The resolution which the Catholic estates passed June 27 was to the
effect that the imperial answer to the Lutheran Confession be made "by
sober and not spiteful men of learning." The Emperor's Prolog to the
Confutation, accordingly, designated the confutators as "certain
learned, valiant, sensible, sober, and honorable men of many nations."
(_C. R._ 27, 189.) At the same time they were told to couch their answer
in winning, convincing, moderate, and earnest terms. The imperial
instruction read: "To this end it is indeed good and needful that said
document [the Augustana] be carefully considered and diligently studied
by learned, wise, and sober persons, in order that they [the Lutherans]
be shown in all kindness (_durch gute Wege_) where they err, and be
admonished to return to the good way, likewise, to grant them whatsoever
may be serviceable and adapted to our holy Christian faith; and to set
forth the errors, moderately and politely, with such good and holy
arguments as the matter calls for, to defend and prove everything with
suitable evangelical declarations and admonitions, proceeding from
Christian and neighborly love; and at the same time to mingle therewith
earnestness and severity with such moderation as may be likely to win
the five electors and princes, and not to destroy their hope or to
harden them still more." (Koellner, 403)
However, inspired by Campegius and goaded on by blind hatred, the
Confutators employed their commission for the purpose of casting
suspicion on the Lutherans and inciting the Emperor against them. They
disregarded the imperial admonition for moderation, and instead of an
objective answer to the Augustana, they produced a long-winded
pasquinade against Luther and the Evangelical preachers, a fit companion
piece to the 404 theses of Eck--a general accusation against the
Protestants, a slanderous anthology of garbled quotations from Luther,
Melanchthon, and other Evangelical preachers. The insinuation lurking in
the document everywhere was that the Confession of the Lutheran princes
was in glaring contradiction to the real doctrine of their pastors. The
sinister scheme of the Romanists, as the Elector in 1536 reminded the
Lutheran theologians, was to bring the princes in opposition to their
preachers. (_C. R._ 3, 148.) The mildness and moderation of the
Augustana, they openly declared, was nothing but subtle cunning of the
smooth and wily Melanchthon, who sought to hide the true state of
affairs. In a book which Cochlaeus published against the Apology in 1534
he said that the open attacks of Luther were far more tolerable than the
serpentine cunning and hypocrisy of Melanchthon (_instar draconis
insidiantis fraudes intendens_), as manifested in particular by his
demeanor toward Campegius at Augsburg in 1530. (Laemmer, 56; Salig, 1,
376.) Thus the Roman Confutators disregarded their commission to refute
the Augustana, and substituted a caricature of Luther and his doctrines
designed to irritate the Emperor.