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only should we be able to prove it, from the History of the Jews and the Christians, but from the records of the Justiciary Tribunals, from judicial confessions,-from the opinions of Judges, the verdicts of Juries, and the multitudes who heard the deluded creatures, in the very face of torture and death, confess their dealings with spirits; avowing their intercourse with the Devil, particularly their riding with him through the air on broom-sticks, and sailing the seas in egg-shells! &c. &c. &c.

Nay, were we to adopt the same method as this Letter-writer, we could bring as strong miracles from Pagan authors, wrought to disprove Christian miracles, as he has to prove miracles wrought by Saints, to confirm the doctrine of Purgatory and the virtue of relics. The miracles of Apol lonius Tyanæus, and Archytas of Tarentum, were highly celebrated by the vulgar, while they themselves were brought upon the scene, and exhibited as divine teachers, and rivals of the glory of the Son of God. The impudent fictions, ridiculous fables, and absurd miracles, put into the Life of Apollonius, written by Philostratus, are just similar to the legends and false miracles found in the Romish Historians and Legendary Tales, and are incapable of deceiving any one possessed of a sound mind,-any, but such as, through the corruption of vicious prejudices and a grovelling superstition, like the Irish Catholics, are willing to be deceived. Are not the miracles of Vespasian, when in Egypt, well attested? Yet who believes them?

Following the plan of the author we are remarking on, we should now examine his critique upon the third Article in No. LXXVII. of the

Edinburgh Review, with respect to the narrative of Dr Badeley, and the cures of Mrs Stewart, and Misses O'Connor, Lalor, and Dawell. But this we now deem superfluous. We have proved to demonstration, that these cures were not supernatural, at least in the sense of being Divine interpositions, in answer to Hohenlohe's prayers, which was the case we undertook to make out; we have shown that the Church of Rome has added to, and taken away from, the doc

trines of Scripture; and, therefore, being, according to St. John, under the anathema of Heaven, miracles from Heaven could not, consistently with the truth of God, be wrought in her favour, to prove her what she is not-the only true Church; because this would be Heaven working a miracle, or empowering the Prince Hohenlohe to work one in his name, to establish a lie; and, consequently, if Heaven could not do this, the Prince's cures are not miraculous→→ he is without a Divine commissionand, therefore, is either an enthusiast or impostor. This conclusion settles the whole question: it is invincible, and cannot be overturned. The Prince is welcome to either limb of the alternative, as also Drs Murray and Doyle.

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The idea that these cures are wrought, in order, as the Prince says, that faith in the Divinity of Christ, which in these days is so much fallen away, might be revived amongst the many denominations of Christians," is absurd. Signs are for them that believe not, not for them that believe." The object of the primitive miracles was, not to explain doctrines, but to convert Pagans. The object of the Prince's is to settle doctrines. This pretence is nothing novel, though sufficiently absurd. It is built upon the conduct of the Franciscans and Dominicans, each of whom wrought miracles to prove and disprove the immaculate conception. Suppose, then, such a test for the soundness of doctrine remaining in the church as the working of miracles to establish orthodoxy. Which of these two contending parties was right? They were both staunch adherents of the Church of Rome-her best and favourite sons. Both could not be right; yet miracle followed miracle in quick succession, till the tragedy at Berne, in 1509, put an end to it, by the exposure of the perfidy of the Dominicans. As their attempts to impose miracles for the confirmation of their doctrine were quite in character with others too common in the Church of Rome, we shall here transcribe the one attempted at Berne, as given by the translator of Mosheim's Church History:

"The stratagem in question (says

he) was the consequence of a rival ship between the Franciscans and Dominicans, and more especially of their controversy concerning the immaculate conception of the Virgin Mary. The former maintained that she was born without the blemish of original sin; the latter asserted the contrary. The doctrine of the Franciscans, in an age of darkness and superstition, could not but be popular; and hence the Dominicans lost ground from day to day.

"To support the credit of their order, they resolved, at a chapter held at Vimpsen, in the year 1504, to have recourse to fictitious visions and dreams, in which the people, at that time, had an easy faith, and they determined to make Berne the scene of their operations *. A person named Jetzer, who was extremely simple, and much inclined to austerities, and who had taken their habit as a lay-brother, was chosen as the instrument of the delusions they were contriving. One of the four Dominicans, who had undertaken the management of the plot, conveyed himself secretly into Jetzer's cell, and, about midnight, appeared to him in a horrid figure, surrounded with howling dogs, and seeming to blow fire from his nostrils by means of a box of combustibles which he held near his mouth. In this frightful form he approached Jetzer's bed, told him that he was the ghost of a Dominican who had been killed at Paris, as a judgment of Heaven for laying aside his monastic habit; that he was condemned to Purgatory for this crime; adding, at the same time, that, by his means, he might be rescued from his misery, which was beyond expression.

"This story, accompanied with horrid cries and howlings, frighted poor Jetzer out of the little wits he had, and engaged him to promise to do all that was in his power to deliver the Dominican from his torment. Upon this the impostor told him, that

nothing but the most extraordinary mortifications, such as the discipline of the whip, performed, during eight days, by the whole monastery, and Jetzer's lying prostrate, in the form of one crucified, in the chapel, during mass, could contribute to his deliver ance. He added, that the perform ance of these mortifications would draw down upon Jetzer the peculiar protection of the blessed Virgin; and concluded by saying, that he would appear to him again, accompanied with two other spirits.

"Morning was no sooner come, than Jetzer gave an account of this apparition to the rest of the Convent, who all unanimously advised him to undergo the discipline that was enjoined him, and every one consented to bear his share of the task imposed. The deluded simpleton obeyed, and was admired as a saint by the multitudes that crowded about the Convent, while the four friars that managed the imposture magnified, in the most pompous manner, the miracle of this apparition, in their sermons, and in their discourset. The night after, the apparition was renewed, with the addition of two impostors, dressed like devils; and Jetzer's faith was augmented by hearing from the spectre all the secrets of his life and thoughts, which the impostors had learned from his confessor‡. In this, and some subsequent scenes, (the detail of whose enormities, for the sake of brevity, we shall here omit,) the impostor talked much to Jetzer of the Dominican Order, which he said was peculiarly dear to the blessed Virgin: he added, that the Virgin knew herself to be con ceived in original sin; that the doctors who taught the contrary were in Purgatory; that the blessed Virgin abhorred the Franciscans for making her equal with her son; and that the town of Berne would be destroyed for harbouring such plagues within her walls.

"In one of these apparitions, Jet

What a horrid idea does this give of the morals of those Clergy who held that chapter! In modern times, combinations to destroy individuals, and carry their point, have not been wanting. What will the Clergy not do?

+How wonderfully similar is all this to Dr Murray's and Dr Doyle's conduct! It brings us to think upon their Pastoral Letters, and the manner in which the whole thing was got up and carried on at Ranelaigh.

Behold the evil of auricular confession!

zer imagined that the voice of the spectre resembled that of the Prior of the Convent; and he was not mistaken; but not suspecting a fraud, he gave little attention to this. The Prior appeared in various forms, sometimes in that of St. Barbara, at others in that of St. Bernard: at length he assumed that of the Virgin Mary; and, for that purpose, clothed himself in the habits that were employed to adorn the statue of the Virgin in the great festivals. The little images, that on these days are set on the altars, were made use of for angels, which being tied to a cord that passed through a pully over Jetzer's head, rose up and down, and danced about the pretended Virgin, to increase the delusion. The Virgin, thus equipped, addressed a long discourse to Jetzer, in which, among other things, she told him, that she was conceived in original sin, though she had remained but a short time under that blemish. She gave him, as a miraculous proof of her presence, a host, or consecrated wafer, which turned from white to red in a moment; and after various visits, in which the greatest enormities were transacted, the Virgin-Prior told Jetzer, that she would give him the most affecting and undoubted marks of her son's love, by imprinting on him the five wounds that pierced Jesus on the Cross, as she had done before to St. Lucia and St. Catharine. Accordingly, she took his hand by force, and struck a large nail through it, which threw the poor dupe into the greatest torment. The next night this masculine Virgin brought, as she pretended, some of the linen in which Christ had been buried, to soften the wound, and gave Jetzer a soporific draught, which had in it the blood of an unbaptized child, some grains of incense and of consecrated salt, some quicksilver, the hairs of the eye-brows of a child; all which, with some stupifying and poisonous ingredients, were mingled together by the Prior with magic ceremonies, and a solemn dedication of himself to the Devil in hope of his succour. This draught threw the poor wretch into a sort of lethargy, during which the monks imprinted on his body the other four wounds of Christ, in such a manner that he felt

no pain. When he awakened, he found, to his unspeakable joy, these impressions on his body, and came at last to fancy himself a representative of Christ, in the various parts of his passion. He was, in this state, exposed to the admiring multitude on the principal altar of the Convent, to the great mortification of the Franciscans. The Dominicans gave him some other draughts, that threw him into convulsions, which were followed by a voice conveyed through a pipe into the mouths of two images, one of Mary, and another of the child Jesus; the former of which had tears painted upon its cheeks, in a lively manner. The little Jesus asked his mother, by means of this voice, (which was that of the Prior's,) why she wept? and she answered, that her tears were owing to the impious manner in which the Franciscans attributed to her the honour that was due to him, in saying that she was conceived and born without sin.'

"The apparitions, false prodigies, and abominable stratagems of these Dominicans, were repeated every night; but the matter was at length so grossly over-acted, that, simple as Jetzer was, he at last discovered it, and had almost killed the Prior, who appeared to him one night in the form of the Virgin, with a crown on her head.

"The Dominicans fearing, by this discovery, to lose the fruits of their imposture, thought the best method would be to own the whole matter to Jetzer, and to engage him, by the most seducing promises of opulence and glory, to carry on the cheat. Jetzer was persuaded, or at least appeared to be so. But the Dominicans, suspecting that he was not entirely gained over, resolved to poison him; but his constitution was so vigorous, that though they gave him poison five several times, he was not destroyed by it. One day they sent him a loaf prepared with some spices, which, growing green in a day or two, he threw a piece of it to a wolf's whelps that were in the monastery, and it killed them immediately. At another time they poisoned the host, or consecrated wafer; but as he vomited it up soon after he swallowed it, he escaped once inore. In short, there were no means of securing him,

which the most detestible impiety and barbarity could invent, that they did not put in practice, till, finding at last an opportunity of getting out of the Convent, he threw himself into the hands of the magistrates, to whom he made a full discovery of this infernal plot. The affair brought to ROME, commissaries were sent from thence to examine the matter; and the whole cheat being fully proved, the four friars were solemnly degraded from their priesthood, and were burnt alive on the last day of May 1509.

"Jetzer died some time after at Constance. Had his life been taken away before he found an opportunity of making the discovery, this execrable and horrid plot, which, (like many of the other miracles of the Church of Rome,) in many of its circumstances was conducted with art, would have been handed down to posterity as a stupendous miracle*." This miracle, intended to increase the power and authority of the Dominicans, ruined their cause their influence instantly declined, and soon left them most deservedly exposed to the public indignation.

people, collected, by previous intimation, from different parts of the country to witness it. A young man, said to have been blind from his youth, was brought upon the stage by the Priests and Friars, who, after a number of ceremonies, accompanied with prayers, (what horrid profanity!) restored him to the use of his sight, to the astonishment of the spectators!

"A gentleman of Fife, who happened to be present at the time, suspecting the fraud, persuaded the young man to follow him, and drew from him the secret, that he had counterfeited blindness at the desire of the Friars; which the gentleman immediately published in the most open manner t.

"The detection of this imposture exposed them to derision, and was the occasion of their losing a person, who, by his learning and integrity, was the greatest ornament of their party,-the celebrated JOHN Row."

And such, ultimately, will be the effect of these Irish miracles. Even now, every man of sense is laughing at them. Philosophy disowns them, Reason spurns them, and "the Notwithstanding this failure, new voice of facts," issuing from St. Joattempts were made; and the Refor-seph's, Ranelaigh," or " Ballenkyl,” mation, in this country, a short time after, was, by a miracle also, endeavoured to be overthrown; but its instant detection brought them low, nade them still more contemptible in the eyes of the nation, and gained for the Reformation one of its greatest champions. We cannot help quoting it:

"One attempt they (the Popish Clergy) indeed made, to recover their lost reputation, and support their sinking cause, by reviving the stale pretence of MIRACLES Wrought at the shrines of their Saints. The farce referred to was acted at the Chapel of Loretto, near Musselburgh, (during the course of the year 1559,) in the presence of a great concourse of

instead of " publishing" the glory of God with the loudness of thunder, has proclaimed the shame and degradation of all the parties concerned in them.

Every body is recalling to memory the trickery of the Roman Catholic Priesthood, from the fourth century down to the pretended and detected miracles at the tomb of the Abbé Paris. People are recollecting, that, in every age, crafty impostors have deluded the simple, the ignorant, and the credulous multitude, with false miracles. The Catholic Priesthood, if you believe their church historians, have filled all countries with their prodigies. In every region where they attempted to plant

* This most impious fraud is recorded at length by Ruchat, at the end of the sixth volume of his Histoire de la Reformatione en Suisse: and also by Hattenger, in Histor. Eccles Helvet. Tom I., p. 334; and in Mosheim, Vol. IV. pp. 18, 19, 20, 21, and 22, in a note, whence the above is taken.

+ See M'Crie's Life of Knox, p. 219; also Row's MSS. Historic, p. 356; and Weekly Magazine for June 1772, for a full account of this pretended miracle and its detection.

Christianity, these have been the instruments with which they have imposed on ignorance and credulity, and by which they upheld their power and their influence. A history of these disgusting and blasphemous frauds, called pious frauds, (by some Romish writers,) would fill volumes. The few nauseous details given above are faithful specimens of the way and manner by which, in every age, they attempted to establish their relation to Heaven, the truth of their absurd and impious doctrines, and the evidence by which they affected to prove, that they, personally, were the favourites of the Most High, and their Church the only pure and true Church of God on earth!

The present attempt, therefore, of the Irish Catholic Church, to lift herself into power, by the pretended miracles of Prince Hohenlohe, is neither new, nor strange, nor unprecedented. On the contrary, it is quite in the business-like style. She has done the same disgusting work in all countries. We honestly and sincerely lament this attempt, because we have zealously and conscientiously advocated the right of our Irish brethren, to the enjoyment of their full civil and political rights and privileges, through good and through bad report. We were satisfied that, in the state to which exclusion had reduced them, there was much folly, and weakness, and superstition, existing among them; and that ebullitions of passion, on account of disappointed hopes, might now and then make their appearance; yet never suspected, that, amidst the liberal spirit of the age, and surrounded by that blaze of philosophical and religious light which illuminates Britain, they could become the dupes of a barbarous and irrational superstition, or believe in the thaumaturgic pretensions of this German impostor, his Serene Highness Prince KATERFELTO Hohenlohe! Our sagacity is hurt at being deceived, and our philanthropic feelings wounded by the doubts every where expressed, how far, in the knowledge of these facts, it would be safe, and wise, and prudent, to place political power and influence in the hands of Catholics, and to give them equal

we

privileges with their Protestant countrymen. Every day, they tell us, is unfolding the dangerous spirit and creed of Catholicism. In France, "by a government order, all children, without reference to nation or religious opinions, educated at the French schools, must attend the celebration of mass; in other words, be initiated into the principles and practices of the Catholic creed."

The Cardinal Archbishop of Toulouse, not satisfied with that power which the laws of France have conferred on his order, resolved, like his predecessors in olden times, to set himself above the constituted civil authorities, and, for that end, “published, under the form of a Pastoral Letter, propositions contrary to public law, and to the laws of the kingdom,-to the prerogatives and independence of our crown," says Louis, in his ordinance, dated 10th January 1824; and the Mexican Government, by its new constitution, has excluded all religions from a share in it except the Catholic. By it, Protestants can enjoy no place of power or trust whatever.

When this spirit of Catholicism, operating actively everywhere, through the increased activity of the restored society of Jesus, is combined with the avowed principles and practices of the Holy Alliance, and the temper and tone of the Irish Catholics, inflamed by these miracles, Protestants have reason to be justly alarmned, and on their guard, lest, by their liberality, indifference, or a mistaken philanthropy, they allow the chains of mental and bodily slavery, now forging for them by the Holy Alliance and Catholicism, to be rivetted upon them, and thus introduce, by their sloth, a long night of tyranny and darkness, which may settle over Europe for ages.

We should proceed to notice the second article that stands at the head of our paper; but our remarks on that neat little work, which is the production of a gentleman, a scholar, a divine, and every way worthy of him, we must defer, and solicit public attention to the two following extracts, which at once show the tone and spirit prevalent, at present, in Ireland, both among the Catholic Clergy and Laity.

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