14. The use of holy images, and the veneration for the relics of Saints, are customs purely human.
15. The Church of the present age has not the same light, or an authority equal to the primitive Church.
16. The condition of the apostles and a religious life, do not differ from the common state of Christians.
The declarations of the witnesses do not prove that Carranza ever uttered any of these propositions, and from this censures we may perceive that he only advanced in writing some which led the censurers to suppose that he professed those and many others, since he was not obliged to abjure several hundred propositions which had been censured, or the seventy-two which were qualified as heretical. As it could not be proved that he had ever spoken or expressed in writing any of the sixteen propositions considered as Lutheran, I do not hesitate to say that this sentence cannot be approved by upright men.
The archbishop heard his sentence with humility, and was absolved ad cautelam; he performed mass on the four first days of the holy week, and on the 23rd of April he performed his penance of visiting the churches. He refused the letter which the Pope offered him, as a public testimony of his esteem and interest in his fate. He celebrated mass on another day in the church of St. John Lateran, for the last time in his life; he expired at three o'clock in the morning of the 2nd of May, 1576, aged seventy-two years, eighteen of which he had passed in prison.
The Pope being informed of his illness, on the 30th of April sent him a pontifical absolution and exemption of the penance imposed on him; the holy father did this for the consolation of Carranza, who in fact showed great satisfaction, and received extreme unction with tranquillity, and even with some demonstrations of joy.
He made his will in the presence of one of the secretaries of his trial, and appointed as his executors his faithful friend Don Antonio de Toledo; the doctors d'Alpizcueta and Delgado, who never forsook him; Don Juan de Navarra y Mendoza, chanter, dignitary, and canon of the cathedral of Toledo (he was the son of the Count de Lodosa, and descended in the direct male line from the kings of Navarre); Fray Ferdinand de San Ambrosio, his procurator, always faithful to his cause; and Fray Antonio d'Utrilla, a model of fidelity and affection, who voluntarily shared his captivity for eighteen years. He had not obtained the permission which was necessary for bishops, to make a will; but as the Popes at that time disposed of the revenues of the stewardships, he approved and confirmed the pious arrangements of the archbishop.
On the 30th of April, after the prelate had received absolution, and before he pronounced his act of faith, he made the following declaration in Latin, in the presence of the three secretaries, several Spaniards, and some Italians, speaking slowly and with a distinct utterance, that all present might hear him.
"Considering that I have been suspected of having fallen into the errors imputed to me, I think it my duty to make known my sentiments on this subject; it was for this purpose that I requested the attendance of the four secretaries who have been employed in my trial. I call, then, to witness the celestial court, and for my judge the sovereign Lord, whose sacrament I am about to receive, the angels who accompany him, whom I have always chosen as my intercessors; I swear by that Almighty God, by my approaching death, by the account I shall soon render up to God, that while I professed theology in my order, and afterwards when I wrote, taught, preached, and argued in Spain and Germany, Italy and England, I always intended to make the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ triumphant, and to combat heretics. His divine Majesty came to my assistance, since in England I converted several heretics to the Catholic faith; with the king's permission I caused the bodies of the greatest heretics of those times to be disinterred, and they were burnt, to secure the power of the Inquisition. The Catholics, as well as the heretics, have always given me the title of First Defender of the Faith. I can truly affirm that I have always been one of the first to labour in this holy work, and have done many things concerning it by the order of the king my master. His majesty has been a witness of part of what I have asserted. I have loved him, and I still love him truly; no son could have a greater affection for him than I have.
"I also declare, that in the whole course of my life I have never taught, preached, or maintained any heresy, or anything contrary to the true faith of the Roman Church; that I never fell into any of the errors of which I have been suspected, from having different meanings attributed to my words to what I gave them myself; I swear by all that I have already said, by that God to whom I have appealed as my judge, that the errors I have mentioned or those reported in my trial never entered into my mind; that I never had the least doubt of any of these points of doctrine; but on the contrary I have professed, written, taught, and preached the holy faith, with the same firmness as I now believe and profess it at the hour of my death.