As
for Jerome of Prague, he came to Constance protected by no one;
he was detected and arraigned; he spoke in his own behalf, was
treated very kindly, went free whither he would; he was healed,
abjured his heresy, relapsed, and was burnt. Why do they so often
drag out one case in a thousand? Let them read their own annals.
Martin Luther himself, that abomination of God and men, was put
in court at Augsburg before Cardinal Cajetan: there did he not
belch out all he could, and then depart in safety, fortified with
a letter of Maximilian? Likewise, when he was summoned to Worms,
and had against him the Kaiser and most of the Princes of the
Empire, was he not safe under the protection of the Kaiser's
word? Lastly, at the Diet of Augsburg, in presence of Charles V.,
an enemy of heretics, flushed with victory, master of the
situation, did not the heads of the Lutherans and Zwinglians,
under truce, present their Confessions, so frequently re-edited,
and depart in peace? Not otherwise had the letter from Trent
provided most ample safe-guards for the adversary; he would not
take advantage of them. The fact is, he airs his condition in
corners, where he expects to figure as a sage by coming out with
three words of Greek: he shrinks from the light, which should
place him in the number of men of letters [_lilleratorum_
{transcribers note: the Latin is interpolated into the
translation here}] and call him to sit in honourable place.
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