Reformed Covenanter
Cancelled Commissioner
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:
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.
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.