If the person accused be found guilty of heresy by the evidence of the fact, or legal witnesses, and yet doth not confess, but persists in the negative; after having been kept in jail for a year, he must be delivered over to the secular arm. So that if it should happen that he is accused by false witnesses, and is really innocent, the miserable wretch, though falsely condemned, is delivered to the power of the secular court, to be burnt alive; nor is it lawful for him, without the commission of mortal sin, as the Roman doctors think, to save his life, by falsely confessing a crime he hath not committed; and therefore it is the duty of the divines and confessors, who comfort such a negative, and attend on him to his punishment, to persuade him to discover the truth; but to caution him by all means not to acknowledge a crime he hath not committed, to avoid temporal death; and to put him in remembrance, that if he patiently endures this injury and punishment, he will be crowned as a martyr.
It is however evident, if the practice of the Portugal inquisition be considered, that the inquisitors are not so very solicitous about the eternal salvation of those they condemn, as they are to consult their own honour by the criminals confessions even of false crimes. Of this we have a remarkable instance, of a noble Portugueze, descended from the race of the new Christians, who was accused of Judaism. But as he did most firmly deny the crime objected to him, nothing was omitted that might persuade him to a confession of it; for he was not only promised his life, but the restitution of all his effects, if he would confess, and threatened with a cruel death if he persisted in the negative. But when all this was to no purpose, the inquisitor general, who had some respect for him, endeavoured to overcome his constancy by wheedling, and other arguments; but when he constantly refused to confess himself guilty of a crime he had not committed, the inquisitor general being at last provoked by his firmness, said, “What then do you mean? Do you think that we will suffer ourselves to be charged with a lie?”[lie?”] And having said this, he went off. When the act of faith drew near, the sentence of death was pronounced against him, and a confessor allowed him to prepare him for death. But at last he sunk under the fear of his approaching dreadful punishment, and by confessing on the very day of the act of faith the crime falsely fastened on him, he escaped death; but all his estate was confiscated, and he himself condemned for five years to the gallies.
If the person accused is a fugitive, after waiting for his appearance a competent time, he is cited to appear on such a day in the cathedral of such a diocese, and the citation fixed on the gates of the church. If he doth not appear, he is complained of for contumacy, and accused in form. When this is done, and the crime appears, sentence is pronounced against the criminal; and if the information against him be for heresy, he is declared an obstinate heretic, and left as such to the secular arm. This sentence is pronounced before all the people, and the statue or image of the absent person publicly produced, and carried in procession; on which is a superscription, containing his name and surname; which statue is delivered to the secular power, and by him burnt. Thus Luther’s statue was burnt, together with his books, at the command of Pope Leo X. by the Bishop of Ascoli.
The inquisitors also proceed against the dead. If there be full proof against him of having been an heretic, his memory is declared infamous, and his heirs, and other possessors, deprived of his effects; and finally, his bones dug out of their grave, and publicly burnt. Thus Wickliff’s body and bones were ordered to be dug up and burnt, by the council of Constance: Bucer and Fagius, by Cardinal Pool, at Cambridge; and the wife of Peter Martyr, by Brookes, Bishop of Gloucester, at Oxford; whose body they buried in a dunghill. And thus Mark Antony de Dominis, Archbishop of Spalato, was condemned after his death for heresy; and the inquisitors agreed that the same punishments should be executed upon his dead body, as would have been on himself had he been alive.
Having taken this resolution, the twenty-first day of December, anno 1624, was appointed for the pronouncing sentence. Early in the morning of it, so vast a multitude had got together to St. Mary supra Minervam, where they generally give these religious shews, that they were forced not only to shut up, but to guard the gates with armed men; and the great area before the church was so prodigiously thronged, that there was scarce room for the cardinals themselves to pass. The middle aisle of the church, from the first to the fourth pillar, was boarded in, with boards above the height of a tall man. At the upper and lower end of it there were gates, guarded by Switzers. On each side there were scaffolds, running the whole length of the inclosure; in which were seats for the cardinals and other prelates, and other conveniences, to receive the courtiers and other noblemen standing or sitting. On the right hand, coming in, the sacred council presided; on the left hand were placed the inferior officers of the holy inquisition, the governor of the city, and his officials. Before the pulpit was to be seen the picture of Mark Anthony, drawn in colours, covered with a black common garment, holding a clergyman’s cap in his hand, with his name, sirname, and archiepiscopal dignity, which formerly he had borne, inscribed upon it, together with a wooden chest bedaubed with pitch, in which the dead body was inclosed. The rest of the church was filled with citizens, and a great many foreigners; the number of whom was at that time larger, because the jubilee that was at hand had brought them from all parts to the city, that they might be present at the opening of the sacred gates.
Things being thus disposed, a certain parson mounted the pulpit, and with a shrill voice, which rung through all the parts of the spacious church, and in the vulgar language, that the common people might understand him, read over a summary of the process, and the sentence by which the cardinals inquisitors general, specially deputed for the affair by the pope, pronounced[pronounced] Mark Anthony, as a relapse into heresy, to have incurred all the censures and penalties appointed to relapsed heretics by the sacred canons, and papal constitutions; and declared him to be deprived of all honours, prerogatives, and ecclesiastical dignities, condemned his memory, and cast him out of the ecclesiastical court, delivered over his dead body and effigies into the power of the governor of the city, that he might inflict on it the punishment due, according to the rule and practice of the church. And finally, they commanded his impious and heretical writings to be publicly burnt, and declared all his effects to be forfeited to the exchequer of the holy inquisition. After this sentence was read, the governor of the city and his officers threw the corpse, effigies, and aforesaid writings into a cart, and carried them into the Campo Fiore, a great multitude of people following after. When they came there, the dead body, which as yet in all its members was whole and entire, was raised out of the chest as far as the bottom of the breast, and shewn from on high to the vast concourse of people that stood round about; and was afterwards, with the effigies and bundle of his books, thrown into the pile prepared for the purpose, and there burnt.
And finally, in order to beget in the common people a greater abhorrence of the crime of heresy, they usually pull down and level with the ground the houses or dwellings in which heretics hold their conventicles, the ground on which they stood being sprinkled over with salt, and certain curses and imprecations uttered over it. And that there may be a perpetual monument of its infamy, a pillar or stone, four or five feet high, is erected in the said ground, with large characters on it, containing the name and owner of the house, shewing the reason of its demolition, and the reign of what pope, emperor or king, the matter was transacted.
The whole of this horrid affair is concluded by what they call “An Act of Faith;” which is performed after this manner. When the inquisitor is determined to pronounce the sentences of certain criminals, he fixes on some Lord’s-day or festival to perform this solemnity. But they take care that it be not Advent Sunday, or in Lent, or a very solemn day, such as the Nativity of our Lord, Easter, and the like; because it is not decent that the sermons on those days should be suspended, but that every one should go to his own parish church. A certain Sunday or festival therefore being appointed, the parsons of all the churches of that city or place, in which this solemnity is to be performed, do, by command of the bishop and inquisitor, when they have done preaching, publicly intimate to the clergy and people, that the inquisitor will, in such a church, hold a general sermon concerning the faith; and they promise, in the name of the pope, the usual indulgence of forty days, to all who will come and see, and hear the things which are there to be transacted. They take care to give the same notice in the houses of those religious, who commonly preach the word of God; and that their superiors should be told, that because the inquisitor will in such a church make a general sermon concerning the faith, therefore he suspends all other sermons, that every superior may send four or two friars, as he thinks fit, to be present at the sermon, and the pronouncing the sentences. This solemnity was formerly called “A general Sermon concerning the Faith;” but it is now called, “An Act of Faith.” And in this, great numbers of persons, sometimes one or two hundred, are brought forth in public procession to various kinds of penances and punishments, all wearing the most horrible habits[habits]. They choose festivals for this solemnity, because then there is a greater confluence of people gathered together to see the torments and punishments of the criminals, that from hence they may learn to fear, and be kept from the commission of evil. And indeed, as this act of faith is now celebrated in Spain and Portugal, the solemnity is truly an horrible and tremendous spectacle, in which every thing is designedly made use of that may strike terror; for this reason, as they say, that they may hereby give some representation and image of the future judgment.
If any one, whether an impenitent or relapsed heretic is to be delivered to the secular court, the bishop and inquisitor give notice to the principal magistrate of the secular court, that he must come such a day and hour with his attendants to such a street or place, to receive a certain heretic or relapsed person out of their court, whom they will deliver to him: and that he must give public notice the same day, or the day before in the morning, by the crier, throughout the city, in all the usual places and streets, that on such a day and hour, and in such a place, the inquisitor will make a sermon for the faith; and that the bishop and inquisitor will condemn a certain heretic or relapse, by delivering him to the secular court.
In most of the tribunals of the inquisition, especially in Spain, it is a remarkable custom they use, viz. on the day before the acts of faith, solemnly to carry a bush to the place of the fire, with the flames of which they are consumed, who deserve the punishment of being burnt. This is not without its mysteries; for the burning, and not consuming bush, signifies the indefectible splendour of the church, which burns, and is not consumed; and besides this, it signifies mercy towards the penitent, and severity towards the froward and obstinate. And farther, it represents how the inquisitors defend the vineyard of the church, wounding with the thorns of the bush, and burning up with flames all who endeavour to bring heresies into the harvest of the Lord’s field. And finally, it points out the obstinacy and frowardness of heretics, which must rather be broken and bent, like a rugged and stubborn bush; and that as the thorns and prickles of the bush tear the garments of those who pass by, so also do the heretics rend the seamless coat of Christ.