Therefore, in the case of so astute and clever a man, as all the evidence we have concerning Oldcorne to demonstration proves him to have been, it is rendered probable, to the degree of moral certainty, that the great casuist had some far stronger reason latent within him than the reason he chose to put forth for couching an answer to Humphrey Littleton, sounding in partial truth alone. Besides the sufficient, indeed, _yet inferior reason_, grounded on the primal instinct of personal self-preservation, or, in other words, to put the matter bluntly, the mere brute instinct of not being entrapped, wisdom suggests that Oldcorne must——his moral character being what we know it was——have had a reason latent deep down within the depths of his conscious being, which was not only a sufficient but _superior reason_, not only a true but a sublime reason, for severing in this grave matter, and holding suspended, truth _in thought_ from truth _in action_. Yea, Father Oldcorne, I maintain, gave Humphrey Littleton the flanking, evasive answer that he did give him, notwithstanding the inevitable, possible, and even probable dangers attendant thereon, because he (Oldcorne) felt within himself, “to the finest fibre of his being,” a _freedom_, a _three-fold freedom_, which warranted, justified, and vindicated him in so answering. Now this freedom was a three-fold freedom, because it was a thrice-purchased freedom. _And it was a thrice-purchased freedom because it had been purchased by the merits_:—— (1) Of the personal, actual repentance of the revealing plotter himself. By the merits (2) Of the imputed (or constructive) repentance of that penitent’s co-plotters. And by the merits (3) Of the laudable action of Oldcorne himself. CHAPTER LXV. Now, Oldcorne, being a man as good as he was clever, and as clever as he was good, manifests from the inherent nature of his answer to Humphrey Littleton a sense, a consciousness, an assurance of freedom from the restraints and obligations which would have undoubtedly stayed and bound him had he not been already freed from their power. Now, it is a superior power that countervails, that renders impotent an inferior power. _Now, Oldcorne would be freed from the restraining power of moral obligations, as to the user of a particular character of speech, if he had had residing within him a power of superior, of sublimer, that is, of countervailing force._ _Now, Oldcorne, in his answer to Littleton, manifestly gives evidence of power, of countervailing power._ _Knowledge gives power: gives countervailing power._ _Therefore it follows that the presence of power, of countervailing power, in Oldcorne proves likewise the strong probability of knowledge, of countervailing knowledge likewise._ _And what kind of knowledge can such two-fold knowledge have been, save a meritorious knowledge of what aforetime had been, but which was then no longer, the Gunpowder Treason Plot?_