Ad omnes Germaniae ecclesias reformatas, piorum, qui sub Zvingliani et Calviniani nominis invidia, vim & iniuriam patiuntur, apologia

But it seemed otherwise to the parents of Pandora, who thought that subscriptions should first be gathered, or rather extorted, from the ministers of the churches everywhere. They surely knew that in this way individuals could be more easily deceived or terrified than all of them could be together in a public Synod. For they were not ignorant that there are many Prometheuses here and there—pious and learned men—who could easily detect the fraud and suggest sounder counsel to others. They thought that these men had to be avoided, so that afterwards they could overwhelm them with a multitude of votes, extorted partly by deceit and partly by fear, and abuse the goodness of certain Princes for this purpose.

Tangermünde censure. But not even in this way did they obtain what they wanted, because it still seemed harsher than was just to certain Princes and theologians that so many churches, with their Doctors, should be condemned, whose exceptional zeal in promoting the common cause of piety and religion, and whose illustrious merits, not even their enemies can deny. Thus, they wished for us to be treated more mildly, and for the word of "condemning" (which can be called legal rather than ecclesiastical) to be substituted by the word "disapproving" or "rejecting." But there, the fury of certain Septemviri Seven Men/Electors flared up, who, having forgotten all modesty and shame, shouted that they could not comply with this for theologians or noble Princes. For the error of the Sacramentarians was no longer a simple and...