INQUISITION FLOURISHES," etc.

"Chapter XXII. _Objections answered._ It remains to answer the
objections of Luther and other heretics. Argument 1. From the history of
the church at large. 'The church,' says Luther, 'from the beginning even
to this time, _has never burned a heretic_. Therefore it does not seem
to be the mind of the Holy Spirit that they should be burnt!' [He surely
misunderstood Luther.] I reply that this argument proves not the
sentiment, but the ignorance, or impudence of Luther; FOR AS ALMOST AN
INFINITE NUMBER WERE EITHER BURNED OR OTHERWISE PUT TO DEATH, Luther
either did not know it, and was therefore ignorant; or if he knew it, he
is convicted of impudence and falsehood,--for _that heretics were often
burnt_ BY THE CHURCH may be proved by adducing a few from many examples.
Argument 2. 'Experience shows that terror is not useful.' I reply
EXPERIENCE PROVES THE CONTRARY--for the Donatists, Manicheans, and
Albigenses WERE ROUTED AND ANNIHILATED BY ARMS," etc.

So this high dignitary of the Catholic church, a cardinal, a nephew of
one Pope and the special favorite of others, freely admits the charge so
often laid to Popery by creditable historians--the butchering of an
"infinite number" of people that differed from them--and here labors
hard to uphold it as a principle of righteousness. Their bloody crusades
against the innocent, unoffending Waldenses, Albigenses, and other
peoples, in which thousands, and in the aggregate _millions_, were
slaughtered like venomous reptiles, stand out on the page of history
with a prominence that can not be mistaken; and they themselves can not
deny it. Dowling has well said that their "history is written in lines
of blood. Compared with the butcheries of holy men and women by the
Papal Antichrist, the persecutions of the Pagan emperors of the first
three centuries sink into comparative insignificance. For not a tithe of
the blood of martyrs was shed by Paganism, that has been poured forth by
Popery; and the persecutors of Pagan Rome never dreamed of the thousand
ingenious contrivances of torture which the malignity of Popish
inquisitors succeeded in inventing." P. 541.

If any of my readers suppose that the character of Popery has changed
with the lapse of ages, I must tell you that such is not the ease.
Popery is unchangeable and this her ablest advocates declare. Chas.
Butler, in the work he wrote in reply to Southey's book of the church,
says, "It is most true