§1
Nevertheless, even in a clear matter and with the accused convicted, there is not lacking the greatest impediment to a better life: a refuge in excuse. They say that they possess reasons why they cannot return to the inherited religion. This is not the evil of heresy alone, but an evil common to human depravity: they sin willingly and conceal their sins by denying them.
“No one,” says Seneca, “understands himself to be avaricious; no one, covetous. Yet the blind seek a guide; we wander without a guide. We say: ‘I am therefore not ambitious, but no one at Rome can live otherwise. I am not extravagant, but the city itself demands great expenditure. It is not my fault that I am irascible; youth causes this.’ We indeed deceive ourselves. Our evil is not external; it is within us, it sits in our entrails. And for that reason we come to health with difficulty, because we do not know that we are sick.” Letter 60.
These are the vices of human affairs, but especially of those in error; for unless they loved their vices, they would not err. Indeed, they generally err in such a manner that they impute error to sanctity and truth.
The first objection against the Council is therefore customarily this: because it was assembled by the Pontiff, although it ought to have been done by the Emperor.
Yet that is not a legitimate objection. For why do the Germans and the English, with a few others, seek a knot in a bulrush when the rest of the world reverences the Council? The Emperor himself, the head of the Empire, brought it about that it was proclaimed and continued by the Pope. If they are moved by the honor of their prince, let them not spurn his solicitude in seeking the Council. Why did they offer the Saxon Confession to the Council in the year 1551? In it they say that they are not conscious that their preachers possess any error, either in doctrine or in the government of the Church; nevertheless, they do not doubt that those men are endowed with such modesty and piety that, if they are admonished by testimonies of heavenly doctrine and by the true agreement of the Catholic Church, they will by no means fail the edification and tranquility of the Church.
§2
Let subjects not disappoint the hope of their princes, and let them revere the orthodox agreement of that Council which possesses the unity and agreement of the ancient Churches. But if they repudiate the Council because it was assembled by the Pope’s authority, why do they receive Nicaea, which not only was assembled by Pope Sylvester but also determined by its own decree who could lawfully proclaim a council?
These are the words of Athanasius’s Letter to Felix concerning the Persecutions of the Arians: “We know that in the great Synod of Nicaea it was unanimously confirmed by the three hundred and eighteen Bishops that councils ought not to be celebrated without the judgment of the Roman Pontiff.” Hence also Socrates, book 2 of the History: “Councils which are celebrated otherwise than the ecclesiastical rule commands possess no force; councils ought not to be celebrated apart from the judgment of the Roman Pontiff.”
So far, therefore, is the authority of the Pontiff interposed in the celebration of the Council from having to deter the Estates of the Augsburg Confession, that for this reason it is fitting for the Council to be received with the greatest readiness, since without such authority a council is invalid. For a council must be assembled by him who presides over the Church; but emperors are not presidents of the Church—indeed, they have often been
persecutors.
Next, I cannot sufficiently marvel at what reason those men allege who say that they approve the assembly of councils by the authority of the emperors Charles, Maximilian, Ferdinand, Rudolf, and Matthias. For their doctors calumniate in voice and writings that these Emperors are Antichristians. Aretius, on Apocalypse 13:2 and 15, contends that the Emperor or Empire is the ten-horned beast. The same man says: “The name of the beast is to be a son of the Roman Church, or a Catholic, or a member of the Roman Church.” The same: “The dragon is the Devil, who attaches his ornaments to the Empire.” The same: “To worship the beast is to cultivate the Emperor superstitiously; even those who call him the unconquered Emperor do this.” The same man complains at verse 8 that men marvel at the success of princes and therefore pass over to their parties.
How, therefore, will they approve as Catholic and legitimate a council assembled by imperial authority—that is, by beastly, draconic, Antichristian, persecuting, and idolatrous authority, as they themselves are accustomed to fashion it by blaspheming the Majesty in a horrid manner? To what end, therefore, do they object the Emperor to us? If they acknowledge his authority in the convocation of a synod, why do they not follow the modesty, prudence, faith, religion, and zeal with which, at the beginning and continuation of the Council, he moved, aided, and heard the Pontiff and embraced the Council’s judgment? In a matter of the greatest moment he followed Constantine and other pious Emperors.
You seek a council assembled by imperial authority, which cannot be given; why do you not follow the one defended, approved, and honored by imperial authority? Finally, both Pareus and the Saxon chief preacher think that a Council can be commanded by princely authority, so that one is not free to refuse it in whatever manner one wishes, because they judged that coercive power too is necessary for a Synod.
But what Emperor will compel the Spaniards, Italians, Frenchmen, Englishmen, Swedes, Poles, and others—foreigners, namely, who are not subject to his scepter—to undergo the dangers of journeys and the losses of expenses? You judge him so weak that he cannot restrain a few merchants of Mülheim from an unjust attempt and from making an insane expenditure. In those halls that promote imperial vigor you depicted him sleeping; you contemptuously fashioned his eagle ἄπτερον [wingless] and featherless.
Those, therefore, who pretend to seek a council of this kind reject every council. Did not Luther himself expressly teach at the beginning, in On the Chief Articles of the Christian Faith, that the Pope is bound to institute a General Council? Who would believe him bound to do that which it is not lawful for him to do? If a council assembled by him is void through the invalid authority of its convoker, what law constrains him to labor in vain, to move the world by a ridiculous attempt, and, when he has convoked it, to accomplish nothing beyond expense? Indeed, must the whole affair therefore perish because the Pope is its author?
§3
But if anyone is little concerned about Luther, let him consider the unanimous opinion of an entire imperial assembly. In the year 1524 it was decreed thus at Nuremberg:
“And lest good things be oppressed together with evil ones, and so that it may finally be defined what is to be done by each person in this cause, it has seemed to our Lieutenant, orator, and also to the Electors, princes, prelates, counts, and Estates of the Empire present here to be supremely necessary that a general, free, and universal Council of the whole of Christianity—which can most advantageously, if it is possible, be effected by His Pontifical Holiness with our consent—be proclaimed and convoked, as is fitting, at a suitable place in the German nation. Concerning this matter negotiations have been conducted here with the legation of His Pontifical Holiness, which has undertaken to refer it to His Pontifical Holiness and to promote it most faithfully.”
To what end is there need of these decrees of the Empire if the Pope ought not to assemble a Council, or if that which the Pope assembled according to the judgment and request of the whole Empire is therefore void because it possesses the Pope as its author? But if the judgment of the Empire is correct, we easily see how mad is the audacity of the preachers who by private detraction and malevolence rescind the opinion of the August Majesty and of all the Electors and Estates then present.
Besides the Catholics, there were also present at that assembly the legates of the Electors Ludwig of the Palatinate, Frederick of Saxony, and Joachim of Brandenburg, and of many other princes. The assembly approved their acts, and then there was the consent of those who had sent them. The objection against the Council’s author therefore comes too late, if they themselves selected the author.
§4
The second objection. The Council of Trent was not free, nor was it within the German nation; for Trent is in Italy, in a place insufficiently healthy, whose Bishop was a Cardinal.
The preachers could therefore easily have protected themselves from the heat, especially since the Emperor and Pope Julius, unless they had been prohibited by an impediment, were ready to betake themselves there. Since it was a suitable seat for so many wealthy men and princes, especially since it is warm as though with a temperate breeze between the Italian suns and Alpine cold—for the cold which Italian and Spanish cosmographers ascribe to Trent is less than the northern frost, even if it should nevertheless surpass a Saxon and Baltic winter—the Italians, Sicilians, Spaniards, and Frenchmen should have complained about the frost of Trent, since the dissensions of the Germans drew them from their native warmth into the Germans’ freezing regions. Would they not have prayed for a milder and somewhat quieter climate?
§5
What they complain concerning liberty denied is most unjust and most false, fashioned solely to arouse hostility toward Catholics by an invented fear. For Trent is a city of the German nation; it was then under Ferdinand’s dominion and even now belongs to the house of Austria. How, therefore, did an imperial town diminish the liberty which the Emperors themselves kept safe and unimpaired? Nor did the Cardinal obstruct it—indeed, he could not—since not only he, but the universal Council together with the Pontiff and Emperor, proclaimed a safe-conduct for all Germans and the other nations, not once but again and again. Finally, the whole Christian Church granted it to the German nation, in Sessions 13, 14, and 18. And so that those who do not have the Council at hand may possess something by which to refute the lies of their preachers, I shall transcribe the safe-conduct which was given in Session 18.
SAFE-CONDUCT granted to the German nation, in the general congregation on 4 March 1562.
“The most holy Ecumenical and General Synod of Trent, legitimately assembled in the Holy Spirit, the same legates of the Apostolic See presiding in it, assures everyone that, to each and all priests, Electors, Princes, Dukes, Marquises, Counts, Barons, Nobles, Military Men, Commoners,
and all other men whatsoever, of whatever estate, condition, or quality they may be, from the cities and other places of the German province and nation, and to all other ecclesiastical and secular persons, especially those of the Augsburg Confession, who together with them will come, will be sent, or are about to set out for this General Council of Trent, or have come hitherto—by whatever name they are designated or may now be called—it imparts and altogether concedes, by the tenor of the present instrument, the public faith and the fullest and truest security, which they call a safe-conduct:
“freely to come to this city of Trent; to remain, stand, and tarry here; to propose and speak; to treat, examine, and discuss any business whatsoever together with the Synod itself; to offer and disclose freely whatever things they please and any articles whatever, both in writing and by word; to explain, establish, and prove them by the Sacred Scriptures and the words, opinions, and arguments of the blessed Fathers; and, if necessary, also to answer the objections of the General Council and to dispute or confer charitably, without any impediment, with those who have been selected by the Council, with reproaches, revilings, and insults entirely removed;
“and specifically that the disputed causes be treated in the aforesaid Council of Trent according to Sacred Scripture, the traditions of the Apostles, approved Councils, and the authorities of the holy Fathers; with this also added, that they shall in no way be punished under the pretext of religion, or of offenses committed or to be committed concerning it. It concedes this also in such a manner that, because of their presence, divine offices shall not in any manner cease, either on the journey or in any of the places while they are going, remaining, or returning, nor in the city of Trent itself.
“And when these things have been completed or not completed, whenever they please, or when, at the command and with the assent of their superiors, they desire to return to their own places, or any one of them desires it, they may immediately, without any resistance, occasion, or delay, freely and securely return according to their good pleasure, their property and likewise their honor and persons being safe, and vice versa; yet with the knowledge of those to be deputed by the same Synod, so that provision may then be made opportunely for their security, without deceit and fraud.
“The holy Synod also wills that in this public faith and safe-conduct all clauses whatsoever be included and contained, and be held as included, which may be necessary and opportune for full, effectual, and sufficient security in going, remaining, and returning.
“For greater security and for the good of peace and reconciliation, it also expressly declares that if anyone or any of them, whether on the journey while coming to Trent, while remaining there, or while returning, should perpetrate or commit some enormous deed—which God forbid—by which the benefit of this public faith and assurance conceded to them could be annulled or made void, it wills and concedes that those discovered in a crime of this kind shall be punished immediately by their own people alone, and not by others, with a worthy penalty and sufficient amendment, which must deservedly be approved and commended by the party of the Synod, while the form, conditions, and terms of their assurance remain altogether inviolate.
“In like manner it also wills that, if anyone or any persons from the Synod itself, whether on the journey, while remaining, or while returning, should perpetrate or commit some enormous deed—which God forbid—by which the benefit of this public faith and assurance could be violated or in any way removed, those discovered in a crime of this kind shall be punished immediately by the Synod itself alone, and not by others, with a worthy penalty and sufficient amendment, which must deservedly be commended and approved by the party of the Lords of Germany of the Augsburg Confession then present here, while the present form, conditions, and terms of assurance remain altogether inviolate.
“The Synod itself further wills that it shall be lawful for each and all of the ambassadors, as often as it shall be opportune or necessary, to go out from the city of Trent to take the air and to return to it; and also freely to send or dispatch their messenger or messengers to any places whatsoever to arrange their necessary business, and to receive the persons sent or dispatched, or the one sent and dispatched, as often as it seems expedient to them, in such a manner that some person or persons among those deputed by the Council accompany them to provide for their security.
“This safe-conduct and security must stand and endure from the time and throughout the period when it happens that they are received under the care and protection of the Synod and its people, until they are brought to Trent; throughout the whole time of their residence there; and again, after they have had sufficient hearing, with a period of twenty days allowed beforehand, when they themselves request it, or when the Council, after a hearing of this kind, orders them to depart, it shall restore them, with God’s favor, from Trent to whatever safe place each has selected for himself, all deceit and fraud being entirely excluded.
“It promises and pledges in good faith that all the aforesaid things are to be inviolably observed on behalf of each and all the faithful of Christ, on behalf of all Princes whatsoever, both ecclesiastical and secular, and on behalf of all other ecclesiastical and secular persons, of whatever estate and condition they may be or by whatever name they are designated.
“Moreover, all fraud and deceit being excluded, it promises in true and good faith that the Synod itself will seek no occasion, either manifestly or secretly, nor in any way employ—or permit anyone to employ—any authority, power, law, statute, privilege of laws or canons, or of any Councils whatsoever, especially those of Constance and Siena, expressed in any form of words, to the prejudice of this public faith and free hearing conceded to them by the Synod itself; and for this occasion it derogates from them in this matter.
“But if the holy Synod, or anyone from it or its people, of whatever condition, estate, or preeminence he may be, should violate in any point or clause the prescribed form and manner of assurance and safe-conduct—which nevertheless may the Almighty deign to avert—and sufficient amendment, deserving of their approval and commendation, should not immediately follow, they may hold the Synod itself, and will be able to hold it, to have fallen under all the penalties which violators of safe-conducts of this kind can incur by divine and human law or custom, without excuse or any contradiction in this matter.”
§6
No one will easily say that greater liberty was ever granted either in a Council or in a state. Accordingly, while they allege fear, they sufficiently show that they distrust their cause, fear the light, and prefer to deceive the simple in Germany rather than come before the sight of the Church. For why do they decline the place and liberty when the whole Empire approved it? It is contained in the Imperial decree promulgated at Augsburg in the year 1548, to which I refer the reader.
§7
Why does the whole Empire here complain about nothing concerning the place, the liberty, and the convoker of the Council, but submit itself to its judgment? But who bewitched many so that they would believe neither the ancient Church nor the recent Council, with which all antiquity agrees? Who so swiftly altered the constancy of the Germans that they neither came to the Council nor defended its decrees? Namely, those who severed them from the primitive Church are now bringing it about that they do not unite with the rest of Christianity; and, lest this ever occur, they divide the wretched men into very many petty sects and into names and dogmas equally monstrous.
§8
The third objection. Bishops, Cardinals, and Monks alone pronounced judgment; laymen were excluded from the right of voting. It was therefore not a legitimate Council.
No one was excluded who possessed the right to come and pronounce judgment.
These are the words of the Pontiff proclaiming the Council: “All, from every place, both our Venerable brethren the Patriarchs and Archbishops and our beloved sons the Abbots, as well as all others whatsoever to whom by right or privileges the power of sitting in general councils and pronouncing judgments in them has been permitted,” and so forth.
One must proceed according to the ancient religion, and consequently councils must be proclaimed and celebrated according to ancient law. But since the power of coming and pronouncing judgment is given to all to whom it has been conceded by right or privilege, no one can complain that he was excluded, unless someone judges it just to come contrary to right.
But that judgment concerning controversies of faith was formerly entrusted to priests is clearer than to require teaching. For what is clearer than that the three hundred and eighteen Bishops subscribed to the Synod of Nicaea, but no layman? Therefore either let him produce a single council among all the councils in which laymen subscribed together with the Bishops and pronounced a definitive judgment, and we shall hear his complaints about Trent; or, if he cannot, let him cast away all ancient councils with a single nod and betake himself openly and without deceitful pretense to the enemies of all councils—that is, of the whole Church. We know that Emperors subscribed to certain councils, but they protested that by this act they bore witness to their pious assent and did not arrogate to themselves the role of judging.
§9
The fourth objection. The Prelates who attended the Council were bound to the Pontiff by oath; therefore they did not pronounce free judgments.
Once this has been established—which all confess to be true—that the legitimate oath of Judges, Counselors, and Senators does not remove but confirms their liberty of pronouncing judgment, it must be investigated whether the oath of the Prelates at the Council of Trent obstructed the truth. Peter Fuentidueña teaches in his oration to the Germans that it was instead advantageous. For they were constrained by oath to teach and accept the truth insofar as they knew and were able. But if you have sworn that you will do so, this does not prevent you from inquiring freely into the truth. Otherwise princes would be judged to take liberty from the subjects whom they bind to themselves by oath.
But since an oath is not a bond of iniquity, all know very well that they are bound by no oath either to defend lies or to oppress the truth. What then? Because the Princes of the Empire are bound by oath to the Emperor, are they for that reason prohibited from confessing the truth? Which of the Protestant Theologians is not bound by many—indeed, unjust—oaths, both put under oath and administering an oath concerning the heresies of his Academy?
§10
The fifth objection. The definitions and canons of the Council of Trent are not according to the word of God; therefore we deservedly refuse them. For why should we subject ourselves to human laws? Let CHRIST alone pronounce judgment; let his word alone be heard.
Uncertain error is not consistent with itself; it dashes against itself, and falsehood finally crushes itself while it flees from the manifestation of truth on every side. A little before they equated the votes of laymen with the decrees of priests; now they deign to hear Christ alone—that is, Scripture. And would that they heard him, for thus they would also hear the priests whom Scripture pronounces must be heard.
What had to be said concerning Scripture alone has been explained in various places. For if Scripture alone suffices, what need is there of a Council? For in it the true sense and interpretation of Scripture must be treated. The Princes of the Empire were certainly not ignorant that this cause was being treated when they requested the Council. It is established that they did not doubt the truth of the divine utterances, but sought with so much labor peace among interpretations.
§11
The sixth objection. There are scandals in the Papacy and the life of the Popes has often been evil; therefore the Council is not legitimate.
I shall employ not merely the common response, but the true response which Christ too approved, Luke 18; nor in return shall I cast back at you that a beam adheres in you who labor to pluck a mote from the Papacy, because I ought not to compare the vices of those in error with the sins of the Orthodox. The comparison of a Catholic with a heretic is unequal, especially with one whose justice is imputed, from whom no crime strikes out justice.
Let us therefore leave these things aside, lest we be compelled to teach with Luther that Evangelicals are possessed in the Gospel by seven devils, who previously were troubled by only one; lest we be compelled to complain with Calvin that scarcely every tenth man among the Calvinists is sincere, and so forth.
I ask this one and only thing: let them not accuse the innocent and, from envy and hatred of the name, make the cause common to all; I shall not defend the guilty. In the Council there were many learned, holy, and upright in life—Cardinals, Bishops, Priests, and doctors, men whose faith and morals are to be judged from the truth, not from the abuse of detractors. Who among so great a number was ἀκατονόμαστος [unspeakable] and publicly infamous after the manner of Calvin and Beza? Behold, so great a Council is in sight. Review the sins and disgraces of the subscribers if you accuse them, or assert that you can prove them if you revile them.
“But they are covered by walls.” I ask how that which is covered by such solicitous caution is known to you. For if you accuse without an argument, you are a calumniator. Yet let there also be scandals among us, as there truly are—and would that they ended in the destruction and condemnation of their authors. Nevertheless, the Church does not cease to be the Church although it also contains its evil members within its enclosures; nor did Christ cease to be the head of the Church because Judas too was there. Wheat does not lose its nature although it is among tares.
A Bishop does not lose his dignity and the power of his office—indeed, not even the truth of the faith—even if his works are not complete before his God. Otherwise, why do princes of the age not fall from their thrones by sinning, if a Bishop is reduced to order when he has fallen? But if you read the decrees concerning reformation, you will easily perceive that the Council teaches, admonishes, exhorts, and reproves right things, whether they concern the Pontiffs and the Roman Curia or kings and magnates. No one approved either simony or other crimes, but by a true judgment all determined that they must be amputated, although laws are unequal to the evils of many men—a fact unknown only to those who are ignorant of the human race.
§12
The seventh objection. The doctrine of the Council is false;
therefore the Council itself must be repudiated.
I have already demonstrated above that the Council’s decrees and dogmas have come down to us from the ancient Church in a perpetual and nowhere interrupted sequence.
It will indeed be worth the labor to learn who those men are who accuse the Council of Trent of falsehood and who, in the midst of the discords and contentions concerning religion by which Germany is shaken, judge the universal Church. Seeking a remedy for your dissensions from a Council, you selected arbiters; now, after you as defendants have lost your cause, it pleases you to calumniate the judge. The Germans, disturbed by their dissensions, implored the Christian world and requested a Council. The whole body was shaken by one sick member; one part wearies the universal Church and gratuitously despises its labor on its behalf and spurns its counsel, imitating the madness of the frenzied, whose fury is first embittered against the solicitude of those treating them.
Italy possessed religious peace; England lived according to the institutions of its ancestors; the Pontiff and Emperor strove for Hungary to be preserved. France was at rest, for no Calvinist existed. Portugal in the East and Spain in the West extended the boundaries of the Empire and the Gospel. The new faith of the Germans disturbed so many goods and cut off greater hopes. After it was divided and torn within itself and could no longer bear the evils which it had itself caused, it looked to the universal Church, so that by the judgment and agreement of the universality it might compose its domestic factions. Would that it had persevered in what had been rightly instituted.
But the same parish priests, the trumpets of civil war, obstructed the restoration of peace. Accordingly, after despising the Council, given over to a reprobate sense and turned against one another, they began to rage still further. For what is more audacious and foolish than that those whom all selected as judges should be condemned by the most desperate of defendants; that those whose cause, now crushed and defeated, was to be condemned by the final vote should preoccupy the judges’ benches and turn against the judges the evils they feared for themselves?
“The doctrine of the Council,” they say, “is false.” Therefore that doctrine which the ancient Councils and Fathers handed down to the Council of Trent is false. If, therefore, truth does not exist in the whole world, in what faction of Germany, finally, does it possess its dwelling? This accusation cuts off every hope of peace. There is no Memnonist, no Schwenckfeldian, no Ubiquitarian, Socinian, Trinitarian, Sacramentarian, Flacian, Majorist, Anglo-Papist, or Puritan who cannot by this speech mock and elude every ancient or recent, greatest or least council, if he calls false whatever is opposed to his opinion, displeasing to his will, or contrary to his glory or advantages.
Hence comes that enormous and most notorious propagation of schisms and new sects in the new religions; hence the eternal wars into which the demon casts those who despise the remedies of peace. For what peace can exist in a kingdom, what concord of citizens, what union of a family and its many duties, unless either the Magistrate or the father of the household possesses the power of terminating disputes? Who will be able to endure those who flee altogether from every judge and judgment? For what judge, finally, will those who despise a Council admit?
Cyprian rightly says concerning them in book 1, Letter 3: “What kind of men do you suppose those to be who are enemies of the priests and rebels against the Catholic Church and who are terrified neither by the Lord’s threatening nor by the vengeance of the future judgment? For heresies have arisen and schisms been born from no other source than that the priest of God is not obeyed, and that one priest for the time and one judge in place of CHRIST for the time is not contemplated in the Church. If the whole brotherhood obeyed him according to the divine teachings, no one would move anything against the college of priests.” Flight from and detraction of the Council is therefore an evident sign of Schism.
§13
The eighth objection. Councils have rarely had prosperous outcomes; therefore the Council of Trent must not be received.
Councils legitimately instituted, not by their own fault but sometimes through the malice and cunning of impious men, have produced wars and persecutions. Christ himself, by teaching, living rightly, and performing miracles, armed the envy of the Jews against himself. Just laws prudently enacted and to be observed by the state are the destruction of many; discipline, admonition, and correction itself are a detriment to proud and harsh dispositions. What disturbances did the Council of Nicaea produce, when the Arian heresy, armed first with pen and voice and then with arms, avenged itself upon the Orthodox?
No one turns this into an accusation against laws because the law proceeds against malefactors; no one accuses discipline because it often provokes savage spirits so that they rush more licentiously and desperately into the precipices of vice. These are not the faults of good things whose preservation is necessary for cities and kingdoms and has always been retained to break the attempts of the wicked, but of impious men who refuse to be contained and ruled by laws.
Thus neither was the Council of Trent—consecrated to peace and most zealous for peace—the cause of the disturbances which followed. A multitude of Bishops and doctors from the whole world assembled to procure the peace of one nation and join it to the rest of Christianity; rather, those men were the cause on account of whose turbulent attempts it was necessary for the Council to be assembled.
But I judge that more things must be said about the fruit of so great and holy a Council. First, the agreement of the Catholic world was manifest in it, not only among Theologians from different kingdoms, but also with the primitive Church.
Next, the morals of the clergy and people were reformed, a reformation which also illuminated Germany in great part.
Third, all the heresies, struck by the Council’s anathema as though by a thunderbolt, were in a worse condition than before; little by little they began to tend toward decay and destruction. The Synod was confirmed in the year 1564, when the last session had been begun on 3 December 1563 and completed on the fourth day. After that time the heresies began much more to be divided and to perish by mutual anathemas—so much so that now scarcely any city can be found in Germany which defends all those heresies into which they had conspired when the Council was begun. No one now professes the Augsburg Confession in its integrity. Meanwhile half the Lutherans have defected to Calvinism or returned to Catholic unity. Calvinism has ceased to be propagated among Catholics with the power in which it formerly excelled; indeed, it too, now divided into equal factions, threatens its own ruin.
§14
The ninth objection. Those who sat in the Council are enemies and opposing parties; therefore they must not be heard by us, nor is it equitable for us to stand before the judgment of enemies.
Would that you were either not enemies of the men of Trent or did not pretend that they were your enemies. For how are those men enemies who so often invited you
to concord, who made expenditure for your sake and endured the troubles of travel? I do not doubt that they were adversaries of errors, since they themselves condemned them so that no one could doubt it. “But it was a hostile Council.” Yet I ask you: what council do you call friendly? If you are a Calvinist, the Lutherans are in your judgment turbulent enemies of truth. If you are a Mild Calvinist, the Rigid judge you worse than any heretic, Turk, and Jew. If you are Rigid, the Mild assert that you are both a Manichaean and a Borborite. If you are a Majorist, Flacian, or Osiandrian, you will possess as enemies all who refuse to belong to your faction.
What kind of council, therefore, do you choose? One from that kind of men which is devoted to you, or to which you have bound yourself? You will conquer before such a council without contest and without danger, for you have selected your judges most prudently: you admit no one except the man who has already absolved you, except the man whose cause is the same as yours.