The Congregation of Rites, which enquires into all miracles which demand sanction, is presided over by the cardinal-vicar. It consists of twenty-one cardinals of various nations, nine official prelates, nine consulting prelates of various nations, all the fourteen Papal Masters of Ceremonies, fourteen ordinary members, one secretary, one deputy-secretary, and one notary and keeper of the archives—in all seventy people. Four miracles are required to be distinctly proved for Beatification; and two more for Canonization. All these must be proved by eye, and not by ear-witnesses. In miracles where diseases have been cured, it is required, 1st, That the disease must have been of an aggravated nature, and difficult or impossible to be cured; 2ndly, that it was not on the turn; 3rdly, that no medicine had been used, or if it had that it had done no good; 4thly, the cure must be sudden; 5thly, it must be complete and perfect; and 6thly, there must have been no crisis. In the process of examination and enquiry, no step is taken, no doubt propounded, no fact allowed, without many of the members of the Congregation being present: and a printed Report is sent to all who may have been absent. Besides the ordinary cross-examinations, which are always of a most scrutinizing character, it is the sole duty of one of the leading members of the Congregation, the Promotor Fidei, as he is termed, to raise objections, and if possible to disprove every reported miracle. The members of this Congregation are as keen, penetrating and business-like, and have as complete a knowledge of the unconscious delusions of the human heart, as any body of English jurymen. As ecclesiastical scholars they may be truly said to be equal to the same number of English barristers; and the head of the Congregation, for shrewdness, acuteness of intellect, and judicial ability, is equal to any judge in England, who by his interpretation of the law, and his particular sentence in a special case, wills away the life or property of any Englishman. The subject has been treated at length in the great work of Pope Benedict XIV. (A.D. 1740-1758) “On Beatification,” &c., as well as in the Decrees of Pope Urban VIII. and Pope Clement XI.; and so sifting and careful has always been the investigation, that Alban Butler asserts, on the authority of Daubenton, that an English gentleman (not a Roman Catholic) being present and seeing the process of several miracles, maintained them to have been completely proved and perfectly incontestable, but was astonished beyond measure at the scrupulosity of the scrutiny when authoritatively informed that not one of those which he had heard discussed had been allowed by the Congregation to have been sufficiently proved.
Father Perrone, the distinguished living theologian, also asserts that having shown the formal process for certain miracles to a lawyer of some eminence (not a Roman Catholic) who after examination was perfectly satisfied with both the testimony and the reasoning, the latter declared that they would certainly stand before a British jury; but was mightily astonished on hearing that the Congregation did not consider that evidence to be sufficiently convincing and conclusive.
Similar investigations have been made in England, since the Reformation, and this by ecclesiastical authority. For example: in the year before his translation to the see of Norwich (i. e. in 1640), Dr. Joseph Hall, then Bishop of Exeter, made a strict and judicial inquiry into all the circumstances of the sudden and miraculous cure of a cripple at S. Madron’s Well, in Cornwall, and the following is the recorded conviction of this pious prelate:—“The commerce which we have with the good spirits is not now discerned by the eye, but is, like themselves, spiritual. Yet not so, but that even in bodily occasions we have many times insensible helps from them; in such a manner as that by the effects we can boldly say, ‘Here hath been an angel, though we see him not.’ Of this kind was that (no less than miraculous) cure which at S. Madron’s, in Cornwall, was wrought upon a poor cripple, John Trelille, where (besides the attestation of many hundreds of neighbours), I took a strict and personal examination in that last Visitation which I ever did or ever shall hold. This man, that for sixteen years together was fain to walk upon his hands, by reason of the close contraction of the sinews of his legs, (upon three admonitions in a dream to wash in that well) was suddenly so restored to his limbs, that I saw him able to walk and get his own maintenance. I found here was neither art nor collusion: the thing done, the author invisible.”[76]
Now, whatever may be thought of the principles enunciated in Mr. Lecky’s[77] volumes on “The Rise and Influence of Rationalism,” none can deny either the marvellous faculty exhibited for gathering and marshalling facts; while some portions of his thoughtful reflections do but put into luminous language thoughts and convictions which find a cordial response from many.
The following remarkable passage is singularly true and accurate in its estimate of an unmistakeable historical fact, viz., that the Oxford movement to a great extent left out of consideration[78] the continued existence of modern miracles in the Christian Church. Mr. Lecky writes thus:—“At Oxford these narratives (i. e. the record of patristic and mediæval miracles) hardly exercised a serious attention. What little influence they had was chiefly an influence of repression; what little was written in their favour was written for the most part in the tone of an apology, as if to attenuate a difficulty rather than to establish a creed. This was surely a very remarkable characteristic of the Tractarian movement, when we remember the circumstances and attainments of its leaders, and the great prominence which miraculous evidence had long occupied in England. It was especially remarkable when we reflect that one of the great complaints which the Tractarian party were making against modern theology was, that the conception of the Supernatural had become faint and dim, and that its manifestations were either explained away or confined to a distant past. It would seem as if those who were most conscious of the character of their age were unable, in the very midst of their opposition, to free themselves from its tendencies.”—Vol. i. pp. 165-166.
It must be allowed that there is some amount of truth in this temperately-made charge. Whatever else may have been pressed forward, and with success, it is obvious that the active energy of the Supernatural has been kept somewhat in the background. At all events it has not been made too prominent. Even in books of devotion, adapted from Roman Catholic sources, examples of miracles have been omitted; and so the golden threads which were so rudely broken three centuries and a half ago, are still in the mire; for few have cared to gather them up once more and weave them into a perfect whole. That work has still to be done. Not until there be what a modern writer terms “daring faith”—faith which can move mountains—should the work be attempted.
And now, fully alive to its imperfections, I bring my book to its close.
It has been briefly shown herein what a great influence the materialistic speculations of a few bold and over-confident writers have recently exercised on current thought. At the same time the presence of the Supernatural in Church History has been made perfectly manifest, and abundant sources pointed out from which additional examples may readily be gathered for consideration by those who may desire to gather them. Side by side, however, with that which in the Supernatural order is good and beneficial to man, energizes that which is evil. There are angels and there are demons. There is light and there is darkness. Numberless armies of glorious spirits, as the Divine Revelation tells us,[79] stand, rank by rank and order by order, as the bright ornaments of the City of God. Their subtlety, their quickness of penetration, their extensive knowledge of natural things, are undoubtedly perfect in proportion to the excellency of their being, inasmuch as they are pure intelligences, perfect from the Hand of their Maker. They know the concerns of mortal men.[80] They are our protectors, our patrons, our guides. For us they lift up their prayers to God, and they are near us in our trials and temptations. Their motion is swift as thought, their activity inconceivable. As they are the friends of mankind by God’s decree, so specially do they become the guardians of the regenerate and the particular protectors of the innocent and young. And their beneficent actions are not altogether unknown. The old records tell of their charity; man’s experience testifies to their presence. And, furthermore, for man’s behoof in his time of trial, and for his eternal advantage hereafter, were given those powers and properties which belong to the Church by the grace and efficacy of the Sacraments.
Yet, on the other hand, until the number of the Elect is accomplished, the Enemy of Souls, the Prince of the Powers of the Air, is permitted to wield an alarming influence; while too often the natural man, with his will free, wills to remain his servant. Yea; and even the baptized, too. For by Witchcraft, Sorcery, and Necromancy Satan still works, men being his direct agents and slaves. Sometimes in one form, sometimes in another, he dupes those who seek him; while his legions suggest to men’s minds evil thoughts, paint dangerous objects to the imagination, frequently direct the active current of the human heart to sin, and finally turn round and accuse their captives at the tribunal of God the Judge of all. So must it be to the end, for this life is man’s time of probation.
Of Dreams and Warnings, Omens and Presentiments, much has been written. Each example must be considered on its own merits; for perhaps no coherent theory will sufficiently cover and explain all the instances here already adduced.