Chapter I: Popery as Predicted in Scripture

The Court of Inquisition cruel and execrable--Christianity
benevolent--The Inquisition predicted, 2 Thess. ii. 3, 4; 1 Tim.
iv. 1-3; Rev. xvii. 1-18--Comments by Elliott, Bp. Newton, and
Scott.

Religion, as taught by the Romish priesthood, has been enforced and guarded by pains and penalties during many ages. For the last _six_ centuries, this has been done chiefly by a court, denominated, in all countries where it has been established, “THE HOLY INQUISITION.” But this court has been execrated, in every country in which it has existed, as the most dreadful, cruel, and sanguinary of all tribunals, even by professors of the faith of Rome. Still it is supported by the papal hierarchy, as the agents of the Pope may be able to obtain permission of the governments who observe the Romish religion.

Christianity has thus been dishonoured in the assumption of its sacred name by Roman Catholics, while they have practised these cruelties, so contrary to the letter and to the spirit of the religion of Jesus Christ; for all His principles and precepts manifest Divine benevolence, as chanted at the birth of the Redeemer, by a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God, and saying, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good-will towards men.”

Christianity is the religion of love, and like its ever blessed Author, the Son of God. “God is love; and he that dwelleth in love, dwelleth in God, and God in him.” It enjoins upon all its professors the practice of benevolence. It requires them to possess and exemplify that spirit. Its moral code is comprehended in that summary of the Divine law, as given by our Saviour, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. And thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.” Its chief practical maxim is, “Whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them: for this is the law and the prophets.” These precepts were followed by the early believers of the Gospel, constraining the heathen to admire their benevolence, exclaiming, “See how these Christians love one another!”

False teachers, however, having corrupted the doctrines and ordinances of Christ, were influenced by another spirit; and, in the course of a few ages, the professed ministers of the loving Redeemer exhibited intolerance, malevolence, and cruelty, exceeding what had ever been witnessed under any form of religion. These enormities have been seen chiefly in the operations of the Roman Catholics, and especially by their execrable “Court of INQUISITION,” as this has been established in Spain, France, Portugal, India, and Rome. This court, though denominated “Holy,” has been the most arbitrary, inhuman, and sanguinary that ever existed among men; and because of its enormities, by its various machinery, and by its savage armies, it is symbolised in the Holy Scriptures under the emblem of a harlot, deluding the nations with her intoxicating draughts, and herself “drunken with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus.”--(Rev. xvii. 6.)

Before we enter upon the direct history of the Inquisition, therefore, it will be necessary to notice the inspired prophecies relating to this apostate and cruel hierarchy of popery; and to take a brief review of the rise and progress of that terrible and hated system of Antichrist.

“Known unto God are all his works from the beginning of the world.” And equally foreseen were all the forms of falsehood, cruelty, and evil upon the earth. Hence the inspired predictions concerning the hateful enemy of Christ.

Our blessed Lord repeatedly admonished his disciples concerning false teachers, who would be distinguished by their inhumanity; and the apostle Paul, in correcting the mistakes of some, regarding the day of judgment as being near, says, “Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition; who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he, as God, sitteth in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God.”--(2 Thess. ii. 3, 4.) Again, he represents the character of Romish teachers, and says, “Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils; speaking lies in hypocrisy; having their conscience seared with a hot iron; forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from meats, which God hath created to be received with thanksgiving of them who believe and know the truth.”--(1 Tim. iv. 1--3.)

Still more remarkable is the prediction described by the apostle John: “And there came one of the seven angels which had the seven vials, and talked with me, saying unto me, Come hither; I will show unto thee the judgment of the great whore that sitteth upon many waters: with whom the kings of the earth have committed fornication, and the inhabitants of the earth have been made drunk with the wine of her fornication. So he carried me away in the spirit into the wilderness: and I saw a woman sit upon a scarlet-coloured beast, full of names of blasphemy, having seven heads and ten horns. And the woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet colour, and decked with gold and precious stones and pearls, having a golden cup in her hand full of abominations and filthiness of her fornication: and upon her forehead was a name written, MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH. And I saw the woman drunken with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus; and when I saw her, I wondered with great admiration. And the angel said unto me, Wherefore dost thou marvel? I will tell thee the mystery of the woman, and of the beast that carrieth her, which hath the seven heads and ten horns. The beast that thou sawest was, and is not; and shall ascend out of the bottomless pit, and go into perdition. The seven heads are seven mountains, on which the woman sitteth. And there are seven kings. And the ten horns which thou sawest are ten kings, who have received no kingdom as yet; but receive power as kings one hour with the beast. These shall make war with the Lamb, and the Lamb shall overcome them: for he is Lord of lords, and King of kings: and they that are with him are called, and chosen, and faithful. And he saith unto me, The waters which thou sawest, where the whore sitteth, are peoples, and multitudes, and nations, and tongues. And the woman whom thou sawest is that great city, which reigneth over the kings of the earth.”--(Rev. xvii. 1--18.)

All these several predictions have been fulfilled with the most striking completeness; and we may have to refer to them in the course of this work; but the descriptions in those from the Revelation require our very special notice, as they lead us more particularly to the Romish hierarchy, and to the terrible court of inquisition. The Rev. Mr. Elliott, in his “Commentary” on this chapter, says:--

“This vision represented pictorially a gaudily dressed drunken harlot, seated on a beast of monstrous form, with _seven_ heads, and on the seventh _ten horns_. The beast, in respect of its body, depicted the papal empire of the ten western European kingdoms; and in respect of the seventh, or rather, eighth head, the succession of Roman popes, constituting, from after the sixth century, that empire’s spiritual rulers. So the _woman_ represented _Rome_ in its character of the papal see, and mother-church of Western Christendom; including, doubtless, as part and parcel of herself, the ecclesiastical state, or Peter’s patrimony, in Italy, and vast dominions, convents, churches, and other property appertaining to the papal church elsewhere, both in Europe and over the world.

“1. As the beast’s body both upheld and was subject to the woman, the rider, so the empire, as a whole, with the power of its secular kingdoms and many peoples, upheld, and was also at the same time ruled by papal Rome, the mother-church of Christendom.

“2. As the woman was here depicted before St. John under a double character, viz., as a harlot to the ten kings, and a vintner or tavern-hostess vending wines to the common people, just according to the custom of earlier times, in which the harlot and the hostess of a tavern were characters frequently united; so the church of Rome answered to the symbol in either point of view; interchanging mutual favours, such as might suit their respective characters, with the kings of Anti-Christendom; and to the common people dealing out for sale the wine of the poison of her fornication, her indulgences, relics, transubstantiation-cup, as if the cup of salvation, &c. (see the Pope’s own medal, holding out the cup of her apostacy, struck at Rome on occasion of the Jubilee in 1825), therewith drugging and making them besotted and drunk.

“3. With regard to the portraiture of the woman, robed in purple and scarlet, and adorned with gold, and precious stones and pearls, it is, as applied to the Romish church, a picture, characteristic and from life; the dress specified being distinctively that of the Romish ecclesiastical dignitaries, and the ornaments those with which it has been bedecked beyond any church called Christian; nay, beyond any religion, probably, that has ever existed in the world; not to add that even the very name on the harlot’s forehead, _Mystery_, (a name allusive, evidently, to St. Paul’s predicted _mystery of iniquity_,) was one, if we may repose credit on no vulgar authority, once written on the Pope’s tiara; and the apocalyptic title, ‘Mother of harlots and of the abominations of the earth,’ the very parody, if I may so say, of the title Rome arrogates to herself, ‘Rome, mother and mistress.’

“4. As to the harlot’s being depicted ‘drunken with the blood of the saints,’ its applicability to the Romish church, throughout the latter half, at least, portion of the beast’s 1260 predicted years of prospering, is written in deep-dyed characters on the page of history.”

Nothing can be more evident than that “Babylon the Great” designs the mystical city of the papal commonwealth, a regnant system of spiritual wickedness--an idolatrous church. This was the judgment of all the chief reformers in Germany, Switzerland, France, England, and Scotland. Some even of the Roman Catholics had the same conviction; and Petrarch, the celebrated Italian poet, calls the papal court “The Babylonian harlot, mother of all idolatries.”

Bishop Newton, having reviewed the prophecy, says, “Moreover, the woman, like other harlots who give philters and love-potions to inflame their lovers, hath ‘a golden cup in her hand, full of abominations, and filthiness of her fornication,’ to signify the specious and alluring arts wherewith she bewitcheth and inciteth men to idolatry, which is ‘abomination and spiritual fornication.’ It is an image copied from Jeremiah li. 7, ‘Babylon hath been a golden cup in the LORD’S hand, that made all the earth drunken.’ And is not this a much more proper emblem of _pontifical_ than of _imperial_ Rome?

“Yet farther to distinguish the woman, she has her _name_ inscribed _upon her forehead_ (verse 5), in allusion to the practice of some notorious prostitutes, who had their names written in a label upon their foreheads. The inscription is so very particular, that we cannot easily mistake the person; ‘_Mystery, Babylon the great, the mother of harlots_, or rather, of fornications and abominations of the earth.’ Her name, _Mystery_, can imply no less than that she dealeth in _mysteries_; her religion is a mystery, a mystery of iniquity; and she herself is mystically and spiritually ‘Babylon the great.’ But the title of mystery is in no respect proper to ancient Rome, more than any other city; and neither is there any _mystery_ in substituting one heathen, idolatrous, and persecuting city for another; but it is indeed a mystery, that a Christian city, professing and boasting herself to be the city of God, should prove another Babylon in idolatry and cruelty to the people of God. She glories in the name of _Roman Catholic_, and well, therefore, may she be called ‘Babylon the great.’

“Infamous as the woman is for her idolatry, she is no less detestable for her cruelty, which are the two principal characteristics of the antichristian empire. ‘She is drunken with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus,’ (ver. 6) which may indeed be applied both to pagan and to Christian Rome, for both have in their turns cruelly persecuted ‘the saints and the martyrs of Jesus;’ but the latter is more deserving of the character, as she hath far exceeded the former, both in the degree and duration of her persecutions. It is very true, that if Rome pagan hath slain her thousands of innocent Christians, Rome Christian hath slain her ten thousands; for, not to mention other outrageous slaughters and barbarities, the crusades against the Waldenses and Albigenses; the murders committed by the Duke of Alva in the Netherlands; the massacres in France and Ireland, will probably amount to above ten times the number of all the Christians slain in all the ten persecutions of the Roman emperors put together. St. John’s _admiration_ also plainly evinces that Christian Rome was intended, for it could be no matter of surprise to him that a heathen city should persecute the Christians; but that a city professedly Christian should wanton and riot in the blood of Christians, was a subject of astonishment indeed; and well might he, as it is emphatically expressed, ‘wonder with great wonder.’”

Mr. Scott, in his commentary on 2 Thessalonians ii. 3, 4, remarks, “No apostacy of equal magnitude and duration, no delusions equally pernicious and abominable, have taken place since the apostle’s days, as those of Rome. The imposture of Mohammed alone can be compared with it, and this could not be intended; for that impostor and his successors were not placed in the temple of God, the visible church (Rev. xi. 1, 2), but _without_ it, and in direct opposition to the very name of Christianity; they propagated their delusions mainly by the sword, and not lying miracles; and, indeed, the impieties of Mohammed never equalled the blasphemies here predicted. This ‘man of sin’ would be the ‘son of perdition’ (John xvii. 12); a genuine descendant of Judas, the apostle and traitor, who sold his Lord for money, and destroyed him with a kiss; a peculiar factor and agent of Satan, in destroying the souls of men, and finally sinking into perdition as his inheritance. It is manifest, that no succession of men have yet appeared on earth to whom this description fully accords, except that of the Roman pontiffs. This deceiver would oppose and exalt himself above all that is called God, or is ‘worshipped,’ either by Christians or pagans; thus the Roman pontiffs have opposed the truths, commandments, and disciples of Christ, in every age; the prophetical office of Christ, by teaching human inventions--his priestly office, by the doctrine of human merits and created intercessors--and his kingly office, by changing and dispensing with his laws. They have exalted themselves ‘above all that is called God,’ and is ‘worshipped,’ by claiming authority to forgive sins; by granting indulgences to men to break the commandments of God; by dispensing with his laws, and presuming to give meaning and authority to the Scriptures themselves. Moreover, this ‘man of sin’ ‘sits as God’ in the temple of God; and we must, therefore, look for him within the visible church; there he blasphemously usurps the throne of God, ‘showing himself to be God.’ Many Roman emperors affected divine honours, and demanded adoration; but there was no antecedent apostacy from Christianity or the worship of JEHOVAH; and they might rather be said to sit in the temple of Jupiter or Mars, than in that of God, whose temple must be considered to be among his professed worshippers, and not among avowed heathen. But the Roman pontiff--claiming to be the universal head of the whole church of God, called by his flatterers ‘Vice-God,’ a ‘God upon earth,’ arrogating the title of ‘His Holiness,’ boasting of ‘infallibility,’ claiming a right to depose kings and bestow kingdoms on whom he pleases--answers exactly to the description here given. While the Roman pontiff opposes the worship of God, by enjoining the worship of images, of saints, and angels, and the authority of his laws, to enforce subjection to his own edicts, he himself may be called the great idol, as well as the great tyrant, of the Romish church!”

Human sagacity could by no means have conjectured such a character rising up among the people of God, and such deeds perpetrated in the name and form of religion. This required the prescience of the Infinite Mind. But we shall see them all in their dreadful enormity, as we pursue the history of the Romish Inquisition.