Before a saint is canonized by the Pope, it is usually required, that
miracles wrought by him, or upon him, or at his tomb, be proved to the
satisfaction of the Roman court[130]. We need not dwell on the nature of
an inquiry into a matter-of-fact, alleged to have been done by an
individual two hundred years before; and whose memory is said to have
lain buried with his corpse. Among the miracles specified, it is
recorded, that on one occasion, when he was filled with solemn awe and
fear at the celebration of the Lord's Supper, God, by an angel, took a
particle of the consecrated host from the hands of the priest, and
gently placed it in the holy man's mouth. But, with these transactions,
I am not anxious to interfere, except so far as to ascertain the degree
of authority with which any pious Roman Catholic must be induced to
invest Bonaventura as a teacher and instructor in the doctrines of
Christianity, authorized and appointed by his Church. The case stands
thus:--Pope Sixtus IV. states in his {356} diploma, that the proctor of
the order of Minors, proved by a dissertation on the passage of St.
John, "There are three that bear record in heaven," that the blessed
Trinity had borne testimony to the fact of Bonaventura being a saint in
heaven: the Father proving it by the attested miracles; the Son, in the
WISDOM OF HIS DOCTRINE; the Holy Spirit, by the goodness of his life.
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