of the new teaching. The Confession was divided into two parts, the
former of which consisted of twenty-one articles or dogmas of faith
received by himself and his friends; the latter dwelt with what he
termed abuses which they rejected, notable amongst these being
celibacy of the clergy, monastic vows, auricular confession, private
masses, communion under one kind, abstinence, and episcopal
government. The Confession was drawn up very skilfully, great
prominence being given to the doctrines on which all Christians were
agreed, while the distinctive tenets of the Protestant reformers were
put forward in their mildest and least offensive form. The document
was read to the Diet in German by Bayer, Chancellor of the Elector of
Saxony, and undoubtedly it produced a marked impression on the
assembly. The Emperor held a conference with the Catholic princes,
some of whom advocated prompt recourse to the sternest measures.
Others, however, amongst them being several of the ecclesiastical
princes, misled by the temperate and, in a certain sense, misleading
character of Melanchthon's statement, and believing that a peaceful
solution to the religious difficulty was still possible, urged Charles
V. to abstain from decisive action. It was agreed that the work of
examining and refuting the Augsburg Confession should be entrusted to
a certain number of Catholic theologians, the most prominent of whom
were Eck, Cochlaeus, and Conrad Wimpina.[29] Unfortunately these men
allowed their natural feelings of irritation to overcome their
judgment, and not content with a calm and judicial refutation of the
document submitted to them, they attacked warmly the exaggerations,
contradictions, and misrepresentations of Catholic doctrine of which
Luther had been guilty, and succeeded in imparting to their reply a
bitter and ironical tone more likely to widen than to heal the
division. At the request of the Emperor they modified it very
considerably, confining themselves entirely to a brief and