which the Briefs and Bulls of the Pope were read wherein besides a Command to hold and open the Council there were several Regulations about the forms that ought to be observed in it and one particularly relating to Precedence which did appoint that the Patriarchs having taken their place after the Cardinals the Archbishops should sit next and after them the Bishops but for avoiding of all Debates which have been occasioned upon account of the Dignities and Privileges of Sees the Prelates should be placed according to their Seniority in promotion without any respect to Dignities enjoying Primacy Bartholomeo di Martiri Archbishop of Braganza in Portugal vigorously opposed this Order and could not endure to think that a Pettie Archbishop of Rosano who has not one Suffragan or of Nissia a little Isle in the Archipelago or of Antivari in Sclavonia who have not so much as one Christian under their Jurisdiction and never reside in their Sees should take place of Archbishops of Churches having Primacy considerable in Dignity and Privileges for no other reason but that of Seniority in Promotion However he must bear with that and be satisfied with a Declaration in writing importing that it was not the intention of the Pope nor Council to derogate from any man's rights but that after the Council was over all men might enjoy their several Privileges In the same Congregation the Spaniards urged that the Council might be reckoned a Continuation of the former and so declared in the first Act of the Session The Bishop of Zante in compliance with the Interests of the Emperour and King of France who desired the contrary opposed it but though the Legates of Mantua and Warmia seconded the opinion of the Bishop of Zante yet the matter past according as it had been resolved at Rome and ordered in the Bull. When the Congregation was ended the Legates drew up and framed the Decree of Commencement into which these words were cunningly inserted proponentibus Legatis whereby it was ordained that no proposal should be made but by the Legates This was a great fetch of Roman Court-policy to exclude the French and Spanish Bishops who as the Pope well foresaw had Proposals to make which tended to the diminution of his Authority and the enlarging of Episcopal Dignity They were apprehensive likewise of Princes who by their Ambassadours might make Overtures disadvantageous to the Holy See and contrary to its Interests and therefore it was thought fit that they who had any thing to propose should apply themselves to the Legates without whose consent nothing could be examined in the Council By this means the Court of Rome was secure from the attempts of those that had no great kindness for it session 17 Session 17. the first of the third Convocation The Session was held January the eighteenth wherein the Decree was read and the question put Fathers are ye pleased that from this day forward all suspension being taken off the General Council of Trent be Celebrated for handling in order the matters which the Legates shall think fit to propose to the Council The Answer was placet But four Spanish Prelates the Archbishop of Granada the Bishops of Orense Leon and Almeria objected against the clause proponentibus legatis and desired an Instrument of their Protestation but they went on for all that and the Legates having written to the Pope about it he would by no means have that clause omitted This business made a great deal of noise in the Sequel but at present the Spaniards bore the brunt alone The next Session was assigned to be the twenty sixth of February At the same time they held an Assembly in France at St. Germain en Laye The Assembly of St. Germain which makes the Edict of January in favour of the Protestants It began the seventeenth of January and the Affairs of the Protestants who encreased mightily were taken into consideration The Queen of Navarre the Prince of Conde and Admiral Coligny with many other great Men and Persons of Quality made powerfull instances in favour of the Protestants that they might have liberty to exercise their Religion which they already did without permission To this Assembly was called a select number of Presidents and able Judges from all the Parliaments in France and the Chancellour made a Judicious and Pithy Speech at the opening of it for the mitigation of Rigour To those who stood stiff for the severity of the Penal Edicts he applied that saying of Cicero that Cato behav'd himself among the Dregs of Romulus as if he had been in the Imaginary Commonwealth of Plato concluding thence that it was necessary to accommodate themselves to the times This Opinion prevailed notwithstanding all the opposition of the Persecutors and the Edict of January past which allowed Liberty to Protestants to assemble out of Towns and to live in the exercise of their Religion under the Kings Permission provided they taught nothing contrary to the Council of Nice and the Old and New-Testament The Parliament of Paris strongly opposed the Confirmation of this Edict but the King commanded it to be done declaring however that the Edict was but granted in provision untill the holding of the General Council The Protestants by this Edict took Courage to shew themselves and it is reported that at that time there were two thousand one hundred and fifty Congregations which they called Churches in France The Council begins with Books to be prohibited and the Indices Expurgatorii the Original of these Indices Expurgatorii They began now to fall to business at Trent and the Legates held a Congregation the seven and twentieth of January wherein three Proposals were made the first concerning the Examination of Books that had been written since the breaking out of Heresie which were to be suppressed Secondly whether it was necessary to cite all those who were concerned in such Books to appear before the Council and thirdly whether it was necessary to invite the Hereticks to Council and grant them a Safe-conduct The first point which related to the discharging of Heretical Books to be read deserved to be well weighed because the matter was new It is true that in the ancient Church they who read the Books of Authours who were Enemies of the truth were censured The Enemies of St. Jerome objected it to him as a Crime that he read and perused the Books of Pagan Writers and he blames himself for it saying that he was one day lasht before the Tribunal of Jesus Christ for his Curiosity in having read too much of the Works of Cicero However they made no Catalogue of the Books of Hereticks or Pagans that they might forbid the reading of them The Emperours indeed did sometimes prohibit the Books of Hereticks Constantine prohibited the Arian Arcadius the Eunomian and Manichean Theodosius the Nestorian and Martian the Eutychian Books but the Bishops medled not with them or at least did not take that Authority upon
Command to his Disciples but to doe precisely that which he himself had done for it is evident that these words doe this signifie doe that which I have just now done so that it is a matter of the highest consequence to know what it was that Jesus Christ did that is to say whether he sacrificed himself in the institution of his Supper for if he did not sacrifice himself neither did he command that he should be sacrificed They who held that Jesus Christ sacrificed himself maintained that it was absolutely necessary to assert that truth because the chief Argument of Hereticks against the Sacrifice of the Mass was that Jesus Christ did not sacrifice himself in the Eucharist But the opposite Party proved by irrefragable Arguments that our Saviour could not have sacrificed himself in the Eucharist They affirmed that the Mass is a Sacrifice of Commemoration of the Sacrifice on the Cross that Jesus Christ was not as yet sacrificed on the Cross when he instituted the Eucharist and that so he could not make a Commemorative Sacrifice of that which was not as yet come to pass They farther urged that neither the Canon of the Mass nor the Scripture nor the Fathers spoke any thing of our Lord 's having sacrificed himself But more particularly they said that either the Sacrifice of our Lord in the Eucharist was Propitiatory or not if it was Propitiatory that then the Sacrifice of the Cross was needless because the Sins of Mankind were expiated by the Sacrifice of the Eucharist and that if that was not Propitiatory neither can this be since it is the same that our Saviour offered In the Congregation of the twenty fourth of July it came to the turn of the Divines of the King of Portugal to speak One of them named Ataide took a Medium to prove the Sacrifice of the Mass Ataide a Portuguese Divine overthrows all the Arguments drawn by the others from Scripture for the Sacrifice of the Mass and departs which surprised many for he overthrew all the Arguments taken from Scripture in examining the several Passages he evidently demonstrated that nothing could be concluded from them to prove that the Mass was a Sacrifice he resumed also all the reasons of the Protestants and set them off in their full force and in fine concluded that the Sacrifice of the Mass was built upon no other Foundation but Tradition It may easily be imagined how this discourse was taken And therefore James Paiva Andradius a Portuguese Divine also did what lay in his Power to make amends for that fault he recapitulated all the Protestant Arguments that were proposed by Ataide and answered them assuring the Council that his Collegue had onely proposed them with design to have them refuted The Ambassadours and Portuguese Prelates endeavoured likewise to justifie him to the Legates Nevertheless within a few days after he left Trent and it is no hard matter to guess at the reason of it Amongst the last Divines that spoke was Antonino Da Valtellina a Jacobin who was not of opinion that the Council should confirm by Decree the Ceremonies of the Roman Mass and enlarged much to prove that there had been always great Diversities of Ceremonies in the Church For a proof of thâ—â— he instanced the Ambrosian the Gregorian and Roman Orders which are Rituals differing one from another the different Liturgies of St. James of St. Mark and of St. Chrysostome He mentioned also the Mozarabick Service heretofore in use in Spain into which Horses and Moresk dancing were brought in as Ceremonies signifying great Mysteries Gregory VII abolished that Service but even at the time of the Council of Trent it was still in use on certain days and in some certain places of Spain He therefore concluded that if the Roman Ceremonies were established by Decree it was to condemn those Ancient Churches who used not all those Ceremonies This discourse highly offended the Council but the Bishop of the five Churches seconded him and affirmed that they who condemned what he said were ignorant The truth is it was his concern to have that opinion pass that so under Pretext of Uniformity of Ceremonies he might not be denied that which he had demanded for Germany I mean that the Germans might not be obliged to follow the Ceremonies of the Roman Church particularly the want of the Cup and the use of the Latin tongue in Divine Service When the Congregations of Divines had made an end the Bishops assembled for forming the Decrees but the same Difficulties that were started amongst the Divines arose likewise in the Congregations of the Prolates Martin Perez Bishop of Segovia who had been in the Council which was held under Julius was of opinion that nothing was to be done but onely to 〈◊〉 what was then digested concerning that controversie Cardinal Seripando was not of that mind but alledged that the Canons and Decrees which had been framed at that time might expose the Doctrine of the Church to calumny and might give advantage to Hereticks because they were long instructions which give occasion to long refutations and against which the Hereticks find always means to make troublesome exceptions that to correct what had been done was not the way but that the Council must set to work a fresh to adjust the matters which opinion was followed They therefore fell to the making of new Decrees but they found it no easie task to pitch upon the reasons that ought to be inserted in the Decree for confirming the Sacrifice of the Mass some approving one reason and others rejecting it Cardinal Seripando one of the Legates and the Archbishop of Granada were on their side who said that it ought not to be put into the Decree that Jesus Christ sacrificed in the first Eucharist And on the other hand the Cardinal of Warmia was for them who would have that Clause to be inserted and this caused a great deal of Debate as we shall see hereafter In the Congregation of the thirteenth of August the Proxies of the Bishops of Ratisbonne and Basil were received The City of Basil was reformed and owned not their Bishop giving him onely the Title of Bishop of Porentruto but the Council strove to doe him the greater honour that they might comfort him for the loss of his Bishoprick And this being done they fell again upon the point of the Sacrifice of the Mass The Archbishop of Lanciano was of opinion that for ending all differences they should pass by the Chapters of Doctrine and onely make Canons with Anathema's as the Council had already done concerning the Points of Original sin the Sacraments in general and the Sacrament of Baptism Ottaviano Preconio Archibishop of Palermo speaking next opposed what had been said shewing that they ought not to omit the Declaration of the Doctrine of the Church nor the reasons which confirm it for fear of Hereticks because what course soever were taken they would never be quiet but that the
free will and six Articles on that Subject are drawn out of the Books of the Lutherans which he did by calling another cause He put them upon the matter of free will which is closely linked to that of grace and the Council named Bishops and Divines to cull out of Luther's Books such propositions as might be thought worthy of censure these Deputies pickt out Six 1. That God is the cause of all actions good and bad and that he operated in the treachery of Judas as well as in the Conversion of St. Paul 2. That men have no free will and that every thing happens by absolute necessity 3. That by the fall of Adam man lost his free will and retains no more but the name of it 4. That man has now no free will but to doe evil 5. That the free will does not concur with grace and that men are driven on to conversion like brute beasts 6. That God converts those whom he will even though the resist The two first propositions were not confuted by reasons but by invectives they were called mad monstrous impious and blasphemous opinions The Carmelite Marinier who liked not that violent way was for interpreting those Articles in some good sense and especially that which affirms our actions to be necessary not free He observed that it was not true that all our actions are in our own power and that the School-men themselves are obliged to except the first motives which men cannot restrain Andreas de Vega discoursed upon that matter in a very obscure manner and was hardly understood till he came to a Conclusion wherein he said that there was no difference betwixt the Lutherans and Catholicks as to the nature of free will in civil actions and in the moral and external works of the Law and that the Lutherans did not strip man of his free will but in respect of supernatural works that prepared man for Salvation which being consonant to the Sentiment of Catholicks he was of opinion that in this particular something should be done for peace sake That name of peace was odious and grating we are not met for that answered they it is the business of Conferences to accommodate differences but of Councils to condemn Heresies and indeed this Council was very far from indulging any thing to the Lutherans this debate was the cause of another that arose betwixt the two Schools of Scotus and Thomas that is to say betwixt the Cordeliers and Jacobins to wit if it be in the Power of man to believe or not to believe The Cordeliers maintained the opinion of Scotus that it is not in the liberty of man not to believe because the understanding is necessarily determined by its object when a truth is presented to it it cannot but see it and when it perceives it it cannot refuse to close with the same But the Jacobins on the contrary defended the opinion of St. Thomas and said that faith was a free action that might be enjoyned or hindered by the will Concerning the third article wherein the Lutherans say that man's free will is lost since that fall of Adam the Champions for the pure Doctrine of Grace produced many Arguments and Authorities and particularly they cited several passages of St. Austin wherein he says Adam perdidit se liberum arbitrium But to that Dominico à Soto made answer that the word free was sometimes opposed to necessity and sometimes to slavery that the Lutherans took it in the first sense when they say that man hath lost his free will because they would thereby signifie that man acts by an inevitable necessity But that St. Austin had taken the word free in the second sense as it is opposite to slavery and that his meaning was that man had lost his free will because that free will is captivated under the bondage of sin though the last is absolutely the sense of the Protestants as well as of St. Austin This explication of Dominico â Soto was not well relished they would not have the free will to be a slave neither to necessity according to the sense that was attributed to the Lutherans nor to sin according to the sense of St. Austin The Council could not endure that the free will should be made a slave upon any account whatsoever for had they owned with Soto that it is under the bondage of sin they could not have condemned the title of Luther's book de servo arbitrio as they designed to doe The fourth Article which saith that man hath onely free will to doe evil was reckoned ridiculous and the Divines of the Council laid it down as a certain truth that free will is a power of determining ones self to one of two contraries to good or to evil There were some nevertheless that were not so passionate who told them that their Maxime was not unexceptionable and that God was free without having the power of determining himself to evil There arose great Debates in the examination of the fifth and sixth articles concerning the manner how free will concurs with grace in the work of conversion The Cordeliers following the Theology and Principles of their Master Scotus maintained that the will which can prepare it self for grace can by much stronger reason admit or reject grace when it is offered But the Jacobins who are Thomists attributed to grace the first motions of conversion The Thomists are divided the beginning of the new Thomists These last maintain that Grace is efficacious of it self Here the Thomists were divided for Dominico à Soto a Jacobin acknowledged preventing grace but he said that it was in the power of man to accept or reject that grace so that he made the efficacy of grace to depend on the will of man and on the determination of that will and denied grace of it self to be efficacious In this particular all the difference that was betwixt Soto and the Cordeliers or Scotists was about the preparations for the Scotists pretended that the will goes before grace by immediate preparations which proceed from the will it self And Soto denied these immediate preparations and onely admitted certain remote preparations of the will for the reception of grace Luigi di Catanea a Jacobin and Thomist said that according to the Doctrine of St. Thomas the will may indeed reject sufficient grace but not effectual grace because this grace gets always the victory over the will In this manner he laid down as a ground in Divinity that the difference betwixt effectual grace and sufficient grace proceeds onely from the operation of God and not from the consent of the will that is he affirmed grace to be effectual of it self This is that Luigi di Catanea who may be called the Patriarch of the new Thomists who have made themselves very considerable since the Council of Trent in undertaking the defence of the Doctrine of St. Austin concerning Grace which the School of Scotus that was Semipelagian had almost stifled
his Legate at Ausbourg to make but a slight opposition to it and then to depart that he might not be present at the publication of the Interim giving him instructions in the mean time to sow Seeds of Jealousie betwixt the German Prelates and the Emperour and to alarm the Protestants by insinuating to them that it was onely an invention to oppress their Liberty and Conscience and that it was no snare laid for the Catholicks of whose faith the Emperour could not make himself Judge The fifteenth of May that Book was read in presence of the Assembly and no body durst contradict it though all were displeased None but the Electour of Mentz spoke and thanked the Emperour of his own head without any Commission from the rest and the Emperour seemed to accept of those thanks as a general approbation Farthermore on the fourteenth of June following Charles caused a Decree of Reformation to be published containing two and twenty Chapters and about one hundred and thirty Ordinances for the Reformation of the Clergy against the Plurality of Benefices concerning the Duty of Preachers the Ceremonies of the Sacraments and their Administration concerning Discipline the Clergy Schools Universities Councils Excommunication c. and very good Regulations were made in all these particulars but that Piece was as ill taken at Rome as the Interim not onely because these Regulations did in no wise jump with the interest of that Court but also because it is a fundamental Law at Rome that no Secular has any right of giving Laws to Church-men Nevertheless that Piece of Tyranny was born with because it could not be helped At the same time an Act past in the Diet commanding Provincial and Diocesan Synods to be held yearly for settling the Decree of Reformation The Diet ended the last day of June and the Edict was published wherein the Emperour engaged himself to procure the Council to be continued at Trent Much opposition made to the Establishment of the Interim After that Charles set about the Execution of the Interim but was almost every where opposed by the Protestants Frederick Duke of Saxony though a Prisoner refused to submit to it and a little Town in Germany made upon that occasion a Remonstrance which deserves to be transmitted to Posterity If our Lives and Fortunes belong to you said they suffer our Conscience at least to be God's If you were perswaded of the truth of this form of faith it would be a powerfull Motive to make us embrace it But seeing you your self look upon it as false why would you have us receive it as true For the truth is the Emperour had no design to perswade the World that he himself had renounced the Doctrines of the Church of Rome which he had either impaired or qualified in his Interim On the contrary in the Preface he prohibited all those who had till then continued in the Roman Communion to make any alteration in Doctrine or Ceremonies Though this opposition was pretty general yet some consented to admit of that Interim or at least pretended to do so But the City of Magdebourg did formally reject it and in such a slighting way too as obliged the Emperour to declare them Rebels and make War against them They maintained that War a long time and obstinately refused to surrender The Emperour had likewise expresly commanded that no man should write against the Interim and nevertheless a whole swarm of writings came forth against that Book both from Protestants and Roman Catholicks Francisco Romeo General of the Jacobins by command of the Pope assembled the most Learned of his Order and caused a smart Refutation of it to be made It had the ill luck also to stir up division amongst the Protestants of Germany that is to say betwixt those who had admitted of it and those who would not and divided them into two Sects for they who in compliance with the Emperour had allowed the re-establishment of the ancient Ceremonies in that justified their own Proceedings maintaining Ceremonies to be things indifferent But the rest objected that weakness to them as a great Crime and separated themselves from them calling them the Indifferent or Adiaphorists The Execution of the Edict of Reformation which the Emperour had made caused as great troubles for the German Prelates who stuck fastest to the Pope desired that at least he might have some hand in the business and therefore the Emperour at their Solicitation acquainted the Pope with all that he had done and prayed him to send Legates to joyn with him in his design of Reforming the Church of Germany The Pope had it least in his thoughts to become the Executor of the Orders of an Emperour whom he looked upon as an Usurper of his Rights Nevertheless that he might not absolutely break with the Germans who he feared might make a general revolt and lest in imitation of Henry the Eighth King of England Charles might declare himself Head of the Church he resolved to send two Legates not for executing the Edict of Reformation but to give Absolution to the. Lutherans who should return into the Bosome of the Church with power to grant all manner of Dispensations even as far as to allow the Communion in both kinds to those who would confess that the Church doth not err in prohibiting it He gave them likewise Authority to abrogate some of the Ceremonies of the Church and to remit somewhat of the ancient Discipline He empowred them not onely to absolve Seculars Princes and Towns but also Apostate Monks who had left their Monasteries allowing them to live abroad in the World provided that under the habit of Secular Priests they should wear that of Regulars This last seemed a pretty odd kind of an Order and a Mystery that no body could tell what to make of He caused Copies of this Bull to be dispersed that so he might thwart the Edict of Charles and retreive the possession of the power of Reforming Manners and Doctrine which the Emperour would have invaded In execution of the Emperour's Edict some Provincial Synods were held in Germany The Archbishop of Cologne called one wherein some good Acts were made concerning Discipline which were approved by Charles the Fifth but no mention at all of matters of Faith The Electour of Mentz observed not the same measures for in his Synod he made eight and forty Decrees about matters of Faith and fifty six concerning the Reformation of Discipline In things that had been decided he followed the Council of Trent and in the rest the most received opinions of the School-men except in the point of Images where he declared that Images are onely appointed for bare Commemoration and not for objects of Devotion and in that of Saints where he asserts that the honour due to Saints is an honour of Society and Dilection and not a Religious Worship The Nuncio's who were named in the year 1548. set not forward on their Journey to Germany