"That there shall be an exact and reciprocal Equality amongst all the Electors, Princes and States of either Religion, conformably to the state of the publick Peace or Constitutions of the Empire; so that what is just for one side shall be so for the other; all violence and force between the two Parties being for ever prohibited. And to prevent for the future any Differences arising in the Politick State, all and every one of the Roman Catholick States and those of the Augsburg Confession, whether Princes, Lords, or Communities, shall, from this Settlement, be in all things, in an equal Degree, held and respected."

The Peace of Westphalia, Treaty of Osnabrück, Article V, signed 24 October 1648. The Peace comprised two treaties concluded simultaneously at Osnabrück and Münster, ending the Thirty Years War and the Eighty Years War. It was negotiated over four years and involved most of the major European powers.