Jan. 18. THE OPENING OF THE COUNCIL OF TRENT

 

The first session was spent in matters of form.

In a subsequent one, it was agreed that the framing a confession of faith, wherein should be contained all the articles which the church required its members to believe, ought to be the first and principal business of the council, but that, at the same time, due attention should be given to what was necessary towards the reformation of manners and discipline. From this first symptom of the spirit with which the council was animated, from the high tone of authority which the legates who presided in it assumed, and from the implicit deference with which most of the members followed their directions, the protestants conjectured with ease what decisions they might expect. It astonished them, however, to see forty prelates (for no greater number were yet assembled) assume authority as representatives of the universal church, and proceed to determine the most important points of doctrine in its name. Sensible of this indecency, as well as of the ridicule with which it might be attended, the council advanced slowly in its deliberations, and all its proceedings were for some time languishing and feeble. As soon as the confederates of Smalkalde received information of the opening of the council, they published a long manifesto, containing a renewal of their protest against its meeting, together with the reasons which induced them to decline its jurisdictions. The pope and emperor, on their part, were so little solicitous to quicken or add vigour to its operations, as plainly discovered that some object of greater importance occupied and interested them.

The protestants were not inattentive or unconcerned spectators of the motions of the sovereign pontiff and of Charles, and they entertained every day more violent suspicions of their intentions, in consequence of intelligence received from different quarters of the machinations carrying on against them. The king of England informed them, that the emperor, having long resolved to exterminate their opinions, would not fail to employ this interval of tranquility which he now enjoyed, as the most favorable juncture for carrying his design into execution. The merchants of Augsburg, which was at that time a city of extensive trade, received advice, by means of their correspondents in Italy, among whom were some who secretly favored the protestant cause, that a dangerous confederacy against it was forming between the pope and emperor. In confirmation of this they heard from the Low-Countries, that Charles had issued orders, though with every precaution which could keep the measure concealed, for raising troops both there and in other parts of his dominions.

Such a variety raising information, and corroborating all that their own jealousy or observation led them to apprehend, left the protestants little reason to doubt of the emperor's hostile intentions. Under this impression, the deputies of the confederates of Smalkalde assembled at Frankfort, and by communicating their intelligence and sentiments to each other, reciprocally heightened their sense of the impending danger. But their union was not such as their situation required, or the preparations of their enemies rendered necessary. Their league had now subsisted ten years. Among so many members, whose territories were intermingled with each other, and who, according to the custom of Germany, had created an infinite variety of mutual rights and claims by intermarriages, alliances, and contracts of different kinds, subjects of jealousy and discord had unavoidably arisen. Some of the confederates, being connected with the duke of Brunswick, were highly disgusted with the landgrave, on account of the rigor with which he had treated that rash and unfortunate prince. Others taxed the elector of Saxony and landgrave, the heads of the league, with having involved the members in unnecessary and exorbitant expenses by their profuseness or want of economy.

The views, likewise, and temper of those two princes, who by their superior power and authority, influenced and directed the whole body, being extremely different, rendered all its motions languid at a time when the utmost vigour and dispatch were requisite. The landgrave, of a violent and enterprising temper, but not forgetful, amidst his zeal for religion, of the usual maxims of human policy, insisted that as the danger which threatened them was manifest and unavoidable, they should have recourse to the most effectual expedient for securing their own safety, by courting the protection of the kings of France and England, or by joining in alliance with the protestant cantons of Switzerland, from whom they might expect such powerful and present assistance as their situation demanded.

The elector on the other hand, with the most upright intentions of any prince in that age, and with talents which might have qualified him abundantly for the administration of government in any tranquil period, was possessed with such superstitious veneration for all the parts of the Lutheran system, and such bigotten attachment to all its tenets, as made him averse to a union with those who differed from him in any article of faith, and rendered him very incapable of undertaking its defence in times of difficulty and danger. He seemed to think, that the concerns of religion were to be regulated by principles and maxims totally different from those which apply to the common affairs of life; and being swayed too much by the opinions of Luther, who was not only a stranger to the rules of political conduct, but despised them; he often discovered an uncomplying spirit, that proved of the greatest detriment to the cause which he wished to support.

Influenced, on this occasion, by the severe and rigid notions of that reformer, he refused to enter into any confederacy with Francis, because he was a persecutor of the truth; or to solicit the friendship of Henry, because he was no less impious and profane than the pope himself; or even to join in alliance with the Swiss, because they differed from the Germans in several essential articles of faith. This dissension, about a point of such consequence, produced its natural effects. Each secretly censured and reproached the other.

The landgrave considered the elector as fettered by narrow prejudices, unworthy of a prince called to act a chief part in a scene of such importance. The elector suspected the landgrave of loose principles and ambitious views, which corresponded ill with the sacred cause wherein they were engaged. But though the elector's scruples prevented their timely application for foreign aid; and the jealousy or discontent of the other princes defeated a proposal for renewing their original confederacy, the term during which it was to continue in force being on the point of expiring; yet the sense of their common danger induced them to agree with regard to other points, particularly that they would never acknowledge the assembly at Trent as a lawful council, nor suffer the archbishop of Cologne to be oppressed on account of the steps which he had taken towards the reformation of his diocese.

The landgrave, about this time, desirous of penetrating to the bottom of the emperor's intentions, wrote to Granvelle, whom he knew to be thoroughly acquainted with all his masters schemes, informing him of the several particulars which raised the suspicions of the protestants, and begging an explicit declaration of what they had to fear or to hope. Granvelle, in return, assured them, that the intelligence which they had received of the emperor's military preparations was exaggerated, and all their suspicions destitute of foundation; that though, in order to guard his frontiers against any insult of the French or English, he had commanded a small body of men to be raised in the Low-Countries, he was as solicitous as ever to maintain tranquility in Germany.

But the emperor's actions did not correspond with these professions of his minister. For instead of appointing men of known moderation and a pacific temper to appear in defence of the catholic doctrines at the conference which had been agreed on, he made choice of fierce bigots, attached to their own system with a blind obstinacy, that rendered all hope of a reconcilement desperate. Malvenda, a Spanish divine, who took upon him the conduct of the debate on the part of the catholics, managed it with all the subtle dexterity of a scholastic metaphysician, more studious to perplex his adversaries than to convince them, and more intent on palliating error than on discovering truth. The protestants, tilled with indignation, as well at his sophistry as at some regulations which the emperor endeavored to impose on the disputants, broke off the conference abruptly, being now fully convinced that, in all his late measures, the emperor could have no other view than to amuse them, and to gain time for ripening his own schemes.