he wavering or inconstant of which he gave good Testimony at his end professing in the Exordium of his last Will and Testament that he died as he had lived in the Faith Communion and Fellowship of the Church of England His Library I hope will fall to my share by an Agreement between his Executors and Me which I much desire partly to keep it entire out of my Love to the Defunct The original Copy of the second part of his Elizabeth is in my hands which is intended to be shortly printed Within a day or two Sir Robert Cotton and my self intend to go into his Study which is yet shut up and there to take a view of his Papers especially of such things as are left of his own writing I desire to be remembred by your Lordship in your holy Prayers to God to whose gracious Protection I commend you and ever remain Your Lordships most affectionate Friend and Servant Henry Bourgchier London Novemb. 22 1623. LETTER LXIII A Letter from Dr. James to the Right Reverend James Usher Bishop of Meath MY Duty in most humble manner remembred unto your Lordship I am informed that your Lordship passed this way not far from us to London where you have remained for some few weeks I should have been glad to have known of it sooner or rather to have waited upon your Lordship here in Oxford I have traced the Steps a far off about the Succession and Visibility of the Church wherein your Lordship hath gone a far Journey I do but glean where you have reaped a plentiful Harvest Nevertheless if my poor and weak Labours may any ways stead your Lordship I would be glad to contribute my Pains You ascend as I perceive as far as our St. Aug. of England and not unworthily for if our Records be true not only the Irish as you shew but also our Britains and Scots continued averse and heretical as they are called to the whole World almost till the time of S. Bernard Many Scots and French were orthodox in the substantial Points of Religion long before Waldus I mean P. Waldus for there was another Waldus Orthodox some hundreds of years before P. Waldus in Berengarius's time I have collected as much as I can find in all likely Authors to this purpose as in the Catalogue of Writers and Witnesses of the truth of the last Age of Goulartius Wolfius Rhoanus Balaeus de scriptoribus out of the History of the Waldenses both by Lydius and Camerarius out of Lombard Dr. Powel and others printed out of sundry Manuscripts as Gascoigne Canter Mapes P. de Vineis Becket Sarisburiensis which have been diligently read over by a learned Kinsman of mine who is at this present by my direction writing Becket's Life wherein it shall be plainly shewed both out of his own Writings and those of his time that he was not as he is esteemed an Arch-Saint but an Arch-Rebel and that the Papists have been not a little deceiv'd in him This Kinsman of mine as well as my self shall be right glad to do any Service to your Lordship in this kind He is of strength and well both able and learn'd to effectuate somewhat in this kind critically seen both in Hebrew Greek and Latin knowing well the Languages both French Spanish and Italian immense and beyond all other Men especially in reading of the Manuscripts of an extraordinary style in penning such a one as I dare ballance with any Priest or Jesuit in the World of his Age and such a one as I could wish your Lordship had about you but paupertas inimica bona est moribus and both fatherless and motherless and almost but for my self I may say the more is the pity friendless For my self I am not so far gone in Years as in Sicknesses yet my Body is not so weak but my Mind is as strong and my Zeal great to see somewhat acted against the Papists in matters of Forgery and Corruption which are matters of Fact whereto my Studies have always aim'd and shall during Life if God will I find infinite Corruptions in the Fathers Works especially of the Roman Print in the Canon Law and Decretals I can convince them of shameless Forgeries by the Parchments But that which hath amazed or amused the World and made it turn or continue Popish hath been the want of Censurers of the Fathers Works which made our Magdeburgians and some of our best learn'd to lance the Fathers and not to spare them whereas they are but Pseudo-Fathers indeed But the notedst cozenage which is rife and most beguiling in these days is a secret Index Expurgatorius and therefore the more dangerous that is the reprinting of Books not making mention of any Castigation or Purgation of them and yet both leaving and adding and otherwise infinitely depraving them as is to be seen in hundreds of Books of the middle-Age and later Writers I instance in Sixtus Senensis and Alphonsus de Castro and Antoninus Summes There are about five hundred bastard Treatises and about a thousand places in the true Authors which are corrupted that I have diligently noted and will shortly vindicate them out of the Manuscripts for hitherto they be but the Conjectures of the Learned For this purpose I have gotten together the Flower of our young Divines who voluntarily will joyn with me in the search some fruits of their labours if your Lordship desires I will send up And might I be but so happy as to have other twelve thus bestowed four in transcribing Orthodox Writers whereof we have plenty that for the substantial Points have maintain'd our Religion 40 or 50 l. would serve four to compare old Prints with the new four other to compare the Greek Translations by the Papists as Vedelius hath done with Ignatius wherein he hath been somewhat help'd by my Pains I would not doubt but to drive the Papists out of all their starting-holes But alas my Lord I have not Encouragement from our Bishops Preferment I seek none at their hands only 40 or 60 l. per Annum for others and their Lordships Letters to incourage others is that I seek which being gained the Cause is gained notwithstanding their brags in their late Books And thus craving pardon I rest in humble Service Your Lordship 's in all Duty Tho. James Oxford 28 Jan. 1623. LETTER LXIV A Letter from Mr. William Eyre to the Right Reverend James Usher Bishop of Meath Reverende in Christo Pater Domine mihi mult is nominibus colendissime NUperrime de adventu tuo in Angliam deque morâ per aliquot menses audivi à Ramo nostro quem tamen nondum mihi contigit videre ex quo tecum fuit Londini Solummodo per internuntium me de quibusdam certiorem fecit Gratulor verò tibi tuis nobis etiam omnibus vitam valetudinem tuam qui tam auspicatò foeliciter his funestissimis temporibus illa arma sumsisti quae non carnalia sed
fata libelli I have sent you the King's Book in Latin against Vorstius yet scant dry from the Press which Mr. Norton who hath the matter wholly in his own hands swore to me he would not print unless he might have money to print it a sufficient argument to make me content with my Manuscript lying still unprinted unless he Equivocated but see how the World is changed time was when the best Book-printers and sellers would have been glad to be beholding to the meanest Book-makers Now Mr. Norton not long since the meanest of many Book-Printers and sellers so talks and deals as if he would make the Noble King James I may well say the best Book-maker of this his own or any Kingdom under the Sun be glad to be beholding to him any marvel therefore if he think to make such a one as I am his Vassal but I had rather betake my self to another occupation therefore again I request you that my possibility be not frustrate for the School of Armagh Thus hoping to see you in London ere long with my very hearty thanks unto you and commendations to Mr. D. Chaloner Mr. Richardson and all the residue of our good friends with you I commit you to God's gracious preservation Yours as his own Thomas Lydiat Inner Temple Aug. 22. 1611. LETTER VI. A Letter from Mr. James Usher late Arch-Bishop of Armagh to Mr. Thomas Lydyat Good Mr. Lydyat HOwsoever I intended not to have written unto you before I had first heard from you which I long since expected yet having the opportunity of this Bearer offered I could not pretermit that occasion of saluting you and making known that you are not out of remembrance with your friends here for in truth that was the special cause of my writing at this time You will not believe how I long to be informed from you of the state of things there both of our own private and of our Respublica literaria in general Now I pray you be not slack in satisfying my desire and let me hear among other things how matters go with Mr. Casaubon and how he is imployed If hereafter you shall have occasion to enter into conference with him learn whether he can bring any light to the clearing of the Albigenses and Waldenses from those imputations wherewith they are charged by their Adversaries Ludovicus Camerarius reporteth That many of their Writings in the Ancient Occitanical Language Langue d' Oc were to be seen in Joseph Scaliger's Library Poplinier in the 28th Book of his History to prove that their Religion little differed from ours alledgeth the Acts of a Disputation between the Bishop of Pammiers and Arnoltot Minister of Lombres written in a Language savouring much of the Catalan Tongue Yea sundry persons saith he have assured me that they have seen the Articles of their Faith engraved in certain old Tables which are yet to be seen in Alby in all things conformable to those of the Protestants At my last being in London Mr. Fountayn the Minister of the French Church dwelling in the Black-Fryars told me That in his time there was found a Confession of the Albigenses which being exhibited to a Synod of the Reformed Churches in France was by them approved as Orthodox He promised me to write to the Ministers of Paris for the Copy of the Articles of that Confession I pray you put him in mind of it And get from Mr. Casaubon and him what information you can in those particulars for you know how greatly they make for my purpose You remember that Dr. Chaloner wished you to deal for some Minister to come hither for St. Warburghs I would willingly understand what you have done therein if Mr. Ayre be about London you may do well to acquaint him with it and try whether he can find in his heart once again to visit poor Ireland Dr. Chaloner hath written to Mr. Provost to this purpose You may do us a very great pleasure if you can help us to a faithful Minister to undertake that Charge and Letters commendatory from the Arch-Bishop of Canterbury I would willingly hear what is done with Mr. Justice Sibthorp's Book the Preface whereof I sent over by you If Mr. Briggs cannot get it printed I pray you let it be safely sent unto me again and that with as convenient speed as may be If it will pass there intreat Mr. Crashaw for my sake to take some pains in perusing the same and altering therein what he thinketh fit for that hath the Author wholly referred to his discretion If you can come any where to the sight of Sanders De Schismate Anglicano write me out what he noteth concerning Ireland in the year 1542. Sir Robert Cotton promised me the Copy of certain Letters which concerned the Consecrating of the Bishops of Dublin by the Arch-Bishop of Canterbury they are at the end of his great Manuscript Book of the Pope's Epistles I pray you call to him for it and likewise intreat Mr. Camden to send me the Copy of those Letters which he alledgeth to that purpose in his Hiberniâ pag. 765. of the last Edition I will trouble you no more at this time but expect to hear from you after so long silence in the mean time committing you and your labours to God's good Blessing and Wishing unto you as unto mine own self James Usher Septemb. 9. 1611. LETTER VII A Letter from Mr. James Usher afterward Arch-Bishop of Armagh to Mr. Thomas Lydyat at London I Received your Letter of the 22 of August together with the Books specified therein for which I give you great thanks And as you have not been unmindful of my businesses so have not I been altogether of yours I have dealt since with my Uncle the Primate both for the annual stipend in the Proportion of Land lying about the School and do find him constant in his Promise Whereby I resolve you may well make account of your Fifty Pounds per annum at the least His Register hath been very forward in furthering the matter and will take care that the utmost benefit be made of the Land to your behoof I have caused him to write unto you of the state thereof for your better information Make I pray you as convenient hast unto us as you can and in the mean time let us hear once more at least of your Affairs and send unto me in your next Letter in what forwardness Justice Sibthorp's Book is as you have signified delivered unto a Stationer in the Church-yard and whether Mr. Crashaw hath taken any pains in running it over And at your coming forget not to bring for me a Bible in Octavo of the new Translation well bound for my ordinary use together with Mr. James and Mr. Cook 's Books you wrote me of I would hear also willingly whether you have proceeded further with Mr. Web and what hope we may conceive of his coming Because you met not with himself and we had no certainty
Judgment of the Church of Christ from the beginning of the Gospel unto this day and that of old they were condemned for heretical in the Nazarites But finding that for the present he was not to be wrought upon by any reasoning and that long a dies was the only means to cure him of this Sickness I remembred what course I had heretofore held with another in this Country who was so far ingaged in this Opinion of the calling of the Jews tho not of the revoking of Judaism that he was strongly perswaded he himself should be the Man that should effect this great Work and to this purpose wrote an Hebrew Epistle which I have still in my hands directed to the dispersed Jews To reason the matter with him I found it bootless I advised him therefore that until the Jews did gather themselves together and make choice of him for their Captain he should labour to benefit his Country-men at home with that Skill he had attained unto in the Hebrew Tongue I wished him therefore to give us an exact Translation of the Old Testament out of the Hebrew Verity which he accordingly undertook and performed The Translation I have still by me but before he had finished that Task his Conceit of the calling of the Jews and his Captainship over them vanished clean away and was never heard of after In like manner I dealt with Mr. Whitehall that forasmuch as he himself acknowledged that the Mosaical Rites were not to be practised unto the general calling of the Jews he might do well I said to let that matter rest till then and in the mean time keep his Opinion to himself and not bring needless Trouble upon himself and others by divulging it out of season And whereas he had intended to write an historical Discourse of the retaining of Judaism under Christianity I counselled him rather to spend his pains in setting down the History of Purgatory or Invocation of Saints or some of the other Points in controversy betwixt the Church of Rome and Us. So far I prevailed with him herein that he intreated me to become a Suitor unto your Lordship in his behalf that the loss of his Living and those other Troubles which he hath already sustained might be accepted for a sufficient Punishment of his former Offence and that he might have the Favour to be restored only unto his Fellowship in Oxford where he would bind himself to forbare intermedling any way with his former Opinions either in publick or in private and spend his time in any other Employment that should be imposed upon him How far it will be fitting to give way unto this motion I wholly leave unto your own grave Consideration Thus much only I have presumed to propound unto your Lordship in discharge of my Promise made unto Mr. Whitehall with whom I could have no long Communication by reason I way presently to begin my Journey for the visitation of the Diocess of Meath Until my return from thence I have stayed the printing of the rest of mine Answer unto the Jesuits Challenge the former part whereof I humbly make bold to present unto your Lordship's view as unto whom above all others I most desire my simple Labours in this kind may be approved And so craving pardon for my boldness in troubling you thus far I rest Your Lordship's in all Christian Duty ready to be commanded Ja. Midensis Dublin Sept. 28. 1621. LETTER LXVIII A Letter from Dr. Thomas James to the Right Reverend James Usher Lord Bishop of Meath MY Duty remembred unto your Lordship I am much beholden to your Lordship for your last Book which I received before the Act by my good Friend Mr. Calendrine I have punctually perused it and do render unto your Lordship both common and private thanks for the same and expect your Lordship 's of the Britains ancient Religion wherein as I see no difficulty so I would be glad to assist with my Pains if any thing were worthy yet of my Cousin Mr. Rich. Jame's who remembreth himself most dutifully to your Lordship I send a Taste or Essay of what may be done by him I will say no more of him or it but this That I know no Man living more fit to be imployed by your Lordship in this kind than himself his Pains incredible and his Zeal as great and his Judgment in Manuscripts such as I doubt not but your Lordship may use to the great benefit of the Church and ease of your Lordship may there be but some course taken that he may have victum vestitum independant from any one This if he may have from your Lordship or by your Lordships means I know his Deserts and Willingness to deserve well of the Church For my own Business I know not what to say whether to go onward or to stay Guil. de s. Amore is transcribed and wants but the three Books from your Lordship whereof Mr. Calendrine hath given me good hopes Wickleph de Veritate is the better part done I have hitherto laid out the Money but my Purse will hold out no longer to defray the Charges If it would be so that I may receive the Money to recompence their pains I would not doubt before the next Session but to have most of Wickleph's Works transcribed but I fail in the burden and refer all to God's Providence and your Lordship's Direction being not idle in these Businesses And so in haste with my own and my Cousin's Duty to you I end and rest Your Lordship 's in all Duty Tho. James Oxon the 27 July 1624. LETTER LXIX A Letter from Thomas Davies to the Right Reverend James Usher Bishop of Meath Right Reverend MAY it please your Lordship to take notice that your Letter of the 24th of January in London came to my hands the 14th of July unto which I have given due perusal and perceiving your Lordship's pleasure thereby omitted no opportunity neither any time but the very day that I received it began to lay out for those Books you writ for The five Books of Moses in the Samaritan Character I have found by a meer accident with the rest of the Old Testament joyned with them but the mischief is there wants two or three leaves of the beginning of Genesis and as many in the Psalms which notwithstanding I purpose to send by this Ship lest I meet not with another yet I have sent to Damascus and if not there to be had to Mount Gerazim so that in time I hope to procure another which shall contain the five Books of Moses perfectly I sent a Messenger on purpose to Mount Libanus and Tripoly for the Old Testament in the Syriack Tongue but he returned without it and brought word that there I might have one after two months but could not have it time enough to send by this Ship The reason why they sent it not was that they wanted Parchment to copy one of the Books and so not being perfect
to God and Honour to our King Thus fearing that I have troubled your Lordship with a slender Discourse humbly take my leave beseeching the Lord of Lords to multiply his Graces upon you recommending you with all yours to God's Grace and Mercy rest Your Lordship 's in all Duty to command Thomas Davies Aleppo 29th September 1624. LETTER LXXII A Letter from Sir H. Bourgchier to the Right Reverend James Usher Lord Bishop of Meath My very good Lord I Received your Lordship's Letter for which I return many thanks My Journy into Ireland is of such necessity that I cannot defer it long though I have many motives besides those mentioned by your Lordship to urge my stay As for the Books which you mention I find Jordanus in vitas Fratrum in the Catalogue of the Publick Library at Oxford Mr. Selden told me he never heard of the Author if any Library about London have it or that other Work of his I will endeavour to discover them As for the new Edition of Sealiger de Emendat Temporum as many as I speak withal are of opinion that it is so far from coming out that it is not yet come in to the Press Here are already come two Dry-fats of Mart Books and they expect but one more you may perceive by the Catalogue what they are Here will be very shortly some good Libraries to be had as Dr. Dee's which hath been long litigious and by that means unsold One Oliver a Physician of St. Edmundsbury of whose writing I have seen some Mathematical Tracts printed and Dr. Crakanthorp are lately dead If there be any extraordinary Books which your Lordship affects if you will be pleased to send a note of them they shall be bought Such News as we have you receive so frequently as coming from me they would be stale which you know destroys their very Essence We have had Bonfires Ringing Shouting and also Ballads and base Epithalamiums for the conclusion of the French Marriage and yet I am but modicae fidei Our Country-man Florence Mr. Carthye was committed to the Tower some five days since And thus remembring my best Affection to your Lordship and Mrs. Usher I will remain Your Lordship 's very affectionate Friend and Servant Henry Bourgchier London in haste Novemb. 24. 1624. LETTER LXXIII A Letter from Dr. Ward to the Right Reverend James Usher Bishop of Meath at Much-Haddam in Essex My very good Lord IT was my purpose to have come to visit your Lordship at Haddam to morrow but the truth is upon Thusday last before I came out of Cambridg I was made acquainted with a business which will occasion my return to Cambridg to morrow I notwithstanding brought with me the Manuscripts of Bedes Ecclesiastical Story which I have of Sir R. Cotton's and have sent it unto you by this Bearer Walter Mark I will expect the Book from you when you have done with it for that I would keep it till Sir Robert restore a Book of mine which he had of Mr. Patrick Young I had purposed to have borrowed also out of our University Library Simeon Dunelmensis but I find that I am deceived in that I thought it had been his History or Chronicle but it is only the History of the Church of Durham and of the Endowments of that Church and not his History of England And thus sorry that my occasions will not suffer me to see your Lordship this time and with my kind Salutations to Sir Gerard Harvy and his Lady with Thanks for my kind Entertainment when I was there I commend you to the gracious Protection of the highest Majesty Your Lordship 's in all observance Samuel Ward Much-Mondon Jan. 2. 1624. LETTER LXXIV A Letter from the Right Reverend James Usher Bishop of Meath to Dr. Samuel Ward Good Mr. Doctor I Received by W. Marks your Ancient Bede which I suppose did sometime belong to the Church of Durham As soon as I have compared it with the printed Book I will not fail God willing to send it you safe back again As for Simeon Dunelmensis his History of the Church of Durham which is in the publick Library of your University I would intreat you to borrow it for me however it hath not proved to be the Chronicle which I at first desired for I have a great mind to see and transcribe all that hath been written by Simeon and Turgotus Dunelmensis Turgotus I hear is with Mr. Tho. Allen of Oxford and if my memory do not much deceive me at my being in England the last time before this you told me that you had begun to transcribe the Annals of Simeon Dunelmensis which continue the History of Bede I pray you if you know where those Annals may be had do your best to help me unto them I could wish that Mr. Lisle would take some pains in translating the Saxon Annals into our English Tongue for I do not know how he can more profitably imploy that Skill which God hath given to him in that Language If I had any opportunity to speak with him my self I would direct him to five or six Annals of this kind three of which belonging to Sir Rober Cotton I have in my hands at this present our of which there might be one perfect Annal made up in the English Tongue which might unfold unto us the full State of the Saxon Times But how that Gentleman's Mind stands affected that way I know not the feeling of his Mind therein I leave to you And so commending all your good Endeavours to the Blessing of our good God I rest Your most assured Friend Ja. Mid. Much-Haddam Jan. 4. 1624. LETTER LXXV A Letter from Sir H. Bourgchier to the Right Reverend James Usher Bishop of Meath My very good Lord I Received your Lordship's Letter which was must wellcome to me and much more the News of your Recovery which was deliver'd to me by Mr. Burnet and by me to some others of your Friends who were no less glad than my self I am afraid that you converse too much with your Books I need not tell you the danger of a Relapse This News which I sent your Lordship deserved not Thanks because vulgar and trivial that of the Death of Erpenius is but too true and is much lamented by learned Men in all places for the cause by your Lordship truly expressed he died of the Plague Mr. Briggs was gone from London some three days before the Receipt of your Lordship's Letter But I will write to him that which I should have delivered by word of Mouth if he had tarried here In the collating of Books your Lordship hath made a good choice that being a fit study in time of Sickness as not so much imploying the Mind as other Studies As for Bede I doubt the Collation of him will be scarce worth your labour For as far as I went they seemed rather to be variantes lectiones than material Differences a very few excepted To make use
of my Collations your Lordship shall not want the Heydelburg Edition which I will take care to have sent unto you I have been this Morning with Mr. Patrick Young who cannot give me satisfaction concerning those Books till he have been in the Princes Library For the nameless Annal I conceive that your Amanuensis mistook your meaning for where you say that it begins at the year of our Lord 744 and ends in the year 1100 I cannot see how Asserius Menevensis could be the Author of most of it Mr. Young will make search for it and return an Answer as soon as conveniently he may As for Asserius de rebus gestis Alfredi he tells me that they have only a Transcript of it but Sir Robert Cotton hath an ancient Copy the same he tells me of Florentius Wigorniensis and Simeon Dunelmensis Of Eusebius Chronicle they have three or four Copies and if you please shall have all of them or which you please Sir Rob. Cotton doth daily augment his store he hath gotten lately a Book of St. Edm. Bury By the next return I hope to send the Books which you desire and perhaps to play the Carrier my self There is a rumor of the Adjournment of the Parliament till April but no Proclamation yet come forth There is a new Secretary Sir Albertus Morton to be sworn in the place of Sir Geo. Calvert I have not heard any thing out of Ireland since my last to your Lordship Mr. Young tells me that he received lately a Letter from Paris from one Lucas Holstenius a young Man whom I mention'd sometime to your Lordship being acquainted with him here in London the last year he writes to him that a Jesuit there doth publish a new Edition of Eusebius in Greek and Latin for the furtherance of which Work Mr. Mountague and Mr. Young sends thither their Notes and Observations upon him Petavius is busy about his work de Emendat Temp. which will shortly come abroad Holstenius is printing Scylax Artemidorus Ephesius with divers other old Geographers some of which were heretofore publish'd by D. Haeschelius and some till now never publish'd I doubt not but D. Ryves hath sent your Lordship his Answer to the Analecta I have read him over and approve the Work but not in every particular as where he makes Sedulius among others pag. 46. lib. 2. to be one of St. Patrick's forerunners in the plantation of Christian Religion in Ireland I do not see how that can be The best Authors making him contemporary if not later than St. Patrick Some other passages I could censure both of ancient and modern times but I will spare that labour till our meeting In the mean time with the remembrance of my Love and Service to your Lordship and Mrs. Usher and my heartiest Wishes and Prayers for your Health I will remain Your Lordship's most affectionate Friend and Servant Henry Bourgchier Lond. Jan. 17. 1624. LETTER LXXVI A Letter from Dr. Thomas James to the Right Reverend James Usher Lord Bishop of Meath AFter my Duty in humble manner premised I hope and am right glad to hear of your Lordship's Recovery I have received from your Lordship two Books whereby I have not been a little benefited yet of Boston I hear there is a greater Catalogue extant I forbore to write all this while for fear of trouble I have laboured ever since in the common business as your Lordship shall perceive by an humble Supplication printed which your Lordship shall receive by Mr. Calandrine which could I have had the happiness that it might have passed your learned Censure would have been much more perfect but ut quimus aut quando non ut volumus I have done it as advisedly as I could and doubt not to give every Man good satisfaction in good time If our Friends of Cambridge will joyn with us the Work may be well atchieved within half the time they taking half the Points mentioned and they both sending to us their Observations to be revised by us we ours to them to be revised by them that it may be the work jointly of both Universities My Zeal and Knowledg cannot match Dr. Ward 's yet I will endeavour to do my best I deâ—ire to have my Service remembred to my Lord of Ely I have upon a Letter of your Lordship's imployed some in transcribing Guil. de S. Amore not that which your Lorship sent but another greater and fuller Work that is done and a great deal besides More had been if we had not been compell'd for want of Mony to have surceased and my poor Means would not serve to supply Wants and I am indebted for that which is done Your Lordship by Letter if I mistake not undertook for my Lord of Ely's 20 l. per Annum had all promised been paid I had had 20 or 30 quire in readiness that which I have shall be fitted against the Parliament in the exactest manner that it can be done for the Press I have in the Press at the present these things A Confutation of Papists out of Papists in the most material Articles of our Religion whose Testimonies are taken either out of the Indices Expurgatorii or out of the ancient Books especially the Manuscripts An Index librorum prohibitorum 1ae 2ae vel 3ae Classis vel expurgatorum quovismodo chiefly for the use of our publick Library that we may know what Books and what Editions to buy their prohibition being a good direction to guide us therein I have cast them into an exact Alphabet My Cousin Rich. James desireth to have his Duty remembred to your Lordship he hath reviewed and inlarged his Book of Bochel's Decanonization a Book so nearly concerning Kingly Dignity and so fully opening the History of those Times that I know not where a Man shall read the like I would he might have the happiness that your Lordship might see it being now fair transcribed that it might pass your Lordship's Censure before it pass any further And I am perswaded over-weaning perhaps in love to my Cousin that if his Majesty saw it it would please him having so many good pieces of Antiquity in it it is his and shall be my chiefest Study I have here found upon search thereof Petrus Minorita's Homil. upon Matthew and two Books of St. Augustins coming here into England which are of good note but I make no doubt your Lordship hath seen them already I leave therefore to trouble your Lordship any further being right glad to hear of your Lordship's Preferment as I am informed for the good of the Church and so I rest Your Lordship 's in all Duty Thomas James Oxon Febr. 8. LETTER LXXVII A Letter from Dr. Thomas James to the Right Reverend James Usher Bishop of Meath My humble Duty remembred to your Lordship I Am incouraged by your Lordship's Letters to go on chearfully in my intended course and discovery solus aut quomodo what is one Man able to resist when
of him to what value the Temporal Rents not yet passed in reversion do arise and what proportion thereof Sir John Bathe is now a passing in his Book 3. Whereas the Lords Justices in their Letter do signifie unto 〈◊〉 that such a Certificate had been made unto his Majesty by the Lord Treasurer and Chancellor of the Exchequer you may certifie them that Sir John Bathe sent unto me a Certificate under their hands to view wherein they do inform his Majesty that in their Judgments the granting of 〈◊〉 l. Rent in Reversion will countervail the Sum which Sir John was to remit but that there was no other thing leâ—t to be passed but Impropriations which is the main thing that concerns this business that to my remembrance they meddle not with at all and Sir John Bathe by the Temporal Lands that now he is passing in his Book doth prove it to be otherwise 4. Take a view of Sir John Bathe's Letter and consider with your Counsel first whether there be any general Non obstante in it against all precedent Instructions and Directions of which I much doubt And secondly Whether any such general Non obstante have power to cross the particular Letter which in â—y apprehension is more then an Instruction at large which I brought over from his Majesty that now is for the disposing of the Impropriations otherwise 5. Let Sir John Bathe be demanded upon his Conscience whether he did so much as know that I had obtained any such Letter from his Majesty when he procured his If he did why did he not to take away all suspicion of surreption cause a special Non obstante to be inserted against it as well as he hath done against another particular Instruction mentioned in the end of his Letter If he did not as his Kinsman who brought me the Lords Justices Letters assured me he did not how in any common intendment can it be presumed that the Particularities of my former Letter were 〈◊〉 into due consideration and revoked by his Majesty If it be alledged that his Letter coming after mine is of it self a sufficient Revocation thereof I alledg in like manner that this last Letter of mine coming after his is of it self a sufficient Revocation of his and so much the more by far because his was obtained upon my direct Complaint against Sir John Bathe's Letter as surreptitiously procured which I take to be a Non-obstante sufficient enough against him whatsoever it be against any other whereas in the procuring of Sir John Bathe's there was no notice at all taken of my particular Letter 6. You are to 〈…〉 the Instructions which they received with the Sword they are 〈…〉 make stay of the passing of any Grant for which the King's Letters are brought unto them where they have cause to doubt whether his Majesty were fully informed or no concerning the 〈◊〉 or inconveniency of that Particular Wherein if my Lord of London's Letter be not of authority sufficient otherwise to make a legal Attestation of his Majesties Royal Intendâ—ent yeâ— I suppoâ—◠〈◊〉 will 〈◊〉 so much weight with it as to 〈◊〉 theâ—◠〈◊〉 little which longer as they have done 〈◊〉 when they had nothing so strong a 〈◊〉 until his Majesty being fully informed upon both sides shall signifie his express Pleasure unto them in this particular And in doing otherwise they may justly conceive that it will be charged upon them for a neglect in performance of his Majesties Pleasure LETTER CLVII A Letter from the Right Reverend George Downham Bishop of London-Derry to the most Reverend James Usher Arch-bishop of Armagh Most Reverend MY very good Lord. The Book and Papers which you were pleased to send to me I have now returned with Thanks Of which I made this use so soon as I had received them that I gave Directions to Mr. Price to insert those Additions unto the 13th Chapter of Perseverance and § 3. both in the beginning whereof I spake of Adulti of whom properly this Controversy is understood And in the end thereof where I speak of Infants touching whom I say first That this Controversy is not understood of those who neither are endued with Habit of Grace nor are able to produce the Acts thereof as not having the use of Reason And therefore being neither justified by Faith nor sanctified by the Habits of Grace cannot be said to fall from them Thus I thought good to rid my self of that Question rather then to profess a difference from them who notwithstanding that Objection taken from Baptism agree with me in the Doctrine of Perseverance yet I must profess to your Grace that I do not subscribe to their Opinion who extend the benefit of Baptism beyond either the Purpose or Covenant of Grace But hereof more when it shall please God to give us a meeting In the mean time and always I commend your Grace to the gracious Protection of the Almighty In whom I ever rest Your Grace's in all Duty Georg. Derens. Fawne April 24. 1630. LETTER CLVIII A Letter from the Right Reverend Thomas Morton Bishop of Coventry and Litchfield to the most Reverend James Usher Arch-bishop of Armagh Salutem in Christo Jesu Most Reverend I Was right glad to receive by your Graces own Letters the report of your late almost desperate Sickness they being therein the Messengers of your present Health Wherein I and others are to acknowledg the Mercâ— of God unto us who hath preserved you to be still a most emâ—nenâ—â—nstrument of his Glory and Comfort of his Church I do also condole with your Lordship the loss of those rare Lights of Learning mentioned in your Letter but yet enjoying also with you the hopes of their Blessedness Your Grace inquires after Christ his Mass a Fruit which will not be in season before Michaelmas I have an eager longing to be made partaker Histoâ—icae Controversiae Predestinatianae together with your new Edition of altering the Jesuits Challenge I had the sight of your Adversaries Book but obiter at what time I alight on a palpable Falsification of his but ea est infelicitas Memoriae that I have forgot it else according to my Duty I should have acquainted your Grace with it Good my Lord that which our outward Man denieth let our inward continually seek to embrace and enjoy our mutual presence by brotherly Affection and holy Prayer unto God that we may be that which we profess Filii Gratiae Charitate Fratres Our Lord Jesus preserve us to the Glory of his saving Grace Your Grace's in respectful Acknowledgment Tho. Covent Litchfield Eccleshall-Castle May 21 1630. LETTER CLIX. A Letter from the most Reverend James Usher Arch-bishop of Armagh to Dr. Ward Salutem à salutis fonte D. N. Jesu Christo. YOur Letter of the 24th of November lay by the way almost a quarter of a Year before it came into my hands but was the most welcome when it came of any that I did receive from
gravissimis studiis occupatum tam molesto labore mei causâ defungi velim Sed si quis fortè apud vos studiosus eum librum tuâ causâ conferre voluerit cum vulgatis editionibus aut si quis fortasse jam contulit rogo ut varias lectiones mecum communices Ego vicissim tibi spondeo honorificam mentionem et Tui ejus qui hanc operam subierit in meis annotationibus me esse facturum Vale Vir Clarissime omnium Anglorum doctissime Tibi addictissimus Henr. Valesius Lutetiae Parisiorum iii Nonas Decemb. An. Christi 1654. LETTER CCXCV. A Letter from the most Reverend James Usher Arch-bishop of Armagh to the Learned Henricus Valesius Viro doctissimo D. Henrico Valesio Vir Clarissime EUsebium nostrum tandèm salvum ad te pervenisse gaudeo 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 illas longè antequà m Genevensis editio lucem aspexit à D. Henrico Savilio in eo fuisse annotatas tibi confirmare possum Quem ex proprio Manuscripto suo eas se desumpsisse nòn semel dixisse mihi memini Et alio hic quà m Christophorsoni codice eum fuisse usum Tam ex lacunis in libris de vitâ Constantini suppletis quam ex appendice ad finem Theodoreti historiae adjectâ tutè poteris cognoscere Pervolutaverat diligenter per aliquot annos magnus ille vir tùm Pontificiam Vaticanam tùm Viennensem Imperatoriam tùm Vincentii Pinelli aliorum tunc temporis clarorum Italorum privatas Bibliothecas ex quibus rariora quaeque suâ manu descripta in patriam secum detulit Quorum nonnulla ipse quoque in libello de anno solari veterum Macedonum commemoro Quanto verò studio omnia omnium locorum scrinia libraria ad perficiendum suum Chrysostomum rimatus ille fuerit quis ignorat Cujus editionem ad Rempub. Augustanam missam quùm Marcus Velserus primum usurpasset oculis sublatis exclamâsse fertur Nil â—riturum alias nil ortum tale fatemur Ne quis ad humile quid vulgare demittere illum se potuisse existimet sed qualiscumque demum codex noster fuerit arbitratu tuo uti eo tibi licebit donèc Eusebii tui tantopere desideratam editionem absolveris Interea nostrum ad te mitto de LXX Interpretum Versione Syntagma Ex quo Patricium Junium jamdudum vitâ esse functum intelliges Te autèm diu adhuc superstitem conservet summus ille Deus in quo viviâ—us movemur sumus quod secundis votis ab eo expetit Tui amantissimus J. U. A. Junii die 15 25 Anno 1655. LETTER CCXCVI. A Letter from Dr. Barlow now Bishop of Lincoln to the most Reverend James Usher late Arch-bishop of Armagh My good Lord IN obedience to your Grace's Command I have made search for those Books in the Passages in them which you enquired after and in answer to your Queries I do hereby make this return Q. 1. For the first Query Whether in 1 Chron. 1. Cainan be in both places in the Moscovitical Translation Sol. Be pleased to know that 1 Chron. 1. 18. the Biblia Moscovitica have not Kainan between Arphaxad and Sala as the Septuagint have For whereas in the LXX 't is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Moscovitical Translation hath only thus leaving Kainan out 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Arphaxad begot Sala and Sala begot Eber. But ver 24. of the same Chapter the LXX Translators and the Moscovite agree and both have Kainan For as it is in the Septuagint 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 So in the other 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. the Sons of Sem Arphaxad Kainan Sala Q. 2. For the second Query concerning the Passage in Genebrard be pleased to know that Genebrard in Epistolâ ad Lectorem Psalmis praefixâ justifying the Septuagint against the Hebrew as the Masorites have made it with Points and Distinctions he hath these words Masoretas versus confudisse ac misâ—uisse ut proinde metrica veterum Carminum ratio periret quae tempore Septuaginta integra erat Quod sane extra Poëtas aliquando accidit Ut. 2. Paral. 30. versu 18. qui clauditur per 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Pro. ut proinde Kimchi eum in sequentem extendat Pro omni qui cor suum praeparat c. Q. 3. For the third Query Whether in Ptolomy's 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the Manuscript Copies Be pleased to know that I have consulted two excellent Manuscripts and 't is in both 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Q. 4. For the fourth Query Whether it be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I have consulted two Manuscripts now in my custody and they very fair ones in the first and more ancient Manuscript in the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 under the Title of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 we read thus 1. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 2. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 3. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 So it is writ in the Manuscript where 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is manifestly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 For 1. So he writes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the Manuscript pag. 42. and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the Manuscript pag. 271. 2. And in the same 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 pag. 55. of the Kings of Egypt having named one Ptolomy Evergetes then Ptolomi's more 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 do immediatly follow and next after them another Ptolomy Evergetes thus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 So. pag. 231. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is writ thus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 3. And in the other Manuscripts which is later t is distinctly writ 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 So that I conceive that 't is beyond all question that it must be read 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Q. 5. For the last Question Whether the Doxology be in the Lord's Prayer in the Moscovitical Translation I can return no answer satisfactory for though I know the Character and can read the Language and so may know the proper Names which are contained in all Languages yet not understanding the Language I cannot assure you that the Doxology is there In our ancient Saxon Manuscript of Gospels the Doxology is wanting both in Matth. 6. 9. and Luke 11. 1. In Matthew the Lord's Prayer ends thus 7 ne gelaede þu us on costnunge ac alys us of yfle soðlice i. e. And lead thou us not into temptation but free us truly from evil 'T is the same in Luke only the word soðlice is not there So it is also in Fox's printed Copy of the Saxon. The Doxology is wanting also in an old Latin Manuscript of the Gospels in Saxon Letters both in Matthew and Luke My Duty and humble Service remembred I beg your Grace's Benenediction and Pardon for the rude
forma P. 14. l. 1. r. tristissimam l. 20. f. ex r. l. 35. r. quassatas l. 37. ocellus P. 16. l. 5. r. audacia l. 18. r. tentatas ADVERTISEMENT LEtter 3. was from an imperfect Copy of the Bishops The Marginal Note p. 4 and 417. and so often after is Bishop Ushers The Letters mentioned p. 511. l. ult are in the Appendix p. 7 and 9. Letter 229. should be placed after Letter 230. and Letter 232. should be before Letter 226. Letter 247. should be placed at p. 510. and the Letters p. 599 c. should be placed about An. 1615. when U. A. B. was Bishop of Meath The skilful Reader will perceive that often 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 are confounded as p. 359 c. and we must be forced to remit the Hebrew Letters to his Correction the faults being too many to be here inserted The Book being printed at different Presses there is a mis-paging page 92. to which succeeds pag. 301. but without any defect in the Book William Juxon Bishop of London and Lord High Treasurer in a Letter Anno 1639. 1 Tim. 3. 15 16. Vide ejus Praefat. ad Britanno-Machiam c. * Which was the Title he intended to give these Collections Dr. Heylin 's Respondet Petrus St. Augustine's Confession lib. 6. cap. 3. a 1 Pet. 2. 13 14. b Joh. 20. 23. c 1 Tim. 5. 17. d Tit. 2. 15. e Matth. 16. 19. 18. 18. f Rom. 13. 4. g Ezra 7. 26. h Mat. 26. 52. i 2 Chron. 26. 18. k 1 Tim. 2. 2. * As on the other side that a Spiritual or Ecclesiastical government is exercised in causes Civil or Temporal For is not Excommunication a main part of Ecclesiastical government and Forest laws a special branch of causes Temporal yet we see in Sententiâ lat â super chartas anno 12. R. H. 3. that the Bishops of England pronounce a solemn sentence of Excommunication against the-infringers of the liberties contained in Chartâ de Forestâ l Mark 16. 15. m Act. 1. 25 26. Matth. 22. 21. Mal. 3. 8. See Mr. Davis's Letter from Aleppo where the MSS. are specified Vid. Marm. Arundel Edit Lond. Praefat in Bibl. Polyglot * Vide Respondet Petrus Sect. IX Ibid. Sect. XII * In the Life of Arch-Bishop Laud. Blondellus 2 Cor. 11. * See His Majesty's Message sent by Capt. Titus 1648. And Whitlock's Mem. p. 337. See his Majesty's Message by Major Cromwal 21. Nov. 1648. See his Message by Sir Peter Killigrew in Whitlock's Mem. p. 339. P. 141. Edit Magut 1648. Ib. pag. 138. Pag. 166. Ro. 13. 1 2. * Mr. James Tyrrel †Before the late Edition of the Body of Divinity Col. 3. 12. †Drawn by Mr. Lilly after Knighted Eccles. 11. 7. Jam. 3. 17. Dr. Heylin 's Respondet Petrus Not. ad Mat. 6. Observat. in Willeram pag. 248. Praefat in Caedâ—â— Pag. 14. Ib. Sect. 7. Resp. Pet. Sect. 10. The Lord Primat's Judgment * He adds the word real which is not in the Latin vid. Dr Burnet 's Hist. of the Reformation Part 2. p. 405. Answer to the Jesuits Challenge See the places cited at large in the Book p. 118. P. 127. P. 128. P. 135 Lev. 13. P. 136. Bellarmin de Poenitent lib. 3. cap. 2. sect ult P. 137. P. 119. P. 123. That all the antient forms of Absolution in the Greek Church were till of late only declarative or optative and always in the 3d not first person See Dr. Smith 's learned Account of the Gr. Church p. 180 181. Respon Petrus Sect. 10. § 7. P. 287 288. P. 341. P. 342. P. 343. P. 345 346. P. 310. * Vid. Jobi Ludolfi lib. 311. c. 5. 19. Hist. Aethiop * Qui mihi ad sedem Armachanam translato anno 1625. in Midensi Episcopatu successit anno 1650. mortem obiit * Of these Fulgentius Ferrandus seemeth to be one in Dionysius his Days for he never citeth those Canons * Unless in the 5th Canon of the fifth Council of Carthage of which we may further inquire * There are more * Also of the Councils Antioch Laodicen Constantinopolit Ephes. Chalcedon * In Codice Moguntino are 14. * Edit Colon. An. 1551. †Edit Venet. An. 1585. But so in Notitia Episc. Galliae propetiâ—â—m * Hec praesatio extat in Edit per Crab. p. 328. * From Turrian vid. Epist. Pontif Arabic Nomo-Canonum * Another Collector Canon Caroli M. Temporib in 3 Tom. rerum Alamannicarum Goldasti XII Vid. Summam Gratian Cod. 37. qu. 1. c. 9. 10. ex Codice Canâ—num Bernardinus de Biâ—sto in Marcul part 12. Ser. 2. de Coronatione Mariae Lit. V. 1 Aera Dhilkarnain est 2 x apud Albategnium viz. 2 Potiùs 9. 3 Quod caput est arae Dhilk. 4 Quod caput est Hegirae * i. e. aequabiles †complito ‖ 287. Crus pag. 35. * 1205 anni die 297. in anno aequabili ineunte verò an 1206. qui hic intelligitur ut ex collatione Eclipsis luminaris liquet †Vagis non fixis ‖ For though it did well agree with the observation of the Aequinoctial yet it cannot with the first Lunar Eclipse which was in the same year 1194. †i. e. Jul. esse diem 365 sed Alkept non diffâ—rt à Juliano quod etiam provâ—tur ex aerâ Philippicâ in Historiâ mescella * Aegyptiae †i. e. Julian * Why of the Flight rather than of the Ostracism which he principally relates in that place †Thucydides tamen in Attica clà m humatum dicit reserente Attico apud Cic. in Brut. ‖ But that was anno 40. Olymp. 75. according to Diodorus * But he saith that he was made Admiral Archonte Demotione though Plutarch doth make him Admiral before that Pag. 96. * Upon Eusebius's Chronicle 1800 Of the other side * He stiles him Gildas Sapiens also as Bishop Usher noted in the margin M S S. Vid. Abb. c. Qualiter tit de electo electi potestate c. Avaritiae in 6. Gregor Tholosan in Syntagm utriusque Juris alios passim * Tom. 5. Biblioth Patr. Part 1. p. 171. Edit Colon. Your Lordship may by private Instructions and his discretion free your self of this fear Mat. 4. 19. Prov. 11. 30. Mat. 13. 48. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Mark 7. 11. * M. Tract Fund 1. c. 3. §. 9 †M. Tr. Fund 2. c. 10. §. 4. ‖ M. Tr. Fund c. 9. §. 1. * M. Tr. Repent c. 5. §. 1 2 3 4 c. †M. Tr. Repent c. 8. §. 7. c. 9. §. 2. 1 John 5. 20. * M. Tr. Repent cap. 7. §. 6. Luke 3. 27. John 6. 27. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 2. Cor. 1. 22. * M. Tr. Repent cap. 3. §. 3. I would then wast hot or cold but seeing thou art lukewarm I will spuâ— thee out of my mouth
JACOBUS USSERIUS ARCHIEPISCOPUS ARMACHANUS TOTIUS HIBERNIAE PRIMAS London Printed for Nath Ranew and Ionat Robinson at the Kings Armes in S. Pauls church yard 1676 THE LIFE Of the Most Reverend Father in GOD JAMES USHER Late Lord Arch-Bishop OF ARMAGH Primate and Metropolitan of all IRELAND With a Collection of Three Hundred LETTERS between the said Lord Primate and most of the Eminentest Persons for Piety and Learning in his time both in England and beyond the Seas Collected and published from Original Copies under their own hands by RICHARD PARR D. D. his Lordships Chaplain at the time of his Death with whom the care of all his Papers were intrusted by his Lordship LONDON Printed for NATHANAEL RANEW at the Kings-Arms in St. Pauls Church-Yard MDCL XXXVI THE PREFACE WHEN the Son of Syrach undertook to recount the Famous Men of Old and record their Worth and Renown he says of them That they were Men of Knowledge Wise and Eloquent in their Instructions that of these there are who have left behind them a Name beloved of God and good Men whose Memorials are Blessed honoured in their Generation being the Glory of their times whose Righteousness shall not be forgotten and although their Bodies be buried yet their Names shall live for Ever And as in the former so likewise in these latter Days there have been many Men of excellent Endowments for Wisdom and Learning for Piety and all other eminent Vertues whose Memorials are with us in Church and State Among these of the first Rank this admirable Primate James Usher whose Life we are about to relate ought to be reckoned whether we consider him as he was indeed a profound Scholar exactly skilled in all sorts of Learning Divine and Humane or as a Person of unfeigned Piety and exemplary Vertue and Conversation or as a Subject of steady and unmoveable Loyalty to his Sovereign Prince or as a Clergy Man in all his Capacity from a Presbyter to a Bishop and Primate So that I think of him it may be as truly said as of St. Augustine with a kind of Admiration O Virum ad totius Ecclesiae publicam utilitatem natum factum datúmque divinitùs This Character his Writings have justly purchased him among the best and most Learned whether of these or other Nations whose Encomiums of him are too many and large for this Place let me therefore include all in that of a memorable Bishop of our Church who upon the Receipt of the Primates Book de Primordiis thus writes of him I may truly say that the Church hereafter will owe as much Reverence to his Memory as we of this present Age ought to pay to his Person And therefore when we have before us a subject of so Eminent Dignity we shall no need Apology for reviving the Memory of this incomparable Prelate and collecting such materials from his Life his Papers and the Informations of Wise and Knowing Men as may render him as well useful to future Ages in his Example as a Person truly Illustrious in himself 1. But perhaps it may be a needless attempt to write again the Life and Actions of this incomparable Primate seeing it hath been performed already by several Persons 2. And likewise it may be demanded how it comes to my share and what were the enducements to undertake this Province 1. To the first I say that though Dr. Bernard in the Sermon be Preached at the Funerals of the Lord Primate hath said many worthy things of him truly which we have reason to believe having the joynt Testimonies from Persons of Worth and unquestionable Credit who had been acquainted with this great and good Man for many years both in England and Ireland and must go along with the Dr. a good way in reciting many material passages contained in the said Sermon yet I take leave to say that he hath omitted very many remarkable things which perhaps either slipt his Memory or came not at all under his observation or because that those then in Power would not indure that any thing should be said of the Primate which might reflect upon that Usurpation Therefore we thought it needful to make up those defects by adding such Remarks as are wanting in that Description and likewise to rectifie the mistakes of those Writers of the Lord Primates Life who Writing after Dr. Bernard's Copy are deficient also in their Accounts and lyable to Question in some instances 2. If it be demanded how it comes to my share to revive the Memory of this great Man and to undertake the Task To this I say that I waited and heartily wished to see if any Person better Qualified than my self being sensible of my own weakness would engage himself in this Affair to whom I would most readily have Communicated those Materials and Observations which I had gathered together and lay by me for a long time but at length perceiving it not likely to be undertaken I was perswaded by those who have a prevailing Power with me to take upon me this Task and to acquaint the World with my own Observations touching this most Reverend Primate Usher whom I had the Advantage of any Man now living to know for I had the Blessing of an intimate Acquaintance with his Person and Affairs by my Attendance on him during the last thirteen years of his Life So that I may be thought capable to give a considerable Account not only of the Lord Primates particular Disposition and heavenly Conversation but likewise of those Passages and Performances of which I was an Eye Witness and may confidently relate upon mine own Knowledge This is the thing I undertake to perform especially in that part of the History of his Life and Actions from the year 1642 to the time of his Death 1655. But not withstanding my long experience of this excellent Person and what I had collected from several passages in Letters and by conference with those who made Observations yet I had not the confidence to attempt this work by my own strength or skill without Counsel and Help therefore when I had drawn together the Memorials I consulted with Persons of better understandign than my self with request to correct and amend what was misplaced or not well expressed and to remind me of any remarkable passage that had escaped my Memory And the assistance I had in this kind was administred by that Learned and Judicious Gentleman James Tyrrell Esq Grandson to the Lord Primate one as deeply concerned for the honour of his Grandfather as can be he became helpful to me in hinting many passages touching his Grandfather which he tho then young had himself observed and had heard from Persons of great Worth and Credit and of the Primates familiar Acquaintance We also owe unto him the account given of the Lord Primates Printed Works both of the time and occasion of Writing them and subject matter treated on as the Reader will perceive in the following History
is the Bishop of Rome And the Title whereby he claimeth this power over us is the same whereby he claimeth it over the whole World because he is S. Peter's Successor forsooth And indeed if St. Peter himself had been now alive I should freely confess that he ought to have spiritual Authority and Superiority within this Kingdom But so would I say also if St. Andrew St. Bartholoâ—ew St. Thomas or any of the other Apostles had been alive For I know that their Commission was very large to go into all the World and to preach the Gospel unto every Creature So that in what part of the World soever they lived they could not be said to be out of their Charge their Apostleship being a kind of an Universal Bishoprick If therefore the Bishop of Rome can prove himself to be one of this rank the Oath must be amended and we must acknowledge that he hath Ecclesiastical Authority within this Realm True it is that our Lawyers in their year-Year-Books by the name of the Apostle do usually design the Pope But if they had examined his Title to that Apostleship as they would try an ordinary man's Title to a piece of Land they might easily have found a number of flaws and main defects therein For first It would be enquired whether the Apostleship was not ordained by our Saviour Christ as a special Commission which being personal only was to determine with the death of the first Apostles For howsoever at their first entry into the execution of this Commission we find that Matthias was admitted to the Apostleship in the room of Judas yet afterwards when James the Brother of John was slain by Herod we do not read that any other was substituted in his place Nay we know that the Apostles generally left no Successors in this kind Neither did any of the Bishops he of Rome only excepted that sate in those famous Churches wherein the Apostles exercised their ministry challenge an Apostleship or an Universal Bishoprick by virtue of that Succession It would secondly therefore be inquired what sound Evidence they can produce to shew that one of the company was to hold the Apostleship as it were in Fee for him and his Successors for ever and that the other eleven should hold the same for term of life only Thirdly if this state of perpetuity was to be cast upon one how came it to fall upon St. Peter rather than upon St. John who outlived all the rest of his follows and so as a surviving feoffee had the fairest right to retain the same in himself and his Successors for ever Fourthly if that state were wholly setled upon St. Peter seeing the Romanists themselves acknowledge that he was Bishop of Antioch before he was Bishop of Rome we require them to shew why so great an inheritance as this should descend unto the younger Brother as it were by Burrough-English rather than to the elder according to the ordinary manner of descents Especially seeing Rome hath little else to alledge for this preferment but only that St. Peter was crucified in it which was a very slender reason to move the Apostle so to respect it Seeing therefore the grounds of this great claim of the Bishop of Rome appear to be so vain and frivolous I may safely conclude That he ought to have no Ecclesiastical or Spiritual Authority within this Realm which is the principal point contained in the second part of the Oath JAMES REX RIght Reverend Father in God and Right Trusty and Welbeloved Councellor We greet you well You have not deceived our expectation nor the gracious opinion We ever conceived both of your abilities in Learning and of your faithfulness to Us and our Service Whereof as we have received sundry Testimonies both from Our precedent Deputies as likewise from Our Right Trusty and Welbeloved Cousin and Councellor the Viscount Falkland Our present Deputy of that Realm so have We now of late in one particular had a further evidence of your Duty and Affection well expressed by your late carriage in Our Castle-Chamber there at the censure of those disobedient Magistrates who refused to take the Oath of Supremacy Wherein your zeal to the maintenance of Our Just and Lawful Power defended with so much Learning and Reason deserves Our Princely and Gracious thanks which We do by this Our Letter unto you and so bid you farewell Given under Our Signet at Our Court at White-Hall the eleventh of January 1622. In the twentieth year of Our Reign of Great Britain France and Ireland To the Right Reverend Father in God and Our Right Trusty and Welbeloved Councellor the Bishop of Meath This discourse had so good an effect that divers of the Offenders being satisfied they might lawfully take those Oaths did thereby avoid the Sentence of Praemunire then ready to be pronounced against them After the Bishop had been in Ireland about two years it pleased King James to imploy him to write the Antiquities of the British Church and that he might have the better opportunity and means for that end he sent over a Letter to the Lord Deputy and Council of Ireland commanding them to grant a Licence for his being absent from his See part of which Letter it may not be amiss to give you here Verbatim JAMES REX RIght Trusty and Welbeloved Cousins c. We Greet you well Whereas We have heretofore in Our Princely judgment made choice of the Right Reverend Father in God Dr. James Usher Lord Bishop of Meath to imploy him in Collecting the Antiquities of the British Church before and since the Christian Faith was received by the English Nation And whereas We are also given to understand That the said Bishop hath already taken pains in divers things in that kind which being published might tend to the furtherance of Religion and good Learning Our pleasure therefore is That so soon as the said Bishop hath setled the necessary Affairs of his Bishoprick there he should repair into England and to one of the Universities here to enable himself by the helps to be had there to proceed the better to the finishing of the said Work Requiring you hereby to cause our Licence to be passed unto him the said Lord Bishop of Meath under Our Great Seal orotherwise as he shall desire it and unto you shall be thought fit for his repairing unto this Kingdom for Our Service and for his continuance here so long time as he shall have occasion to stay about the perfecting of those Works undertaken by him by Our Commandment and for the good of the Church c. Upon which Summons the Bishop came over into England and spent about a year here in consulting the best Manuscripts in both Universities and private Libraries in order to the perfecting that noble Work De Primordiis Ecclesiarum Britannicarum though it was not published till above two years after when we shall take occasion to speak thereof more at large
Church may still either by preaching or writing maintain any point of Doctrine contained in those Articles without being either Heterodox or Irregular It was likewise reported and has been since written by some with the like truth that the Lord Primate should have some dispute with Dr. Bramhall then Bishop of London-Derry concerning these Articles Whereas the contest between the Lord Primate and that Bishop was not about the Articles but the Book of Canons which were then to be established for the Church of Ireland and which the Bishop of Derry would have to be passed in the very same form and words with those in England which the Lord Primate with divers other of the Bishops opposed as somewhat prejudicial to the Liberties of the Church of Ireland and they so far prevailed herein that it was at last concluded That the Church of Ireland should not be tyed to that Book but that such Canons should be selected out of the same and such others added thereunto as the present Convocation should judge fit for the Government of that Church which was accordingly performed as any man may see that will take the pains to compare the two Books of the English and Irish Canons together And what the Arch-Bishop of Canterbury's judgment was on this affair you may see in a Letter of his to the Lord Primate published in this Collection About the end of this year the Lord Primate published his Anno 1639 long expected work entitled Britannicarum Ecclesiarum Antiquitates In which also is inserted a History of Pelagius and his Heresie which Work I suppose my Lord kept so long unpublished because he still found fresh matter to add to it as you may see by the many Additions and Emendations at the latter end of it and as it was long in coming out so it did fully answer expectation when it came abroad into the World being the most exact account that ever yet was given of the British Church beginning with the earliest notices we can find in Ancient Authors of any credit concerning the first planting of Christianity in these Islands within twenty years after our Saviour's Crucifixion and bringing it down with the Succession of Bishops as far as they could be retreived not only in our Britain but in Ireland also as far as towards the end of the VII Century collected out of the best Authors either Printed or Manuscript and is so great a Treasure of this kind of Learning that all that have writ since with any success on this subject must own themselves beholding to him for his elaborate Collections The Lord Primate having now sate Arch-Bishop sixteen years Anno 1640 with great satisfaction and benefit to the Church about the beginning of this year came into England with his Wife and Family intending to stay here a year or two about his private Affairs and then to return again But it pleased God to disappoint him in those resolutions for he never saw his native Country again not long after his coming to London when he had kissed his Majesty's hand and been received by him with his wonted favour he went to Oxford as well to be absent from those heats and differences which then happened in that short Parliament as also with greater freedom to pursue his Studies in the Libraries there where he was accommodated with Lodgings in Christ-Church by Dr. Morice Canon of that House and Hebrew Professor and whilst he was there he conversed with the most Learned Persons in that famous University who used him with all due respect whilst he continued with them so after he had resided there some time he returned again to London where after the sitting of that long and unhappy Parliament he made it his business as well by preaching as writing to exhort them to Loyalty and Obedience to their Prince endeavouring to the utmost of his power to heal up those breaches and reconcile those differences that were ready to break out both in Church and State though it did not meet with that success he always desired This year there was published at Oxford among divers other Treatises of Bishop Andrews Mr. Hooker and other Learned men Anno 1641 concerning Church Government the Lord Primate's Original of Bishops and Metropolitans wherein he proves from Scripture as also the most Ancient Writings and Monuments of the Church that they owe their original to no less Authority than that of the Apostles and that they are the Stars in the right hand of Christ Apoc. 2. So that there was never any Christian Church founded in the Primitive Times without Bishops which discourse was not then nor I suppose ever will be answered by those of a contrary judgment That unhappy dispute between his Majesty and the two Houses concerning his passing the Bill for the Earl of Strafford's Attainder now arising and he much perplexed and divided between the clamour of a discontented People and an unsatisfied Conscience thought fit to advise with some of his Bishops what they thought he ought to do in point of Conscience as he had before consulted his Judges in matter of Law among which his Majesty thought fit to make choice of the Lord Primate for one though without his seeking or knowledge but since some men either out of spleen or because they would not retract what they had once written from vulgar report have thought fit to publish as if the Lord Primate should advise the King to sign the Bill for the said Earl's Attainder it will not be amiss to give you here that relation which Dr. Bernard had under his own hand and has printed in the Funeral Sermon by him published which is as followeth That Sunday morning wherein the King consulted with the four Bishops of London Durham Lincoln and Carlisle the Arch-Bishop of Armagh was not present being then preaching as he then accustomed every Sunday to do in the Church of Covent-Garden where a Message coming unto him from his Majesty he descended from the Pulpit and told him that brought it he was then as he saw imployed about God's business which as soon as he had done he would attend upon the King to understand his pleasure But the King spending the whole Afternoon in the serious debate of the Lord Strafford's Case with the Lords of his Council and the Judges of the Land he could not before Evening be admitted to his Majesty's presence There the Question was again agitated Whether the King in justice might pass the Bill of Attainder against the Earl of Strafford for that he might shew mercy to him was no question at all no man doubting but that the King without any Scruple of Conscience might have granted him a Pardon if other reasons of State in which the Bishops were made neither Judges nor Advisers did not hinder him The whole result therefore of the determination of the Bishops was to this effect That therein the matter of Fact and matter of Law were to be distinguished That of the
names of the Proconsular Asia or Asian Diocess Where having shewn his admirable skill in the Geography of the Ancients and also in the Imperial Laws in order to the right understanding the Ecclesiastical and Civil Histories of those Times out of which he hath fixed and setled the several Provinces of the lesser Asia as Mysia Caria and Lydia under which latter were comprehended the adjoyning Countries of Ionia and Aeolis He then proves That the Asia mentioned in the New Testament and the seven Churches of Asia particularly are contained within the limits of Lydia and that each of these seven Cities was a Metropolis and that according to this division of the Civil Government they were made choice of to be the Seats of the most eminent Churches of all Asia 2. That the Roman Provinces were not always the same but according as reason of State required and for greater ease and security of the Government often varied and admitted alterations the division of the Empire being different in the Times of Augustus from what it was under Constantine under whom the Proconsular Asia was confined to the Lydian Asia only the former great extent of its Jurisdiction being then very much abridged and a distinction made between the Proconsular Asia which was under the Jurisdiction of the Proconsul and the Asian Diocess governed by the Vicarius or Comes Asiae or Dioceseos Asianae As it was also subject in the Times of the succeeding Emperors to variety of Changes and that in this disposition made by Constantine it was ordered That there should be but one Metropolis in each distinct Province whereas before there had been several Though this did not hold always in the Reigns of some of his Successors who permitted sometimes two Metropolitans in one Province to satisfie the ambitious humour of several Bishops who contended for that Title upon the account of the riches and greatness of each of their respective Cities 3. That in regard to this Establishment of Constantine Ephesus where the Deputies of the several Provinces of Asia who Constituted and made up the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Common-Council had their Assemblies and which had formerly been lookt upon as the chief City became the sole Metropolis of this new Proconsular Asia the Proconsul of which was exempted from the Authority and Jurisdiction of the Praefectus Praetorio And accordingly in the Ecclesiastical Government for the greater honour of this Renowned See the Bishop of Ephesus was not only held the Metropolitan of the Proconsular Asia but as my Lord most judiciously proves the Primate or Enarchus of all the Provinces that were comprehended within the compass of the whole Asian Diocess of which Diocess he discourses at large and that he acted suitably to this Patriarchal Jurisdiction which was in effect conferred upon him Lastly That there was a great harmony between the Civil and Ecclesiastical Government and consequently that the Bishops of every Province were subject subordinate to the Metropolitan Bishop the same then with our Arch-Bishop as the Magistrates that Ruled in the other subordinate Cities were to the President or chief Governor of that Province The Arch-Bishop in these years whilst he was now at Oxford published in Greek and Latine the Epistles of the holy Martyrs years 1643 1644 Ignatius and as much of the Epistle of St. Barnabas as the great fire at Oxford which burnt the Copy had spared together with a premunition of the entire design The old Latin Version of Ignatius his Lordship publisht out of two Manuscripts found in England noting in red Letters the interpolation of the former Greek Impressions This work was much illustrated by his Collation of several Greek Copies of the Letters and Martyrdom of Ignatius and Polycarp as also with a most learned dissertation concerning those Epistles as also touching the Canons and Constitutions ascribed to the Apostles and to St. Clement Bishop of Rome About seven years after which his Lordship also set forth at London his Appendix Ignatiana wherein besides other Tracts there are added the seven genuine Epistles of Ignatius commended by Eusebius Caesare and other Fathers according to the Amsterdam Edition publisht by the learned Dr. Is. Vossius from the Greek Manuscript in the Medicean Library which the Lord Primate had some years before given him notice of and also obtained the Great Duke's leave to Copy it The signal use of these Epistles so eminently asserting that perpetual order of which his Grace was so great an Ornament well deserved all that time which himself Dr. Hammond and the learned Lord Bishop of Chester have so usefully imployed therein This year my Lord Primate publisht his Syntagma de Editione LXX Interpretum in which he asserts though with great modesty this particular Opinion That Greek Version of the five Books of Moses under Ptolomeus Philadelphus utterly perishing at the Conflagration of his Library Dositheus the Jew made another Greek Translation of the Pentateuch and the rest of the Old Testament about 177. years before the Birth of Christ viz. in the time of Ptolomey Philometor Collecting so much from a Note at the end of the Greek Esther which latter Version his Lordship conjectures the Greek Fathers and all the Eastern Churches cited and made use of instead of the true Philadelphian Then he learnedly and fully discourses concerning the several Editions of this latter Version found in the Library of Cleopatra the last Egyptian Queen As also touching the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or vulgar and that more correct one of Origen those of Eusebius Lucian and Hesychius and lastly of the modern ones as the Complutine Venetian and Roman Hereunto also is added a Specimen of Esther in Greek according to two Ancient Manuscripts in the Arundelian Library as also after the Alexandrian Copy in the King's Library This Syntagma was followed the next year before his death by his Lordships dissertation De Cainane altero or the second Cainan mentioned in the LXX and by St. Luke And that was again followed with a Letter to Ludovicus Capellus wherein the Lord Primate very judiciously moderates in the Controversie between that learned Professor and Ar. Bootius concerning the present Hebrew Bibles Superadding his own conjectures That Dositheus the false Messias was the corrupter of the Samaritan Pentateuch as we now have it And that especially by his Lordships great care and expence But to let you see how he further now imployed his time at Oxford for his Majesties Service I shall give you here his Answers to several Queries made to him from some at London or other Parliament Quarters concerning the Lawfulness of taking up Arms against the King in that unhappy War then newly begun The Queries we have not but you may easily judge what their sense was by the following Answers here inserted To the First NO man is bound to leave his Vocation and turn Souldier unless Summoned and Commanded by his Majesty or those that have Commission from him for the gathering
in very deed by God's faithful People By which it seems it is agreed on both sides that is to say the Church of England and the Church of Rome that there is a true and real Presence of Christ in the holy Eucharist the disagreement being only in the modus Praesentiae But on the contrary the Ld Primat in his Answer to the Jesuit's Challenge hath written one whole Chapter against the real Presence of Christ in the Sacrament In which tho he would seem to aim at the Church of Rome tho by that Church not only the real Presence of Christ in the Sacrament but the corporal eating of his Body is maintained and taught yet doth he strike obliquely and on the by on the Church of England All that he doth allow concerning the real Presence is no more than this viz. That in the receiving of the blessed Sacrament we are to distinguish between the outward and the inward action of the Communicant In the outward with our bodily mouth we receive really the visible Elements of Bread and Wine in the inward we do by Faith really receive the Body and Blood of our Lord that is to say we are truly and indeed made partakers of Christ crucified to the spiritual strengthning of our inward man Which is no more than any Calvinist will stick to say But now after all these hard words the Doctor has here bestowed upon my Lord Primat part of which I omit I think I can without much difficulty make it appear that all this grievous Accusation of the Doctor 's is nothing but a meer 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a strife about words and that the Lord Primat held and believed this Doctrine in the same sence with the Church of England 1. Then the 29th Article of our Church disavows all Transubstantiation or the change of the substance of Bread and Wine in the Supper of the Lord. The second asserts that the Body of Christ is given taken and eaten in the Supper only after an heavenly and spiritual manner and that the mean whereby the Body of Christ is received and eaten in the Supper is Faith And now I will leave it to the unprejudiced Reader to judge whether the Lord Primat's way of explaining this Sacrament according to the passage before cited by the Doctor does differ in sence from these Articles however it may somewhat in words as coming nearer the Articles in Ireland which the Bishop when he writ this Book had alone subscribed to and was bound to maintain for I think no true Son of the Church of England will deny that in this Sacrament they still really receive the visible Elements of Bread and Wine 2. That in the inward and spiritual action we really receive the Body and Blood of our Lord as the Lord Primat has before laid down But perhaps it will be said That the Lord Primat goes further in this Article than the Church of England does and takes upon him to explain in what sence we receive the Body and Blood of our Lord and that otherwise than the Church of England does he explaining it thus that is to say We are truly and indeed made partakers of Christ crucified to the spiritual strengthning of our inward man whereas the Church of England declares that the Body of Christ is eaten only after a heavenly and spiritual manner yet still maintains the Body of Christ to be eaten whereas the Lord Primat only says that we are truly and indeed made partakers of Christ crucified but does not say as the Article of our Church does that we are therein partakers of the Body and Blood of Christ. But I desire the Objector to consider whether the Explanation of our Church does not amount to the same thing in effect that saying that the Body of Christ is eaten in the Supper after a heavenly and spiritual manner and the Lord Primat that we are truly and indeed made partakers of Christ crucified viz. after a spiritual and not a carnal manner But perhaps the Doctor 's Friends may still object that the Lord Primat does not express this Real Presence of Christ's Body and Blood in the Sacrament as Bp. Bilson and Bp. Morton assert the former saying that Christ's Flesh and Blood are truly present and truly received by the Faithful in the Sacrament and the latter expresly owning a real Presence therein And Bp. Andrews in his Apology to Cardinal Bellarmine thus declares himself viz. Praesentiam credimus non minus quam vos veram de modo praesentiae nil timerè definimus Which the Doctor renders thus We acknowledg saith he a presence as true and real as you do but we determine nothing rashly of the manner of it And the Church Catechism above cited as also the Latin Catechism of Mr. Noel confess the Body and Blood of our Lord are truly and indeed or as the Latin Translation renders it verè realiter taken and received in the Lord's Supper Which the Lord Primat does not affirm I know not what such Men would have The Lord Primat asserts that we do by Faith really receive the Body and Blood of Christ and that in the same sence with Mr. Noel's Catechism and the Article of the Church viz. that Christ's Body is received after a spiritual and heavenly manner Which was added to exclude any real presence as taken in a carnal or bodily sence So that our Church does in this Article explain the manner of the Presence notwithstanding what Bp. Andrews says to the contrary Nor know I what they can here further mean by a real Presence unless a carnal one which indeed the Church of England at the first Reformation thought to be all one with the real as appears by these words in the first Articles of Religion agreed on in the Convocation 1552 Anno 5. Edw. 6. It becometh not any of the Faithful to believe or profess that there is a Real or Corporal Presence of the Body and Blood of Christ in the holy Eucharist And that our Church did likewise at the first passing the 39 Articles in Convocation Anno 1562 likewise disallow any Real Presence taken in a carnal sence Christ's Body being always in Heaven at the right hand of God and therefore cannot be in more places than one appears by the original of those Articles to be seen in the Library of Corpus Christi Colledg in Cambridg where tho this passage against a Real or Corporal Presence which they then thought to be all one are dash'd over with red Ink yet so as it is still legible therefore it may not be amiss to give you Dr. Burnet's Reasons in his 2d part of the History of the Reformation p. 406 for the doing of it The secret of it was this The Queen and her Council studied to unite all into the Communion of the Church and it was alledged that such an express Definition against a Real Presence might drive from the Church many who were still of
6 am Propositiones nee denique cujuscunque limae Versiones nostrae sunt 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 conscriptae ut patet ex 3 a appendice libri primi Ergo Sola Hebraica Veteris Instrumenti editio sicut Graeca Novi authentica est pura Vides methodum quam mihi proposui In animo etiam fuit difficultates quasdam tibi doctissime vir proposuisse in quibus exactissimum tuum judicium cognoscerem Sed sentio me jam modum epistolae excessisse vereor ne interpellem te nimis nugis meis à gravioribus negotiis Ignoscas quaeso Guilielmo tuo qui prolixè cordatè potiùs quam eleganter suaviter te compellare maluit Nactus jam tandem Tabellarii opportunitatem remisi ad te manu fidâ ejusdem Postelli Grammaticam unâ cum libello altero quem tibi benevolentiae ergô dicavi majorem daturus si Anglia nostra aliquid librorum non-vulgarium ad antiquitatem eruendam suppeditaret Nondum aliquid efficere potui in Arabicis quod dignum sit operâ forsan si Christmanno muto Magistro aut Bedwello Londinensi vel potiùs Ambrosio tuo Dubliniensi vivâ voce praeceptore uti liceret aliquid efficerem Sed non licet Velit jubeat clementissimus pater qui in coelis est ut Ecclesiae suae pomoeria dilatet nostras Ecclesias in verâ pace conservet tibÃque frater doctissime tuis omnibus in Christo benedicat Vale è Musaeo m Collegio Emmanuelis Cantabrigiae 9 o Kalendas Aprilis juxta veteres Fastos anno Domini 1607 juxta computum Ecclesiae Anglicanae Tuus in communi fide ac Ministerio Evangelii frater Amantissimus GUIL EYRE LETTER IV. A Letter from Mr. H. Briggs to Mr. James Usher afterward Arch-Bishop of Armagh Salutem in Christo. Good Mr. Usher PArdon me I pray you that I have not written unto you of late nor gotten the Book you gave me printed for now I cannot think it yours I received your Letter the other day and did the same day twice seek Mr. Rimay and your Books mentioned in the end of your Letter of all which Abraham could get none save one Catalogue of the last Mart which I have sent you within a Book of the Shires of England Ireland and Scotland which at length I send to Mr. D. Chaloner to whom I pray you commend me very kindly with many thanks and excuses for my long deferring my promise Abraham hath taken all the names of your Books and promiseth to get them for you at the next Mart. I was likewise with Mr. Crawshaw he hath not gotten nor cannot find Confes. Ambrosianam of whom I have now received your Book again because he saith it is impossible to get it printed here without the Author's name or without their Index Expurgatorius if any thing in it do sound suspiciously He hath not read it over himself and he is had in some Jealousie with some of our Bishops by reason of some points that have fallen from his Pen and his Tongue in the Pulpit I will keep your Book till you please to send me word what I shall do with it I think Sir J. Fullerton or Sir J. Hamilton may with one word speaking have it pass without name but I am now determined not to mention it to them until you give me some better Warrant Concerning Eclypses you see by your own experience that good purposes may in two years be honestly crossed and therefore till you send me your Tractate you promised the last year do not look for much from me for if another business may excuse it will serve me too Yet am I not idle in that kind for Kepler hath troubled all and erected a new frame for the Motions of all the Seven upon a new foundation making scarce any use of any former Hypotheses yet dare I not much blame him save that he is tedious and obscure and at length coming to the point he hath left out the principal Verb I mean his Tables both of Middle-motion and Prosthaphaereseων reserving all as it seemeth to his Tab. Rudolpheas setting down only a lame pattern in Mars But I think I shall scarce with patience expect his next Books unless he speed himself quickly I pray you salute from me your Brother Mr. Lydyat Mr. Kinge Mr. Martin Mr. Bourchier Mr. Lee. Macte Virtute Do not cease to help the building of Sion and the ruinating of Babel yet look to your health ut diu valide concutias hostium turres The Lord ever bless you and your labours and all that most worthy Society Farewel Tuus in Christo H. Briggs Aug. 1610. Concerning Sir R. Cotton's Letter I must crave pardon at this time for I am but very lately come home and full of business going out of the Town again I think to morrow and now if perhaps I find him I shall hardly get it copied But I pray you to what question of sound Divinity doth this appertain Yet do not think me so censorious but I can like you should sometimes descend to Toys for your Recreation My opinion is He that doth most good is the honestest man whosoever have precedence but if harm the less the better Pray for us The Lord ever bless his Church and us all in particular Mr. Bedwell is not well and keepeth altogether at his t'other Living at Totenham Farewel Yours ever in the Lord Henry Briggs LETTER V. A Letter from Mr. Thomas Lydyat to Mr. James Usher afterward Arch-Bishop of Armagh Mr. Usher I Received your Letter this Friday the 13th of March for which I thank you It had been broken open by Chester Searchers before it came to him but I thank God I have not lost any thing of moment for ought I find as yet The East-Indian Fleet is gone about six weeks since but I remain at London still a suiter unto you that the School of Armagh be not disposed of otherwise than I have hitherto requested you until I speak with you in Ireland or rather here in London where I shall be glad to see you The night before I received your Letter Mr. Crashaw acquainted me with a Letter from Mr. Cook wherein he seemed to doubt of divers things in Mr. James his English Book whereof you write signifying withal that he purposeth to be at London this Spring where I hope to see you all three meet to the better performing of that business Mr. Provost told me that he had sent you a Minister for Warberies Mr. I have forgot his name Mr. Provost being now out of Town with my Lord Arch-Bishop his Letters commendatory to my Lord Chancellor I think he is come to you ere this time Printing of Books especially Latin goeth hard here mine is not yet printed nevertheless I thank God mine honourable friends whom I have acquainted with the matter shew me still a friendly countenance with which I rest comforting my self with that pro captu lector is habent sua
from you to pitch upon Dr. Chaloner thought good at Mr. Bernard's departure to try whether Mr. Storer a worthy Preacher might be drawn over to the place We look for answer very speedily of which we will not fail to certifie you with the first for if we speed not this way the care must lie upon Mr. Provost or your self to see us otherwise provided for wherein you shall not only do us a great pleasure but also procure a great blessing to this whole City I pray you remember me in all kindness to Mr. Provost and the rest of our friends there but especially remember me to God in your Prayers to whose good blessing I commend you and your Labours 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Jac. Usserius October the 4 th 1611. LETTER VIII Another Letter from Mr. James Usher late Arch-Bishop of Armagh to Doctor Chaloner Dear Sir I Know you greatly wonder at my long silence and much blame my negligence in that behalf But the truth is your Letters sent so long since by Mr. Cubbiche came not unto mine hands before the 26th of March neither could I have full time to sollicite my Lord of Canterbury in those businesses before the 5th of April What then after two or three hours serious conference had with me he resolved upon you may understand by his Letters written to my Lord Chancellor and to the Visitors Divers defects he observed in our Statutes as in that of the Election of Fellows though an order be taken therein for others to have a voice in that business yet it is said Electio sit penes magistrum which he said was absurd He observed that there was no order taken that the Scholars should come into the Chappel Clericaliter vestiti and took great exception against the Statute for the ordering of Common-placing which he affirmed to be flat Puritanical The Statutes had been sufficiently confirmed if the Visitors there had subscribed unto them without whose consent they could not afterwards have been altered by the Provost and Fellows who as the Arch-bishop our Chancellor saith have by the Charter of Foundation power to make Statutes but not to alter them after they be made Your Project for the general was well liked by the Arch-bishop but he excepted against it in divers particulars We should not look so much he said for a great number as to give some competency of maintenance unto those whom we did entertain That Batchelors of Art should have no more allowance than those that came newly into the House he misliked And for Masters of Art if every year there be a new Commencement of twenty of them according to your project then said he the twenty whom you would have to stay in the House to be ready to answer the Church Livings and Schools abroad must of force be dismissed at every years end to give place unto the new supply Therefore would he have a competent number of Fellows who might have a more setled abode in the Colledge and read Lectures by turns counting it a great inconvenience that there should be but about six Fellows constantly resident in the House and they so taken up with Lectures that they can have no time for themselves to grow up in further learning And you must look saith he to have some eminent men among you which may be deeply grounded in all manner of knowledge and not content your self with sending out a number of such as are but superficial Likewise for the proportion of Accates set down by you he said it was in vain to look that there should be in times to come the same prices of them which are at this present or have been heretofore And therefore if we would build upon any certainty we should take care that all our payments should not be brought in money but a certain reservation should be made for Provisions When my Lord Chancellor hath imparted unto you how far my Lord of Canterbury hath proceeded what you see remaineth fit to be further sollicited signifie unto me by the first that cometh from thence that I may move my Lord of Canterbury therein And I pray you withal send me a note of the most general and gross Defects or Abuses in our Church of Ireland with the means whereby they may be redressed if easily they may be redressed for in such matters I have good hope that my Lord of Canterbury may be wrought withal to do us good But I pray you be not too forward to have Statutes sent you from hence Dictum sapienti According to your direction I dealt with Mr. Cook to come over unto St. Warburghs and now that Mr. Hill is placed there I know not what to do or say You write unto me of an allowance of 30 l. which he might have from the Colledge let me know upon what consideration it shall be for he would understand what his imployment shall be before he resolve to leave his own Country The Provost hath sent me a Bill for 20 l. to discharge my Credit with the Stationers for the Books which Mr. Martin brought over You may do well to have a care that the English Popish Books be kept in a place by themselves and not placed among the rest in the Library for they may prove dangerous Purchase hath done nothing yet for the Religions of divers Churches having hitherto written not a word more in that intended work of his than you see printed Speed's Chronicle is at 3 l. 10. s. price Sir Henry Savil's Chrysostom in eight Volumes at 9 l. which prices are too great for me to deal withal unless I might put them upon Sir James Carol his score as you would have me put Pradus upon Ezekiel which is now discharged by Mr. Temple About the end of May I purpose God willing to see you I am now earnestly attending the Press and as much of my Book as is at this present printed I send unto you together with two small Treatises lately published here of some importance which also I would have you deliver unto my Lord Chancellor if he hath not already seen them That against Paulus V. is supposed to be written by Marta and one thing therein I think special worthy of observation what the intendment may be of those great sums of money which the Pope is said there daily to lay up The Parsonage of Trim for as much as I can learn here by the Common-Lawyers is like to fall to the King's Presentation And otherwise I suppose Sir James Carol hath lost his turn if he have not presented within the compass of his six months Mr. Briggs would willingly hear from you what Scholars you would entertain of his sending over Mr. Sherwood hath written to the Provost for one Increase Nowel of the Age of 19 years of good sufficiency in Learning and Religious he looketh to have your furtherance also in his admitting Mr. Hildersham remembreth himself unto you To morrow the Prince Palatine and the Lady Elizabeth
Lindanus Dionysius his Translation is extant in Monasterio S. Vedasti Atrebati where the Canons of the Council of Nice and of Sardica are joyned together as if they were but one Council But they may believe him who list The Words of Dionysius which I have already alledged put the Matter out of all question that in his Edition the Canons of the Council of Nice and Sardica were placed for enough asunder But where this Edition of Dionysius is to be had is not so easie to be told This only I conjecture That whereas Crab setteth down two old Editions of the Canons that which is different from Codex Moguntinus is likely for the most part to be that of Dionysius So Baronius testifieth ad an 314. § 81. 87. that the first Edition of the Ancyrane Council in Crab is of Dionysius his Translation but ad an 325. § 156. he sheweth That the first Edition of the Nicene Canons is not of Dionysius nor the second neither if we may give credit to his Relation But this I leave to your own Judgment who have better means to search out this Matter than I can possibly have in this Country After this cometh Codex Romanus to be considered which had nothing of Dionysius his Translation but only the Canons of the Apostles the rest being either of the old Translation which was before Dionysius or of some other done after his time For that there were many appeareth by the Preface of the counterfeit Isidorus to his Collection And Hincmarus Rhemensis Archiepisc. in libro de variis capitulis Ecclesiasticis cap. 27. De Translatione è Graeco Concilior Canonum where among other things he writeth thus of Isidorus his Collection Et beatus Isidorus in Collectario suo de Canonibus quatuor editiones Nicaeni Concilii compaginavit Although in the printed Collection of Isidorus we have but one Edition left unto us This Codex Romanus contained no more Councils than that of Dionysius but had in the end adjoyned the Epistles of some Bishops of Rome first of six viz. Siricius Innocentius Zosimus Celestinus Leo and Gelasius as is manifest by the Collection of Cresconius by some thought to be Corippus Grammaticus who using this Codex about 700 years after Christ alledgeth the Decrees of no other Bishops of Rome than these Then in the Roman Book were added the Constitutions of Bishops from Gelasius to Hormisda And afterwards to the time of Vigilius as I gather by Gregory lib. 7. epist. 53. From Gelasius to Gregorius junior the Decrees of five Popes you have in Codice Moguntino the true copy of Codex Romanus Quod volumen postea recognitum est Romae cohoerere cum aliis antiquis fideliter saith Possevinus And just so many are mentioned by Leo IV. in Gratian Distinct. 20 C. de libellis but that Silvester is by Error added of whose Decrees none were extant in the Body of the Canons according to the last Roman Edition for in the former Editions of Gratian I find the name of Symmachus written with great Letters Iste Codex est scriptus de illo authentico quem dominus Adrianus Apostolicus dedit gloriosissimo Carolo regi Francorum Longobardorum ac Patricio Romanorum quando fuit Romae And in this Book Eckius writeth were contained the Decrees of XV Bishops of Rome lib. 1. de primatu Petri cap. 20. But in other Copies which P. Pithoeus had of the same sort there appear to be no more than the Epistles of XI Popes as in Codice Moguntino I have great want of this Codex Moguntinus which I am very glad you have lighted upon I doubt not but it is wholly inserted into Crab his Edition but I know not how to distinguish it from the other Collections there I would intreat you therefore to send me a transcript of the Title of the Book and if any thing be worthy the noting in the Preface of him that set out the Book as also of the several Councils and Epistles with a direction in what page we may read the same in Crab or Nicolinus his Edition that so I might learn which of the two old Editions in Crab is that which is found in Codice Moguntino As also whether the subscriptions be the same And here especially desire I to be satisfied in the Sardican and African Councils The like would I now do unto you for Isidorus his Collection directing you how you might read it entirely in Crab if I had thought the Book were not to be found with you there And if you could spare for a time your Book hither which I would not willingly desire considering the great distance betwixt our dwellings I would send it back with all speed and send together with it Tilius his Edition of the Greek Canons if I might understand you wanted it at Cambridge But if by your good direction I may find it fully in Crab it shall suffice Now a word of that Collection which falsly is attributed unto Isidorus being compiled sometime betwixt the years 683. and 783. as in my Bibliotheca Theologicâ God willing I shall fully declare The Author of this Collection taking pattern by the Epistles fathered upon Clement coyned a number more of the same stamp giving them the superscription of The Names of the ancient Popes And not content by this means to advance only the Pope's Spiritual Jurisdiction for the enlarging of his Temporalties he counterfeiteth in the name of Constantine that ridiculous Donation which before this time was never heard of This forgery being first hammered in Spain was first of all uttered in France by Riculfus Bishop of Mentz viro erga S. sedem Romanam valdè devoto as a certain Author beareth witness of him produced by P. Pithoeus in his Testimonies prefixed before Ansegisus where what entertainment it had shall in his place be declared This Collection was first published in Print by Jacobus Merlinus Paris 1530. 80. and it is to be found in a manner wholly but enlarged with some Additions of Popes Epistles at the end in your Corpus Canonum of Benett Colledge § 361 and in the two great Volumes of the Popes Epistles in the Publick Library of your University § 235. in the beginning whereof are to be seen Provinciarum Regionum nomina which are wanting in the Printed Books but not in the Manuscripts as appeareth by Pithoeus lib. 11. Adversariorum Cap. 1. I would willingly understand whether it hath more or less than Provinciarum Imperii Romani Libellus set out by Ant. Sconhovius with Eutropius and Andr. Schottus with Antoninus his Itinerary Colon 1600. 80. In the Printed Copy of Isidorus there is 1. Origo Conciliorum generalium as in Crab taken in a manner verbatim out of the true Isidorus lib. 6. Orig. Cap. 16. and by him out of some former Council-Book as appeareth by those Words Sed siqua sunt Concilia quae Sancti Patres spiritu Dei pleni
Consecrated and thereupon desire Justice I shall be ready to shew reason and yield account of my Opinion as well in the King's Courts as in Theological Schools For to pass the general words of his grant cum omnibus Jurisdictionibus which grant him Jus ad rem but not in re The Statute of 2 Eliz. cap. 1. expresly forbiddeth all that shall be preferred to take upon them receive use exercise any Bishoprick c. before he hath taken the corporal Oath of the King's Supremacy before such person as hath Authority to admit him to his Bishoprick As for the Statute of Conferring and Consecrating Bishops within this Realm I find not the words you have written viz. That he which hath the King's Letters Patents for a Bishoprick is put in the same state as if he were Canonically elected and confirmed But that his Majesties Collation shall be to the same effect as if the Conge delire had been given the election duly made and the same election confirmed for the Dean and Chapters election in England is not good until the King have confirmed by his Royal assent then it followeth in the Statute upon that collation the person may be consecrated c. Afterward in the same Statute it is further enacted That every person hereafter conferred invested and consecrated c. shall be obeyed c. and do and execute in every thing and things touching the same as any Bishop of this Realm without offending of the Prerogatives Royal. Now by an argument à contrario sensu it appeareth that it is not I which stand against his Majesties Prerogative but they which exercise Jurisdiction without the form prescribed in these Statutes Confider again how impertinent the opinion of Canonists is in this case where the King's collation is aequivalent to a Canonical Election and Confirmation The Confirmation which the Canonists speak of is from the Pope not from the Prince Gregoriana constitutione in Lugdunensi Consilio cautum est Electum infra tres menses post consensum suum electioni proestitum si nullum justum impedimentum obstat confirmationem à superiore Proelato petere debere alioqui trimestri spatio elapso electionem esse penitus irritandam When the See of Armagh falleth void the Dean and Chapter have Authority by the Canons to exercise Jurisdiction which the Bishop elect hath not until he be consecrated as you may read in Mason's Book and elsewhere and so it is practised in England Behold the cause which maketh the Dean capable namely the Authority Canons and Custom of the Church So is not the Bishop elect warranted and standeth still in the quality of a simple Presbyter until he be further advanced by the Church When Jo. Forth shall bring his Libel I will do the part which belongeth to me In the mean time I commend you to God and rest Your Lordships very loving Friend Armagh 13 July 1621. LETTER XLIII A Letter from Mr. Thomas Gataker to the Right Reverend James Usher Lord Bishop of Meath Right Reverend MY duty to your Lordship remembred This Messenger so fitly offering himself unto me albeit it were the Sabbath Even and I cast behind hand in my studies by absence from home yet I could not but in a line or two salute your Lordship and thereby signifie my continued and deserved remembrance of you and hearty desire of your welfare By this time I presume your Lordship in setled in your weighty charge of Over-sight wherein I beseech the Lord in mercy to bless your Labours and Endeavours to the glory of his own Name and the good of his Church never more in our times oppugned and opposed by mighty and malitious Adversaries both at home and abroad never in foreign Parts generally more distracted and distressed than at the present Out of France daily news of Murthers and Massacres Cities and Towns taken and all sorts put to the Sword Nor are those few that stand out yet likely to hold long against the power of so great a Prince having no succours from without In the Palatinate likewise all is reported to go to ruine Nor do the Hollanders sit for ought I see any surer the rather for that the Coals that have here been heretofore kindled against them about Transportation of Coin and the Fine imposed for it the Quarrels of the East-Indies the Command of the Narrow Seas the Interrupting of the Trade into Flanders c. are daily more and more blown upon and fire beginneth to break out which I pray God do not burn up both them and us too I doubt not worthy Sir but you see as well yea much better I suppose than my self and many others as being able further to pierce into the state of the times and the consequents of these things what need the forlorn flock of Christ hath of hearts and hands to help to repair her ruines and to fence that part of the Fold that as yet is not so openly broken in upon against the Incursions of such ravenous Wolves as having prevailed so freely against the other parts will not in likelihood leave it also unassaulted as also what need she hath if ever of Prayers and Tears her ancient principal Armor unto him who hath the hearts and hands of all men in his hand and whose help our only hope as things now stand is oft-times then most present when all humane helps and hopes do fail But these lamentable occurrents carry me further than I had purposed when I put Pen to Paper I shall be right glad to hear of your Lordship's health and welfare which the Lord vouchsafe to continue gladder to see the remainder of your former learned and laborious Work abroad The Lord bless and protect you And thus ready to do your Lordship any service I may in these parts I rest Your Lordships to be commanded in the Lord Thomas Gataker Rothtrith Sept. 19. 1621. LETTER XLIV A Letter from Sir William Boswel to the Right Reverend James Usher Lord Bishop of Meath My very good Lord IF your Lordship hath forgotten my name I shall account my self very unhappy therein yet justly rewarded for my long silence the cause whereof hath especially been my continual absence almost for these last eight years from my native Country where now returning and disposed to rest I would not omit the performance of this duty unto your Lordship hoping that the renewing of my ancient respects will be entertained by your Lordship as I have seen an old Friend or Servant who arriving suddenly and unexpected hath been better welcomed than if he had kept a set and frequent course of visiting and attendance With this representing of my service I presume your Lordship will not dislike that I recommend my especial kind friend Dr. Price one of his Majesties Commissioners for that Kingdom and for his Learning Wisdom and other Merits which your Lordship will find in him truly deserving your Lordships good affection The most current news I can signifie to
of that Chapter which I had undertaken to answer as a principal motive of his Conversion to them which he hath added to the Oration of the motives to his Conversion I suppose you have seen the Book Now having been lately chosen upon my Lord of Sarum his promotion to be Reader of the Margaret Lecture in our University Lam advised by my good friends and namely the Lords Bishops of Wells and Sarum to read those Controversies mentioned in that Chapter And upon more mature advice have resolved to set down positively the Fathers Doctrine not barely by Thesis but with their several proofs and the Vindication of them from the Adversaries cavils I will be bold to communicate with you the special difficulties which I shall observe if it be not troublesome unto your Lordship In the first Controversie touching the Real Presence they except against the testimony produced by P. Martyr of Chrysostom ad Caesarium Monachum I have heard your Lordship say it is alledged by Leontius but by what Leontius and where I remember not I cannot find it in such Tractates of Leontius as I find in Bibliotheca Patrum I desire your Lordship in a word to certifie me It seemeth P. Martyr read it in Latin for otherwise it is probable he would have alledged the Greek Text if originally he had it out of the Greek I suppose your Lordship hath seen the third Tome of Spalatensis containing his VII and IX Book I fear me he may do some harm with the Treatise which he hath lib. 7. c. 11. touching the matter of Predestination wherein he goeth about to shew That both Opinions may be Tolerated both that of St. Austin's which makes Predestination to be gratuita and that other which maketh Predestination to be Ex proevisis fide operibus But chiefly he goeth about to invalidate St. Austin's Opinion It will confirm the Remonstrants in their Error for he hath said more than any of them but all in vain for doubtless St. Austin's Opinion is the truth and no doubt but it is special Grace which doth distinguish Peter from Judas and not solum liberum arbitrium It is great pity the man was so carried away with Ambition and Avarice otherwise I think he is not inferior to Bellarmine for the Controversies I write this Letter upon my way being at Sarum where my Lord Bishop of Sarum doth salute you I cannot now dilate further but with my best service and wishes commend your Lordship to the Highest Majesty and so rest Your Lordships in all service Samuel Ward Sarum Sept. 25. 1622. I intreat your Lordship that I may know where Leontius doth alledge that Tractate of Chrysostom LETTER LI. A Letter from the Right Reverend James Usher Lord Bishop of Meath to the Right Honourable Oliver Lord Grandison My very good Lord I Had purposed with my self long ere now to have seen your Honour in England which was one reason among others why I did forbear to trouble you hitherto with any Letters But seeing I think now it will fall out that I shall remain here this Winter I thought it my duty both to tender my thankfulness unto your Lordship for all the honourable favours which I have received at your hands and withal to acquaint you with a certain particular which partly doth concern my self and in some sort also the state of the Church in this poor Nation The day that my Lord of Falkland received the Sword I preached at Christ-Church and fitting my self to the present occasion took for my Text those words in the 13th to the Romans He beareth not the Sword in vain There I shewed 1. What was meant by this Sword 2. The Subject wherein that power rested 3. The matters wherein it was exercised 4. Thereupon what it was to bear the Sword in vain Whereupon falling upon the Duty of the Magistrate in seeing those Laws executed that were made for the furtherance of God's Service I first declared That no more was to be expected herein from the subordinate Magistrate than he had received in Commission from the Supreme in whose power it lay to limit the other at his pleasure Secondly I wished That if his Majesty who is under God our Supreme Governour were pleased to extend his clemency toward his Subjects that were Recusants some order notwithstanding might be taken with them that they should not give us publick affronts and take possession of our Churches before our Faces And that it might appear that it was not without cause that I made this motion I instanced in two particulars that had lately fallen out in mine own Diocess The one certified unto me by Mr. John Ankers Preacher of Athloane a man well known unto your Lordship who wrote unto me That going to read Prayers at Kilkenny in West-Meath he found an old Priest and about 40 with him in the Church who was so bold as to require him the said Ankers to depart until he had done his business The other concerning the Friars who not content to possess the House of Multifernan alone whence your Lordship had dislodged them went about to make Collections for the re-edifying of another Abby near Molengarre for the entertaining of another swarm of Locusts These things I touched only in general not mentioning any circumstances of Persons or Places Thirdly I did intreat That whatsoever connivance were used unto others the Laws might be strictly executed against such as revolted from us that we might at least-wise keep our own and not suffer them without all fear to fall away from us Lastly I made a publick Protestation That it was far from my mind to excite the Magistrate unto any violent courses against them as one that naturally did abhor all cruel dealings and wished that effusion of blood might be held rather the Badge of the Whore of Babylon than of the Church of God These points howsoever they were delivered by me with such limitations as in moderate mens judgments might seem rather to intimate an allowance of a Toleration in respect of the general than to exasperate the State unto any extraordinary severity yet did the Popish Priests perswade their followers that I had said The Sword had rusted too long in the Sheath whereas in my whole Sermon I never made mention either of Rust or Sheath yea some also did not stick to give out That I did thereby closely tax your self for being too remiss in prosecuting of the Papists in the time of your Government I have not such diffidence in your Lordships good opinion of me neither will I wrong my self so much as to spend time in refelling so lewd a calumniation Only I thought good to mention these things unto your Lordship that if any occasion should be offered hereafter to speak of them you might be informed in the truth of matters Wherein if I have been too troublesome unto you I humbly crave pardon and rest Your Honours in all Duty ever ready to be commanded Jac.
Incitation hath so happily planted in the Diocess of Armagh by making the Rectories that did belong to the Vicars Chorals of Armagh to be Lay-fee unto which Incumbents have been hitherto by his Majesties own Direction still presented and the Livings also taxed with payment of First-fruits as all other presentative Livings are Dawson is a Man so notoriously branded for his lewd Carriage that I dare not trust him with the keeping of the Records or suffer him any ways to intermeddle with the businesses of the Church To see therefore whether I can fairly rid my hands of him I have made a grant of his places unto others and so left them to the trial of their Titles by course of Law Which hath so incensed Dawson that he laboureth now by his Emissary Chase to disgrace me in Court with all the Calumnies that his wicked Heart can devise Wherein I doubt not but your Grace as occasion shall require will be ready to stand for me in my just defence As for the general state of things here they are so desperate that I am afraid to write any thing thereof Some of the adverse part have asked me the question Where I have heard or read before that Religion and Mens Souls should be set to sale after this manner unto whom I could reply nothing but that I had read in Mantuan that there was another place in the World where Coelum est venale Deusque I procured a meeting of all the Prelates at my House who with one voice protested against these Courses and subscribed this Protestation of theirs with their hands But forasmuch as we knew that the Project was wonderful distastful unto the Papists themselves we contained our selves in publick and suffered the Breach to come from their side I know their Agents are not asleep at Court but our hope is that your Grace is as vigilant there to make opposition unto their Practices and to advise of some other course to give the King content which may be more for his honour and the good of the Church All which I humbly leave unto your Grace's sage Consideration and evermore rest Your Graces ready to do you all Service Ja. Armachanus Drogheda February 9. 1626. LETTER CXVII A Letter from Dr. Ward to the most Reverend James Usher Arch-bishop of Armagh Most Reverend and my very good Lord MY best Service premised c. I received your Lordship's last Letters to me dated from Leverpool and have heard by others since of your Lordship's safe arrival in Ireland As touching Sir Gerard Harvy I have been with him at Hadham since and have had Letters once or twice about his business from him I consulted with Mr. Whalley and wrote to Sir Gerard what Fine will be expected besides his coming in Rent-corn which he is willing to pay The Fine will be about 200 l. for renewing his Lease and adding of ten Years to the time he hath about Easter he will be with us about it I am sorry your Lordship missed of that Epistle of Chrysostom ad Caesarium Monachum at Oxford I was in good hope your Lordship would have hit upon it It is to be feared it is purloin'd away I received Mr. Boys his variae lectiones in Liturgiam Basilii which your Lordship left to be sent him I spake with Mr. Patrick Young who telleth me that Sirmondus hath all Fronto's Papers and that he is in hand with Theodoret and that after he is set out I shall have my Transcript upon the Psalms He saith your Lordship hath the Greek Transcript of Euthymius I have seen Athanasius Graecol newly set forth at Paris it hath some Homilies added by one Holstein but it wanteth the varia lectiones which are in Coâ—mâ—lin's Edition Eusebius in three Volumes Graecol is daily expected but not yet come Dr. White now Bishop of Carlisle hath sold all his Books to Hills the Broker His Pretence is the charge of Carriage so far by Land and the danger by Water Some think he paid for his Place I did hear of his Censure of your Lordship which I would not have believed but that I heard it credibly reported about the time of your Lordship's departure hence Sundry Bishopricks are still remaining unbestowed The Precedent is not good Concerning Court and Commonwealth-affairs here I suppose you have better Information than my Pen can afford I would I could be a Messenger by my Letter of better news than any I hear here The 25th of January deceased your good Friend and mine Mr. Henry Alvey at Cambridge I was with him twice when he was sick the first time I found him sick but very patient and comfortable He earnestly prayed that God would give him Patience and Perseverance The later time I came he was in a slumber and did speak nothing I prayed for him and then departed Shortly after he departed this Life He desired to be buried privatly and in the Church-yard and in a Sheet only without a Coffin for so said he was our Saviour But it was thought fitting he should be put in a Coffin and so he was I was at his interring the next day at night Thus God is daily collecting his Saints to himself The Lord prepare us all for the Dies accensionis as St. Cyprian stileth it Since the decease of Dr. Walsall Dr. Goslin our Vice-Chancellor and Dr. Hill Master of Katherine-Hall are both dead In their places succeed in Bennet-Colledg Dr. Butts in Caius-Colledg Mr. Bachcroft one of the Fellows in Katherine-Hall Mr. Sibbs of Grays-Inn Concerning the place of Chrysostom Homilia de Encaeniis which you mention in your last Letters I cannot write now as I would I having not my Book by me My last Lecture was touching it I see a great difference in the Reading between the reading in the Manuscript of New-Colledg in Oxon which Sir H. Savill printed and the reading in M. Baraciro which is in the Notes of Sir H. Savill The Latin Translation is answerable to that of New-Colledg That speech 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 gave occasion I think to Damascene to say the like Though I do somewhat suspect some corruption by later Grecians in that Point especially Origen writing to the contrary as you know in Matth. 15. In the similitude following from Wax the words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is translated in the Latin Translation nihil remanet substantiae contrary as I conceive to the Greek for it should be nihil substantiae perdit For 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 est aliquid substantiae perdo It is not easy to conceive the sense of that Similitude both for the Protasis and Apodosis But of this when I come home at better leasure I do purpose God willing in my Determinations when I shall dispute upon any to go in the Point of Free-will for that as I conceive it is the chief ground of the rest of the Errors maintained by the Remonstrants or at least of most of them I have been here above a fortnight
if you see fit to communicate them this Bearer Mr. Royston will safely convey them to me and at what time your Grace shall appoint return them to you from Your Grace's most obliged Servant H. Hammond Decemb. 10. 1650. LETTER CCXLVI A Letter from the most Reverend James Usher Arch-bishop of Armagh to the Reverend Dr. Hammond Reverend Sir I Read over your Book with no small admiration both of the infiniteness of the pains which you have taken and the exactness of the judgment which you have shewed therein The only thing I could wish is that the accurate Tractate of the Gnostic Heresy should come out apart in a Dissertation by its self without any reference to the Argument of your other main Discourse for howsoever the occasion of bringing it in be not unapt yet the application of St. Paul's Prophecy thereunto is not like to find such acceptance in the reformed Churches beyond the Sea that I should desire the principal Argument in hand might be adventured in the same Bottom with the other The varieties of the Readings of the New Testament out of the Cambridg Copies I have sent unto you but those out of the Oxford ones wherein your self had a chief hand I can by no means find and do much fear that they were plundred among my other Books and Papers by the rude Welch in Glamorganshire Yet instead thereof I have sent unto you the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 excerpted out of the Volumns wherein the ancient Edition of the Septuagint is contain'd in the Library of St. James's Which if it may stand you in any stead I shall be very glad Your own J. A. Lond. Jan. 14. 1650. LETTER CCXLVII. A Letter from Dr. Edward Davenant to the most Reverend James Usher Arch-bishop of Armagh Most Reverend IT is an extraordinary comfort to me in the midst of my Troubles to hear not only of your Grace's Health which I am bound daily to pray for but that you should be so affected with the hearing of mine I never shall forget the Favours which you were pleased to shew me in Bristol and though these silly Things of mine are far unworthy of your judicious perusal yet I choose rather to lay open mine own weakness than disobey the least of your desires For the Resolution of Spherical Triangles I take the Sextant of any Circle this I divide into 90 equal Parts and suppose each Part a Degree by this means I keep always in Circulis Maximis the same Radius that I began with and the length of that Radius is always the measure of a Right Angle This course I find to be the most speedy for practice though for the measuring of other Arches and Angles the Scale is not to be trusted but use is to be made of the common Rules of Trigonometrical Calculation Touching my Treatise of Eclipses I know how far it is from perfection for want of better Authors my Grounds are for the most part taken out of Calvisius whose Rules of any that I have seen I find to be the most compendious but the exemplification of his Rules is extreamly misprinted in many places In his first Table upon which many of the following depend there is an overfight committed by himself For whereas dividing a Circle or i. d. i. ii iii. iiii v. vi vii 06. 00. 00. 00. 00. 00. 00. 00. 00. By  d. i. ii iii. iv v. vi vii 12. 11. 26. 41. 32. 00. 27. 13.  He makes the Quotient to be d. i. ii iii. iiii v. vi   29. 31. 50. 07. 51. 20. 27.   Or d. h. i. ii iii. iiii v. vi  29. 12. 44. 03. 08. 32. 10. 46.  It should be d. i. ii iii. iiii v. vi *  29. 31. 50. 07. 51. 38. 20.  Or d. h. i. ii iii. iiii v. *  29. 12. 44. 03. 08. 39. 20.  So that comparing the first Column of his 7th Page with the first Column of the 9th Page you may see 38. v. omitted and 20. vi put into the place thereof Which oversight though small yet being in fundamento it has an influence throughout his first five Tables and causeth mine to differ from them I doubt not but your Grace is furnished with far more ready and exact Tables and therefore easily may spare these which I desire after you have perused them that they may be safely returned for whatsoever they are they have cost me no little labour and I have never another Copy of them if these should happen to miscarry If I forget not you made mention of one Mullerus whose Works I never had a sight of I would fain know whether it be not the same Mollerus whose Tabulae Phrisicae I find thrice reprehended how justly I cannot say in Calvisius A Mundi 3178 3963 and 4283. There is nothing in Mathematicks which I more long to hear of than the new Edition of Vieta's Works if it be yet come forth But I trespass too far upon your patience to trouble you so long about these Trifles To make some Recompence I have sent up with them that elaborate Work of the Bishop of Salisbury which being committed to my charge your Grace has done me unspeakable favour to undertake the publishing of it I send the Book it self which my Lord left with me to be printed rather than that I shewed you at Bristol which was but a Transcript out of this The weakness of my Body and other Troubles which now lie heavy on me will not permit me to attend upon the printing my hope is you will find some Divine there at hand that will look to preserve it from the Errors of the Press The short answer of his unto the French Divines which I found scattered amongst his Papers is sent up in the Book I refer to your Grace's Judgment whether it be fit to be added or omitted in the Impression If Dr. Ward 's Works touching the same Subject may come forth together in one Volume I believe it will be no less agreeable to the mind of the deceased Authors than grateful to the sight of surviving Posterity I cease to be more troublesome and with my heartiest Prayers for your long Health here and eternal Happiness hereafter remain Your Grace's in all humble Service to be commanded Edward Davenant Gillingham Jan. 29. 1646. LETTER CCXLVIII A Letter from Mr. Wheelocke Professor of Arabick in Cambridg to the most Reverend James Usher Arch-bishop of Armagh at Lincolns-Inn MAY it please your Grace to give me leave since in these Times I come not to London to tender my most humble Duty to you in this Paper-fashion I most humbly thank your Grace for mentioning me to Mr. Cudworth who as his Name also promiseth is a young Man of good worth and so had he liv'd when the Church of Ireland lately flourished under your Grace's Primacy furnished with such Abilities no wonder if you had called him into that then flourishing Kingdom
borrowed it of me was so exceedingly in love with it as I could not be quiet till I bestowed it upon him I have sent your Syriack Treatise of Ephrem as likewise your Kimchii Radices Hebraicae of which Book although I have as much use as ever and shall have as long as God giveth me life and opportunity in my Studies in which the illustrating the Hebrew Text holdeth the chief place with me yet I thought it unreasonable to detain it any longer from you having had it so many Years already That breach in Popery about Grace groweth wider and wider every day and whereas hitherto Jansenism hath contained it self within France where most part of the Prelats and Sorbonists are addicted to it and the Low-Countries now it hath found entrance into Spain and among the very Jesuits those eager opposers of it one of whom having written a Book in defence of it the University of Salamanca gave their approbation to it after the amplest and most solemn manner and at the same time caused publickly to be burnt a Treatise written by the Jesuits against a little Jansenical Book published here at Paris with the Title of Catechisme de la Grace And having sent the Jesuit to Rome with their Letters to the Pope in recommendation of his Person and his Book he hath there very boldly asserted his Writing before the Pope and the Cardinals and in the manner as they although hitherto professed and bitter Enemies of that Doctrine could find no Exceptions against him Which hath made those of his Order such bitter Enemies to him as they have secretly made him away out of which Fact great Troubles are like to follow for the Pope and the King of Spain both upon complaint made to them have injoined the Jesuits to produce that Colleague of theirs alive or dead upon pain of their highest Displeasure Which News having been first told me by others was confirmed to me by Mr. Cressey for a certain Truth Thus humbly taking leave of your Grace and praying God to add many and happy Years to your Life in the preservation whereof the Church of God hath so great an interest I rest Your Grace's most humble and most affectionate Servant Arnold Boate. Paris Nov. 17. 1650. stilo novo LETTER CCLIX A Letter from the Learned Ludovicus Capellus to the most Reverend James Usher Arch-bishop of Armagh MIraberis fortè nec sine causâ Virlonge clarissime me primo quasi impetu publico Scripto dignitatem tuam compellare nulla prius ad te data privatâ Epistolâ Id sane longè praeoptassem ac pridem certe in votis habui aliquod literarum cum dignitate tua commercium habere quod multa audiveram de singulari tuâ humanitate cum summâ doctrinâ eruditione conjunctâ quodque ab amicis per Epistolas cognoveram Arcanum meum punctationis si forte etiam Spicilegium meum non esse tibi ignota aut improbata unde mihi nascebatur desiderium resciscendi à te quid de hisce Lucubrationibus meis sentires sed inhibuit me hactenùs tum subrusticus quidam mihi à naturâ insitus pudor tum tui reverentia ne importunis meis literis dignitatem tuam interpellarem teque a melioribus occupationibus avocarem molestiamve tibi literarum mearum lectione facesserem Vicit tamen me adversus Bootium defendendi necessitas quae quia urgebat eam amici flagitabant spatium mihi non concessit te priùs per literas compellandi quod pro tua humanitate mihi condonabis è grato uti spero animo accipies hanc ad te mei adversus illum hominem justam defensionem quâ meam quam ille impetit existimationem veritatem quam impugnat adversus illius offutias tueor Dabis hoc hominis illius importunitati iniquitati ac de me uti confido aliter senties quam ille suis accusationibus conatus est Dignitati tuae persuadere Hoc à candore aequitate tua exspecto atque ut dignitatem tuam in longos annos Ecclesiae suae bono servet incolumem Deum ardentissimis Votis comprecor Tui cum omni obsequio diligentissimus Cultor Lud. Capellus Salmurii 28 Jan. 1651. LETTER CCLX A Letter from the Learned Arnold Boate to the most Reverend James Usher Arch-bishop of Armagh May it please your Grace I Have received your Letters of 14 â—4 January and of 23 Jan. stilo vet In the first whereof came inclosed your Answer upon a Question concerning the late King and the second was accompanied with a Gift for which I humbly thank your Grace of a Copy of your Annales for me and of Gatakerus de Stilo N. Testamenti As for the other Copy of your Annales that for Friar Goart I delivered it him within two days after and he expressed a great deal of sence of the savour which you have done him in it He gave me also an Extract about the Priesthood of Simon Onia and told me that Syncellus with his Notes is begun now to be printed and will be done by the end of this year He told me also of the Latin Translation of an Arabian Chronologer who lived above 400 years ago and hath writ the Chronology ab initio Mundi ad suam aetatem with an extraordinary exactness of supputation newly printed here of which I intend God willing to send you a Copy together with those Books formerly desired by you at Ellis his next return thither which he maketh me believe will be within these two or three weeks The Disputes and Animosities between the Jansenists and the Molinists do grow hotter and hotter every day and lately some Irish-men here having been busy to get Subscriptions of their Country-men in prejudice of Janseniana Dogmata they have been sharply censured for it by a Decree of the University a printed Copy whereof you will receive by Ellis Capell hath written an Apologetical Epistle to you in answer to mine Epistle against him and somewhat about the same bulk the which being not only fraught with most injurious Language against me but taxing your Grace of rashness and injustice for having condemned his Opinion upon my Relation I have writ an additional Sheet to my former Treatise in vindication of your Grace and of my self the writing and printing thereof having been dispatched in the space of three days ne impune velitaret caninum illud scriptum I am now going to write Justum volumen sub titulo Vindiciarum sacri Textus Hebraici contra Morinum Capellum junctim in quo scripto omnes Criticae Errores ut scriptorum Morini ad vivum persequar For these here who vaunted of their intention of writing against Capel have all given over and Buxtorf too will make no full answer to his Critica as you may see by the following Extract of his Letter to me dated 3 Januarii Vindiciae meae directe opponentur ejus Defensioni sed methodicae erunt
antiquitatem discernendam plurimùm conducit cum hisce editionibus cum aliis Veterum sive translationibus sive paraphrasibus consimilis facta collatio Sed de Criteriis illis jam non agitur quibus Vatiantium textus Hebraici lectionum discriminari possit vel praestantia vel antiquitas unde petendae illae sint quantùmque vel augendae vel minuendae tota inter nos vertitur quaestio In qua tractanda si occurrent aliqua quae minus tibi arrideant da quaeso libertati huic meae veniam ab homine nominis honoris tui ut ex animo anteà ad te scripsi studiosissimo profecta ea omnia esse cogita Vale. Ja. Usserius Armachanus LETTER CCLXVIII A Letter from the Right Reverend Brain Duppa Bishop of Salisbury to the most Reverend James Usher Arch-bishop of Armagh My Lord I Humbly thank you for that excellent Piece of Origen against Celsus which though in my younger days I had met withall in Latin yet I never saw it in his own Language till now And indeed the Book hath been a double Feast to me for besides my first course which is Origen himself I find in the same Volume that piece of Gregory his Scholar which was wrote by way of Panegyrick of him and hath served me instead of a Banquet But besides that which the Ancients have done of whom many have been liberal in this Argument either by way of Praise or of Apology I find in some Notes that I have taken the mention of two more modern Apologists for him the one Jo. Picus of Mirandula the other more obscure to me for I have not otherwise met him cited Jacobus Merlinus If the latter of these be in your Lordship's Judgment worth the reading and in your power to communicate and impart to me I beseech you to afford it me for a time for Origen hath had so many Enemies that I cannot in charity pass by his Friends without seeing what they can say in his defence I have something else to be a Suitor for and that is your Lordship 's own Book I dare not beg it of you for this is no time for you to be a giver I shall only desire the loan of it that I may have a fuller view than I had from that which I borrowed from Sir Edward Leech I beseech you my Lord pardon this boldness of mine which your own Goodness hath made me guilty of I have no more to trouble your Lordship withal but only to remain Your Lordship 's most humble Servant Br. Sarum Richm. Octob. 20. LETTER CCLXIX Viro Admodum Venerando Doctrina Pietate insigniter Eminenti Domino Jacobo Usserio Archiepiscopo Armachano meritissimo c. Plurimam in Christo salutem precat Gothofredus Hotton QUòd ego homo peregrinus id fiduciae sumo ut hoc quicquid sit literarum ad Tuam venerandam Dignitatem exarare mittereque ausim illud ipsum est Praesul Excellentissime quod principio humillimè deprecor Nec certè eò prorupissem ni Nobilissimus juxta atque longè Eruditissimus Vir Dominus Junius Tuarum Virtutum cultor animum addidisset mihi dubitanti promissâ nimirum à bonitate Tuâ culpae meae si qua subsit pronâ promptâ veniâ At quâ de re Te Vir Reverendissime primum epistolâ hac meâ appellem utique Evangelicus Praeco Dei Gratiâ cum sim de rebus quae studia Theologiae mea concernunt si Tecum paucis agam id forsan Tuâ meaque cura non videbitur indignum Vidit nec prorsus ut spero improbavit Tua Excellentia ea quae ante paucisimos annos de Tolerantia inter Europaeos Evangelicos in Charitate stabilienda libello consignavi evulgavique In iis pacis cogitationibus me adhuc totum esse in ardes scere sciant volo quotquot sunt Pacis Filii ubi ubi reperiantur Qua ratione vero illuc consilii venerim non in consultum fortassis erit si Reverendae Tuae Dignitati brevibus aperiam Monasterii Westphalorum ubi eo tempore congregabant Europae plurimi Proceres de pace consulturi atque acturi consilia agitari inter malè affectos mihi secreto tunc temporis relatum est de Reformatis à pace Imperii excludendis èo quòd ut illi opinabantur non essent Augustanae Confessionis socii Nec relatum est duntaxat à nostratium qui ibidem erant primariis sed significatum insuper summè necessarium esse ut quam ejus fieri posset citissimè aliquid remedii huic malo adhiberetur Qua monitione ego animosior mea sorte factus haec qualia-qualia mea in chartam festinanter conjeci et ter Descripsi festinantiùs Et descripta illa tria exemplaria misi unum ad ipsam Sueciae Reginam Alterum ad Plenipotentiarios quos jam vocant Principum Lutheranorum dicto loco coactos ad Reformatorum Tertium suppresso obscuri ignoti Authoris nomine Quid factum eam his conatibus dedit Deus pacis benedictionem ut melioribus mollioribusque consiliis à Primatibus Monasterii operantibus locus datus sit Articulusque Instrumento Pacis insertus fuerit quo cautum est ex aequo libertati securitati Reformatorum in Imperio atque Lutheranorum quod nunquam antea ita solemniter fuerat factum Factum praeterea ut aliquis qui solus Authorem norat inter Primores Authoris nomen contra ejus mèntem revelaverit unde ipsi aliqua necessitas imposita fuit Tractatum suum typis edendi Editus ergo est sed prima vice sine nomine postea cum nomine mandante id nostrarum Gallobelgicarum Ecclesiarum in his Provinciis Synodo Dordrechti eo temporis articulo coacta ut apparet ex approbatione Synodali quae libello Gallica lingua concepta praefigitur Ex illo tempore quamplurimae in nostra Reformatione Societates in iis societatibus magni Viri calculo suo ista mea Moderationis conamina approbare voluerunt reipsa missis ad eam rem suis literis concorditer approbavêre Ea porro publica approbatoria hortatoria Testimonia sequenti anno cum bono Deo juris publici facere mihi decretum est idque de communi consilio facturus sum nempe ut ex una parte malè feriatis quibusdam os obthuretur ansa praeripiatur cavillandi calumniandi ex altera verò ut via apud bonos per bonos muniatur strictioris inter partes vinculi de quo successu spes mihi non mediocris surgit ut ex praesentium exhibitore amicissimo tua excellentia intelligere poterit Me beares Virorum Optime rem faceres fortassis te dignam Reipublicae Christianae non inutilem si his Ecclesiarum nostrarum suffragiis Tuum maximi in iis ponderis testimonium addere dignaveris quod à Tua bonitate etiam atque etiam efflagitare audeo Deus Ter Optimus
Maximus Venerandae Dignissimae Amplitudini Tuae tuisque in Ecclesiâ suâ magnis laboribus abunde benedicere pergat Vale. Tuae Excellentiae Observantissimus cultor Gothofredus Hotton Propria manu Dabam xxviii Januarii 1652. Amstelodami LETTER CCLXX. A Letter from R. Vaughan to the most Reverend James Usher Arch-bishop of Armagh Reverend Father MY Duty most humbly remembred unto you with thanks for your Opinion of King Cadwalader which hereafter shall be unto me a Tract to follow as best agreeing with Reason and Truth I hope you have received your Books in November last and if they are any way impaired in the carriage if you please to send them me I will have them fairly written again for you What I omitted in my last Letter by reason of the Bearers haste is that in your Giraldus his first Book Laudabilium and 8. Cap. I observe that my Countrymen in his time used to yoke their Oxen for the Plow and Cart four in a breast in these words Boves ad aratra vel plaustra non binos jungunt sed quaternos c. which I find not in the printed Book This may happily give some light and help to understand a clause in our ancient British Laws treating of Measures made as is there alleged by Dyfrewal Moel-mud King of Britain where it is said that the Britains in his time used four kinds of Yokes for Oxen the first was four foot long the second eight foot the third twelve and the fourth was sixteen foot long The first was such as we use now a-days for a couple of Oxen the second was that mentioned by Giraldus serving for four Oxen the third as I suppose suitable with those two for six Oxen and the fourth consequently for eight Oxen. The two last are clean forgotten with us and not as much as a word heard of them saving what is in that old Law but of the second mentioned by Giraldus we have a Tradition that such was in use with us about sixscore Years ago and I heard how true I know not that in Ireland the People in some places do yet or very lately did use the same I pray you call to your mind whether that be true or whether you have heard or read any thing of the use of the other two in any Country and be pleased to let me know thereof The Copy of Ninnius you sent me hath holpen me well to correct mine but finding such difference between the three Manuscript Books which the Scribe confesseth to have made use of I presume your Transcript comprehends much more in regard you have had the benefit of eleven Copies as you confess to help you which Differences are very requisite to be known of such as love Antiquity And also where those several Copies that you have seen are extant and to be found at present and how many of those Copies bear the name of Gildas before them and how many the name of Ninnius And what those of Gildas do comprehend more or less in them than those of Ninnius And whether the Notes of Samuel Beulan are found in any of those of Gildas or yet in every one of the Copies of Ninnius and whether the name of Samuel be added to those Notes in any of those Copies and to which of them All which with the antiquity of the Character of those several Copies are very necessary to be known and may easily be discovered by you and very hardly by any other ever after you Moreover about three Years ago I sent a Copy of the Tract concerning the Saxon Genealogies extant if I mistake not in Gildas and Ninnius unto you to be corrected by your Book and Sir Simon D'Ewes undertaking that charge for you as Mr. Dr. Ellis told me returned me only this Answer upon the back of my own Papers viz. The eldest Copy of this Anonymon Chron. doth in some places agree with the Notes sent up but in others differs so much as there can be no collation made of it c. But those my Notes do agree very well with the Book you sent me and differs not in twenty words in all the Tract whereof either many are only Letters wanting or abounding and therefore I marvel what he meant in saying so unless he had seen a larger Copy of the same than that I had but your last Letter unto me tells that it is only extant in Sir Thomas Cotton's two Books and wanting in all the other Books that bear the name either of Gildas or Ninnius and that Book you sent me was copied out of one of Sir Thomas Cotton's Books and examined by the other He further addeth that the Author of that Tract being as he saith an English-Saxon lived in the Year of our Lord 620 upon what ground I know not Yet I cannot think otherwise but that Sir Simon D'Ewes had some grounds for the same and it may be the very same that Leland the famous Antiquary had to say that Ninnius lived tempore inclinationis Britannici imperii and Jo. Bale who more plainly saith that he lived in the Year 620 just as Sir Simon D'Ewes hath And for that Sir Simon is dead I desire to know of you whether the said Tract be not more copious in one of Sir Thomas Cottom's Books than it is in the other Or whether Sir Simon D'Ewes might not find a larger Copy of the same elsewhere for if it be not the work of Ninnius nor Samuel Beulan it may as well be in other Books as in those especially if an English-Saxon was Author of it But if it be not found elsewhere I pray you tell me upon what grounds is the Author of it said by Sir Simon to live Anno 620 and Ninnius by Leland and Bale likewise said to live in the same Time when by the first Chapter of some Copies of Ninnius his Book it seemeth he wrote not two hundred Years after Moreover in regard you prefer that small Tract so much spoken of by me before all the rest of the Book it were a deed of Charity for you to paraphrase a little upon it whereby such as are but meanly skilled in Antiquity may reap some profit by it Truly some remarhable Passages from the Reign of Ida to the Death of Oswi Kings of Northumberland are contained in it which being well understood would add a greater luster to the British History Lastly Most Reverend Father I pray you be pleased to lend me your Copy of that Fragment of the Welch Annals sent by the Bishop of St. David's Rich. Davies to Matthew Parker Arch-bishop of Canterbury who bestowed a Copy thereof upon the Library in Bennet-Colledg in Cambridg or your Copy of the Book of Landaff and I shall rest most heartily thankful unto you and I do hereby faithfully promise to return whatsoever you shall send me as soon as I shall have done writing of it I have already taken order to provide a little Trunk or Box for the safe carrying of
and censuring of all Things nor in an infectious collection of base Vices and Fashions of Men and Women or general corruption of these Times which will be of use only among Humorists for Jests and Table-talk but rather strain your Wits and Industry soundly to instruct your self in all things between Heaven and Earth which may tend to Vertue Wisdom and Honour and which may make your Life more profitable to your Country and you self more comfortable to your Friends and acceptable to God And to conclude let all these Riches be treasured up not only in your Memory where Time may lessen your Stock but rather in good Writings and Books of Account which will keep them safe for your use hereafter And if in this time of your liberal Traffick you will give me any advertisement of your Commodities in these kinds I will make you as liberal a Return from my Self and your Friends here as I shall be able And so commending all your good Endeavours to him that must either wither or prosper them I very kindly bid you farewel Your's to be commanded Thomas Bodleigh LETTER XIV A Letter from Sir Thomas Bodleigh to Sir Francis Bacon SIR AS soon as Term was ended supposing your leisure to be more than before I was coming to thank you two or three times rather chusing to do it by Word than Letter but was still disappointed of my Purpose as I am this present upon an urgent occasion which doth tie me fast to Fulham and hath made me now determine to impart my Mind by Writing I think you know I have read your Cogitata Visa which I have done with great desire reputing it to be a Token of your singular Love that you joined me with those of your chiefest Friends to whom you would commend the first perusal of your Draught For which I pray you give me leave to say this first That if the depth of my Affection to your Person and Spirit and to your Work and Words and to all your Abilities were as highly to be valued as your Affection is to me it might walk with yours Arm in Arm and claim your love by just desert but there can be no comparison where our states are so uneven and our means to demonstrate our Affections so different in so much as for my own I must leave it to be prised in the nature that it is and you shall ever-more find it most addicted to your worth As touching the Subject of your Book you have set on foot so many rare and noble Speculations as I cannot chuse but wonder and shall wonder at it ever that your expence of Time considered in your publick Profession which hath in a manner no acquaintance with any Scholarship or Learning you should have culled out the Quintessence and sucked up the Sap of the chiefest kinds of Learning for howsoever in some Points you vary altogether from that which is and hath been ever the received Doctrine of our Schools and was always by the wisest as still they are deemed of all Nations and Ages adjudged the truest yet it is apparent that in those very Points and in all your Proposals and Plots in that Book you show your self a Master-Workman For my self I must confess and do speak it Ingenuè that for matter of Learning I am not worthy to be reckoned among Smatterers Howbeit sith it may seem that being willing to communicate this Treatise to your Friends you are likewise willing to listen to whatsoever they can except against it I must deliver unto you that for my private Opinion I am one of that Crew that say there is and we possess a far greater hold-fast of certainty in the Sciences than you by your Discourse will seem to acknowledg for where at first you do object the ill Success and Errors of Practitioners of Physick you know as well they proceed of the Patient's unruliness for not one in an hundred do obey his Physician in observing his Counsels or by misinformation of their own indisposition for few are able in that kind to explicate themselves or by reason their Diseases are by Nature incurable which is incident you know to many Maladies or for some other hidden Cause cannot be discovered by course of Conjecture Howbeit I am full of this belief That as Physick is ministred now-a-days by Physicians it is much to be ascribed to their Negligence or Ignorance or other touch of Imperfection that they speed not better in their Practice for few are found of that Profession so well instructed in their Art as they might be by the Precepts which their Art affordeth which if it be defective in regard of full Perfection yet certainly it doth flourish with admirable Remedies such as Tract of Time hath taught by experimental Events and are the open High-way to that principal Knowledg which you recommend As for Alchimy and Magick some Conclusions they have worth the preserving but all their Skill is so accompanied with Subtilties and Guiles as both the Crafts and Crafts-masters are not only despised but named with derision Whereupon to make good your principal Assertion methinks you should have drawn the most of your Examples from that which is taught in the Liberal Sciences not by picking out Cases that happen very seldom and may by all confession be subject to reproof but by controuling the Generals and Grounds and invent Positions and Aphorisms which the greatest Artists and Philosophers have from time to time defended for it goeth currant amongst all Men of Learning that those kinds of Arts which Clarks in time past termed the Quadruvialls confirm their Propositions by infallible Demonstrations and likewise in the Trivials such Lessons and Directions are delivered unto us as will effect very near or as much altogether as every Faculty doth promise Now in case we should concur to do as you advise which is to renounce our common Notions and cancel all our Theorems Axioms Rules and Tenents and to come as Babes ad Regnum Naturae as we are willed by Scripture to come ad Regnum Goelorum there is nothing more certain to my understanding than that it would instantly bring us to Barbarism and after many thousand Years leave us more unprovided of Theorical Furniture than we are at this present for it were indeed to become very Babes Tabula Rasa when we shall keep no impression of any former Principles but be driven to begin the World again and to travel by trial of Actions and Sense which are your Proofs by Particulars what to place in intellectu for our general Conceptions it being a Maxim of all Mens approving in intellectu Nihil enim quod non prius fuit in sensu and so in appearance it would befal us that till Plato's Years become about our insight in Learning would be in less esteem than now it is accounted As for that which you inculcate of a Knowledg more excellent than now it is among us which Experience might produce