ign.

The crucial question as to the order in which the council should debate
the two divisions of subjects which it had met to settle had to be
decided at once; and the compromise arrived at showed both the strength
of the minority and the unwillingness of the leaders of the majority,
the presiding legates, to push matters to an extreme. Their instructions
from the Pope were to give the declaration of dogma the preference over
the announcement of disciplinary reforms; for it seemed to him of
primary necessity to draw, while there was time, a clear line of
demarcation between the Church and heresy; and for this, as he correctly
judged, the assistance of the council was absolutely indispensable. The
Emperor, on the other hand, was still unwilling to shut the door
completely against the Protestants, while both he and the episcopal
party at the council were eager for that reformation of the life and
government of the Church which seemed to them her most crying need.

Ultimately it was agreed that the declaration of dogma and the
reformation of abuses should be treated _pari passu_, the decrees
formulated in each case being from time to time announced
simultaneously. Taking into account the subsequent history of the
council, one can hardly deny that this arrangement saved the work of the
assembly from being left half done. Nor was the progress made in the
period ending with the eighth session of the council (March 11, 1547),
intrigues and quarrels notwithstanding, by any means trifling. On the
doctrinal side, the foundations of the faith were in the first instance
examined, and the whole character of the doctrinal decrees of the
council was in point of fact determined, when the authority of the
tradition of the Church, including of course the decrees of her
ecumenical councils, was acknowledged by the side of that of Scripture.
Little to the credit of the council's capacity for taking pains, the
authenticity of the Vulgate was proclaimed, a pious wish being added
that it should be henceforth printed as correctly as possible. At first,
Pope Paul III hesitated about giving his assent to these decrees, which
had been passed before receiving his approval, and showed some anxiety
to prevent a similar course being taken in the matter of discipline by
publishing a regulatory bull on his own authority. But on being more
fully advised by the legates of the nature of the situation, he
consented to allow the debates to proceed, provi