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with a spirit of prophecy; from which, among other things, he foretold the bloody rebellion, forty years before it came to pass, which prediction proved exactly true.
The Jesuits, Priests and Friars were the chief instigators to this horrid massacre, by continual incensing and stirring up the Popish gentry and commonalty. The clergy, more to engage the deluded Papists to murder the Protestants, everywhere loudly declaimed. That they were heretics, and not fit to be suffered any longer among them; that it was no more sin to kill one of them, than to kill a dog; and that it was an unpardonable sin to relieve or protect them.
All things being in readiness, they proceeded to the execution of this damnable contrivance; but their proceeding therein was various: some of the Irish only stripping the English Protestants, and turning them out of doors naked in frost and snow; others, cruelly murdering, man, woman, and child, without the least compassion. The Popish Priests gave the sacrament to divers of the Irish, upon condition that they should not spare any Protestant; saying, 'That it did them a great deal of good, to wash their hands in their blood.' The Priests excommunicated all that should relieve or harbour any Protestant. Yes, the Monks and Friars, with tears in their eyes, exhorted them to destroy them utterly, and not to leave the memorial of a Protestant under heaven.
The day before this horrid massacre began, the Priests gave the people a dismission at mass, to go out and take possession of all their lands. They further told them, that they might lawfully strip, rob, and despoil them of all their property,
