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saint_n	altar_n	church_n	great_a	1,787	5	3.7729	3	true

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A67363	The tragical history of Jetzer, or A faithful narrative of the feigned visions, counterfeit revelations, and false miracles of the Dominican fathers of the covent of Berne in Switzerland, to propagate their superstitions for which horrid impieties, the prior, sub-prior, lecturer, and receiver of the said covent were burnt at a stake, Anno Dom. 1509 / collected from the records of the said city by the care of Sir William Waller, Knight ; translated from his French copy by an impartial pen ...	Waller, William, Sir, d. 1699.; Impartial pen.	1679 (1679)	Wing W548; ESTC R18749	85,978	50

regard to the Displeasure and Just Indignation of God resolv'd to make a shaft or a bolt of it And knowing that if they should let the matter die it would come out at last to their shame before the World they resolv'd either to gain their design'd point in confirming their Doctrine by the credit of these Apparitions and feigned Miracles or if Jetzer were unmanageable they would rid their Hands and the World of him by Poyson In the City of Berne there was one Mr. William Diesbach an Ancient Advocate of that Town a Person of Judgment and Prudence and one that had a particular Respect to these Fathers being Honorary Patron to their Sodality his Advice they craved how they should behave themselves in this Important Affair Alleadging that our Blessed Lady complained of their remissness as often almost as she appear'd which was very frequently that they did not divulge her Commands to the Higher Powers they pray his Advice therefore whether it were not expedient to satisfie her by offering to the Council an Authentick Narrative of what has passed He being a discerning Person Counselled them not to precipitate matters but leave them to be ripened by time which would sufficiently divulge them to the World if at least Providence judg'd it expedient They Answer That the Virgin was very urgent and importunate with them and declared she would expect their demurres no longer so that they began to fear she should break out upon them with some marks of her Displeasure for their Negligence Diesbach rejoyns with a countenance between jest and earnest That if the Virgin was in such Post-haste she must take her own course which Repartee had they not been blinded might have assured them that he was no such credulous Fool as they might imagine An unbyassed Judgment might easily conclude that nothing but Judicial blindness and hardness of Heart could have been enough to strengthen the zeal of these Fathers to pursue their Project after such disappointments discouragements and disasters as they had met withall But on they went whither their own Folly led them One Night after a plentiful Collation which they had given the Friers to make them sleep more soundly the Lecturer Sub-Prior and the Receiver secretly conveyed themselves into our Ladies Chappel the Prior himself stood Sentinel for fear of surprize where with rare Artifice they taught the Image of our Lady to weep tears of Blood for which purpose they had reserved a Liquor tinctured by the afore-said Lazarus Dandalus and that so Naturally that one Mr. John Pries a Famous Painter of Fribourg could not discern the Imposture though it was put to him and by this means it became a common Fame that our Lady had shed these Bloody tears The Sub-Prior to avoid all suspicion Artificially Poyson'd one of those red-coloured Hostes whereof the Reader has sometimes before been told and the Plot was thus laid that when Jetzer could be next perswaded to Act the Passion they would immediately before give him the Sacrament which would do his Work for him effectually and then the Sub-Prior engaged by an Act of his own to convey his Body into the Quire of the Church before the great Altar where they would Worship him to cover and colour their Murder and give it out that he was an eminent Saint who dyed in the very Act of the Passion and that his Holy Soul was transported from his Body into Heaven by the Angels And then they would Bury him with all the Solemnity imaginable due to so great Merits They had provided also a Young but a crafty Novice whom they placed behind the Curtains drawn before the Image of our Lady which stood behind the Altar and this Young Knave was to Act two Parts one while to plead on the behalf of the Virgin and then to Answer in the Person of Christ her Son The Reverend Fathers having thus prepared their Matters upon Fryday being the Feast of St. Eloy Patron of the Black-smiths about three a clock in the Morning the Prior came all in haste to Jetzer's Chamber and awakening him tells him with seeming transport that he should come and see an astonishing Miracle for they could not judge other than that the Image of our Blessed Lady did plentifully weep tears of Blood Jetzer gets him out of his Bed and was glad to see Miracles wrought any where rather than upon himself and with others of the Fathers whom they met running to the Chappel to see this Miracle Jetzer made one and entring the Chappel they fall down before this wonder-working Image Look Look says one that had his Eyes a little more open than the rest here 's real drops of blood upon our Lady's cheeks and others that stand ready to fall in the corners of her eyes The Reader must have a good Imagination to give himself the contentment to see the postures of these Hypocrites at that word One beats his Breast Another stands in an amazed posture as if he had less Life in him than the Image and intended to petrifie A third lifts up Eyes Hands Voice to Heaven but all lay with infinite Devotion at her Feet Humbly recommending themselves to her Gracious Protection deprecating her displeasure begging the Pardon of their sins and beseeching her to let her poor Suppliants know what secret guilt there might be upon them which might cause such grief in her that was the Author of all their comfort Upon this the Novice that lay incognito behind the Curtain began to sob sigh and groan most piteously so that her Son which she held in her Arms for so must you conceive could not but condole with her and ask her My most dearly beloved Mother whence come these sad complaints My dear Son replyed she with a voice interrupted with frequent sobbings have I not cause to weep when this deluded World will needs Honour me to your apparent prejudice and against all Reason make it an Article of their Faith That I was born without sin which is your sole Prerogative being both their Saviour and mine Satisfie your self Mother replyed her Son and dry up those tears I will now take this cause into my own hands and determine the point so as to put it for ever out of dispute Then turning his speech to Jetzer he continued his discourse Brother John my special friend seeing thy holy Fathers apprehensive of danger are afraid to reveal and divulge my Apparitions and Miracles which I have vouchsafed their Covent for confirming this grand Truth I will now in my own person decide the Controverversie that the City of Berne if it will escape those terrible Judgements which hang over their heads may engage in this quarrel and lend their power and authority to support and vindicate my Revelations But go thy ways into the Chappel of St. John and there repose thy self a while then return and present thy self before this holy Image with the marks of thy five Wounds exposed to open view where thou

Charity as to hope the Lion is not so fierce as he is painted nor the Jesuite so profligate a wretch as he is represented For 1. Humane pity is so deeply radicated in our Beings towards those that suffer hard though deserved punishments that the Eye taken up with a lamentable Object conveys with imperceptible speed to our Hearts those impressions of Commiseration that we have no leisure to call in Aid from our Reasons to undeceive us that we may be capable of forming a right Judgment and discern between the Penalty and the Cause which indeed makes the Martyr It was a Judicious Observation made by King Charles the First in his Advice to his Son who now Reigneth That an Oppressed Party are commonly assisted by the vulgar Commiseration which attends all that are said to suffer under the Notion of Religion And though Protestants generally clear themselves of having Prosecuted these Jesuites for Religion but Treason yet I confess my self singular in that point and must beg their Pardon to assert that they suffered for a most Essential point of their Religion viz. that Principle which obliges them to unhinge and overturn all Government to Advance their Pseudoeatholicism and to extirpate Heresie or as 't is more Elegantly worded by their late Secretary and now Saint Coleman For the Conversion of three Kingdoms the total and utter subversion and subduing of that Pestilent Heresie that has Domineer'd over a great part of this Northern World a long time and of which there were never such hopes of success since the Death of their Queen Mary 2. And how many simple Souls might be drawn to judge favourably of them from their Zealous Prayers for their Gracious Prince Who can lightly believe that the poyson of Aspes should lurk under their Tongues when nothing but Honey and Butter dropt from their Lips Or that the Design of the Heart was Crucifie him Crucifie him to whom they sung such Hosannas if not Hallelujahs 3. To this we might subjoyn That the words of the Dying have commonly great force and weight upon the Hearts of the surviving 4. Add hereunto how difficult it is to conceive another should be Guilty of those Crimes to which their own sincerity and Innocency has preserved them perfect strangers And if the great Des-Cartes judg'd it an unanswerable Argument to prove the existence of a Deity because we can frame an Idaea or form a Notion of such a Being in our Minds Why may not some judge it an irrefragable Proof of the utter Impossibility of such Horrid Villanies of which we can find no tracks or footsteps in our own Souls And yet notwithstanding all this and much more that might possibly induce us to give Credence to their Oratory I can see nothing but unacquaintedness with their Principles and Practises that could contribute to our delusion into this Charity First therefore Those notorious falshoods which appear in their Protestations do utterly destroy the credibility of all the rest For if I can demonstrate the one half to be a Lye I have small encouragement to presume the other half to be a Truth I shall begin with confident Father Harcourt who when he was just Launching out into Eternity denied that he wrote the Letter concerning the dispatch of Sir Edmund-Bury Godfrey this he denies with the same Confidence with which he denies the rest And yet Mr. Dugdale swears he saw a Letter from him wherein were these words This Night Sir Edm. Godfrey is dispatch'd From which Letter he Relates it to his Companions as a piece of News And a Person of unquestionable Credit swears he heard the same Reported as from Mr. Dugdal the Monday Night or Tuesday Morning and yet in London or Westminster the Protestants knew nothing what was become of him till the Thursday following I shall next urge that loud Lye of Father Gavan who tells the World at his last Gasp That not one Jesuite except Mariana holds that it 's Lawful for a private Person to kill a King with equal Truth might he have affirmed that there was never a Jesuite besides Mariana For Suarez Bellarmine c. who were Grandees of that Order held the same or worse unless he thinks it worth the while to cheat poor silly Protestants with an Equivocation in that word Private Person when he hat 's Commissioned from the Pope is a Publick Executioner I must not omit Devout Father Ireland who brazen'd out the Court and Hector'd the Kings Evidence with one Witness upon another that he was in Stafford-shire from the beginning of August till September and produces Testimony from the Coachman to the Knight and all to defeat the Evidence given in against him and yet at last Providence has given in undeniable Proof that he was in London the 19th of August by a Person that then and there conversed with him and whose Oath is so fortified with other concurrent Evidence that nothing can be Objected against it Father Whitebread was a Person whose Life and Conversation was a grand lye he could Act any Religion Personate any Sect put himself under any shape and when he had done all be a sincere Catholick Secondly It concerns all Protestants better to study the Popish Doctrine of Auricular Confession and Judicial Absolution before they pretend or presume to Judge of a Protestation That the Jesuites are as Innocent of the Crimes laid to their charge as the Child unborn For if Adultery Murder Sacriledge Incest with whatever wears the most odious Character amongst Immoralities may upon Confession to a Priest be remitted and that Remission in the Court of Heaven and Conscience imports a full discharge from Crime and Penalty what might hinder these Fathers at the Gallows to protest their own Innocency as to any Treasons when they had no Question provided for their Absolution before-hand To this purpose let it be Observed 1. That Father Blundel in his late intercepted Letter boasts that he had Absolved these Condemned Fathers in Newgate And 2. Because they might have occasion to make use of a lye or two just under the Gallows which in strictness could not be Absolved before committed It was observed that these five Jesuites laid their Heads together at their last moment and who can then once doubt but that they might Absolve one another for any Lye they had told in their dying Orations And 3. Let it be noted that Mr. Langhorn who suffered alone and therefore could not have the benefit of Absolution in the extreame moment and Article of Death durst not venture to cheat the World by an extempory Speech but referr'd to a Paper ready drawn up for which he might have easily antecedent Absolution and did perform Penance as the stripes upon his back discovered at his Execution do abundantly witness Thirdly It 's past all Dispute that the Molinists or Jesuites need not boggle so squeamishly at the killing of Kings from their own avowed Doctrine of Probable Opinions viz. That one Doctor of their

Divine Presence to bear them up under all Difficulties and Oppositions This Eloquent Oration somewhat amated the poor Man and the more because he look'd for no such Glorious Appearance till recollecting himself he suspected the old Artifice and therefore with down-right scolding he Saluted her Lady-ship and treated her very rudely for all her fine Accoutrements Thou Mary said he the Devil as soon and without more words drawing his Knife which for a piece of extempory Service he always wore about him made at her with might and main But Mary who had heard of Jetzer's Rancounter with St. Cicily thought it not Prudence to come to fifty-cuffs and popping out the Candle mounted up the Organ-stairs and scaped a scowring Jetzer crys out The Virgin is too nimble for me but I shall be even with her one time or other Frier Jost Hack Answered O Profane wretch how hast thou disturb'd the Vision which after-ages will Curse thee for At this comes his Father Confessor What has the Virgin says he really now at last appeared The Virgin Replyed Jetzer with scorn no I am confident it was the Devil Come says the Prior leave off this squabble let 's return to our Devotions they obeyed and then he takes the Sacrament and with their Church-Musick marches in form of a Procession with great Gravity and Pomp the Father Confessor takes him gently by the Hand not permitting any to exchange a word with him lest his awakened Passion should blaze abroad the Cheat to all within reach of his Clamour whispering to him that without all controversie this was a most real Vision To which Jetzer return'd that he could see nothing in it but a continuaton of their former Villanies and Rogueries The Confessor for that sawcy Language and his notorious unbelief imposed this Penance on him that he should come before the High Altar and there stripping himself stark naked to his Navel should receive a competent number of Lashes with the Iron Chain to all which the poor slave with Patience perforce submitted There were present two Canons Dubi and Volfli who freely upon this occasion offer'd themselves to the same Discipline and would have rejoyced to have undergone it twice over as they said to have had the honour of Jetzer's Revelations and the Fathers hoped to make good use of their simplicity they being forward to testifie the truth of this last Vision which they readily did under their Hands and Seals Dubi protested he never saw such a glorious person in his life nor ever expected to see the like on this side Heaven and Volfli avowed that the glory of her presence so dazled his eyes that he could not perfectly see her face and that he could not refrain tears of transporting joy especially when he saw the Holy Frier so readily submit to that severe discipline The conclusion was the Fathers warned Jetzer to hold all these Revelations for the greatest Certainties and to make conscience of his Oath that he disturb'd not the affair during their Absence in their Voyage to Rome And now the Lecturer and Sub-prior leave Berne September the 24 th designing to wait on their General first to report to him the whole matter that with his Approbation they might more confidently and authentically appear before his Holiness but finding him deceased they had recourse to Cajetane the Vicar Generall who shortly after was elected Generall and not long after that was made Cardinall to him they open the whole business with all its circumstances in Ample manner from first to last but he being a Person of great understanding deputed the Procurator of their Order to examine the Affair and when he heard the Report commanded them to proceed no further in it only he promis'd them that he would procure from the Pope a Brief whereby they and their Order should be Indempnified provided they would desist and make no more words of it This Brief in a while was procured and dispatcht to the Priors of Berne and Interlacken with a recommendatory Letter to maintain the Innocence of the Order with which they return'd home in January in the year 1508. but the chief Magistrates being highly provoked by their attempted Journey they suppressed the Brief and durst not at all own it During their absence various rumours and discourses pass'd in the City some offering to lay any wager that they would procure a Confirmation of these Miracles and Apparitions Others were as confident that the Fathers were run away and that their pretended journey was but a handsome way of escaping the punishment due to their horrid Impieties but all agreed that it was an eternal dishonour to their City That they had been imposed upon to worship a sorry Taylours Boy for a Saint and a red-coloured Hoste for a God and by degrees the town-talk went so high and the dissatisfacton of the People was so great that the Council was obliged to summon the Prior and Jetzer personally to appear before them upon the first day of October They appeared but nothing could be got out of them but only this they referred themselves to the blessed Virgin for an Answer to all Interrogatories that were put to them The Council was at a loss and knew not how to deal with such refractory fellows and therefore they remitted the Prior to his Covent bidding him mind his business and for Jetzer they threatned to send him to his Competent Judge there to be further and fully examin'd about the whole Intrigue Accordingly the next day Jetzer was sent to Lausanne with Letters to the Bishop earnestly desiring him to commit him to close Durance and to examine him with all strictness requisite to sift out the bottom Upon the 8th of October Jetzer appeared before the Bishop assisted by several Doctors of Law and Canons Francis de Tabrieu Lewis de Piere Baptist Hicard Vicar Guidon de prez Michael de Sancto Cyriaco William de Mondragon and other Secular Officers The Bishop examined him strictly of all the Circumstances of the affair but Jetzer set a good face upon the matter taking his Oath by laying his hand upon the Gospels that all contained in the Narrative of the Prior was exactly true only as to the Conception of the Virgin Mary he desired to be excused On the fifteenth of the same Month he confirm'd again with the greatest vehemence the truth of his former Confession that the V. Mary had appeared to him and that all these Revelations and Miracles were true in manner aforesaid and that he would take his death upon it and being ask'd whether the blessed Virgin had ever appear'd to him since his coming to Lausanne he answer'd Yes both upon Sunday and Wednesday last and that amongst other things she had told him That during all her Sojourn upon Earth she never had a good day free from Tribulations and Afflictions but she thank'd God being now in Heaven with her Son she was fill'd with unspeakable satisfaction to which Glory he