ks for his deliverance, he vowed
that his life, which was thus providentially saved, should thenceforth
be entirely devoted to the extirpation of heresy.[*] His subsequent
conduct corresponded to these professions. Finding that the new
doctrines had penetrated into Spain, he let loose the rage of
persecution against all who professed them, or were suspected of
adhering to them; and by his violence he gave new edge even to the usual
cruelty of priests and inquisitors. He threw into prison Constantine
Ponce, who had been confessor to his father, the emperor Charles;
who had attended him during his retreat; and in whose arms that great
monarch had terminated his life: and after this ecclesiastic died in
confinement, he still ordered him to be tried and condemned for heresy,
and his statue to be committed to the flames. He even deliberated
whether he should not exercise like severity against the memory of his
father, who was suspected, during his later years, to have indulged a
propensity towards the Lutheran principles: in his unrelenting zeal for
orthodoxy, he spared neither age, sex, nor condition: he was present,
with an inflexible countenance, at the most barbarous executions: he
issued rigorous orders for the prosecution of heretics in Spain, Italy,
the Indies, and the Low Countries: and having founded his determined
tyranny on maxims of civil policy, as well as on principles of religion,
he made it apparent to all his subjects, that there was no method,
except the most entire compliance or most obstinate resistance, to
escape or elude the severity of his vengeance.

* Thuanns, lib. xxiii. cap. 14.

During that extreme animosity which prevailed between the adherents of
the opposite religions, the civil magistrate, who found it difficult,
if not impossible, for the same laws to govern such enraged adversaries,
was naturally led, by specious rules of prudence, in embracing one
party, to declare war against the other, and to exterminate by fire and
sword those bigots who, from abhorrence of his religion, had proceeded
to an opposition of his power and to a hatred of his person. If any
prince possessed such enlarged views as to foresee, that a mutual
toleration would in time abate the fury of religious prejudices, he yet
met with difficulties in reducing this principle to practice; and might
deem the malady too violent to await a remedy, which, though certain,
must necessarily be slow in its operation. But Philip, t