In vain did the Chancellor Feige declare to him that each man had the right of maintaining his opinion with full liberty; in vain did the Landgrave himself exclaim that the Church was sighing after truth: silence had become Rome's refuge. "I will defend the doctrine of purgatory," a priest had said prior to the discussion; "I will attack the paradoxes under the sixth head (on the true priesthood)," had said another;[70] and a third had exclaimed, "I will overthrow those under the tenth head (on images);" but now they were all dumb. [70] Erant enim prius qui dicerent: Ego asseram purgatorium; alius, Ego impugnabo paradoxa tituli sexti, etc.--(Lamberti Epistola ad Colon.) Upon this Lambert, clasping his hands, exclaimed with Zacharias: _Blessed be the Lord God of Israel; for he hath visited and redeemed his people_. After three days of discussion, which had been a continual triumph for the evangelical doctrine, men were selected and commissioned to constitute the churches of Hesse in accordance with the Word of God. They were more than three days occupied in the task, and then their new constitution was published in the name of the synod. The first ecclesiastical constitution produced by the Reformation should have a place in history, so much the more as it was then set forward as a model for the new Churches of Christendom.[71] [71] This constitution will be found in Schminke, Monumenta Hassiaca, vol. ii. p. 588: "Pro Hassiæ Ecclesiis, et si deinde nonnullæ _aliæ_ ad idem _nostro exemplo_ provocarentur." [Sidenote: CONSTITUTION OF THE CHURCH.] The autonomy or self-government of the Church is its fundamental principle: it is from the Church, from its representatives assembled in the name of the Lord, that this legislation emanates; there is no mention in the prologue either of state or of Landgrave.[72] Philip, content with having broken for himself and for his people the yoke of a foreign priest, had no desire to put himself in his place, and was satisfied with an external superintendence, necessary for the maintenance of order. [72] Synodus _in nomine Domini congregata_.--(Ibid.) A second distinctive feature in this constitution is its simplicity both of government and worship. The assembly conjures all future synods not to load the Churches with a multitude of ordinances, "seeing that where orders abound, disorder superabounds." They would not even continue the organs in the churches, because, said they, "men should understand what they hear."[73] The more the human mind has been bent in one direction, the more violent is the reaction in the contrary direction when it is unbent. The Church passed at that time from the extreme of symbols to that of simplicity. These are the principal features of this constitution:-- [73] Ne homines non intelligant.--(Ibid. cap. 3.)