News from Purgatory. OR, The Jesuits Legacy To all their Loving Friends In all Cities and all Countries.
WE had long since (most Noble Friends) left you this our last Legacy, as a Testimony of our thanks due to your great Trust and singular Contrivance in carrying on the Design, but that we stayed for Mr. L— our Fellow-Labourer, and deserved indeed at the same time to have been a fellow-sufferer, though the subtilty of his Evasions obtained a small Respit from the Execution of Justice, for which he hath now suffered the same Fate. For as he is a spirit of profound knowledge in the deepest Misteries of the Law, so is he of greatest use for his singular Trust in the management of the same; for tho these Regions be very well stockt with Gown-men, especially Priests and Lawyers, yet could we not in all this numerous croud, find out one Devil, tho some thousand years experienced in all the Villanies of Man, whom we might entrust in this Concern like him: who as he was best acquainted with our Estates and Writings, Privy to all our Councils and Debates, can in the most profound and Legal Method convey them to your Lordship.
We need not tell you with what obstinacy of Resolution; and unparallell'd Impudence, we perished to the last gasp, even to the defiance of Truth, and abjuration of Heaven, for the Holy Catholick Cause, and must exhort you by our Example to continue Obstinate to the End, that Hereticks get no Advantage against us, that your lives may be thought Innocent, and the Credulous multitude pity your Sufferings, you may daily gain Proselytes into the Bosom of the Mother Church.
But we hope such Cognizances are not necessary for you (My Thrice Noble Friends, the great Atlasses of our Papal Heaven) whose larger Souls are a greater Testimony of your Integrity then our Example can express, for which you deserve the Eternal Praise and Prayers of the Church, and which we to the most excellent worth of your most noble persons, with an ampler right and greater Merit than our selves have now applyed, who have hitherto laboured in so glorious a work, not for the sake of profane Empire only, but for the Principality, Universality and Infallibility of the most Holy Roman Catholick Church. For it was you (My Noble Friends) who at the Command of his Holiness the present Alexander the 14, and some years since brought forth of your Armory instead of Allegiance and Loyalty, Darts of a clear different [Page 2]frame: to wit, the Shield of Assistance and the Sword of Glory for propagating the Holy Catholic Cause, and subverting of Hereticks, which they miscall Rebellion and Treason, for which we have already suffer'd Martyrdom, and you your selves lye under the State of Condemnation.
Nor is it only for your generous Conspiracy and secret Conduct we owe you this acknowledgment: but that likewise, since you made a Distribution of these your Arms, gnawn a little with rust, but new cleansed and polish't to the confederate Accomplices with several Grants, Orders, Warrants, Commissions, Patents, Decrees, to proceed in the great Design, whilst we, who had the Care of Souls, were abundantly stockt with Spiritual Engines, as Dispensations, Reservations, Equivocations, Absolutions, Pardons, Indulgences, Confessions and secret Insinuations to excite Proselytes, and carry on the same thorow the three Nations, where, tho we were discovered and prevented by the Apostacy of a Dissenting Brother, you may yet proceed, since for your Success there are daily Prayers said in the Conclave, and there are enough who yet survive to take Advantage of Opportunity.
Thus having in general intimated our Acknowledgments we think it our Duty to your present conditions in particular, with a small portion of Goods and Chattels as scaped Confiscation, this place not admitting of much Money, yet such as we have in distinct parcels according to the present following Inventory.
The last Legacy of Thomas Whitebread, to all Catholicks.
IN the Name of the most Holy of Holiest upon Earth, Vicar and Vicegerent in the Pontifical Chair, &c. I Thomas Whitebread (very weak and infirm in Body since the last Execution) but of sound and perfect Memory of all the Good or Evil I have done in the Flesh; whether by Deceit, Bribe, Treachery, Hypocrisy, Treason, Conspiracy, Policy, Cheating, Lying, Swearing and Forswearing, all Meritorious Acts to carry on the Cause, and for which I am Justly Sentenced unto this World of Purgatory, do bequeath unto you (my Honourable Friends) all my Right, Title, Claim and Interest of and in the Provincial Seat of the Jesuits in England, since from you it did descend, and to you it appertaineth to dispose of it, to none but so great a Villain as my self, who had rather hazard Damnation at the Gallows with a Lye in my mouth, and a Rope about by neck, then by a feeble Confession suffer your Honorable Heads to be brought to the Block, and to my Successor this Advice, by my Example, if he fall under the same Praemunire to justify his Innocence to the last.
The last Legacy of William Harcourt.
I William Harcourt, &c. do bequeath unto you (my good Friends) all and every the vast Summ and Summs of Money committed unto my Trust, under pretence of supplying Indigent Papists, but indeed for carrying on the Cause, to be return'd into the Exchequer at Tarthall. Likewise to my good Lord — I do resign and make over all my Right and Title of Rectorship of the Jesuites in London, and Somerset Cloysters for a new Convent, since the Invisible Monastery was unhappily discovered at Tart-Hall, and his Ladies Cobler with the Leather Apron for a Tippet to succeed me in the Rectory. Lastly, I do absolve all Roman Catholicks from their Prayers which I beg'd at the Gallows (because I find here they are like to do but [Page 3]little service) to be imploy'd in your Lordships behalf to inable you by a Legion of Oaths, Vows and Protestations, from which I Absolve you to justify your Integrity to the the end.
Mr. Anthony Turner's last Legacy.
ANd to you my Honourable Patrons, as the chief undertakers and principle promoters of this Fatal Plot; I do bequeath all the Art of Secresy and Mystery of Jesuitism, with all its practicable Tenents of King-killing and Heretick-destroying; with the allowance of Equivocation, Lying, Swearing and For-swearing, as the cause shall require, to be delivered out with your Commissions. And to my Lord — the present Councel of Trent for a Model of his new Government, and Tixal for the Council-Chamber. I leave you my Prayers which I had on my Finger-ends at the place of Execution, my Beads, Rosaries and Avies, as a pledge of my Martyrdom, to be Register'd amongst the Relicks in Trinity Colledge in Cambridge, and my Manual of Ignorance to be inlisted in the Library at Oxford, when they shall be established Roman Catholick Universities; which though you cannot so easily effect at present by reason of your restraint, yet at least you must be active to endeavour by such Instruments as are proper to effect the same, with this Motto, Si non simul, & semel, at paulatim & sensim sit mutatio fact a.
Mr. Gawen's Legacy.
I must confess that I rather choose to die, rather then confess Truth at the Gallows; (my most Noble Friends) I have not much to bequeath you of any Worldly Talents, only what Talent I claim by vertue of my Function as a Jesuit, that is, a certain Authority more then Travellers challenge for Lying, which I improv'd to the last minute, and leave unto you both Interest and Principle to manage to the best advantage, as necessary to your present Estate as well as mine; since according to our Principles it is both lawful and necessary to Lye and Outface the Truth, even by Oath and Imprecations; nay outbrave Death and Judgment, and like brave Roman Heroes sacrifice Soul and Body for the Holy Catholick Interest, rather then by a Cowardly Confession to betray the Cause you undertook, and give and allow you all liberty to exercise the same. As also a full power to Kill, Rob and Spoil Hereticks, as fully as it is granted you by the Lateran Council. I do likewise bequeath unto you all my share, part and portion of all the Goods, Chatels, Moveables and Estates of any Heretick Prince, Prelate or People, which are already confiscated by the same Concil, and which might or ought by Writ of Partition fall unto my Lot, when it comes into your hands: In recompence whereof, I do enjoyn you to erect ten thousand Chapels in ten thousand several places, where ten thousand Priests may say ten thousand Masses every day, for ten thousand years to make Atonement for the last abominable Lye I told, for I find less time will hardly redeem me from this Purgatory.
Father John Fenwick's last Legacy.
TO strengthen your Resolutions (my noble Friends) in the holy Cause you have undertaken, I John Fenwick leave you my Impudence to outface Justice and the Truth, and my Innocency to palliate your Guilt when you are [Page 4]convicted: And that you may not stammer at a Lye at the last gasp, I leave you my Tongue to be your Advocate, and two drams of my Brains for a Council's Fee; my Privities, which were the first Martyrs before my self, I do bequeath to the Mother-Church, which the Hereticks call the Scarlet Whore, and Whore of Babylon, to get many such Phaenixes out of the Ashes: My nether Jaw I leave to my Lord — for a Brandy-Cup; my Skull for a Snuff-Box; and my Bowels to your L—, to be spun into a Clew of Innocency, to lead you out of your present Labyrinth. Lastly, I leave you my Advice still to assert your Innocence; lay the Plot, and — and others, Fee-deep for Prorogations and Dissolutions; bribe O— and B—; if you cannot do that, at least lessen their Evidence, by reviling their Persons, and deny all with Oaths and Imprecations, even upon the Scaffold.
We do also as Proto-Martyrs in the same Cause, for and in the name, and by and with the consent of them, and every of them, present unto your Lordships Staley's Jewels, after his Debts are paid, that durst rail at Monarchy, and proclaim his noble Resentments in publick Assemblies, and had the honour to be the first Martyr, whilst you sneak into blind Corners, whisper your Treasons like Confessions into each others Ears, and suffer others basely to go before you, whilst the quality of your Worth and Dignity of your persons, ought to prefer you before the rest. We do also bequeath unto you three Locks of his Hair to make a Golden Tower for the Queen of Babylon, that his early and forward zeal may be writ in Rubricks in her forehead, and his Effigies as it is now sold at Westminster-hall like Mahomet hanging Geometrically in the Air, with a numerous retinue of Staves and Halberts by way of Trophyes inserted in the very Porch and Frontispiece of the Mother-Church. We had a design to present her also with three Locks of Mr. Coleman's Wig, if all our small Patrimony could purchase it, but that his Relict hath converted them to a better use, having sold them for a Guiney a Hair to make Rings for the surviving Brethren to walk invisibly. However as more material and better proofs of his good service, we recommend unto you his Original Letters to be inrol'd amongst the Epistles of the Apostles writ by their own hands, to be preserved as Relicks in the Vatican: As likewise his Gloves and Sword, which you must purchase from Mr. — in Hay-Market for 100 Guineys, having refused fifty Pounds half a year since; together with Grove's Dagger, and Pickering's Pistol, to be kept as Eternal Monuments amongst the Trophies in the Capitol with this Inscription, ‘—Mors mihi, non Regi.’
And for fear you should want Stock to carry on the Design in this interlude of Action; my Noble Friends, we do present unto you the three thousand Pound per annum, raised upon the Catholick Estates for carrying on the Design, with threescore of Mr. L.— the double Martyr, his Penetential Scourges in Newgate, to any that shall by any encouragement of Life, Fortune or Estate, make or incline to make hereafter any Confession. Father Irelands Talents measured out by the Shackles of the Sanctuary at Rome, lapt up in Sir Edmundbury Godfrey's Napkin, till time and liberty give you opportunity to improve and convert it to its proper use; together with Green-Berry-Hill to be set a part and consecrated for the Erecting a Monastry when the Government shall come into your hands, where dayly Prayers may be said for the Saints departed.