III. The Reformation has given us liberty of conscience, and freedom from religious persecution.
death, their grave; and the space comprised between these two epochs is filled by a thousand ecclesiastical duties. The more I think of this matter, the more I remember this sentence--'Priests, in taking the vows of renouncing marriage, engage themselves to take the wives of others.'
"As soon as the young girl, for I speak peculiarly of their confession, enters the confessional, 'Bless me, father,' she says, kneeling and crossing herself, 'for I have sinned;' and the priest mumbles, 'Dominus sit in ore tuo it in corde tro, ut confitearis onmia peccata tua,'--'The Lord be in your heart and lips, that you may confess all your sins.' If she is an ugly, common country girl or woman, she is soon despatched; but, on the contrary, if she is pretty and fair, the holy father puts himself at ease, he examines her in the most secret recesses of her soul, he unfolds her mind in every sense, in every manner, upon every matter. This is the way which Theology recommends us to follow in our interrogations: 'Daughter, have you had bad thoughts? On what subject? how often?' &c. 'Have you had bad desires; what desires? Have you committed bad actions; with whom; what actions?' &c. I am obliged to stop. Many times the poor ashamed girl does not dare answer the questions, they are so indecent. In that case the holy man, ceasing his interrogations, says to her, 'Listen, daughter, to the true doctrine of the church; you must confess the truth, all the truth, to your spiritual father. Do you not know that I am in the place of God, they you cannot deceive him? Speak then; reveal your heart to me as God knows it; you will be very glad when you will have discharged this burden from your mind. Will you not?'--'Yes.'--'Begin, I will help you;' and then begins such a diabolical explanation as is not to be found but in houses of infamy, I suppose, or in our theological books. This is so well known, that I have often heard of wicked young men saying to each other, 'Come, let us go to confession, and the curate will teach us a great many corrupt things which we never knew;' and many young girls have told me in confession, that in order to become acquainted with details on those matters pleasing to their corrupt nature, they went purposely to the confessional to speak about it with their spiritual father. Sometimes I have heard the confession of young girls not above sixteen years of age, who explained to me such disgusting things with a precision, a propriety (or rather impropriety) of terms, that when I asked them where they had gathered all this strange learning, they seemed as much astonished at my question as I was at their confession; and said to me: 'Why, father, our former confessor taught us all this, and commanded us never to omit these details, otherwise we should be dammed.' I replied to them: 'I pray you never use such terms again, they are unworthy of a Christian mouth, you have misunderstood your confessor.' I heard afterwards that these misguided persons left my confessional, because they said I was an ignorant confessor, who did not confess like others, and who did not cause them to say all."
"After so many instructions, the young girl is well indoctrinated, well fitted to answer either the questions or the purposes of the priest. This poison diffused in her heart soon infects her whole mind and destroys her purity. It is precisely at such a point of time that her cruel foe waits for her. When he sees that she is made vicious and corrupt by the teachings of the confessional, he is sure of his success."
[The modes by which the priest persuades his victim that she is without sin in doing whatever he commands, since he is responsible, and since he absolve her from it, and other means of deceiving at the confessional, are then too graphically related to be publicly told; and I have thought it best; says the translator, Professor Morse, with the consent of the author, to suppress all but the closing facts.]
"The truth is, that some cunning priests have a seraglio like that of the Sultan, and it is by no means an easy task for him to conceal his favourites from each other, because he says to each that she is his only mistress. It would be easy for me to enlarge on this point, and to give other details, but these I hope will suffice; perhaps they are already too many."--p. 106. 112.
Prior to the Reformation the corruption and tyranny and usurpations of the Romish church had risen to such a height, that the people were not only denied access to the word of their God; but they were even taught not to think for themselves at all in matters of religion, to surrender their judgment implicitly to the priests, and believe as holy mother church believes. The principle on which every true Romanist is required to act, is thus expressed by pope Pius in his Creed: "I also profess and undoubtedly receive all other things delivered, defined and declared by the sacred canons, and general councils, and particularly by the holy council of Trent; an likewise I also condemn, reject and anathematize all things contrary thereto and all heresies whatsoever, condemned, rejected, and anathematized by the church." 52 The laity are therefore not permitted to imitate the noble Bereans, who searched the Scriptures daily; they are even prohibited to a certain extent by their own priests from obeying the precept of the Saviour; Search the Scriptures, for in them ye think ye have eternal life, and they are they which testify of me. Nay even in our midst, Romanists are not permitted to read the miscellaneous literature of their age and nation. The freedom of the press is suppressed in every country on earth, where popery has power to control it. Nor could any other event be expected in our own country, if Romanists should gain the ascendency; for this is one of the acknowledged, unaltered, and unalterable principles of their church. Here let our newspaper editors learn what awaits them, if they do not in time impartially examine the true politico-religious character of Romanism, and duly instruct the popular mind on this subject. Its very essence is an admixture of civil and religious despotism, and the certain ultimate result of its preponderance must be a union of church and state on anti-republican principles. Listen to the testimony of the papist themselves. "The pope and emperor ought to be implicitly obeyed; the heretic's books burned, and the printers and sellers of them duly punished. There is no other way to suppress and extinguish the pernicious sect of Protestants." Thus said the legate of Pope Adrian VI. to the diet of Nuremberg. A decree of the Lateran council held in 1515, determines in substance, "that no book shall be printed without the bishop's license; that those who transgressed this decree shall forfeit the whole impression, which shall be publicly burned; pay a fine of one hundred ducats; be suspended from his business for one year, and be excommunicated; that is, given over to the devil, soul and body in God's name and the saints!" The celebrated council of Trent whose decrees are acknowledged by all Catholics, decided that "being desirous of setting bounds to the printers, who with unlimited boldness, supposing themselves at liberty to do as they please, print editions of the Holy Bible with notes and expositions, taken indifferently from any writer, without the permission of their ecclesiastical superiors, &c. Neither shall any one hereafter sell such books, or even retain them in his possession, unless they have been first examined and approved by the ordinary, under penalty of anathema, and the pecuniary fine adjudged by the last council of Lateran" (that above mentioned.53) And with a candour truly commendable, which puts to shame those Protestants who insist on believing modern popery to be different from that of former ages, Pope Gregory XVI. in 1832, explicitly says in his Circular letter, "Huc spectat, &c. To this point tends that most vile, detestable, and never to be sufficiently execrated liberty of booksellers, namely of publishing writings of whatever kind they please, a liberty which some persons Dare, with such violence of language to demand and promote.--Clement XIII. our
52 Camp's Textbook, p. 389.
53 Cramp's Textbook of Popery, p. 56.
predecessor of happy memory, in his circular on the suppression of noxious books (i.e. Protestant books) pronounces: "We must contend with energy such as the subject requires; and with all our might exterminate the deadly mischief of so many books; for the matter of error will never be effectually removed, unless the guilty elements of depravity be consumed in the fire." "The apostolic see has through all ages ever striven to condemn suspected and noxious (i. e. Protestant) books, and to wrest them forcibly out of men's hands; it is most clear how rash, false, and injurious to our apostolic see, and fruitful of enormous evils to the Christian (papal) public is the doctrine of those, who not only reject the censorship of books, as too severe and burdensome, but even proceed to such a length of wickedness as to assert, that it is contrary to the principles of equal justice, and dare to deny to the church the right of enacting and employing it,"54 pp. 13, 14, 15. Accordingly a rigid censorship of the press is established and an Index Expurgatorius is published from time to time at Rome, and throughout papal countries, containing a list of books printed in Protestant lands, which no Catholic may read on pain of excommunication.55 In this catalogue are included not only the prominent Protestant Reformers: but even such miscellaneous writers as Locke, Young, Lavater, Bacon and Addison! A strange method of this of obeying the inspired precept to prove all things and hold fast that which is good!56 A strange system of liberty of thought and freedom of discussion to be engrafted on our republican institutions!
Nor are these restrictions mere idle statutes. They are written in the blood of millions of our brethren, who sought to serve God according to the dictates of their conscience, and when interdicted had the moral heroism to obey God rather than man. The infernal inquisition, as it is aptly, and by common consent styled, was expressly instituted to execute with fearful rigour the tender mercies of mother church on all who dare to think or speak for themselves. How faithfully this trust has been executed is attested, alas! but too fully by the ensanguined annals of the Christian world! What tyro in history has not found his heart sickening at the melancholy scenes of torture too horrible for human nature to endure! The Catholic church openly confesses to believe it her duty to compel all others to adopt her faith. Pope Pius in his bull of confirmation, orders "all the faithful to receive and inviolably to observe the decrees of the council of Trent; enjoining archbishops, bishops, &c. to procure that observance from those under them, and in order thereto, if necessary, to call in the aid of the secular arm, &c.57
Cardinal Bellarmine, one of the acknowledged standard authors of the Romish church, says, "Experience teaches that there is no other remedy for the evil, but to put heretics (Protestants) to death; for the (Romish) church proceeded gradually and tried every remedy: at first she merely excommunicated them; afterwards she added a fine; then she banished them; and finally she was constrained to put them to death."58 The general council of the Lateran, whose
54 See the very valuable work of Dr. Brownlee, "Popery an Enemy to Civil and Religious Liberty," p. 119, 120. This work ought to be read by every American statesman, and every true friend of American liberty. Its author may justly be regarded as one of the ablest, most learned, and indefatigable champions of Protestantism, which the present age has produced.
55 Cramp's Textbook, p. 378.
56 1Thess. 5: 21.
57 Cramp, p. 385.
58 Bellarm. de Laicis, Lib. iii. c. 51. See Smith's Synopsis of St. Ligori, p. 406.
canon is at this day in force, decreed: "Let the secular powers be compelled, if necessary, to exterminate to their utmost power all heretics (Protestants) denoted by the church."59 The present textbook of instruction in the Maynooth popish College in Ireland, already referred to, which has doubtless been studied by many priests now in the Untied States, expressly inculcates: That baptized unbelievers, such as heretics (Protestants) and apostates usually are, and also baptized schismatics, may be compelled to return to the Catholic (Popish) faith, and to the unity of the church, by the inflicting bodily punishments.60 "The church judges and punishes heretics (Protestant) because although they are out of the church, they being baptized, are subject to the (Romish) church?"61 Nor is this inhuman doctrine, so dangerous to the liberties of every Protestant, inculcated merely on the priests, or kept as a secret among them. In order to carry on persecution, the mass of the people must be, at least in some degree, prepared for it. Therefore, the only copies of the scripture which are permitted to be read by the people, the Douay Bible and the Rhemish Testament, have so falsified the sacred volume, as to make it teach the same doctrine and breathe the same spirit of hatred and blood, against Protestants. Thus the latter has the following comments:
Matt. 3. "Heretics may be punished and suppressed, and may, and ought by public authority, either spiritual or temporal, to be chastised or executed."
Gal. 1: 8. "Catholics should not spare their own parents, if they are heretics."
Heb. 5: 7. "The translators of the Protestant Bible ought to be abhorred to the depths of hell."
Rev. 17: 6. Drunken with the blood of saints. "Protestants (says the comment) foolishly expound this of Rome, for that there they put heretics to death, and allow of their punishment in other countries; but their blood is not called the blood of saints, no more than the blood of thieves, man-killers, and other malefactors, for the shedding of which, by order of justice, no commonwealth shall answer."62
No wonder, that in Roman Catholic countries, where the priests had full opportunity to inculcate this exterminating spirit on the people, the latter were willing to execute the horrid persecutions against Protestants, which stain the annals of Europe. Yet we do not believe that the mass of American Catholics have imbibed the inhuman, persecuting spirit breathed by their Bible. We believe they are more humane and charitable than the priests wish them to be, if Romanism had the ascendence among us.63
59 Ibid.
60 Petri Dens Theologia, &c. vol. ii. p. 80 of the edition of 1832.
61 Do. p. 114.
62 Protest. vol. ii. 752. ii. 114.
63 It is indeed true that numerous threats of personal violence and murder, have been uttered against prominent individuals in our land, who felt it a duty to apprize the community of the real principles of Romanism, such as the Rev. Dr. Brownlee, Rev. B. Kurtz, Rev. R. Breckinridge and others. But beyond threats nothing has been attempted; and Romish priests well known, that the eyes of the community are fixed on the individuals, whose fidelity to their country has exposed them to papal odium, and that millions stand prepared for their defence.
In full accordance with the above settled and avowed persecuting principles of popery, the infernal inquisition has been put and kept in operation, whenever the pope and priests could accomplish their ends. I know, the Jesuit, bishop England, in his Sermon before Congress, repeated the usual evasion, that the inquisition is a civil and not an ecclesiastical tribunal. But this is all a piece of subterfuge. It is true that the horrors of the inquisition can be carried into full execution only where the civil government has become connected with the Romish church, and in such countries where the government sanctions the inquisition, it is, we believe, customary, that a civil officer is appointed to execute the sentence of the inquisition on the hapless victim of their power. But the whole trial is conducted, and sentence passed, by ecclesiastical officers. None but priests can be inquisitors, and the tortures in the inquisition itself are, in every sense, under their entire control, and applied, exclusively by their command and in their presence, and by their minions. As well might it be said that our country courts are not civil but religious tribunals, because the hangman who executes the sentence pronounced by them, is a Lutheran or Calvinist, a Methodist, or perchance a Romanist! No case, if we mistake not, has ever occurred in the history of the inquisition, in the millions of victims sacrificed by this bloody tribunal, in which the civil officer has dared to refuse to execute the sentence of the inquisitors; for he well knew that his own bones would pay the price of his temerity! The inquisition therefore undoubtedly remains what it always has been, an ecclesiastical tribunal, the engine of an intolerant, persecuting church to inflict tortures the most inhuman and savage, on all who dare to exercise their natural and unalienable right, of judging for themselves in matters of religion, and obeying God rather than man! The inquisition gradually grew out of the duty enjoined on the bishops by Pope Lucius III. A.D. 1184, to visit each his diocess, at least once or twice a year, for the purpose of searching for heretics. Pope Innocent III. by his bull of 1207, sent his inquisitors against the Waldenses,64 and the fourth Lateran council in 1215, in order that this bloody work might be prosecuted without any interruption, converted this inquisitorial power of the bishops into a standing inquisition, which establishment was further matured at the council of Toulouse, 1229. In the year 1232-3, pope Gregory IX. appointed the Dominicans perpetual inquisitors in the name of the pope.65 In 1261, pope Urban IV. issued a brief, ordering that in all cases where bishops had commenced process against any persons accused before the inquisition, the decision of the inquisitors should have precedence, and the execution of the punishments denounced by them not be hindered. In 1325 pope John XXII. forbade the formation of treaties with heretics, pronounced those already made not binding, and directed the inquisitors to arrest all persons charged with favouring or harbouring heretical persons.66 Pope Paul III. in 1542, issued a bull for the express purpose of fortifying and giving increased efficacy to this infernal tribunal. He, amongst other things, decreed, that no persons, of any rank or pursuit, shall be exempt from this tribunal, on pretence of having received any such license of privilege of exemption from the papal chair. He says expressly "that the powers of the inquisitors shall now and hereafter extend to all persons suspected of heresy, &c.--
64 Eisenschmidt's Romisches Bullarium, vol. i. p. 31.
65 See Grieseler's Hist. vol. ii. p. 388. Note 18. "Adjicimus insuper," &c.
66 Eisenschmidt's Bullarium Romanum vol. i. p. 164.
That no civil authorities shall dare to prevent the inquisitors from executing their functions, &c.67 In another bull issued A. D. 1542, this pontiff established a General congregation of the Inquisition, with power to arrest and even imprison (carceribus mancipandi) suspected persons of any and of every rank, to prosecute their trial to a final decision, when the canonical punishments shall be inflicted, and the property of those condemned to death, be disposed of.68
And finally, he, in advance, pronounces all their decisions valid, demands inviolable obedience to them, and pronounces every attempt of the civil authorities to interfere with the powers of the inquisitors null and void."69
And the council of Trent, the last general council of the Romish church, four members of which had themselves been inquisitors,70 expressed great interest in behalf of the inquisition.71 In view of all these facts, the ecclesiastical character of the inquisition ought never again to be denied. The popes and Romish church have continued72 to this day to favour and preserve this tribunal wherever they could, and even in these United States, bishop England attempted, in a lecture at Baltimore, to vindicate and eulogize this satanic institution.73 According to Llorente, this fearful tribunal cost Spain alone 2,000,000 of lives, and the amount of torments suffered by these, and the other victims of papal persecution, was probably greater than that of all the generations that ever lived and died in God's appointed way, by natural death. A glance at the nature of these tortures will illustrate our idea. One mode of torture is by the pendulum. "The condemned," says Llorente, "is fastened in a groove upon a table upon his back; suspended above him is a pendulum, the lower edge of which is sharp, and it is so constructed as to become longer at every stroke. The wretch sees this implement of destruction swinging to and fro above him, and every moment the keen edge approaching nearer and nearer: at length it cuts the skin of his nose, and gradually cuts deeper and deeper, till life is extinct." This punishment is yet in use in this secret tribunal; for one of the prisoners released when the Cortes of Madrid threw open the inquisition in 1820, had actually been condemned to it, and was to have been executed on the ensuing day! Another mode of torture consists in hoisting the victim to the ceiling by several thin cords tied to his wrists upon his back, whilst a weight of 100lbs. is attached to his feet. He is then suddenly suffered to drop, yet not so low as to let the weight touch the floor. His fall is so sudden and the shock so great as to dislocate his shoulders and often to break his bones!! A third torture "consisted of an instrument something like a smith's anvil, fixed in the middle of the floor, with a spike on the top. Ropes are attached to each corner of the room, to which the criminal's legs and arms are tied, and he is drawn up a little and then let down with his back bone exactly on the spike of iron, upon which his whole weight rests. A fourth torture, being what is termed a slight
67 Id. vol. ii. p. 1, 2, 3, and B. Magnum, T. i. p. 751. const. 80. ed. Lux.
68 Idem. vol. ii. p. 4.
69 Id. p. 5. and Bull. m. Tom. i. p. 762.
70 Mendham's council of Trent, p. 190.
71 Mendham's council of Trent, pp. 189, 190.
72 Dr. Brownlee, Popery an Enemy, &c. p. 105, &c.
73 See Smith's Synopsis of St. Ligori, p. 313, 315.
one, they apply only to women. Matches of tow and pitch are wrapped round their hands, and then set on fire and suffered to burn until the flesh is consumed.74 A fifth is the torture by fire. "The prisoner is placed with his naked legs in the stocks. The soles of his feet are then well greased with lard (or other penetrating and inflammable substances)75 and a blazing chafing-dish applied to them, by the heat of which they become perfectly fried. When his shrieks and lamentations were greatest, a board was placed between his feet and the fire for a while; and then taken away again, if his tormentors were not satisfied. Another mode of torture was the dry pan; in which the victim was literally roasted to death by a slow fire." Another method is thus described by Gavin, who had been a priest at Saragossa in Spain, as certified by Earl Stanhope, who had known him there. Gavin escaped from that country, renounced popery, received orders in the Protestant Eppiscopal church in London, and published his Masterkey to Popery, in which we find the following statement: "In a large room she (the guide) showed me (the witness) a thick wheel covered on both sides with thick boards, and opening a little window in the centre of it, desired me to look with a candle on the inside, and I saw all the circumference of the wheel set with sharp razors. This instrument is designed for those that speak against the pope and the holy fathers. They are put within the wheel, and the door being locked, the executioner turns the wheel till the person is dead."76 A very frequent mode of torture is by water. The sufferer is tied down on a bench, so tightly that the cords cut his arms and legs to the bones. His nostrils are closed, and a filter inserted into his mouth, through which a large quantity of water is gradually poured. The wretched victim is compelled at every breath to swallow a mouthful of water, until at length his stomach and breast are intensely swelled, and he at last either expires amid his indescribable sufferings, or a short reprieve is given, only to enable him to endure another torturing!77 And the last torture we shall mention is by an infernal engine in the form of a female, the Virgin Mary. When the inquisition was thrown open in Spain by Napoleon, such an instrument was found in the cell. The familiar was ordered to manoeuvre it. He did so. It raised its arms, beneath its robes was a metal breast-plate filled with needles, spikes and lancets! A knapsack was thrown into its arms, it gradually closed them and pierced the knapsack with a hundred deep cuts, all of which would have pierced, and often did pierce the living victim!! But it is enough. Humanity sickens at the thought, that man could ever be so estranged from his brother, as thus to become his "darkest, deadliest foe."
"When (says Stockdale)78 the accused was condemned to the torture, they conducted him to the place destined for its application, which was called the place of torment. It was a subterraneous vault, the descent to which was by a great number of winding passages, in order that the shrieks of the unhappy sufferers should not be heard.79 In this place there were no seats,
74 History of the Inquisition, with an Introduction by the Rev. Cyrus Mason, New York, 1835.
75 Stockdale's History of the Inquisition, p. 191, of the London 4 to. ed. 1810.
76 Gavin's Masterkey to Popery, p. 235, Hagerstown ed.
77 Dr. Brownlee's Letters in the Roman Catholic controversy, p. 337.
78 History of Inquisition, pp. 191, 192.
79 That there are deep subterraneous vaults under the cathedral at Baltimore, is affirmed by Rev. R. J. Breckinridge, and sustained by highly probable evidence.--Lit. And Relig. Magazine, Vol. i. p. 361--362. Similar cells are said to exist beneath the cathedrals in Pittsburg and elsewhere.
but such as were destined for the inquisitors, who were always present at the infliction of the torture. It was lighted only by two gloomy lamps, whose dim and mournful light served but to show to the criminal the instruments of his torment. Here it was, unseen by any eye save that of God, that these fiends in human shape inflicted on their defenceless victims tortures which humanity shudders to contemplate, and which, if aught on earth can do so, present not an unapt emblem of the torments of hell! What American, that has the heart of a man, of a husband, or a father, will not be aroused to a watchfulness and effort, lest even his children after him might fall into the hands of such unfeeling executioners?
In addition to this regular, systematic process, the Romish church has been guilty of numerous, extensive, and sometimes national persecutions, in which hundreds of thousands of our Protestant brethren were butchered in cold blood. Need I point you to the bloody tragedy of St. Bartholomew's eve, 80 in 1572, when at the nod of the Pope a hundred thousand of the best people of France were massacred in cold blood by order of their own priest-ridden king, Charles IX.? Need I speak to you of the treacherous revocation of the edict of Nantes, by approbation and applause of the Roman pontiff, in violation of all law, human and divine, by which half a million or more of the best citizens of France, because they would not renounce their religion, were compelled to flee from papal persecution and death, and, stripped of all their earthly goods, to seek shelter in foreign lands? Need I direct your attention to the millions of Waldenses and Albigenses who were butchered in cold blood by the minions of the pope! Need I speak to you to the thirty years' war in Germany, which was mainly instigated by the Jesuits, in order to deprive the Protestants of the right of free religious worship, secured to them by the treaty of Augsburg? Or of the Irish rebellion,81 of the inhuman butchery of about fifteen millions of Indians in South
80 "To lull the Protestants into security, the court now enforced the terms of the treaty (of toleration for the Protestants) with much apparent zeal, proposed a marriage between the young king of Navarre (a Protestant) and the king's sister, and thus at length drew Coligni, the king of Navarre, and the prince of Conde, (and a number of other Protestant leaders) to appear at court. All this was preparatory to the assassination of the Protestants, by order of the king and queen mother, on Bartholomew's eve, Aug. 22d, 1572. The bloody scene began at midnight, at the signal of tolling the great bell of the palace, and continued three days at Paris. Coligni was the first victim. With him 500 noblemen and about 6,000 other Protestants were butchered in Paris alone. Orders were despatched to all parts of the empire for a similar massacre every where." "From the city of Paris the massacre spread throughout the whole kingdom. In the city of Maeux, they threw above 200 into prison, and after they had ravished and killed a great number of women, and plundered the houses of Protestants," they deliberately murdered, one by one, all whom they had imprisoned. The number of Protestants thus butchered throughout France, in the thirty days during which this massacre was continued, cannot be accurately ascertained, and is estimated at from 30,000 to 100,000!!! When the pope's legate sent the news to Rome, the holy father and his cardinals repaired to the church, and publicly gave thanks to God for the glorious news, the cannon were discharged, and a jubilee proclaimed throughout the Christian world!!!--Murdock's Mos. Vol. iii, p. 197. Convers. Lexicon, Vol. i. p. 827--829.
81 The celebrated historian Hume, gives the following description of the suffering Protestants in Ireland, in the great massacre which began in 1641, in the reign of Charles 1.
"The rebellion which had been upwards of fourteen years threatened in Ireland, and which had been repressed only by the vigour of the earl of Stafford's government, broke out at this time with incredible fury. On this fatal day, the Irish, everywhere intermingled with the English, needed but a hint from their leaders and priests to begin hostilities against a people whom they hated on account of their religion, and envied for their riches and prosperity. The houses, cattle, and goods of the unwary English were first seized. Those who herd of the commotions in their neighbourhood, instead of deserting their habitations, and assembling together for mutual protection, remained at home, in hopes of defending their property, and fell thus separately into the hands of their enemies. After rapacity had fully exerted itself, cruelty, and that the most barbarous that ever in any nation was
America, Mexico and Cuba, by the Spanish papists? In short, it is calculated by authentic historians, that papal Rome has shed the blood of sixty-eight millions of the human race in order to establish her unfounded claims to religious dominion.82
What language then can express the gratitude due from Protestants to the Reformation, which has secured them the privilege of worshipping God according to the dictates of their own conscience without danger of being roasted at the fire, or having their bones broken on the rack! The first principle which guided the Reformers was, that no authority on earth could justly require them to act contrary to the dictates of their conscience, and they did not hesitate to tell the Emperor to his face, in the XVIth Article of the Confession presented to him at Augsburg, that if ever their civil rulers commanded them to do aught contrary to their convictions of duty, they were bound "to obey God rather than men." Luther himself, the very earliest of the Reformers, denounced religious persecution in the most decided terms. "Do you say, the civil government should indeed not force men to believe, but only interfere, in order that the people be not led astray by false doctrine? and how could heretics otherwise be put down? I answer, to counteract heresy is the business of ministers, not of the civil rulers. Here a different course must be pursued, and other weapons than the sword must fight these battles. The word of God must here contend; if this proves unavailing, neither can civil governments remedy the evil, though they should deluge the earth with blood. Heresy is an intellectual thing, that cannot be hewn by the sword, nor burned with fire, nor drowned with water. The word of God alone can subdue it; as Paul says, 'The weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of the strong holds,' &c. 2Cor. 10: 4, 5."83 It is indeed true, that even the Protestant churches did not at once throw off every vestige of Popish intolerance, but the cases of persecution by them were few and comparatively mild, and soon passed away. No Protestant church ever embraced the Romish doctrine, that it is a duty by fire and sword to compel others to adopt our views. When Protestants did persecute, it was in opposition to their own principles; but when Romanists put Protestants to death, they only do what their creed requires, what their books distinctly tell us they believe it their duty to do, whenever they have the predominant power in their hands.
known or heard of, began its operations. A universal massacre commenced of the English, (Protestants) now defenceless, and passively resigned to their inhuman foes; no age, no sex, on condition was spared. The wife, weeping for her butchered husband, and embracing her helpless children, was pierced with them, and perished by the same stroke; the old, the young, the vigorous, the infirm, underwent the like fate, and were confounded in one common ruin. In vain did flight save from the first assault; destruction was everywhere let loose, and met the hunted victims at every turn. In vain was recourse had to relations, to companions, to friends; all connexions were dissolved, and death was dealt by that hand from protection was implored and expected. Without provocation, without opposition, the astonished English, (Protestants) being in profound peace, and full security, were massacred by their nearest neighbours, with whom they had long upheld a continued intercourse of kindness and good offices. But death was the lightest punishment inflicted by those enraged rebels; all the tortures which wanton cruelty could devise, all the lingering pains of body, and anguish of mind, the agonies of despair, could not satiate revenge excited without injury, and cruelty derived from no cause. To enter into particulars would shock the least delicate humanity; such enormities, though attested by undoubted evidence, would appear almost incredible."
82 Dr. Brownlee's Popery an enemy to civil liberty, p. 105.
83 Luther's Werke. Walch's edition, vol. 10, p. 461.
„Discourse in commemoration of the glorious reformation of the sixteenth century“ von Samuel Simon Schmucker († 1873), Gould and Newman, 1838 · Text nach einer digitalen Abschrift des Drucks, gemeinfrei · Originalscan bei archive.org · Titelbild schlicht selbst gestaltet