From the Diet of Worms to the Augsburg Confession - James Aitken Wylie

handed down to us the substance of his sermon.
Beginning with the Turk, the archbishop
"upbraided Germany for having so meekly borne
so many wrongs at the hands of the barbarian. In
this craven spirit had not acted the great captains of
ancient Rome, who had never failed to inflict
signal chastisement upon the enemies of the
Republic." At this stage of his address, seized it
would seem with a sudden admiration of the Turk,
the nuncio set sail on a new tack, and began to
extol the Moslem above the German: "The
disadvantage of Germany is," he said, "that the
Turk obeys one prince only, whereas in Germany
many obey not at all; that the Turks live in one
religion, and the Germans every day invent a new
religion, and mock at the old, as if it were become
moldy. Being desirous to change the faith, they had
not found out one more holy and more wise." He
exhorted them that "imitating Scipio, Cato, the
people of Rome and their ancestors, they should
observe the Catholic religion, forsake these
novelties, and give themselves to the war."
His eloquence reached its climax only when he
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