Pope Paul III. had sent to the emperor his nephew, Cardinal Farnese, ‘who was only just past boyhood.’ This young prelate had faithfully addressed to Charles V. the discourse which he had received from his uncle; and this was a bill of indictment against the Protestants. To this manifesto of the papacy Calvin felt it to be his duty to reply,[57] and thus to re-establish the truth which was trampled under foot. Never, perhaps, had the Reformation and the Papacy come into more direct collision, and this in the persons of their most considerable combatants, and, as it were, in the presence of the emperor and the diet. The epoch at which this dialogue appeared, the distinguished character of the interlocutors, the importance of the subjects discussed, the necessity that a history of the Reformation should not be limited to external movements but should penetrate to principles, and the circumstance that this work of Calvin’s has remained so long unknown—all these considerations compel us to fix our attention upon it. We cannot forget what Luther called ‘the kernel of the nut, the flour of the wheat, and the marrow of the bones.’ The Reformation is above all an idea: it has a soul, a life. It is the depth of this soul that Calvin here lays open. Let the pope and the reformer speak. The latter speaks with all the energy imparted to him by his character, his youth, and his indignation. Pope Paul III. addresses the mighty Emperor of Germany, and we may properly say that Calvin, although indirectly, does the same. This strange colloquy is well worth the trouble of listening to it.
_The Pope._ ‘We are desirous of the peace and the unity of Germany; but of a peace and a unity which do not constitute a perpetual war against God.’
_Calvin._ ‘That is to say, against the earthly god, the Roman god. For if he (the pope) wished for peace with the true God, he would live in a different manner; he would teach otherwise and reign otherwise than he does. For his whole existence, his institutions, and his decrees make war on God.’
_The Pope._ ‘The Protestants are like slippery snakes; they aim at no certain object, and thus show plainly enough that they are altogether enemies of concord, and want, not the suppression of vice, but the overthrow of the apostolic see! We ought not to have any further negotiations with them.’