did not send it which by the next Ship if your Lordship please God willing I will send you But I pray understand that by the Syriack Tongue they mean here the Caldean And every Man tells me it is all one the Syrians and Caldeans being one and the same People but questionless the same Language Therefore if your Lordship mean and desire to have the Old Testament in Caldean I beseech you to write me by the first over Land that I may provide it by the next Ship Also I beseech you to take knowledge that I dare not promise you to send it according to the Hebrew for neither my self nor any other Man here can determine it only I must be forc'd to take his word that sells it me who is a Minister of the Sect of the Marranites and by birth a Caldean but no Scholar neither is there any to be found in these parts but if your Lordship will have me send it at adventures though it cost dear as it will cost 10 l. I will do my best endeavour to send it by the first Conveyance but shall do nothing herein until such time I have further order from your Lordship to effect business of this nature in these parts requires time Travel being very tedious in these Countries I have inquired of divers both Christians and Jews of the overflowing of Jordan but can learn no certainty Some say it never rises but after great Rain but I met with a learned Jew at least so reputed who told me that Jordan begins to flow the 13th of July and continues flowing 29 days and is some 18 or 20 days increasing but I dare not believe him his Relation not agreeing with the Text for Harvest is near ended with them by that time and unless you will understand by Harvest the time of gathering Grapes it cannot agree I have also sent to Damascus concerning this and trust ere long to satisfy your Lordship in this Particular and in the Calendar of the Samaritans A French Frier who lived at Jerusalem told me that it never overflowed except occasiond by Rain whereupon I shewed him the words in Joshua 3. 15. that Jordan overfloweth his Banks at the time of Harvest which words are written with a Parenthesis and therefore said he are no part of the Text which I know is his ignorance I could have shewed him the thing plainly proved by that which he holds Canonical Scripture Ecclus. 24. 26. If I have done your Lordship any Service herein I shall greatly rejoyce and shall ever be ready and willing to do the best Service I can to further the Manifestation of God's Truth yea I should think my self happy that I were able to bring a little Goats Hair or a few Badgers Skins to the building of God's Tabernacle I acknowledg your Lordship's Favour towards me who have not neither could deserve at your hands the least Kindness conceivable yet the Graciousness of your sweet Disposition emboldens me to entreat the continuance of the same and also the benefit of your faithful Prayers so shall I pass the better amongst these Infidel Enemies to God and his Christ. And so I pray God to encrease and multiply his Favours and Graces both upon your Soul and Body making you happy in what ever you possess here and hereafter to grant you Glory with Christ into whose hands I recommend your Lordship and humbly take leave ever resting Your Lordship 's in all bounden duty to command Thomas Davies Aleppo Aug. 29. 1624. LETTER LXX A Letter from Mr. Thomas Pickering to the R. R. James Usher Bishop of Meath at Wicken-Hall Right Reverend and my very good Lord I Was not unmindful according to my Promise to send to Dr. Crakenthorp for Polybius and Diodorus Siculus immediatly after I was with your Lordship But he attending the Visitations at Colchester and Maldon came not home till yesterday At which time sending my Man for the Books the Doctor returned Answer That your Lordship shall command any Books he hath whensoever you please That he had not Diodorus Siculus but he sent me Polybius and Marianus Scotus which he says Dr. Barkham told him you desired to borrow These two Books your Lordship shall now receive and if it fall out that you be already provided of Marianus Scotus then it may please you to let that come back again because the Doctor tells me that after a while he shall have occasion to see some things for his use in Sigebert and other Writers which are bound in this Volume with Marianus but by all means he desires your turn should be served however I shall be most ready to afford your Lordship any Service that lieth in my power during your aboad in these parts holding my self in common with the Church of God much bound to you for your great and weighty Labours both formerly and presently undertaken in the Cause of our Religion The God of all Wisdom direct your Meditations and Studies and grant you Health and all Conveniences for the Accomplishment of your intended Task And so with remembrance of Dr. Crakenthorp's and my own Love and Service I humbly take leave and shall ever rest Your Lordship 's in my best Devotions and Services to be commanded Tho. Pickering Finchingfield Sept. 9. 1624. LETTER LXXI A Letter from Mr. Thomas Davies in Aleppo to the Right Reverend James Usher Lord Bishop of Meath Right Reverend Sir MY bounden Duty remembred c. News here is not any worthy your knowledg the great Rebel Abassa still troubles the State and hinders the going forward of the Army against the Persian Some few days time News came that the Vizier had given Battel to the Rebel and that the Rebel had cut off 12000 Janisaries yet they report the Vizier to have the best of the day which most Men judg to be but report certainly it is that Abassa will give them great trouble pretending only Revenge upon the Janisaries for the Blood of his Master Sultan Osman The greatest Villanies that ever were practised or intended never wanted their Pretences Yet it is thought by many that this Man hath done nothing without leave from the Port otherways it is strange they had not cut him off long since for what can be his Forces against the Grand Signior's Powers The Janisaries refuse to go to War before the Rebel be cut off or Peace made with him whereby you may observe what Power the King hath over his Souldiers the truth is they command and rule all oppressing and eating up the Poor When I consider the Estate of the Christians in these Parts yea the Mahumetans themselves that are not Souldiers then must I say happy yea thrice happy are the Subjects of the King of England who live in peace and enjoy the Fruits of their own Labours and yet have another and a greater Blessing the free passage of the Gospel I pray God we may see and be thankful for so great Favours expressing it by Obedience
due time the Clouds and Mists of errors being dispersed and vanished it will shine forth as bright as the clear Sun at Noontyde As touching the Books you wrote for I told this Messenger that I meant to send them and therefore I appointed him to call for them together with my Letter this Day But since I have altered my purpose not envying you the sight of them but expecting your coming into England ere long as of custom once within three or four years at which time I shall be glad to shew you them and to confer them together with your Ptolemy's Canons In the mean time if you have any more urgent occasion of desiring to be resolved of any thing in them do but acquaint me with your purpose what you would prove out of them and I will truly give my best diligence to â—â—â— what may be found in them for the same and so save you that Labour on seeking which I suppose you may better bestow otherwise and so I trust I shall deserve better of you than if I sent you the Books Thus desiring your daily Prayers as you have mine for Gods blessing to bend our Studies to the best ends and make them most profitable to the setting forth of his glory and the good of his Church and of our Countries I take leave of you for this time resting Yours to be commanded in all Christian duties Thomas Lydyan 〈◊〉 July 8 1617. LETTER XXVIII Mr. William Eyres Letter to Dr. James Usher afterward Arch-Bishop of Armagh Eximio Doctori Domino Jacobo Usserio Guilielmus Eyre S. P. D. Praestantissime Domine FAteor me tibi plus debere quà m verbis exprimere possim etiamsi centiès ad te quotannis literas darem idque non solùm propter privatae benevolentiae erga me tuae fructus uberrimos sed etiam ob magnitudinem tuorum erga nos omnes qui Theologiae studiosi sumus meritorum Macte virtute tua faxitque Christus Opt. Max. cujus sub vexillo militamus ut Scripta tua polemica cedant in nominis sui gloriam Antichristi interitum quo de in Sibyllinus memini me legisse 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 quod de scriptis doctissimorum Virorum quidam interpretantur Nos hic plerique omnes ut opinor preces fundimus dum vos sive gubernatores sive nautae vel clavum tenetis vel per foros cursitatis c. navali praelio dimicatis preces lachrymae arma nunquam magis necessaria fuerunt quà m in hac in exulceratissima tempestate omnium pessimâ morum corruptelâ Serenissimus Rex noster Jacobus jam denuò collegium illud Chelseiense prope Londinum Theologorum Gratia qui controversiis dent operam adornare locupletare coepit Matthaeus Sutlivius ea in re nullum lapidem immotum relinquit Quid fiet nescio Res agitur per Regias literas ad Episcopos apud Clerum eorum operâ apud subditos ditiores ut opus tandem perficiatur Forsan majora adhuc à vobis in Dubliniensi Collegio quà m ab illis Chelseiensibus expectare possumus quamdiù vivit acviget amicus ille meus de quo Draxus quidam nostras in libello nuper edito lumen illud Irlandiae in Academia Dubliniensi Professor regius Theologus tam 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ut sive scripta sive disputationem requiras idoneus est qui cum tota Papistarum natione concertet Sed quid ego haec autem ne quicquam ingrata revolvo Me quod atinet ita nuper praesertim per integrum annum novissime elapsum eo plus secularibus negotiis quotidianis contra genium voluntatem meam concionibus ad populum nimis ut videtur frequentibus quasi demersus fuerim ut nihil in Hebraicis quaestionibus me posse videar atque in quibusdam absque te quem pure indigitare possim 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ita haeret aqua ut ulterius progredi non liceat fas sit igitur mihi Oraculum tuum consulere limatissimum judicium tuum expiscari Nolo tamen in hoc tempore diutiùs te interpellare Gratulor tibi ex animo purpuram tuam costam illam quam tibi Deus restituit 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Cura Valetudinem Gratia Jesu Christi sit cum omnibus vobis Amen G. Eyres Colcestriae 170 die Augusti 1617. LETTER XXIX A Letter from Mr. Edward Warren to Dr. James Usher afterwards Arch-Bishop of Armagh at St. Patricks Reverend Sir THat the Beast which was and is not and yet is should be Romanus Pontifex I like your Conjecture very well and the Ground seems to me firm and such as I may tread safely on And that which you quote out of Dionys. Halicarnas touching his Immunity brought me to consider better of his Office and Authority set down by Livy lib. 1. Caetera quoque omnia publica privataque sacra pontificis scitis subjecit Numa ut esset quò consultum Plebs veniret ne quid divini juris negligendo patrios ritus peregrinósque asciscendo turbaretur Which in my conceit is some Resemblance of that Head-ship which the latter Pontifex now challengeth to himself In the other Part I take all to be clear save only that I stick somewhat at the Accommodation of those Words pag. 10. That when he cometh he shall continue but a short Space I heartily thank you that for my satisfaction you have taken so much Pains Your poor Friend Edward Warren Kilkenny Novemb. 4. 1617. The God of Peace be with you Usserii notae Of Pontifex Maximus see Plutarch in Vitâ Numae Ciceronem in orat pro domo apud Pont. et de aruspic Resp. Val. Max. lib. 1. cap. 1. Georg. Fabrice observat lect Virgil. Aenead 6. Insolentia superbia eorum abiit in Proverbium Horat. Od. 2. 14. Mero Tinget pavimentum superbo Pontificum potiore Coenis Vid. loc ubi Interpres not at proelautas coenas Proverbio Pontificales appellari solitas Exemplum hujus Coenae vide in Macrobio lib. 2. Saturnal cap. 9. LETTER XXX A Letter from Dr. James Usher afterwards Arch-Bishop of Armagh to Mr. Thomas Lydyat Rector of Askerton in Oxford-shire Salutem in Christo. AS I was now going out of the House I met with Robert Allen who told me he was to go presently for England and required my Letters unto you I have nothing that upon this sudden I can well write of but the renewing of my former Request for those two Books which I wrote for in my two former Letters And therefore according to the Form which our Canonists use in their Court Proceedings Peto primò secundò tertio instantèr instantiùs instantissimè That you will let me have the use of your Geminus and Albategnius which shall God willing be returned unto you as safely and as speedily as you shall desire which I hope you will the rather condescend unto because I have no purpose to see England these many
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
where he addeth much more concerning 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 if I were able to give the sum of it it needeth not if your Lordship have Plato if not except London Stationers now furnish I can with much conveniency send down to Tottenham any Book I was lately with one Mr. Boyse whose Notes are on Chrysostom with Mr. Downes's he is now comparing of Nicene Syn. in Greek with an old Manuscript which was by great chance offered to him he is very learned in the Greek Authors and most willing to communicate tho your Lordship needs not those Excellencies he is but four Miles dwelling out of Cambridg I intend to go over of purpose to him concerning the same Queries which your Lordship propounded because he was Mr. Downes his Scholar I shall intreat him to furnish me with all the Notes if he may conveniently that he gathered from Mr. Downes My Lord if I be not over-bold to desire such a Favour I wish I had that Table wherein your Lordship hath compared the Hebrew Greek and Latin Alphabet which sheweth plainly the right Pronunciation of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the whole consent of the rest When I have done with Mr. Boyse and have obtained any thing worth your view I will by that Messenger desire your Servant to copy out that Table for me which would give great content to my Scholars which study the Languages And thus craving pardon of your Lordship I humbly take my leave and rest Your Lordship's humble Servant to his Power Abraham Wheelock Clare-Hall July 12. 1625. LETTER LXXXVI A Letter from Dr. Sam. Ward to the most Reverend James Usher Arch-bishop of Armagh at Much-Haddam Most Reverend and my very good Lord I Received a Note from Dr. Lindsell written by your Lordship wherein you desire to have a Book out of Trinity-Colledg Library which you intitle Psalterium Gallicum Romanum Hebraicum MS. in magno Folio There is no such Book there as the Master telleth me but he shewed me the Psalter in Hebrew MS. interlinear with a Latin Translation and two other Collateral Translations in Latin but there is no French and it is but in a little Folio The Catena in Psalmos 50 priores Daniele Barbaro interprete I cannot learn where it is Whereas you desire some old Impression of the Greek Psalms in Trinity-Colledg Library there is Augustini Justiniani Episcopi Nebiensis Psalterium Octaplum in which there is the Greek Translation also the Arabick and Chalde Paraphrase but I suppose you have that Book already Also they have a Manuscript Psalter in Greek a very good Hand which it seemeth was Liber Theodori Archiepiscopi Cantuariensis If you would have any of those I will procure them from Dr. Maw I had purposed to have seen you e're now and now this Week I had purposed to have brought my whole Family to Mundon but this day I received a Letter that one of my Workmen at my Parsonage had a Sister who is suspected the last Saturday to die of the Plague at Standon I thank God we are yet well at Cambridg If you please to write unto me your mind touching the Books aforesaid I will do what you would have me Thus desiring the Lord to mitigate this grievous Judgment which hath seized upon our Mother-City and from thence is diffused to many other Towns in the Land and to stay it in his good time and in the mean time to sanctify this Correction unto the whole Land that it may have that powerful working for which God sends it to make us sensible of our Sins and of his Wrath for our Sins and of the Miseries of our Brethren under the Cross and so to move us to true Repentance and new Obedience which He effect in us for his Mercy 's sake Thus with my best Service to your self and Mrs. Usher and my kind Love to Sir Gerard and his Lady I commend you to the safe protection of the highest Majesty Your Lordships in all observance Samuel Ward Sidney-Coll Aug. 3. 1625. I am careful that the Letter be conveyed by Persons safe from all Infection LETTER LXXXVII A Letter from Dr. James to the most Reverend James Usher Arch-bishop of Armagh After the remembrance of my humble Duty MAY it please your Grace to pardon my long silence and neglect of writing according to my Duty occasioned partly by Sickness partly by Discontent and Discouragement from our great Ones But being now freed from both God be thanked I address my self wholly to the care of the Publick long since by me intended Wherein now more than ever I must be bold to crave your Lordships furtherance that as it had its first beginnings from your Grace so it may its final end and a fulfilling by your Lordships good means It is true my Lord of Litchfield is intrusted with the whole direction and managing of this Business but had your Grace been near there would have been none more able nor willing than your Grace I do therefore most humbly intreat your Lordship that sometime before your Grace's departure into Ireland you would be pleased upon conference with my Lord of Litchfield to settle the whole Business what Authors we shall begin with in what order and after what manner As for the Canon-Law which I have looked unto not without the vocation and approbation of Mr. Vice-chancellor I must confess my forwardness therein upon a supposal of sundry Additions unto Gratian and my Fellow-labourers are as earnest as my self upon that little which we have hitherto found Doubtless Gratian was one of the first Compilers of the Popish Religion in his hotch-potch of the Canon-Law but yet he is not so bad as he is made the Corruptions are of a later hue and came in long since his time I have given a taste as of all that I have hitherto done in certain rude Papers overhastily perhaps sent up to pass your Lordships Censure and Judgment and from thence to the Press that I may have a taste to present unto my Lord the Bishops and others that have already promised their helps If this of almost an hundred places corrupted in point of Religion not taking all upon an exact survey but a few to give proof of the faisibility of the Work to the common profit of the Church shall be thought fit to be printed and an hundred places of flat contradiction Men if ever will be stirred up to advance this Work for the doing whereof with some jeopardy of my Health and loss of all worldly Preferment I am most willing to be imployed to the uttermost of my simple Endeavours having nothing to promise but Fidelity and Industry Good my Lord what can be done by your Grace let it be done to the uttermost the Work is in a manner yours to God be the Glory and if the Church of England receive not as much profit by this one Work being well done as by any thing since Erasmus's Time I will never look hereafter to be
have demanded of your Lordship I am right sorry of your departure from us so soon I will intreat you to remember Chrysostom ad Caesarium Monachum I pray God to be with you in initio progressu exitu itineris My best Wishes and Devotions shall accompany you to Tredaw and there also And so with my Prayers for your Lordship's Health and Happiness I take my leave resting Your Lordships for ever Samuel Ward Sidney-Colledg July 5. 1626. Amicitia quae desinere potest nunquam vera fuit Hieron I shall be bold to transmit my Letters as occasion shall serve LETTER CIX A Letter from the most Reverend James Usher Arch-bishop of Armagh to Dr. Ward Salutem in Christo Jesu AMong the Manuscripts of the Library of Magdalen Colledg in Oxford in Dr. James's Catalogue numb 211. I found Lib. Jo. Chrysostomi contra illos qui negant veritatem carnis humane assumptae à Deo Which I verily did suppose to be the Book ad Caesarium Monichum which he wrote against the History of Sidonius Apollinarius But coming unto the Library and making search for the Book I found it was conveyed away and not to be heard of which did not a little offend me I spake with Mr. Young for the Collation of the place in Gregory Nyssen's Catechetical Oration touching the matter of the Eucharist who told me that Mr. Cafaâ—hon and himself had heretofore collated that place but could find nothing that could bring help to the interpretation of the place or make much any way to or fro You have in Trinity-College a Greek Manuscript of Euthymius's Panoplia Dogmatica wherein this is cited If you find any difference bet wixt it and the printed I pray you acquaint me therewith as also with your Judgment concerning the place of Chrysostom which I proposed unto you and the similitude of Wax which he there useth I had many things to write but am now intercepted by the time being ready to take Barque presently yet in all my haste I cannot forget Sir Ger and Harvy's business unto Trinity College in giving furtherance whereunto as I have already found your exceeding great forwardness so I earnestly intreat you in my absence to supply what I my self would most willingly have done if I were there present for which Favour to a noble Friend unto whom I have so extraordinarily been beholden as well as for the many other Fruits of your Love shewed to me I shall ever rest Your assured Friend and Brother Ja. Armachanus Leverpool Aug. 17. 1626. LETTER CX A Letter from Dr. Bambridge Professor of Astronomy in Oxford to the most Reverend James Usher Arch-bishop of Armagh Right Reverend and my singular good Lord BEsides my many obligations of Service to your Grace I am in particular engaged in an expedite and resolute method of calculating Eclipses which I hope to accomplish to your Grace's Content and would now have presented the same but that many other pursuits in my Astronomical History have taken up my time Presently after my return from your Grace I made haste to London but could find nothing of Dee's Books but bare Titles whereof some did very much please me and encourage me to make a diligent enquiry after them I reforted to Sir Rob. Cotton with very kind welcome but his Books being not yet ordered in a Catalogue I deferred my search there till another opportunity and now am bold to enter your Grace's Bibliotheca with humble request that I may have the names of such Mathematical Books as were Dee's It may be I shall find those Books whose Titles did promise so much If I had the Books at Oxford I would make an abstract of all things making to Astronomical History and Chronography the two chief Objects of my Enquiry and safely return the Books and Abstract to your Grace Being at London I procured an Arabick Book of Astronomy the Tables whereof I do perfectly understand but the Canons annexed are more difficult and yet do so much the more incite me to find out that particular meaning which is not possible without knowledg in the Arabick wherefore I have made entrance into the Rudiments thereof and hope labore Constantiâ at length to be able to translate any Arabick Book of Mathematicks It is a difficult thing which I undertake but the great hopes I have in that happy Arabia to find most precious Stones for the adorning and enriching my 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 do overcome all difficulties besides the great Satisfaction to see with mine own Eyes videre est octava scientia and not to be led hoodwinkt by others who tho they may be expert in that Tongue yet without special skill in these particular Sciences cannot truly translate the Arabick besides that every one hath a special purpose in his study of that Language taking no delight to follow anothers course flultum est ducere invitos caâ—es ad venandum I relate this to your Grace in assurance of your Favour herein if you please in your enquiry at Aleppo and other Eastern Places for Syriack Books to take in all Arabick Books of the Mathematicks and Chronology and amongst the rest a good Arabick Copy of the Alkoran the only Book whereby that Language is attained If your Grace have one already I humbly request the use thereof for some time for ours are bound Prisoners in the Library wherein are many Arabick Books but aut hore nescio-quo de re nescio qua I hope to bring them in lucem meliorem and with them many others if I may have the gracious Rays of your favourable assistance I am not yet come to the closure of my Apology I beseech your Grace's patience a while Besides my Enquiries I am very busy in the Fabrick of a large Instrument for Observations that I may mea fide both teach and write and here again I humbly entreat you to take in your Consideration my Petition at Oxford that you would as occasion shall be offered commend to the Munificence of some noble Benefactors this excellent and rare part of Astronomy 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which would certainly commend them to Posterity in the mean time I would not fail to publish their Fame unto the Learned World I may not forget in my return from your Grace I called on Mr. Burton to see his Leland and there in the Catalogue of Books in Worcester Church I found Commentarii ' Dunchagt praesulis Hybernensis in Mart. Capel opus eruditum if I do well remember for I cannot now find my written note I spake to the Dean of Worcester who was with me at Oxford about it but he made no esteem thereof Yet if it please your Grace I will cause it to be perused I shall account my self very happy if I may here do any thing worthy your Grace's Acceptation In the mean time I much desire to hear of your Grace's safe return into Ireland with your worthy Confort and with many hearty Prayers to God that
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
of Dublin And when the Sum was raised it was resolved by the Benefactors That Dr. Challoner and Mr. James Usher should have the said 1800 l. paid into their hands to procure such Books as they should judge most necessary for the Library and most useful for advancement of Learning which they accordingly undertook and coming into England for that purpose where as also from beyond Sea they procured the best Books in all kinds which were then to be had So that they most faithfully discharged that great trust to the Donors and the whole Colledges great satisfaction And it is somewhat remarkable that at this time when the said Persons were at London about laying out this money in Books they then met Sir Thomas Bodley there buying Books for his new erected Library at Oxford so that there began a correspondence between them upon this occasion helping each other to procure the choicest and best Books on several subjects that could be gotten so that the famous Bodleyan Library at Oxford and that of Dublin began together About this time the Chancellorship of St. Patrick Dublin was conferred on him by Dr. Loftus then Arch-Bishop of Dublin which was the first Ecclesiastical Preferment that he had and which he retained without taking any other Benefice until he was thence promoted to the Bishoprick of Meath Here he lived single for some years and kept Hospitality proportionable to his Incomes nor cared he for any overplus at the years end for indeed he was never a hoarder of money but for Books and Learning he had a kind of laudable covetousness and never thought a good Book either Manuscript or Printed too dear And in this place Mr. Cambden found him Anno 1607. when he was putting out the last Edition of his Britannia where speaking of Dublin he concludes thus Most of which I acknowledge to owe to the diligence and labour of James Usher Chancellor of the Church of St. Patricks who in various learning and judgment far exceeds his years And though he had here no particular obligation to preach unless sometimes in his course before the State yet he would not omit it in the place from whence he received the profits viz. Finglass not far from Dublin which he endowed with a Vicaridge and preached there every Lord's Day unless hindered by very extraordinary occasions year 1607 In the year 1607. being the seven and twentieth of his age he took the degree of Batchelor of Divinity and soon after he was chosen Divinity Professor in the University of Dublin wherein he continued thirteen years reading weekly throughout the whole year his Lectures were Polemical upon the chief Controversies in Religion especially those Points and Doctrines maintained by the Romish Church confuting their Errors and answering their Arguments by Scripture Antiquity and sound Reason which was the method he still used in that Exercise as also in his Preaching and Writings when he had to do with Controversies of that Nature then most proper to be treated on not only because incumbent upon him by virtue of his place as Professor but also in respect of Popery then prevailing in that Kingdom But as for those many learned and elaborate Lectures he then read written with his own hand and worthy to be Printed we cannot tell what is become of them those and many other of his Pieces full of excellent Learning being dispersed or lost by the many sudden removals of his Papers or detained by such to whom they were lent and as 't is pity any of the Works of this great man should be lost so I wish that those Persons who have any of them in their hands would restore them to compleat these Remains since they cannot be so useful in private Studies as they would be if published to the World year 1609 About this time there was a great dispute about the Herenagh Terman or Corban Lands which anciently the Chorepiscopi received which as well concerned the Bishops of England as Ireland He wrote a learned Treatise of it so approved that it was sent to Arch-Bishop Bancroft and by him presented to King James the substance of which was afterwards Translated by Sir Henry Spelman into Latin and published in the first part of his Glossary as himself acknowledgeth giving him there this Character Literarum insignis Pharus Which Treatise is still in Manuscript in the Arch-Bishop's Library at Lambeth This year also he came over into England to buy Books and to converse with learned men and was now first taken notice of at Court preaching before the Houshold which was a great honour in those days And now whilst here he made it his business to inquire into the most hidden and private paths of Antiquity for which purpose he inquired after and consulted the best Manuscripts of both Universities and in all Libraries both publick and private and came acquainted with the most learned men here such as Mr. Cambden Sir Robert Cotton Sir John Bourchier after Earl of Bath Mr. Selden Mr. Brigs Astronomy Professor in the University of Oxford Mr. Lydiat Dr. Davenant after Lord Bishop of Salisbury Dr. Ward off Cambridge and divers others with most of whom he kept a constant Friendship and Correspondence to their Deaths After this he constantly came over into England once in three years spending one Month of the Summer at Oxford another at Cambridge the rest of the time at London spending his time chiefly in the Cottonian Library the Noble and Learned Master of which affording him a free access not only to that but his own Conversation year 1610 This being the thirtieth years of his age he was unanimously chosen by the Fellows of Dublin Colledge to the Provostship of that House but he refused it fearing it might prove a hinderance to his studies no other reason caN be given for his refusal For at that time he was deeply engaged in the Fathers Councils and Church History comparing Things with Things Times with Times gathering and laying up in store Materials for the repairing of the decayed Temple of Knowledge and endeavouring to separate the purer Mettal from the Dross with which Time Ignorance and the Arts of ill designing men had in latter Ages corrupted and sophisticated it For some years before he began to make large Notes and Observations upon the Writings of the Fathers and other Theological Authors beginning with those of the first Century and so going on with the rest as they occurred in order of time passing his judgment on their Works and divers Passages in them which were genuine which spurious or forged or else ascribed to wrong Authors So that in the space of about eighteen or nineteen years in which he made it his chief study he had read over all the Greek and Latin Fathers as also most of the considerable School-men and Divines from the first to the thirteenth Century So he was now well able to judge whether the passages quoted by our adversaries were truly cited or not or
were wrested to a wrong sense And this he did not out of bare Curiosity but to confute the Arrogance of those men who will still appeal though with ill success to Antiquity and the Writings of the Fathers But these learned Collections of his being a large Volume and designed by him as the foundation of a more large and elaborate Work which might have been of great use to the Church were never finished but remain still in Manuscript though he fully intended had God afforded him life to have fallen upon this as the only considerable work he had left to do and which perhaps he had performed many years before his death had it not been for that unhappy Irish Rebellion which bereft him not only of that but of all his other Books for some time except those he brought over with him or furnished himself with here so that when at last this Manuscript together with the rest of his Library was brought over from Droghedah they found him engaged in that long and laborious Work of his Annals and when that was done he had as an Appendix thereunto his Chronologia Sacra to perfect though he never lived to make an end of it so that it is no wonder if he wanted opportunity and leisure to finish this great Task But that he intended to give his last hand to this Work will appear from this passage in his Epistle to the Reader before his answer to the Jesuite's Challenge in these words The exact discussion as well of the Authors Times as of the Censures of their Works I refer to my Theological Bibliothcque if God hereafter shall lend me life and leisure to make up that Work for the use of those that mean to give themselves to that Noble Study of the Doctrine and Rites of the Ancient Church And how much he desired it might be done may farther appear that being askt upon his Death-bed What his Will was concerning those Collections He answered to this effect That he desired they might be committed to his dear friend Dr. Langbaine Provost of Queens Colledge the only man on whose Learning as well as Friendship he could rely to cast them into such a Form as might render them fit for the Press According to which bequest they were put into the hands of that learned Dr. who in order thereunto had them transcribed and then set himself to fill up the breaches in the Original the quotations in the Margine being much defaced with Rats about which laborious Task that learned and good man studying in the publick Library at Oxford in a very severe Season got such an extreme cold as quickly to the great grief of all good men brought him to his end Feb. An. 1657. So that though that excellent Person Dr. Fell now Lord Bishop of Oxford who has deserved so well of Learning has endeavoured to get those Lacunae filled up yet these Collections still remain unfit to be published though the transcript from the Original with the Marginal quotations and additions are now in the Bodleyan Library as a lasting Monument of the Lord Primate's Learning and Industry and may be like wise useful to those learned Persons for whom they were designed and who will take the pains to consult them But the Original of the Authors hand writing is or was lately in the possession of the Reverend and Learned Anno 1612 Dr. Edward Stillingfleet Dean of St. Pauls He was now in the 32 d. year of his age in which he took the Degree of Dr. of Divinity in that University wherein he was bred and to which he was admitted by Dr. Hampton then Arch-Bishop of Armagh and Vice-Chancellor after he had performed the usual Exercises part of which was to read two Solemn Lectures on some places of Scripture which he then did on Dan. 9. 24. Of the Seventy Weeks And on Rev. 20. 4. Explaining those Texts so mis-applied Anno 1613 by the Millenaries both in Elder and Latter times The next year being at London he published his first Treatise De Ecclesiarum Christianarum Successione Statu being much magnified by Casaubon and Scultetus in their Greek and Latin Verses before it was solemnly presented by Arch-Bishop Abbot to King James as the eminent First-fruits of that Colledge of Dublin It is imperfect for about 300 years from Gregory XI to Leo X. i. e. from 1371. to 1513. and from thence to this last Century which he intended to have added had God afforded him longer life though he had lost very considerable assistances towards that design as you will find hereafter in the Series of this Relation This he wrote to answer that great Objection of the Papists when they ask us Where our Religion was before Luther And therefore the design of this Book was to prove from Authors of unquestionable Credit and Antiquity that Christ has always had a Visible Church of true Christians who had not been tainted with the Errours and Corruptions of the Romish Church and that even in the midst of the darkest and most ignorant times and that these Islands owe not their first Christianity to Rome About this time also he altered his condition changing a single for a married life marrying Phoebe only Daughter of Luke Challoner Doctor of Divinity of the Ancient Family of the Challoners in Yorkshire who had been a great Assister and Benefactor to the late Erected Colledge at Dublin having been appointed Overseer of the Building and Treasurer for the money raised to that purpose He was a Learned and Pious man and had such a friendship for Dr. Usher that he courted his Alliance and intended had he lived to have given him this his only Daughter with a considerable Estate in Land and Money but dying before he could see it concluded he charged her upon his Death-bed that if Dr. Usher would marry her she should think of no other person for a Husband which command of her dying Father she punctually obeyed and was married to him soon after and was his Wife for about forty years and was always treated by him with great kindness and conjugal affection until her death which preceded his about one year and a half He had by her one only Child the Lady Tyrrel yet living Thus he lived for several years in great reputation pursuing his Studies and following his Calling and whilst he sat at home endeavouring the advancement of Vertue and Learning his fame flew abroad almost all over Europe and divers learned men not only in England but foreign Countries made their applications to him by Letters as well to express the honour and respect they had for him as also for satisfaction in several doubtful points either in humane Learning or Divinity as the Reader may see in this ensuing Collection Anno 1615 There was now a Parliament at Dublin and so a Convocation of the Clergy when the Articles of Ireland were composed and published and he being a Member of the Synod was appointed to
alteration that every year should afford matter enough to be taken notice of in this account therefore I shall only here give you in general the more remarkable transactions of his Life from this time till his going over into England not long before that unhappy War After his being Arch-Bishop he laid out a great deal of money Anno 1627 in Books laying aside every year a considerable Sum for that end and especially for the procuring of Manuscripts as well from foreign Parts as near at hand having about this time by the means of Mr. Thomas Davis then Merchant at Aleppo procured one of the first Samaritan Pentateuchs that ever was brought into these Western Parts of Europe as Mr. Selden and Dr. Walton acknowledge as also the Old Testament in Syriack much more perfect than had hitherto been seen in these Parts together with other Manuscripts of value This Pentateuch with the rest were borrowed of him by Dr. Walton after Bishop of Chester and by him made use of in the Polyglot Bible All which Manuscripts being lately retrieved out of the hands of the said Bishop's Executors are now in the Bodleyan Library at Oxford a fit Repository for such Sacred Monuments About this time the Lord Viscount Falkland being re-called Anno 1629 from being Deputy of Ireland was waited on by the Lord Primate to the Sea side of whom taking his leave and begging his Blessing he set sail for England having before contracted an intimate friendship with the Lord Primate which lasted till his death nor did the Lord Primate fail to express his friendship to him on all occasions after his departure doing his utmost by Letters to several of the Lords of his Majesties Privy-Council here for his Vindication from several false Accusations which were then laid to his charge by some of the Irish Nation before his Majesty which Letters together with the Vindication of the Council of Ireland by their Letter to his Majesty of his just and equal Government did very much contribute to the clearing of his Innocence in those things whereof he was then accused This year the happy news of the birth of Prince Charles his late Gracious Majesty then Prince of Wales being brought into Ireland Anno 1630 by an Express on purpose the Lords Justices and Council order'd a Solemn Day of Thanksgiving for that great happiness and the Lord Primate was invited as I find by their Letter to preach before them on that occasion as he did accordingly My Lord Primate published at Dublin his History of Gotteschalcus Anno 1631 and of the Predestinarian Controversie stirred by him being the first Latin Book that was ever printed in Ireland Wherein after a short account of Pelagianism which had then much spread it self in Spain and Britain he proceeds to the History of Gotteschalcus a Monk of the Abby of Orbais who lived in the beginning of the IX Century and his Opinions shewing out of Flodoardus and other approved Writers of that Age that the points then held by this learned Monk and that were then laid to his charge by Hincmar Arch-Bishop of Rhemes and Rabanus Arch-Bishop of Mentz and which they got condemned in a Synod held in that City as also in another at Quierzy were notwithstanding defended and maintained by Remigius or St. Remy Arch-Bishop of Lyons and the Church of that Diocess as consonant to the Scriptures and Writings of the Fathers And that indeed divers dangerous Opinions and Consequences were imputed to this learned Monk which he was not guilty of And after an account of the heads of a Treatise written by J. Scotius Erigene in defence of Free-will and the contrary Opinions to those of Gotteschalce the Lord Primate then likewise gives the sum of the Censure which Florus Deacon of Lyons writ against the same in the name of that Church As also of several Writings of Remigius Arch-Bishop of Lyons Pudentius Bishop of Troyes and Ratramus a Monk of Corbey in defence of the said Gotteschalce's Opinions and against the extravagant Tenets of Scotus Which Disputes produced two other Synods at Bonoil and Neufle in France wherein the Opinions held by Gotteschalce were asserted and the contrary as maintained by Scotus were condemned Though those Councils were still opposed and censured by Hincmar in a large Book dedicated to the Emperour Charles the Bald the heads of which are there set down out of Flodoard Which yet did not at all satisfie the contrary party nor hinder Remigius Arch-Bishop of Lyons and his Provincial Bishops from calling another Council at Langres wherein the Canons of the Valentinian Council were confirmed and those Propositions maintained by Scotus were again condemned Which Canons were also referred to the judgment of the General Council of the XII Provinces assembled at Thoul and being there debated were not by it condemned as Baronius and others will have it but for quietness sake were again referred to the judgment of the next General Assembly that the Doctrines of the Church and Fathers being produced those should be agreed on that should then appear most Sound and Orthodox And in the Conclusion my Lord there shews the great constancy of this poor Monk who notwithstanding his cruel whippings and long imprisonment to which he had been condemned by the Council of Mentz till his death yet he would never Recant but made two Confessions of his Faith which are there set down and by which it appears That many things were laid to his charge and condemned in those Councils which he never held In this Treatise as the Lord Primate has shewn himself excellently well skill'd in the Church History of those dark and ignorant Ages so he there concludes that men should not Dogmatize in these Points And indeed there ever have been and still will be different Opinions concerning these great and abstruse questions of Predestination and Free-will which yet may be tolerated and consist in any Church if the maintainers of either the one side or other will use that Charity as they ought and forbear publickly to condemn rail at or write against each other About this time the Romish Faction growing there very prevalent Anno 1631 by reason of some former connivance by the State as also for want of due instruction as hath been already said and likewise that divers abuses had crept into the Church not only among the inferior Clergy but the Bishops themselves all which had been represented by the Lords Committees for Irish Affairs to his Majesty who thereupon thought fit to send over his Letters into Ireland to all the Arch-Bishops of that Kingdom as well to put them in mind of their duty as to strengthen their Authority which were as follows CHARLES REX MOst Reverend Father in God right Trusty and entirely Beloved We Greet you well Among such disorders as the Lords of Our Privy-Council Deputed by Us to a particular care of Our Realm of Ireland and the Affairs thereof have observed and represented to Us in
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
though upon a sad occasion of his Majesty's excellent conversation in the same House who received him with his wonted kindness and favour Whilst he was here the Lord Primate preached before him in the Castle and when his Majesty went away and that the Lord Primate had taken his leave of him I heard him declare that nothing came nearer to his heart than the imminent danger of the King and Church with the effusion of so much Christian Blood His Majesty's necessities now not permitting him to leave many men in Garrisons he was now forced to unfurnish this as well as others of its Souldiers and Ammunition so that Sir Timothy Tyrrel was forced to quit that Government by reason of which the Arch-Bishop being forced to remove was in a great strait whether to go the ways from thence to Oxford being all cut off by the Enemy so that he had some thoughts being near the Sea of going over into France or Holland to both which places he had been formerly invited as hath been already mentioned But whilst he was in this perplexity the Lady Dowager Stradling sent him a kind invitation to come to her Castle of St. Donates as soon as he pleased which he accepted as a great favour But by that time he was ready to go with his Daughter the Lady Tyrrel the Country thereabouts was up in Arms in a tumultuous manner to the number of Ten Thousand as was supposed who chose themselves Officers to form them into a Body pretending for the King but yet would not be governed by English Commanders or suffer any English Garrisons in the Country this gave the Lord Primate a fresh disturbance the Welch-men lying upon the ways between that place and St. Donates but there were some at that time in Caerdiffe who would needs undertake to convey the Lord Primate and his company through by ways so that they might avoid this tumultuous Rabble which though it might be well advised by the then Governor of Caerdiffe and was faithfully enough executed by them that undertook it yet happened very ill for my Lord and those that were with him for going by some private ways near the Mountains they fell into a stragling Party that were scouting thereabouts who soon led them to their main Body where it was Crime enough that they were English so that they immediately fell to plundering and breaking open my Lord Brimate's Chests of Books and other things which he then had with him ransacking all his Manuscripts and Papers many of them of his own hand writing which were quickly dispersed among a thousand hands and not content with this they pulled the Lord Primate and his Daughter and other Ladies from their Horses all which the Lord Primate bore with his wonted patience and a seeming unconcernedness But now some of their Officers coming in who were of the Gentry of the Country seemed very much ashamed of this barbarous treatment and by force or fair means caused their Horses and other things which were taken from them to be restored but as for the Books and Papers they were got into too many hands to be then retrieved nor were these Gentlemen satisfied with this but some of them very civilly conducted him through the rest of this tumultuous Rabble to Sir John Aubery's House not far off where he was civilly received and lodged that Night When he came thither and had retired himself I must confess that I never saw him so much troubled in my life and those that were with him before my self said That he seemed not more sensibly concerned for all his losses in Ireland than for this saying to his Daughter and those that endeavoured to comfort him I know that it is God's hand and I must endeavour to bear it patiently though I have too much humane frailty not to be extremely concerned for I am touched in a very tender place and He has thought â—it to take from me at once all that I have been gathering together above these twenty years and which I intended to publish for the advancement of Learning and the good of the Church The next day divers of the neighbouring Gentry and Clergy came to Visit him and to Condole this irreparable loss promising to do their utmost endeavours that what Books or Papers were not burnt or torn should be restored and so very civilly waited on him to St. Donates And to let you see that these Gentlemen and Ministers did not only promise but were also able to perform it they so used their power with the people that publishing in the Churches all over those parts That all that had any such Books or Papers should bring them to their Ministers or Landlords which they accordingly did so that in the space of two or three Months there were brought in to him by parcels all his Books and Papers so fully that being put altogether we found not many wanting those most remarkable that I or others can call to mind were two Manuscripts concerning the VValdenses which he much valued and which he had obtained toward the continuing of his Ecclesiarum Christianarum Successione As also another Manuscript Catalogue of the Persian Kings communicated by Elikmannus and one Volume of Manuscripts Variae Lectiones of the New Testament And of Printed Books only Tully's Works and some others of less concernment Whilst the Lord Primate was at St. Donates till he could get his own Books and Papers again he spent his time chiefly in looking over the Books and Manuscripts in the Library in that Castle and which had been collected by Sir Edward Stradling a great Antiquary and friend of Mr. Cambden's and out of some of these Manuscripts the L. Primate made many choice Collections of the British or Welch Antiquity which I have now in my Custody Within a little more than a Month after my Lord Primate's coming hither he was taken with a sharp and dangerous illness which began at first with the Strangury and suppression of Urine with extremity of torture which at last caused a violent bleeding at the Nose for near forty hours together without any considerable intermission no means applied could stop it so that the Physicians and all about him dispaired of his life till at last when we apprehended he was expiring it stanched of it self for he lay a good while in a trance but God had some farther work for him to perform and was pleased by degrees to restore him to his former health and strength but it is worth the remembering that whilst he was in the midst of his pain as also his bleeding he was still patient praising God and resigning up himself to his Will and giving all those about him or that came to visit him excellent Heavenly advice to a Holy Life and due preparation for death e're its Agonies seized them saying It is a dangerous thing to leave all undone till our last sickness I fear a Death-bed Repentance will avail us little if we have lived
rejoyce and to shevv themselves cheerful vvhereas the vicious and vvicked have the greatest reason to be sad And as he advised others so he himself vvas alvvays of an even cheerful temper seldom troubled or discomposed unless he found such occasions as those above mentioned and indeed his conversation vvith Heaven gave him all the reason imaginable to be so for besides his private devotions Morning and Evening he never omitted vvhen he kept house to have prayers there four times a day publickly viz. in the Morning at six in the Evening at eight besides the whole Service before Dinner and Supper in his Chappel at which he was always present as he also was when it was constantly read at the Countess of Peterborough's or other Families where he lived From whence you may observe the reverend esteem he had for our Liturgy so that when some had traduced him as if he had spoke flightingly of it he took it very ill as appears by what I find of his own hand in his private Manual January 16th 1655. Not long before his death which I suppose he wrote on purpose that those who should peruse his Papers might take notice of it Of the Book of Common-Prayer I have always had a reverend and a very high esteem and therefore that at any time I should say it was an Idol is a shameless and a most abominable untruth J. A. And he did so much approve of set Forms of Prayer in publick that he always kept himself to one constant short pathetical Prayer before his Sermons with little alteration And though this Apostolical Preacher and Prelate was as much able as any to instruct and direct others in all matters of Religion yet would he still give a good Example and offer himself to be a learner and though he had preached in the Morning yet would he rarely miss his Attendance at the publick Service in the Afternoon and was observed to be one of the most devout at Prayers and the most attentive hearer of any in the Congregation nor would he admit any drowsiness to seize him nor suffer any thing to divert him from the present business And as he used plain preaching himself so was he much pleased with a pious practical discourse from others as if he had been to learn what he never knew before He delighted to hear sin rebuked and laid open in all its colours and Christ and his Kingdom exalted this was always a pleasant Theme to him and he would afterwards thank and encourage the Preacher when he had thus performed his duty to do so still Having given you some account of his private Conversation we will now proceed to that of his more Publick I have already given you an Idea of his way of Preaching to which I shall only add that in his delivery his very Voice and Gesture were moving and perswasive yet without any Tone or Affectation so that his preaching was with Authority and not with inticeing words of humane wisdom but in demonstration of the Spirit and with Power He had that fluency and ready command of words that for many years he never committed more to writing than the Heads of his Sermons trusting the rest after he had well considered what to say wholly to his memory which though it might render his Sermons not so fit to be published as wanting that polishing and exactness of Style which those that write and supervise their own Sermons are able to give them Yet on the other side his discourses had that Pathos and natural vigor the very sinews of perswasion which must needs be wanting in those that are read nor yet does abound being always attended with some concern in those who speak their written Sermons without Book And indeed considering how constantly he preached had he tyed himself up to that drudgery he would scarce have had time for any other business But this made him not desirous of having any of his Sermons printed since he was sufficiently sensible of the great disadvantage they must appear abroad withal as well in respect of those Errors and Omissions which those that take Sermons in Characters must needs be liable to as also because they wanted his own Eye and Correction to be added to them both which are requisite to make any discourse so exact and coherent as it ought to be But to add something farther of his way and method in his popular Sermons as he was an excellent Textuary so it was his custom to run through all the parallel places that concerned the subject on which he treated and paraphrase and illustrate them as they referred to each other and their particular Contexts he himself as he past on turning his Bible from place to place and giving his Auditory time to do the like Whereby as he render'd his preaching extreme easie to himself so it became no less beneficial to his Auditors acquainting them with the Holy Scriptures and enabling them to recur to the proofs he cited by which the memory was very much help'd to recover the Series of what was discoursed upon from them He never cared to tire his Auditory with the length of his Sermon knowing well that as the satisfaction in hearing decreases so does the attention also and people instead of minding vvhat is said only listen vvhen there is like to be an end And to let you see hovv strictly he endeavoured to keep himself to this Rule though sometimes to the great regret of his hearers I shall give you this one instance About a year before he died vvhen he had left off preaching constantly he vvas importuned being then in London by the Countess of Peterborough and some other Persons of Quality to give them a Sermon at St. Martin's Church as vvell because it vvas the Parish vvhere he then lived as that it vvas a Church vvhere his voice vvould be best heard of any thereabouts The Lord Primate complyed vvith their desires and preached a Sermon highly satisfactory to his Auditory but after a pretty vvhile the Bishop happening to look upon the Hour-Glass vvhich stood from the light and through the weakness and deficiency of his sight mistaking it to be out when indeed it was not he concluded telling them since the time was past he would leave the rest he had to say on that Subject to another opportunity if God should please to grant it him of speaking again to them in that place But the Congregation finding out my Lord's mistake and that there was some of the hour yet to come and not knowing whether they might ever have the like happiness of hearing him again made signs to the Reader to let him know that the Glass being not run out they earnestly desired he would make an end of all he intended to have spoken which the Reader performing the Bishop received it very kindly and reassuming his discourse where he broke off he concluded with an Exhortation full of Heavenly matter for almost half an hour
this good Bishop took delight to advise others in the exercise of this great Duty so likewise he said none of his Labours adminstred greater comfort to him in his Old Age than that he had ever since he vvas called to the Ministry vvhich vvas very early endeavoured to discharge that great Trust committed unto him of preaching the Gospel vvhich he accounted so much his duty that he made this the Motto of his Episcopal Seal Vae mihi si non Evangelizavero I mention not this as if he thought all those of his ovvn Order vvere obliged to preach constantly themselves since he was sensible that God hath not bestowed the same Talents on all men alike but as St. Paul says Gave some Apostles and some Pastors and Teachers though on some he hath bestowed all these gifts as on this great Prelate yet it is not often And besides God's Providence so ordained that as he had qualified him in an extraordinary manner for the preaching of the Gospel so likewise towards his latter end he should be reduced to that condition as in great part to live by it And here I cannot omit that amongst many of those Advices which he gave to those who came to him for Spiritual Counsel one was concerning Afflictions as a necessary mark of being a Child of God which some might have gathered out of certain unwary passages in Books and which he himself had met with in his Youth and which wrought upon him so much that he earnestly prayed God to deal with him that way and he had his request And he told me that from that time he was not without various Afflictions through the whole course of his life and therefore he advised that no Christian should tempt God to shew such a Sign for a mark of his paternal love but to wait and be prepared for them and patient under them and to consider the intention of them so as to be the better for them when they are inflicted And by no means to judge of a man's Spiritual State either by or without Afflictions for they are fallible Evidences in Spiritual matters but that we should look after a real sincere Conversion and internal Holiness which indeed is the only true Character and Evidence of a state of Salvation I have already given you some account of his carriage whilst he exercised his Sacred Function in his own Country to which I shall only add That as his Discipline was not too severe so was it not remiss being chiefly exercised upon such as were remarkably Vicious and Scandalous in their Lives and Conversations whether of the Clergy or Laity for as he loved and esteemed the sober diligent and pious Clergy-men and could not endure they should be wronged or contemned so as for those who were Vicious Idle and cared not for their Flocks he would call them the worst of men being a scandal to the Church and a blemish to their profession and therefore he was always very careful what persons he Ordained to this high Calling observing St. Paul's injunction to Timothy Lay hands suddenly on no man And I never heard he Ordained more than one person who was not sufficiently qualified in respect of Learning and this was in so extraordinary a case that I think it will not be amiss to give you a short account of it there was a certain English Mechanick living in the Lord Primate's Diocess who constantly frequented the publick Service of the Church and attained to a competent knowledge in the Scriptures and gave himself to read what Books of Practical Divinity he could get and was reputed among his Neighbours and Protestants thereabouts a very honest and Pious Man this Person applyed himself to the Lord Primate and told him That he had an earnest desire to be admitted to the Ministry but the Bishop refused him advising him to go home and follow his Calling and pray to God to remove this Temptation yet after some time he returns again renewing his request Saying He could not be at rest in his Mind but that his desires toward that Calling encreased more and more whereupon the Lord Primate discoursed him and found upon Examination that he gave a very good account of his Faith and knowledge in all the main points of Religion Then the Bishop questioned him farther if he could speak Irish for if not his Preaching would be of little use in a Country where the greatest part of the People were Irish that understood no English The Man replyed that indeed he could not speak Irish but if his Lordship thought fit he would endeavour to learn it which he bid him do and as soon as he had attained the Language to come again which he did about a Twelvemonth after telling my Lord that he could now express himself tolerably well in Irish and therefore desired Ordination whereupon the Lord Primate finding upon Examination that he spake Truth Ordained him accordingly being satisfied that such an ordinary Man was able to do more good than if he had Latin without any Irish at all nor was the Bishop deceived in his expectation for this Man as soon as he had a Cure imployed his Talent diligently and faithfully and proved very successful in Converting many of the Irish Papists to our Church and continued labouring in that Work until the Rebellion and Massacre wherein he hardly escaped with Life And as this good Bishop did still protect and encourage those of his own Coat so did he likewise all poor Men whom he found oppressed or wronged by those above them And for an instance of this I will give you part of a Letter which he Writ to a Person of Quality in Ireland in behalf of a poor Man which was his Tenant whom he found much wronged and oppressed by him viz. I Am much ashamed to receive such Petitions against you Have you never read that the unrighteous and he that doth wrong shall not inherit the Kingdom of God Think there is a God who heareth the Cry of the Poor and may bring a rot upon your Flocks and Curse every thing you put your hand to And if you think not of him because you see him not although he sees you through and through yet believe your own Eyes and consider that he hath appointed his Deputies upon Earth the higher Powers which will not suffer the Poor to be oppressed by you or those that are greater than you for shame therefore give content to this Petitioner that you hear not of this in a place where your Face must blush and your Ears tingle at the hearing of it J. A. Now having given as brief a Character as I could of this excellent Prelate not only as a private Man but also a Minister and Bishop of Gods Church and as a most Loyal Subject to his Lawful Sovereign Prince expressed upon all occasions I should proceed in the last place to give some account of his Judgment and Opinions in points of Religion and
there be any other places or other Mansions by which the Soul that believeth in God passing and coming unto that River which maketh glad the City of God may receive within it the lot of the Inheritance promised unto the Fathers For touching the determinate state of the faithful Souls departed this life the ancient Doctors as we have shewed were not so throughly resolved The Lord Primat having thus shewn in what sence many of the ancient Fathers did understand this word Hades which we translate Hell proceeds to shew that divers of them expound Christ's Descent into Hell or Hades according to the common Law of Nature which extends it self indifferently unto all that die For as Christ's Soul was in all points made like unto ours Sin only excepted while it was joined with his Body here in the Land of the Living so when he had humbled himself unto the Death it became him in all things to be made like unto his Brethren even in the state of dissolution And so indeed the Soul of Jesus had experience of both for it was in the place of human Souls and being out of the Flesh did live and subsist It was a reasonable Soul therefore and of the same substance with the flesh of Men proceeding from Mary Saith Eustathius the Patriarch of Antioch in his Exposition of that Text of the Psalm Thou wilt not leave my Soul in Hell 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the place of humane Souls which in the Hebrew is the world of Spirits and by the disposing of Christ's Soul there after the manner of other Souls concludes it to be of the same nature with other Mens Souls So St. Hilary in his Exposition of the 138th Psalm This is the Law of humane Necessity saith he that the Bodies being buried the Souls should go to Hell Which descent the Lord did not refuse for the accomplishment of a true man And a little after he repeats it that desupernis ad inferos mortis lege descendit He descended from the supernal to the infernal parts by the Law of Death And upon Psal. 53. more fully To fulfil the Nature of Man he subjected himself to Death that is to a departure as it were of the Soul and Body and pierced into the infernal seats which was a thing that seemed to be due unto Man I shall not trouble you with more Quotations of this kind out of several of the ancient Greek and Latin Fathers which he makes use of in this Treatise most of them agreeing in this That Christ died and was buried and that his Soul went to that place or receptacle where the Souls of good Men do remain after Death which whether it is no more in effect but differing in terms than to say he died and was buried and rose not till the third day which the Doctor makes to be the absurdity of this Opinion I leave to the Judgment of the impartial Reader as I likewise do whether the Lord Primat deserves so severe a Censure after his shewing so great Learning as he has done concerning the various Interpretations of this word Hades or Hell both out of sacred and prophane Writers that it only serves to amaze the Ignorant and confound the Learned Or that he meant nothing less in all these Collections than to assert the Doctrine of the Church of England in this particular Or whether Christ's Local Descent into Hell can be found in the Book of Articles which he had subscribed to or in the Book of Common-Prayer which he was bound to conform to And if it be not so expressed in any of these I leave it to you to judge how far Dr. H. is to be believed in his Accusation against the Lord Primat in other matters But I doubt I have dwelt too long upon this less important Article which it seems was not thought so fundamental a one but as the Lord Primat very well observes Ruffinus in his Exposition of the Creed takes notice that in the Creed or Symbol of the Church of Rome there is not added He descended into Hell and presently adds yet the force or meaning of the word seems to be the same in that he is said to have been buried So that it seems old Ruffinus is one of those who is guilty of this Impertinency as the Doctor calls it of making Christ's descent into Hell to signifie the same with his lying in the Grave or being buried tho the same Author takes notice that the Church of Aquileia had this Article inserted in her Creed but the Church of Rome had not which sure with Men of the Doctor 's way should be a Rule to other Churches And further Card. Bellarmin noteth as the Lord Primat confesses that St. Augustin in his Book De Fide Symbolo and in his four Books de Symbolo ad Catechumenos maketh no mention of this Article when he doth expound the whole Creed five several times Which is very strange if the Creed received by the African Church had this Article in it Ruffinus further takes notice that it is not found in the Symbol of the Churches of the East by which he means the Nicene and Constantinopolitan Creeds the latter of which is nothing else but an Explanation or more ample Enlargement of Creed Apostolical Tho this indeed be not at this day read in the Greek or other Eastern Churches or so much as known or received in that of the Copties and Abyssines But the Doctor having shown his Malice against the Lord Primat's Memory and Opinions in those Points which I hope I have sufficiently answered cannot give off so but in the next Section accuses him for inserting the nine Articles of Lambeth into those of the Church of Ireland being inconsistent with the Doctrine of the Church of England But before I answer this Accusation I shall first premise that as I do not defend or approve that Bishops or others tho never so learned Divines should take upon them to make new Articles or define and determine doubtful Questions and Controversies in Religion without being authorized by the King and Convocation so to do Yet thus much I may charitably say of those good Bishops and other Divines of the Church of England who framed and agreed upon these Articles that what they did in this matter was sincerely and as they then believed according to the Doctrine of the Church of England as either expresly contained in or else to be drawn by consequence from that Article of the Church concerning Predestination And certainly this makes stronger against the Doctor for if with him the Judgment of Bp. Bilson Bp. Andrews and Mr. Noel in their Writings be a sufficient Authority to declare the sence of the Church of England in those Questions of Christ's true and real Presence in the Sacrament and his Local Descent into Hell why should not the Judgment and Determination of the two Arch-Bishops of Canterbury and York with divers other Bishops and
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
A Letter from Mr. William Eyres to Mr. James Usher afterward Arch-Bishop of Armagh Clarissimo Viro ac amico suo singulari Dom. Jacobo Usher sacrae Theologiae Professori eximio Guil. Eyre salutem in Christo. Cùm multis aliis nominibus clarissime charissiméque Usher metibi oboeratum esse lubens agnoscam tum postremùm pro libro quem superiore anno abs te dono accepi intelligo historicam tuam explicationem gravissimae questionis cujus tertiam partem multi sat scio avide desiderant expectant certe omnes qui Orthodoxam fidem amplexantur pro utilissimo hoc opere tuo multùm tibi debent Beasti me hoc munere ut non dicam quanti aestimo atque praeterea animum addidisti ad antiquitatis studia intermissa in quibus infantiam meam agnosco jam hospes plane fui in iisdem praesertim perquinquennium quo hic Colestriae assiduis ad populum concionibus distentus fuerim Gratulor tibi purpuram si verus sit rumor nobis etiam ipsis Vitam Valetudinem tuam gratulari debeo propter tristem rumorem de morte tua apud nos sparsum cura quaeso Valetudinem ac si me audies minùs frequens eris post reditum tuum in Angliam quem expectamus quà m olim fueris Londini concionibus ne ardor tuus citiùs quà m cupimus languescat Tu quidem ipsissimos antiquitatis fontes reconditos thesauros apperuisti limatissimo judicio Veritatem collegisti quam scioli nonnulli ex Foxii Martyrologio aliisque id genus rivulis tantum derivatum à te affirmare non dubitârunt Hoc forsan in proxima operis editione vel saltem in ejusdem proxima parte praeoccupare juvabit Sed in tanta re minimè opus esse consilio existimo Atque de his rebus si nobis tam liceat esse fortunatis in Angliâ reverentiam vestram alloqui speramus Aliquoties Domino nostro Domino Archiepiscopo Cantuariensi Academiae vestrae Cancellario officium meum praesentare soleo quod si aliquid sit vobis negotii apud illum quod mea tenuitas expedire possit nec mihi nec meis parcere decrevi sed facilè intelligo paratissimos vos habere Londini quorum opera uti liceat hoc tantum amoris Officii mei erga vos Collegium vestrum Gratiâ calamo incidebat Deus opt max. clementissimus in Christo Pater vos omnes omni benedictionum genere cumulatissimos reddat per Dominum nostrum Jesum Amen Guil. Eyre Colcestriae 29. die Aprilis 1615. LETTER XVI A Letter from Mr. H. Briggs professor of Astronomy at Gresham College to Mr. James Usher late Arch-Bishop of Armagh Salutem in Christo. Good Sir MR. Carew shewed me your Letter written to Mr. Smith of Lincolns-Inn whose Death I perceive even we which did not know him have much cause to lament wherein you mention me and a Letter which formerly you Writ to me which never came to my hands But to the point which here you repeat I cannot tell how to meet with that part of Theon his Commentary upon Ptolomoeus his magna constructio I have it in Greek but there I have no hope to find that thing either explained or recorded There is in Christman upon Alfraganus which I suppose you have in his Treatise de connexione annorum pag. 306. and in other places mention of oera Philippica which Kabasilla maketh the same with à morte Alexandri but the Arabs ignorantly confound Philip and Alexander and Alexander and Nicanor making oeram Alexandrinam Seleucidarum 12 years and 325 days later than oera Philippica But I am out of mine element and I do not doubt but you have these things better known than I can But I shall most gladly do any thing I can according to your direction Concerning Eclipses which my Coufien Midgeley putteth me in mind of from you for whom I heartily thank you and for all your other kindnesses Mullerus in his Phris Tabulis hath mightily discouraged me for he hath weakned the Prutenicks my Foundation in three places of his Book at least yet hath not either helped it or shewed the fault in particular that others might seek remedy I have seriously set upon it but these difficulties and other straitness of time and weight of other easier and more proper business have sore against my will forced me to lay it aside as yet till I can find better leisure and then I hope still to do somewhat Napper Lord of Markinston hath set my Head and Hands a Work with his new and admirable Logarithms I hope to see him this Summer if it please God for I never saw Book which pleased me better or made me more wonder I purpose to discourse with him concerning Eclipses for what is there which we may not hope for at his hands Paulus Middleb is at pawn as I hear and the other Book likewise but I have somuch as I can in Mr. Crawshaw's absence had care to have them kept I pray you if you see Mr. Widdows commend me heartily to him We have here long expected him Thus desiring the Almighty ever to bless and prosper you referring all news c. to Mr. Egerton's report I take my leave from Gresham House this 10th of March 1615. Yours ever to his Power in the Lord H. Briggs Let me I pray put you in mind de pres numero Officio I set it here that you may the more seriously remember it LETTER XVII A Letter from the most Reverend Tobias Mathews Arch-Bishop of York to James Usher late Arch-Bishop of Armagh Salutem in Christo Jesu HAving oftentimes wished occasion to Write unto you since the publication of that your Learned Work de continuâ Successione Statu Christianarum Ecclesiarum c. God now at last though long first sending so good opportunity by this honest Religious Gentleman Mr. Peregrine Towthby I can do no less than both wish and advise you to Proceed in the full performance of the same by addition of the third part according to the project of your whole Design Which last shall I hope be no less useful and beneficial to all Christian and truly Catholick Professors than the former have been and are like to be for ever And as I doubt not but you may contain the rest within the compass of no more at the most than the Volume already extant doth comprehend So do I verily perswade my self you shall therein glorifie God and edifie his People exceedingly Especially if you will but interlace or adjoyn some rather judicious than large or copious discourse of this punctual question or objection Quid de Salute Patrum Majorum nostrum c. fit statuendum whereof albeit some other good Authors have well and worthily delivered their Opinions yet you shall be sure not to lose your farther labour endeavour and determination therein For assure your self that in the Controversie de Ecclesiâ our adversaries
of May we loosed from the Bril and arrived at Gravesend the thirteenth of May And visited his Majesty at Greenwich as we came by who graciously did receive us And thus I thank God we are safely returned to our homes And here with my hearty salutations I commend you to the gracious Protection of the highest Majesty Your assured ever-loving Friend Samuel Ward Sidney Colledge May 26. 1619. LETTER XXXVIII A Letter from Dr. James Usher to Mr. Thomas Lydyat Salutem à Salutis fonte D. N. Jesu Christo. Dear Sir I Do acknowledge my self much bound unto you for the Loan of your Geminus and Albategnius the Reading whereof hath given me a great deal of Contentment but most of all for your kind Letter delivered unto me by Robert Allen the 3d. of July last wherein you so gently pass over my great Error in detaining your Books so long from you I will not make any long Apology for my self and excuse my Negligence by want of Opportunity of a fit Messenger your love having covered my Offence already I may spare my Labour in covering any further Now at length therefore I return your Books unto you again with a thousand Thanks and heartily do wish that I may have some Occasion offered on my part to gratify you in the same kind In the mean time I send you Ptolomy's Canon Regum so often cited by Dr. Rainolds in his Lectures a Copy whereof I received from Bishop Overal lately deceased transcribed by Mr. Rich. Mountague out of Sir Henry Savils Manuscript of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 In the same Volume is Theon also upon those Canons whence Sir Henry Savil himself hath sent me certain Notes de Ratione anni Alexandrini touching which also within these three daies I received from Meursius a Greek Discourse of the Scholiasts against Paulus Alexandrinus who wrote in the Year of the World according the Account of the Grecians 6659 Dioclesiani 867 hoc est Aerae nostrae 1151. This latter doth contain but ordinary Stuff in Theon the Principal thing that I observe is the time of the Concurrence of the beginning of the Aegyptian and the Alexandrian year hoc est anni vagi et fixi noted by him in these Words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or as he otherwise expresseth it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 For ab initio aerae Philippicae 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he reckoneth with Ptolomy annos 294 but 299 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That from this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 we must deduce Caput aerae Alkept apud Albategnium which by him is placed annis 287. 587 387. your Book hath the first Figure being set down inconstantly and falsly the other two constantly and truly post aeram Dhilcarnain I make little question howsoever I be not yet fully resolved whether I should referr the same to the beginning or the ending of the fifth year of Augustus that is whether I should begin it à Thoth anni 299. or 300. oerae Philippicoe for in both of them the first of Thoth fell upon the same day tam in anno vago quam in fixo in the former upon August 30 feria 5 a which is the Character oerae Alkept in Albategnius if the number be not depraved in the latter upon August 29 feria 6 a unto which I rather incline because by this means we shall keep straight the beginning of Dhilkarnain which by Albategnius his Account certainly doth incurr in annum periodi Julianoe 4402 twelve years after the Death of Alexander as himself setteth down fol. 43. lin 4. and you do acknowledge to be true whereas by the former Hypothesis it must be referred to the Year 4401 contrary to the meaning of Albategnius eleven Years after Alexander's Death That the Aegyptians received the use of their annus aequabilis from Nabonasar or that the Babylonians did ever use that Form of Year I think will hardly be proved If that be true which Eratosthenes writeth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 apud Geminum pag. 127. that the Aegyptians sometime celebrated their Isia 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 using this manner of year it must needs be that they used this Form of year before the time of Nabonasar For the 17th day of Athyr to which you rightly refer the beginning of that I could never concurr with the Summer Solstice betwixt the time of Nabonasar and Eratosthenes The Authority of Geminus also moveth me to yield that in Metonis Enneadecaëteride the years were not alternatim pleni and cavi as you imagine although in Calippus his Period the Disposition seemeth to have been such to which as to that which was received into civil use in his time I referr that place of Geminus pag. 115 8 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 You have rightly observ'd that in my Discourse de Christianarum Ecclesiarum Successione Statu there is wanting for the Accomplishment of the second Part an hundred years Story which defect in the Continuation of the Work is by me supplied I purpose to publish the whole Work together much augmented but do first expect the Publication of my Uncle Stanihurst's Answer to the former which I hear since his death is sent to Paris to be there Printed I am advertised also that even now there is come out at Antwerp a Treatise of my Country-man Christopher de Sacro-Bosco De verae Ecclesiae Investigatione wherein he hath some dealing with me Both these I would willingly see before I set out my Book anew that if they have justly found fault with any thing I may amend it if unjustly I may defend it I am very glad to hear of your Pains taken in the unfolding of the Revelation and hope that e'er long it will come abroad among us To help you therein touching the Fratricelli Beguini c. my Opinion is this That as under the name of the Albigenses were comprehended not only the Manichees which swarmed in those parts of France but also the Waldenses which dwelt among them so likewise under the Name of the Fratricelli and Beguini unto whom as monstrous Opinions and Practices are ascribed as unto the other those also were contained who made Profession of the Truth For to omit the Testimony of a certain Writing in quo S. Bernardini Errores recensentur alledged by Illyricus affirming Fratricellos qui potissimum in Italiâ fuerunt communiter esse Hussitas the Witness of Conradus de Monte Puellarum or of Maydenburg a Canon of Ratisbon who wrote about the year 1340. De Erroribus Begehardorum is plain to this purpose Sub illorum habitu saith he quarumlibet Hoeresum species utpote pauperum de Lugduno aliarum iniquitatis Sectarum partitiones per Ovile Christi suos Apostolos satagunt seminare Add hereunto that the Waldenses Merindoll and Cabriers are known to have been a Colony deduced from the Alpes the chief Receptacle of the Fratricelli This appeareth by the Inquisition returned unto Francis the first anno 1540. by William Bellay then Governor of those
Spain will satisfy your longing therein some of the first places are amended according to the Prescript of that unholy Inquisition but farther they proceed not all the rest and in one place a whole leaf or two are to be expunged but untouched in that of Lyons We have fully finished the Collation of the Opus imperfectum hereafter more of that matter mean time I have taken pains for trial sake to compare both our Basil and it with the Manuscript for one Homily I find wonderful need of a second review I have sent you a Proof of some few Differences from both the printed Copies whereby you may perceive how this Book and sundry others have been tossed and tumbled by ignorant Men what and how great mistakes and need of a diligent review for this is but lapping I do send you up also in thankfulness for Dr. Goad's Project a Fancy of mine which I pray you to impart to the good Bishop if he give any liking to it let it go forward if otherwise let it be remanded it is both fesible and possible in my judgment If Cambridge will set up or set forward the like I dare undertake more good to be done for the profit of Learning and true Religion than by building ten Colleges I have of late given my self to the reading only of Manuscripts and in them I find so many and so pregnant Testimonies either fully for our Religion or against the Papists that it is to be wondred at Religion of Papists then and now do not agree How many private Men out of their Devotion would singly be able to found such a College much more jointly considered but I leave all to God's Providence it shall suffice and be a great comfort to me if this cannot be effected that by my Lord of Canterbury's Letters which I have long'd for we may have a quasi College and the whole benefit of that which is expected in Dr. Goad's refin'd Project I my self by my intreaty have set twenty or thirty a-work how may the Lord Archbishop command our Heads of Houses and they their Company or at least one out of a College or Hall I have or shall receive this week three quire of Paper of my Workmen for which as they finish the quire I lay out the Mony 20 s. for each quire of Gu. de S. Amore I have received one quire and so of Wickleph 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is harder to read and the other in English of Wicklephs I look for this day Platina is almost done Alphonsus à Castro respited a while and Cajetan likewise till I hear from the Learned Bishop Touching Wicelius I thank you for your Advertisment I now perceive my Conjecture fails me not that Cassander was much holpen by him and his Judgment confirm'd by reading his but if I read his Epistles I will tell you my mind howsoever in the interim Wicelius is of more authority than Cassander and his Books concealed purposely or made away quantum in illis by the Inquisitors I have ever been of Dr. Ward 's mind touching the publishing those Books which they make away so fast ut jugulent homines furgunt c. Fisher de natura Dei is in one of their Indices impudently denied to be his tho some one in the Council of Trent say nay Upon the fifth of Matthew is but a scantling to those great Volumes which I have ready if any Man please to come hither he may see the whole My Lord of Meath's return and earnestness for the Plot both before and since as also Dr. Goad's forwardness to print ought hereabout I pray God the News be not too good to be true glads me much as the Sickness of my Lord of Ely doth some no less It were not from the purpose if Dr. Sutcliff do see this whole Project of our College and Purpose and if he did turn away his mind wholly from Chelsey I durst presume of more fasibility and possibility here of doing good Lastly for the Catalogue it is a great and painful Work but hath well requited my Pains in that I find some Books that I have long sought after and could not find as Stella of the Popes and such like If any thing be printed I would print only those that are not mentioned in our present Catalogue But where is the Encouragement for the printing or doing any thing If our Genevians had sent us over that of Gregory at this Mart how seasonable had it been to have put an egde to our great Business I am sorry it came not but see no remedy What of the Enchiridion nothing my Judgment you have and it is free to alter that do nothing at pleasure but sure I am some things are past question lay aside and expunge all doubtful Treatises till our College take them in hand which shall rivet them in after another fashion if God give Life I have now at length recovered the Spanish Book of Mr. Boswell the Book is a Commentary upon our English Laws and Proclamations against Priests and Jesuits spightful and foolish enough but especially about the Powder-Treason laying it to Puritans as Cobham Gray and Rawley or to the whole State or a Policy to intrap Them and their Estates I would my Lord of Meath did understand the Tongue that from him the King might understand the Mystery of Iniquity contained in the Book No Place or Time when or where it was printed Was he asham'd of that he did and it seemeth it or the like like hath been divulged in many Languages But I end and pray God That the Clergy give us not a fair denial that is a delay to our Businesses at this Session Let my Lord prevent as wisely and timely as he can God have you and all yours in his safe keeping and remember my Service in dutiful manner to my Lord and Commendations to my Cousin with whom if I had had the Spirit of Prophecy Dr. Featly should not have coaped withal but God send the Truth to take place if the President be faulty to be punished if innocent to be delivered And so once again I bid you heartily farewel Your most assured Friend Tho. James Oxon the 23d of May 1624. If my Lord of Meath nor any other there hath Wicelius it shall be written out unless my Lord please to speak with Sir William Paddy who was the Donor of the Book and may command it to London where it may be reprinted LETTER LXVII A Letter from the Right Reverend James Usher Bishop of Meath My very good Lord YEsterday being the 27th of September I received this inclosed Letter In reading whereof it presently came into my mind that this was the Man at whose Sermon his Majesty was so much offended when I was last at Court Whereupon I sent for the party and upon Conference had with him found indeed that I was not deceived in mine Opinion I put him in mind that his Conceits were contrary to the
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
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
decay the which I rather mention because it is within your Province The more is taken away from the King's Clergy the more accrews to the Pope's and the Servitors and Undertakers who should be Instruments for settling a Church do hereby advance their Rents and make the Church poor In a word in all Consultations which concern the Church not the Advice of sages but of young Counsellors is followed With all particulars the Agents whom we have sent over will fully acquaint you to whom I rest assured your Lordship will afford your Countenance and best Assistance And my good Lord now remember that you sit at the Stern not only to guide us in a right Course but to be continually in action and standing in the Watch-Tower to see that the Church receive no hurt I know my Lord's Grace of Canterbury will give his best furtherance to the Cause to whom I do not doubt but after you have fully possessed your self thereof you will address your self And so with the remembrance of my Love and Duty unto you praying for the perfect recovery of your Health I rest Your Lordship 's most true and faithful Servant to command Tho. Kilmore c. March 26. 1624. LETTER LXXXI A Letter from Mr. Tho. Davis to the most Reverend James Usher Arch-bishop of Armagh Most Reverend MAY it please your Grace upo the 8th of July past I received your Letter baring date the 12th of March from Much-Haddam and the 5th of the last Month the Copy thereof by way of Legorn whereby I perceive that my Letter of the 29th of Spetember 1624 together with the five Books of Moses in the Samaritan Character came in safety to your hands being very glad it proves so acceptable to your Lordship however find myself to have been abused by a Jew who pretends to have knowledg in that Tongue affirming to me that it contained all the Old Testament How they read those Books I have enquired having no better means of him who I perceive knows no more if so much than their Alphabet and to hear him read the first two Verses of Genesis I could not because another of those Books is not here to be had The Name of God Jehovah is pronounced by them as saith he Yehueh and the fist eight and sixth of these Letters of their Alphabet are pronounced hef chef ef the ch of the eight Letters must be pronounced deep in the throat Chef I sent to Damascus to see if I could procure the Grammer Chronicles and Calendar which your Lordship desires but could not obtain any of them there being but one poor Man of the Samaritan race left in Damascus who is not able to satisfy me in any thing you desire only he said there were certain Books in their Language pawned to a great Spahee of that City but what they contained the poor Fellow knew not The Spahee would not part with them under 200 Dollers which is 60 l. Sterling so I durst not venture upon them being ignorant of their worth yet I will not cease labouring as occasion shall serve to give satisfaction to your Grace in what you require touching the Samaritans and I hope to prevail in some things unless the Troubles in and about Jerusalem do hinder the free passage of Caravans this ensuing Spring A former Letter which it seems your Lordship writ and sentaway by Marcelles I never received but as for the Old Testament in the Chaldean Tongue my diligence hath not wanted to procure and to this end sent divers times to Tripoly and Mount Libanus but could not prevail I have seen here the two first Books of Moses but examining them according to your Direction I found them to be out of the Greek whereupon I resolved to send to Emmit and Carommitt a City in Mesopotamia where divers of the Sect of the Jacobites do remain and after a long time there was sent me which I received eight days past the five Books of Moses only in an old Manuscript and according to the Hebrews with a promise ere long to send the rest of the Old Testament the Party that sent me this is the Patriarch of the Jacobites in those Parts who writ also that I should have Eusebius his Chronicle with some of the Works of Ephraem which if he do shall be sent by the first good Conveyance Those parcels of the New Testament viz. the History of the Adulterous Woman the second Epistle of St. Peter the second and third of John the Epistle of Jude with the Book of the Revelations I have procured and sent them together with the five Books of Moses and a small Tract of Eprhaem by the Ship Patience of London With the said Books I have sent another in the same Tongue which I humbly present your Grace if it shall yeild any matter worthy your reading I have obtained my desire however it may prove I presume it will be accepted as a Token of his Love who will ever be ready in what he can to observe and effect what your Lordship shall command him I have sought the Old Testament in that Tongue which is out of the Greek and distinguished by certain Marks and Stars but I cannot hear of any such From Emmit I hope to have some good News to write your Lordship and to send you a Catalogue of such Books as be here to be had When this Book which I now send shall be received I beseech your Grace to give your Secretary order to advise me thereof in the mean time if any of the Books you desire shall be brought or sent unto me I will not let them go for a small matter more or less such Books are very rare and esteemed as Jewels by the Owners tho they know not how to use them neither will they part with them but at dear rates especially to Strangers who they presume would not seek after them except they were of good worth and indeed they give a kind of superstitious Reverence to all Antiquity Thus have I related my proceedings and what intend to do in what your Lordship writes for and I should be very glad to accomplish your desire but I presume my willing and ready mind shall be accepted Here is News from Bagdat that the Vizier with the Army have been thereabouts now three Months past but have done little worthy so great a force and now for 70 or 80 days have besieged Bagdat but can do no good upon it The Persians have made divers Sallies out of the City and after a small Skirmish returned giving the Turks the worst the King of Persia if report be true draws all his Forces that way but rather to fear the Turk than encounter him unless by some Stratagem wherein he hath the advantage of the Turks the sequel and issue of this War we expect and greatly desire in this place the rather because our Trade depends much thereupon There hath of late happened some Troubles about Jerusalem by the
credited of your Grace or any Man clse But to the well-doing and perfecting of this Work two things are requisite First That the Fathers Works in Latin be reprinted the Vindiciae will not serve wherein I desire to have three or four able Doctors or Batchelors of Divinity to be my Assistants in framing the Annotations Secondly That there be provision either in Parliament or out that the Copies may be sent from any Cathedral Church or Colledg upon a sufficient Caution non obstante statuto both these being granted as at your Lordships instance they may be I doubt not of a most happy success of the whole Business Which that I may not be too troublesome to your Grace I commend unto the protection of the Almighty praying for your Lordships health and happiness and resting as I am in all Bands of Duty and Service Your Grace's in all Duty Tho. James Oxon 27 Feb. 1625. I have a Pseudo-Cyprian Arnaldus Bonavillacensis Work collated and restored by the MS. and printed here under your Graces Name of Authors falsified it is the greatest instance that can be given the whole Treatise fairly written forth is at your Grace's dispose your mind being signified It hath sundry foul Additions and Diminutions in many Points of Controversy LETTER LXXXVIII A Letter from Mr. John Selden to the most Reverend James Usher Arch-bishop of Armagh My Lord I Was glad to have occasion to send to your Lordship that I might so hear of the good Estate of your Self and your Family to which certainly all good Men wish happiness I was the last week with Sir Robert Cotton at Connington at my parting from him when he was with his Son to go to Oxford to the Parliament he gave me leave to send to your Lordship to spare me the two Saxon Chronicles you have of his which I beseech you to do and to send them me by this Bearer together with my Matthew Paris Baronius his Martyrologie and Balaeus I exceedingly want these five Books here and if you command it they shall be sent you again in reasonable time I presume too my Lord that by this time you have noted the Differences between the Texts of the received Original and that of the Samaritan I beseech you to be pleased to permit me the sight of those Differences if they may with manners be desired especially those of Times I shall desire nothing more than upon all opportunity to be most ready to appear and that with all forwardness of performance in whatsoever I were able Your Lordships most Affectionate Servant J. Selden Wrest in Bedfordshire August 4. 1625. LETTER LXXXIX A Letter from the most Reverend James Usher Arch-bishop of Armagh to Dr. Samuel Ward Salutem in Christo Jesu SIR Robert Cotton did assure me that the Psalterium Gallicum Romanum Hebraicum was in Trinity-Colledg in an extraordinary large Folio but hereby you must not understand any Text written either in the French or in the Hebrew Language but by Hebraicum the Latin Psalter translated by St. Hierom out of the Hebrew and by Gallicum the Latin Psalter translated by him out of the Greek which is the very same with our Vulgar Latin Edition so called because it was first received in the French Church as the other Romanum because it was used in the Church of Rome which if our last Translators had considered they would not have alleaged as they do in their Epistle to the Reader for confirmation of the translating of the Scriptures into the Vulgar Tongue the Testimony of Trithemius that Efnarde Einardus they mean about the Year 800 did abridg the French Psalter as Beda had done the Hebrew If this Book cannot be had as I much desire it may I pray fail not to send me the other two Manuscript Psalters which you write unto me are in the same Library viz. the Greek thought to be Theodori Cantuar. and the Hebrew that is interlin'd with a Latin Translation for Aug. Justiniani Psalterium Octaplum I have of mine own When you remove to Munden if it be not troublesome unto you I wish you did bring with you your Greek Ganons Manuscript I understand that Mr. Boyse hath gotten lately into his hands a Greek Manuscript of the Acts of the first Council of Nice I should be glad to hear how it differeth from that of Gelasius Cyzicenus which we have and whether he can help me with any old Greek Copy of the Psalms or any Commentary upon them So ceasing to trouble you any further at this time I commend you and all yours to God's blessed direction and protection ever resting Your own in Christ Jesus Ja. Armachanus Much-Haddam Aug. 9. 1625. LETTER XC A Letter from Dr. Ward to the most Reverend James Usher Arch-bishop of Armagh Most Reverend and my very good Lord IReceived your Lordship's Letter and according as you will me have borrowed the two Books you mention Dr. Maw would intreat you to set down some limited time for which you would borrow them and to signify the receipt of them in some Note under your hand There is as I remember a part of the Psalter in King's-Colledg Library Manuscript in a great Folio which was brought from Cales I will look into it When I come to Munden I will bring the Books you mention Mr. Boyse his Manuscript of the Acts of the Nicene Council is surely the Collection made by Gelasius He came to me to borrow the printed Copies I lent him two of them and withal told him there is another Manuscript of Gelasius in Trinity-Colledg Library The next time I speak with Mr. Boyse I will know whether he have any Greek Copy or Commentary upon the Psalms Thus hoping to see you e're long if God will with my best Service remembred I commend you and all yours to the gracious protection of the highest Majesty in these dangerous Times resting Your Lordships in what he may Samuel Ward Sidn Coll. Aug. 11. 1625. LETTER XCI A Letter from Dr. Ward to the most Reverend James Usher Arch-bishop of Armagh Most Reverend my very good Lord I Received your Letter and the enclosed which I will deliver to Dr. Maw This day I met with one of King's-Colledg and he tells me the great Volume they have in Manuscript of the Psalms in Latin which was brought from Cales is but half of the Psalter I willed him to compare it with the Vulgar Edition and to tell me whether they differ He promised me he would I received not the Letter â—ill six a Clock this Night and this Bearer is to be gone early in the Morning so that I cannot compare it with the Vulgar now but I verily think it is no other but the Vulgar Edition it is the greatest Folio that ever I saw Yesterday after I sent you the two Books I hit upon the Book you desired Psalterium Gallic Roman Hebraicum at one of our Stationers set out by Jacobus Stapulensis with his Commentary which I here send you
by way of Catechism long ago which a Neighbour-Minister having afterwards gotten from some of my Hearers he wrote those Doubts which follow in the Book the better to inform either himself or me Whereupon as I could get any time in the midst of other continual Employments too heavy for me I wrote to him the Discourse following the more fully to acquaint him with the grounds of my Judgment as knowing well his sufficiency to object fully if he found himself unsatisfied in any Passage thereof The Style I confess is unmeet for you to read as being plain and popular and therefore too large and withal empty of variety of reading which store of other Occurrences in my Calling here inforceth me too often to intermit Thus much let me humbly intreat at your Lordship's hands by the honour which you owe to Christ and by the Love you bare to his poorest Servants stick not I beseech you to advertise me freely of any such tenent herein as you shall think less safe I trust you shall find me conscious of mine own Slenderness and glad to râ—â—â—ive such Light as God shall be pleased to impart to me by you Yet this one thing more let me also add Tho I yield some degree of Efficacy in Christ's Death unto all yet I conceive it far short both of Impetration and Application of that gracious Atonement which is thereby wrought to the Elect of God whence also it is that I dare not preach the Gospel indifferently unto all before the Law nor the worth of Christ before the need of Christ. Childrens Bread is not meet for Whelps and full Souls will despise Hony-Combes I see John Baptist was sent to humble before Christ to heal and Christ himself preached Repentance before Faith in the Promises Mark 1. 15. Neither do I remember in the Gospel any Promise of Grace pardoning Sin nor any Commandment to believe Sin pardoned but to the broken the bruised the poor the weary the thirsty or the like Faith in the Promises before the Heart be changed from Stoniness to Brokenness I fear is no better than the Temporary Faith which is found in the stony Soil Luke 8. 13. But I cease your Lordship 's further Trouble Now the Lord Jesus who hath delighted in you to fill your Heart with the Riches of his manifold precious Graces be pleased to enlarge you to the Employment of them to his best advantage guide all your Ways in his Faithfulness and Wisdom and sustain you with his Mercy and Power unto the end So I humbly take leave and rest Earnestly desirous to be directed by your Lordship or confirmed in the Truth John Cotton Boston May 31. 1626. LETTER XCV A Letter from the most Reverend James Usher Arch-bishop of Armagh to Dr. Samuel Ward Salutem in Christo Jesu SIR I Am very sorry to hear of your Distractions there but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to whose Guidance we must refer both this and ipsam rerum summam quae in summo jam si quid videmus versatur discrimine When the Collaters have finished the Acts I could wish they collated the Epistles with the Text which is inserted into the Commentaries of Photius and Oecumenius Manuscripts in the University Library where there are some varieties of readings also as I remember noted in the Margent in the brief Scholies that are written in red Letters Remember me to Mr. Chancy and learn of him what he hath done for Mr. Broughton's Books intreat him also to look into the Manuscript Psalter in Hebrew and Latin in Trinity Colledg-Library and thence transcribe for me the last Verse save one of the 52 Psalm which is wanting in our printed Hebrew Bibles the Latin of that Verse if I forget not beginneth Consilium Mosis c. I would willingly also hear how far he hath proceeded in the Samaritan Bible and what Mr. Boys hath done in the transcribing of the Greek Manuscript which I left with him Wish Mr. Green to send me Lucian in Greek and Latin Your assured Friend J. Ar. LETTER XCVI A Letter from Dr. Ward to the most Reverend James Usher Arch-bishop of Armagh Most Reverend and my very good Lord I Received your Lordship's Letter and that which I signified to your Lordship in my last Letter was almost really effected The night before the choice of our new Chancellor I was very ill so as without hazard of my Health I could not be at the choice and so was absent The Duke carried it not above three or four Voices from the Earl of Berkshire and had not neither carried it but that the King's Pleasure was signified for the Duke both by Message and Letter Quod vis summam rerum in summo versari discrimine timeo doleo I acquainted Mr. White with your Pleasure and wished him to impart it to the rest of the Collators as touching the Collation of the Text in the Comments of Photius and Oecumenius I send you inclosed the Hebrew Verse you writ for They are in Denteronomy in the Samaritan Pentateuch I have not as yet spoken with Mr. Boyse I received the Books you mention and sent two of them to Mr. Austine Mr. Green will send you the two Books Lucian Graeco Lat. and N. Testam Syrlacum-Latin to Mr. Burnets Mr. White sendeth up unto you the Variae Lectiónes upon the Psalms The divers Readings of Prosper shall be sent you Dr. Goad sent me two sheets of my Latin Sermon printed But I hear not whether our Suffrage be reprinted I would know whether Nicetus his Orthodoxus Thesaurus be extant in Greek I suppose it is in Latin at least in the New Bibliotheca He is said to interpret Greg. Nyssen his Opinion of the Conversion which is made in the Eucharist mentioned c. 37 Catechet I cannot tell what to pronounce touching that discourse His discourse is somewhat plausible till he come to the conversion made in the Eucharist by Christ's words and then he doth faulter I pray you let me know where the Manuscript Copies of the Saxon Annals are to be had Mr. Mede and Mr. Whalley are both in good health I am right sorry that your Lordship should so soon go from us I am now in business in Disputations in our Schools I shall forget many things which I should have enquired of And so with my best Service remembred to your Lordship and Mrs. Usher I commend you to the gracious Protection of the highest Majesty and so rest Your Lordship 's in all Observance Samuel Ward Sidney-College June 6. 1626. There is good Agreement God be thanked in King's College LETTER XCVII A Letter from Dr. Ward to the most Reverend James Usher Arch-bishop of Armagh Most Reverend and my very good Lord I Have sent you here enclosed the diverse Readings of the Continuation of Eusebius's Chronicle by Hierom and both the Prospers Mr. Elmar will bring your Lordship the Concio ad Clerum which against my mind is set forth without those other things
Books and his Matrices of the Oriental Tongue are already sold. I am glad your Lordship hath got the old Manuscript of the Syriack Translation of the Pentateuch and for your hopes of the rest You say you have received the parcels of the New Testament in that Language which hitherto we have wanted But it seemeth those Parcels are writttn out of some Copies But I doubt whether anciently they were in the old Manuscript I am much afraid the Jesuits have laid hold of Elmenhorst's Copy As for the places of Chrysostom I will at my better leisure by God's Grace examine it Mr. Boyse hath written out the Fragment of P. Alexandrinus but intreateth me to let him have the Book till the next week for he would gladly peruse the Notes of Casaubon upon Nicander And God-willing the next week I will send it to Mr. Francis Burnett I am right sorry to see matters of that importance carried ex consilio perpaucorum I had a Letter from my Lord of Sarum by which I understand as much There was the last week a Cod-fish brought from Colchester to our Market to be sold in the cutting up which there was found in the Maw of the Fish a thing which was hard which proved to be a Book of a large 16 o which had been bound in Parchment the Leaves were glewed together with a Gelly And being taken out did smell much at the first but after washing of it Mr. Mead did look into it It was printed and he found a Table of the Contents The Book was intituled A preparation to the Cross it may be a special admonition to us at Cambridg Mr. Mead upon Saturday read to me the Heads of the Chapters which I very well liked of Now it is found to have been made by Rich. Tracy of whom Bale maketh mention Cent. 9. p. 719. He is said to flourish then 1550. But I think the Book was made in King Henry the Eighth's Time when the six Articles were a-foot The Book will be printed here shortly I know not how long your Lordship will stay in England I wish you might stay longer We are to come to present our new Chancellor with his Patent upon the 13th of July all our Heads will be there I would be glad to meet your Lordship then And thus wishing your Lordship all good success in your Affairs a fortunate Journey and speedy Passage when you go with our best Devotions my Wife and I wish you and yours all health and happiness commending you to the safest protection of the highest Majesty Your Lorships in all observance Samuel Ward Sidn Coll. June 27. 1626. LETTER CI. A Letter from the most Reverend James Usher Arch-bishop of Armagh To Dr. Samuel Ward SIR I Received your Letter wherein you signify unto me the News of the Book taken in the Fishes Belly and another Letter from Mr. Mead touching the same Argument The Accident is not lightly to be passed over which I fear me bringeth with it too true a Prophesy of the State to come And to you of Cambridg as you write it may well be a special Admonition which should not be neglected It behoveth you who are Heads of Colledges and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to stick close to one another and quite obliterating all secret Distasts or privy Discontentments which possibly may fall betwixt your selves with joint consent to promote the Cause of God Mr. Provost I doubt not will with great alacrity in hoc incumbere So with the remembrance of my Affections to all my Friends there I commit you to the protection and direction of our Good God In whom I rest Your own most assured Ja. Armachanus Lond. June 30. 1626. LETTER CII A Letter from Mr. Ralph Skinner to the most Reverend James Usher Arch-bishop of Armagh Right Reverend in God and cordially Religious YOUR Lordship knows right-well that trivial Adage That there is no fishing to the Sea nor Mines of Silver and Gold like to the Indies Yet no Fisher when he fished did ever draw up all Fish in his Net and no Mud Gravel or Stones nor no Pioneer did ever dig up all pure Trench or without some Oar intermixed therewith The same befalls me in the Works of Maymon the Ocean of all Jewish Learning the Quarries of Silver and Gold whose 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Fame surpasseth the Indies for his Wine is mixed now and then with Water and his Silver with some dross All is not Fish that comes to the Net nor all is not Gold that glisters What must I do then Shall I reject Maymon full of good Mammon for some few Errors Or shall I not rather separate the Errors from Maymon and present you with his golden Mammon for so the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. He that winneth Souls is wise the true Fisher of Men the wise Catcher of Souls my Lord and Master hath taught me to do imitating the Fishers whose custom is to gather the good into Vessels and to cast away the bad and putrid and to play the skilful Goldsmith in the purging the Tradition from the Precept as he hath taught me Mat. 15. 5. discerning inter 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 mandatum which was this honour thy Father and thy Mother and inter 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 traditionem which was this When any one saith to his Father or his Mother Korbon est quo jurari debebas à me That the Reader then may make a profitable use of Maymon he must observe his Errors and his good Things His Errors be these Six I. That the Stars and Celestial Spheres have Life and Knowledg This Error is gross it needs no confutation II. That God did never repent him of a good Thing or retreat his words but only once viz. When he destroyed the Just with the Unjust in the destruction of the first Temple He forgot himself of that he said in the first Chapter viz. That no Accidents are incident unto God that he cannot change that he is not as Man that lies or the Son of Man to repent but one that keepeth his fidelity for ever III. That all Moses Law is perpetual He understood not that the Ceremonies was buried in Christ's Grave Dan. 9. That the Substance come the Shadow must vanish IV. That Man hath free-will to do Good or Evil. But we know that the preparations of Man's Heart are of God that we are not able as of our selves to think a good thought and that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 comes from him If the preparation then to a good Thought if the good Thought it self if the willing and doing of good be of God wherein have we Free-will V. That the Promises of God mentioned in the Prophets are for things Temporal to be fulfilled in this Life in the Days of the Messiah But we know that the Son of God is already come and hath given us an understanding that we might
this is the beginning of the Captivity So that the matter of the Account cannot come into thy mind For lae in the Account of the Kings of Persia there is a New Moon added according to the word of the Angel as I will declare Now whether there be in the Computation an Addition or Substraction it hurteth not Peradventure the matter of the New Moon will come into thy mind when he knoweth the moment of the Eclipse of the Moon in this Year Besides we have found another Eclipse before this an hundred Years by which I may know the place of the Moon according to Truth And according to his Account he will willingly reduce backward the Years that come Now lo the meaming of Vers. 25. Know therefore and understand that from the going forth of the Gommandment to restore and to build Jerusalem unto the Prince Messias are 70 Weeks And behold 19 Years were of the Kingdom of Cyrus and Ahashuerosh And two Years of Darius and he reigned 12 Years and it s so written in a Book of the Kings of Persia. And twenty Years of Artaxshashta the King Lo all amounts but to seven Weeks till Nehemiah came as it s written in the Book of Ezra Now the 62 Weeks are the time that the second Temple stood and the half of the Week I have expounded And thus my Lord I have shewed your Grace the Exposition of R. Sagnadiah to be false by Abben Ezra his Opinion And 2dly I have set down Abben Ezra's Supputation of the 70 Weeks Which is thus 51 Years of Cyrus and Ahashuerosh Darius and Artaxerxes or 7 Weeks 434 Years or the 62 Weeks the time the second Temple stood and he makes the Temple to stand longer by 14 Years than any other Seven Years the last Week in all 491 Years You see he is a Year too much besides he makes the last Weeks half to be after the destruction of Zorobabel's Temple which was 40 Years before the destruction thereof My Lord I must now impart a Matter unto you My Wife received a Letter of late since I was with your Lordship from her Sister my Lady Temple wherein she writeth that my Lord of Meath hearing of my entring into the Ministry did promise to confer upon me a Living worth 60 l. per Annum presently and that within a Year he would make it worth an 100 l. per Annum if I would come over I wonder that my Lord of Meath Dr. Martin as I suppose should of his own accord make such an offer unto me that am a meer Stranger to him and never had conference with him But my Lord if your Lordship would vouchsafe me to be a poor Levite and Chaplain in your Service I would say with Mollerus in Psal. 123. v. 2. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Cum omne servire durum sit faelicissimus cui contigerit bono ac pio servire Domino If your Grace shall in your Letter signify 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Then behold I will say with Ruth Where thou goest I will go and where thou diest I will die c. And thus with thanks for your Lordships last bounty in bearing my Charges which I understood not till I took Horse and therefore could not return thanks till now I rest now and ever 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ralph Skynner Sutton Octob. 31. 1625. My Lord I would gladly be your Scholar to learn your Method and facile way in preaching O that I might be beholden unto you for some of your directions in that kind And that I might see but a Sermon or two of your Graces in writing according to those directions For therefore did I enter in the last hour of the day of my Life into God's House that I might say with David Ps. 92. 13. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Reason is rendred 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And Abben Ezra calleth the Rabbies 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 LETTER CV Worthy Sir YOUR last kindness is not forgotten though unrequited for I cannot 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Pecuniam qui habet non refert qui refert non habet At gratiam qui refert habet qui habet refert Accept therefore this my Literarum Manus by which now I prove that plainly unto you which long ago I affirmed in conference viz. That Israel passed not over the Red Sea transversum as you with others have supposed If Israel coming out of the Sea arrived and landed at the self-same side of the Wilderness from which he departed when he entred the Sea Then did he not go over the Red Sea transversum But Israel coming out of the Sea arrived and landed at the self-same side of the Wilderness from which he departed when he entred the Sea Ergo Israel did not go over the Sea transversum The Major Proposition cannot be denied For if he went into and out of the Sea keeping still the same side he did not pass over-thwart the Sea which is the breadth thereof from one side to another The Minor is thus proved out of the Text in express words They came from Succoth to Etham in the edg of the Wilderness Exod. 13. 20. Num. 33. 6. And returned from Etham to Pihahiroth encamping by the Sea Num. 33. 7. Exod. 14. 1. 9. and passing 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in or by the midst of the Sea Num. 33. 8. they came into the same Wilderness again Num. 33. 8. which is called also 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Exod. 15. 22. From which collation of places it appears that Abben Ezra his Opinion is true We know saith he that there is no Red Sea between Egypt and the Land of Israel neither was there any need that they should go into the Red Sea for that it was their way to Canaan only God commanded them so to do to the end that the Egyptians might go in after them and be drowned Now from the Wilderness of Etham Israel entred the Sea and into the Wilderness of Etham they went out again Seeing from the Collation of these two places the Truth will better appear I will set them down Exodus 12. 37. 1. On the 15th of Nisan six hundred thousand Footmen journied from Rangmeses to Succoth Exod. 12. 37. Numbers 33. 3 5. They departed from Rameses on the 15th day of the first month and pitched in Succoth Numb 33. 3 5. Exod. 13. 20. 2. They departed from Succoth and encamped in Etham in the edg of the Wilderness of Etham viz. Exod. 13. 20. Numb 33. 6. And they departed from Succoth and pitched in Etham which is in the end of that Wilderness Numb 33. 6. Exod. 14. 2. 3. Then from Etham they returned and encamped before Pi-hahiroth between Migdol and the Sea before Bagnal-zephon before it they pitched by the Sea Exod. 14. 2. And 600 Chariots of the Egyptians following after Israel overtook them pitching by the Sea 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Exod. 14. 7 9. There the Children of
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
for to get a License of Mortmain for the holding of 240 Acres of Capite Land which a Gentleman would give to our Colledg but I find great difficulty in effecting it so as I fear me I must return re infectâ If you would be pleased to send Mr. Lively's Chronology I think Mr. Whalley would see to the publishing of it And thus with tender of my best Service and my best Wishes and Prayers for the happy success of your good Designs and prospering of all your Endeavours and for the publick Peace and Safety of both the Nations Yours and Ours in these tottering and troublesome Times I commend your Lordship and all yours to the gracious protection of the highest Majesty Your Lordship 's in all Service Samuel Ward London Feb. 13. 1626. LETTER CXVIII A Letter from the Right Honorable the Lord Deputy Falkland to the most Reverend James Usher Arch-bishop of Armagh My Lord YOur judicious apprehension of the Perils which threaten the Peace of this Kingdom which your dutiful consideration of the King's Wants through his other manifold Occasions of Expence together with your Zeal to his Service is clearly manifested by conforming your Tenants to the good Example of others to join with the rest of the Inhabitants in contributing to the relief of the new Supplies and other Souldiers sent hither for the publick Defence notwithstanding your Privileges of Exemption by Patent from such Taxes which I will take a fitting occasion to make known to his Majesty for your Honour And where your Lordship doth complain that other Country Charges are imposed upon your Tenants whereof you conceive they ought to be free by virtue of your Patent I can give no direct answer thereunto until I be informed from your Lordship of what Nature they be but do faithfully assure your Lordship that neither my Lord Chichester nor my Lord Grandison did ever shew more respect to your Predecessors than I will be ready to perform towards your Lordship as well in this your Demand as in all other things which lie in my Power not being prejudicial to the King's Service which I know is as much as your Lordship will ever desire and do pray your Lordship to send me a Copy of their Warrants for my information what hath been done in that behalf before my Time I have kept Sir Charles Cootes Company from that County as long as I could and will remove them thence as soon as I can conveniently But your Lordship may please to understand that by the earnest intercession of some well-willers to that County it hath been less burthened with Souldiers than any other within that Province saving only Fermannagh which is much smaller in scope than it And for the Distinction you desire to be made between your Town-Lands which you alleadg are generally less by one half than those that are held by others that Error cannot be reformed without a general admeasurement and valluation of the different Fertilities for we all know that a hundred Acres in a good Soil may be worth a thousand Acres of Lands that are mountainous and barren and therefore it will surely prove a Work of great difficulty and will require a long time to reduce it to any perfection so as it is best to observe the custom in usage until such a reformation shall be seriously debated and agreed upon For the Bridg to be built at Charlemount it was propounded to the Board by the Lord Caulfield he informing that the old one was so decayed that it could hardly last out another Year The usesul Consequence of that Bridg in time of War guarded by a strong Fort which Defence others want being well known to the Table did make it a short Debate every Man concurring in Opinion with an unanimous consent that it was most necessary for the King's Service that a substantial Bridg should be erected there with expedition Then the Question grew At whose Charge whether at the King 's or Countries Which upon mature debate was ordered that the Country should bear as well for that it is a place of equal conveniency with any other that is or can be made elsewhere for passage of the Inhabitants over that deep River in times of Peace as because they shall enjoy great security by their Neighbourhoods to that strong Fort of Charlemount in times of Combustion built and maintained without their Charge These Considerations did move us to give direction to certain of the Justices of Peace of each of these Counties of Tyrone and Armagh to view the place and treat with Workmen which they accordingly did Upon whose Certificate we gave Warrant to applot the same according to their Agreement with Workmen which I wish may be levied without opposition or interruption and do make it my request unto your Lordship to give way and furtherance thereunto for this Work tending so much to the Service of the King and Country which I shall take in very good part from your Lordship and you cannot want your Reward in Heaven for it it being a Work of that kind which is accounted pious And so I commit your Lorship to God's protection and rest Your Lordships very affectionate Friend Falkland Dublin-Castle March 15. 1626. I have given order for the preparing a Fyant for the passing of those Particulars your Lordship desired by Mr. Singe Falkland LETTER CXIX A Letter from the most Reverend George Abbot Arch-bishop of Canterbury to the most Reverend James Usher Arch-bishop of Armagh My very good Lord I Send unto you Mr. Sibbes who can best report what I have said unto him I hope that Colledg shall in him have a very good Master which hitherto it hath not had You shall make my excuse to the Fellows that I write not unto them You shall do well to pray to God that he will bless his Church but be not too sollicitous in that Matter which will fall of it self God Almighty being able and ready to support his own Cause But of all things take heed that you project no new ways for if they fail you shall bear a grievous Burthen If they prosper there shall be no Thanks to you Be patient and tarry the Lord's leasure And so commending me unto you and to the rest of your Brethren I leave you to the Almighty and remain Your Lordship's loving Brother G. Cant. Lambeth March 19. 1626. LETTER CXX A Letter from Mr. Thomas Davis to the most Reverend James Usher Arch-bishop of Armagh Most Reverend Sir MAY it please your Lordship to take a view of my Proceedings for the procuring of such Books you gave me order for such as I could get and have in readiness to be sent by our next Ships which may depart this Port about four months hence are certain Books and loose Papers in the Samaritan Tongue of what use or value I cannot learn The Old Testament in the Chaldean which after seventeen months time is written in a fair Character wanting only the Book
I meant I do it very willingly for I never meant him nor any Man else but thought it concerned your Grace to know what I credibly heard to be spoken concerning your Court Neither as God knows did I ever think it was fit to take away the Jurisdiction from Chancellors and put it into the Bishops Hands alone or so much as in a Dream condemn those that think they have reason to do otherwise nor tax your Grace's Visitation nor imagine you would account that to pertain to your Reproof and take it as a Wrong from me which out of my Duty to God and you I thought was not to be concealed from you I beseech you pardon me this one Error Si unquam posthac For that Knave whom as your Grace writes they say I did absolve I took him for one of my Flock or rather Christ's for whom he shed his Blood And I would have absolved Julian the Apostata under the same form Some other Passages there be in your Grace's Letters which I But I will lay mine Hand upon mine Mouth And craving the blessing of your Prayers ever remain Your Grace's poor Brother and humble Servant Will. Kilmore and Ardaghen Kilmore March 29. 1630. LETTER CLVI A Letter from the most Reverend James Usher Arch-bishop of Armagh to the Lords Justices My most Honoured Lords I Received a Letter from your Lordships without any Date wherein I am required to declare what Motives I can alleadg for the stopping of Sir John Bathe's Patent Whereunto I answer That I cannot nor need not produce any other reason than that which I have done and for the maintenance of the sufficiency whereof I will adventure all I am worth namely that for the Particular now in question Sir John Bathe's Letter hath been gotten from his Majesty by meer surreption and therefore no Patent ought to be passed thereupon For although I easily grant that my Lord Treasurer and the Chancellor of the Exchequer might certify unto his Majesty that there was no other thing left to be passed here but Impropriations though Sir John Bathe I think hath found already somewhat else to be passed in his Book and may do more if he will not be so hasty but take time to enquire Yet how doth it appear that either of these two noble Gentlemen did as much as know that his Majesty had taken a former Order for the settlement of these things upon the Church To which Resolution had they been privy I do so presume of their Nobleness and care of the Publick Good that the remittal of a Matter of two thousand pounds would not induce them to divert his Majesty from making good that precious Donation which by the Example of his Father of never-dying memory he had solemnly devoted to God and his Church such an eximious Act of Piety as is not to be countervalued with two or twenty thousand pounds of any earthly Treasure But whatsoever they knew or knew not of his Majesty's own pious Resolution and constant Purpose never to revoke that which he hath once given unto God I rest so confident as I dare pawn my Life upon it that when he did sign those Letters of Sir John Bathe's he had not the least intimation given unto him that this did any way cross that former Gift which he made unto the Church upon so great and mature deliberation as being grounded upon the Advice first of the Commissioners sent into Ireland then of the Lords of the Council upon their report in England thirdly of King James that ever blessed Father of the Church and lastly of the Commissioners for Irish Affairs unto whom for the last debating and conclusion of this business I was by his now Majesty referr'd my self at my being in England I know Sir John and his Counsel do take notice of all those Reasons that may seem to make any way for themselves But your Lordships may do well to consider that such Letters as these have come before now wherein Rectories have been expresly named and those general Non obstantes also put which are usual in this kind and yet notwithstanding all this his Majesty intimateth unto you in his last Letters that he will take a time to examine those Proceedings and punish those that then had so little regard to the particular and direct expression of his Royal Pleasure for the disposing of the Impropriations to the general benefit of the Church Which whether it carrieth not with it a powerful Non obstante to that surreptious Grant now in question I hold it more safe for your Lordships to take Advice among your selves than from any other bodies Counsel who think it their Duty to speak any thing for their Clients Fee As for the want of Attestation wherewith the credit of the Copy of a Letter transmitted unto you is laboured to be impaired If the Testimony of my Lord of London who procured it and the Bishop Elect of Kilfennora who is the bringer of it and of a Dean and an Arch-Deacon now in Ireland who themselves saw it will not suffice it will not be many days in all likelihood before the Original it self shall be presented to your Lordships In the mean time I desire and more than desire if I may presume to go so far that your Lordships will stay your hands from passing Sir John Bathe's Patent until my Lord of London himself shall signifie his Majesties further Pleasure unto you in this Particular And it my Zeal hath carried me any way further than Duty would require I beseech your Lordships to consider that I deal in a Cause that highly concerneth the good of the Church unto which I profess I owe my whole self and therefore craving Pardon for this my Boldness I humbly take leave and rest still to continue Your Lordships in all dutiful Observance J. A. Droghedah April the 3d 1630. Instructions given to Mr. Dean Lesly April 5. 1630. for the stopping of Sir John Bathe's Patent 1. YOU are to inform your self whether Sir John Bathe's Patent be already sealed and if it be whether it were done before Saturday which was the day wherein I received and answered the Lords Justices Letters touching this business and at which time they signified the Patent was as yet unpast and use all speedy means that the Patent may not be delivered into Sir John Bathes hands before you be heard to speak what you can against it and if that also be done I authorize you to signifie unto the Lords Justices that I must and will complain against them to his Sacred Majesty 2. You are to go unto Sir James Ware the younger from me and enquire of him whether he gave any Certificate unto my Lord Treasurer and the Chancellor of the Exchequer that the King had not of Temporal Lands the annual Rent of 300 l. to grant in reversion but that of necessity must be supplied with the Grant of the reversion of Tithes impropriate And withal learn
Latin Copy of Ignatius in Caius Colledg Library hath this singular in it That in the genuine Epistles for the other I heed not those Passages are wanting which are excepted against as insititious and supposititious by our Writers and that the place touching the Eucharist cited by Theodoret out of the Epistle to the Smyrnians which is wanting in all other Books is to be found in this But I intend e're long to publish Ignatius my self as considering it to be a Matter of very great Consequence to have a Writer of his standing to be freed as much as may be from these interpolations of later Times Your Observation that the Canons of the Apostles are of a later Date is very right as also of the Time of the Laodicen Councils wherein Baronius is undoubtedly deceived Sir Henry Spelman sent me a part of his Collections of our British Councils printed in a large Folio as much as reacheth from pag. 31 to 375 which I am now a revising and supplying with some 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which may be added by way of Appendix Both that Work of his and mine also of the Antiquities of the British Churches with the Pelagian History inserted thereunto will come abroad I hope this next Term. I sent to Paris to get a new Transcript of Rathramus de Corpore Sanguine Domini out of Thuanus his Library but instead of the Text which I desired they sent me only an Appendix subjoined thereunto out of Ambrose Augustine c. touching the same Argument I had a Copy also from thence of Rathramus his Collections against the Grecians which is a large Tractate Those other two Treatises of his I suppose you have compared with the Manuscript belonging to the late Master of Benet-Colledg and another Manuscript of the same you may find in the Library of the Cathedral Church of Salisbury The Infirmities of old Age which I am sorry do come so fast upon you being so many Messengers to give us warning of our dissolution should put you in mind of putting your Writings in good Order that in them you may live and speak unto the Church when you are dead So with the remembrance of my best Wishes I recommend you and all your godly Endeavours to the Blessing of Almighty God evermore resting Your very loving Brother and fellow Labourer Ja. Armachanus Dublin Sept. 10. 1639. LETTER CCI. Reverendissimo in Christo Patri Antistiti erudissimo Jacobo Usserio Armachano Dubliniae vel alibi in Hiberniae CUM pridiano P. R. lectissima Tua filia masculinam illam multis mihi charam nominibus heroinam Baringtonam Stowhallae praedio in agro Suffolciensi nostro comitata sit pomeridiano quinà m fieri potuit quin cognitâ natâ in vera Parentis optimi praeconia me totum effunderem Nisi Te verecundari cogerem aliquam duntaxat eorum quae tum mihi animitùs exciderunt partem sub incude revocarem Ego enim pietati primas eruditioni secundas vices tribuo literatos valdè veneror sanctitate morum insignes pluris sacio ubi autem summam eruditionem ut proh dolor in Te pene unico cum intimâ pietate conjunctam reperio vix fando exprimi possit quanta mihi exinde admiratio delectatio dilectio exorta sint Novum de Antiquitatibus à P. V. Ecclesiasticis excusum esse opus eadem mihi Domina retulit Baringtona quo cùm laeticiam tum maerorem mihi excussit Laeticiam ob tantum à summo indultum Ecclesiae suae Numine beneficium maerorem quod paucula illa quae fortassis solus Tibi adjutoria ministrare potis eram propter ignotam mihi hanc festinationem ad Te mittere omiserim Annos enim totos tredecim Magnae Britanniae veram molitus sim Historiam ex ipsis majorem partem Arduuis vindicandam Ex vetustissimis schedis exaesis non rarò membranis propriâ nostrâ integros manu Tomos excerpsimus Bibliothecam post Cottonis in fallor quem vixisse doleo inter privatas Anglicanas locupletissimam numismatis aureis argenteis aeneis Autographis MSS. codicibus exornatam instauravimus Cum enim tot in vetustis nugas tot in neotericis ex plebis faece magnam partem ortis commenta videram opus hoc ingens cui me omnino imparem non diffiteor aggressus sim. Quid enim de caeteris sperandum cum vix aut ne vix una in ipsius Camdeni decantatâ toties Britanniâ suis caret erroribus pagina Dum Regum molimina res bello ac pace gestas foedera jura praelia id genus alia Britannicam spectantia politeiam regero non me effugiunt Ecclesiae sub Britannis puritas Morgani eorum gentilis ambitio apostasia haeresis nominis à Graeco idiomate in Pelagium detorsio Mor enim Britannieè Mare Gan. cum sonat ipsius in vendis heiè turbis symmistarum doli Vortigerni Gennisiorum id est occiduorum Saxonum Ducis proditiones regni Pelagianis quibus munia irrogaverat Ecclesiastica innixus invasio stupra incestus alia scelera quae ipsius tandem in Synodo clericorum laicorum ut inquit Nennius MSS. suis Chronicis Sect. 20. fol. 8. a. Britannicâ excommunicatio Vivicomburium exceperunt Integram istius Haereseωs etsi brevissimè contexui historiam eamque redivivam inter pontificios uti incomparabilis fatetur Jacobus Thuanus in Claromontani sodalitii sociis in execrandis Evangelicos penes Anabaptistis novante larvato vanissimi Arminii insignitis nomine Pseudo-Lutheranis reperio Cum se isti igitur seductores pestilentissimi à Bernardi Rotmanni Thomae Munceri Michaelis Serveti Tarraconensis Bernardini Ochini Senensis Laelii Socini Itali Sebastiani Castellionis Allobrogis qui sua etiam sub ementito Martini Bellii nomine venena Christianis digerenda propinavit temporibus se totos pene octoginta annos elapsos Anabaptistas indigetarunt unde verè fatetur Johannes Barnefeldius se istis dogmatis nomen dedisse priusquam Arminium noverat malè sibi sanè consuluerunt Orthodoxi qui oscitantia sive incuriâ novae isti postliminio irrepenti appellationi non temporiùs se opposuerunt Hinc enim in tantam provecti sunt isti veteratorii audaciam ut se Lutheri vestigiis impudenter insistere mentiuntur cum tamen ipse Augustinus contra servum arbitrium pro Dei gratiâ vix Luthero fortiùs calamum suum strinxit Imò modestiores Ethnici teste Xenophonte Daemonibus suis praescientiam rerum omnium attribuerunt quo impietatum affatim imbibisse Christiani illi revincuntur qui nihilo amplius vero Deo adscribi patiantur 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 mquit ille in Libro de Convivio excuso Parisiis 1625. pag. 887. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Spem mihi de P. V. in Angliam vere ineunti non minimam adventu oculissima Tua secit filia faxit Deus ut tanto Veritatis Evangelii sui assertori itum reditumque indulgeat tutum Liberali tum
your return to London may be hastned if it may stand with your own conveniency for if you had not been so wholly taken up with Printing and Preaching truly my Lord I would have been bold to have taken your advice in some Points of Learning And now you are in the Country I suppose you are at best leasure but you want your Library yet I doubt not the good Lady with whom you are God reward and bless her for being such a Nursing-Mother hath many good English Books and I suppose amongst others you may find Bishop Andrews's Sermons I pray peruse that Sermon at Easter upon this Text If any one will be contentious we have no such custom and then let me know whether any Man did ever speak more for Traditions than he doth there for Customs both which words are the same in effect Then how many things there are in the old Law whereof we have no Scripture but only Tradition Then I pray let me have your Opinion of Torniellus I have read him over though I have forgotten much yet I remember he shows some defects And I pray let me know when the Kingdoms of Judah and Israel were divided upon the death of Solomon whether the Power of the High Priest were acknowledged in both Kingdoms alike until Israel fell to Idolatry I will trouble your Grace no further at this time if you please to return any answer I pray let it be left at the House where you were and once within a fortnight my Servant shall call there So desiring that we may remember each other in our Prayers I commit you to God's protection and rest Your most humble Servant Godfrey Goodman Chelsy July 8. 1650. LETTER CCLV. A Letter from the Right Reverend Jos. Hall Bishop of Norwich to the most Reverend James Usher Arch-bishop of Armagh ACcepi à te pridem Honorandissime Praesul munus egregium teque uno dignum Annales Sacros Veteris Testamenti accuratissimè digestos Non enim mihi traditum est volumen quà m oculi mei in tam gratum diuque expetitum opus irruerint illico neque se exinde avelli patiuntur Obstupui sanè indefessos Labores industriam incredibilem reconditissimae eruditionis monumenta quae se istic passim vel supino lectori ultrò objiciunt Praecipuè vero subit animum mirari faelicitatem otii tui quò inter tam continuam concionum doctissimarum seriem studiis hisce paulò asperioribus abstrusissimarum quarumcunque utpote ex imae antiquitatis caligine erutarum historiarum indagini vacare potueris Hoc fieri non potuisset ilicet sine numine mirum in modum tibi propitio Ecclesiae in cujus unius gratiam haec tibi singularia artium linguarum charismata tam ubertim collata fuisse facilè persentisces Perge porro Decus praesulum ita nos beare adornare tibi coronam gloriae sempiternae faxis mirentur posteri tale lumen tam infaelici seculo indultum Expectare nos jubes Chronologicum opus toti Christiano orbi exoptatissimum sed Annales insuper alios Quid non à tanto authore speremus Deus modo protrahat tibi dies ut aevi maturus hinc tandem demigres seroque in coelum redeas Misit mihi Librum nuper à se editum Christophorus Elderfeldius noster non uti fatetur injussu tuo sanè doctum ae probè elaboratum nisi in deploratum incidissimus aevum non inutilem Quantum debeo Authori Patrono Habeat suas à me uterque gratias Ego quod superest Paternitatae vestrae Reverendissimae preces meas animitus voveo quin meipsum Jos. Norvicens E. tuguriolo nostro Highamensi In festo Sancti Jacobi Anno MDCL LETTER CCLVI. A Letter from Dr. Meric Casaubon to the most Reverend James Usher Arch-bishop of Armagh at Lincolns-Inn May it please your Grace I Was with Mr. Selden after I had been with your Grace whom upon some intimation of my present Condition and Necessities I found so noble as that he did not only presently furnish me with a very considerable Sum but was so free and forward in his Expressions as that I could not find in my heart to tell him much somewhat I did of my purpose of selling lest it might sound as a further pressing upon him of whom I had already received so much Neither indeed will I now sell so much as I intended for I did not think besides what I have in the Country to keep any at all that would yield any Mony Now I shall and among them those Manuscripts I spoke of to your Grace and Jerom's Epistles particularly the rather because I make use of it in my de Cultu Dei the first part whereof your Grace hath seen which I think will shortly be printed As for my Father's Papers I do seriously desire to dispose of them some way if I can to my best advantage but with a respect to their preservation and safety Which I think would be if some Library either here or beyond the Seas had them I pray good my Lord help me in it if you can and when you have an opportunity conser with Mr. Selden about it I will shortly within these few weeks God willing send a Note to your Grace of what I have that is considerable and will part with Not but that I had much rather keep them had I any hopes at all ever to be accommodated with Books and Leasure to fit them for publick use my self But that I have no hopes of and certainly so disposed of as I would have them in my life time they will be safer than in my keeping in that condition I am It would be a great ease to my mind to see that well done for I have always reckoned of them as of my Life and if any mischance should come to them whilst they are in my keeping and indeed they have been in danger more than once since this my tumbling condition I should never have any comfort of my Life I have sent your Grace the Jerome that you may see it and if you desire to keep it by you I shall humbly crave a Note of it under your Grace's hand So I humbly take my leave Your Grace's in all humble Duty Mer. Casaubon Lond. Oct. 21. 1650. LETTER CCLVII A Letter from Dr. Isaac Vossius to the most Reverend James Usher Arch-bishop of Armagh Illustrissimo Reverendissimo viro Ja. Usserio Armachano S. P. SI non plane ignores eruditionem et magnitudiem CHRISTINAE dubitare non possis vir Reverendissime opus tuum Chronologicum longe ei fuisse gratissimum Bidui tantum effluxit spatium quod id ad manus ejus pervenerit plurimum vero praeteriit temporis ut existimo ex quo nullum ei tam carum contigit munus Placuit ei supramodum cum ipsius operis ordo oeconomia tum etiam illud quod res Aegyptiacas Asiaticas Ã
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
planae atque in capita distinctae Sub finem specimina aliquot ex critica exerpam ostendam quam necessaria quam utilis quam solida ista sit crisis quam faeliciter cedat Nolo enim totam ejus criticam examinare refutare neque è republica id esset quia in immensam molem liber excresceret I have printed just as many Copies of the said Sheet as of the Epistola it self for to send an equal number of it as of the Epistle to all the Places where I have sent the other so as a great many of them shall go into England by Ellis In the mean while that you may not stay too long for it I send you a Copy of it here inclosed and shall be very glad to have your Grace's Judgment about it Thus with my humble respects I rest Your Grace's most humble Servant Arnold Boate. Paris 15 25 March 1651. Extract out of Goart's Syncellus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Syncellus his Copy as appeareth by this Extract is defective quanquam nulla in membranis lacuna apparet clrca annos Simonis non exprimendo annos ipsius proprios uti in aliis Summis Pontificibus facere solet sed tantum annos Mundi è quibus tamen clarum est non annos novem cum Scaligero sed annos novendecim Simoni isti à Syncello tributos LETTER CCLXI A Letter from Mr. Robert Vaughan to the most Reverend James Usher Arch-bishop of Armagh Reverend Father c. IN performance of your Request and my Promise I have at last sent you the Annales of Wales as out of the ancient Copy which you saw with me I did faithfully translate them into the English Tongue as near as I could word by word wherein knowing my weakness I laboured not so much to render a sweet harmony of Speech as the plain and simple Phrase of that Age wherein it was written which I thought would best please you tho happily with others it will not so well relish be pleased to receive it as a Token from him that honours your Worth as you read it I pray you correct it for I know it hath need There was a Leaf wanting in my Book which defect viz. from An. 900 to An. 950. and some Passages besides I was fain to make up out of other ancient Copies whereof though we have many in Wales yet but few that agree verbatim one with another And I believe some Mistakings will be found in the Times of some Transactions in this Book if they be narrowly examined as in the very Frontispiece of this Author we find in most Copies that Cadwalader went to Rome An. 680 or the Year after as it is in my Copy Nevertheless it is confessed and granted by all of them that the great Mortality hapned in that Year that he went to Rome but I find no mention of any extraordinary mortality of People that happened about Anno 680 and therefore I think it is not very likely that Cadwalader's going to Rome was deferred to that Year Morever venerable Bede and other ancient Writers do affirm that the great Mortality fell Anno 664 about the 22d Year of King Oswis Reign over Northumberland in whose Time Cadwalader lived and reigned as is manifest in the Tract which is added to some Copies of Nennius if I may give credit to that corrupt Copy of it which I have in the words following Osguid filius Edelfrid regnavit 28. An. sex mensibus dum ipse regnabat venit mortalitas hominum Catqualater regnante apud Brittones post patrem suum in ea periit This Evidence doth perswade with me that Cadwalader went to Rome far before Anno 680. But if in ea periit be meant of Cadwalader for King Oswi ruled five or six Years after unless we grant that the Plague endured twelve Years as our Welch Historians do aver it maketh such a breach in the History that I for my own part know not how to repair it for if it be true that Cadwalader died of that Plague then went he not to Rome and to deny his going to Rome is no less than to deny the Authority of all our British and Welch Antiquities in general Therefore I desire you will vouchsafe not only to give me your sense of Cadwalader's going to Rome and the Time whereby I may rest better satisfied then at present but also the loan of your best Copy of Nennius with that Tract before cited which is added to some Copies thereof And if I be not overtroublesome to your patience already I have another Request unto you which is that you will select all the Notes and Histories you have that treat of the Affairs of Wales and Princes thereof and that you will candidly impart them unto me by degrees as I shall have done with one piece so be pleased to lend another and you may command any thing that I have or can come by for it is not Labour Pains or expence of Mony to my power shall retard me in your Service My Love and Zeal to my poor Country and desire to know the truth and certainty of things past moves me sometimes to a passion when I call to mind the idle and slothful Life of my Country-men who in the revolution of 1000 Years almost afford but only Caradoc Llancarvan and the continuance thereof to register any thing to the purpose of the Acts of the Princes of Wales that I could come by or hear of some few piecemeals excepted Dr. Powel in his Latin History of the Princes of Wales citeth Tho. Maclorius de Regibus Gwynethiae but I could not hitherto meet with that Book and I am perswaded he lived not much before Henry the 6th's Time peradventure you have seen it and I do not remember that he citeth any other Author of our Country-men it may be there are some extant yet though I had not the felicity hitherto to see them I hope by your good means hereafter I shall attain to some hidden knowledg of Antiquity but I am too tedious pardon me I pray you Reverend Father think of my Request and put me not off with Excuses any longer and my Prayer shall be for your Health Peace and Prosperity in this World and everlasting Felicity in the World to come Your Friend and Servant Robert Vaughan Henewrt near Dolgelly in the County of Merionith April 14. 1651. LETTER CCLXII A Letter from the Learned Ludovicus Capellus to the most Reverend James Usher Arch-bishop of Armagh SCripfi Vir Reverendissime ad Amplissimam tuam Dignitatem ante menses quinque atque unà misi Epistolam meam adversus Bootium Apologeticam quam Nomini tuo Clarissimo inscripseram sperans aliquod ab Amplitudine tua ad me responsum quo significares quid de lite hac tota sentires Nihil dum tamen quidquam à te accepi Ac quia Amicus cui negotium literas ad te meas mittendi commiseram paulo post ad plures
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
if we would assay to retract it out of Nature by particular Probations it is no more upon the matter but to cite us to that which without instigation by natural instinct Men would practise of themselves for it cannot in reason be otherwise thought but that there are infinite numbers in all parts of the World for we may not in this case confine our Cogitations within the Bounds of Europe which imbrace the course you propose with all diligence and care that any ability can perform for every Man is born with an appetite of Knowledg wherewith he cannot be so glutted but still as in Dropsies they will thirst after more but yet why they should hearken to any such Perswasion as wholly to abolish those setled Opinions and general Theories to which they have attained and by their own and their Ancestors former experience I see nothing yet alleadged to induce me to think it Moreover I may speak with good probability that if we shall make a mental survey what is like to be effected all the World over those five or six Inventions which you have selected and imagine to be but of modern standing will make but a slender show among more than many hundreds of all kinds of Notions which are daily brought to light by the inforcement of Wit or casual Event and may be compared and partly preferred above those that you have named but were it so here that all were admitted that you can require the augmentation of our Knowledg and that all our Theorems and general Positions were utterly extinguished with a new substitution of others in their places what hope may we have of any benefit to Learning by this alteration assuredly as soon as the new are brought ad 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by the Inventors and their Followers by an interchangable course of natural Things they will fall by degrees to be buried in oblivion and so in continuance perish out-right and that perchance upon the like to your present Pretences by proposal of some means to advance our Knowledg to a higher pitch of perfection for still the same Defects Antiquity found will reside in Mankind and therefore other uses of their Actions Devices and Studies are not to be expected than is apparently by Record in former Time observ'd I remember here a Note which Paterculus made of the incomparable Wits of the Grecians and Romans in their flourishing States that there might be this reason of the notable downfal in their Issue which came after because by Nature quod summo studio petitum est ascendit in summum difficilisque in perfecto mora est insomuch that Men perceiving that they could not go further being come to the top they turned back on their own accord forsaking those Studies that were most in request and betaking themselves to new Endeavours as if the thing that they fought had been by prevention fore-priz'd by others so it fared in particular with the Eloquence of that Age that when their Successors found they could hardly equal but by no means excel their Predecessors they began to neglect the study thereof and both to write and speak for many hundred Years in a rustical manner till this latter Revolution brought the Wheel about again by inflaming gallant Spirits to give a fresh onset with straining and striving to clime unto the height and top of Perfection not in that Gift alone but in every other Skill in any part of Learning for I hold it not an erroneous Conceit to think of every Science that as now they are professed so they have been before in all precedent Ages though not the like in all Places nor at all Times alike in ours and the same but according to the Changes and Turnings of Times with a more exact or plain or with a more rude and obscure kind of teaching If the question should be asked What proof I have of it I can produce the Doctrine of Aristotle and the deepest learned Clarks of whom we have any means to take notice of that as there is of other things so there is of Sciences Ortus interitus which is also the meaning if I should expound it of Nihil novum sub sole and is as well to be applied ad facta as dicta ut nihil neque factum neque dictum quod non dictum factum prius I have further for my Warrant that famous Complaint of Solomon to his Son against the infinite making of Books in his Time of which in all congruity it must be understood that a very great part were Observations and Instructions in all kinds of Literature of which there is not now so much as one petty Pamphlet only some parcel of the Bible excepted remaining to Posterity as there was not then any bound of millions of Authors that were long before Solomon yet we must give credit to what he affirmed that whatsoever was then or had been before it could never be averred Behold this is new Whereupon I must for final conclusion infer seeing all Indeavours Studies and Knowledg of Mankind in whatsoever Arts or Science have ever been the same as at this present though full of Mutabilities according to the Changes and accidental Occasions of Ages and Countrys and Clarks dispositions which can never be but Subject to Intention and Remission both in their desires and in the practices of their Knowledg if now we should accord in opinion with you first to condemn our present knowledg of Doubts and Incertitude but you confirm but by averment without other force of Argument than to disclaim all our Axioms Maxims and general Assertions that are left by Tradition from our Elders unto us which have passed as it is to be intended all probations of the sharpest Wits that ever were And Lastly to devise being now become A B C Darii by the frequent spelling of Particulars to come to the notice of new Generals and so afresh to create new Principles of Sciences the end of all would be that when we shall be dispossessed of the Learning we have all our consequent travail will but help in a Circle to conduct us to the place from whence we set forward and bring us to the happiness to be restored in integrum which will require as many Ages as have marched before us to be perfectly atchieved All which I write with no dislike of increasing our knowldg with new Devices which is undoubtedly a practice of high commendation in regard of the benefit they will yeild for the present And the World hath ever been and will assuredly continue full of such Devisers whose industry that way hath been eminent and produced strange Effects above the reach and hope of Mens common capacities yet our Notions and Theorems have always kept in Grace both with them and with the rarest that ever were nominated among the Learned By this you see to what boldness I am brought by your kindness that if I seem too sawcy in this Contradiction it is the
to move his Majesty that he the said Doctor might be spoken to for the surrendering of his Patent together with the renewing of a former Suit of making him my Servant in that place sealed up with a promise of rendring his due obedience and thankfulness unto me for my favour So far was he then from those high terms whereon he now standeth But the case is now so far altered that this obedient Servant of mine affecteth not an Equality only with me by exempting himself wholly from my controul but also for ought I see a Superiority over me For if it shall please him to visit my Diocess or my Province as he did in the time of my Predecessor what is there in that Patent as he hath drawn it whereby I may hinder him from so doing Your Honour may by private Instructions and his Discretion free your self of this fear faith my Lord-Keeper in his Marginal Annotations upon my former Letter But good my Lord give me leave to think that the hope of such a Prize as he got by his other Visitation of all the Arch-bishops and Bishops in our Kingdom will very easily blind this Man's Discretion and for my private Instructions what weight will they be of if it be now thought a matter not reasonable that my Substitute should be tied by them As for the Report which your Lordships are to make unto his Majesty upon the reference of this Business unto you I humbly crave that for so much as doth concern me it may be made to this effect First That I never did nor do refuse to submit my self to that Agreement which you have put under your hands to be signified to his Majesty but am ready to perform it in every particular Secondly That for the limiting of my Substitute and the terms whereupon he must hold his Place under me of which there is nothing laid down in that Agreement which you have signed that which concerneth Fees and Profits only excepted I do desire that his Patent only be drawn according to the Pattern of Sir Henry Martin's and that the same Power may be reserved to me and my Successors that my Lord of Canterbury's Grace doth retain unto himself in the exercise of the Office of Prerogative and Faculties Which if it may here stand well with Sir Henry Martin's Reputation I see not but it may stand as well likewise in Ireland without any such great disparagement to Mr. Doctor 's Dignity And lastly If the Doctor herein shall not hold himself to be fairly and exceeding favourably dealt withal my desire is that both of us may be left to the Law to try our Rights together For thereby it shall be made as clear as the Light that the Doctor 's Patent was absolutely void or voidable ab initio that whatsoever validity it had at the beginning yet it was afterwards forfeited by his notorious Misdemeanour and in fine that it was actually surrendred into the Hands of His Majesty and by him cassated and annulled howsoever the Ceremony of cancelling it hath been neglected Which kind of Trial by course of Law I do now the rather desire yet strill submitting my self to the former Agreement if it shall so seem fit unto your Lordships 1. Because the Doctor wished mine Agent to certify me in plain terms that he would not be under me and hereby for his part hath disclaimed the benefit of your Lordships Order 2. Because by his incensing of my Lord of Canterbury against me of whose Grace I never yet deserved evil by his abusing of me in his Reports unto your Lordships and by his disgraceful traducing of me in all Companies he hath made himself utterly unworthy of the Favour which I intended to shew unto him 3. Because as long as my Life shall be conceived to remain in that pretended Patent the validity of the Acts that have passed in the Prerogative Court during the time of my Predecessor some whereof have been of very great moment may be held in suspence it being still questionable whether they were done coram non-Judice or no. All which I leave unto your honourable consideration and humbly craving pardon if I have any way overshot my self in defending mine Innocency and Reputation against the unworthy Proceedings of my ungrateful Accuser I rest Your Lordships ready to do you Service J. A. Much Haddam Aug. 20. 1625. LETTER XCIII A Letter from Mr. John Selden to the most Reverend James Usher Arch-bishop of Armagh My Lord IT was most glad News to me to hear of your so forward Recovery and I shall pray for the addition of Strength to it that so you may the easier go on still in the advancement of that Common-wealth of Learning wherein you can so guide us I humbly thank your Lordship for your Instructions touching the Samaritan Bible and the Books I have returned the Saxon Annals again as you desired with this suit that if you have more of them for these are very slight ones and the old Book of Ely Historia Jornallensis the Saxon Evangelist the Book of Worcester the Book of Mailros or any of them you will be pleased to send me them all or as many as you have of them by you and what else you have of the History of Scotland and Ireland and they shall be returned at your pleasure if you have a Saxon Bede I beseech you let that be one also If I have any thing here of the rest or ought else that your Lordship requires for any present use I shall most readily send them to you and shall ever be Your Lordship's most affectionate Servant J. Selden Sept. 14. 1625. Wrest Sept. 19. Sent him upon this Annales Latino-Saxonici the Book of Mailros Fordoni Scotichronic Fragment Scotic Annal. ad finem Ivonis Carnot Fragment Annalium Abb. B. Mariae Virginis Dublin Annales Hiberniae Thomae Case The Book of Hoath Pembrig's Annals Ms. There is hope as Sir Robert Cotton tells me that a very ancient Greek MS. Copy of the Council of Nice the first of them of that name is to be had some where in Huntingdonshire I thought it was a piece of News that would be acceptable to your Lordship he is in chase for it LETTER XCIV A Letter from Mr. John Cotton of Boston in New-England to the most Reverend James Usher Arch-bishop of Armagh Right Reverend MY beloved Neighbour-Minister Mr. Wood acquainted me with your desire to hear from me how I conceived of the way of God's eternal Predestination and the Execution of it I should not have hearkned to him herein tho I love him well were it not for the deep Affection and Reverence I bear to your Person and Gifts which hath constrained me together with his importunacy to yield to the sending of this Discourse to you which I was occasioned to write a year ago for the satisfaction of a Neighbour-Minister in Points of this nature The Questions and Answers in the beginning of the Book I delivered and opened