cious and so entire, that there is not required of us any other satisfaction; that faith without works suffices for salvation; that Jesus Christ was not a legislator, and that it did not enter into his plan to give laws; that the actions and the works of saints are only useful to us by way of example, and cannot aid us in any other manner; that the use of images and the veneration of relics are customs purely human; that the Church has not now the same light or the same authority as the primitive Church; and lastly, that the condition of the apostles, and the religious state, or that of monks, differ not from the state of Christians in general.

These propositions Carranza renounced, according to the purport of his sentence. He then entered upon the performance of the services assigned him, and his demeanour exhibited so much patience, resignation and holiness of feeling, that the Pope seemed fully justified in the regard and favour with which he treated him from the first to the last of this distressing affair. But his strength was too much exhausted to enable him, without injury, to go through the services in which he was engaged. While performing mass, his weakness brought on an affection which he sought to conceal, and he was thereby thrown into a sickness which ended his life in a few days.

When at the point of death, he gathered around him his friends and advisers. He was anxious, he said, to speak to them with his last breath respecting the suspicions under which he had so unhappily fallen. He then called to witness the celestial court, and for his judge the Sovereign Lord who was present in the sacrament he had just received, and the angels whom he had ever chosen as his intercessors. Having made this solemn appeal, he continued, "I swear by the Almighty God, and in this awful moment, while looking to the account which I am about to render before him, that during all the time I professed theology in my order, and in whatsoever I have written, or said in preaching, whether in Spain, Germany, Italy or England, I have ever endeavoured to exalt the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ, and to combat heresy. Nor has the Divine Majesty dis

dained to succour me in these efforts, since many heretics in England were converted by the grace then given, and others, at my desire, have been burnt to establish the power of the Inquisition. Both Catholics and heretics have given me the title of First Defender of the Faith,' and with truth can I declare, that I have ever been ready to labour in this holy work, and to do what might be pleasing to the King our master. I have loved him, and do love him to a degree which has never been exceeded by the love of a son to his father. Still further, also, do I protest, that in the whole course of my life I have never taught or preached heresy, or anything whatever opposed to the true faith of the Roman Church; that I have fallen into none of the errors of which I have been declared suspected through a false interpretation of my language; and I swear, by all that which I have said, by that Lord whom I have taken for my judge, that it has never entered into my thoughts to publish the things spoken of in my process; that I have never entertained the least doubt respecting these doctrines; but, on the contrary, have professed, written, taught and preached the holy faith with the same firmness with which I now profess it in the hour of death. Yet I do not refuse to acknowledge as just the sentence passed upon me, for it has been pronounced by the vicar of Christ. I have received it as such, and know that it has proceeded from one who unites to the quality of the Lord's vicegerent that of a judge endowed with faithfulness and prudence beyond suspicion. Thus ready to depart, I pardon whatever of wrong has been committed against me; I forgive those who have opposed me in the process; I have entertained no resentment against them, but have commended them to the favour of God, as I do at this moment and shall do in that place of happiness which I hope to reach through the mercy of the Lord."

We have related these events respecting Carranza, as proving better than more direct evidence the condition of the Spanish reformers, or the little possibility which existed of their supporting themselves against the untiring hostility of the Inquisition, and the government

which upheld it. While the process against this prelate was advancing to its termination, the holy office carried on its plans for the uprooting of Lutheranism with equal vigour and success. Augustin Cazalla perished in the auto-da-fé of 1559, after so far yielding to the terrors of approaching suffering as to offer for his life a confession which would have still further involved his brethren in the toils of their enemies. The day on which he suffered is celebrated in the annals of Spanish persecution; and to the enormities which it beheld has been attributed the rising of that angry and indignant feeling in Germany, and other countries, which from that moment never ceased to assail the proceedings of the Inquisition.*

Cazalla had long occupied a conspicuous station among those who professed the reformed opinions in Valladolid. His sufferings excite our sympathy; but in times like those in which he lived, the death of such a man is viewed as the almost necessary consequence of his bold and arduous exertions. There is not, however, the same support to the feelings when we trace the record that speaks of sufferers whose only offence was a calm and unboasting love of the gospel of Jesus Christ. The standard-bearers of the cross must expect to endure the heat of the battle, and, if needs be, to drink of the gall, and sweat the bloody drops of agony; but those who only meekly seek, in the words of life, peace to their hearts and consciences, when dragged from their homes to suffer the terrors of pitiless persecution, call for an expression of sorrow of a sadder and softer kind. Such calls upon our sympathies are frequent in the history of Spanish Protestantism. Women of the most amiable character, and of retired dispositions, suffered at the hands of the Inquisition the same punishment as the boldest of its opponents. Humble-minded men, again, occupying situations in life which rendered them content with every thing around them but a corrupted gospel, were seized and treated as the basest malefactors, for no other offence than that of listening to divine truth, and acknowledging that it comforted their hearts. It Llorente, t. I., p. 219.

is not necessary to our purpose to relate the particulars which attended the suppression of the reformed principles in Spain. The auto-da-fés of Valladolid and Seville consigned to the flames men who were an ornament to their country, and who, had they been spared, would have proved its greatest benefactors. A day of retribution has already come, and Spain has been made to feel the punishment due to such iniquities. The Reformation ceased to be heard of before the close of the sixteenth century. Every evil which can attend the unresisted corruptions of an imbecile government then began to be visible. The voice of truth and holiness, which could alone have checked the growth of misery, had been silenced. To the Inquisition was intrusted the care of the country's faith, dignity and power, and they perished under its sway, a consequence which has ever followed the commission of the precious treasures of a nation to the guardianship of such protectors.

CHAP. V.

COUNCIL OF TRENT.

To no class of events in the history of religion, in later times, can our attention be more profitably turned than to those which concern the Council of Trent. Important in itself, as an assembly consisting of the representatives of a Church which had long governed the opinions and consciences of mankind, it determined the character of the Reformation, placed in the fullest light, that learning and ingenuity could afford, the principal subjects of theological controversy, and settled politically the boundaries of papal and protestant influence.

It was not till after many efforts on the part of those who desired the reformation of the Church, that the court of Rome could be persuaded to summon a general council. Such assemblies, if fairly constituted, must

prove fatal to tyranny, under whatever form it shrouds its injustice. The papal power had already suffered, by being subjected to the too close observation of its ordinary supporters. By the Council of Trent it was again exposed to an inquiry which threw an almost dazzling light upon many of its errors and corruptions. The very sentiments of its advocates, as recorded in the annals of the council, bear testimony against it, and prove that it needed a reformation as complete and fundamental as that proposed by the Protestants. Though terminating in the establishment of its dogmas, and the assertion of its haughty claims to universal dominion, it put a check upon its arbitrary decrees, from which it has never since been able to get free. The condition of the Church, and, to a great degree, its internal character, were permanently affected by the Council of Trent; and notwithstanding the arts so sedulously practised to limit its proceedings, the apprehensions of the Pontiffs were in many respects fulfilled.

Obliged by the clamour of enemies, and the urgent advice of many members of his own court, to make preparations for a council, Paul III. issued a bull in the month of June 1536, whereby the representatives of the Church were summoned to Mantua. Strong objections had been made to the choice of any place in which liberty of debate might be endangered by the proximity of Rome or its confederates. These were well known to both the Pope and the Emperor, but it was now expedient that the affair should be prosecuted without delay, and Chancellor Held was despatched to the court of Saxony to entreat the Elector not to oppose the present proceedings. The answer of the prince was embodied in that of his party. "We do not," said the reformers, object to the city of Mantua because it is wanting in convenience, but because a war is now raging in the country, and the brother of its sovereign is a cardinal, and a close ally of the Pope. There are cities in Germany as fit for the purpose as Mantua; and in which we should have nothing to fear from the injustice of an adverse power. In the antient councils regard was ever had to the protection of those summoned

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