Page:An Index of Prohibited Books (1840).djvu/37

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PREFACE.
xxxi

being the real murderer. For this just and unanswerable view of the affair I refer to Dr. C. O'Conor's Columbanus, No. VI. pp. 108 and following, under the head——" § VI. Historical narrative of eleven Priests confined in Newgate for not renouncing the Pope's pretended Deposing Power" They were all but two executed. The whole is amply worthy of every Romanist's serious consideration. The charge against the head of his Church at the time, and every other head in similar circumstances, is awful and irresistible. It is as plain as any demonstrable proposition can be, that the objection against James's oath of allegiance was not this or that alleged scruple, but the fact, that the oath compassed its intention, and obliged the taker to a real allegiance to his true and natural sovereign, independently of his pretended spiritual, who could easily draw any thing, however temporal, under his spirituality, by means of indirectè, and in ordine ad spiritualia. After enumerating the eleven sufferers with the cause of their suffering, Dr. O'Conor observes,——" Let us now consider who, in the eye of unprejudiced reason, was the persecutor and executioner of those unfortunate men, James or the Pope? — The evidence of facts is irresistible. The question bears not one moment's examination, Qui facit per alium facit per se."

On precisely the same principle, and with the same demonstration, the blood of those who suffered