“ His errors were more extravagant than those of other Protestant writers, only because he was more fearless in his speculations, more consistent in his principles, more honest in his speech. Others are often saved from error because they hesitate to follow the light of reason, when reason would lead them too far from the beaten track of received opinions. But such timidity and inconsistency were little in harmony with the spirit of Milton. He had learned in early youth, as a first principle, that, in the matter of religion, Scripture should be his only authority, reason his only guide ”

“ But when the calumnies, the sneers, the sarcasms of our enemies are turned against us by one who is enrolled under the banner of Catholic faith, we can no longer remain silent in safety. The weapons which are powerless in the hands of a declared enemy, are dangerous indeed when they are wielded by a traitor in the camp.
Mr. Justice Keogh is no ordinary man. His mind is adorned with talents well fitted to amuse, to delight, to instruct an audience. ”

“ Justice Keogh adopts his principles without any limitation. He asserts with Milton “the right of all men to exercise unrestrained their intellectual faculties upon all the gifts of God—to determine for themselves what is truth and what is falsehood”. If we take these words literally as they stand, they are inconsistent not with the Catholic religion only, but with every system of Christianity that has ever existed. Luther, the great champion of intellectual freedom, though he shook off the yoke of church authority, set up in its stead the authority of the Bible. ”

“ Now it would be an error in doctrine to suppose that the Catholic Church could claim such a right if she had not received it from her Divine Founder.
If we pass from the doctrine of Milton to his arguments, we shall have much greater reason to wonder how it should have come to pass that we are asked, by a Catholic lecturer, to accept his views. He does not defend the circulation of bad books as a necessary evil, which it is inexpedient or impossible to check. On the contrary, he maintains it is a positive good, which ought to be encouraged. ”

“ Why will the sinner seek to conceal what he committed in the presence of God? Why will he blush to confess those sins with which he did not blush to stain his own soul? Therefore, let him defray by confession what he has contracted by sinning; let him by satisfaction wash away the stains which defile his soul ”

“ Yet how little does genius avail in the one great and important affair of religion, unless guided and controlled by that infallible authority which God has established in His Church! The great doctrinal errors of Milton cannot be imputed to any want of intellectual power; for, in the natural gifts of intellect, he was eminently conspicuous. Much rather must they be ascribed to the erroneous system he employed in the search of Revealed truth. Starting from false principles, the more boldly he advanced, the more deeply did he plunge into error. ”

“ Intellectual freedom, unbounded, unrestrained; freedom of thought in the search after truth, without any regard to authority; freedom of speech in the circulation of every view and opinion; freedom to pull down old theories, freedom to build up new theories; freedom to roam at large without any guide over the vast fields of speculation, adopting that which private judgment commends, rejecting that which human reason disapproves ”

“ As if now, at length, released from the captivity of earthly bonds, he soars aloft to higher thoughts, and pours forth from an overflowing soul the lofty strains of his unrivalled poem, the glory of English literature, the wonder and delight of every succeeding age. Not often does the history of the world present to us a spectacle so sublime. ”

“ When a lecturer, then, addressing a mixed audience, in a written discourse, tells them that “all men have a right to exercise their intellectual faculties unrestrained”, do not the circumstances of the case fix upon his words a Protestant signification? Will not his hearers naturally say that he has chosen the Protestant side of the controversy, and not the Catholic? ”

“ When such a man comes forward, with forethought and preparation, as one of the instructors of the age, he is a conspicuous object of interest and attraction. He is looked upon, by those who are not acquainted with his antecedents, as the exponent of Catholic views, the representative of Catholic intelligence and education. We are therefore compelled, in self-defence, to declare that the opinions he has expressed are not the opinions of the Catholic Church, and the language he has thought fit to use cannot be regarded, by the Catholic people of Ireland, but as offensive and insulting. ”

“ Was he induced to make the assertion on the authority of some trustworthy witness? We can scarcely believe it was so: no writer who cares for his reputation would commit himself to a statement so easily disproved. Was it, then, that he wished to cast unfounded aspersions on the Catholic Church, and to bring her institutions into discredit with all who cherish the names of those illustrious writers? Once more: Mr. Justice Keogh, forgetting, for the moment, his country as well as his religion, introduces to the favourable notice of his audience “our glorious deliverer, William III.”! ”

“ When we are assured by Mr. Justice Keogh that Milton was “the fast friend of toleration”, we can scarcely believe that he is serious. Lest, however, our readers should be led astray, we shall briefly tell them what Milton really thought and said on the subject of religious toleration. Towards the close of his life, he wrote a very important treatise5 in which he discusses the question, and explains his views with his usual clearness and force. He maintains in this treatise that all religious sects are to be tolerated, with one exception; and that exception is the Roman Catholic Church. ”

“ Justice Keogh proposes to illustrate and to enforce by the life and writings of our great English poet.
Now, we are not the enemies of freedom. The Catholic Church is not the enemy of freedom. But we should expect that one who comes forward to enlighten the world on this important subject, would tell us how far human reason is to be left without restraint in the search after truth. It is easy to talk of intolerance, persecution, narrow-minded bigotry ”

“ According to his notion, the promiscuous reading of bad books is the furnace in which our love for truth and virtue is to be tried. There can be no merit in truth, he argues, for him who is not acquainted with error; there can be no merit in virtue for him who is not familiar with vice. ”

“ The war carried on in Ireland against King William cannot deserve the name of a rebellion: it was a struggle for their lawful prince, whom they had sworn to maintain, and whose zeal for the Catholic religion, whatever effect it might have produced in England, could not by them be considered as a crime. ”

“ Patrick, and which is situated in the centre of a lake, that many have been obliged to return without satisfying their pious desire, there being no room for landing on the island. This pilgrimage, though, through the bitter persecutions of heresy, it has been almost abandoned for many years, was once so celebrated throughout the Christian world, that many from the most distant parts even of the continent visited it in a spirit of devotion. ”

“ Even he was willing to admit that the wanderings of the human mind should be restricted by the teaching of the Word of God. It is clearly contrary to the common principles of Christianity to assert that in metaphysics, in ethics, in psychology, in any human science, the mind is at liberty to embrace opinions incompatible with the truths which God has revealed. ”

“ Difficult, indeed, is the duty of the soul-friend, because if he gives the proper remedy, it is oftener violated than observed; but if the soul-friend does not give it, its liability falls upon himself; because several are satisfied with making the confession without doing the penance; but it is better to proclaim their welfare to them, though they do not respond to the penance enjoined by the confessor. ”

“ Therefore have they also received from God that authority which is necessary for the due fulfilment of this high charge. And such is the authority to prohibit and, as far as [pg 455] may be, to repress those publications of which the only tendency is to introduce error and to disseminate vice. For it is impossible to preserve truth incorrupt in a community, if error may be circulated without restriction, dressed up in the delusive garb of sophistry; it is impossible to preserve morals pure, if vice may be freely exhibited in the most seductive and alluring forms. ”

“ Let him heed what he receives from the learned soul-friend whom he first met, to whomsoever he may reveal his confession each time, and let penance be enjoined him according to the rules of frequent confession”.
In fine, it is also decreed that the bishop “who confers noble orders upon any one who is not able to instruct in religion and reading, and soul-friendship, and who has not a knowledge of laws and rules, and of the proper remedy for all sins in general, is an enemy to God and man ”

“ At the time of his appointment to the see of Killaloe, James Fitzmaurice was actively engaged on the Continent in enlisting the aid of the Catholic powers in favour of the Irish confederates. Before setting sail from Lisbon on 30th October, 1577, this chieftain wrote to Gaspar de Quiroza, Archbishop of Toledo, acquainting him with the disaster which had befallen our Bishop Cornelius, who, a little while before, having sailed from Rochelle for the Irish coast, was captured by pirates, and being despoiled of all he possessed, was obliged to return to the Continent. ”

“ As, therefore, the state of man now is, what wisdom can there he to choose, what continence to forbear, without the knowledge of evil? He that can apprehend and consider vice with all her baits and seeming pleasures, and yet abstain, and yet distinguish, and yet prefer that which is truly better, he is the true wayfaring Christian. ”

“ We are surely bound to believe what God has taught: and when reason would lead us to conclusions contrary to His teaching, as may sometimes happen, we are bound to check our reason and to abandon those conclusions. ”

“ I cannot praise a fugitive and cloistered virtue, unexercised and unbreathed, [pg 456] that never sallies out and seeks her adversary, but slinks out of the race, where that immortal garland is to be run for notwithstanding dust and heat. Assuredly we bring not innocence into the world; we bring impurity much rather: that which purifies us is trial, and trial is by what is contrary. ”

“ As the physician cannot apply his remedy unless he knows in what the malady of his patient consists, so cannot sins be healed without confession; for, with our heart we believe unto justice, but with our lips confession is made unto salvation. He who conceals his sins cannot be directed ”

“ Richard Fitz-Ralph, Archbishop Of Armagh.
“Many a mile have I gone, and many did I walk,
But never saw a holier man than Richard of Dundalk”.
Old Couplet.32
§ I. Introduction. In all the habits of social life many of the early English settlers in Ireland soon became more Irish than the Irish themselves. In the vigorous tenacity of their attachment to the Catholic religion some of these families have ever remained as Irish as the Irish themselves. Having made our people their people, they became sharers in our grace of faith, so as to keep ever since our God their God. ”

“ Lutherans, Calvinists, Anabaptists, Socinians, Arminians, in a word, all Protestants, whatever their religious opinions may be, should have liberty to preach, to discuss, to worship, unmolested: but Catholics must not be tolerated; they must not be permitted to defend their doctrines ”

“ The manner of performing the pilgrimage as it is now observed from ancient tradition, is as follows:—Each person, from the day he arrives in the island till the tenth following day, never departs from it. All this time is, without intermission, devoted to fasting, watching, and prayer. If they wish to give rest to their body they must sleep on the bare ground, and for the most part under the broad canopy of heaven. ”

“ Justice Keogh, which a severe critic would not pass by without censure. He would ask, perhaps, how comes it that the lecturer takes his Scriptural quotations from the Protestant and not from the Catholic Bible? Is it that the Protestant Bible is the only one with which he is familiar? Can it be that the Protestant Bible is the source from which he derives his views in philosophy and in theology? We fully recognize the literary merits of the English Authorized Version ”

“ Thomas of Aquin was opposed by the Nominalism of Occam, and Fitz-Ralph found Oxford still agitated by the controversies that master had excited. The Franciscans were generally Nominalists; the secular clergy, as a body, were Realists. The entire university was divided into two opposite camps. The “Northern men” declared for Realism, the “Southern men” for Nominalism.41 Fitz-Ralph became a leading Realist, and the marked divergence between his views and those of the Franciscans was probably not without its influence on the controversy to which hereafter we shall have occasion to refer. ”

“ In the maturity of life he constructed a system of theology which he professed to derive from Scripture alone. It is recorded by his own pen in his treatise De Doctrina Christiana, which, having been lost for a hundred and fifty years, has come to light within the present century. The peculiar tenets which he sets forth in this remarkable book may be briefly told. He defends the lawfulness of polygamy and divorce; he [pg 458] maintains that matter exists from eternity; he denies the doctrine of the Trinity; the Son is inferior to the Father, and produced in time ”

“ According to Wadding, the tradition was, that his parents came to Dundalk from the well known territory in the north of Ireland, called Ruta, or the Route. Wood states that almost all writers—auctores pene omnes—make him an Irishman. This tradition is also clearly expressed in the appellation of Richard of Dundalk, by which he was universally known. It was the custom of the age to designate men by the name of their native place. Of this we have an excellent example in the name of John Baconthorpius, or of Baconthorpe, who, as we shall see, was Fitz-Ralph's professor at Oxford. ”