Elector John Frederick was not at all satisfied with the Wittenberg
opinion of August 6. Accordingly, he informed the theologians assembled
August 30 at Luther's house, through Brueck, that they had permitted
themselves to be unduly influenced by the jurists, had not framed their
opinion with the diligence required by the importance of the matter, and
had not weighed all the dangers lurking in an acceptance of the
invitation to the council. If the Lutherans would be invited like the
other estates, and attend, they must needs dread a repetition of the
craftiness attempted at Augsburg, namely, of bringing their princes in
opposition to their preachers. Furthermore, in that case it would also
be considered self-evident that the Lutherans submit to the decision of
the majority in all matters. And if they refused, what then? "On this
wise we, for our part, would be lured into the net so far that we could
not, with honor, give a respectable account of our action before the
world. For thereupon to appeal from such decision of the council to
another would by all the world be construed against our part as
capriciousness pure and simple. At all events, therefore, the Lutherans
could accept the papal invitation only with a public protest, from which
the Pope and every one else could perceive in advance, before the
council convened, that the Lutherans would not allow themselves to be
lured into the net of a papal council, and what must be the character of
the council to which they would assent." (_C. R._ 3, 147.)
In this Protest, which the Elector presented, and which Melanchthon
translated into Latin, we read: "By the [possible] acceptance [of the
invitation to the council] they [the Lutherans] assent to no council
other than a general, free, pious, Christian, and impartial one; not to
one either which would be subject to, and bound by, papal prejudices
(as the one promised by Clement VII), but to such a synod as will
endeavor to bring godly and Christian unity within the Church by
choosing pious, learned, impartial, and unsuspected men for the purpose
of investigating the religious controversies and adjudicating them from
the Word of God, and not in accordance with usage and human traditions,
nor on the basis of decisions rendered by former synods that militate
against the Word of God." (152. 157.)