what could be your Lordship’s thought in discussing a matter so foreign to your profession; and it did not seem at all well to me, unless your Lordship regards me as so contemptible a person that I am not equal to this.  Although humility is well in all, and particularly in bishops, it is not humility for the sheep to teach the shepherd; nor would it be considered well in me, and still less so in your Lordship, if it were known that I allowed you, who should take rules of right living from me, to give them to me.  Read, or have read to you, the chapter si imperator 96 distin., in which your Lordship will see what is the duty of secular princes and what that of bishops, where among other words it says these:  “If the emperor is Catholic he is a son, not a prelate, of the church; and whatever concerns religion he is to learn, not teach.”  In what follows in this chapter your Lordship will see what is your duty and what is mine; and our Lord, through the prophet Malachi, says that the lips of the priest held knowledge, and from his mouth the law is to be sought, and not from the governors.  Since your Lordship wished to be master when you should have been pupil, you could not avoid falling into the difficulties into which you have fallen in this letter, as you say that you do not know whether the bishop can order that all the confessors should not absolve in this or that case.  It is almost a matter of course that the bishop may reserve cases, when that may seem best to him; and it is an amusing thing that your Lordship sets about declaring to me when the confessors are to reserve the cases and when they are not to do so.  I am astonished, and marvel at your judgment and prudence in coming to discuss such matters with your bishop, especially when your Lordship knows that he has studied a great deal to know this which you can not know, nor would it be proper for you to know it.  The cases which I shall reserve shall be reserved, and those who dare to absolve, although they may have other privileges, will commit mortal sin, when the bishop declares the reason why he does it; and many doctors of the highest standing maintain that the absolution is void in such cases.  When anyone shall confront me with a concession opposed to this, he must have studied deeply, for many talk about concessions without understanding them.  Since your Lordship meddles so much in things in which you ought not to, do not be astonished if I reply as is suitable, in order that your Lordship may be instructed, and that I may satisfy the objections which are brought against me.  When your Lordship says that you do not know and can not discover how I can be concerned in trying to remedy anything which concerns the encomiendas which are peaceful, except by giving my opinion about the matter, I say that I am not astonished that your Lordship does not know, since you are not under obligations to know; but I am astonished that because you yourself do not know, your Lordship should think that I do not know,