A detailed summary of the number of the victims of the Inquisition in Spain, under each Inquisitor-General, is given in “The History of the Inquisition in Spain,” by Llorente, formerly secretary of the Inquisition, pages 206-208. According to this authority the number who were condemned and perished in the flames is 31,912.
“The church has persecuted. Only a tyro in church history will deny that.... One hundred and fifty years after Constantine the Donatists were persecuted, and sometimes put to death.... Protestants were persecuted in France and Spain with the full approval of the church authorities. We have always defended the persecution of the Huguenots, and the Spanish Inquisition. Wherever and whenever there is honest Catholicity, there will be a clear distinction drawn between truth and error, and Catholicity and all forms of error. When she thinks it good to use physical force, she will use it.”—The Western Watchman (Roman Catholic), of St. Louis, Dec. 24, 1908.
5. What else does the prophecy say the little horn would do?
“And he shall think to change the times and the law.” Dan. 7:25, third clause, R. V.
Notes.—“The little horn, further, shall think to change times. The description applies, in all its force, to the systematic perversion of God's words by which all promises of millennial glory are wrested from their true sense, and referred to the dominion and grandeur of the Church of Rome. The orator of the Pope, for instance, in the Lateran Council, declares that in the submission of all nations to Leo the prophecy was fulfilled: ‘All kings shall fall down and worship Him; all nations shall serve and obey Him.’ The same antichristian feature appears in those advocates of the Papacy who would clear it from the guilt of actual idolatry, because ‘it is part of that church from which the idols are utterly abolished.’ Thus are the times changed; but only in the vain ‘thoughts’ of dreamers who see false visions and divine lying divinations; because the visible glory of Christ's kingdom remains still to be revealed.”—“The First Two Visions of Daniel,” Rev. T. R. Birks, M. A., London, 1845, pages 257, 258.
Although the ten commandments, the law of God, are found in the Roman Catholic versions of the Scriptures, as they were originally given, yet the faithful are instructed from the catechisms of the church, and not directly from the Bible. As it appears in these, the law of God has been changed and virtually reenacted by the Papacy. Furthermore, communicants not only receive the law from the church, but they deal with the church concerning any alleged infractions of that law, and when they have satisfied the ecclesiastical authorities, the whole matter is settled.
The second commandment, which forbids the making of, and bowing down to, images, is omitted in Catholic catechisms, and the tenth, which forbids coveting, is divided into two.
As evidence of the change which has been made in the law of God by the papal power, and that it acknowledges the change and claims the authority to make it, note the following from Roman Catholic publications:—
“Question.—Have you any other way of proving that the church has power to institute festivals of precept?
“Answer.—Had she not such power, she could not have done that in which all modern religionists agree with her,—she could not have substituted the observance of Sunday, the first day of the week, for the observance of Saturday, the seventh day, a change for which there is no Scriptural authority.”—“A Doctrinal Catechism,” Rev. Stephen Keenan, page 174. Imprimatur, John Cardinal McCloskey, archbishop of New York.