p. 4 | The Sabbath and the Spanish Inquisition

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Mar 26, 1908

The Sabbath and the Spanish Inquisition

By William Ambrose Spicer

THE message of Sabbath reform and of the soon coming of the Lord is winning its way to true hearts in Spain. The land of the Inquisition is to hear the last message. The Inquisition and Loyola’s society of the Jesuits turned away the Reformation from Spain. It was as near to the stamping out of the truth from a land as ever history records. Yet there was a rich soil for Protestant truth in Spain in those days.

Spain had sent its teachers into England and the Low Countries to help combat the reformed teaching. But some of them returned, converted to reform, and began to preach in Spain. Their reception is described by Michael Geddes, an old English writer on Spanish and Portuguese themes, who had himself witnessed executions by the Inquisition in Portugal:—

And of the disposition Spain was in at this time, viz., betwixt the year 1550 and 1560, to have embraced the Protestant religion we have a further testimony from Paramus, who in his history of the Inquisition affirms, that, had not the Inquisition taken care in time to put a stop to those Protestant preachers, the Protestant religion would have run through Spain like wild-fire, people of all degrees, and of both sexes having been wonderfully disposed to embrace it.—“Miscellaneous Tracts,” Vol. I, page 440.

Evidently the more thoroughly Protestant teaching that had prevailed among the Waldenses and others of southern Europe found its way into Spain. According to one writer, who has, unfortunately, not given her authority, Sabbath-keeping practises gave the Inquisition much trouble in the brief course of Protestantism in Spain:—

“Of the many who were burned, and otherwise destroyed for Judaism,” observes a Spanish author of the sixteenth century, “it is not probable that one tenth were of the race of Israel, but heretics, who, for persisting in saying that the law of Moses was still binding, were accused of Jewish practises, such as circumcision and Sabbatizing, to the latter of which they uniformly plead guilty.” A Dominican inquisitor, in giving an account of the proceedings of that infernal tribunal in the north of Spain, declares that since it was known that many of the heretics were accustomed to solemnize the old Sabbath by religious worship, . . . it became the policy of the Holy Office to take notice of such persons as were shut up on that day, and of such persons as were found to be absent from worldly engagements. “The result answered my expectations,” he continues, “for when these people were arrested, and being brought before me, were shown the rack, they generally confessed their Judicial practises, at least so far as it related to Sabbatizing, which the holy church had expressly forbidden.”—“History of the Sabbatarian Churches,” Mrs. Tamar Davis.

It is necessary to scrutinize the accounts of Sabbatarian practises in Spain very closely, for multitudes of Jews had been forcibly converted. “New Christians” they were called. Some were continually reverting to the religion of their race. Yet the papal writers quoted seem clearly to have in mind Sabbath observers who were genuine Protestants. Brethren and sisters of our own faith, they were, who followed the Lord, and loved not their lives unto the death in that early day.

Thank God, the same Protestant standard is lifted again in Spain. The papal church there has the old inquisitorial spirit, but it has not the old-time power. The twelve hundred sixty years of papal supremacy expired; and however difficult the way may be made by ecclesiastical opposition, the sure word shows that in the closing reformation no powers will be able to shut the message absolutely away from any country, as the Inquisition turned the Reformation away from Spain in the sixteenth century. The prophet saw the last message actually going to every nation. Now, while doors are open, is our time to carry it.

W. A. S.