CHAP. Y. Eccl. History, vol. Hugh, the old bishop of Ferrara, obtained an edict of the emperor ОтHо IV. for the suppression of them. Five years after, pope IxNOCENT III. held a council at the Lateran, and denounced anathemas' against heretics of all descriptions, and against the lords and their bailiffs, who suffered them to reside on their estates." 25. Men of continual employment were now in in. p.261. quest of heretics; bound by an oath, to seek for them Note [c.] in towns, houses, cellars, woods, caves and fields, and to purge the provinces from these enemies of the catholic faith. Besides, in every city, a council of inquisitors was erected, consisting of one priest and three lay-men. Zeel. Re D. 248. 26. As early as the year 1233, that bloody court called the Inquisition, had a permanent establishment in Spain and France, which in its progress heightened, to the utmost degree, the crimson colour of that bloody beast, who instituted it, and the infernal rabble by whom it was executed, who made it the sole business of life to steal, to kill, and to destroy. 27. In the kingdom of Castile and Aragon, there searches, were eighteen inquisitorial courts; having each of them its counsellors, termed apostolical inquisitors ; its secretaries, serjeants, and other officers. And besides these, there were twenty thousand familiars dispersed throughout the kingdom, who acted as spies and informers, and were employed to apprehend all suspected persons, and to commit them for trial to the prisons which belonged to the Inquisition.” 28. "By these familiars, persons were seized on bare suspicion; and in contradiction to the common rules of law, they were put to the torture, tried and condemned by the inquisitors, without being confronted by their accusers, or with the witnesses on whose evidence they were condemned." es. 29. "The punishments were more or less dreadful, according to the caprice and humour of the judgThe unhappy victims were either strangled, or committed to the flames, or loaded with chains and shut up in dungeons during life. Their effects were confiscated, and their families stigmatized with infamy." V. Eccl. Re 30. "Authors of undoubted credit affirm, and CHAP. without the least exaggeration, that millions of persons have been ruined by this horrible court. Moors were banished a milion at a time; six or eight hun- searches, dred thousand Jews were driven away at once, and their immense riches seized by their accusers, and dissipated among their persecutors." p. 249. 31.Heretics of all ranks and of various denominations were imprisoned and burnt, or fled into other countries. This horrible court (says Robinson,) is stiled by a monstrous abuse of words, "The HoLr • and APOSTOLIC court of Inquisition." Newton says, Diss. on "It is enough to make the blood run cold, to read of Proph. 'the horrid murders and devastations of this time; how many of these poor innocent Christians [i. e. 'Heretics] were sacrificed to the blind fury and mal"ice of their enemies! It is computed by Mede, from good authorities, that in France alone were slain a ⚫ million." 32. "Against the Waldenses, (says Thuanus, a 'popish historian,) when exquisite punishments avail'ed little, and the evil was exasperated by the remedy which had been unseasonably applied, and their number increased daily, at length complete armies 'were raised; and a war, of no less weight than what our people had before waged against the Saracens, was decreed against them. The event of which was, that they were rather slain, put to flight, spoiled every where of their goods and dignities, and dispersed here and there, than that convinced of their error they repented." 33. "The Waldenses and Albigenses being persecuted in their own country, fled for refuge into foreign nations, some into Germany, and some into Britain. In Germany they grew and multiplied so fast, notwithstanding the rage and violence of croisaders and inquisitors, that at the beginning of this [fourteenth century it is computed, that there were eighty thousand of them in Bohemia, Austria, and the neighbouring territories." Yet, compar atively, but few escaped the rage and fury of the bloody inquisitors. 34. "From the first institution of the Jesuits to vol. ii. p. 174 & 175. ibil. P. 196. CHAP V. Diss. on Proph. vol. i. P. 223. Eccl. Re p. 203. 6 the year 1580, that is, in little more than thirty years, nine hundred thousand [reputed heretics] were 'slain. In the Netherlands alone, the duke of Alva 'boasted, that within a few years, he had dispatched < to the amount of thirty-six thousand souls, and those all by the hand of the common executioner." 35. In the space of scarce thirty years, the Inqui'sition destroyed, by various kinds of tortures, an hundred and fifty thousand Christians." [i. e. heretics, such as Catholics generally call fanatics, or persons disordered in their brains.] Then how many millions may we suppose it destroyed, in the course of 200 years, and more, from the period of its first institution. 36. It is therefore a just remark of Newton, that, "If Rome Pagan hath slain her thousands of inno'cent Christians, [i.e. heretics] Rome Christian [Rome Antichristian] hath slain her ten thousands. For not to mention other outrageous slaughters and 'barbarities, the croisades against the Waldenses and Albigenses, the murders committed by the duke of Alva in the Netherlands, the massacres in France and Ireland, will probably amount to above ten times the number of all the Christians slain in all the ten persecutions of the Roman emperors put 'together." 37. Thus we see that this universal bishop, this infallible judge of all controversies, this sovereign of kings and disposer of kingdoms, this vice-gerent of Christ and God upon earth, has plainly manifested his diabolical nature by his furious and infernal works. And thus this Mother of all abominations, has evidently exposed her scarlet colour, by the millions whom she hath persecuted unto death by every mode of torture. Is it not then astonishing beyond all measure, that any should yet be so blind as to imagine, that the pure gospel and spirit of Christ could be conveyed to future ages through such a medium ? 38. "That kind of religion (says Robinson,) which searches, the Catholics always propagated, ought to be con'sidered as it really is, not merely a religion, but as 'a species of government, including in it a set of ty'ranical maxims injurious to the lives, liberties and V. 'properties of citizens in a free state, and all tending CHAP. to render the state dependent on a faction called the • Church, governed from age to age by a succession ' of priests." 39. And such, we may say, was that kind of priesthood by which the Catholic church was organized and ruled, from the beginning, according to their degree of power and influence. Simon the sorcerer be witch- Acte väi ed the people, giving out that himself was some Great One, when therefore, under his lucrative motives, he professed to be a Christian, he was Antichrist in the seed. 9. See 3 John 9, 10. 40. Diotrephes was a Catholic priest-Antichrist in the blade he loved to have the pre-eminence; he could not really persecute, but he prated with malicious words against the heretic John and his brethren, and cast them out of the church. Councils are but a larger growth from the same diabolical root, they are rulers without dominion, inquisitors without an inquisition, and may be justly called Antichrist in the ear. 41. "Synods of three or four bishops, framing Eeel. Re ' creeds or canons for conscience, and attaching to a searches, 'breach of them ideas of guilt, differ from the In'quisition only as a spark of fire differs from a city in a blaze." Thus from prating they proceed to solemn anathamas, which happily, cannot yet effect the ruin of the dissenter. GREAT ONES, however, go on to adopt GREAT WORDS, and as their numbers and authority increase, they grasp the effectual power by faith, and form an Inquisition in their dire de crees. 42. "Their language used to be, when they could 'do no better, "If any person, king, nobleman, pre"late, priest, monk, or any of inferior rank, native "or foreigner, shall at any time deny this creed, or "disobey these canons, may he be numbered with Judas, "Dathan and Abiram ; may all his limbs be broken; his eyes be plucked out; may his entrails be torn "out of him; may he be smitten with the leprosy, and "other diseases from the crown of his head to the sole " of his foot; and may he suffer the pain of eternal "damnation with the Devil and his angels.” may Bb p. 250. CHAP. V. 43. "When the inquisitors burnt thirty, sixty, nine"ty heretics at a time;-stained the walls of their torture rooms with human blood;-while they clothsearches, ed the wretched sufferers with habits and caps, on 'which were represented devils and flames, what did Eccl.Re p. 251. they more than finish and colour a picture of which 'the most ancient and sanctimonious Synods had given them a sketch; a picture when finished 'so dreadful, that even the artists shuddered at the 'sight of their own work! An inquisitor calls it, Horrendum et tremendum spectaculum! A horrid ' and tremendous spectacle! but liberal men (says Robinson,) have hardly words to express their abhorrence of it." 44. Here this great fabric, which the enemy of God and may had been labouring to establish ever since the fall, seems to have attained its greatest height; and here it would seem that the councils, decrees and prayers of the whole Catholic priesthood had their most desirable accomplishment. 45. And what more, in reality, could their Lord God the Pope, and his subordinate legions have done,. in answer to their impious wishes, than to personate the Devil and his angels, in tormenting those inoffensive heretics, with all manner of torture, as long as they had it in their power? 46. But high as this Babel of confusion had arisen, under the reign of emperors and popes, by the labours of false teachers, vain philosophers, lordly biskops, monks, friars, and the whole infernal rabble ; yet its builders were far from being satisfied. Even in their greatest victory over heresy, and the most absolute uniformity that they could possibly attain, the lordly prelates looked upon their established hierarchy to be quite imperfect, and groaned for an opportunity of wresting the reins of government out of the hands of their Lord God, in order to reform and complete the work. 47. The fact was, their mock institutions of celibacy, and their numerous orders of monkery, had opened such an ocean of depravity and corruption, and the earth was so overrun with sanctimonious debauchecs, and hypocritical prostitutes, whose rage for |
