In order to settle the religious controversy between themselves and the
Papists, the Lutherans, from the very beginning, asked for a general
council. In the course of years this demand became increasingly frequent
and insistent. It was solemnly renewed in the Preface of the Augsburg
Confession. The Emperor had repeatedly promised to summon a council. At
Augsburg he renewed the promise of convening it within a year. The Roman
Curia, however, dissastisfied with the arrangements made at the Diet,
found ways and means of delaying it. In 1532, the Emperor proceeded to
Bologna, where he negotiated with Clement VII concerning the matter, as
appears from the imperial and papal proclamations of January 8 and 10,
1533, respectively. As a result, the Pope, in 1533, sent Hugo Rangon,
bishop of Resz, to Germany, to propose that the council be held at
Placentia, Bologna, or Mantua. Clement, however, was not sincere in
making this offer. In reality he was opposed to holding a council. Such
were probably also the real sentiments of his successor, Paul III. But
when the Emperor who, in the interest of his sweeping world policy, was
anxious to dispose of the religious controversy, renewed his pressure,
Paul finally found himself compelled to yield. June 4 1536, he issued a
bull convoking a general council to meet at Mantua, May 8, 1537.
Nothing, however, was said about the principles according to which it
was to be formed and by which it should be governed in transacting its
business. Self-evidently, then, the rules of the former councils were to
be applied. Its declared purpose was the peace of the Church through the
extinction of heresy. In the Bull _Concerning the Reforms of the Roman
Court,_ which the Pope issued September 23, he expressly declared that
the purpose of the council would be "the utter extirpation of the
poisonous, pestilential Lutheran heresy." (St. L. 16, 1914.) Thus the
question confronting the Protestants was, whether they could risk to
appear at such a council, and ought to do so, or whether (and how) they
should decline to attend. Luther, indeed, still desired a council. But
after 1530 he no longer put any confidence in a council convened by the
Pope, although, for his person, he did not refuse to attend even such a
council. This appears also from his conversation, November 7, 1535, with
the papal legate Peter Paul Vergerius (born 1497; accused of Lutheranism
1546; deprived of his bishopric 1549; defending Protes