§1
We have frequently heard them appeal to a free, pious, general council. That in reality they do not desire a council is manifest from many things; for us, on the contrary, a council is desirable.
The Calvinists and the rest of the sectarians, most talkative in corners, will necessarily become mute in the public light and in a universal assembly; and, hating the light, they will hide themselves in their dens. For they will not be able to defend their teachings if they speak openly, nor in so great an assembly of learned men will there be opportunity to envelop their errors in their customary obscurities and ambiguous labyrinths of words. Hitherto they have vigorously done this in the Colloquy of Worms and elsewhere—so much so that even Calvin himself found intolerable the cunning of Bucer and Melanchthon in devising deceptive articles. But how remarkably the Calvinists deceived their disciples in France I showed in the book On the Synod and Union of the Evangelicals. For the principal man, Baron Clervant, thought that his own people and the Lutherans disagreed in only one article; and Pareus himself professes this—how glaring a lie it is I taught in the preceding book.
What hope, therefore, do those men have in a council who did not dare to disclose openly, even among their own initiates, all the mysteries of their idol? Those who fear to make the disciples acquainted with their doctrine must necessarily flee the judgment of all. Our doctrine not only shines in the clear light of the whole Christian world, but was known to the ancient Church. It spreads the rays of its light toward East and West, and, because it possesses nothing shameful, no part of it is concealed.
§2
Those who never satisfied any particular council will not be able to hope for victory or to prove their doctrine to a general, pious, free council. The Rigid Calvinists do not persuade even their own colleagues, fellow initiates,
and brethren of their horrid opinion; much less will they establish before a general, pious, and free synod that this opinion is the mind of the Holy Spirit, when they must plead their cause burdened by the adverse judgment of their brethren and be examined whether they are Manichaeans and Borborites. For the Mild judge that the madness of the Rigid not only equals but surpasses that of these men.
The same reasoning applies to the Lutheran parties and their subdivisions. The Ubiquitarians will come apart, the Flacians in another party, then the Majorists and Osiandrians; and, marked by the prior condemnation and disgrace pronounced by their own fellow citizens, they will understand themselves condemned at the mere sight of the assembly. For they will see no judge favoring them except, from their own small number, a Ubiquitarian, a Flacian, a Majorist, or an Osiandrian.
The Landgrave of Hesse did not dissemble the dissension of his own people coming from the whole world in the year 1546, at Speyer, in a conference with Emperor Charles. “For my part,” he says, “I place no great hope in a council. But I judge that an assembly of the province of Germany will not be useless. For the other peoples still dissent excessively from us in opinions and dogma. In Germany, however, matters have been so arranged and have come to such a point that they cannot be changed. Nothing, therefore, is more preferable or more excellent than that you permit free religion in it, yet so that all cultivate peace.” He afterwards repeats the same thing before Granvelle and confesses entirely candidly, as became a prince, that because Italians, Frenchmen, and Spaniards dissent so greatly from the dogma of the Germans, there would be no great use for a general council—or, as they call it, an ecumenical one.
What advantage, therefore, will there now be for the benefit of any particular sect, when not only the Catholic universality and agreement with constant truth stands opposed to every petty sect, but ten other sects, more powerful or not much inferior, assail it with the greatest hostility?
§3
We desire a council because we judge that by its judgment not only must the integrity of the ancient religion be restored, but also, when the occasion furnished by religion has been removed, we hope that restitution will be made, at least in part. For the Catholics are the plaintiffs; they prosecute the adversaries for the recovery of property. If the cause is decided by a council, nothing will bring greater difficulty than restoring things obtained, possessed, and squandered without any right. It is therefore not difficult to estimate who fear judgment and who place protection in it. And if the acts are read, we shall discover whose calamities demanded execution and justice, and whose rapacity exacted adjournment, delay, and finally the abolition of the actions brought, by entreaties, arguments, threats, and arms.
§4
Let us make it be as they themselves wish: let the council be general, pious, and free—but general with Genevan generality, pious with Zwinglian piety, free with Libertine liberty. Let it, I say, be a council composed of the prefects of the Calvinists, who have borne all the labors and reproaches of the Genevan mitre. Let whatever has hitherto been condemned in Calvin be holy. Not even this council is to be feared by us for any cause except love of the truth.
For if they conquer, if the truth stands with them, our condition will not be worse than theirs; indeed, if we regard the advantages of life, it will be much better than that which we now enjoy. For now we serve God with fear and trembling, uncertain of our perseverance, yet we place certain hope in the divine good pleasure. But if we are transferred to them, all anxiety, doubt, and sorrow, carried far away into the Cretan sea with swift south winds, will depart. A new confidence will render us most blessed, most secure, and most immune from all punishments after this life. We shall live for a time happy in our error, and neither fear of death, nor of divine judgment, nor of hell will touch us even lightly. How many whom fear now holds to their duty, after the barriers have been broken, will rush into every crime? And, to prove themselves true Calvinists, amid robberies, murders, and lusts they will exclaim: “I know that I am just, that I cannot lose justice, that I am free from damnation. No, no crimes prohibit me from heaven.”
Others will congratulate themselves that they are exempt from the trouble of confession, fasting, celibacy, almsgiving, and all works. For why should they do good works—that is, mortal sins? Then why should they fear sins, when both their guilt and their punishment are removed if before God they say in their heart: “I am just; I cannot lose justice”? Indeed, before they say these things they have been made just, because they once believed; as though they had fortified the soul with an impenetrable ἀλεξιφαρμάκῳ, so that they may drink down all the poisons of vices without harm.
This doctrine, so pleasing to the flesh, so flattering to atheists, so enticing to every vice, a council pious in the Calvinistic manner will propose. If we are Antichristians, if we are covered with every crime—as they accuse us before the inexperienced—it is fitting for us to embrace it with the greatest readiness. For why would we not hear doctors who so flatter our desires? If we seek delights, why do we not fly to heaven through pleasures themselves, and indeed without fear of wandering? What holds us back from passing over into this sect? This alone: because it is contrary to truth and ruinous to morals. Accordingly, for us a council is to be desired whichever way the judgment falls, and is to be feared for no cause. If we conquer, deservedly we shall render the greatest and most submissive thanks for the sincerity of the faith preserved in us by divine virtue amid these disputes. If we are conquered, there will be no “Woe to the conquered!” as that man cried. For what will the conquerors command the conquered? “Live securely; indulge wantonly upon the rose; believe that you cannot perish.” Would that there were not many who preferred thus to be conquered rather than to conquer, since even now many are conquered by enticements because they wish it.
There is therefore no cause why we should fear even a general council wholly and purely Calvinistic. Its synodal decree will not be of the kind which the austere fathers at Nicaea or Ephesus, bearing the marks of Christ upon their bodies, issued, but of the kind which some Aristippus from the gardens of Epicurus would dictate with his neck thrown back and a languid voice. Although I do not believe that those delicate and polished men—ὦ μακαρίους ἐπιβάτας [O blessed passengers!]—will expend so much labor as to write new canons; rather, they will approve those which have already been written. They possess a book of Ottmar Casmann with a most delightful title that flatters them, for it is inscribed THE CUSHION OF CHRISTIAN SECURITY. By the best right and deservedly so. For it commands for all Christians a supreme security of beatitude, which no good works assist and no crimes diminish. Supported by this cushion, they will dismiss all from the Council. Nor will they say the accustomed, “Go in peace,” but, “Sleep securely upon this cushion.”
§5
Those who acknowledge no advantage in a council, or one so slight and diluted that it does not answer to the labor and expenses, cannot prudently desire a council. Matthias Hoe, the Electoral chief court-preacher, proposes this question and judges councils empty. For he judges both that prejudice is brought against Scripture and that the Calvinists are unwilling to submit themselves to the opinion of the synod or to be bound by its decrees, but desire to discharge their office with the same liberty of teaching as before. Hence he reasons rightly according to his own position: “If, therefore, they refuse to be instructed and taught, what need is there of a council?” Plainly, if a council can err no less than individuals, an exception will not be lacking. For all authority is evanescent if it is not accommodated to the Calvinistic analogy of faith. We, however, attribute infallible authority to general councils; they therefore profit us.
§6
All general councils hitherto have gone well for us and according to our heart’s desire. For our doctrine has been condemned by no council; in all controversies judgment has been pronounced for us. The adversaries have lost their cause by the prejudgment of all councils. Not without reason, therefore, having been struck so often in the ancient heresiarchs, do they labor to avoid that battle line of judgments and shudder at synods as at infamous reefs where they perceive the spoils from the shipwreck of their ancestors floating. Whatever, therefore, they allege about councils to be convoked is empty; for they seek nothing other than an escape and an opportunity for corrupting the minds of the peoples. If they demand a new council sincerely, why do they despise the old ones?
§7
They are indeed accustomed boldly to object to us that we flee from a pious and free council lest our errors, abuses, and scandals be disclosed. In this manner, to be sure, these acute men judge that they will be free of blame if they anticipate the accusation and divert their own evils onto others. For as to what they calumniate concerning errors, we are conscious of no error; and we approach this part of the cause not only securely but even joyfully, destined to emerge victors without blood and dust. For the things which they impute to us as errors are the dogmas of the holy Martyrs, of the Bishops who once flourished in the Churches and presided over councils, and of the Apostles themselves. We shall therefore stand among these accused men and hear judgment concerning those most ancient masters of ours. Indeed, if the matter is conducted according to the opinion of the adversaries, the whole Christian world will stand accused before a few men.
“It offends very many,” says Calvin in On Scandals, “that they see almost the whole world opposed to us. Nor indeed do the patrons of a bad cause lack the means to strike the unlearned and weak with a device of this kind: that it is exceedingly absurd for faith to be accorded to a few men while almost the whole Christian world is disregarded. But especially, in order to crush us, they arm themselves with the sacred title of the Church as though with a hammer.”
He knows Catholics well. Thus plainly do we object, and we persevere in saying it. Nor are we moved by the example which he adduces against us, when he compares himself and his people to the household of Noah. “As far as we are concerned,” he says, “if Noah alone by his faith condemned all the men of his age, there is no reason why the great multitude of unbelievers should move us from our position.” But he has not yet proved himself Noah; he has not yet constructed an ark from which he may consign the whole Christian world, as a multitude of unbelievers, to the flood—although the present multitude of Christians, which does not now conduct its life according to Calvin’s laws, seems to him entirely born for destruction. Does he also involve those who formerly completed their lives in the same deluge? The errors, therefore, which they calumniously and most malevolently impose upon us belong to the whole world insofar as it is Christian, as our New Noah himself has proclaimed.
I, however, judge even Calvin’s errors and blasphemies intolerable: that the branded Calvin should sit upon the tribunal; that Beza, infamous for his deeds and verses, should sit beside him; that Cyprian, Augustine, Basil, Nazianzen, and the whole nation of the chief men of the ancient Church should stand befouled; and that they should tremble before the faces of Sodomitic judges, be compelled to a recantation, and be condemned for idolatry and grave errors. Yet if these things should occur with the condition of affairs inverted, it is far more excellent for us to lie in the rank of the most innocent accused than to be partners in such unjust judgments. Therefore that disclosure of our errors in a council is not to be feared.
The adversaries, however, have nowhere to turn except to this refuge of obstinacy: that, as Noah formerly did, they by their own faith condemn the flock of unbelieving Pontificians, Fathers, and Martyrs. For although they do not openly and expressly condemn the Martyrs, nevertheless, since they condemn their faith in us and persecute it by writings, sword, and fire, their judgment concerning the masters is no milder than concerning the disciples.
As for abuses and scandals, there is no reason for us to fear a council, since no one approves abuses and scandals, even those who are a scandal. Indeed, all the orthodox implore the severity of a council in removing scandals; and by the Council of Trent, wherever its observance is in force, almost all scandals have been removed. Scandals possess very great power, but among the unlearned and weak. The rest know that Christ foretold that there would be scandals in the Church; therefore they do not withdraw from the Church on account of scandals which they learned would exist in the Church. We therefore excuse no abuse, no scandal.
Yet if you desire to see enormous scandals that have sprung from the doctrine itself, approach the Calvinists. You will discover that the axioms of the Libertines are consequences of their doctrine; you will discover morals such as those of the Manichaeans and Borborites, and, by Calvin’s own testimony, scarcely every tenth man sincere. Formerly false teachers turned very many away from the truth of the faith by declaiming tragically against the vices of the clergy, and the life of certain men gave them occasion. But suddenly that accusation slipped from their hands, when among the Calvinists more numerous, greater, and more atrocious crimes were admitted from the faith itself, without fear of losing justice or incurring damnation.
Calvin, therefore, considering these things, wrote a book On Scandals, in which he pleads the cause of the crimes and shows that they always adhere to the Gospel. But let us see what scandals he himself acknowledges among his own people. Let us place before those about to enter Calvinism the mass of scandals from its own author.
First, when the profession of the Gospel reigned far and wide in Germany, he says that he feared for this triumphant Gospel because it was exalting his people to insolence. He then continues: “Unless the Lord had seasonably met profane license, the disease would in the course of time have been almost incurable. Doctrine and pious admonitions would have possessed no authority. Those who had not yet endured the admission of moderate discipline would have broken every yoke with a violent charge, just like untamed beasts.” Calvin therefore thinks most contemptibly of the Gospel and the Evangelicals: namely, that unless they are constrained by fear and punishments, they will be untamed beasts.
Behold: what deeds of the Evangelicals do you suppose he had perceived, from which the man who begot them, who is merciful toward his own blood, conjectures so atrociously about their future? Of what kind were those crimes of men which, unless compelled by punishments they had abandoned them, would by now have passed into the manners and disposition of untamed beasts? And do you here press upon me the scandals of Catholics, you whom the fear of the sword alone separates from beasts, who owe it to the enemy
and executioner that you have not yet put off human nature through crimes?
Second, he confesses that seditions were excited by the Gospel, although he makes a cause possessing the appearance of justice for the scandal: “As soon as the doctrine of the Gospel began to be published, as though from an opened spring, the impiety of many who formerly seemed religious burst forth.” He denies that the Gospel is the cause, and I believe him. But who would deny that the doctrine which I proposed above from him is the cause? What wonder is it that the life of those beneath whom the cushion of security is placed when they sin is most licentious?
Then, after he had said truly and severely, “But this is more than sacrilegious impiety, to abuse the Gospel as a pretext for crimes,” he adds: “I speak of the now-common artifice by which perfidious and worthless men insinuate themselves in order to deceive, defraud, and harm in every way.” He speaks, however, about his own ministers, who extol the dignity of the ministry with swollen cheeks, while he himself marvels at the patience of the common people because women and children do not cover them with mud and dung. Thus even then Calvin’s haughtiness was compelled to bear such associates in preaching, men so incautiously disgraceful. He complains that some of them, through hatred of virtues, readily indulge equally their own vices and those of others.
And these scandals arise from the very fountains and chief standard-bearers of Calvinism. But what of the people? Are those people, contemptuous of their preachers, better? Speak, Calvin; speak, I pray you.
“The people, however, in order to return the favor, love, embrace, and cherish them alone; and, in order to possess patrons for their own offenses, protect them by their patronage.” Is there too little scandal where wicked teachers alone are loved by the people so that they may have patrons for their vices? Thus, surely, would the Sodomites and Gomorrheans, thus the Lemnians—who by the enormity of their crimes furnished material for a proverb—embrace teachers of wickedness, if they were living. Recognize, reader, why the Calvinistic people hate Catholic teachers: because they love only the patrons of crimes.
Perhaps you desire to know specifically the heroic deeds—or deeds more distinguished than heroic—which these preaching birds perform. I shall give them from Calvin:
“Some, after being kindly received into hospitality, depart secretly either burdened with stolen goods or defraud their hosts in other ways; or they solicit maidservants to fornication and sometimes even dare to attempt wives. Others, marvelous artificers at ensnaring, leave stripped bare those to whom they promised mountains of gold. Some deceive in a loan; others deny a deposit. Some are perfidious in partnership. Some consume in whoring, gaming, or other prodigal luxuries the money which they took from good and thrifty men in the name of alms. Others boldly gorge themselves in idleness upon what had been given as a loan to aid their industry. And some have their wives as associates in these crimes. Others do not hesitate to violate the sacrosanct bond of marriage, with their wives deceived and their children cast off. There are more examples of crimes of this kind than a brief catalogue would suffice to recount.”
I certainly believe that there are very many more in that catalogue which God, the most exact knower, has recorded. Yet above all is this: that such men alone are loved by the people, held in their embrace, cherished, and defended by their patronage, so that in turn they may be patrons of vices. But even this is surpassed by another crime: for when they have done all these things, they believe with the most certain, most infallible confidence that they are just and cannot fall away from this faith and certainty of justice—a thing which I believe neither the Sodomites nor the remaining Canaanites believed. Now go and collect scattered scandals of the ancient Church; meditate upon an accusation in the Council.
§8
What account, finally, will they render to a council of the daily trafficking in the Gospel and of their inconstancy depicted as though upon a tablet? What recently was the word of the Holy Spirit in Germany is now the enchantment of Satan. Sacred things are changed from day to day in a day, and religion is momentary according to the will of princes. They say that they believe nothing except what is expressed in the Scriptures, and from day to day they believe now one way, now another. Individuals are authors of their own credulity and inventors of their own opinion, and are therefore unstable.
Concerning the Germans Calvin says in the book On Scandals: “All were magnificently vaunting the Gospel under cover”—in Germany before the war. “In many places criminal hypocrites held the first positions.” Does he mean the Saxon, the Hessian, the Württemberger? “But after the defeat received first at the Danube and then at the Elbe, certain princes of great name, nobles, and states, thunderstruck by some fear or other, immediately lost heart and voluntarily collapsed.”
That accusation is forged against the Landgrave, the Württemberger, the people of Ulm, Strasbourg, and Frankfurt, and other cities which Melanchthon affirms were betrayed by cowardly princes. “Here an effeminate softness more than effeminate—indeed, perfidious cowardice—plainly betrayed itself. Within two years we saw more impious and sacrilegious defections from Christ in one nation than the histories of all times and nations recount.” But those were praiseworthy returns and conversions of many to the Catholic faith; afterward followed more defections to Calvinism and other sects.
If I speak falsely, let them show not one state, I do not say, or one city, or one petty church, but one soul which agrees in all things with the original Augsburg Confession. They will produce none. For it belongs to heresies never to stand, always to rush headlong, and to be broken by their own impetus and divided into new sects, until not only all religion but even the name of religion vanishes.
§9
I have brought forward some examples of controversies in the book On the Peace of Germany—a few concerning many. I also summoned witnesses of every kind: a few from the universality of Christianity, but men from whom orthodox agreement is established; indeed, so many that, if anyone demands more for a general council, holier men for a pious council, or more constant and learned men for a free council, he would seem to need a physician, not a teacher.
Yet I do not abandon a cause so good, so evidently victorious, so unconquered in the judgment of the adversaries; again and again I press it upon them. They are ashamed of their small number. For when I proceed against them, I proceed separately against a fragment of some sect. What, for example, can that Ubiquitarian, Majorist, Osiandrian, or Illyrican fragment accomplish against so many hundreds of legions, by whom truth fights, conquers, and triumphs? For what protection can exist in the camp of deserters against so many strong armies and defenders of a good cause? What will spurious novelty be able to plead against the antiquity of legitimate right and possession? I know the ancient response of your patriarchs, O Innovator: that you conquer by Scripture.
§10
But that evasion accomplishes nothing and affords no escape. It would possess an appearance of truth if you could conspire for some period of time in one interpretation; now falsehood has lost not only the thing but even its shadow, after by unstable rotation it changed approved doctrines and founded new ones. Tell me, I pray you: by what faculty, amid so many opinions of those reading, translating, and interpreting, do you understand these things? From what petty sect do you plaster over your error?
You will answer as Honoratus did to Augustine: “When I read, I came to know it by myself.” I shall not answer you as Augustine answered Honoratus. But since you wish it thus, enjoy your judgment concerning yourself. Certainly you ought not to be angry with me if I do not believe you, if I do not prefer you to so many thousands. For what you cry from one corner alone, all the sects on the opposite side profess concerning themselves. They also did so formerly. Vincent of Lérins is witness in chapter 37 of the book On the Profane Novelties of Heretics:
“But if anyone were to ask one of the heretics who persuades himself of such things, ‘Whence do you prove, whence do you teach, that I ought to abandon the universal and ancient faith of the Catholic Church?’ he immediately answers: ‘For it is written.’ And at once he prepares a thousand testimonies, a thousand examples, a thousand authorities from the Law, from the Psalms, from the Apostles, from the Prophets, by which, interpreted in a new and evil manner, the unhappy soul may be cast headlong from the Catholic citadel into the abyss of heresy.”
Therefore with an easy effort I cast you down from this position upon which you stand securely.
For even if I should believe, or at least not refute, that you alone perceive the sense of Scripture rightly and that all others are deceived, what will you say about Scripture itself? Before you had yet read it by yourself, did you know that what you were about to read was sacred? Or, as you read the several things, was it revealed to you concerning each one—even those which are difficult—that the several things you read were divine? No authority moves you to interpret the Gospels; you rely upon your knowledge alone. Yet some authority must necessarily move you to believe that this book is the Gospel.
“I, however,” says Augustine, “would not believe the Gospel unless the authority of the Catholic Church moved me. Why, therefore, should I not obey those whom I obeyed when they said, ‘Believe the Gospel,’ when they say, ‘Do not believe Mani’?” To Calvin: “If you hold to the Gospel, let me hold to those at whose command I believed the Gospel.”
And so at the beginning Scripture is believed solely by the title of tradition and then under the protection of custom, without any instrument of Scripture. Who, therefore, possesses such audacity that he announces anything beyond what has been announced in the Church? Or such levity that he receives anything beyond what he has received from the Church? What a profession: “I understood it by myself; my sense is true”! Is the whole agreement of universality and antiquity thus justly condemned?
For if novelties of dogmas, things, and opinions—novelties which are opposed to age and antiquity—are received from the words of the Apostle, it is necessary that the faith of the blessed Fathers be violated, either entirely or certainly in great part. It is necessary that the faithful of all ages, all the Saints, all the chaste, the continent, the Virgins, all the Clerics, Levites, and Priests, so many thousands of Confessors, such great armies of Martyrs, such great celebrity and multitude of cities and peoples, so many islands, provinces, Kings, Peoples, Kingdoms, nations—almost the whole world, now incorporated into Christ its head through the Catholic faith throughout so long a course of ages—be pronounced to have been ignorant, to have erred, to have blasphemed, and not to have known what it believed. Thus Vincent of Lérins, chapter 33 of On the Profane Novelties of Heresies.
These things he said in his own time. Since then, down to the new Gospel, so many armies of other Martyrs have been added, concerning whom those who condemn the Council of Trent—assembled in the Holy Spirit on account of the faith of those armies—pronounce the same judgment. Why do I say “condemn”? They persecute it with fires and disembowelment. That one Catholic remains is not due to their clemency, but because they lack strength.
But what will anyone who errs more moderately answer me? What cause is there why you do not believe the saints? If you are so proud that you suppose all of them to have erred and yourself alone to be wise, are you also so foolish that you hope I shall believe you? If the authority of others moves you, by this very fact you withdraw from your position, because you are led by authority. Yet if you are moved by it, why do new, suspect, and few men move you rather than ancient and many men, who approved their faith by torments and death and sealed their confession with blood?
See how great is the obstinacy of not believing these men, how great the savagery of desiring to devour their disciples and to call them Antichristians and bestialities. For the insults do not stop at us, but are hurled through sixteen ages and through many thousands of Martyrs and Bishops, and reach as far as the Apostolic Churches. Act moderately in a matter so arduous, because you are contending with so many thousands of saints; if you love peace, speak peaceably. If you seek a council, embrace the one which is given. If we are impostors because we believe these men, rescind the judgment of the divine majesty; cast down from heaven and condemn for imposture so many thousands of the Blessed, who were illustrious for sanctity, doctrine, ecclesiastical dignity, and miracles; consign them to Orcus, where Tartarus alone opens sheer below:
So great is the prospect upward to the ethereal Olympus of heaven.
But you who are orthodox, flee novelties. “They announce to us a wisdom hidden since Christ—a thing worthy of tears. For if faith had its origin in these thirty (ninety) years, although almost four hundred (one thousand five hundred) years have passed from the time when Christ was openly beheld, the Gospel was empty for so long a time, our faith too was empty, and the Martyrs indeed underwent martyrdom in vain; in vain also did such and so great bishops preside over the people.” Gregory Nazianzen, Letter 2 to Chelidonius.