N20568:1183
The new and complete book of martyrs; or, An universal history of martyrdom: being…
The new and complete book of martyrs; or, An universal history of martyrdom: being Fox's Book of martyrs, revised and corrected, with additions and great improvements. : Containing an authentic account of the lives, persecutions and sufferings of the holy martyrs; and the many dreadful persecutions against the Church of Christ in all parts of the world, by pagans, Jews, Turks, papists, and others, from earliest ages of the church to the present period. ... The whole forming at once a general Christian martyrology, and a complete history of persecutions. / By the Rev. Mr. John Fox, M.A. late of Magdalen College, Oxford. ; Now revised, corrected and improved, with many additional articles, relating to the acts and monuments of the church. By Paul Wright, D.D. ; Embellished with forty elegant copper plate engravings. ; In two volumes. Vol. I[-II].The new and complete book of martyrs; or, An universal history of martyrdom: being Fox's Book of marytrs, revised and corrected, with additions and great improvements. : Containing an authentic account of the lives, persecutions and sufferings of the holy martyrs; and the many dreadful persecutions against the Church of Christ in all parts of the world, by pagans, Jews, Turks, papists, and others, from earliest ages of the church to the present period. ... The whole forming at once a general Christian martyrology, and a complete history of persecutions. / By the Rev. Mr. John Fox, M.A. late of Magdalen College, Oxford. ; Now revised, corrected and improved, with many additional articles, relating to the acts and monuments of the church. By Paul Wright, D.D. ; Embellished with forty elegant copper plate engravings. ; In two volumes. Vol. I[-II].
New-York: printed by William Durell, 1794
Title page typeset from the transcription.
Volume 1 › Chapter 4 › An Account of the Rise, Progress, &c. of the INQUISITION.
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
THE inquisitors make a ridiculous affectation of equity, by pretending that the prisoner may be indulged with a counsellor, if he chooses to demand one. Such a request is sometimes made, and a counsellor appointed, but upon these occasions, as the trial itself is a mockery of justice, so the counsellor is a mere cypher; for he is not permitted to say any thing that might offend the inquisitor, or to advance a syllable that might benefit the prisoner. Amazing profligacy, to turn that to a farce, which ought to be reverenced as a superior virtue.
THE inquisitors make a ridiculous affectation of equity, by pretending that the prisoner may be indulged with a counsellor, if he chuses to demand one. Such a request is sometimes made, and a counsellor appointed, but upon these occasions, as the trial itself is a mockery of justice, so the counsellor is a mere cypher; for he is not permitted to say any thing that might offend the inquisitor, or to advance a syllable that might benefit the prisoner. Amazing profligacy, to turn that to a farce, which ought to be reverenced as a superior virtue.
FROM what has been said, it is evident, that a prisoner to the inquisitors is reduced to the sad necessity of defending himself against accusers he does not know, and of answering to the evidence of witnesses he does not see. The only person he is permitted to have a sight of upon his trial, exclusive of the judges and secretary, is the fiscal, who acts officially as the ostensible accuser, from the collected information of others. A desire of being informed of the real accuser's name, or to see the actual witnesses, avail nothing, those things he is told are always kept secret. Thus he is continued in suspense respecting his fate, and frequently interrogated, perhaps, for years together, before his trial is finally concluded. When that fatal time comes, if he is condemned to die, death is deferred for a considerable time. To put him out of his misery immediately would be too great a favour, and prevent the inquisitors from indulging their sanguinary dispositions with other sufferings which they intend to inflict. They begin by putting him to the torture, under the pretence of making the poor wretch discover his accomplices. For this purpose the tortures are various, and the torments inflicted excruciating to the last degree. Well might a late writer, speaking of these cruelties, exclaim, "O, that I was able to give some faint idea of that variety of tortures which the miserable victims are here forced to suffer; but no language can represent such a complicated scene of horrors. It is utterly impossible for any words to describe which of them is the most cruel and inhuman. Every one is so exquisite in its kind a to surpass all imagination. What detestable monsters then must those judges be, who are the inventors, and perpetrators of such misery? They are shaped, it is true, like other men, but surely they seem to have a different kind of souls. They appear as little affected with the groans and agonies of their fellow-creatures as the cords, chains, racks, and tortures, which are applied to their writhing limbs. The hearts of these ecclesiastical butchers are grown callous, and, like those of common butchers, are so inured to the shedding of blood, and horrid sight of mangled carcasses, as to have lost all the impressions of sensibility, and every touch and feeling of humanity.