WORKS OF CARRANZA.
The marchioness of Alcagnices could not do without him. The piety of Carranza met her deepest wants, and his attachment to Rome was a ground of confidence to her that in adopting his faith she was not separating from the church. Anxious to enjoy his teaching even when he was absent, she caused copies to be made of his Spanish works, and had translations made of those which were in Latin. In this task she employed the friar Francis de Tordesillas. This monk, who was a strictly orthodox man, was occasionally shocked, while making these translations and copies, by certain phrases which appeared to have a Lutheran tendency. He was very much grieved about it, and so much the more because it was not only for the marchioness that he did this work, but also for several other ladies, admirers of Carranza. What a calamity if he should become an agent of the Lutheran heresy! And yet there were so many fine things in those books, and Carranza was so illustrious a doctor! The monk of Tordesillas bethought himself of a means of preventing the evil. At the head of the manuscript he put a notice to the reader, in which he said,—'that in reading the works of Don Bartholomew, all the propositions which they contain must be understood in the Catholic sense, and particularly those which relate to justification, which it seems possible to interpret in an opposite sense; that in this way there would be no danger of falling into any error; that he had seen the author practice good works, fasts, almsgiving and prayers, so that he, the speaker, was sure that every thing which the doctor had written was in the spirit of the Catholic religion.'[188] But the religious devotee labored in vain. Most readers took simply and in the natural sense what they read. Moreover the notice to the reader was counteracted by more powerful advice. Domingo de Roxas told both the nuns with whom he was connected, particularly those of the convent of Bethlehem, and other persons who showed any leaning to piety, that the evangelical doctrines, and he did not scruple to say to many the maxims of Luther, were approved by a man so virtuous and so learned as Carranza.[189]
Far from being moved to retract his doctrines by the reproaches which he incurred on account of them, Carranza, who was of a resolute and determined character, reasserted them in more and more positive language. One day when he was at the village of Alcagnices, probably on a visit to the castle, he felt it incumbent on him to make it distinctly understood that nothing would induce him to renounce the faith which inspired him, and that to leave no room for doubt he was even prepared to sign a legal instrument, bond, or contract, to that effect. For this reason, and remembering that according to a popular proverb 'where notary has passed there is no going back,' he exclaimed in the presence of Domingo de Roxas, Peter de Sotelo, Christopher Padilla, and others: 'At the time of my death I will have a notary to attest the renunciation which I make of all my good works and all the merit of them. I rely on the works of Jesus Christ; and knowing that he has expiated my sins I look upon them as annulled.'[190]
It is remarkable that Carranza, after declarations so evangelical, should have been elected, and this in Spain, and against his own will, to the highest dignity of the church, the primacy. True, Rome afterwards made up for this gentle treatment by great severity. This illustrious doctor and distinguished prelate, who had caused so many evangelical Christians to be imprisoned, himself spent the last seventeen years of his life in prison. He exalted the pope, his government, and his ministry, as much as and more than any other man; but he committed the crime of exalting Jesus Christ still more. The punishment was only retarded, not averted, by his submission to Rome. Even at the time when Carranza was still in the enjoyment of the highest favor Valladolid saw a memorable example of punishment instantly awarded to any one who should magnify Jesus Christ, without caring for the pope and his church.
CRUELTY OF THE INQUISITORS.
The young San Romano, who had been converted at Bremen, and had been arrested after making great efforts to induce Charles the Fifth to countenance the Reformation, arrived in ill health at Valladolid at the time when the Gospel was working in private circles, and even in general society, but had not yet been boldly preached there as at Seville. He had been roughly treated, and compelled to follow in the emperor's suite as a captive, some say even into Africa; but the treatment which he had to undergo at the hands of the inquisitors of Valladolid, to whom he was delivered up, far surpassed in harshness that of Charles. They confined him in a dark and horrible dungeon; they sent to him incessantly wicked and ignorant monks, who were instructed to worry him and to induce him to abandon his faith; they frequently made a spectacle of him, exposing him to the laughter and contempt of the populace, and daily loaded him with reproaches and insults, in the hope of thereby terrifying him, breaking down his spirit, and leading him to retract his faith. But their attempt was frustrated. They found, on the contrary, that in some marvellous way which they could not understand, his strength, his earnestness, and his resolution day by day increased. He confuted the arguments of the monks, and courageously avowed the doctrines which were the objects of their anathemas. The sacrifice of the mass, said the monks, procures ex opere operato the remission of sins. 'Horrible abomination,' said San Romano. 'Auricular confession,' resumed the inquisitors, 'the satisfaction of purgatory, the invocation of saints'.... But he stopped them and cried out: 'Blasphemy against God and profanation of the blood of Jesus Christ!'[191] These monks, of orders gray, brown, or black, who buzzed about him like wasps, and were incessantly stinging him, were amazed at such language, and asked him what then he did believe. He replied: 'I maintain and will openly and clearly maintain to my latest breath that there is no creature who by his own strength, his own works, or any worthiness of his own can merit the pardon of his sins and obtain the salvation of his soul. The mercy of God alone, the work of the Mediator, who by his own blood has cleansed us from all sin, these save us.' His condemnation was henceforth certain.
San Romano, and with him a great number of criminals, appeared before a multitude of the people to receive sentence. He was condemned to be burnt alive as a heretic, the others were absolved. 'Ah!' said one of his friends,
"Dat veniam corvis, vexat censura columbas."