accused of having favoured the Lutherans and had much adoe to justifie himself and to get off A fourth interview betwixt the Pope and the Emperour After the conclusion of the Diet the Emperour went to Italy and had an interview with the Pope in the City of Luca where the matter they chiefly treated of was the holding of a Council The Pope had heretofore called one at Vicenza but he was forced to suspend the Convocation first till Easter in the year 1539. and afterwards by a Bull of the 13th of June the same year the suspension was prolonged untill it should please the Pope to take it off In the Conference of Luca the Pope and the Emperour remained stedfast in their resolution of holding the Council at Vicenza but the Venetians to whom this City belonged recalled the consent they had given They were afraid of offending the Turk with whom they had just concluded a Peace because in that Council Overtures were to be proposed of making War against the Infidels This is the reason that was alledged but the true reason perhaps was that they were not very willing the City should be in a manner abandoned to so many Strangers as must needs flock thither upon account of the Council The Pope declares that he will call the Council at Trend but it is retarded by the War betwixt the Emperour and the King of France The year 1541. being thus spent next year after a Diet of the Empire was held The Pope sent thither John Morone Bishop of Modena and declared that since he could not agree neither with the Duke of Mantua nor the Venetians about holding of a Council either at Mantua or Vicenza he was resolved it should be held at Trent The Protestants would not accept that proposition however the Pope published his Bull dated January 22. and appointed the opening of the Council to be the first of November following About the same time the War broke out between the Emperour and the King of France This last declared War the same year and published reproachfull Manifesto's against the Emperour which War prevented the effect of the Bull of Convocation In the mean time the Pope sent his Legates to Trent and the Emperour his Ambassadours but after they had continued there seven months they were fain to separate because no Prelates came except some of the Kingdom of Naples and of the Ecclesiastick state whom the Pope and the Emperour had sent with their Ambassadours Francis the first King of France foreseeing that it would be imputed to him as a great crime to have obstructed the holding of a Council by so unseasonable a declaration of War to excuse himself with the Pope made Edicts against the Protestants of his Kingdom which he caused to be rigorously put in execution The Pope in the mean time as common Father both to the Emperour and the King of France endeavoured to make them friends but could not succeed in it He had another interview with the Emperour betwixt Parma and Piacenza A fifth interview of the Emperour and Pope but no talk then of a Council or the affairs of Religion The interest of the Emperour obliged him to draw the Pope to his side against the King of France which he attempted to doe and even to procure money of him for the charges of the War On the other hand the Pope had an eye upon the Dutchy of Milan which he desired might return to his Family year 1543 and would have had the Emperour give the investiture of it to Octavio Farnese his Nephew who had married Margaret natural Daughter to Charles the fifth They broke off without concluding any thing being jealous one of another and parted seemingly very well satisfied because both well understood the art of disguising their thoughts The Emperour having no assurances of the Pope addressed himself to Henry King of England and made a League with him against France That incensed the Pope extremely who complained publickly that a Prince who ought to be Protectour of the Church should make alliance with an Excommunicate King He added moreover that since the beginning of the Troubles Charles had carried it with an extreme tenderness towards the Protestants and to render that conduct of the Emperour the more odious he compared it with that of the King of France who had made so many severe Edicts and rigorous Laws against the Innovatours for maintaining the Religion and Papal authority This War and these mutual misunderstandings put a stop to all thoughts of a Council for that year 1543. The year following there was a Diet held at Spire A Diet at Spire where the Emperour gives a new Edict of liberty till the next Council wherein the Emperour represented the pains he had taken for obtaining a Council telling them that it had been called but that the Arms of France hindred its sitting Endeavours were there used to compose the affairs of Religion and the result was that the Emperour who had need of the Protestants made and Edict of Pacification to last till the sitting of the Council That Edict allowed the Lutherans not onely year 1544 the liberty of their Religion but also the peaceable possession of the Benefices which they enjoyed in the Church and ordered Memoirs to be made and presented to the next Diet wherein a form of Reformation should be stated that so all men might know what they were to take for matters of Faith untill the meeting of the next Council The Pope was touched to the quick at the proceedings of this Diet which were very favourable to the Protestants and thereupon wrote smart Letters to the Emperour telling him that he plainly wronged his Conscience and endangered his Salvation by adventuring to judge of matters of Faith and to call Assemblies that might be taken for National Synods by no other authority but his own That these Assemblies were invasions upon the authority of the Holy See since that consisting onely of Lay-men they notwithstanding decided matters of Religion without the power or concurrence of the Pope He besought him to annull all that had been done and in case of refusal threatned to force him to it by other and more severe courses THE HISTORY OF THE Council of TRENT BOOK II. PAUL III. THE War between the Emperour and King of France had hitherto hindered the opening of the Council but that War which lasted not much above a Year The Peace between the Emperour and K. of France revives the proposals of a Council being ended by the Peace that was concluded at Crespy December 24. 1544. both Princes obliged themselves to use their best endeavours for the preservation of the ancient Religion and Union of the Church and for the Reformation of the Court of Rome And that they might the better succeed in these three great Designs they concluded it necessary to press the convocation of a Council The Pope willing to have all the Honour of it alone so soon as
down and oppressed by the Pope for it once it had been decided that Bishops hold their Authority from Jesus Christ and that they are obliged to reside in the midst of their Flocks to take the care of them not by the command of the Pope but by the appointment of God they perswaded themselves that they might easily provide against the enterprizes of the Court of Rome practised upon the Ordinaries which shall be set forth more at large in the sequel when we shall have a new occasion to speak of this question which was bandied with much more fierceness in the third convocation of the Council under Pius IV. If the Spaniards were cunning enough in disguising the true reasons of their Conduct the Legates were not behind hand in diving into their intentions and therefore they dextrously waved that question by referring it to another Session In pursuance of the matter of Reformation they entred upon the examination of the Exemptions which were granted by the Pope to the prejudice of Ordinaries In the Eastern Church all that is comprehended within the precincts of a Diocess whether Monasteries Churches or Benefices is subject to the jurisdiction of the Bishop of the Diocess But in the Latin Church it is not so in the first place rich and powerfull Abbots to free themselves from the jurisdiction of the Bishops to whom they gave Umbrage and with whom they often quarelled obtained of the Popes to be taken under the Protection of St. Peter and to hold immediately from the holy See The Popes found that that hit very pat with their interests because thereby they acquired Subjects in all places and that he who obtains privileges is obliged to maintain the Authority of him that grants them and therefore they were very liberal in their Exemptions They thereupon took from under the jurisdiction of Bishops those great Societies of Clugny and Cistaux they granted the same privileges to the Chapters of Cathedral Churches and at length all the Orders of the mendicant Friars in their first institution obtained the same privileges of holding immediately from the holy See The Bishops could not but grumble at these Exemptions that deprived them of so many subjects And they would have taken it extremely well it Giacomo Cortese Bishop of Vaison had demanded the abolition of them This affair having been referred to another Session was brought in again with the case of Residence but hardly any thing could be obtained concerning these two Articles As to the first which is the case of Residence it was concluded that the ancient Canons which command Residence under such and such Pains should be reinforced with new Penalties It was therefore decreed that a Bishop who should for six Months together be absent from his Diocess should lose a fourth part of his Temporals that if his absence continued a Year he should forfeit the half of his Revenue and that if he persisted in that fault he should by the Metropolitan be complained of to the Pope to the end that the holy See might take Cognisance thereof and either punish that negligent Pastour or put another in his place that if the non-resident Prelate were a Metropolitan he should be complained of to the Pope by the Eldest of his Suffragans As for inferiour Pastours it was ordered that they might be by the Bishops compelled to Residence and if among the non-resident Curates any one might happen to have an Exemption from the Pope he might nevertheless be forced to Residence by the Bishop acting as the Delegate of the holy See As to the matter of Exemptions it was decreed that no Monk being out of his Convent under pretext of the Privilege of his Order should excuse himself from being punished and corrected by the Ordinary of the place but in this also the Bishop must act as Delegate of the holy See it was likewise ordained that the Chapters of Cathedral and Collegiate Churches might not decline the Jurisdiction of the Bishops as to the visitation and correction of manners And last of all Bishops were prohibited to perform any Episcopal function in the Diocess of another without permission Matters being thus prepared nothing could hinder the holding of the Session nor was the Pope himself of opinion that it should be delayed any longer On the contrary he was glad of that opportunity to nettle the Emperour who instantly desired that no controversie should be decided till he had reduced the Lutherans to a Necessity of submitting to the Council The unions of Great men having no other foundation but interest are never firm nor of long continuance The Pope and the Emperour who had been so good friends in the beginning of the year fell a clashing one with another before it was ended And thereupon the Pope ordered that the Session should be held notwithstanding the opposition of the Emperour's Ambassadours year 1547 The thirteenth of January was the day appointed for that Ceremony Andrea Cornaro Archbishop of Spalato in Dalmatia said high Mass Sixth Session 1547. and Thomas Stella Bishop of Salpi preached the Sermon After this the Decrees were read which contained sixteen Chapters and thirty three Canons concerning Doctrine and five Chapters about Reformation In the Chapters of Doctrine according as it had been resolved upon the Judgment of the Church was declared concerning the points of Justification the nature of Grace the nature of good works the certainty that one may have of his own Justification the necessity of good works the perseverance of Saints free Will and generally concerning all the points that had been agitated amongst the Divines which we have mentioned before in the Canons Anathema was pronounced against all the propositions that were attributed to the Lutherans In the Decree of Reformation Residence was enjoyned the Exemptions of Monks and of Cathedral and Collegiate Churches regulated and the mutual attempts of Bishops upon one anothers rights repressed in the manner as we told you had been agreed upon in the Congregations Censures by the male Contents of the Decrees of this Sessions The Court of Rome made no new reflexions upon these Decrees for to them they were not new but so soon as they came abroad in Germany the Malecontents of whom it was full revenged themselves on the Council by a publick and censorious reflexion that let nothing pass they critisized even to the very expressions and the Grammarians made themselves sport with that flourish which is to be found in the fifth Chapter cum neque homo ipse nihil omnino agat they said it was little better than gibberish and nonsense because every proposition wherein there are two Negatives ought to be resolved into an Affirmative so that that proposition ought to be resolved into this cum etiam homo ipse aliquid omnino agat which is nonsense But the Divines made more important remarks they said that the Doctrine of the Council which affirms that man may resist even to the end the inspirations of
under both kinds the third that Priests might be allowed to Mary and the fourth that they might pay no more Annats and that a national Synod might be called in Poland for adjusting the Differences about Religion He broke forth into a rage when the Proposals were made to him and all these things concurring together made him resolve to call a Council at Rome He ordered the Ambassadours to acquaint their Masters that he intended to celebrate a Council in the Church of Lateran and declared the same in a Congregation of Cardinals On his Coronation-day being the six and twentieth of May a great many Cardinals with the Ambassadours of Princes being with him at Table he said that he had acquainted Princes with his design merely out of form and civility that he would make them sensible what the Holy See can doe when it is possest by a resolute and couragious Pope that he well foresaw that his Proposal would displease them because of the Place that he had pitcht upon but that though they should not send one Prelate to his Council he would not be much concerned and that he well knew how far his Authority reached Whilst matters went thus at Rome news came that by the mediation of Cardinal Pool the Emperour and the King of France had made a Truce for five Years Peace is made betwixt the Emperour and the King of France the Pope breaks it off this News vexed the Pope to the heart because it broke all his measures and suited not at all with the design he had of engaging the King of France in the War of Naples and of making use of the Arms of that Prince for seizing that Kingdom however he pretended to be glad at it But he could not forgive Cardinal Pool to whom he owed so great obligations for having reduced England to the obedience of the Holy See for he sought a pretext to break with him he deprived him of his Legateship and put into the Inquisition his Friend Thomas de S. Felix Bishop Della Cava Immediately he dispatcht two Legates one into France and another into Germany under pretext of essaying to convert the Truce into a Peace But instead of endeavouring to make peace Caraffa his Legate in France perswaded the King to break the Truce and offered him absolution from his Oath The Princes of the house of Guise solicited him to that action but the rest of the Court looked upon that perfidiousness with abhorrence There was onely one thing that stuck with Henry II. and that was that the Pope being extremely old he could not hold out long that after him another would come who might take other measures and that so he would be left alone in the mire into which the Pope had plung'd him The Cardinal of Lorrain a man for expedients found out one presently he told the King that he must get the Pope to create so many Cardinals of the French faction that the King might always be sure of having in the holy See a man at his Devotion This was a cross ill laid trap however Henry was caught in it and did whatsoever they would have him doe But these Negotiations could not be kept so secret but that the Emperour began to suspect that the work that was preparing for him was of the Pope's cutting out for the Legate that was sent to him made but very small Journeys and when he came to Maestricht he had orders from Caraffa to come into France to stop there and not to goe to the Emperour though he was but two days Journey from him The Pope breaks with the Emperour and undertakes a War which prov'd fatal to him The Pope seeing his Train pretty well laid sought for no more but a fair pretext to break with the Emperour which he presently found in that Ascanio Colonna and Marco Antonio his Son were protected at Naples The Pope had excommunicated both deprived them of all their Lands and Estates and given their Forfeitures to his Nephew Montorio with the Title of Duke of Pagliano The Colonna's fled to Naples from whence they made frequent inrodes upon the Ecclesiastick State and especially upon the Lands that had been taken from them The Pope was mad with the Emperour because his Enemy had found refuge within the Territories of that Prince and spoke of Charles and Ferdinand in very outragious terms in presence of their Ambassadours and Friends In fine he resolved to make open War he secured all suspected Persons and shut up several Cardinals and Gentlemen in the Castle of St. Angelo Nay and year 1556 contrary to the Law of Nations he cast into Prison Garcillasso di Vega King Philip's Ambassadour and Postmaster of the Empire he gave protection to those that were banished out of Naples and broke open the Emperour's packets When the Duke of Alva who was then Viceroy of Naples expostulated with him for these injuries threatning that if he persisted in so doeing his Master would right himself by the Law of Arms the Pope made answer that he was a free Prince that as he was not to give account of his Actions to any so as Pope he might call all men to an account of theirs and that nothing could move him to fail in what he was obliged to doe for the maintenance of the Church At length the Duke of Alva finding that fair means could not prevail with him and that great preparations were making in the Pope's Territories thought it his part to take the start and declare War first which he did the fourth of September 1556. He seized almost that whole Countrey which is called Campania di Roma keeping it in name of the succeeding Pope and put Rome it self into a fright The Pope fell to fortifying the City and forced all even the Monks to labour at the Works There was a weak place at the end of the Street called Flaminia where stood a stately Church of our Lady that hindered the fortifications The Pope was about to demolish it but the Duke of Alva sent to entreat him not to doe it promising not to take advantage of that place In the mean time the Duke thinking it enough to have put Rome in a fright drew off and did not lay siege to the place This was the Year wherein Charles made a Resignation of all his Dignities and retreated to a solitary Life having first made over his hereditary Dominions to his Son The resignation of Charles the V. and the Empire to his Brother People hereupon made reflexions much to the disadvantage of the Pope for they compared his haughtiness with the humility of that great Prince who being born in the height of honour and having lived in so great Glory had freely renounced all the Pomps and Vanities of the World whereas on the other hand Paul having been first a Bishop and having afterwards betaken himself to a Monastery of Theatins came out again to be a Cardinal and at the age of 80 Years
Leo X. of the House of Medicis was chosen in his place the eleventh of March 1513 who quickly re-united the separated Cardinals and reconciled the King of France to the holy See Leo X. had many good qualities for a Prince but few of those that are requisite for a good Pope he was liberal generous gentile civil courteous and a lover of men of learning but he was not over Devout nor much addicted to the affairs of Religion He was magnificent and very expensive insomuch that for a supply to this profusion he was soon forced to betake himself to the means often practised by the Court of Rome for raising of Money Leo X. sends Indulgences into Germany I mean the emission and publication of Indulgences Laurence Pucci Cardinal of Santiquatro advised him to this expedient The original of the tribute of Indulgences and it was a kind of Tribute that took its rise in the Church after the eleventh Century and owes its original to the Croisades which were made at that time for the expedition and conquest of the Holy Land Urban II. granted Indulgences to all that would list themselves under the Cross and engage in that expedition In subsequent Croisades the same Indulgences were granted to those who not being able to goe in person did send a Souldier to the Holy War at length those who desired the benefit of the Indulgences but would neither goe nor send to the War purchased their exemption by money In process of time whensoever the Court of Rome stood in need of money they published a distribution of Indulgences in favour of all that would contribute to their necessities Then were Rates set on Sins and he that had a mind to compound knew what he was to pay for the Crime he desired a Pardon for Leo X. caused therefore a Sale of these Pardons to be published in all the Provinces subject to the Church of Rome and gave to his Sister Magdalene married to Francesco Cibo Natural Son to Pope Innocent VIII the profits that did accrue from the distribution of these Indulgences in the Province of Saxony and a great part of Germany Magdalene for raising of this Tribute made use of one Arembold who from a Genoese year 1520 of the Lutherans from the Church of Rome for on the one hand the Universities of Louvain and Cologne burnt the writings of Luther Luther burns the Pope's Bull and the Book of Decretals and on the other Luther assembled the University of Wittemberg and obtained a sentence whereby not onely the Pope's Bull but all the Decretals were condemned to the flames which was accordingly executed At the same time for his own Justification he published a Manifesto wherein he accuses the Pope as a Tyrant for having usurped a Supremacy over Kings and Princes and corrupted the Doctrine of the Church the Pope was thought to have raised this storm by his Precipitance and by an unseasonable and ill weighed Zeal nor indeed could the more moderate approve the Bull of Leo they thought it violent and were amazed that with so little formality he had ventured to decide matters of so great importance And as every one had a lash at that Bull so the Grammarians were pleased to play upon a Period in it consisting of four hundred words inserted betwixt these two inhibentes omnibus and these other nè praefatos errors asserere praesumant The Emperour Charles the Fifth after the Death of his Grandfather Maximilian being in the Year 1520 chosen Emperour next year after held a Diet at Wormes concerning the Affairs of Religion Luther cited to Wormes before the Emperour Charles the Fifth Luther was cited thither came under safe conduct of the Emperour and appeared before him on the 17th of April there he was exhorted to burn his Books and to recant but he answered with the same resolution that brought him thither for his friends had done all they could to divert him from that Journey and had no other answer from him but that if year 1521 all the Devils in Hell had conspired against him yet would he not be hindered from going thither from appearing and maintaining his opinions all that can terrifie a man or daunt a heart was employed against Luther in that Diet but without any success He would neither recant nor condemn his Doctrine for no more could be obtained from him but an acknowledgment that his manner of writing was too eager and violent which he promised to mend for the future they were about to secure his Person notwithstanding the Emperour 's safe conduct according to the procedure of the Council of Constance in relation to John Huss but the Electour Palatine withstood it and Charles the Fifth himself being unwilling either to stain his reputation or violate his promise by such a Treachery sent him home resolving to prosecute him by fair means and to give him his hands full on 't in an open Trial. Accordingly he was the same year and in the same Assembly accused and sentenced by an Edict past the 8th of May whereby Luther's writings were condemned to be burnt The Edict of Wormes against Luther his Person to be seized within twenty days and committed to prison with strict prohibition to all Princes and States to harbour or relieve him but for all this the Electour of Saxony secured him in a Castle where he continued Nine months no man knowing where he was And now did every one reckon it an honour to appear in publick against him the University of Paris condemned his Doctrine Henry the Eighth of England Henry VIII King of England writes against him who had followed his Studies in order to have been Archbishop of Canterbury before the Death of his Elder brother wrote likewise against him for the seven Sacraments and the Authority of the Pope Leo X. was gratefull to that Prince and in recompence gave him the Title of Defender of the Faith which the Kings of England bear to this day Luther answered all these writings not sparing Henry the Eighth whom without any respect to his dignity he answered with much sharpness and severity All Europe was presently full of these writings and the heat of the controversie and quality of those who engaged in the quarrel excited the Curiosity of many every one was willing to know and pry into the matter under debate and that was the reason why many espoused the Party of those who condemned Corruptions and demanded the Reformation of the Church Zurich receives the reformation of Zuinglius At the same time Zuinglius made great Progresses at Zurich The Bishop of Constance having sent thither the Pope's Bull and the Edict of the Emperour exhorted the Senate to banish Zuinglius and to continue in Submission and Obedience to the Church of Rome but Zuinglius wrote back to the Bishop concerning that matter and to all the Cantons of Suisserland The Senate at length appointed an Assembly of