§1
I have taught that a council is useful for beginning and establishing peace, nor do the adversaries oppose this. I have also demonstrated in another book that a council of heretics cannot be assembled and held with advantage; and, if they judge my arguments insufficiently firm, behold: let words and the discourses of writers cease; let them furnish the thing itself. Here is Rhodes; here let them jump. Let them assemble a Calvinist-Lutheran or Rigid-Mild synod and κατὰ βίον refute me by experience. But if they cannot assemble a general one, let them at least assemble a national one. Until they have done so, we shall deny that it can be done, and not without cause, because they say that they desire it and acknowledge this to be the most advantageous way, while they reject other ways, as I showed above from the writing of the Hollanders.
If, therefore, there is need of a council, and one cannot be assembled from novice doctors, why do we hesitate to adopt the ancient councils and their form and authority, lest we be deprived of so great an advantage—which we confess on both sides—and of peace itself? Has heresy been able to engender in anyone’s mind so great a hatred of holy and orthodox antiquity that he will not consent to receive even remedies and benefits from it? Or do we not know that those sick persons are most desperate who are obstinate against remedies and judge the hands of those who sincerely heal them to be hostile? Far from a Christian breast be such hardness that it refuses peace; far from it be such blindness that it closes against itself beforehand the approach by which peace is to be entered.
§2
What then? Will you persuade me to accept the Council of Trent through these circumlocutions? I indeed should wish to do so, but I fear that I shall not persuade you—not because the truth which that Council illustrated is destitute of its own testimony, but because, through hatred of the persons, you will not easily receive the truth from them; for the wounds which the sycophants, the calumniators of the Council, inflicted have not yet been healed. And so I indeed formerly granted you release from that Council; perhaps, if you come to know it thus of your own accord, you will embrace it.
It seems to me that in this conflict and vaunting of religions there occurs what occurs in medicine. For very many persons, out of disgust for old remedies and a vain hope of better ones, hear with the greatest eagerness mountebanks and wandering impostors, and sometimes, induced by promises, entrust life and health to them. And while they marvel at new things as true, they suffer loss of property and health. When, at their own peril and to the mockery of others, they perceive that they have given another’s rashness the power to test its art upon their own body, they return to the old physicians, the Hippocratics and Galenists; for they prefer to use approved remedies without danger rather than again to make trial of new and uncertain ones.
For a long time now the peddlers of novelties have, by their outcries, called away a great part of mankind from the ancient healing of souls and from the customary nourishment. Luther calls in one direction, Calvin in another; and among the parties of Luther’s sect there are manifold callers: Osiander, Major, Flacius, the Ubiquitarians, the rest, the Anomians, the Anabaptists—and these are not all of one stamp, although all call, and call to evil. On Calvin’s side there are the Mild and the Rigid, the Libertines, the Anglo-Papists, and the Puritans. All promise salvation, life, health, and mountains of felicities—and that without labor—more shamelessly than all wandering impostors; but credulous and frivolous men discover too late that they are false. For most, nothing is lacking for a return except shame at recognizing and uncovering their wounds. They not only see but also touch with their hands that everything is changed day by day. Why, therefore, do they not consult the old remedies, or at least deign to look at them? Why do they follow novelties condemned by their own authors?
§3
Let there therefore be a general council such as even the adversaries concede the first councils to have been and such as we teach the following ones to have been. Namely, in it let the orthodox sit as judges—those who already possess the faith and who have long prescription against those who introduce unaccustomed dogmas. For novelty must be proved; it must not judge antiquity. It is a matter of undoubted law that a possessor enjoys his privilege and is not driven to proof, although councils also perform this: they vindicate the possession of the ancient faith against profane novelties. For why should Arius sit as judge at Nicaea, or Eutyches, Nestorius, and others in the succeeding councils? Why at this time should Libertines, Arians, Socinians, and Anabaptists have the same right, number, and merit for pronouncing opinions? Will those men assemble in the Holy Spirit who attack the Holy Spirit with the whole panoply of hell?
§4
Second. Let there be in the Council neither a part of the Church nor a body without a head, but let the whole Church be represented in its senate. Let neither a part conspire against the whole, nor a cause be judged without the bishop of the primary see—a thing Augustine formerly recognized as unlawful and wrote at length to the pontiff Melchiades.
§5
Third. Let the Council define, not what must be believed anew, nor let it define new articles, but let it explain the old ones more clearly, hand down the sense of Scripture, and make certain that concerning which there is doubt. For this is its office: to meet novelties and confirm ancient things.
§6
Fourth. In matters which pertain to faith, let the Council possess a vote which no one is permitted to resist, and let him who proudly refuses to obey the command of the priests be considered, for that very reason, outside the Church.
§7
Fifth. Let councils be free, neither dishonored by the violence of princes nor enslaved and subject to magistrates, so that not only may opinions be free and the secular power not prescribe what must be said, but also no punishment for liberty may be feared, nor may such control reside with princes that the substance of the matter finally falls back upon their decision.
§8
Sixth. Let the causes of the accused be examined prudently, gently, with charity and sincerity; nor in any way let one whose heresy is known sit as judge, for he must receive the sentence as one to be judged.
§9
Seventh. Let it defend the decrees of all preceding general and approved councils.
§10
Eighth. Let the holy customs of prayers, fasts, and penance be observed according to the received practice.
No other procedure for councils can be entered upon. For if, as Pareus does in his own council, we admit all heresies to judge, I do not see what appearance of a council we retain, since we place all the accused upon the tribunal and allow neither authority to the judgment nor truth to the sentences.