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All this, together with the persistency with which the religious begged Taico to restore the merchandise to the Spaniards, resulted in angering him thoroughly, and like the barbarous and so avaricious tyrant that he was, he gave orders to crucify them all and all the religious who preached the religion of Namban in his kingdoms.
Such as now proclaim, 'Blessed is he who cometh in the name of the Lord, will soon cry out, 'Away with him, crucify him." When one of my friends speaking of the general esteem the people had for me, I said to her, "Observe what I now tell you, that you will hear curses cut of the same mouths which at present pronounce blessings."
It was the expedient of a weak and cynical nature, and, like all weak attempts at compromise between right and wrong, only emboldened the hatred which it was meant to appease. If by clamour the rulers had succeeded in getting Pilate to scourge a man whom he thought innocent, they might well hope to get him to crucify, if they clamoured loudly and long enough.
The colleges of the pontiffs could not forgive him for having seized their treasure, and they demanded a pledge from the Great Council to crucify him should he ever return. The heats of the month of Eloul, which were excessive in that year, were another calamity.
Some would gladly crucify him, and I fear he will hardly escape them; only they must take care that he does not rise again on the third day. After seven days' excited debate in the Diet, in which the Elector took a prominent and lively part, an answer to the imperial mandate was at length agreed upon, offering for consideration 'whether, inasmuch as Luther's preaching, doctrines, and writings had awakened among the common people all kinds of thoughts, fancies, and desires, any good result or advantage would accrue from issuing the mandate alone in all its stringency, without first having cited Luther before them and heard him. At the same time, his examination was to be so far restricted, that no discussion with him should be allowed, but simply the question put to him, 'whether or not he intended to insist upon the writings he had published against our holy Christian faith. If he retracted them, he should be heard further on other points and matters, and dealt with in all equity upon them.
If they shall fall away, to renew them again unto repentance; seeing they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh, and put him to an open shame.
Then gathering himself up, he solemnly repeated the terrible verses: "For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost, and have tasted the good word of God, and the powers of the world to come, if they shall fall away, to renew them again unto repentance; seeing they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh, and put Him to an open shame."
And finally that nation was permitted to crucify the Lord. One who hails nature and human prudence sees nothing but what contradicts divine providence in these and many other passages of the Word. He can use them as arguments in denial of providence, if not in his outward thought nearest to speech, still in his inner thought, remote from it.
Pilate, the sceptic, the man of culture, by making a mockery of it, sought to convert it into a comedy; he conceived the farcical idea of the king with the reed sceptre and crown of thorns, and cried "Behold the man!" But the people, more human than he, the people that thirsts for tragedy, shouted, "Crucify him! crucify him!"
Do you want the sinews of war? here, take this five pounds with you; you may have to buy a sight of it; but if you ask him whether I am right in telling you it is not the custom of jails to crucify prisoners in the present century, perhaps the barbarian will produce his record of abuses to prove to you that it is.
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