14. According to the teaching of the Church, every Christian is bound before God to do penance for his sins by ascetic exercises of abstinence, self-denial and almsgiving. On Church principles no one can dispense from this obligation, because it rests on divine ordinance. But the Popes teach that it may be relaxed or superseded by means of plenary or particular indulgences granted by themselves. They teach that to take part in a war against enemies of the Holy See and in the extermination of heretics is an effectual means for gaining pardon of sins, and a complete substitute for all works of penance. Thus did Paschal II. instruct Count Robert of Flanders in 1102, that for him and his warriors the surest means of obtaining forgiveness of sins and heaven was to make war upon the clergy of Liége and all adherents of the German Emperor, Henry IV.(119) Innocent III. charged King Philip Augustus of France with the conquest of England, after he had deposed King John, as a means for obtaining remission of sin.(120) Martin IV. again impelled the French in 1283 to make war on the Aragonese by the promise of plenary remission of their sins.(121) And whenever there was a war to be undertaken in the territorial interests of the Holy See, or for the extermination of heretics, the Popes urged men to take part in it as the surest and most effectual means for cleansing them from all their sins and attaining eternal happiness. 15. The Inquisition, both Spanish and Italian, is so pure a product of papal teaching on faith and morals, that there never was an Inquisitor who did not exercise his office by virtue of Papal authority and in the Pope’s name, or whose power the Pope could not at any moment he chose have wholly or partially withdrawn. All essential laws and regulations of the Inquisition—the accused being deprived of any advocate to defend him, the admission of infamous and perjured witnesses, the frequent application of the torture, the obliging the civil magistrates to carry out capital sentences of the Inquisitors, the prohibition to spare the life of any lapsed heretic even on his conversion—all this emanates from the direct and personal legislation of the Popes, and has always been confirmed by their successors. 16. Gregory IX., Innocent IV., and Alexander IV. teach that it is in accordance with the principles of morality and the Gospel to condemn a heretic seized by the Inquisition, who has recanted, to lifelong imprisonment.(122) 17. Alexander IV. teaches that it is lawful for the Pope to have the goods of those condemned for heresy sold by his inquisitors, and to take the proceeds for himself.(123)