Part 27
"I am, my lord, not making loose assertions here; I am all along stating from acts of Parliament, and the above form a small sample of the whole; and this your lordship must know well. I am not declaiming, but relating undeniable facts; with facts of the same character, with a bare list, made in the above manner, I could fill a considerable volume. The names of the persons put to death merely for being Catholics, during this long and dreary reign, would, especially if we were to include Ireland, form a list ten times as long as that of our army and navy, both taken together. The usual mode of inflicting death was to hang the victim for a short time, just to benumb his or her faculties, then cut down and instantly rip open the belly, and tear out the heart, and hold it up, fling the bowels into the fire, then chop off the head, and cut the body into quarters, then boil the head and quarters, and then hang them up at the gates of cities, or other conspicuous places. This was done, including Ireland, to many hundreds of persons, merely for adhering to the church in which they had been born and bred. There were one hundred and eighty-seven ripped up and boiled in England in the years from 1577 to 1603; that is to say, in the last twenty-six years of Elizabeth's reign; and these might all have been spared if they would have agreed to go to church and hear the Common Prayer! All, or nearly all of them were racked before they were put to death; and the cruelties in prison, and the manner of execution, were the most horrible that can be conceived. They were flung into dungeons, kept in their filth, and fed on bullock's liver, boiled and unwashed tripe, and such things as dogs are fed on. Edwards Genings, a priest, detected in saying mass in Holborn, was after sentence of death offered his pardon if he would go to church; but having refused to do this, and having at the place of execution boldly said that he would die a thousand deaths rather than acknowledge the Queen to be the spiritual head of the church, Topliffe, the attorney-general, ordered the rope to be cut the moment the victim was turned off, 'so that' (says this historian) 'the priest being little or nothing stunned, stood on his feet casting his eyes toward heaven, till the hangman tripped up his heels, and flung him on the block, where he was ripped up and quartered.' He was so much alive even after the boweling that he cried with a loud voice, 'Oh! it smarts!' And then he exclaimed, 'Sancte Gregorie, ora pro me,' while the hangman having sworn a most wicked oath cried, 'Zounds! his heart is in my hand, and yet Gregory is in his mouth!'"--Wm. Cobbett.
"For centuries the Irish were killed like game. We know not a few good Englishmen who would be convulsed with the story of the murder of Smith or Jones, but whom the killing of an O'Tool or O'Dacherty, or any 'O'' or 'Mac' would not move in the least. That be it remembered in 1825. The collection of tithes alone cost a million lives. Henry VIII. aggravated all the outrages ever committed, and was determined the faith of the Irish should undergo a radical Protestant conversion. Raleigh butchered Limerick garrison in cold blood after Lord Grey had selected seven hundred to be hanged. James I. confiscated one-tenth of all the land in Ireland and destroyed thousands of lives for religion's sake. Protestant rectors kept private prisons for confining all who dissented from their faith. Dr. Leland, a Protestant clergyman, wrote that the favorite object of the English Parliament was the total extermination of all the Catholics in Ireland.
"Cromwell began by massacreing for three days the garrison of Drogheda after quarter had been promised. Whole towns were put up and sold. The Catholics were banished from three-fourths of Ireland and confined to Connaught, and after a certain day every one found outside were shot or hung. Fleetwood, the reverend, said the Lord will appear in this work. On every wolf's scalp and priest's head a premium of £5 was offered! Young girls and boys were gathered up by the thousands and carried to the West Indies. So by 1652 was once populous Ireland so devastated that an occupied house was a curiosity and commented on. Says one writer, S. W. Petry, 'There perished in 1641 over six hundred thousand lives whose blood somebody must atone to God for.'" (Newspaper article.)
"The sword of the church was unsheathed and the world was at the mercy of ignorant and infuriated priests, whose eyes feasted on the agonies they inflicted. Acting as they believed, or pretended to believe, under the command of God; stimulated by the hope of infinite reward in another world--hating heretics with every drop of their bestial blood; savage beyond description; merciless beyond conception--these infamous priests in a kind of frenzied joy, leaped upon the helpless victims of their rage. They crushed their bones in iron boots; tore their quivering flesh with iron hooks and pincers; cut off their lips and eyelids; pulled out their nails, and into the bleeding quick thrust needles; tore out their tongues; extinguished their eyes; stretched them upon racks; flayed them alive; crucified them with their heads downward; exposed them to wild beasts; burned them at the stake; mocked their cries and groans; ravished their wives; robbed their children, and then prayed God to finish the holy work in hell. Millions upon millions were sacrificed upon the altars of bigotry. The Catholic burned the Lutheran, the Lutheran burned the Catholic, the Episcopalian tortured the Presbyterian, the Presbyterian tortured the Episcopalian. Every denomination killed all it could of every other, and each Christian felt in duty bound to exterminate every other Christian who denied the smallest fraction of his creed.... They have imprisoned and murdered each other, and the wives and children of each other. In the name of God every possible crime has been committed, every conceivable outrage has been perpetrated. Brave men, tender and loving women, beautiful girls, and prattling babes have been exterminated in the name of Jesus Christ. For more than fifty generations the church has carried the black flag. Her vengeance has been measured only by her power. During all these years of infamy no heretic has ever been forgiven. With the heart of a fiend she has hated; with the clutch of avarice she has grasped; with the jaws of a dragon she has devoured; pitiless as famine; merciless as fire; with conscience of a serpent; such is the history of the church of God." (Ingersoll's "Heretics and Heresies.")
THE PURITANS INTOLERANT.
Capital Laws of Connecticut, Established by the General Court, December 1, 1642.
1. If any man after legal conviction shall have or worship any other God but the Lord God, he shall be put to death. (Deut. 13 : 6; 17 : 2, 3, and Ex. 22 : 20.)
2. If any man or woman be a witch (that is, hath or consulteth with a familiar spirit) they shall be put to death. (Ex. 20 : 18; Lev. 20 : 27; Deut. 18 : 10, 11.)
3. If any person shall blaspheme the name of God, the Father, Son or Holy Ghost, with direct, express, presumptuous, or high-handed blasphemy, or shall curse God in the like manner, he shall be put to death. (Lev. 24 : 15, 16.)
4. If any person shall commit any wilful murder, which is manslaughter committed upon malice, hatred, or cruelty, not in a man's necessary and just defense nor by mere casualty against his will, he shall be put to death. (Ex. 21 : 12, 13, 14; Numb. 35 : 30, 31.)
5. If any person shall slay another through guile, either by poisoning, or other such devilish practice, he shall be put to death. (Ex. 21 : 14.)
6. If any man or woman shall lie with a beast or brute creature, by carnal copulation, they shall surely be put to death, and the beast shall be slain and buried. (Lev. 20 : 15, 16.)
7. If any man lie with mankind as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed abomination, they both shall surely be put to death. (Lev. 20 : 13.)
8. If any person committeth adultery with a married or espoused wife, the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put to death. (Lev. 20 : 10; 18 : 20; Deut. 22 : 23, 24.)
9. If any man shall forcibly and without consent ravish a maid or woman, that is lawfully married or contracted, he shall be put to death. (Deut. 22 : 25.)
10. If any man shall steal a man or mankind, he shall be put to death. (Ex. 21 : 16.)
11. If any man rise up by false witnesses, wittingly and of purpose to take away any man's life he shall be put to death. (Deut. 19 : 16, 18, 19.)
12. If any man shall conspire or attempt any invasion, insurrection, or rebellion against the commonwealth, he shall be put to death.
"All these are copied from the capital laws of Massachusetts, established (with her Body of Liberties) December, 1641,--except the ninth (against rape of a married or betrothed woman), which was enacted by Massachusetts in June, 1642. One of the Massachusetts laws punished manslaughter with death, was not adopted by Connecticut, and only the first clause of the Massachusetts law against conspiracy, rebellion, etc. was taken." ("Blue Laws, True and False," by Trumbull.)
"December 1642, two additional capital laws were added to the statute of Connecticut." (Ibid. p. 59.)
13. If any child or children about 16 years old and of sufficient understanding, shall curse or smite their natural father or mother, he, or they shall be put to death, unless it can be sufficiently testified that the parents have been unchristianly negligent in the education of such children or so provoke them by extreme and cruel correction that they have been forced thereunto, to preserve themselves from death or maiming. (Ex. 21 : 17, 15; Lev. 20 : 9.)
14. If a man have a stubborn and rebellious son of sufficient years and understanding, namely, 16 years of age, which will not obey the voice of his father or mother, and that when they have chastened him, will not hearken to them, then may his father and mother, being his natural parents, lay hold on him, and bring him to the magistrates assembled in court and testify unto them that their son is stubborn and rebellious and will not obey their voice and chastisement, but lives in sundry notorious crimes, such a son shall be put to death. (Deut. 21 : 20, 21.)
"Persuade men that when ascribing to the Deity justice and mercy, they are speaking of qualities generally distinct from those which exist among mankind--qualities which we are altogether unable to conceive, and which may be compatible with acts which men would term grossly unjust and unmerciful; tell them that guilt may be entirely unconnected with a personal act that millions of infants may be called into existence for a moment to be precipitated into a place of torment, that vast nations may live and die, and then be rased again to endure never-ending punishment, because they did not believe in a religion of which they never heard, or because a crime was committed thousands of years before they were in existence; convince them that all this is part of a transcendentally perfect and righteous scheme, and there is no imaginable abyss to which such a doctrine would not lead." (Lecky's "Rationalism in Europe," vol. 1, p. 384.)
Lecky proceeds to show that men who believe in salvation by the church will always persecute dissenters, and all history attests the truth of his remarks. Catholics persecuted Protestants; Protestants persecuted Puritans; and Puritans, in there turn, persecuted other dissenters. Nor did the work stop here; though limited in their power, yet these dissenters even to-day find ways by which they can persecute dissenters from them without resort to physical means. There was not, two centuries ago, a single sect that did not uphold persecution.
Galileo.
"For sixteen years the church had rest. But in 1632 Galileo ventured on the publication of his work entitled 'The System of the World,' its object being the vindication of the Copernican doctrine. He was again summoned before the Inquisition at Rome, accused of having asserted that the earth moves around the sun. He was declared to have brought upon himself the penalty of heresy. On his knees with his hand on the Bible, he was compelled to abjure, and curse the doctrine of the movement of the earth. What a spectacle! This venerable man, the most illustrious of his age, forced by the threat of death to deny facts which his judges as well as himself knew to be true! He was then committed to prison, treated with remorseless severity during the remaining ten years of his life, and he was denied burial in consecrated ground. Must not that be false which requires for its support so much imposture, so much barbarity? The opinions thus defended by the Inquisition are now objects of derision to the whole civilized world." (Draper's "Conflict Between Religion and Science.")
Bruno.
"On the 17th of February, 1600, a vast concourse of people was assembled in the largest open space in Rome, gathered together by the irresistible sympathy which men always feel, with the terrible and tragic in human existence. In the center stood a huge pile of faggots, from out its logs and branches rose a stake, crowding around the pile were eager and expectant faces, men of various ages and of various characters, but all for one moment united in a common feeling of malignant triumph, religion was about to be avenged; a heretic was coming to expiate on that spot the crime of open defiance to the dogmas proclaimed by the church--the crime of teaching that the earth moved, and that there was an infinity of worlds. The stake is erected for the 'maintenance and defense of the holy church, and the rights and liberties of the same.' Whom does the crowd await? Giordano Bruno--the poet, philosopher, and heretic--the teacher of Galileo's heresy--the friend of Sir Philip Sidney, and the open antagonist of Aristotle. A hush comes over the crowd. The procession solemnly advances, the soldiers peremptorily clearing the way for it. His face is placid though pale. They offer him the crucifix; he turns his head; he refuses to kiss it! 'The heretic!' They show him the image of him who died upon the cross for the sake of the living truth--he refuses the symbol! A yell bursts from the multitude.
"They chain him to the stake. He remains silent. Will he not pray for mercy? Will he not recant? Now the last hour has arrived--will he die in his obstinacy, when a little hypocrisy would save him from so much agony? It is even so; he is stubborn and unalterable. They light the faggots; the branches crackle; the flame ascends; the victim writhes--and now we see him no more. The smoke envelopes him; but not a prayer, not a plaint, not a single cry escapes him. In a little while the wind has scattered the ashes of Giordano Bruno." (G. H. Lewes's "History of Philosophy.")
"What a contrast between this scene of manly honor, of unshaken firmness, of inflexible adherence to the truth, and that other scene which took place more than fifteen centuries previously by the fireside in the hall of Caiaphas the high priest, when the cock crew, and 'the Lord turned and looked upon Peter.' (Luke 22 : 61.) And yet it is upon Peter that the church has grounded her right to act as she did to Bruno.
"But perhaps the day is approaching when posterity will offer an expiation for this great ecclesiastical crime, and a statue of Bruno be unveiled under the dome of St. Peter's at Rome." (Draper's "Conflict Between Religion and Science.")
"A divine revelation must necessarily be intolerant of contradiction; it must repudiate all improvement in itself, and view with disdain that arising from the progressive intellectual development of man." (Draper's "Conflict Between Religion and Science.")
Torture.
"The system (of mediæval tortures) was matured under the mediæval habit of thought, it was adopted by the inquisitors, and it received its finishing touches from their ingenuity. In every prison the crucifix and the rack stood side by side, and in almost every country the abolition of torture was at last effected by a movement which the church opposed, and by men whom she cursed." (Lecky's "Rationalism in Europe," vol. 1, p. 333.)
"But the most powerful consideration with a truly benevolent man, if he be a Christian, for the extirpation of heresy by force, is the belief that its unfortunate victims will suffer unending torments in hell. Not for a few days, not for a few years must they suffer, but forever. Under the burden of such an awful thought can the sincere, kind-hearted Christian fold his arms and look calmly upon the efforts of men who are spreading unbelief or heresy in every direction, who are not only going to hell themselves, but are taking with them thousands of their fellow men. Is it not natural that the sincere Christian, having the power, should suppress such opinions? that if necessary he should resort to coercive measures? that if new heresies are constantly springing up he should punish some of the offenders with severity, and thereby endeavor to deter others from leaving the true faith? Under the influence of such a faith, must not the desire for the suppression of the heresy be a measure of the desire for the suppression of the most injurious and dangerous errors? and will not the zeal to destroy them be in proportion to the love of truth and regard for the welfare of humanity? Will not, therefore, the most sincere, earnest, and devoted Christians, in an age of unquestioning faith, be the most active and zealous persecutors? On a priori grounds we cannot help arriving at such a conclusion, and the facts of history attest the correctness of the conclusion thus arrived at from a consideration of the natural effects of the doctrine that certain opinions involve merit and others guilt.
"It has been shown by Llorente that the men who founded the Inquisition were men whose characters were free from the stains of vice, and who were actuated in their cruel work of torturing and burning men, by the most philanthropic motives. Many of the worst persecutors, Catholic and Protestant alike, as Mr. Buckle has mentioned, have been among the most conscientious of men and women. Their cruelty was the result of their faith. What, they argued, are the fleeting pains of a few thousand men compared with the eternal agony of the thousands and tens of thousands they will, unless checked, lead to hell. Thus argued the Christians when they first obtained power and used it in killing Pagans; thus argued the Catholics of the Middle Ages; thus argued the Protestants of Geneva; thus argued the advocates of Episcopacy, the defenders of the Kirk of Scotland, and the pious Puritans of New England. In proportion as men believe that correct theological beliefs involve merit and are essential to salvation, and that theological errors involve guilt and are punished with torments in hell, and have power, they must be persecutors. Such has been the case in the past. It was only when rationalism, acting in opposition to the church, rendered persecution impossible, that theologians discovered that the punishment of men was at variance with their religion. 'With the merits of this pleasing though tardy conversion,' says Lecky, 'I am not now concerned; but few persons, I think, can follow the history of Christian persecution without a feeling of extreme astonishment that some modern writer, not content with maintaining that the doctrine of exclusive salvation ought not to have produced persecution, have ventured, in defiance of unanimous testimony of theologians of so many centuries, to dispute the plain historical fact that it did produce it.'" ("History of Morals," vol. 1, p. 422.)
"But independently of the influence of the Old Testament teachings, the Christian system makes persecution inevitable in proportion as the system is believed. Intolerance and persecution are a natural result of the doctrine that certain religious opinions involve moral guilt. The Bible declares, 'He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; he that believeth not shall be damned.' This makes unbelief and heresy a crime, and unbelievers and heretics criminals. It makes it the religious duty of Christians to legislate for the extirpation of the former and the punishment of the latter. Can men treat with charity and kindness those with whom they believe God is displeased--those who are spreading doctrines that are regarded as plainly an offense to God? Is it not the wish of God that unbelief and heresy should be destroyed, and, as an obedient subject, is it not natural that the Christian should, as far as possible, carry out the wishes of the God he worships?"
The New Testament Teaches Intolerance.
"'He that believeth not shall be damned.' (Mark 16 : 16.) St. Paul exclaims (Galatians 1), 'If any man preach any other gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be accursed.' He also says (1 Tim. 6), 'If any man teach otherwise, and consent not to the wholesome words, even the words of our Lord Jesus Christ ... he is proud, knowing nothing ... from such withdraw thyself.' 'Of whom (1 Tim. 1) is Hymenæus and Alexander; whom I have delivered unto Satan, that they may learn not to blaspheme.' In these passages persecution and punishment are clearly taught for disbelief. And that such teaching has had an immoral tendency the excommunications, the imprisonments, and sacrifice of the lives of heretics in connection with the history of Christianity abundantly prove."--B. F. Underwood.
"Are men restrained by superstition? Are men restrained by what you call religion? I used to think they were not; now I admit they are. No man has ever been restrained from the commission of a real crime, but from an artificial one he has. There was a man who committed murder. They got the evidence, but he confessed that he did it. 'What did you do it for?' 'Money.' 'Did you get any money?' 'Yes.' 'How much?' 'Fifteen cents.' 'What kind of a man was he?' 'A laboring man I killed.' 'What did you do with the money?' 'I bought liquor with it.' 'Did he have anything else?' 'I think he had some meat and bread.' 'What did you do with that?' 'I ate the bread and threw away the meat; it was Friday.' So you see it will restrain in some things."--Ingersoll.
The Inquisition in Spain, 1568.
"Upon the 16th of February, 1568, a sentence of the Holy Office condemned all the inhabitants of the Netherlands to death as heretics. From this universal doom, only a few persons, especially named, were excepted. A proclamation of the king, dated ten days later, confirmed this decree of the Inquisition, and ordered it to be carried into instant execution, without regard to age, sex or condition. This is probably the most concise death-warrant that was ever framed. Three millions of people, men, women, and children, were sentenced to the scaffold in three lines." (John L. Motley, "The Rise of the Dutch Republic," vol. 2, p. 158.)
The Inquisition.
"In 1208. Innocent III. established the Inquisition. In 1209 De Montfort began the massacre of the Albigenses. In 1215 the Fourth Council of the Lateran enjoined all rulers, 'as they desired to be esteemed faithful, to swear a public oath that they would labor earnestly and to the full extent of their power, to exterminate from their dominions all those who were branded as heretics by the church.'" (Lecky's "Rationalism in Europe," vol. 1, p. 38.)
"Llorente, who had free access to the archives of the Spanish Inquisition, assures us that by that tribunal alone more than 31,000 persons were burnt, and more than 290,000 condemned to punishment less severe than death. The number of those put to death for their religion in the Netherlands alone, in the reign of Charles V. has been estimated by a very high authority at 50,000, and at least half as many perished under his son. (Ibid. pp., 40, 41.)
The Church Opposed to Liberty.