Was merciful."
Nay, the Inquisitors themselves though they impiously assume the title of "holy," have almost uniformly been the most worthless and abandoned of characters. Crimes of the blackest hue have been perpetrated by these guardians of the faith, without a blush; and as they feared not God, so neither did they regard man—the laws of magistrates and kings being trampled on by them with impunity. These are indeed weighty charges, but the following testimonies by Roman Catholics themselves, given at different periods, will prove them to be no less weighty than just.
"With regard to the Inquisition," says M. P. de Almazan, when speaking of the Inquisitors of Cordova, at the end of the fifteenth century, "the measure adopted, was to place so much confidence in the archbishop of Seville, that they filled all these kingdoms with infamy, and in violation of the laws of God, as well as in contradiction to all justice, they destroyed the greatest part of them, by killing, robbing, and forcing maidens and married women, to the great shame and discredit of the Christian religion."
"Of other excesses on the part of particular judges," says Antonio Perez, a century afterwards, "of proceedings falsified, curtailed, handled in such a manner as to gain favour with the superiors, and besides stimulated by personal inventives so loose, disorderly, and notorious, that nothing else is to be seen in the proceedings agitated in the supreme court of Inquisition, and fraught with the piteous complaints of sufferers, injured maidens, and newly married women, overcome and possessed through the stratagems practised in these trials, so revolting and disgraceful, that no one would fail to prefer public shame to such secret dishonour."
"O! Inquisitors," exclaims an ancient Spanish historian, "oh! Inquisitors, savage beasts, how long will God endure your tyrannic and cruel acts! Oh! Spaniards, who are so fondly attached to your wives and children, and watch over them with such jealous care, how long will you endure that these old libertines should treat them in a manner so shameful, and thus gratify their beastly propensities?"
"In the very title they assume," says Salgado, which "is the holy office of Inquisition," the first part is, it is holy, it is then divine and their work must be divine also. Were this tribunal divine, it would omit nothing of what it could do to inform men in the way of salvation, and to open to them the secret mysteries of God's grace and mercy; but all their business really is to discover men's secrets, for ruining their estates, and disseizing the owners, that (Ahab-like) they may seize all. Further, were this tribunal holy, it would approve, choose, and promote holiness, as God doth; he communicateth holiness to the righteous, he approves it in them, and exerciseth them thereunto. Now where is aught of this to be found, either in the cruel disposition, or injurious proceedings of this court, and its officers? Where you find the greatest inhumanity, and most of the devil's malice, there is nothing divine, or of God; their holiness is condemned, and the holy are burnt; though sometimes they condemn a vile offender, yet they never absolve a known saint, a lover of Christ and truth; and were it holy, it would resemble the holiness of him in his created state under the law of nature. But here is nothing of that where all the laws of natural equity and compassion are violated, by forgery against the innocent, by forcing them to shorten their present torments by owning faults they never committed; in short, using all, so as none of them would be used by others. Here is nothing divine, natural; nor is there in this tribunal any conformity to the holiness which shines forth in Moses' law, which directed to the best methods of government, and best provided for the safety of innocents. This Inquisition is the most pernicious to innocents, wearing out with long imprisonment, those that retain their innocency, and burning those that forego it to please the Inquisitors. Moses' law was holy, which commanded, to love mercy, do justice, and walk humbly with God: The Inquisitors, for pride, like Lucifer, for injustice unparalleled, are notorious abhorrers of mercy. Say, leader, whether their tribunal can be holy and divine? There is one more holy tribunal namely that of grace, which is to save life, not to destroy it. And well doth the tribunal of Inquisition correspond to this, doth it not? which is set up to destroy life, not to save it. On Christ's throne is written life and salvation, but on the Inquisitor's, death and destruction; but yet it is a judgment seat, and hath a great authority, and therefore divine! Indeed, were it of God, it were divine, but it is of the Pope, an usurper, a tyrant, a bloody cruel one; and these Inquisitors commissioned by him, are to execute his bloody designs on all innocent ones accused, and brought within their snare. God permits, and abhors it now; and as he hath punished many, so he will punish all the rest of this bloody crew which profane the venerable names of faith, justice, and holiness, with their robberies, murders, and perjuries."—"They inquire not diligently after crimes to amend the criminal, but earnestly hunt after temporal estates, to seize them. Of old the estates of anathematized ones were not adjudged to the exchequer, but to the fires; now the goods of such are adjudged neither to the exchequer, nor to the fires, but to robbing Inquisitors. Instead of producing the truth before men, this tribunal brings lies openly to open view, and by false witness and cheats condemns innocents; they transubstantiate falsehoods, and then proclaim them truths; they contrive greatest injustices with greatest secrecy; they condemn innocents by wiles, and smother their righteous cause, which they never suffer to be pleaded; this their Inquisition it suppresseth truth, and murders innocents, and inquires what gain from the execution, never what righteousness in the judgment. By all this it appears the tribunal is neither holy, nor an office, nor an Inquisition."
"Thus the Inquisition," to use the words of Puigblanch, "surpassing the greatest tyrants in pride and fierceness, has not yielded to them in its arbitrary and despotic conduct. Every thing odious to be met with in the iniquitous Enquesta of Arragon, the Bastille of Paris, or any other of the monstrous establishments erected by despots to oppress their people, is found united, and even exceeded in the monstrous tribunal to which we allude.... Implacable with the unfortunate who fell beneath its claws, it has stained its hands in their blood, in the most inhuman manner, whenever they had sufficient heroism to brave its terrors; whilst at the same time it assumed the garb of insolence towards the weak, covering them with scoffs in their humiliation. Perfidious in its words, and base in its conduct, it only conceived itself happy while it had culprits to condemn. Borne away by its avarice, it devoured the loaf wrested from the widow and orphan, to whom it rendered even the means of begging difficult, by the stigmas of infamy which it imposed.
"As the masterpiece of error, it obstinately persecuted letters and learned men, always fearing to meet its own destruction in the broad light. It boasted of being unerring in its measures, whilst from its tripod the most absurd and injurious oracles have issued. Possessing in the most eminent degree the passions of despots, pride has constituted its very soul, and falsehood the air it has constantly breathed. It was adopted by kings, in order to enslave nations, after it had been founded by the popes, for the very purpose of making kings their vassals; and thus aiming at sovereignty, and spurning at mankind at large, the ambition and impunity of the clergy have alone prospered under its shade. It not only trampled on the property, honour, and lives of the citizens, but also on their shame. Not content with disturbing and depressing the civil authority, it contemned the dignity of bishops, although it had proclaimed itself their chief support. In short, to form the history of its dominion, crimes of every kind rush upon the mind. And after this, how can I call thee, the Holy Tribunal? Thou hast been a den of thieves, the bulwark of superstition and of ignorance; the insatiable sphinx of human flesh, a tyrant among despotic establishments, a monument of the barbarism of the middle ages, the scum of tribunals; finally, thou hast constituted an invention that has stood alone, and without a parallel in ancient or modern times!"