If any one celebrates mass, or hears confession, and gives absolution, not being in priest’s orders, he is vehemently suspected of heresy; and must abjure as such, and then be delivered over to the secular arm, to be punished with death. Raynald gives us an instance of one who said he was a bishop, though he had not the pope’s bull, and as such consecrated priests. The story is this: “James the priest, a false Minorite, born in the dutchy of Juliers, forged the pope’s bull, and declared in the Netherlands that he was a bishop; and although he had not been ordained a bishop, he consecrated priests by a false ceremony in several dioceses of Germany and the Low Countries. At length he was convicted of his wickedness, and the magistrates of Utrecht thought fit, not to condemn him to the flames, that he might be quickly consumed, but to be gradually burnt by boiling water, that so they might conquer his obstinacy, because he most impudently refused to acknowledge his crime. But being gradually let down into the boiling cauldron, and overcome with the extremity of the pain, he detested his wickedness, and prayed that he might receive a milder punishment. His judges being moved with compassion, ordered him to be taken out of the boiling cauldron, and then to be beheaded.” Those also who solicit women or boys to dishonourable actions in the sacramental confession, are subject to this tribunal. Pius IV. published a bull against them; and when this bull was first brought into Spain, all persons were commanded by a public edict, solemnly published throughout all the churches of the archbishopric of Seville, that whosoever knew or had heard of any monks or clergymen who had abused the sacrament of confession to these crimes, or had in any manner acted in this vile manner at confession with their wives or daughters, they should discover them within thirty days to the holy tribunal; and very grievous censures were annexed to such as should neglect or contemn it. When the decree was published, so large a number of women went to the palace of the inquisitors in the city of Seville only, to make their discoveries of these most wicked confessors, that twenty secretaries, with as many inquisitors, were not sufficient to take the depositions of the witnesses. The lords inquisitors being thus overwhelmed with the multitude of affairs, assigned another thirty days for the witnesses; and when this was not sufficient, they were forced to appoint the same number a third and a fourth time. For as to women of reputation, and others of higher condition, every time was not proper for them to apply to the inquisitors. On one hand, their conscience forced them to a discovery through a superstitious fear of the censures and excommunication; and on the other hand, their regard to their husbands, whom they were afraid to offend, by giving them any ill suspicion of their chastity, kept them at home; and therefore veiling their faces,