But while Charles had been marshaling his party the Protestants had been rapidly increasing.  Eloquent preachers, able writers, had everywhere proclaimed the corruptions of the papacy and urged a pure gospel.  These corruptions were so palpable that they could not bear the light.  The most intelligent and conscientious, all over Europe, were rapidly embracing the new doctrines.  These new doctrines embraced and involved principles of civil as well as religious liberty.  The Bible is the most formidable book which was ever penned against aristocratic usurpation.  God is the universal Father.  All men are brothers.  The despots of that day regarded the controversy as one which, in the end, involved the stability of their thrones.  “Give us light,” the Protestants said.  “Give us darkness,” responded the papacy, “or the submissive masses will rise and overthrow despotic thrones as well as idolatrous altars.”

Several of the ablest and most powerful of the bishops who, in that day of darkness, had been groping in the dark, now that light had come into the world, rejoiced in that light, and enthusiastically espoused the truth.  The emperor was quite appalled when he learned that the Archbishop of Cologne, who was also one of the electors of the empire, had joined the reformers; for, in addition to the vast influence of his name, this conversion gave the Protestants a majority in the electoral diet, so many of the German princes had already adopted the opinions of Luther.  The Protestants, encouraged by the rapidity with which their doctrines were spreading, were not at all disposed to humble themselves before their opponents, but with their hands upon the hilts of their swords, declared that they would not bow their necks to intolerance.

It was indeed a formidable power which the emperor was now about to marshal against the Protestants.  He had France, Spain, all the roused energies of the pope and his extended dominions, and all the Catholic States of the empire.  But Protestantism, which had overrun Germany, had pervaded Switzerland and France, and was daily on the increase.  The pope and the more zealous papists were impatient and indignant that the emperor did not press his measures with more vigor.  But the sagacious Charles more clearly saw the difficulties to be surmounted than they did, and while no less determined in his resolves, was more prudent and wary in his measures.

With the consent of the pope he summoned a general council to meet at Trent on the confines of his own Austrian territories, where he could easily have every thing under his own control.  He did every thing in his power, in the meantime to promote division among the Protestants, by trying to enter into private negotiations with the Protestant princes.  He had the effrontery to urge the Protestants to send their divines to the council of Trent, and agreed to abide by its decisions, even when that council was summoned by the pope, and was to be so organized as to secure an overwhelming majority to the papists.  The Protestants, of course, rejected so silly a proposition, and refused to recognize the decrees of such a council as of any binding authority.