VI. It is wrong to put our trust in good works and look for our justification in them.
VII. To worship saints and images is to be guilty of idolatry.
VIII. Hence our traditions and ecclesiastical (or rather Roman) constitutions are not only useless but pernicious.
IX. The sacrifice of the mass, and prayers to the dead or for them, are a sin against the Word of God, and men are wrong to look to them for salvation.
X. The intercession of saints was introduced into the Church by the authority of men and not of God.
These propositions seem to us now mere theological formulæ: they were more than that. There was the true spirit in them. 'There are different ways of speaking,' said the friend[510] to whom Farel wrote an account of this disputation; 'the roaring of a lion is different from the braying of an ass.' There was indeed in these theses, destined to throw down a whole world of errors, the formidable 'roaring of a lion.'
On the 23d of April Jacques Bernard went to the hôtel-de-ville and presented his propositions to the council, who authorized him to defend them, and desired him to inform the members of the chapter of St. Pierre and other priests, monks, and doctors.[511] At Constance, freedom of discussion had been suppressed; and that assembly, therefore, had produced no other light than the flames of the scaffold. It was not thus that the Reformation was to advance. 'Let the truth appear and triumph!'
The theses were immediately distributed in all the churches and monasteries of the city. No worshipper crossed the threshold of the sanctuary without receiving one of the printed handbills. The superior of the Franciscans waited personally upon the canons and presented each of them with a copy of the propositions. He gave them to every member of the government, lay and clerical: there was no shop or refectory in which the ten propositions were not read and commented upon. They were posted on the church doors and in the public places, not only in Geneva, but in the allied and neighboring cities. They were even sent to gentlemen at their châteaux. In its very infancy, the Reformation proclaimed and practised the widest publicity. The trumpet sounded in every quarter of the city, and the herald announced that a discussion would take place on the 30th of May in the great hall of the Cordeliers of Rive, and that scholars of all classes, Genevese or foreigners, clerks or laymen, were invited with full liberty of speaking, and the offer of a safe-conduct. 'Ah!' said Froment, one of the champions, 'if such a license were given by every prince, the business would be soon settled, without burning so many poor Christians. But the pope and his cardinals forbid all discussion of this or that, except it be with fire and sword: a fashion they have learnt no doubt from the Grand Seignor.'[512]
=ALARM OF THE PAPISTS.=
The remark was but too true. The news of the discussion had no sooner reached the bishop than a feeling of horror came over him. 'What!' he said, 'convoke a council in my own city! nobody has the right to do it but myself.' And he immediately published throughout his diocese a proclamation 'forbidding the faithful to be present at the assembly under pain of excommunication.' The duke of Savoy also forbade his subjects to attend it, and the Franciscans, at that time assembled in general chapter at Grenoble, having received the invitation, declared they would not come.[513] There were, no doubt, capable men among them; but to discuss the truths taught by the Church was, in their eyes, aiming a blow at its authority. The result was a universal silence on the part of the priests. They were very clever in making the most of miraculous appearances, of dead children restored to life; but of discussion, not a word. One or two fervent Catholics would, however, have willingly broken a lance with Farel, but the orders of their chiefs held them back. The army of the pope, summoned by the voice of the trumpet, was wanting on the day of combat.