It was not until the year 1542 that the court of Rome became seriously alarmed at the progress of the Reformed doctrines. By this time they were widely spread in nearly every province of Italy. Some of the most attractive and brilliant preachers in that country had embraced the simple gospel and were preaching to large audiences a free salvation through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Among these, Bernardino Ochino, a Capuchin, Peter Martyr, a canon-regular of the order of St. Augustine, and the interesting Aonio Paleario, a pious and learned professor. Spies were set to watch their movements, listen to their sermons, and even then provoke conversation, with the view of procuring evidence against them. Ochino and Martyr saw their safety in flight, crossed the Alps, found an asylum in Switzerland, and ultimately in England; but the career of Paleario was crowned with martyrdom in his own country.
When asked by his accusers, 'What is the first means of salvation given by God to man?' he answered, `Christ.' What is the second?' he replied, `Christ.' And what is the third?' he again answered, 'Christ.' From that moment, having rejected good works as the second means, and the church as the third, he was a doomed man. But that which gave the greatest offense was a most influential treatise which he wrote on the Benefit of the Death of Christ. When the Inquisitor at length arose to crush the Lutherans and collect their heretical books, as many as forty thousand copies of this book fell into his hands. Paleario was at last condemned on four charges: 1, For denying purgatory; 2, For disapproving of the dead being buried in churches; 3, For ridiculing the monastic life; 4, For ascribing justification solely to confidence in the mercy of God forgiving our sins through Jesus Christ. After an imprisonment of three years in the dungeons of the Inquisition, his body was given to the flames in the year 1570, and in the seventieth year of his age.
His sufferings were soon over and they would all soon be forgotten in the unmingled blessedness of his Lord's presence; but the fruit of his faithful testimony will endure forever. Who could estimate the effects, with God's blessing, of forty thousand copies of his book in the hands of the Italians? But the fruit will all appear on that morning without clouds, and like Paul with his beloved Thessalonians, he will find his Italians to be his joy and crown of rejoicing, in the presence of the Lord Jesus Christ at His coming. What a mercy to the called of God, sustained by His grace, and enabled to witness for Him in any age and in every sphere of life! Time will soon be over, the Lord will soon be here, and bright will the future be of all that have been faithful to Him. But His threatenings will be as surely executed as His promises will be fulfilled. It has ever been the policy of Rome to destroy the character, abolish the memory, and blot out the very names of those whose lives she has taken away. But their record is on high; and all that has been of grace will be revealed in the light to the utter confounding, and eternal shame and anguish of their once haughty inquisitors. And their remembrance in hell of the perfect happiness of their innocent but helpless victims, must give vitality to the worm that never dies and vehemence to the flames that will never be quenched.
A number of excellent men, whose only crime was their love to the Lord Jesus, and their faith in His word, suffered about the same time as Paleario. Commissioned spies, in the pay of the Vatican, were dispersed over Italy, who insinuated themselves into private families, and the confidence of individuals, conveying the information which they obtained to the inquisitors. Assuming a variety of characters, they were to be found in the company of the rich and the poor, the learned and illiterate. Many excellent private persons were thus caught in the toils spread by these pests of society. In a short time the prisons of the Inquisition were filled with victims, including persons of noble birth, male and female, industrious mechanics, and many of good reputation for learning and piety. Multitudes were condemned to penance, the galleys, and the flames. To give even an outline of the imprisonments, tortures, and deaths among the Italian Protestants, would be to write a martyrology.
"Englishmen," Dr. McCrie observes, "were peculiarly obnoxious to the inquisitors. Dr. Thomas Wilson, afterward secretary to Queen Elizabeth, was accused of heresy, and thrown into the prisons of the Inquisition at Rome, on account of some things which were contained in his books on logic and rhetoric. He made his escape in consequence of his prison doors being broken open during the tumult which took place at the death of Pope Paul IV. Among those who escaped by this occurrence was also John Craig, one of our Reformers, who lived to draw up the National Covenant, in which Scotland solemnly abjured the popish religion. Dr. Thomas Reynolds was less fortunate. In consequence of being subjected to the torture, he died in prison. In the year 1595, two persons were burnt alive in Rome, the one an Englishman, the other a native of Silesia." But enough for the present of these details of misery. A brief notice of those who fled for their lives and liberties, will give the reader some idea of the great and blessed work of God's Holy Spirit in Italy during the sixteenth century. Perhaps in no country in Europe did the word of God so prevail from 1520 to 1550, as in that land of blind superstition, luxury, and licentiousness. Such is the mercy of our God; where sin abounds grace much more abounds, to His praise and glory. "All that the Father giveth Me shall come to Me; and him that cometh to Me I will in no wise cast out." (John 6:3737All that the Father giveth me shall come to me; and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out. (John 6:37).)