Page:Canons and Decrees of the Council of Trent Buckley.djvu/291

258 DISCOURSE DELIVERED AT THE NINTH AND LAST SESSION OF THE SACRED COUNCIL OF TRENT,

this, all people; receive it with your ears, all ye who inhabit the earth. The Council of Trent, long since begun, for a season delayed, variously harassed and torn asunder, is, at length, by the great and incredible good-will of all orders and nations, united in its parts, and brought to a close. Most happily, indeed, hath this day dawned upon the Christian people, on which the temple of the Lord, oftentimes disturbed and scattered asunder, is restored and completed, and this only ship, fraught with good things, after the severest and most lasting tempests and billows, is safely lodged in its port. And would that they had been willing to embark with us, for whose sake most especially this very voyage was undertaken, and that they, who had given us tins occupation, had been partakers in the construction of the edifice—then, indeed, should we now have had cause for even greater joy. But this happened certainly not through our fault.

We made choice of this city, at the very entrance of Germany, aye, almost at the very threshold of their dwelling; we provided no guard for ourselves, lest we should excite any suspicion on their part that the place was not perfectly free; we granted them the public faith, which they had stipulated tor themselves; we awaited them here for a long season, nor ceased we even to exhort and entreat, that they should draw nigh to know the true light. Yet, even in their absence, I think, we have sufficiently consulted their interest. For whereas there were two matters, in which medicine was to be applied to their sickening and infirm minds,—one being the doctrine concerning the Catholic and truly evangelical faith, in those mutters which are called in question by themselves, and in such as seemed to be