f piety, and
expatiates with great clearness upon the power of divine love to blot out
sin, even without the intervention of the Sacraments of the Catholic
Church, provided one scorn them not, for that would not at all be
compatible with this love. And a very great personage, whose character was
one of the most lofty to be found in the Roman Church, was the first to
make me acquainted with it. Father Spee was of a noble family of Westphalia
(it may be said in passing) and he died in the odour of sanctity, according
to the testimony of him who published this book in Cologne with the [177]
approval of the Superiors.

97. The memory of this excellent man ought to be still precious to persons
of knowledge and good sense, because he is the author of the book entitled:
_Cautio Criminalis circa Processus contra Sagas_, which has caused much
stir, and has been translated into several languages. I learnt from the
Grand Elector of Mainz, Johann Philipp von Schonborn, uncle of His Highness
the present Elector, who walks gloriously in the footsteps of that worthy
predecessor, the story that follows. That Father was in Franconia when
there was a frenzy there for burning alleged sorcerers. He accompanied even
to the pyre many of them, all of whom he recognized as being innocent, from
their confessions and the researches that he had made thereon. Therefore in
spite of the danger incurred at that time by one telling the truth in this
matter, he resolved to compile this work, without however naming himself.
It bore great fruit and on this matter converted that Elector, at that time
still a simple canon and afterwards Bishop of Wuerzburg, finally also
Archbishop of Mainz, who, as soon as he came to power, put an end to these
burnings. Therein he was followed by the Dukes of Brunswick, and finally by
the majority of the other princes and states of Germany.

98. This digression appeared to me to be seasonable, because that writer
deserves to be more widely known. Returning now to the subject I make a
further observation. Supposing that to-day a knowledge of Jesus Christ
according to the flesh is absolutely necessary to salvation, as indeed it
is safest to teach, it will be possible to say that God will give that
knowledge to all those who do, humanly speaking, that which in them lies,
even though God must needs give it by a miracle. Moreover, we cannot know
what passes in souls at the point of death; and if sundry learned and
serious the