cathedrals, to accept the grace which was offered to them; and that they might understand that they were not at liberty to refuse the invitation, a time was assigned to them within which their submissions must be all completed. A book was to be kept in every diocese, where the names of those who were received were to be entered. A visitation was to be held throughout the country at the end of the spring, and all who had not complied before Easter day, or who, after compliance, 'had returned to their vomit, would be proceeded against with the utmost severity of the law.[1]
The introduction of the Register was the Inquisition under another name. There was no limit, except in the humanity or the prudence of the bishops, to the tyranny which they would be enabled to exercise. The Cardinal professed to desire that, before heretics were punished with death, mild means should first be tried with them;[2] the meaning which he attached to the words was illustrated in an instant example.
- ↑ Instructions of Cardinal Pole to the Bishops: Burnet's Collectanea.
- ↑ The opinion of Pole, on the propriety of putting men to death for nonconformity, was strictly orthodox. He regarded heretics, he said, as rebellious children, with whom persuasion and mild correction should first be tried. 'Nec tamen, negârim fieri posse,' he continued, 'ut alicujus opiniones tarn perniciosæ existant, ipseque jam corruptus tam sit ad corrumpendos alios promptus ac sedulus ut non dubitârim dicere eum e vitâ tolli oportere et tanquam putridum membrum e corpore exsecari. Neque id tamen priusquam ejus sanandi causâ omnis leviter medendi tentata sit ratio.'—Pole to the Cardinal of Augsburg: Epist. Reg. Pol. vol. iv.
