Authentic documents relative to the miraculous cure of Winefrid White, of Wolverhampton, at St. Winefrid's Well, alias Holywell, in Flintshire, on the 28th of June 1805 : with observations thereon / by the R.R. J--- M-----.

John Milner

Date:: 1806

Credit: Authentic documents relative to the miraculous cure of Winefrid White, of Wolverhampton, at St. Winefrid's Well, alias Holywell, in Flintshire, on the 28th of June 1805 : with observations thereon / by the R.R. J--- M-----. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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$* go, and the clear, notorious, unequivocal proofs that are required to verify them, I am convinced such candid Pro- testant will be both surprised and satisfied*. To speak of our own country, though the present supernatural cure is perhaps the only one, which, during a very long period, has been regularly proved or even laid before the public, yet it is well known, amongst Catholics, that such events are by no means unfrequent. I myself know two or three different persons who, I am fully satisfied, have been the subjects of them. One of these, a woman of strict conscience, now living at Preston, has assured me, [and I am con- vinced that, in the circumstances in which she spoke to me, she would not intentionally have deceived me] that she herself was cured, by once bathing at Holywell seve- * See an account of this process in Dr. Hay’s work on Miracles, and elsewhere. It is perhaps one of the most rigid and scrupulous kind of scrutiny that exists in Christendom. In this the arguments and ob- jections of the most eminent physicians, as well as those of the most ingenuous logicians, are sought for and nicely weighed at different in- tervals with respect to each of the alledged facts. The whole subject is well worthy the attention of the ingenious and learned, as well as of the pious and devout. It is proper to add that, whereas any man is here at liberty to utter or publish whatever fictions he pleasesj it is not so at Rome. Any deliberate attempt to impose upon the public in this manner, would subject the author of it to severe punishrpeut from the civil as well as the ecclesiastical tribunal. In a word, such is the rigour and scrupulosity of the Congregation of Rites, consisting of Cardinals and other eminent divines, to which the examination of reported mi- racles is committed, that, says the learned Collet, of forty which are attested and laid before them perhaps not one is admitted as being suffi- ciently proved and evident in all its parts. It is \yell known that an English Protestant Gentleman being at Rome, and meeting with the process of several miracles that had been recently adduced for the beati- fication of a certain saint, he exclaimed: It were well if the See of Rome admitted of no miracles, but such as are as well authenticated as these are: when lo! he was informed, to his astonishment, that every one of these had been rejected by the Congregation of Rites, as not b?.ng sufficiently proved. E 2$