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some for the greater personal security, others because it em powers them to take a severe revenge on their enemies, and others, no doubt, because they think they do God good ser vice. The wretched prisoner is no more made acquainted with his crime than with his accuser. His being told the one, might possibly lead him to guess the other. To avoid this, he is compelled, by tedious confinement, in a noisome dungeon, where he never sees a face but the jailor's, and is not permitted the use either of books, or of pen and ink, or, when confinement does not succeed, he is compelled, by a train of the most excruciating tortures, to inform against himself; "to divine and to confess the crime laid to his charge, of " which often he is ignorant." An effectual method to bring nine-tenths of mankind to confess any thing, true or false, which may gratify their tormentors, and put an end to their misery. This procedure," adds our historian, "unheard of till the institution of this court, makes the whole king“dom tremble. Suspicion reigns in every breast. Friend"ship and openness are at an end. The brother dreads his "brother, the father his son. Hence taciturnity is become "the characteristick of a nation endued with all the vivacity "natural to the inhabitants of a warm and fruitful climate. "To this tribunal we must likewise impute that profound ig"norance of sound philosophy, in which Spain lies buried, "whilst Germany, England, France, and even Italy, have dis"covered so many truths, and enlarged the sphere of our "knowledge. Never is human nature so debased, as where "ignorance is armed with power.

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In regard to the extent of power given to inquisitors by papal bulls, and generally admitted by the secular authority in those countries where the inquisition is established, I shall give the few following instances out of many that might be produced. First, it is ordered, that the convicts be burnt alive, and in publick; and that all they have be confiscated; all princes and rulers who refuse their concurrence in executing these and the other sentences authorized by the church, shall be brought under censure, that is, anathematized and excommunicated, their states or kingdoms laid under an interdict, &c. The house also, in which the heretick is apprehended, must be razed to the ground, even though it be not his, but the property of a person totally unsuspected. This ferocious kind of barbarity, so utterly irreconcilable to all the principles of equity, is, nevertheless, extremely politick, as it is a powerful means of raising horrour in the ignorant populace, and of increasing the awe of this tribunal in men of all denominations, who must consider it as extremely dangerous

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to have the smallest connexion with any person suspected of heresy, or so much as to admit him into their houses. The inquisitors are also empowered to demand of any person whom they suspect, (and, for their suspicions, they are not obliged to give a reason) that he solemnly adjure heretical. opinions, and even give pecuniary security that he shall continue a good catholick. The court of inquisition are also privileged to have their own guards, and are authorized to give licences to others to carry arms, and to enlist crusaders. One of Paul the Ivth's bulls does not allow a reprieve from the sentence to one who, on the first conviction, recants his opinion, if the heresy be in any of the five articles mentioned in that bull. But what is, if possible, still more intolerable, is that, by a bull of Pius the vth, no sentence in favour of the accused shall be held a final acquittal, though pronounced after canonical purgation; but the holy office shall have it in their power, though no new evidence or presumption has appeared, to recommence the trial, on the very same grounds they had examined formerly. This ordinance ensures to the wretch, who has been once accused, a course of terrour and torment for life, from which no discovery of innocence, though clear as day, no judgment of the court can release him. Another bull of the same pontiff ordains, that whoever shall behave injuriously, or so much as threaten a notary, or other servant of the inquisition, or a witness examined in the court, shall, beside excommunication, be held guilty of high treason, be punished capitally, his goods confiscated, his children rendered infamous, and incapable of succeeding to any body by testament. Every one is subjected to the same punishment, who makes an escape out of the prison of the office, or who attempts, though unsuccessfully, to make it; and whoever favours or intercedes for any such. In these clauses, persons of the highest rank, even princes, are comprehended.

Every one must be sensible, that there is something in the constitution of this tribunal so monstrously unjust, so exorbitantly cruel, that it is matter of astonishment, that in any country, the people, as well as the secular powers, would not rather have encountered any danger, than have submitted to receive it. Nor can there be a stronger evidence of the brutish ignorance, as well as gross depravity of any nation, than that such a judicatory has an establishment among them. The exorbitance of their power, as well as the pernicious tendency of their rules, are, in effect, acknowledged by their su periours at Rome. In a directory printed there, by authority, in 1584, it is said expressly, that if the inquisitors were resolved to exercise their power in its utmost extent, they could,

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with facility, drive the whole people into rebellion. Now if the power be so excessive and so hazardous, what shall we say, to this additional circumstance that attends it, that it is, in several instances, so ill defined, as to furnish a pretext to him who is possessed of it, whenever his ambition or inclination leads him, of stretching it to any extent. This, indeed, may be said to be consequent on all exorbitant power. Though all the power of a state or nation be not formally given to one particular branch or member, if so much is given to it, that what remains is too weak to serve as a control upon it, the whole is virtually given to it. And if, in Spain and Portugal, the ecclesiastical power has not swallowed up the secular, and thereby engrossed the whole authority, they are more indebted to the light which has been diffused through the rest of Europe, in these latter centuries, and the jealousy of the other European states, than to any remains of either sense or virtue in those nations themselves. It must be attended to, that the ecclesiastick power, in every country, which acknowledges the pope, is but a branch of a foreign jurisdiction, namely, that of Rome. Now it is the interest of the secular powers, in every kingdom and state, to take care that the foreign power, the papal, (absurdly called the spiritual) do not quite overwhelm the temporal, either among themselves, or in any other kingdom or state. For if it should in any country, there would be ground to dread, that with such acquisitions it might gradually prove an overmatch for the civil powers in every other. Now this is a danger to which popish countries are much more exposed than protestant. In the former, Rome is already possessed of a considerable share of jurisdiction, and has great influence on the minds of the people; whereas, in the latter, she has neither jurisdiction nor influence; and, consequently, could have no hold for effecting a revolution in her favour. With these she could do nothing but by invasion and conquest, for which, with all her advantages, she is very ill furnished. That Spain and Portugal, therefore, as civil powers, are of any weight in the balance of Europe, they owe more to the discernment, the vigilance, and the virtue of others, than to their

own.

From what has been said, we may remark by the way, the injustice there is in so connecting, or associating the Romish religion with the inquisition, as to conclude, that to be a Romanist, and to be a friend to that tribunal, denote one and the same thing. The case is so far otherwise, that we are, on the best grounds, warranted to affirm, that nine-tenths of that communion detest the inquisition as much as we do. And of this the most irrefragable evidences have been given in France, in

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Germany, and even in Italy itself. How they should have the inconsistency, notwithstanding this, to acknowledge a power as from God, which has found it necessary to recur to expedients so manifestly from hell, so subversive of every principle of sound morality and religion, can be regarded only as one of those contradictions, for which human characters, both in individuals and in nations, are often so remarkable. That the policy of Rome bears the marks not of the wisdom which is from above, which is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be entreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy ; but of that which flows from a very different source, and is earthly, sensual, devilish, is so manifest, that the person who needs to be convinced of it, seems to be beyond the power of argument and

reason.

Upon the whole, how amazingly different, nay, how perfectly opposite in disposition, in maxims, and in effects, are the spirit of primitive christianity, and the spirit of modern Rome? Let any considerate and ingenuous mind impartially examine and say, Are heaven and hell, Christ and Belial, more adverse than the pictures I have, in this discourse, and the preceding, exhibited to your view? Let it be observed also, that these are not caricatures drawn by enemies, but the genuine features, as exhibited in the works of their own authors.

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I HAVE now given you some account of the rise and progress of the spirit of persecution in the church, and have particularly traced the origin, and unfolded the constitution of that dreadful tribunal, the inquisition. You must have perceived, that in every thing which relates to the procedure of that court, there is an unrelenting barbarity, which bids defiance to all the principles of justice; and as, in all respects, it is without example in past ages, so I hope it will remain without a parallel in future. The favourers of ecclesiastick tyranny, sensible of the horrid appearance which the rapacity, as well as the ferocity of this tribunal exhibits, and the very unfavourable conclusion it suggests to the discerning, have put their ingenuity to the rack to devise reasons, or what may pass with their votaries for reasons, in support of it.

According to Fra Paolo, in his account of the inquisition of Venice, amongst other peculiarities of the holy office in that state, which were, I may say, extorted by the secular from the ecclesiastick power, one is, that they do not admit the confiscation of the property of the accused, whether he be present and convicted, or declared contumacious, and condemned in absence; but appoint that his estate, both real and personal, shall go to his lawful heirs, as though he had died a natural death, He says, very justly, in vindication of this article, that it is always pernicious, to mingle pecuniary matters with what concerns religion, which ought to proceed solely from a view to the glory of God. For when men see, that the zeal of the judges, in consigning hereticks to the flames, is the sure means of procuring great acquisitions of worldly pelf, it will be impossible to prevent their being scandalized, or to persuade them, however true, that the service of God was the sole, or

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