Si Pergama dextra c. And tho Embassadors and especially Spaniards are not very forward to extol the Abilities of the Ministers that are sent to assist them in their Business nevertheless we have Don Francisco de Toledo who was one of the Emperor's Embassadors at Trent at the time when these Letters were writ by Vargas giving the following Character of him to the Bishop of Arras in a Letter bearing date the 1st of December 1551. What your Lordship writes concerning your being satisfy'd with the Conduct of the Fiscal Vargas gives me great Content knowing him to be one of the most Learned and best qualified Persons of his Profession and withal very zealous for his Majesty's Service and much devoted to your Lordship your Lordship is therefore bound to favour him with his Majesty and to see that he be rewarded according to his Merits and Services which I shall take as a great Kindness he being a Person for whom I have a particular Affection being much beholden to him for the Assistance he has afforded me of which your Lordship takes notice In a word he is certainly such an Original as is not to be quoted again Father de Malvenda who was likewise one of the Emperor's Ministers at Trent at that time in a Letter to the Bishop of Arras which I here publish bearing date February 27 1552 saith In all our Encounters with the Legat the Senior Fiscal has still fallen upon wonderful Expedients who being a Person of great Learning and withal much experienced in Affairs of this nature has not as I am able to witness for him been mistaken in any one Point And in another of his Letters I publish likewise bearing date the 12th of October 1551 he tells the Bishop of Arras The Fiscal is certainly such a Person as you take him to be that is a Man of strong Sense and Judgment and very serviceable in giving such Directions as are necessary about the Council Now as Charles the 5th's Kindness for Vargas whom he knew to have writ so freely of the Corruptions and Abuses of the Church of Rome and of the Jugglings of the Popes and their Ministers is an Evidence of his having when he reigned been no great Bigot for Popery so we have reason to believe that after his Retirement when he came to make the study of Religion his whole Business he had his Mind so enlightned as to discover both the Errors and Corruptions of Popery and the Truth and Beauty of the Protestant Doctrines so far as to have died in the Faith of the latter of which considering among whom he died and how much all the Monks and Friars of Spain if it had been so would have been concerned to have suppressed it tho a direct and positive Proof is a thing not to be expected nevertheless not only his Chaplain and Preacher but he likewise who was his Confessor at his Death as also the Arch-Bishop of Toledo who assisted him in his last Minutes with Ghostly Counsel being all accused as they were of being Protestants is such an Evidence of that Prince's having been of the same Religion as an impartial Mind can hardly know how to resist For 1. As to his Chaplain and Preacher Augustin Cazal who was Canon of the Church of Salamanca and is acknowledged by his Enemies to have been one of the most Eloquent Preachers that ever Spain produc'd he was taken up by the Inquisition for being a Protestant in the Year 1558 and was with 13 more who died professing the Protestant Religion burnt publickly at Valladolid in the Year 1559. the unfortunate Prince Charles and his Aunt Dona Joanna who was Governess of Spain at that time being Spectators of that barbarous Execution 2. His Confessor Constantine Poncius who was Canon of Sevil and a Person of wonderful Piety and Learning was likewise taken up by the Inquisition for being a Protestant who dying in Prison the Inquisitors know best of what Death had his Bones and Effigies burnt publickly in the Market-place of Sevil in the Year 1560 as were also the Bones of the Learned Dr. Egidius Canon of Sevil who had been named by the Emperor to the Bishoprick of Fortosa who either died or was murdered in the same Prison eighteen being burnt alive at the same time for being Protestants on which occasion the Writer of the History of the Inquisition saith That had not that holy Tribunal taken care thus to put a stop to those Reformers the Protestant Religion had run through Spain like Wild-fire People of all Degrees and both Sexes being wonderfully disposed at that time to have embraced it Nay the Author of the Pontifical History who was present at some of those Martyrdoms and particularly at that of Herrezulo saith That had those Learned Men been let alone but three Months longer all Spain would have been put into a Flame by them Lastly Bartholomew de Caranza a Dominican Friar who had been Confessor to our Queen Mary and who upon her Recommendation was preferred to the Archbishoprick of Toledo having assisted Charles with his Ghostly Counsel in the last Minutes of his Life was not many Months after confined to his Palace by the Inquisition in the Village of Tordelaguna upon suspicion of his being a Protestant from which place after a Confinement of seven Years he was removed to Rome and committed to the Castle of St. Angelo where he remained a close Prisoner ten Years and was condemned at last as one suspected of Heresy This Arch-bishop was reckon'd one of the most learned Divines of his time and as such was sent by Charles the 5th to the Council of Trent where he both preached before that Synod and writ a Treatise of the Personal Residence of Bishops and Pastors he published likewise a Compendium of all the Councils and a large Catechism in Spanish which was printed in Flanders of which Archbishop and the three forementioned Martyrs I think one may truly say that they were Persons every way qualified to have reformed a corrupted Church after the best manner But that God after he had raised up such great Men to have done so excellent a Work should suffer a barbarous and inhuman Court thus to destroy both their Persons and all the Effects of their holy Labours is a Mystery of Providence whose Ways tho always righteous are many times great Depths To these Evidences of Charles the 5th's having died a Protestant I shall only add that his Grandson Charles Prince of Spain who had lived some time with him in his Monastery was afterwards imprisoned by his Father Philip and as was generally believed was put to death by him as a Favourer of Protestants and what Mezeray a Papist saith thereof in the Reign of Francis the Second is remarkable At Philip's Arrival in Spain he caused a great many to be burnt in his own Presence at Sevil and Valladolid of those they call Lutherans both Men and Women Gentlemen and Ecclesiasticks as likewise the
least notice of an Authority on Earth that was superior to theirs or of the Consent of any particular Prelats as necessary to the validating of their Determinations On the contrary those Reverend Assemblies were all called by the Emperors who in their Convocation of them appointed the Place where and the Time when they were to meet sending some of the gravest of their Senators to assist at them and protect them and dissolving them when they had finished what they were called to do All which was done without any Protestations having ever been made against it by any Bishop as an Incroachment upon his Ecclesiastical Prerogative Nay those Councils were so far from dreaming of the Bishop of Rome's having that Monarchical Authority in the Church which he now pretends to have that that Prelat tho he had often and earnestly desired it could never get one of those Assemblies to meet in the West where his See was And as to the Canons and Determinations of those Bodies they were so far from thinking that Bishop's Consent to them to be necessary that they made some not only without it but contrary to it Witness the 30th Canon of the Council of Calcedon in which any one that will look into it may plainly see what the Fathers in the 5th Century universally reckoned to be the Foundation of any Primacy or rather Precedency that the Bishop of Rome had and in case that Prelat happened to be convicted by them of Heresy they condemned him with the same freedom as they would have done any other Prelat as they did Honorius All which if true as it is a clear Demonstration that those Councils look'd upon themselves as the Supream Legislative Authority of the Church so the Truth of the whole thereof is so manifest from the publick Acts of those Assemblies that there cannot be a greater Instance of an invincible Hardiness against the brightest Evidence than that the Roman Champions give in affirming the Pope to have always had the same Authority he now pretends to and that he exercised in the Convention of Trent over General Councils His present Pretensions being 1. That the Power of Calling Suspending Translating and Dissolving General Councils is solely in him 2. That he is the sole Judg when the Calling of such Assemblies is necessary 3. That he can give a Right to vote in them to Ecclesiasticks who are not Bishops and to as many as he pleaseth which he has actually done to great Numbers of Abbots and to the Generals of the Religious Orders and to such Cardinals who are but Deacons 4. That none ought to sit and vote in a General Council that have not on some occasion or other taken an Oath of Obedience to him 5. That he is to preside in them either in Person or by his Legats and that with such an absolute Authority that nothing can be so much as proposed in them by any but by him or his Legats Lastly That nothing that is done in them is of any Validity until he has confirmed it Having named these Pretensions it would be to affront the Reader to offer to prove to him that the Assemblies that submit themselves to them can have no Authority and that the Church in her Body Representative is made thereby what Cajetan saith she is the Pope's Servant or Slave and not his Mother And as it is a thing worth any ones enquiry how this great Change in the Government of the Church was brought about so to the best of my Observation it was by these following Steps that the Popes ascended to this Pinnacle of Ecclesiastical Tyranny 1. As to the Power of Calling and Dissolving General Councils the thing that brought that into his Hands was the breaking of the Roman Empire into several independent Kingdoms and Commonwealths by which means it coming not to be in the Power of any one Prince as it was formerly to call all the Bishops to a Council the Pope seized upon it and having once got it he took care to keep it as one of the chief Jewels of his Crown for the sake of which and divers other Advantages which accrued to the Papacy by the breaking of the Roman Empire into so many independent Principalities the Popes will always take care to keep those Principalities from ever consolidating again into one great Monarchy a Universal Monarchy being a thing the Popes will never trust either their Catholick or Most Christian Son withal how zealous soever they may otherwise appear to be for their Religion A second Step towards this Ecclesiastical Tyranny was the Pope's stretching that Honorary Primacy of Order that was given him in General Councils purely on the Consideration of Rome's being the chief City in the Empire to a Primacy of Jurisdiction over those Assemblies which was the easier done through that prodigious Ignorance of antient Ecclesiastical History which reigned for some Ages in the West The third was those gross Impostures of the Decretal Epistles which were forged in the ninth Century on purpose to advance the Papal Authority they being universally believed to have been written by the antient Bishops of Rome on whom they were fathered The fourth was the Western Church after its having broke off Communion with all other Churches coming to look upon it self as the whole Catholick Church by which means any Power that had been given to the Bishop of Rome as Patriarch of the West was reckoned to extend to the whole Catholick Church But the last and great Step to these and all other Papal Usurpations was the great Lands and Revenues which were bestowed on the Roman See upon the Fall of the Lombards by Charles the Great and other Princes which great Riches with the assistance of pious Frauds chiefly of that Madness the Popes and their Monks inspired Princes with who stood in the way of their Ambition of going as far as the Holy Land to destroy themselves these I say enabled that Prelat to lay both Church and Empire at his Feet the Ecclesiasticks if they had been willing not being able to cope with a Power which at one time or other had trampled on most of the great Crowns of Europe all which was to come to pass that the Scriptures might be fulfilled which speaking of the Antichrist that was to come say that after that which withheld that is the Roman Empire was taken out of the way he was to sit in the Temple of God as God that is he was to oppress the Church as a Monarch or Tyrant and was so to bewitch the Kings of the Earth by his Sorceries and the World by his lying Signs and Wonders as to be in a Condition to destroy all that would not take his Mark upon them by submitting their Souls and Bodies to his Tyranny But to return to the Popes Usurpations upon General Councils The first Council called by any Pope that had the Title of General given it by the Roman Canonists themselves was that of the
Effigies or Fantom of Constantine Ponce Confessor to Charles the 5th we must not wonder that he scrupled no more the defaming his Father's Memory since if we will believe some he would have made his Process too and have burnt his Bones for the Crime of Heresy nothing hindring him from it but this Consideration That if his Father were an Heretick he had forfeited his Estates and by consequence had no right to resign them to his Son Sandoval in his Life of Charles the 5th takes great pains by false Relations to clear his Hero from this Suspicion as by saying that Charles when the Arch-bishop of Toledo came to him would not tho he had desired to see him so much as speak to him But as Spondanus well observes there is little Credit to be given to what Sandoval writes of that Emperor who under the Title of his Life designed to write only an Encomium of him And that it may not look strange that the Bishop of Arras who when he was Cardinal Granvill was for his Bigotry for Popery called in Flanders the Prince of Papists should be so much a Friend to Vargas who had writ his Mind so freely to him concerning the Corruptions of the Roman Church and the Jugglings of the Popes and their Ministers the Reader is to know that that Prelat chang'd his Temper as to the Affairs of Religion with his Master he who was the chief Champion for Popery under Philip the 2d having after these Letters were writ to him pushed on his old Master Charles the 5th to invade the Papal Territories with a strong Army in order to strip the Pope of all his Lands and Temporal Jurisdictions which was accordingly attempted by the Duke of Alva at that time Viceroy of Naples But to return to Vargas When he was at Trent he writ oftner than once to the Bishop of Arras that there was no Business to be done there the Legat being only the Executioner of the Orders that came from Rome so that if there was any good to be done which he much doubted of it was to be done at that Court Philip the Second accordingly when the Council after a Prorogation of 11 Years came to meet again under Pius the 4th sent Vargas his Embassador to the Pope with whom we are told he laboured hard to have asserted the Liberty and Authority of the Council and to have had those Mischiefs remedied that he had formerly complained of at Trent The Pope saith Mr. de'l Isle who was the French Embassador at Rome at the same time at an Audience I had of him complained of a long Debate he had with the Embassador Vargas about the words Proponentibus Legatis which Vargas would have had so altered that the Bishops might not be deprived of the liberty of proposing what they had a mind to in the Synod The Pope told me saith de'l Isle that he put him off at last by telling him that he had something else to do than to dispute about what Case and Gender Words were of Which was a pleasant way of putting an end to a Debate whereon the Authority of the Council so much depended But the truth is Vargas was a Person the Pope was too angry with to treat him civilly as we are told by the same French Embassador who saith Mr. Vargas has a Mark set upon him at Rome on the account of the Dispatches that have been made by him both in Spain and at Trent wherein he had complained of the Pope's having the Council in subjection to him and had exhorted the Prelats thereof to assert their Liberties With which saith he the Pope is much offended and resents it highly against him The Count Brocard who was sent by Pius to the Court of Spain upon extraordinary Business was commanded at the end of his Instructions to solicit vehemently the calling home of Vargas as a Person no ways acceptable to his Holiness But when Pius found he could not get him to be recalled he courted him to that degree as to gain him at last if Pallavicino may be believed to write in defence of his Authority to the Spanish Bishops that were at the Council but before he was brought to that if he ever did it we shall find him writing to the same Prelats to do things which must have incensed the Pope more against him than all that he had ever said or done before For whereas the Spanish Bishops who at the opening of the Council under Pius had all insisted on having the present Council declared to be a Continuation of the former and to have in all its Acts the Title of Ecclesiam Vniversalem repraesentans given to it and on having the words proponentibus Legatis not used were all except the Pious and Learned Archbishop of Granada grown slack in the prosecution of those Points the Embassador Vargas did thereupon write a long Letter to that Archbishop who was his particular Friend which was to be communicated to all the rest of his Brethren wherein he earnestly exhorted them to resume their former Zeal and either to carry those important Points or to withdraw from the Synod or in case that should be thought too much to get the Determination of them at least deferred until the Embassador should come to them declaring every thing that had been done to the detriment of those Points to be both of its own nature void and never to have been enacted by any Lawful Authority When this Letter was writ which was not many Months before the end of the Synod Vargas was undoubtedly still of his old Principles for which the Pope was so angry with him and accordingly Pallavicino whose Resentments right or wrong are always the same with the Pope's reflecting on that Letter saith Thus Learning when accompanied with a disturbed Mind can betray People into such Errors as they could never have fallen into had they been ignorant And having nothing else to object against Vargas and his Friend the Archbishop of Granada on this occasion he accuseth the former of not being so nobly descended as the Spanish Embassadors to the Court of Rome used to be and the latter of not being so good a Gentleman as the Bishop of Salamanca who was Brother to the Duke de Infantada Pallavicino reflects likewise severely on Vargas upon the account of a Speech that was made by him before the Pope concerning the Nature and Use of General and National Councils at a Meeting of all the Embassadors except the French that were then in Rome saying As it commonly happens to an unseasonable Ostentation of Parts so Vargas was rather laugh'd at as a vain Man for that Discourse than praised for it as a Man of Learning But as to what Pallavicino saith of Vargas's having in that Discourse inveighed stoutly against National Councils I do not believe it any farther than that he might reflect perhaps upon that which the French threatned to call about that time and that for two Reasons
THE COUNCIL of TRENT No Free ASSEMBLY More fully discovered By a Collection of Letters and Papers of the Learned Dr. VARGAS and other Great Ministers who assisted at the said Synod in Considerable Posts Published from the Original Manuscripts in Spanish which were procured by the Right Honourable Sir William Trumbull's Grandfather Envoy at Brussels in the Reign of King James the First With an Introductory Discourse concerning Councils shewing how they were brought under Bondage to the Pope By MICHAEL GEDDES LLD. and Chancellor of the Cathedral Church of Sarum LONDON Printed for Brabazon Aylmer at the Three Pigeons against the Royal Exchange in Cornhil MDCXCVII TO THE Right Reverend Father in God EDWARD By Divine Providence Lord Bishop of VVorcester May it please your Lordship HAD your Lordship no other Relation to the following Papers which do so plainly discover the absolute Bondage the Trent Council was in to the Pope but only that of your being universally acknowledged one of the ablest Champions the Church of England or any other Church ever brought forth against Popery over which your Victories and Triumphs are numbred no otherwise than by the many Combats you have had with it that alone would have led me to the doing both these Papers and my self the honour of prefixing your Famous Name to them But when besides that the Originals of these Papers were put into my Hands by your Lordship to be translated and made publick for the Service of the Church this afforded me so just a Pretence for the doing of it that the Ambition I have of owning to the World how much I have been beholden to your Lordship would not suffer me not to make use of And having said this I will not interrupt your better Exercises by detaining your Lordship any longer but shall continue my Prayers to God that he would be so gracious to his Church whose very Foundations are at this time so fiercely attacked as to restore you to perfect Health and to grant you a long Life to defend Her against those Enemies of Hers with whom she now struggles with the same Success that you had formerly against the Papists her standing Enemies I humbly beg your Lordship's Blessing and am Your Lordship's most humble and most obliged Servant M. GEDDES An Introductory Discourse of COUNCILS Quid enim minus deest Tyrannis quam falsas pro veris causis effingere THE Letters I here publish are an undeniable Evidence of the Council of Trent's having been in such Bondage to the Pope that tho it had been never so well disposed it was not in its Power to have reformed the Church But to open that Matter better a short and faithful Account of the Incroachments that have been made on the Authority of Councils by the Bishops of Rome which here followeth seems to be no improper Introduction to the reading of them The Catholick Church being a Society instituted by Christ into which the People of all Nations having submitted themselves to him as their Law-giver were to be admitted Christ must necessarily be supposed at the same time that he erected his Church into a Society to have prescribed a certain Form of Government to it with a Power to make such Laws and Orders as should be necessary to its Preservation as also to punish such of its Members as should obstinately deny any of the great Truths or transgress any of the known Duties which upon their admission into it they did solemnly promise and vow to believe and observe Now this being supposed which of the three Forms of Government Democracy Monarchy or Aristocracy is the best in having the fewest Inconveniencies attending it about which People may wrangle to Eternity without ever coming to any Agreement is not the Question here but the true Question is Under which of these Forms of Government Christ when he founded his Church did put it As to Democracy it neither was nor could be the Form of Government under which Christ put his Church and that for this Reason because that Form of Government if it can any ways subsist must have its Subjects near together whereas Christ designed that his Church should spread it self over the whole Earth as it did over a great part of it within a few Years after it was first founded As to Monarchy it is true it might if Christ had so thought fit have been the Form of the Government of his Church but it is as certain that he did not ordain it to be its Government as it is that the Apostles did not immediately after his Ascension change the Government that he had instituted which if it is a thing not to be imagined Christ must then have put his Church under an Aristocracy it being very plain from the Scripture that that was the Form of Government the Church was under in the Apostles Days So the first time the Church after it was founded acted as a Body that we read of was when the Apostles and Elders assembled together to quench a Dissension arisen among Christians concerning Circumcision and some other Mosaical Observances Acts the 15th in which Assembly it is plain that the Church acted as an Aristocracy And tho it is most probable that St. James and not St. Peter was the President of this Council yet whoever was it is certain he did not preside therein as a Monarch but as a Fellow-Judg with the rest of his Brethren According to which Apostolical Pattern the Pastors and Governours of the Church who succeeded the Apostles as often as there was occasion used to meet together in Councils to treat about the Affairs of their respective Churches making such Laws and Canons and inflicting such Censures as the Necessities of the Church required All which was done without the least Syllable of the Church having a Monarch set over it on Earth by Christ Thus the Church was governed in all places for near 300 Years by Provincial Councils of Bishops Not that Presbyters nay nor Lay-Christians were wholly excluded from those Assemblies the Lay-Members of the Church when she is under an Infidel Civil Government being in the place of the Civil Magistrate to her nevertheless it is certain that the Bishops as of a superior Degree to Presbyters had always the chief Authority in all such Assemblies and had probably a Negative upon the rest In the 4th Century the Church being blessed with Christian Emperors began to meet by her Bishops in Oecumenical or General Councils which was an Advantage she had not before enjoy'd it not being a thing to be expected that Princes of a contrary Religion should suffer such Assemblies to meet under their Noses All which General Councils acted and were justly esteemed by all Christians to be the Supream Legislative Authority of the Church and they looking upon themselves as such condemned Heresies and made Canons about Discipline and in a word did every thing that belonged to the Ecclesiastical Legislative Power and that without ever taking the
grant by which means things are thrown into such a terrible Confusion that the Catholicks as well as the Protestants are for having the Council suspended among other things saying openly that they do not care to be judged by one Nation and that though the Council should be continued never so long it would never make such a Reformation as is necessary nor will have any other effect but the lessening of the Authority of Councils and that in case His Majesty should do his Duty in urging to have such a Reformation he will undoubtedly embroil himself thereby with the Pope But supposing there were no harm in that so long as His Majesty does nothing but what is his Duty and convenient for the Service of God The worst of all is that no fruit can be expected from any such endeavours since they will thereupon either translate or dissolve the Council as they shall think most convenient to the robbing of Councils of that Authority which is the only refuge and remedy the Church has when disturbed by Controversies about Religion it being most certain that the Germans on the Terms they are on at present will not only not receive this Council but they will pretend that they are released from the Observation of the Interim which was to last only till the definition of a Council and will impugn this and that with too much colour among their own People who are not rightly informed of the Authority of the Church for the Council to which the Controversie was remitted not having adjusted it there can be no agreement And as it is certain that they will insist on their Religion so His Majesty will die sooner than consent to it For which and several other Reasons which have been weighed by His Majesty he is come to a resolution to write to his Embassadours about it As to what you write to me particularly I have communicated it three several times to His Majesty who continues fixt not to do any thing therein without the advice of his Embassadours whom he will have to send their opinions to him in writing which considering that his Embassadours are Men of Integrity and will keep whatever is done secret he takes to be the best Course This is made still the more difficult by the present State of things in which if the resolution his Majesty has taken has its effect there will be no necessity of entertaining any thoughts of that other Course It would do well therefore that you should propose what you have to offer as a thing I had writ to you about or spoke to you of when you were here and that you should write likewise to His Majesty desiring that your Letter may be kept secret and recommending Secrecy as to all things that are done at Trent In fine now we are on these Terms you must not fail to employ all your industry and diligence that what His Majesty is compelled by the iniquity of the times to condescend to may be done as much to his advantage as it is possible The following part is lost A Copy of a Letter of the Bishop of Arras to Dr. Vargas Magnificent Sir DEsigning to return Answers to all the Letters I find my self indebted to you for when His Majesty does the same to his dispatches I shall not inlarge in this which I write only on the occasion of Secretary Erastus going to Trent to advise you of my being in health thanks to God for it and extreamly desirous to have something wherein I may serve you which whensoever any occasion shall offer I shall do with an intire good Will Our Lord preserve you A Copy of a Letter of the Bishop of Arras of the 16th of February 1552 in answer to a Letter of Dr. Malvenda of the 27th of January 1552. Magnificent Sir I Was overjoyed at my coming to know the Fiscal Vargas by sight and discourse and though I had always reckoned him a very able Minister yet I do now find him to be a much greater Man than I thought he was I have been informed by him of all the difficulties you have encountred with as well in the business of the safe Conduct for the Protestants as in the Propositions which have been made The Legate must not certainly have studied the Affairs of Germany much nor the Books that are wrote therein that he is so much offended at what they have said in the Council The said Fiscal carries His Majesty's entire resolution as to all Affairs which he knows very well how to report He has acquainted me with the pains you have taken notwithstanding your sickness would not allow you to do what you would have done otherwise I was glad to hear him speak so well of the Bishop Castellamar of whom you know I had a good opinion before That Prelate may rest satisfied that whenever there is occasion I shall not forget to represent his Merits to His Majesty I pray God it may be of advantage to him Being desirous to do something for the Study of Barcelona I ordered a Memorial to be given in about it some days ago in conformity of what the Procuratour Gualby had writ to me concerning it Before we left Ausburg I desired His Majesty to give Dr. Gregory Lopez leave to go to a place whither I would gladly have sent him but could not obtain it His Majesty alledging that the Court having no other Spanish Physician but him and Olivares could not possibly spare him and much less can it be expected now that His Majesty should give way to his going to the Council since the Queen of Bohemia has with great importunity got Olivares to go with her It is a wonderfull thing to me that so many Spanish Prelates should not have brought a Physician with them or that being so near to Italy they should not all this while have sent for some Eminent Doctour who I suppose might have made a good business of it I do assure you I have done in this all that was possible for me and I can do no more Our Lord preserve you From Inspurg the 16th of February 1552. A Copy of the Bishop of Arras's Letter of the 9th of November 1551 in answer to two Letters of Dr. Malvenda's of the 12th of October and the 8th of November 1551. Magnificent Sir I Find my self two Letters in your debt the last of which came to me since I arrived here where if any thing can make me dispense with the Commodities of this place it will be my being so near Trent that we can almost shake Hands together I am infinitely glad that the Session was celebrated with so much Authority but the thing that troubles me is the resolution they are come to about the ways of proceeding having left the old known Methods and which is worst of all there is no remedy for it for though they know well enough what would be most convenient they will never yield to it so that without running a