# John Calvin on the spurious repentance of the Council of Trent



## Reformed Covenanter (Dec 30, 2013)

John Calvin had the spiritual discernment not to take the Council of Trent's professions of repentance at face value. This comment is a good example of how we need to distinguish between rhetoric and reality when it comes to Rome:



> They make an humble confession of sins – they mention groans and tears, the signs of repentance. I believe the person employed as their reader on this occasion must have found it difficult to keep from laughing.



John Calvin, _Canons and decrees of the Council of Trent, with the antidote_ (1547) in _John Calvin: tracts and letters_, trans. and ed. Henry Beveridge (7 vols, Edinburgh, 1851), iii, 41.


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