The Council of Trent Plainly discover'd not to have been a Free Assembly: : By a collection of Letters and Papers of the Learned Dr. Vargas and other Great Ministers, who assisted at the said Synod in Considerable Posts. With Directions concerning the Government of a Council. And also the Office of an Embassador, &c. Published

[6], 107, [1 - errata], 247, [1 – book advert], [2] pages.

Boards slightly rubbed in places with small mark to the lower board. Upper board joint starting. Corners bumped with minor loss. Minor loss to title label. End-papers soiled with previous owner's name in ink to front paste-down. Text clean and unmarked. Slight worming to the lower margin / corner of the final 50 pages and rear end-papers, not touching text.

Michael Geddes LL.D. (1650?–1713) was a Scottish clergyman of the Church of England and historian. "He was a learned and a wise man; he had a true notion of popery, as a political combination, managed by falsehood and cruelty, to establish a temporal empire in the person of the popes. All his thoughts and studies were chiefly employed in detecting this; of which he has given many useful and curious essays in the treatises he wrote, which are all highly valuable." (Bishop Burnet, History of the Reformation, iii., p306).

The Council of Trent, held between 1545 and 1563 in Trent (or Trento, Italy), was the 19th ecumenical council of the Catholic Church. Prompted by the Protestant Reformation, it has been described as the embodiment of the Counter-Reformation. The Council issued condemnations of what it defined to be heresies committed by proponents of Protestantism, and also issued key statements and clarifications of the Church's doctrine and teachings, including scripture, the Biblical canon, sacred tradition, original sin, justification, salvation, the sacraments, the Mass, and the veneration of saints.

The letters and papers translated and printed by Geddes have been described as one of the most important sources for the history of the Council of Trent and includes correspondence of Francisco Vargas, Pedro Malvenda, the Bishop of Oren and others present at the Council, with the emperor Charles V's chief minister Antoine Perrenot, Bishop of Arras, and the future Cardinal Granvelle. Vargas was a distinguished Spanish lawyer and diplomat, combining a hatred of Protestantism with a critical attitude towards the Papacy. Indeed, the correspondence and papers published by Geddes were critical of the way in which the Council of Trent was conducted by the presiding Papal Legate. This gave Geddes the basis for his assertion that the

"letters [which] are all Originals, and were writ in Spanish at that time from Trent to the Bishop of Arras, and do all agree in affirming, That the Council had nothing of Liberty or Authority in it ; and that there was nothing done at Trent, but what the Pope was pleased to order." (p. 78)

In this volume Geddes also explains how the papers came into his hands via Sir William Trumbull, who placed them in the hands of Bishop Stillingfleet, who in turn requested Geddes to translate them. They were first published by Geddes in 1697.