The Papists usually recommend to their own people this tribunal as an holy one, and call the inquisition the holy office. But if we consider it thoroughly, we shall find it is all disguise, by which they endeavour to palliate and cover over the villany and injustice of this court. I will not now undertake to shew that the causes which are managed before this tribunal are not subject to human judgment, but belong to the tribunal of God, and his son Christ: for God only, the supreme Lord of all, who can save, and can destroy, can prescribe the laws of salvation and damnation: He only, as omniscient and searcher of hearts, can pronounce an infallible judgment of every one’s faith, which lies concealed in his mind, and which he may dissemble by words or actions, and hath admitted no man as partner with himself in this power. From hence it evidently follows, that it is a sacrilegious violation of the divine majesty and laws, in that the pope of Rome arrogates to himself the judgment of the faith, prescribes laws of believing to the faithful, erects the tribunal of an inquisition, sends every where inquisitors as judges delegated by him, who, in his name, and by a power granted by him, are to inquire into the faith of all, and punish those who are not in all things obedient to the pope. Nor will I here examine that villainous doctrine, by which they teach that heretics are to be deprived of all power, so that faith is not to be kept with them; subjects are not bound by their oath of allegiance and fidelity: that the husband or wife, for the heresy of either, is freed from the laws of matrimony, and even children from obedience to their parents: for it is fully evident, that this doctrine subverts all laws, divine and human. I will only, in a few words, represent the principal iniquities and instances of injustice of this tribunal; in which, as to the reason and method of proceeding in favour of the faith, it differs from the laws and customs of all other courts; whereby things evidently unjust in other tribunals, are in this accounted just. I shall not indeed mention all, but the chief only, and most remarkable instances, as specimens of the rest. I. The first is, that the inquisitors, by publishing an edict of the faith, oblige all, under the penalty of excommunication, to inform before them of every one of whom they suspect of heresy, for the slightest cause; so that not only a relation is bound to accuse his relation, a brother his brother, and by this information to bring him into danger of being burnt, the most horrible of all punishments; but even a wife her husband: yea, what destroys all the laws of nature, a son, according to the opinion of many doctors, is bound to inform against his father, if a secret heretic.