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

the power of performing good works, and that
these works co-operate with faith in the
justification of the sinner: thus rearing again the
old fabric of salvation by works, which the former
admission respecting the necessity of faith
appeared to have thrown down. On another vital
point the Refutation and the Confession were found
to be in direct and fatal antagonism. Eck and his
colleagues maintained the Divine authority of the
hierarchy, and of course the correlative duty of
absolute submission to it; the Protestants
acknowledged no infallible rule on earth but the
Scriptures. The two Churches, after very laborious
effort on both sides, had come as near to each other
as it appeared possible to come; but neither could
conceal from itself the fact that there was still a
gulf between them–an impassable gulf, for neither
could pass to the other without ceasing to be what
it had hitherto been. Should the Papacy pass over,
it left ten centuries behind it; the moment it
touched the Wittenberg shore it threw off its
allegianco to Councils and traditions, and became
the subject of another power. Should Protestantism
pass over, it left the Bible behind it, and submitting
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