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Rh lish, and German, from which it became evident that a common purpose and plan of co-operation had been formed. Certain notorious letters published in France, and the infamous book 'Janus,' translated into English, French, and Italian, proclaimed open war upon the Council within the unity of the Catholic Church. This alone was enough to set the whole anti-Catholic world on fire with curiosity, hope, and delight. The learning, the science of the intellectual freemen of the Roman Church were already under arms to reduce the pretensions of Rome.

A belief had also spread itself that the Council would explain away the doctrines of Trent, or give them some new or laxer meaning, or throw open some questions supposed to be closed, or come to a compromise or transaction with other religious systems; or at least that it would accommodate the dogmatic stiffness of its traditions to modern thought and modern theology. It is strange that any one should have forgotten that every General Council, from Nicæa to Trent, which has touched on the faith, has made new definitions, and that every new definition is a new dogma, and closes what was before open, and ties up more strictly the doctrines of faith. This belief, however, excited an expectation, mixed with hopes, that Rome by becoming comprehensive might become approachable, or by becoming inconsistent might become powerless over the reason and the will of men.

But the interest excited by this preliminary skirmishing external to the Council, was nothing compared to the exultation with which the anti-Catholic opinion and anti-Catholic press of Protestant countries,