Rome feared a Protestant confederation; hard Lutherans hated Melanchthon's circle and later irenics
The history of the last age shows what Rome's curia, the Imperial court, Spain, and the French clergy under Catherine de' Medici feared most: a sacred confederation of Protestants.
How fierce, then, were the passions of the Heshusians, Brentians, Flacians, Formula men of Bergen, and Hunnians? What hatred boiled against gentle Melanchthon — not to name our own — and then against Peucer, his son-in-law, wasted by ten years in prison, against Strigel, and the rest?
They skimmed off waves of rage almost everywhere, even against the best and most moderate princes; and in our own century against the Bishop of Strängnäs, the Calixtines, Dreier's men, the Rinteln theologians, and every brother formed of better clay who would not make the schism everlasting.
To rehearse that here would be needless.
Latin
Docet historia Aevi superioris, quo nihil magis Curia Papalis, Caesarea, Hispanica, & Clerus Gallicanus tempore Catharinae Medicae, formidavit, quàm sacram Confederationem Protestantium. Sed quanti tùm fuerint Heshusianis, Brentianis, Flaccianis, Bergensibus, Hunnianis, animorum motus; quae in suavissimum Melanchthonem (ne nostros dicam) hinc in Peucerum ejus generum, decennali carcere maceratum, in Strigelium, & alios, efferbuerint odia; quos illi passim despumarint irarum propemodùm fluctus, etiam in optimos moderatissimosque Principes; quin nostro seculo in Stregnensem Episcopum, in Calixtinos, Dreieranos, Rintelenses, & quotquot in Viris fratribus, de meliore luto formatis, aeterna dissidia noluerunt, reponere hoc in loco supervacuum foret.