# How Those Were Delivered Who Seemingly Had Returned To The Roman Church.

15th century (source section) · Historical source

Source: Martyrs’ Mirror. Original heading: HOW THOSE WERE DELIVERED WHO SEEMINGLY HAD RETURNED TO THE ROMAN CHURCH.

Century of containing source section; exact event date not assigned

But when the inquisitors have condemned any
one, on account of so-called heresy, to the fire,
who, from fear, or for some other reason, returns
to the Roman belief, they deliver him to the secular
judges with these words: “Whereas the holy Tribunal
of the Inquisition cannot believe, that this
man’s conversion is sincere, and fears to admit a
wolf in sheep’s clothing (notwithstanding his supposed
conversion), we deliver him to the secular
judges, earnestly entreating them, to deal in all
mercy with this (accused) one, without breaking
a limb or bone, or shedding a drop of his blood.”201
Compare with the sense of these words the abovementioned
chronicle, page 900, col. 2, and page 901,
col. 1; also Hist. Georg., lib. 6, Peter Bor, lib. 3.
Oorsprong, fol. 9–12. Toneel Nicol., fol. 87. Guil.
Merula, fol. 947. Eman. Met., fol. 40. Retuald.
Gonsalv. in Tract. on the holy Spanish Inquisition,
throughout. Hist. Wenc., fol. 187. Chron. Ph.,
Mel., lib. 5, Hist. Alons. de Ulb., lib. 2.

Touching the persecution which resulted to the
believers upon this new charge of the inquisition,
we have not been able to learn the particulars relating
to it. Doubtless not a few perished by those
means; since it is certain, that no one that had a
good conscience, and was accused of heresy, could
escape with his life. The contents of the above record
inform us, that many had to suffer on this account,
whose names, however, we have not learned.
We commend them to God, who will judge their
338cause hereafter. His mercy be gracious to us and
to them all.

Remark.—From the time of Peter Waldo, about
A. D. 1170, we have throughout followed, in the
account of the martyrs, mostly the line of the Waldenses
proper, without digressing materially to other
sects, though some of them very closely approximated
to the belief of the Waldenses. Hence it has
come, that the number of those whom we have noticed
as true martyrs, is not as large, as it might
have been, if we had not purposed to follow the unmixed,
pure line of the Waldenses. However, in
notes, we have placed some who approached this
belief very closely, and shall here add a few more.

Note.—A. D. 1494.—In the fourth year of
Henry VII., on the 28th of April, a very old, honorable
widow of over eighty years, was apprehended
for maintaining eight of Wickliffe’s articles (whose
belief against infant baptism and the swearing of
oaths, we have already shown), and as she would
not apostatize, she was burned alive in Smithfield,
at London. She said that God and his angels loved
her so, that she was not afraid of the fire. When
she stood in the midst of the fire, she cried aloud:
“Lord, receive my soul into thy holy hands;”
whereupon she gave up the ghost. Compare the
account in the second book of the Hist. of the Persecutions,
fol. 599, col. 3, with Joh. Fox Angl.,
page 671. A. Bal., in Append. Al., page 627.

A. D. 1498.—Jerome Savonarola now most zealously
rejected, in his teaching, the institutions of
men, and maintained salvation in Christ alone. He
defended the partaking of the holy Supper (called
the Sacrament) under two forms; that is, with bread
and wine; in opposition to the practice of the papists,
who gave the common people only a consecrated
wafer. He also rejected letters of indulgence,
saying, moreover, that the Pope did not follow the
doctrine and life of Christ, and that he was the antichrist,
because he attributed to human institutions
more than to the merits of Christ. For all these
reasons, he was strangled and then burnt to ashes,
at Florence, by order of Pope Alexander VI. Compare
Chron. van den Ond., page 910, col. 2, with
Joh. Munst., fol. 201. Guil. Meru., fol. 950. Hist.
Andr., fol. 36. Also, A. Mell., fol. 600, col. 3, to
fol. 606; where it is stated that two others died with
him for the same belief, and were likewise on the
23d of May, in the market place at Florence, after
preceding strangulation, burnt to ashes, and the
ashes thrown into the river Arnus flowing by.

A. D. 1499.—Paul Scriptoris taught at this time
against transubstantiation (or the essential change)
of the bread into the body of Christ; as also, that
all that is taught must be tried by the touch-stone
of the Word of God, adding that all who teach otherwise
teach falsely; hence he said there should
speedily come a change in the (Roman) religion.
For this reason he was driven into banishment by
the Minorite monks; and, having lived full three
years in exile, he died in the beginning of the year
1504. Compare P. J. Twisck, Chron., page 912,
with Joh. Munst. Tract., fol. 199. With this we
conclude the fifteenth century, and, consequently,
also the account of the martyrs who then suffered.





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