practised, but also recommended to posterity, a more than ordinary devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary at Fernyhalgh, in contriving, erecting, and finishing a house of prayer there, in the year of our Lord 1684 and 5.Ad majorem Dei gloriam, Deiparæque Virginis Gloriam. Amen. at his White Hill in Goosnargh. it into such hands as I shall appoint. Be pleased therefore, good Sir, to depose it, at your best convenience, in Mr. Tootel's hands, who is our superior of your hundred, the present incumbent, and one who has merited his future continuance at this place, by his past performances. And I hope you will never want the pious remembrance of us all, as our great benefactor; nor a grateful acknowledgement of so signal a favour, from my Lord Bishop, to whom I shall report it and most especially from Your ever grateful, This is not only to repeat my grateful acknowledgement of the singular favour I received gratis from your hand the last time I lodged with you at Goosnargh, but also to give thanks for your having been chiefly instrumental in procuring us a house at Fernyhalgh, which God be praised has no little contributed to his service ever since; and for your past charity, in paying our rent for it now sixteen years together: but most especially for your kindest offer to perfect so pious a work, by paying our fine or purchase money for the ground whereon it stands, and putting III. A Continuation of the Historical Account of the new ChapelHouse at Fernyhalgh The Whiggish faction prevailing in the latter days of the late gentle governess of these realms, (Queen Ann) a proclamation was made at Preston, on Whitsun-Eve, in the year 1714, for putting in execution the penal laws against Catholics; which gave us some disturbance. But more ensued after the government fell into the hands of her successor. For at the Quarter Sessions, holden at Preston in January following, the humble servant, Vicar of Preston (who in the year 1700 molested Christopher Tootel, and a neighbour of his, with a warrant for apprehending them as seducers) procured them an Indictment and an Order of the Court for apprehending Christopher Tootel and Edward Melling †, with seven of their neighbours, as seducers and recusants. The trouble and danger of which prosecution (in searches made by our constables, &c.) continued * Mr. Barlow was Vicar General, and resided at Park Hall. Mr. Tootel was, in 1701, Rural Dean of the Hundred of Amounderness. + Mr. Ed. Melling was nephew of Mr. C. Tootel; he seems to have lived with his uncle, but survived him. Mr. Melling was appointed Rural Dean of Amounderness Feb, 5th, 1719, and died April 17, 1732. This attestation is in the handwriting of Mr. Tootel. In nomine Dni. Amen. Potestate mihi facta a Revmo. Episcopo Marcopolitano assignandi R. D. Edvardo Melling Literas Patentes Decani Ruralis de Amunderness (mihi à Revmo. Episcopo Calliopolitano, die 5 a Feb. an. 1699 concessas) Ego infra-scriptus eidem Revo. Dno. Edvardo Melling (deputato in Decanum pro Districtu præfato, a Revmo. Episcopo Marcopolitano) prædictas Literas assignavi, Die 5 Feb, anno 1719. Christophorus Tuttel V. G. till the next Quarter Sessions; in which the Justices were so favourable as to discharge the persons indicted, upon their appearing by an attorney, and paying off the costs and charges of the suit, which amounted to ten pounds, besides other expenses. But these truly civil magistrates being displaced soon after, their successors were active and severe in their office; and symptoms of foul weather broke out at last into a violent storm, which discharged its first and fiercest fury on our neighbourhood, and gave us such a shock as will not be recovered in many years, if ever. For after the brisk defence, fatal surrender, and eager plundering of Preston, on the twelfth, thirteenth, and fourteenth of November, 1715, our Whiggish neighbours (envying the quiet we had enjoyed under the late magistracy) directed and conducted the enraged and greedy soldiers to plunder and disfurnish the houses of all Catholics round about, and especially our habitation, their greatest eye-sore in these parts. And indeed the furious hurry in which they marched hitherward, time after time, portended nothing less than destruction to our dwelling place so that as often as any considerable body of soldiers sallied this way, the observers of their motion stood watching to see our house all in flames before they left it. But the divine Providence, its best and only safeguard, happily prevented that mischievous design, or hindered it from taking effect, and suffered their malice to proceed no further, even against our Oratory, than to the destroying of some ornaments, as pictures, &c. and carrying away with them some utensils belonging to it, as one thurible, six large candlesticks of brass, &c. Whereas they made stables of the under-rooms, whilst they searched laboriously and plundered severely the rest of the house, and the barn, day after day for a whole fortnight together. And when one company had carried away what another had left, till nothing easily re : moveable remained, the disappointed after-comers were so fierce in demanding money of the housekeeper, and her assistant, that they were forced to quit their post, and shift for their own safety elsewhere; leaving the doors unlocked, lest they should be broken down in their absence. But no harm was done to the house after they left it, although it remained five months without an inhabiter. Besides our losses by plunder, which were none of the least, we suffered great damage in books, vestments, antependiums, &c. spoiled by lying three weeks buried in the earth, because no place above ground could be thought secure for any thing valu able, so long as great industry and ingenuity, sharpened by finding out several well-stored private places in our neighbourhood, were used in searching for plate, money, writings, &c. Yet nothing was more dreadful and afflicting on this occasion, than the soldiers' insolence and outrage, whereby some neighbours were frighted out of their wits, others abused in their persons, others starved into distempers that proved mortal: nor could scarce any addition have been made to the barbarity of their looks and peremptory demands, attended with horrid oaths, hellish execrations, cocked pistols, and drawn swords set to the breasts of men, women, and children, unless they had proceeded to a massacre. : After plundering was over, fresh troubles and distresses were occasioned by general and special searches made in the night time, for apprehending persons obnoxious to the government, on account not only of the insurrection, but also of priesthood and among other reputed priests Christopher Tootel and Edward Melling were particularly sought for on the 5th of January, 1715, at midnight. When C. Tootel had in all likelihood been taken napping, but that upon accidental or rather providential notice of the danger, he lay nine hours that night on a haymow, in a lonesome barn; where the fear of being found out, the coldness of the night, &c. disturbed his rest, and kept him waking all that time Playing at boh-peep was all that winter's pastime. But the seeker's advantage over the hider's spoiled our sport: the long frost and snow then on the ground, being as favourable for men as hares. This sorry diversion was a prelude to the dismal assizes held at Liverpool and Preston, and to the bloody executions of 42 condemned persons, part of whom were neighbours, part strangers; part Catholics, part Protestants, viz. sixteen at Preston, five at Manchester, five at Wigan, four at Liverpool, four at Garstang, and eight at Lancaster. Besides whom, hundreds died of sickness, (occasion ed generally by hard usage) in prison of whom two were priests, and both educated at Rome, viz. Mr. James Gerard and Mr. James Swarbrick; but the former died at Liverpool, and the latter at Lancaster, whither Providence sent them for the spiritual assistance of sick and dying Catholics. Hundreds also of such as either had been tried and condemned, or had subscribed the Transportation Bill, without trials, were transported to be slaves in the West Indies. Moreover, bills of indictment were found by the Grand Jury against some ninety absconding Lancashire men; most of whom had so little hope of justice, that they chose to be outlawed rather than appear. And the few that surrendered themselves prisoners, met with chargeable confinements, strict prosecutions, and pinching trials; all possible endea vours being used, from the beginning to the end of this tragedy, to quash the Tories by ruining Catholics. Wherefore whilst the Whigs extol the mercy of the Government, let Catholics, with one heart and one mouth, glorify God for their signal preserva tion, saying: "It is the Lord's mercies that we are not consumed, &c." Lam. iii. 22. Whilst these calamities were on foot, the Commissioners brought more upon us by their scrutinies, discove ries, and seizures of lands and goods, forfeited on account of what the present Government calls rebellion, or what Protestancy reputes superstition; to the undoing of many persons and families. And after all Christopher Tootel and other Catholics were summoned to take the oaths at Preston the 22d of November, 1716. But nothing following, upon their not appearing, besides the Registering of Catholics' Estates in order to sequestration, Christopher Tootel ventured to settle at home privately, but made no public appearance till the fifteenth of August next ensuing the Gaol-delivery of 200 prisoners at West Chester, on the twenty-ninth of July, 1717. Since which time we have prayed six months openly, to the verifying of this prophecy : "Lord... when thou hast been angry, thou wilt remember mercy." Hab. iii. 2. O may we never forget being truly thankful for such a change as no hand but that of the Almighty could have brought to pass, against the will and endea vours of so many adversaries now in power. But these halcyon days soon expired. For the Commissioners' return and abode at Preston interrupted our quiet, so thatJune the twentyninth, 1718, was the last day of public praying at Our Lady's Well. After which Christopher Tootel was twice ticketed to appear before the Commissioners, viz. on the sixteenth and twenty-first of July. Helen Livesay, his housekeeper, and George Union, his neighbour, were likewise ticketed on the sixteenth aforesaid. George appeared and was sent to Gaol, where they detained him nineteen weeks for refusing to answer such questions as were asked him concerning Christopher Tootel. Upon whose and Helen Livesay's not appearing, the uninhabited house was seized by George Rishton and N. N. sent by the Commissioners, who broke in at the parlour window on the 28th of the same month; the doors being locked, and the On twelve Lectures on the Subject of the Prophecies, &c. 133 casements made fast on the in- in whose hands the house remained side. Some six or eight weeks after that, Mr. Roberts, one of the Commissioners' Stewards, let the house and garden to Thomas Darlington, Protestant, seized the standing goods that were left in the house, and sold them to the said Darlington for two guineas, uninhabited till the beginning of May in the year 1719, but since then it has been peaceably inhabited by Catholics three whole years. We began to pray at Our Lady's Well, privately Aug. 5th, 1723, and publicly Aug. 15th in the same year. G. C. On Twelve Lectures on the Subject of the Prophecies, &c. (Concluded from p. 96.) A hint from us to the antipapal lecturers, that they resemble certain preachers satirized by Warburton (Let. p. 403), who, "addressing hearers that only follow their noses, open their throats without trusting to their own sense, but to the want of it in all besides;" or an insinuation, that "having mitres on their heads, or in their heads," they think that gain is godliness, and that the prospect of present emolument, or future preferment, is a sufficient justification of their conduct, might subject us to the imputation of naughtiness of manners. We will therefore spare the irritability of their feelings, and observe a delicacy and forbearance to them, which they are little solicitous to practise in regard of us" members of the Catholic Beast." But we may take the liberty of enquiring what other motive is efficient enough to induce men of sense and learning to advocate, in an English pulpit, the Babylonish fictions, and with coarse vulgarity, in defiance of common sense and common decency, to exhibit a learned, virtuous, and venerable Italian ecclesiastic, as a horn, a beast, a man of sin, an Antichrist, or a Babylonian w--e. Is it a desire of discovering or diffusing scriptural knowledge? No. It is manifest, that all the volumes which they have written on the subject, are a pile of worthless rubbish; a pile which accumulates, in the inverse ratio of sound judgment and sober criticism. It is not a lamp, but an extinguisher of scriptural light. Is it with a view of confirming the religious principles of the Protestant, or shaking the faith of the Catholic? No. The sensible Protestant now views it in the same light as the Catholic; and both concur in ridiculing or condemning the superannuated lie. Archbishop Laud, the brightest luminary of Canterbury, since the days of Cardinal Pole, told them long ago, on a very so→ lemn occasion (for it was in his defence, at his unjust but fatal trial in Westminster Hall), "that Rome is a true Church, I ever did and ever must grant it veritate entis. Nor do I think, that the calling of the Pope Antichrist did ever yet convert an understanding Papist. It has done the Church of England no good, no honour in foreign parts." The insulted Archbishop then addressed by name one profligate scoundrel, who among other fictitious counts of high treason, had accused His Grace of being Antichrist, and a pander to the w→ of Babylon, with this keen sarcasm, applicable to many other Babylonians: "Good Mr. Nicholas, do not dispense with all whores, save the whore of Babylon." (State Trials, Vol. 1. p. 894.) True it is, we know it well. Such disingenuous cant and senseless rant, to which even men of learning are compelled to have recourse, when they attack popery, convinces the Catholic, that his religion is invulnerable, and cannot be attacked by the sharpest weapons of fair argument and truth.-Is it from the hope of converting the infidel? Impossible. It gives him a lesson in the horrid art of blaspheming the Holy Scriptures. (See Mo. Rev. and Crit. Rev. passim.) Dr. Pearson admits and laments that it encourages and produces infidelity, but will never cure it.-Is the tale persisted in from a conviction that its truth has been established? This is, if possible, still further from the truth? Examine, if it be worth your while, the Babylonish writings. What voluminous nonsense! What a tissue of mutual refutation, and endless contradiction! What a ludicrous confidence has each of these adventurers, that he alone is right, and all the rest wrong! We have seen Dr. Pear. son, at the head-quarters of Babylon, very judiciously giving up a part of the cause, and honourably opposing all his learned and venerable predecessors. Hear Mr. Faber, who is another noun substantive in the class. He is one of their latest and most voluminous writers. Though we do not think his inventions wiser than those which he refutes, we fully agree with him in the justice of his condemnation of the aberrations of those who have gone over the same ground before him. In his Dissertation, he says: "I have been compelled to relinquish, as utterly untenable, many opinions which I had once adopted. The title Antichrist has been usually applied by Protestants to the Pope, but I cannot find they have any warrant from scripture for so doing. This idea of mine has been strenuously, but I think, ineffectually, opposed by Mr. Whitaker. The prophecy respecting the man of sin, has been exactly accomplished in the popes." What says Dr. Pearson to this? Mr. Faber proceeds: " Mr. Whitaker has exceeded his commission in branding the papacy with the title of Antichrist. The identity of Antichrist and the little horn has been rather taken for granted than proved. Mr. Whitaker's scheme is untenable. |