How the Sentences are pronounced, and the condemned persons delivered over to the Secular Arm.
The inquisitors are commanded to pronounce the Sentences against Heretics, and to leave the condemned Persons with the secular Powers present, to be punished according to their Desert. Although this Command requires the secular Judge to be present at the pronouncing Sentence, yet the Sentence of Condemnation against Heretics, pronounced when the secular judge is absent, is valid, provided there be all other things essential to it. For the Laws do not require the Presence of the secular judge or his Officers, as though nothing profitable could be transacted without him, but only that they (the Judges), as Servants, should put in Execution the Sentence pronounced; for every other Act is forbidden them in this Crime, which is merely Ecclesiastical. And if the Presence of the secular judge was necessary in pronouncing Sentence of Condemnation against impenitent or relapsed Heretics, he might easily by this Means hinder the Office of the Inquisition, by denying his Presence, either for no Reason, or for a feigned and pretended one. So that when the Inquisitor and Bishop have pronounced Sentence upon the Criminal, it shall be valid, though the secular Magistrate cannot or will not be present; and it shall be sufficient to intimate to him by some legal Person in Writing when there is Need, and which is the safest Method, that such a Person is judged to be an obstinate Heretic, and impenitent or relapsed ; and the secular Magistrate, though not present at the Sentence, shall be obliged to give Credit to such an Intimation, and to put to Death the Heretic delivered over to him, unless he (The Magistrate) will be most grievously punished as a Favorer of Heretics, and Hinderer of the holy Office. Nor must he have any Copy of the Process.
It is commanded, that the Church shall effectually intercede for him, who is to be delivered over to be punished by the secular Court, that the Sentence concerning him may be so moderated, as to prevent Danger of Death.* And although the Emperor Frederick provided by his Law, Let no one presume to intercede with us in Behalf of such, which if any does, he shall deservedly incur our Indignation; yet the Ecclesiastical judges may intercede in another Court for such a one; and although such Intercession is forbidden, which tends to favor the Heretic, or to the Hindrance of justice yet such Intercession is not, which tends to the avoiding Irregularity, and which is particularly enjoined by the Law itself. However, every Difficulty of this kind the cunning Industry of the Popes has wholly taken away, who have provided, how both the Inquisitors and Counselors may more securely avoid Irregularity.
* Is there, says Dr. Geddes, in his View of the Court of Inquisition in Portugal, in all History, an Instance of so gross and confident a Mockery of God, and the World, as this of the inquisitors beseeching the civil Migrates, not to put the Heretics they have condemned and delivered to them, to Death? For were they in Earnest when they made this solemn Petition to the secular Magistrates, why do they bring their Prisoners out of the Inquisition, and deliver them to those Magistrates, in Coats painted over with Flames? Why do they teach that Heretics, above all other Malefactors, ought to be punished with Death? And why do they never resent the secular Magistrates having so little Regard to their earnest and joint Petition, as never to fail to burn all the Heretics that are delivered to them by the Inquisition, within an hour or two after they have them in their Hand,? And why in Rome, where the Supreme, Civil, and Ecclesiastical Authority are lodged in the same Person, is this Petition of the Inquisition, which is made there as well as in other Places, never granted? Thus far Dr. Geddes. And let me here add, that this Hypocrisy and Dissimulation is the more vile and execrable, in that the Inquisitors are commanded by the Bulls of several Popes, to compel the secular Magistrate, under Penalty of Excommunication and other Ecclesiastical Censures, within six Days readily to execute the Sentences pronounced by the Inquisitors against Heretics, i. e. to burn them. The Tender Mercies of these Wretches are Cruelty.
Nor can the secular Judges, after Criminals for Heresy, relapsed or impenitent, are delivered over, or left to them to be put to Death, re-examine the Process and Cause, and correct or alter it if needful, or pronounce the Sentence void.
The secular Judge is bound in a Cause of Heresy immediately, and, as they say, with his Eyes shut, to execute the Sentence of the Ecclesiastical Judge, without any Cognizance or Assurance of the justice of it. And this is now most exactly observed in Spain and Portugal. There is an Instance of a Jewish Girl, scarce entered into her seventeenth Year, extremely beautiful, who, in a public Act of Faith at Madrid, An. 1680. together with twenty others of her Nation, of both Sexes, being condemned to the Stake, turned herself to the Queen, and prayed, that out of her Goodness and Clemency she might be delivered from the most dreadful Punishment of the Fire, in these Words: “Great Queen, is not your Presence able to bring me some Comfort under my Misery? Consider my youth, and that I am condemned for a Religion which I have sucked with my Mother’s Milk.” The Queen turned away her Eyes, and declared she pitied the miserable Creature, but did not dare to intercede for her with a single Word.
Nor must the Inquisitor show to the Lay Judge the Process made by him; but the secular Magistrate must immediately, and without Delay, put in Execution the Sentence of the Ecclesiastical Judge.
If the Inquisitor finds the secular Judge to be to negligent, as not to take Care to put to Death the Heretics delivered to him after five or fix Days are elapsed, though there be nothing legally to hinder him, then the Inquisitor may command him to execute the Punishment of Burning, or of Death, upon the Heretics left to him, since this is the Punishment usually inflicted on such nor will the Inquisitor hereby fall into Irregularity.
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