The history of the popes, from the close of the middle ages : drawn ...

THE NUNCIOS AT NAUMBURG. 223
but desisted when the latter appealed to their instructions
to the contrary.
The nuncios had hardly returned to their temporary lodgings
when they were subjected to insulting treatment, similar to
that which had been shown to the envoys of Paul III. at
Schmalkald.i Three of the councillors brought back the
briefs with the statement that the princes had only remarked
the address " Beloved son " after they had gone ; as they
did not acknowledge the Bishop of Rome as their father,
they must reject the appellation of " sons " as well as the
documents which had been delivered. The nuncios replied
that the Pope had made use of the term which had been used
from time immemorial towards all Christian princes. The
councillors thereupon laid the briefs upon the table. The
bull of convocation, however, which was a much more im-
portant document, and brought the Papal authority into
prominence in quite another manner than did the conventional
address of the briefs, was not among them ; the answer to
this arrived two days later. It was not merely a rejection,
but was couched in rude and offensive terms. The Pope,
it stated, had no right to summon a Council, or to pose as a
judge in ecclesiastical disputes, as it was precisely he who
was the Ox-iginator of all errors, and who suppressed the truth
more than anybody else. The outstanding work of the
Popes had been to stir up nation against nation, and to increase
their own power by weakening that of the people. They
proceeded with cruelty against all those who would not abase
themselves to the adoration of their persons and their false
deities, yet who wished to live in true piety. Then these
very princes who were just then disputing with each other
at Naumburg about the true Confession of Augsburg, went
on to deny the existence of any religious disunion. They
were unjustly accused, they impudently maintained, of not
possessing religious unity, j^et there was not only their clear
confession of faith at Augsburg, which had been handed to the
Emperor in 1530, but various other documents which had
^Cf, Vol. XL of this work, p. 88 seq.