HAving Received an Account from the Provincial of the Jesuites residing here in Rome, how great and glorions an Instrument you have been in promo­ting the Holy-Cause, and how very active you have shewed your self, and of your great sufferings almost to Martyrdome; I find my self bound to take notice thereof; and to send you these under the Seal of the Fisher, to encou­rage your Zeal, and to strengthen and provoke you to go on in so righteous a Cause. Fear not therefore what man can do unto you: be Bold, Confident, Couragious, faint not under the work; for I have ordered many hands to help you, and to dispose of the Issue you shall bring into the World. Tho as yet the success has not answered ours nor [Page 2]your Expectations, yet I am glad to find you have still no small hopes of bringing a­bout your great Design, in setting up our true Religion, and in pulling down the He­retical; which is an Attempt as difficult as it is good and meritorious, and therefore you are to make use of all manner of ways to bring about so great a work. Though some Instruments have proved false and wicked, and are become Traitors to us and the Cause, be not troubled so long as our Cofers are full, and open, to be imployed for the procuring others; you shall not want them nor money for the carrying on what we have so fairly begun. We give you therefore leave and authority, both to speak and write in the Church, and to do and say what you and they whom we have assigned of your Council, shall think sit or convenient; and by the power granted to us in Heaven and Earth, we do authorise all you shall say or publish, to be Truth, and do absolve your Conscience from all Scruples, though you did believe or know the contrary; for by the unbounded power granted us, as the Head of the Church, we do give you full Absolution in these matters. And for that end, we have sent Indulgences both for lying and Perjury, free and without the usual Fees. We have also of our great benignity, sent you a free pardon for all your sins past, from the hour of your Birth, to the day of the date thereof; be they of what Nature or Complexion soever; and also that you may to the hour of your Death, be as innocent as the Child unborn. [...]e do also send you Indulgence for five thousand years yet to come, and have given order to my dear beloved Sons the Jesuites, to give you Absolution for all your Sins whatsoever con­stantly and without Pennance; that you may not want Incouragement or be slack in the holy Cause. We have also Dear Daughter, sent you a blank Commission, to be either Abbess of any one of the Richest Nunneries in England, when they come into our Hands; which you shall choose, or think convenient; but if you shall prefer Tempo­ral preferment to Spiritual, I have also sent you a Commission for to create you a Coun­tess, under what Title you shall choose, and twenty thousand pounds of yearly Rent out of the Estates of the Capital Hereticks, whom yon shall find guilty of the same. And for a farther additional Honour, and in honourable memory of your former Pro­fessions, we Create you Procuress and Midwife-General, and a Fee to be received from all of those Professions in England, and Wales, by you at their first admission, they re­ceiving only their authority from you for the same; which we make, confirm and rati­fie to be legal and authentick. And Dear Daughter, that we may yet farther stir you up and confirm you in your [...]ealous work, we do promise you an immortal Crown after this Life, and if you should obtain that of Martyrdome among the wicked Hereticks we do promise you to ingrave your Name among the other blessed Martyrs and Confes­sors, who have suffered by the Hereticks, in England; and also we do further promise you Canonization or Saintship among the holy Saints and Martyrs who have lately suffer­ed in England, as St. Coleman, St. Ireland, St. Gawen and the rest; and to be equal in Fame and esteem with St. Joan of Arque, that great Championess for the Cause that Mall of English-Hereticks. All these things considered, we hope Dear Daughter, that you will strenuously endeavour by all manner of ways and means to promote the Cause, and not to let your heart fail you, tho your Adversaries have published many disgrace­ful things of you, while you were a Sinner, but we have already denounce the Ana­thausas against them, and have given order to my Sons, the Dominican Priests in England to make use of the solemn Rite of Cursing them with Bell, Book and Candle; and we have also pronouneed all they have said, or shall say against you, or that is any way contrary derogatory to your Honour, Reputation, Modesty, Life or good Name, to be all wicked Lies and abominable invention, malice, and dispight, and that my dear Sons the Jesuites and Priests of what Order soever, and the Lay Sons of the Church, to endea­vour all they can to make it so to be taken and believed. And likewise on the other side, I do confirm all you shall write and publish concerning your own Life and Transactions, or in Vindication of your Honour, Modesty and Innocency, to be true and undoubted as the Gospel; and likewise all that you shall say or relate, concerning your Adversaries, or others, or whatever you shall Print or make known to the world by the help or advice of one or more of my dear Sons, to be true Scripture, undoubted and authentick in every Paragraph, Sentence, Line and Word, and that they also be­forementioned, Cause it to be believed and taken. We also have ordered our Sons, the Franciscans, to preserve the Meal-Tub, in which lay hid the Design of the holy [Page 3]Cause, among their chiefest Reliques, and have also bestowed on it the Authority of doing of Miracles, and that the Meal therein should never be consumed, though all the Priests in England should make Cakes thereof, every day that shall be assigned to your Saint-ship; and we have ordered this Relique to be inshrin'd, and to be called the Holy Meal-Tub, with St. Colemans Halter, and that our Sons may have full power and authority to exercise pias, fraudis or any other manner of deceits, to cause the same to be believed, and to be had in esteem and Veneration, and that the same be also entered in­to the Legend of Reliquies and Miracles. All this Dear Daughter, have we done for your incouragement, and therefore we hope you will proceed in that forward and noto­rious dexterity, you have hitherto shewed for the holy Cause, and that you will not be afraid boldly to affront the Hereticks, from the greatest to the least; nor fear what they can be able to do unto you; neither their Prisons, their Whips, Pillories, or Hal­ters, for we can exalt you above all, and make you live Righteous, Just, Holy, and a Saint for ever, notwithstanding they should Condemn you as Infamous, and Traytress to your King and Country. And we do engage to you, if ever we do get up again in En­gland, we will not spare the Cocatrices, but crush them so, they shall never more be a­ble to rise; we will exercise full power and authority, and root out all manner of He­reticks Root and Branch, and will have no pity or commiseration, but new plant and slack that Land with new powers and Forces from abroad, so as they shall never be able to pull their Necks out of the Yoak we have prepared for them. Therefore Dear Daughter fear not to follow the Dictates of my dear and venerable Sons the Jesu­ites, whom I have ordered to direct, advise and instruct you from time to time, whose careful Instructions I desire you constantly to follow, and to go on as you have begun; for the prosperity of these your holy and pious undertakings, and for the encouragement of your endeavours, we here send you our Fatherly Benediction. From the Vatican the first of August 1680. Sealed with the Seal of the Fisher.