lutheranism expelled.

Next, they say that three or four theologians were dismissed with favor. I hear: three or four. Where, then, are the hundreds of ministers who were formerly Lutherans? In what corner was a Lutheran preacher permitted to hide unless he accepted Calvinism? Where is the Lutheran exercise of religion? What need is there of words? The thing itself—that is, the churches and cities—cries out.

§12

The third passage is in the Commentary on Romans 13:1, where he teaches that subjects who are not private persons may defend themselves by arms against the magistrate. Here, first, the defender hidden in darkness answers that, even if this were an error, it ought not to be imputed to the whole body of Calvinism. This is true, unless it is defended by the whole body. Second, he says that these things were dictated in the schools in 1604, when those commotions did not yet exist in the Empire. Let it be so. They did not exist, but they arose from those things. Even in peace, words of sedition are dangerous. Third, he says that this defense is permitted only against the tyranny of the Pope and must not be extended to the Estates of the Empire.

But this is contrary to Pareus; for he falsely accuses provinces in Francia, Bavaria, and Austria of having been forced by deceit and arms, and says that pontifical tyranny must be opposed. Yet if that had been tyranny, it would have been exercised by princes of the Empire; therefore they would have had to be resisted. Consequently he incites the satraps of Catholics against their own princes. Therefore, although the Roman Antichrist alone is named, all the friends and clients of the Pontiff are nevertheless understood—those whom they are accustomed calumniously and seditiously to call the attendants of Antichrist. Fourth, he affirms that princes of the Reformed religion do not wish the Papistic religion to be driven from others’ dominions, since responsibility for them does not rest upon those princes. I answer: Let them observe this, and the cause of dissensions will have been removed.

§13

The fourth passage is: “Christian kings and princes ought to resist pontifical tyranny even with the sword, obstructing and breaking it by force, removing idols, and restoring the Church to its liberty.”

I most truly affirmed that here a trumpet call is sounded clearly and with full trumpets. It is the same when he said: “Princes ought to be a terror to evil works.”

Pareus’s defender restricts this combat to the lands under a ruler, for a Spaniard is not a terror to evil works in Poland, nor a Frenchman in Germany; otherwise horrible confusions would arise.

An excellent and most wholesome interpretation, but contrary to Pareus. For he admonishes them to oppose the tyranny of Antichrist by united vows, counsels, and acts—a tyranny which forces Francia, Bavaria, and Styria under the yoke by deceits and arms. Therefore he teaches that the sword is to be drawn against foreign princes. Next, in the third argument he says: “Because it is foretold that Christian kings and princes will hate the whore, render her desolate and naked, eat her flesh, and burn her with fire. But the prediction possesses the force of a precept, so that they should do this.”

Therefore he judges that all kings have been commanded to slaughter and devour the Pope; thus he thinks that a right against the Pope has been given to all, and exposes the Pope as though proscribed to the swords of all. Therefore Plessis too exhorts the Most Serene King of England to the Italian journey. That defense is therefore false and imposturous, and Pareus will never admit it. He himself will rather try the sword with trembling hand and cast an unwarlike weapon without inflicting a great wound. He says that, just as Ehud possessed a command against his own king, so all princes possess one against the Pope. If against the Pope, then against his flesh—that is, ecclesiastics—and his bones—that is, secular Papist princes, dukes, kings, and Caesars. For if full right of raging has been given against the Pope, if it is a just war, if the battle is commanded from heaven, then it is also against all who undertake the Pope’s defense and obstruct those hastening to that dismemberment. For if slaughter against the king is commanded to you by God, war against his soldier is also commanded. So widely does that confusion of affairs extend that none of the preachers doubts that anyone whatever is a lawful executioner of the Pope and his defenders.

Yet so great is the madness of the defender that he thinks Pareus is excused by the very thing of which he is especially accused. “Let no mention be made in any word of our”—Evangelical—“princes, but in the thesis of Christian kings, princes, and magistrates, among whom surely are Caesar, the Spaniard, and all Papist imperial cities, all of whom would be no less prepared than others to resist the Pope in their own dominions if they knew him to be Antichrist.” Thus he thinks it just that all should resist the Pope, whom they think advances outrageously in the dominions of all. And not only in their own dominions; for Ehud killed King Eglon in the royal upper chamber, and Pareus says that all princes possess such a command. Therefore, with Plessis, they ought even to seek Italy and stab the Pontiff in the Lateran itself. If Caesar, the Spaniard, the archdukes, the Bavarian, or the Lorrainer obstructs them, he must be killed through his own sides. Indeed, many of these men are no less diligent than the Pontiffs themselves in advancing true religion and rooting out errors.

§14

The fifth passage: “Nor is injustice commanded when it is commanded that double be rendered to her; rather, it is signified that no kind of vengeance against the Pope can be unjust or excessive. And ‘double’ is understood not in relation to the punishment that he deserved, but to the evils which he formerly inflicted upon the pious and with which he afflicted the Church.”

I said that this cruelty pertains to all Catholics who defend the Pope. The defender denies it, saying that it pertains only to Babylon—that is, the Roman Church—and the Pope, the head of that Church. First, it is indeed excessive that so much is lawful against the Roman Church—that is, the members of the Roman Church. If by the name Roman Church he understands only the episcopate of that city, his cruelty extends less widely than if he understands the entire Roman Church—that is, all Catholics. But it must be shown that the savagery of the bloodthirsty old man pertains to every church subject to the Roman Church.

“Here,” he says in the commentary on the Apocalypse, “vengeance is commanded not privately to private persons, but publicly to pious kings and princes, into whose hearts the Lord God will put this, and whose military forces he will wish to employ to overthrow Babylon. Therefore this part of the exhortation especially pertains to them and their military forces, and the manner in which God put it into their hearts is explained: namely, because by an express command he commanded this vengeance to them.”

Therefore Evangelical kings and princes expressly received a command concerning the taking of vengeance. It is not merely against Rome; for many are more closely joined to the Pope, and many have inflicted more losses upon the innovators than the Romans have. Surely the condition of our society, of all religious houses, and especially of collegiate churches will be worse than that of Roman citizens. Therefore the precept is general—that is, a precept of Calvinism—and directed against all Catholics. But “Babylon” for Calvinists, although they disagree among themselves and with themselves, is not the single church which is at Rome and in the suburbicarian region, but the entire Papacy spread throughout the whole world.

Thus Pareus in his commentary on Apocalypse 17:4, when he interprets the words “Come out of her, my people.” For all sectarians urge that men depart not merely from the city but also from the Papacy, and Pareus especially. He says that all the faithful are admonished, not only those within the city’s walls but those within the pomeria of Roman jurisdiction. And then: “Whenever, therefore, the Papists ask where the Church was before Luther, if the Papacy was not the Church, let us ask in turn where the Church of God was at the time of the Babylonian captivity, if Babylon was not the Church. It was, I say, in Babylon, but oppressed by captivity; thus this Church was captive and oppressed in the Papacy.”

“Come out of her.” The ancient people was commanded to depart from Babylon, first in heart, by fleeing its idols and abominations; after seventy years also in body, by returning to Judaea under Cyrus. Both departures from the new Babylon are commanded to us also: that we flee and detest its idols and abominations in heart, and also depart from Rome in our bodies as far as it is granted, shaking off the yoke of Babylonian tyranny by force of the command: “Come out of her.”

§15

Therefore in Pareus’s judgment Babylon is the Papacy. Consequently, when they are commanded to render double to Babylon, burn her, and eat her flesh, they understand the entire Papacy. They do not mean the Papacy in the abstract, and therefore they mean Papists in the concrete—that Papacy which can be scorched by fires, roasted as food for the victor, divided by the sword, and water the dry throats of executioners with its own blood. It is therefore false that Pareus is not to be understood concerning Papists, bishops, princes, and Caesar. He wishes all to possess one throat, so that they may fall quickly and without danger to the striker, although perhaps he desires them to be tenacious of life so that he may enjoy cruel pleasure by prolonging their death through savagery. For he judges that all are members of the whore, since he invents that the whore is the Papacy.

But Graser comes to Pareus’s aid—whom, O brow! O hard face! Pareus’s defender attempts to excuse. He denies that Caesar and secular Catholic princes are called the bones of Antichrist by Graser and the clergy his flesh, and says that those who impose this upon Graser are calumniators. Indeed, he says that Graser teaches the contrary: namely, that the strong are to be destroyed by Antichrist, from Daniel 8:24: “And he will destroy the strong and the people of the saints.” Here I must prove from Graser’s judgment that the bones are secular men and the flesh the clergy.

First, folio 54: “I therefore still think that he”—Daniel—“throughout this whole passage, Chapter 8:24, had regard rather to that twofold family of Antichrist whose history we shall explain.”

Second, he explains it in these words: “Hear, therefore. The root עצם, ghazam, from which this word descends, signifies ‘he was endowed with strength.’ Concerning strength of this kind you must understand that it possesses the force of its solidity in itself and subsists without the support of another. Hence the noun עצם, ghezem, ‘the bone of a bone,’ is so called by the Hebrews because it alone in the body subsists by its own solidity and sustains the other parts. The Latins appear to have derived from this their ancient ossum. The rabbis also call the category of substance עצם, ghezem, so that from this signification someone could interpret the word עצומים, ghezūmim, as ‘substantial,’ ‘essential,’ or at least ‘osseous.’ Thus, therefore, he reasoned that by these עצומים secular men were indicated, insofar as they are of the planting of iron in the feet of the fourth Beast and subsist under the kingdom of Antichrist by their own strength, yet so that they accommodate this osseous strength to the uses of the Beast to such an extent that they sustain at the same time the spiritual Estate as though it were the succulent flesh of the Papacy.”

Third, he thinks that all the forces of Antichrist are in these bones. “Surely,” he says, “in the same verse he speaks thus concerning the kingdom of this king growing together marvelously: ועצם כחו ולא בכחו—‘His power will indeed become strong, but not by his own strength.’ You will find this phrase used nowhere else in the Canon. But our prophet in this passage designates by it another mystery of Antichrist no less than the former: that it is so proper and peculiar to his kingdom that outside it the phrase cannot properly be applied either to Antiochus—whatever meanwhile may be made of the type—or to any other worldly kingdom. For tell me of what kingdom, king, or empire it could truly be said that its power consisted not of its own but of another’s and, as it were, borrowed forces.”

Fourth, he says that secular men possess one counsel and deliver their strength and power to the Beast.

Fifth, he says that the Pope obtained this by evil arts. These are his words: “Daniel explains this in the words cited, saying: ‘By marvelously corrupting, he will destroy, and he will possess prosperous successes in it’; for this is the proper force of the verb hatzliach, which our author interprets thus here. ‘For God put it into their hearts to execute his judgment, to consent, and finally to give their kingdom to the Beast,’ Apocalypse 17:17. This, namely, will be the cause of such great successes. Otherwise the sense of the prophet’s words here is: He will understand so hidden, subtle, and efficacious an art of corrupting that by marvelous deceptions he will, as it were, cast down from their station even the strong, whom he could have overcome by no force. And besides, he will deceive the very people of the saints, who ought to observe his fraud, make it known to others, and thus protect the liberty of God’s people.”

Sixth, he says that “the strong” are opposed to fleshly softness, folio 55: “If he had wished to commend these strong men for military fortitude, insofar as that is reckoned under virtue, he would have had to use the word geburim, whose proper signification this is. But if he had wished to censure the excess of this quality in the same nation—namely, tyrannical ferocity—he would have used the word gharitzim, whose meaning is very evident. But now, omitting those terms, for which no sufficiently cogent cause for consideration remained, he employs a word of this sort, by which simply that brute strength is indicated, in respect of which this race of his peers”—the locusts—“is opposed to their fleshly softness. And since Daniel in the same verse verbally employs this root for the sinews of external power, why do we hesitate, or what obscurity do we imagine for ourselves?”

Finally, he calls these strong men the limbs and members of Babylon, folio 56: “There is indeed another point, and one by no means to be despised, of which I had nevertheless almost forgotten: namely, that our prophet in Chapter 19:18, in the history of Babylon’s ruin, finds among its ruins these strong men, these horses too and their riders, as the limbs and members of the truncated Beast, speaking thus: ‘Come, birds of heaven, and assemble for the great supper of God, so that you may eat the flesh of kings, the flesh of tribunes, the flesh of the strong, the flesh of horses, and of those who sit upon them.’ These are the principal members of which the Beast’s kingdom consisted and into which it is finally resolved. Among these, that mention of the strong possesses so much more cause for wonder because throughout the entire context of the prophecy he has nowhere previously mentioned them under this nomenclature. In Chapter 6:15, indeed, mention is made of powerful men, but there he calls them δυνάτας, whereas here he employs the word ἰσχυρούς, by which the Septuagint render the Hebrew in Daniel.”

§16

Now I ask you by justice itself, reader, to deign to judge. Is he a calumniator who, according to Graser’s judgment, has said that secular princes are called the bones, limbs, and members of Babylon—the principal members of the Beast, of which its kingdom consists and into which it is also resolved? What Pareus thereby threatens against Caesar, the kings of the Spains and Gauls, and the other Catholics everyone understands, unless he is ignorant that Babylon cannot be burned and devoured unless her bones, limbs, and members are cut off, roasted, and eaten with a Cyclopean mouth. Behold for yourself the contest between two associates, of whom one most insultingly and savagely reviles Catholic princes, while the other most shamelessly denies that he said things which it is evident to everyone’s eyes were said.

Hence it is evident that according to Graser and Pareus Babylon is also in Germany, because its principal members are imagined to be in Germany, and that the Anonymous calumniator turns the words of Pareus and Graser elsewhere in vain. The seventh passage: the ten kings fight with the Lamb, yet they will burn the whore. Therefore the Calvinists cannot say this concerning their own princes unless they confess that those princes delivered their power to the Beast. For whether they acted rightly is doubtful among Calvinists, as is evident from Pareus’s final question on Apocalypse 17. Aretius indeed reports that they punished the woman after being bent by God to his service. Thus Attila said that he was the scourge of God; thus Alexander was divinely summoned into Asia, etc. Do they therefore wish their own princes to be like one of these? In his Method on the Apocalypse, Nicolas Colladon thinks that those kings were by no means converted and did not act with an upright mind. Next, he himself understands the entire Papacy.

§17

But what need is there of our labor against the adversaries? Christoph Jungnitz, a professor of Heidelberg, sufficiently refutes all those things. Although he has not yet reached the truth, he nevertheless disproves the falsehood. Who will not concede that Christian emperors and kings fight with the Lamb and are beasts? From these things I conclude that, since the Calvinists themselves teach that those kings are impious, I am not to be accused if I say the same thing which John clearly asserts and they themselves confess.

All the things which that mask defending the darkness proposes in obscure night can be tolerated; but the things it offers in excuse of Aretius could not please Aretius himself. For, residing at Bern as an enemy of orthodoxy and a traitor to the Empire, he said and wrote things which the Swiss allied with the Empire condemned.

First, on Apocalypse 13:1: “It is rightly called a beast on account of the Devil, who surpasses every beast in savagery and whose character is still excellently expressed in the Roman Empire, so that the Romans themselves rightly confess that they arose and were nourished by a she-wolf. Therefore the Roman Empire is a beast, just as the Babylonian, Persian, and Macedonian empires are in Daniel. But it ascends from the sea, that is, from the confusion of all nations; for the Roman Empire was born from other empires having been struck down. For just as the sea is the common receptacle of all waters and a kind of sewer of filth, so the vices of all nations were heaped together in the Roman Empire, so that, having obtained dominion of the sea, the Romans easily conquered other nations.” You will note: “The character of the Devil is still excellently expressed in the Empire.”

Second: “It has seven heads,” that is, it excels singularly in counsel and prudence; for the head is the dwelling of reason, and the number seven is the number of perfection and completeness.

Third: “Now he expresses the spirit acting in this beast, the same ornaments being set forth with which he adorned this beast. The dragon is undoubtedly the Devil. He therefore gives certain ornaments of his own to the Beast—that is, the Roman Empire. And it must carefully be observed that the dragon does not establish the Beast, but merely adorns it after it has arisen with his gifts; he does this lest we think that the Devil is the author of empires. Rather, let us know that he is their corrupter: for the magistracy is from God, but the vices of magistrates proceed from that dragon.”

Fourth: “He describes the foolishness of mortals who, marveling at the fortune of the Empire, extol and adore it more than is proper: ‘the whole earth marveled after the Beast,’ that is, the whole earth, as great as it is, was carried away into admiration of the Beast. The cause of the admiration depends upon the preceding fortune: that so deadly a wound was marvelously healed.”

Fifth: “That is to marvel at the success and felicity of the Empire, proclaiming that august, holy, sacrosanct, and immortal thing.”

Sixth: “They adored the dragon who gave power to the Beast,” that is, in its person they worship and adore the Devil. “For the dragon is the Devil, who attaches his own ornaments to the Empire.” See what it is to worship the Devil: namely, to marvel excessively at the majesty and felicity of the Roman Empire.

Seventh: “But after the doctrine of Christ had been received, impious hypocrites presently snatched the title of the Church to themselves and persecuted the true commandments of Christ, which cause the possessors of the imperial seat still strenuously defend today.”

Eighth: “Power to wage war upon and conquer the saints is given to the Beast; that is, that the condition of hypocrites should always be in a better position than that of the pious. The histories of all ages testify to this, so that today it is discovered to be clearer than daylight. For as widely as the Roman name extends, so widely do the pious suffer persecutions, in all tribes, tongues, and nations.”

Ninth, verse 8: “And they adored it.”

“He describes the character of the reformed Empire; for the Beast will then wish to be adored, as though he said that this blasphemy will not cease until the end of the world. Just as the Beast was adored when its wound was healed, so it will be adored when power to conquer God’s saints has been given to it. Therefore the same impiety remains because of the success of these things; for men marvel at the success of princes and hence pass over to their party.”

Tenth: “‘This is the victory that conquers the world: our faith.’ Therefore let us console ourselves amid these punishments of the world, lest we imagine a peculiar fortune for ourselves. This is our calling: to enter the kingdom of God through tribulations and afflictions, especially under this old age of the Roman Empire. Furthermore, the governors of the Empire require another faith from their people and commend it in assemblies of magistrates, a faith which pertains in no way to the saints of God of whom John here speaks.”

Eleventh: “Next, he”—the Pontiff—“also compels men to adore the former Beast; that is, he wishes the title and name of the Roman Empire to be accounted no less sacrosanct than the name ‘Augustus’ and the venerable name of the Empire were formerly under the emperors. Under the Popes, the Roman Church remained both Catholic and adorable, and if anyone denies this, he must be a heretic.”

Twelfth: “The Pontiff retains the shadowy name of the Empire.”

So also those who invented the featherless eagle and other abominable things.

Thirteenth, on Chapter 17:13: “He says that the dragon has seven heads because to himself he seems fully prudent, cunning, and crafty; for the head is the seat of prudence and reason. Below, seven hills are attributed to him, whence it is not inaptly an image of the Pope, because at other times he held seven heads, that is, kingdoms; and he subjected the seven-man body of the Roman Empire to his judgment.” By these words he shows, not obscurely, that by the dragon’s seven heads are designated the seven electors as heads, as it were, of the other Beast—that is, of the Pope.

He took that abusive speech against the princes from Matthias Flacius Illyricus. On Chapter 12, verse 3, Flacius comments thus: “Some apply this rather to Rome and its empire, because it was constructed upon seven hills. It also held under itself the seven principal kingdoms of the world: African, Egyptian, Asian, Greek, German, Spanish, and Italian. Likewise, in more recent times and even now it had, and still has in some fashion, the same number of kingdoms under itself. It also has seven principal princes. Altogether the Spirit of the Lord appears here to have had regard to the prophecy of Daniel 7, where also the fourth Beast—namely, the Roman Empire—is depicted with ten horns, that is, kingdoms or powers; so that there can be no doubt that here, under the name of the dragon, the power of the world itself, raging against Christ and his Church, is also depicted.”

These things they set forth with round and blasphemous mouth against the Empire.

§18

Another proposition of Pareus is that Christian princes ought by public commands and punishments to obstruct blasphemies, heresies, etc. Likewise, no mixture or confusion in religion is to be permitted, but the true religion alone is to be protected. I say that this is the sword by which both Catholics and Lutherans are slaughtered, because Calvinists abuse it for this purpose. For they call piety blasphemy and think the ancient faith a heresy. If you doubt it, read the defender of Pareus: he calls the sacrifice of the Mass and similar things idolatry.

Enter a Calvinist consistory, reader: you will not plead the cause of any one of the ancient saints so accurately that he will not depart condemned by the black pebble. Whom, then, do you think safe? Ignatius the Martyr? He acknowledged the sacrifice of the Mass in the Letter to the Smyrnaeans, as Theodoret reports in Dialogue 3, and in the Letter to the Romans. Martialis, Cyprian, and Augustine are involved in the same fault; Augustine also caused a Mass to be celebrated for his deceased mother. Justin and Irenaeus? They taught the truth of Christ’s body in the Eucharist. Chrysostom? He asserted free will. Jerome? He preferred virginity to marriage. Basil the Great? But he is the patriarch of monks. The thirty-three Roman pontiffs who were martyrs? But they judged concerning other bishops. Athanasius or Hilary? They invoked the saints. Gregory of Nyssa, Gregory Nazianzen, or Gregory the Great? But they venerated relics. Ephraem, Cyril, or Ambrose? They denied that faith alone justifies.

And what need is there of more? All these saints, and others, did all those things which the Calvinist ministers call evil works; therefore punishment is prepared for all of them, and sentence has now been pronounced. For they rage against us for no cause which we do not possess in common with the saints.

The eighth passage: “When the superior magistrate degenerates into a tyrant,” he grants the inferior power of restraint. But the Calvinists interpret tyranny according to their own affections, in the same way as when he said: “If they do evil.” Those who obeyed Pareus now gather the fruit of this matter. Indeed, he adduces so many causes against princes that a cause for deposing them can never be wanting. If a prince obstructs their desires, he will immediately hear: “In a tyrant the relation of magistracy ceases.” But if a Catholic prince reforms his dominions, he is immediately called a tyrant. Let Utzinger’s most seditious pamphlet against Julius, Prince of Würzburg, be read. Therefore, according to Pareus’s judgment, Julius lost his name and power when he led his subjects to the true religion; consequently he could be killed by his own satraps and his ministers hurled down.

The other examples which Pareus adduces serve this end: that no Catholic prince may be secure, as I taught in the book on peace, because all Catholic princes are fornicators with the great whore, are members and limbs of that harlot, are persecutors, and are such men as Aretius depicted.

Since, therefore, Pareus, Aretius, Graser, and others teach:

That the Empire is adorned by the Devil.
That to marvel at and adore the Beast is to adore the Devil, and consists in marveling excessively at the Empire and calling it august, etc.
That persecutions exist as widely as the Empire extends.
That the character of the Devil is excellently expressed today in the Empire.
That a singular hypocrisy still reigns in the Empire.
That the dragon is the spirit acting in the Beast.
That the dragon inspires a malignant disposition in the Empire.
That the malignant spirit is σύνεργον [a co-worker] and reigns efficaciously in the Empire.
That those who marvel at the Empire’s success are fools.
That there is a threefold impiety in the Roman Empire, the thing itself speaking.
That the possessors of the Empire strenuously defend the cause of hypocrites.
That even now the Beast of the reformed Empire wishes to be adored.
That impiety remains because of the success of princes, and men therefore pass over to their party.
That the worshipers of this Beast—that is, the Empire—are vessels of wrath from eternity.
When they incite the Lutherans against Catholic reforming princes.
When they falsely say that those converted to the ancient faith of the martyrs were forced under the yoke by the tyranny of Antichrist.
When they say that this was done by the deceits and arms of Catholic princes.
When they exhort their own princes to oppose those reformations by vows, counsels, and acts.
When those acts are not merely sermons and writings of preachers, but deliberations and negotiations of assemblies and diets, and executions of decrees.
When the head of the acts and counsels of Pareus is Syncretism against the Papacy.
When in those counsels there is scarcely any thought of sermons.
When Pareus grieves that the Lutherans adhere to Catholics.
When they call the expulsion of Lutherans the work of the Lord.
When he gives arms to subject magistrates so that they may be a terror to their superior lord.
When he says that all princes possess a command to burn Babylon—that is, the Papacy—and eat her flesh.
When he affirms that by this command jurisdiction against the Pope and the Pope’s followers, as members of Antichrist or Babylon, has been given.
When he judges all Catholics blasphemers and idolaters and affirms that his magistrates possess a public command to resist their evil works. When, I say, they teach these things:
It follows from them that Catholics, whether ecclesiastics or secular princes, cannot be secure for even one hour if the counsel of Pareus pleases Evangelical princes. Indeed, neither can the Lutherans, if those who call themselves Reformed put on the zeal of Pareus; nor the Reformed, if they erect the criminal ladder of Antichrist, as the Puritans cry that the king of England does; nor the Arminians, if the Gomarists thrust advocates and syndics into custody. This is the sum: not only confidence but even the mention of peace has perished if the furies of briganding theologians occupy the minds of princes.