[Illustration: TORTURES OF THE PULLEY AND THE FIRE.]
[Illustration: TORTURES OF THE HORSE AND SUFFOCATION.]
THE
Inquisition Revealed;
IN
ITS ORIGIN,
POLICY, CRUELTIES, AND HISTORY,
WITH
Memoirs of its Victims
IN FRANCE, SPAIN, PORTUGAL, ITALY, ENGLAND,
INDIA, AND OTHER COUNTRIES.
DEDICATED TO CARDINAL WISEMAN.
BY
REV. THOMAS TIMPSON,
AUTHOR OF THE “COMPANION TO THE BIBLE,” &c. &c.
“Drunken with the blood of the Saints, and with the blood of the
Martyrs of Jesus.”--REV. xvii. 6.
“THEY SHED INNOCENT BLOOD. This single circumstance shall, God willing,
ever separate me from the Papacy. For this crime of cruelty I would fly
from her communion as from a den of thieves and murderers!”--LUTHER.
LONDON:
AYLOTT AND JONES, PATERNOSTER ROW.
MDCCCLI.
LONDON
J. UNWIN, GRESHAM STEAM PRESS.
BUCKLERSBURY.
DEDICATION.
TO
HIS EMINENCE, CARDINAL WISEMAN.
MY LORD CARDINAL,
Roman Catholics and Protestants are alike interested in this volume:
designed, as it is, to advance pure Christianity. They have an equal
right to profess their own peculiar faith, and to propagate their
religious opinions. But, in the free exercise of that right, they are
equally bound, by every principle of justice and charity, to cherish
towards each other mutual esteem and benevolence.
Romanists, however, do not admit the Holy Scriptures as the sole
authority in religion; and their principles will not allow them,
therefore, to grant toleration to those who dissent from them. Their
intolerance arises from the policy of the Hierarchy and the reception of
unscriptural traditions. Hence their illiberality in Italy, Sardinia,
Spain, Portugal, the Brazils, and other countries, where the priesthood
is dominant. Hence the inveterate hostility of the Romish priests
against the popular reading of the Bible. Their people are kept thus in
ignorance, deluded by false doctrines; and theirs being not exclusively
the principles of the Holy Scriptures, cannot be the religion of our
Lord Jesus Christ.
My Lord Cardinal--Every Briton should understand the character and
claims of the Papacy. For, as predicted in “the oracles of God,”
Protestants hold that Popery is the “man of sin,”--the “mystery of
iniquity,”--the “MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND ABOMINATIONS OF THE
EARTH,”--“drunken with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of
the martyrs of Jesus.”--2 Thess. ii. 3--7; Rev. xvii. 5, 6.
Every British Christian is deeply interested in
studying the doctrines of Popery; its _Priestly
power_--_Absolution_--_Transubstantiation_--_Tradition_--and
_Purgatory_; and in considering its evil doings in _Auricular
confession_--_Penance_--_Mariolatry_--_Priestly celibacy_--_Spiritual
domination_--and the INQUISITION. The history of these is the
condemnation of Popery.
This volume contains the substance of the valuable works of Limborch,
Llorente, Dellon, Gavin, Buchanan, Bower, Newton, Gibbon, Watson, Ranke,
Sismondi, Jones, Puigblanch, Edgar, Elliott, Mendham, Giesler, Dowling,
D’Aubigné, De Castro, Achilli, and many others, regarding the
Inquisition.
This volume is designed as an Antidote to Popery; especially _as a
present to young persons_; and it is believed, by judicious friends, to
be most seasonable, to instruct inquirers, and to advance the truth of
the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
Having these objects in view, this work is dedicated, with due respect,
to
YOUR EMINENCE,
BY THE AUTHOR.
CONTENTS.
Chapter Page
1. Popery as predicted in Scripture 9
2. Progress of Antichrist 20
3. Origin of the Romish Inquisition 41
4. The Inquisition in several Countries 57
5. The Wycliffites and Hussites 66
6. The Inquisition in Spain 77
7. The Inquisition in Portugal and the Netherlands 91
8. The Inquisition in France 100
9. The Inquisition in England 118
10. Crimes alleged by the Inquisition 142
11. Ministers of the Inquisition 148
12. Trial in the Inquisition 156
13. Tortures in the Inquisition 162
14. Victims of the Inquisition 168
15. Acts of Faith of the Inquisition 183
16. Modern Victims of the Inquisition 201
17. British Victims of the Inquisition 224
18. The Inquisition in Goa 254
19. Licentiousness of the Inquisitors 273
20. Abolition of the Inquisition in Spain 294
21. The Inquisition at Rome and Dr. Achilli 319
22. Female Inquisitions in Rome 345
23. “The Kiss of the Virgin Mary” 373
ENGRAVINGS.
1. Tortures of the Pulley and Fire 2
2. Tortures of the Horse and Suffocation 2
3. Front view of the Iron Virgin 372
4. Profile view of the Iron Virgin 372
5. Machine of the Iron Virgin opened 372
THE INQUISITION REVEALED.
CHAPTER I.
POPERY AS PREDICTED IN SCRIPTURE.
The Court of Inquisition cruel and execrable--Christianity
benevolent--The Inquisition predicted, 2 Thess. ii. 3, 4; 1 Tim.
iv. 1-3; Rev. xvii. 1-18--Comments by Elliott, Bp. Newton, and
Scott.
Religion, as taught by the Romish priesthood, has been enforced and
guarded by pains and penalties during many ages. For the last _six_
centuries, this has been done chiefly by a court, denominated, in all
countries where it has been established, “THE HOLY INQUISITION.” But
this court has been execrated, in every country in which it has existed,
as the most dreadful, cruel, and sanguinary of all tribunals, even by
professors of the faith of Rome. Still it is supported by the papal
hierarchy, as the agents of the Pope may be able to obtain permission of
the governments who observe the Romish religion.
Christianity has thus been dishonoured in the assumption of its sacred
name by Roman Catholics, while they have practised these cruelties, so
contrary to the letter and to the spirit of the religion of Jesus
Christ; for all His principles and precepts manifest Divine benevolence,
as chanted at the birth of the Redeemer, by a multitude of the heavenly
host, praising God, and saying, “Glory to God in the highest, and on
earth peace, good-will towards men.”
Christianity is the religion of love, and like its ever blessed Author,
the Son of God. “God is love; and he that dwelleth in love, dwelleth in
God, and God in him.” It enjoins upon all its professors the practice of
benevolence. It requires them to possess and exemplify that spirit. Its
moral code is comprehended in that summary of the Divine law, as given
by our Saviour, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart,
and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. And thou shalt love thy
neighbour as thyself.” Its chief practical maxim is, “Whatsoever ye
would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them: for this is the
law and the prophets.” These precepts were followed by the early
believers of the Gospel, constraining the heathen to admire their
benevolence, exclaiming, “See how these Christians love one another!”
False teachers, however, having corrupted the doctrines and ordinances
of Christ, were influenced by another spirit; and, in the course of a
few ages, the professed ministers of the loving Redeemer exhibited
intolerance, malevolence, and cruelty, exceeding what had ever been
witnessed under any form of religion. These enormities have been seen
chiefly in the operations of the Roman Catholics, and especially by
their execrable “Court of INQUISITION,” as this has been established in
Spain, France, Portugal, India, and Rome. This court, though denominated
“Holy,” has been the most arbitrary, inhuman, and sanguinary that ever
existed among men; and because of its enormities, by its various
machinery, and by its savage armies, it is symbolised in the Holy
Scriptures under the emblem of a harlot, deluding the nations with her
intoxicating draughts, and herself “drunken with the blood of the
saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus.”--(Rev. xvii. 6.)
Before we enter upon the direct history of the Inquisition, therefore,
it will be necessary to notice the inspired prophecies relating to this
apostate and cruel hierarchy of popery; and to take a brief review of
the rise and progress of that terrible and hated system of Antichrist.
“Known unto God are all his works from the beginning of the world.” And
equally foreseen were all the forms of falsehood, cruelty, and evil upon
the earth. Hence the inspired predictions concerning the hateful enemy
of Christ.
Our blessed Lord repeatedly admonished his disciples concerning false
teachers, who would be distinguished by their inhumanity; and the
apostle Paul, in correcting the mistakes of some, regarding the day of
judgment as being near, says, “Let no man deceive you by any means: for
that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and
that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition; who opposeth and
exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so
that he, as God, sitteth in the temple of God, showing himself that he
is God.”--(2 Thess. ii. 3, 4.) Again, he represents the character of
Romish teachers, and says, “Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in
the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to
seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils; speaking lies in hypocrisy;
having their conscience seared with a hot iron; forbidding to marry, and
commanding to abstain from meats, which God hath created to be received
with thanksgiving of them who believe and know the truth.”--(1 Tim. iv.
1--3.)
Still more remarkable is the prediction described by the apostle John:
“And there came one of the seven angels which had the seven vials, and
talked with me, saying unto me, Come hither; I will show unto thee the
judgment of the great whore that sitteth upon many waters: with whom the
kings of the earth have committed fornication, and the inhabitants of
the earth have been made drunk with the wine of her fornication. So he
carried me away in the spirit into the wilderness: and I saw a woman sit
upon a scarlet-coloured beast, full of names of blasphemy, having seven
heads and ten horns. And the woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet
colour, and decked with gold and precious stones and pearls, having a
golden cup in her hand full of abominations and filthiness of her
fornication: and upon her forehead was a name written, MYSTERY, BABYLON
THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH. And I
saw the woman drunken with the blood of the saints, and with the blood
of the martyrs of Jesus; and when I saw her, I wondered with great
admiration. And the angel said unto me, Wherefore dost thou marvel? I
will tell thee the mystery of the woman, and of the beast that carrieth
her, which hath the seven heads and ten horns. The beast that thou
sawest was, and is not; and shall ascend out of the bottomless pit, and
go into perdition. The seven heads are seven mountains, on which the
woman sitteth. And there are seven kings. And the ten horns which thou
sawest are ten kings, who have received no kingdom as yet; but receive
power as kings one hour with the beast. These shall make war with the
Lamb, and the Lamb shall overcome them: for he is Lord of lords, and
King of kings: and they that are with him are called, and chosen, and
faithful. And he saith unto me, The waters which thou sawest, where the
whore sitteth, are peoples, and multitudes, and nations, and tongues.
And the woman whom thou sawest is that great city, which reigneth over
the kings of the earth.”--(Rev. xvii. 1--18.)
All these several predictions have been fulfilled with the most striking
completeness; and we may have to refer to them in the course of this
work; but the descriptions in those from the Revelation require our very
special notice, as they lead us more particularly to the Romish
hierarchy, and to the terrible court of inquisition. The Rev. Mr.
Elliott, in his “Commentary” on this chapter, says:--
“This vision represented pictorially a gaudily dressed drunken harlot,
seated on a beast of monstrous form, with _seven_ heads, and on the
seventh _ten horns_. The beast, in respect of its body, depicted the
papal empire of the ten western European kingdoms; and in respect of the
seventh, or rather, eighth head, the succession of Roman popes,
constituting, from after the sixth century, that empire’s spiritual
rulers. So the _woman_ represented _Rome_ in its character of the papal
see, and mother-church of Western Christendom; including, doubtless, as
part and parcel of herself, the ecclesiastical state, or Peter’s
patrimony, in Italy, and vast dominions, convents, churches, and other
property appertaining to the papal church elsewhere, both in Europe and
over the world.
“1. As the beast’s body both upheld and was subject to the woman, the
rider, so the empire, as a whole, with the power of its secular kingdoms
and many peoples, upheld, and was also at the same time ruled by papal
Rome, the mother-church of Christendom.
“2. As the woman was here depicted before St. John under a double
character, viz., as a harlot to the ten kings, and a vintner or
tavern-hostess vending wines to the common people, just according to the
custom of earlier times, in which the harlot and the hostess of a tavern
were characters frequently united; so the church of Rome answered to the
symbol in either point of view; interchanging mutual favours, such as
might suit their respective characters, with the kings of
Anti-Christendom; and to the common people dealing out for sale the wine
of the poison of her fornication, her indulgences, relics,
transubstantiation-cup, as if the cup of salvation, &c. (see the Pope’s
own medal, holding out the cup of her apostacy, struck at Rome on
occasion of the Jubilee in 1825), therewith drugging and making them
besotted and drunk.
“3. With regard to the portraiture of the woman, robed in purple and
scarlet, and adorned with gold, and precious stones and pearls, it is,
as applied to the Romish church, a picture, characteristic and from
life; the dress specified being distinctively that of the Romish
ecclesiastical dignitaries, and the ornaments those with which it has
been bedecked beyond any church called Christian; nay, beyond any
religion, probably, that has ever existed in the world; not to add that
even the very name on the harlot’s forehead, _Mystery_, (a name
allusive, evidently, to St. Paul’s predicted _mystery of iniquity_,) was
one, if we may repose credit on no vulgar authority, once written on the
Pope’s tiara; and the apocalyptic title, ‘Mother of harlots and of the
abominations of the earth,’ the very parody, if I may so say, of the
title Rome arrogates to herself, ‘Rome, mother and mistress.’
“4. As to the harlot’s being depicted ‘drunken with the blood of the
saints,’ its applicability to the Romish church, throughout the latter
half, at least, portion of the beast’s 1260 predicted years of
prospering, is written in deep-dyed characters on the page of history.”
Nothing can be more evident than that “Babylon the Great” designs the
mystical city of the papal commonwealth, a regnant system of spiritual
wickedness--an idolatrous church. This was the judgment of all the chief
reformers in Germany, Switzerland, France, England, and Scotland. Some
even of the Roman Catholics had the same conviction; and Petrarch, the
celebrated Italian poet, calls the papal court “The Babylonian harlot,
mother of all idolatries.”
Bishop Newton, having reviewed the prophecy, says, “Moreover, the woman,
like other harlots who give philters and love-potions to inflame their
lovers, hath ‘a golden cup in her hand, full of abominations, and
filthiness of her fornication,’ to signify the specious and alluring
arts wherewith she bewitcheth and inciteth men to idolatry, which is
‘abomination and spiritual fornication.’ It is an image copied from
Jeremiah li. 7, ‘Babylon hath been a golden cup in the LORD’S hand, that
made all the earth drunken.’ And is not this a much more proper emblem
of _pontifical_ than of _imperial_ Rome?
“Yet farther to distinguish the woman, she has her _name_ inscribed
_upon her forehead_ (verse 5), in allusion to the practice of some
notorious prostitutes, who had their names written in a label upon their
foreheads. The inscription is so very particular, that we cannot easily
mistake the person; ‘_Mystery, Babylon the great, the mother of
harlots_, or rather, of fornications and abominations of the earth.’ Her
name, _Mystery_, can imply no less than that she dealeth in
_mysteries_; her religion is a mystery, a mystery of iniquity; and she
herself is mystically and spiritually ‘Babylon the great.’ But the title
of mystery is in no respect proper to ancient Rome, more than any other
city; and neither is there any _mystery_ in substituting one heathen,
idolatrous, and persecuting city for another; but it is indeed a
mystery, that a Christian city, professing and boasting herself to be
the city of God, should prove another Babylon in idolatry and cruelty to
the people of God. She glories in the name of _Roman Catholic_, and
well, therefore, may she be called ‘Babylon the great.’
“Infamous as the woman is for her idolatry, she is no less detestable
for her cruelty, which are the two principal characteristics of the
antichristian empire. ‘She is drunken with the blood of the saints, and
with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus,’ (ver. 6) which may indeed be
applied both to pagan and to Christian Rome, for both have in their
turns cruelly persecuted ‘the saints and the martyrs of Jesus;’ but the
latter is more deserving of the character, as she hath far exceeded the
former, both in the degree and duration of her persecutions. It is very
true, that if Rome pagan hath slain her thousands of innocent
Christians, Rome Christian hath slain her ten thousands; for, not to
mention other outrageous slaughters and barbarities, the crusades
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.
St. John’s _admiration_ also plainly evinces that Christian Rome was
intended, for it could be no matter of surprise to him that a heathen
city should persecute the Christians; but that a city professedly
Christian should wanton and riot in the blood of Christians, was a
subject of astonishment indeed; and well might he, as it is emphatically
expressed, ‘wonder with great wonder.’”
Mr. Scott, in his commentary on 2 Thessalonians ii. 3, 4, remarks, “No
apostacy of equal magnitude and duration, no delusions equally
pernicious and abominable, have taken place since the apostle’s days, as
those of Rome. The imposture of Mohammed alone can be compared with it,
and this could not be intended; for that impostor and his successors
were not placed in the temple of God, the visible church (Rev. xi. 1,
2), but _without_ it, and in direct opposition to the very name of
Christianity; they propagated their delusions mainly by the sword, and
not lying miracles; and, indeed, the impieties of Mohammed never
equalled the blasphemies here predicted. This ‘man of sin’ would be the
‘son of perdition’ (John xvii. 12); a genuine descendant of Judas, the
apostle and traitor, who sold his Lord for money, and destroyed him with
a kiss; a peculiar factor and agent of Satan, in destroying the souls of
men, and finally sinking into perdition as his inheritance. It is
manifest, that no succession of men have yet appeared on earth to whom
this description fully accords, except that of the Roman pontiffs. This
deceiver would oppose and exalt himself above all that is called God, or
is ‘worshipped,’ either by Christians or pagans; thus the Roman pontiffs
have opposed the truths, commandments, and disciples of Christ, in every
age; the prophetical office of Christ, by teaching human inventions--his
priestly office, by the doctrine of human merits and created
intercessors--and his kingly office, by changing and dispensing with his
laws. They have exalted themselves ‘above all that is called God,’ and
is ‘worshipped,’ by claiming authority to forgive sins; by granting
indulgences to men to break the commandments of God; by dispensing with
his laws, and presuming to give meaning and authority to the Scriptures
themselves. Moreover, this ‘man of sin’ ‘sits as God’ in the temple of
God; and we must, therefore, look for him within the visible church;
there he blasphemously usurps the throne of God, ‘showing himself to be
God.’ Many Roman emperors affected divine honours, and demanded
adoration; but there was no antecedent apostacy from Christianity or the
worship of JEHOVAH; and they might rather be said to sit in the temple
of Jupiter or Mars, than in that of God, whose temple must be considered
to be among his professed worshippers, and not among avowed heathen. But
the Roman pontiff--claiming to be the universal head of the whole church
of God, called by his flatterers ‘Vice-God,’ a ‘God upon earth,’
arrogating the title of ‘His Holiness,’ boasting of ‘infallibility,’
claiming a right to depose kings and bestow kingdoms on whom he
pleases--answers exactly to the description here given. While the Roman
pontiff opposes the worship of God, by enjoining the worship of images,
of saints, and angels, and the authority of his laws, to enforce
subjection to his own edicts, he himself may be called the great idol,
as well as the great tyrant, of the Romish church!”
Human sagacity could by no means have conjectured such a character
rising up among the people of God, and such deeds perpetrated in the
name and form of religion. This required the prescience of the Infinite
Mind. But we shall see them all in their dreadful enormity, as we pursue
the history of the Romish Inquisition.