0 10  R. Bally heth 0 1 8  Eccles Cathed 1 11 0  Colleg. S. Canici 0 19 0 Civit. Kilken Prior S. Johan 4 0 0 Civit. Water Prior S. Kathar 0 6 8 Baro. Oss Prior Aghamacartie 2 0 0 Co. Orm. Prior Kells 6 13 4 Civit. Wat. Prior Kilkellihine 6 6 8 Co. Orm. Prior Jerpoint 0 15 4 Vicee Galmoy Prior Fartenegeragh 2 0 0 Clarke Prior Inisteng 4 0 0 Q. Medietat Fidowne 0 6 8 Col. Welch R. Kilbecocke 0 6 8 and Killahie R. Rossenan 0 2 0 Clarke R. Thomastowne 0 15 0  Inisteog 0 15 0 Cap. Holsey R. Kilcoan 0 5 0 Clarke Collankill 0 3 4 Civit. Wat. R. Cashlane 0 10 0 Mr. Welch R. Donkitte 0 13 4 Co. Sup. Oss R. Killenie 0 4 4 and Cahire Preb. Whiting R. Attyre and Attan 0 5 0  Total 69 4 11 procurat These be all the Rectories and Vicaridges in the Diocess of Ossory and of these 1. The Dean and Chapter have six that is 1. Skaffin 3 s 4 d 2. Clontabrit 4 s 8 d 3. Rath-Logan 5 s 10 d 4. Bally Lorcan 4 s 8 d 5. Durho 13 s 8 d 6. Coulcashin 5 s 8 d 2. The Colledge of the Vicars have six that is 1. Disart 11 s 2. Dromdelgney 8 s 8 d 3. Bally-bur 3 s 4 d 4. St. Martin 2 s 5 Kilkeyse 4 s 6. Rath-Keran 1 s 8 d The Cathedral 1 l 11 s And the Colledge 19 s 3. My L. Duke of Ormond for himself and my Lady Duches have 1. R. Offerulam 12 s 2. R. Rath-downy 10 s 8 d 3. R. Glashard q. 4. R. Lawkil q. 5. R. Donnaghmoore 14 s 8 d 6. R. Kilmenan 5 s 7. R. Kilcolman 6 s 8 d 8. R. Donnoghmoore 6 s 8 d 9. R. Kilmocar 4 s 8 d 10. R. Donmore 5 s 8 d 11. R. Disart 2 s 8 d 12. R. Rower 8 s 8 d 13. Knoctofer q 14. Prior Jerpoint 15 s 4 d 15. Prior Kells 6 l 13 s 4 d 11 l 6 s Irish 8 l 9 s 6 d sterling procurations But I do understand that this pious and most honourable Duke doth most religiously as it is said of Arauna All these things as a King did Arauna give unto the King 2 Sam. 24.23 intend to yield up and to bestow them all for the building of a Colledge in Kilkenny to bring up Schollars for the service of God and the perpetual honour and glory of himself and the succeeding Race of his Family for ever and I beseech God continue his grace in that most godly resolution And let the God of heaven multiply his blessings upon him to ride on with his honour more and more 4. My Lord of Upper Ossory hath 1. Koolekerry 4 s 8 d 2. Aghamacartie 2 l 3. Calline and Cashire 4 s 4 d 2 l 5 s Irish 1 l 3 s 9 d sterling 5. My Lord of Galmoy hath Fartinageratgh 2 l 6. My Lord of Cavan hath 1. Thomastowne 15 s 2. Inisteog 4 l and 15 s 7. Sir Robert Foord hath R. Killahie and Kilbecocke 6 s 8 d 8. Captain Holsey hath R. Kilcolbin 5 s 4 d R. Kilcoan and Kilbrit 5 s q. 9. Sir Jo. Ponsonby hath R. Fidown 6 s 8 d 10. Collonel Dillan hath R. S. Keiran R. Capel S. Nicolai 11. Mr. Welch hath R. Dunkitt 13 s 4 d R. Rosenan 2 s 12. Archdeacon Bulkley hath 1. R. Bananagh 2. R. Kilferagh 3. R. Odogh 4. R. Disort c. or q. 5. R. Tulloherin And I did alwaies conceive that no Churchman that understood what Sacriledge is and the hainousness of that sin would ever accept of any impropriate Livings and hold the same as a lay fee from the Church of God for if a Clergy man holds it lawful to take five I do not wonder that a lay man should hold twenty 13. The City of Kilkenny hath 1. R. Skirke 2. R. Tubbrid brittaine 4 s 3. R. Maculli 18 s 6 d 4. R. Dromerthin 2 s 4 d 5. R. Fennell 6 s 6. Prior S. John 4 l. 14. The City of Waterford hath 1. Prior S. Katharin 6 l 8 s. 2. Prior. Kilkellihine 6 l 6 s 8 d 3. R. Portnescolly The best Livings in all the Diocess are held by the Nobility Gentry and Cities And all these Rectories are the best and the chiefest Livings that are of any worth or of any more within the Diocess of Ossory and as I shewed you the Nobility Gentry and Cities do hold them from the Church and do yield little or nothing for the service of God in those Churches neither dare the poor Vicars and Curates according to the Bishops appointment ask them any thing for the serving of these Churches nor is it to any purpose for any Incumbent to sue for any Tythes or rights that belongs unto his Church for when he sueth and hath proved the truth of his Allegation and to his great expences expecteth judgment then presently upon a false suggestion comes a prohibition to stop all just proceedings in the Court Christian which is the usual and common practice against all the Christian Ministers in Ireland when they sue for any right and which is the cause that the Christians wanting Vicars and Curates that will not undertake to strive against the stream or to labour in Gods Vineyard and to want bread our good God is thereby dishonoured the People uninstructed and ignorance superstition and Popery very like to continue still 〈◊〉 out amongst them A memorable Instance Mr. Partridge And to make this more plain unto you I will here set down a thing recenti memoria facta A poor Minister and very honest man expelled by the Irish Rebels from his Livings and plundered of all that ever he had and kept out of all as we all were by far more wicked rebels was lately restored and placed by my self in the small Vicaredge of Killahie but Sir Robert Foord having the impropriate Rectory bestowed the same with his Daughter to a very great rich man powerful Collonel Stopford in former times with the Long Parliament and he forbids his Tenants to suffer the poor Vicar to have his Vicarial Tythes that were not all worth five pounds per annum because they paid none for all the time of the Rebellion therefore the poor Vicar sueth for his Tythes and by sufficient Witnesses proved the payment thereof before the Wars unto the Vicar whereupon the great Gentleman came unto me and said that such a Minister of my Diocess sued the Tenants and Servants of Sir Robert Foord that was a Privy Counsellour and a great Parliament man and therefore desired me to stop the Suite I answered that I could not do so for what if all the men in the Parish were the Tenants and Servants of Parliament men and denied to pay their Tythes to the Vicar shall the poor man be without his means during all the continuance of the Parliament So he may starve for want of food and the
Church I had rather live a poor Curate in my own Country than a Bishop among such a company of Crumwellian Anabaptists Quakers and other worser Sectaries that do live in these parts and the wind of his Majesties happy Government and the prudent care of my Lord Lieutenant hath driven them As by their actions and hatred I do perfectly discern them like the Church Papists in Queen Elizabeths daies to come within the Pales of our Church and yet are as false-hearted if the same might be seen both to the King and the Church of Christ as ever they were in Crumwells daies as I conceive it to appear by the oath of one of my Witnesses that swore he heard the Captain of these forcible Enterers that I indicted incouraging his followers to keep the possession for Sir George Ayskue and to assure themselves things should never be quiet untill they returned and come again as they were before which was a strange saying as I understood it Yet I would not have my Reader here to think but that as the Scripture distinguisheth betwixt the seed of the woman and the seed of the Serpent the Children of God and the Sons of Belial so I do here in no waies prejudice nor think the least evil of the true-hearted English and true Protestants the worthy Gentlemen the Officers Captains and Commanders of the Army that are likewise many in these parts but I make a great deal of difference betwixt them so much as that I do as much love and honour the one as I do hate and abhor the doings and wickedness of the other So you may see what it is to live in Ireland For here now the Poet may well say that Terras Astraeâ— reliquit among Anabaptists and other Sectaries worse than Pagans and how it is my Fortune to feel the brunt and taste the poyson of their Malice to publish the same to all posterities God deliver his Servants from them Amen ANd now untill I shall see whether the Star-Chamber will think it Justice as I do that this Jury should bear all the damage that I sustain by their Verdict and which I should have recovered upon the forcible Enterers if they had gone according to their Evidence I thought good to prefer this Petition to His Majesty To the Kings Most Excellent Majesty The Humble Petition of Gruffith Lord Bishop of Ossory Sheweth THat Justice is a vertue and grace most acceptable with God yet your Petitioner hath been infinity injured and your Majesty likewise wronged 1. By forcible Enterers that drove your Petitioner out of his house of Bishops Court and Freshfoord 2. By a wicked forgerer of the Indictment of those persons that were indicted for that entry 3. By a packt Jury that when the forcible Enterers were three times indicted by three several Juries quitted them contrary to their evidence and the mind of all the Judges May it therefore please your Majesty to cause that Justice may be done to your Petitioner and that you would write to the Sheriff of the County of Kilkenny that as formerly he hath setled your Petitioner in this Bishops Court and Freshfoord by vertue of an Order of the House of Lords so he would now settle him in his right and possession of the same by vertue of an Order from your Majesty And your Petitioner doth here promise and ingage himself to God and to your Majesty that as he bestowed about four hundred pounds already so having the four hundred pounds per annum that your Majesty granted setled upon him according to the Act of settlement pag. 71 72. he will lay out a thousand pounds more to repair the flat fallen formerly fair Cathedral Church of St. Keny And shall ever pray for your Majesty c. The sad condition of the Church and Clergy in the Diocess of Ossory and I fear not much better in all Ireland THE Church of Ireland in former times was very famous and glorious for many things especially for Piety and neighbourly Charity and bounty of the people one towards another as it appeareth by the rare and many many Edifices of Churches and Monasteries endowed with ample means and revenues dedicated for the honour of God and the service of Jesus Christ all to be seen at this very day for which cause it was wont to be admired and applauded and by the bordering Nations that observed their sedulity in pious works and neglect of worldly pomp when as the holy Patriarchs lived in Tents so most of them were contented to lie in Booths and poor earthly Cabins or houses made of Earth that they might build to God houses of Marble most sumptuous and glorious and that they might be the better able to bestow the more to adorn and beautifie the houses and Temples of God it was called and not amiss Ecclesia Sanctorum the glorious Church of holy Saints that aimed only to go to heaven But now since the unhappy time of that potent K. H. 8. when Sacriledge through his discontent with the Pope about his divorce with Queen Katherine Ut fama vagatur began to get the upper hand and to throw away Piety from the Church and trample it under-foot and cover it over with the Cloak of hypocrisie and the vain shadow of no Religion instead of the true service of God you may see reliquias danaum the ruines of Troy and in all places the carkass of Religion lodged in the thrown down walls of all the Abbies and Monasteries and most of the Cathedrals and the other Churches of Ireland that are now as the Prophet saith defiled and made heaps of stones Psal 79.1 For if you walk through Ireland as I rode from Carlingford to Dublin and from Dublin to Kilkenny and in my Visitation thrice over the Diocess of Ossory I believe that throughout all your travel you shall find it as I found it in all the waies that I went scarce one Church standing and sufficiently repaired for seven I speak within compass that are ruined and have only walls without ornaments and most of them without roofs without doors without windows but the holes to receive the winds to entertain the Congregation And what a lamentable thing and a miserable-fight is this If you say that in the time of blindness the people were over zealous in building too many Churches and thinking to merit much thereby I say that now in the fulness of knowledge and the Sun-shine of the Gospel they are too riotous to pull them down and too negligent of Gods honour and of the Peoples good to waste and ruinate so many Churches and to let the people want them to meet together to serve God which will merit a worse reward for them than they shall have that built them You may remember that when Moses was to erect the Tabernacle in the wilderness within a desart place of no trade or traffick and therefore not easie to get any wealth in it Yet Moses requiring their
Temples that belonged to these no Gods Delicta majorum immeritus lues Romane donec templa refeceris Horat l. 3. Ode 6. Aedesque labentes deorum fada nigro Simulachra fumo The which Ode that worthy and learned Imitator of this best Lyrick Poet thus excellently translateth in this elegant Lyrick Verse Roman resolve thou shalt desertless tast Sins scourge for vice of Predecessors past Untill thou dost again repair Decayed Temples and make fair The falling houses of the gods disgrac'd And cleanse their Images with smoak defac'd To think thee less than gods thy power commends Hence take beginnings hither aime thy ends The gods neglected did impose On sad Hesperia many woes Twice Pacorus and twice Manaeses hand Our inanspicious forces did disband Who with a plentious prey made glad To little chains new links did add And if by the judgment of this learned man they shall suffer for all the sins and offences of their Fathers and Fore-fathers untill they re-edifie the Temples and raise the flat-fallen houses of these gods and beautifie the defiled Monuments and Sepulchres of their Heroes and other noble persons that were dead What shame and what punishment do we deserve for suffering the Tombs and Sepulchres of our heroick Fathers and the Temples Houses and Altars of our good God and our Redeemer Jesus Christ to lye so waste so ruined and so defiled as they are here in this Kingdom of Ireland for I do believe that of about 100 Churches that our fore-fathers built and sufficiently endowed in the Diocess of Ossory there are not 20 standing nor 10 well repaired at this day Truly I have done my best beyond my ability let Demas and the detractors say what they please to repair the Quire of St. Kenny and I have privately vowed and publickly protested often and engaged my self to God to His Majesty and to the People and I am contented to be bound in a bond of one thousand pounds that if the Bishops Court and Freshford that were given to the Church and dedicated to God for the service of Jesus Christ shall be restored to the Church there shall not one penny or penniworth of all the rents and profits thereof be retained or transferred to me or any of mine but it shall wholly and fully be imployed and laid out for the raising and reparation of that Cathedral Church which the Lord hath now committed to my charge But if I shall still see as I have seen hitherto that Rebels and Traytors that have been if such as have fought under the Standard of the beast and Great Antichrist against their own King to bring him to be murdered may be so stiled shall be countenanced furthered and upheld to carry away and enjoy the Lands and Houses of the Church and so little regard had of that justice we owe to render unto God what belongs to God and less respect to the servants of Jesus Christ than to the followers of the Antichrist then seeing as the Prophet saith in vacuum laboravi I have laboured in vain I have spent my strength my time my means and my money for nought in seeking to bring to God what is Gods and to the Church what of right belongs unto the Church Liberavi animam meam and I hope I may freely turn the leaf and as God said of the house of Eli I said indeed that the house of Eli 1 Sam. 2.30 and the house of his Fathers should walk before me for ever but now saith the Lord be it far from me And seeing they had so far dishonoured him and so much prophaned his service it was just with God so to do And so I said indeed I would do my best and I would bestow as much as I was able and perhaps more than many would imagine to repair the Cathedral Church of St. Kenny yet now being disappointed of my hope and finding men preferring flesh and bloud before the dictate of the Spirit of God favouring those that have been rebels before such as are religious Seeing I cannot build the Church of Christ I have resolved to the uttermost of my power to overthrow the Synagogue of Satan that is to punish perjurers and such others high transgressors of Gods Laws and to leave the houses of God as finding my self unable to prevail to do therein any good wasted and ruined as they are And if this I cannot do but that Scelera sceleribus tuebuntur one false and perjured Jury shall be defended and protected and justified by another false Jury and one wicked oppressor excused by another the like oppressor or that the fear of great men will not suffer poor spirited Lawyers to afford us Law for any money then ad te domine clamabo that we can have neither truth nor justice in the earth But to proceed to shew the miseries of the Church of Ireland though it be a very lamentable thing and an unanswerable argument of the decay of Piety and of small Religion in the noblest persons to suffer the houses of God to lie as they do for hogs and other beasts to dig up the bones of holy Saints it may be the Fathers or Mothers of the now great Lords and Ladies of the Kingdom Yet as the Lord said unto his Prophet Ezekiel Turn thee yet again and thou shalt see greater abominations Ezek. 8.6 so I say to my Reader For 2. The great want of able Ministers in this Kingdom and why they are so scant 2. As God is without Churches for his people to meet in to serve him so he is without servants enabled to do him service to praise his name and to teach his people and to have Churches and no Churchmen is to no purpose But why have we not such Churchmen as are able to instruct Gods people I say it is easily answered that it is not so easie to get able worthy and sufficient Churchmen unless there were sufficient means and livings to maintain them for as Seneca truly saith Sublatis studiorum premiis ipsa studia pereunt where there is no reward for learning there will be want of learned men as one demanding why there were no Physitians in Lacedemon answer was made because there was no stipend nor allowance set forth for the Professours of that faculty but as Martial saith to Flaccus Sint Maecenates non decrunt Flacce marones Virgiliumque tibi vel tua rura dabunt But here in Ireland since Hen. 8. Why we want learned and painful Preachers here in Ireland overthrew the Abbies and Monasteries that were as Universities to breed Schollars and to send them forth to feed the flock of Christ and gave the Revenues thereof which were the Ecclesiastical Livings of the Church unto his Nobility and lay Gentry that spend the same in many places in hawking and hunting and perhaps in some other worser employments the Church of Christ wanteth Schollars and which is worse wanteth means to maintain those Schollars that otherwise would supply
of them and do you think that this value is sufficient to maintain an able Ministery to supply all these Churches and Parishes as they ought to be or that Popery shall be supprest and the true Protestant Religion planted amongst the people by the unition of Parishes and the diminution of Churches without any augmentation of their means Credat Judaeus Apella non ego Object But you will say his Majesty hath most graciously provided and it is confirmed by the Act of Settlement that a very ample augmentation is added to all the meanest Bishopricks of Ireland and he hath most royally and religiously bestowed all the Impropriations forfeited to his Crown upon the several Incumbents unto whose Churches they did belong Answ I answer That when God placed man in Paradice the devil was ready to cast him out and when God maketh our paths straight and easie Satan will straight put rubbs and blocks in our way to stumble us so though I gave above fifty pounds for Agents money to follow the Churches cause and spent above thirty pounds to procure a Commission to gain that augmentation which his Majesty was so graciously pleased to add unto the Bishop of Ossory yet presently there comes a Supersedeas to stop the proceeding of my Commission How the devil hindereth all intended good and I am not the better either by Augmentation or Agents so much as one penny to this very day and some devil hath put some great rub for a stumbling block in my way untill God removes the same and throws it where blocks deserve to be And though his Majestie hath been pleased to bestow his Impropriations upon the Incumbents yet my Lord Lieutenant and the Council thought it fit to take forty pounds per annum out of those Impropriations for the better provision of the Quire in Dublin and so by that means the Clergy of Ossory are not the better by one penny that the Clergy might be like unto their Bishop for I find but four impropriations forfeited to his Majesty and bestowed upon the Church in all the Diocess and these being set by Mr. Archdeacon Teate to the uttermost pitch that he could they did not reach to forty pounds the last year And to say the truth without fear of any man we are not only deprived of the Vicarial Tythes and offerings by the Farmers of the great Lords Impropriate Rectories but our Lands and Glebes are clipped and pared to become as thin as Banbury Cheese by the Commissioners and Counsel of those illustrious Lords for though his Grace our most excellent Lieutenant the Duke of Ormond is I say it without flattery a man of such worth so noble so honourable and so religious as is beyond compare and for his fidelity and Piety and other incomparable parts scarce to be equalized by any Subject of any King and so many other great Lords are in themselves very noble and religious yet as Rehoboam in himself considered was not so very a bad King but had very bad Counsellours that did him a great deal of dishonour and damage so this most honourable Duke And thus as Christ was crucified betwixt the good thief and the bad so are we betwixt the good Lords and their bad Agents But let them fear least by making their Lords great here on earth they do make themselves little in heaven and other great Lords may have as I fear some of them have such Commissioners and Counsel that as well to make themselves a fortune as to enlarge their Lords revenues will pinch the Parsons side and part the Garments of Christ betwixt themselves and their Lords as my Lord Dukes Agents have distrained and driven away my Tenants Cattel for divers great sums of Chieferies and challenged some Lands that as I am informed were never paid nor challenged within the memory of man And who dares oppose these men or say unto them Why did you so Not I though they should take away my whole estate for as Naboth had better have yielded up his Vineyard than to have lost his life so I conceive it better to yield to their desires quietly than to lose both my Lands and my labour by such a Jury as will give it away though never so Unjustly whereof I have had experience and a sad proof non sine meo magno malo Yet The Civility and Piety of the 49 men I confess the 49. men have been very civil and shewed themselves very fairly conditioned and religious both to my self and as I understand to all other Clergymen and I wish that all Noblemens Commissioners and Agents would be so likewise that their doings may bring a blessing and not a curse upon them and perhaps upon their Lords and Masters Lords and Masters shall answer to God for the oppressions that their servants do under their power that must give an account to God for the ill carriages and the oppressions of the poor by their servants who dishonour their Lords and make them liable to Gods wrath for the wrongs that they do to make them the greater and so receive the greater condemnation for great men must not only do no wrong themselves but they ought also to see that none under their wings and through the colour of their power and authority do any wrong unto the poore But to deal plainly and to shew what respect favour and justice we the poor Bishops and Clergymen have from the great Lords and Courts of justice in this Kingdom I will instance but in the example of my self who after I had exposed my self to the dayly and continual hazard of my life by my preaching and publishing so many Books against the Rebels and Long Parliament which I have unanswerably proved to be the Great Antichrist and had for all their Reign served duram servitutem and suffered more hardship than any Bishop and upon my restitution to my Bishopprick by the happy restauration of our most gracious King having spent above four hundred pounds to gain the Bishops Mansion house where Bishop Bale saw five of his Servants kill'd before his face and himself driven to flee to save his life and which was given to Sir George Askue by Cromwel for his service to the Long Parliament I have fully shewed the favour and the justice that I had at the Kings Bench though I must ingeniously confess my Lord Chief Justice dealt as fairly and as justly as any Judge in the world could do And I do pray to God that both Judges and Jury and all the pleaders may have better at the Bar of the King of Kings Then letting pass the proceeding of the Court of Claim that gave away the Lands and Houses that were in my possession while I was in London though a chief Member of that Court promised that nothing should be done against the Church untill I returned home and acknowledging the civility and fair respect that was shewed me by my Lord Chief Baron and the other
Barons of the Exchequer in doing right both to the King and to my self by putting the Bishops Lands out of charge His Mâ—jesty having most graciously conferred four hundred pounds per annum â—o me and my Successors out of the fee Farmes forfeited to his Mâ—jesty and the Parliament confirming the same by the Act of settlement I took a Commission of enquiry and when all my Witnesses came together and were ready to proceed there comes a Supersedeas to stop our way but his Majesties Atturney Sir William Dunvil and Sir Audley Mervin and the rest of the Kings Sergeants and Sollicitors did so faithfully so learnedly and so religiously plead on his Majesties behalf and the Church for which the God of heaven will reward them that they had the Supersedeas superseded and vâ—cated by our most honourable and most religious Lord Chancellour and then I proceeded and the Jury found this Bishops house and Freshford forfeited to the King and worth a hundred pounds per annum then coming to Dublin to have my Commission put upon the file and to get a Pattent according to the Act and the Kings Grant to enjoy the same after I had spent above a hundred pounds to bring the matter to this pass I received this answer that my Lord Deputy and Council were resolved to do nothing unless they received the Kings Letter and Command to do it and though I was sorry for the vaste expence of money that I laid out to no benefit yet I am glad to see men so observant of the Kings Word and Command I would to God they and all others the Kings Subjects would have obeyed Solomons Counsel to observe the words and commands of our late most gracious King Charles the First I should not have needed to suffer so much as I have done and so often to have troubled our now most gracious King and to have spent near sixty pounds for Agents money for the good of the Church and above four hundred pounds to repair the Chancel of S. Keney and in all above five hundred pounds to recover the Bishops Mansion house and Freshford from Captain Burges and Sir George Ayskue and to be not one jot the nearer nor one penny the richer for all this money that I have spent nor have any more by one penny-worth than what my most gracious King and late loving Master gave me to this very day and I conceive this to be nothing else but But then after I received this answer I presently went to London and presented this Petition to his Majesty To the Kings most Excellent Majesty The humble Petition of Gruffith Lord Bishop of Ossory Sheweth THat your Petitioner hath suffered the loss of all that he had and the continual hazard of his life during all the time of Cromwel and the Long Parliament for his service and faithfulness to your Majesty and your Royal Father of most blessed memory That your Majesty hath been most graciously pleased to grant four hundred pounds per annum out of the forfeited Fee-farmes for an augmentation to his poor Bishopprick of Ossory and that your Petitioner being by the Sheriff put into the possession of the former Bishops Mansion house called Bishops Court by vertue of an Order from the House of Lords and being forcibly driven out by the Tenants of Sir George Askue whom your Petitioner hath therefore indicted three several times by three several Juries yet after the expence of above four hundred pounds could not be righted And your Petitioner having got a Commission of inquiry what Fee-farmes were forfeited to your Majesty and when the same Commission was superseded having with a great expâ—nce superseded that supersedeas and had by the fourth Jury found the said Bishops Court to be a Fee-farme held from the Bishop of Ossory worth by improvement a hundred pounds per annum and forfeited to your Majesty yet after the expence of above a hundred pounds to bring the Commission to this pass your Petitioner received this answer from the Lord Deputy and Counsel that they were resolved to pass no Pattent of any Lands granted by your Majesty and the Act of Settlement unto the Bishops but to such as had your Majesties special Letters to do the same And forasmuch as it had been better for your Petitioner to have had nothing granted unto him than after such a vaste expence above five hundred pounds to miss of gaining one hundred pounds per annum Your Petitioner humbly prayeth that your Majesty would be graciously pleased to write your Letters to the Lord Deputy to pass a Pattent according to what the Jury found and according to your Majesties former Grant and the Act of Settlement And your Petitioner doth oblige himself to lay it out all for the repair of the now ruinous Cathedral Church of S. Keney and he shall ever pray c. And his Majesty did most graciously read it every word himself and then said I will speak to my Lord of Ormond to do it So whether I recover it or not Non hujus facio I weigh it not a rush for I hope my Saviour Jesus Christ whose Sollicitor I am only in this suit will not impute the loss of this to me seeing I have done my very best to regain it for his service yet could not do it by reason of the great Friends of Sir George Askue who made me like Ixion that embraced a Cloud for Juno to spend five hundred pounds to hunt after a shadow and to lose the substance and to have his Majesties gracious 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to become 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but let him take heed of Moses Emphatical Prayer for Levi and of Davids Prophetical Prediction what shall become of them that keep the Revenues of the Church and the Houses of God in their possessions and let his great Friends and his Jury pray to God that they may have more favour from Jesus Christ than they have shewed for his honour and if this be the reward that Sir George Askue and the Bishop of Ossory shall receive for their service to King Charles the first I will say no more but pray to God as I do both day and night to be a just Judge betwixt me and them that have opposed me in this the Churches right Amen So you have seen some part of the miseries of the Church of Ireland and all the Livings in my Diocess of Ossory and who holds them and what they are deemed to be worth communibus annis unto the Incumbents and this together with the state and condition of the Bishoppricks in Ireland which are now like Anthropophagites eating up and devouring one another excepting the poor Bishopprick of Ossory that standeth yet alone like the trunke of a goodly Oake without boughs without leaves without beauty when as many Bishops here in Ireland have two or three Bishoppricks apiece As the Bishop of Cork hath also Rosse and Cloyne the Bishop of Limricke hath also the Bishopprick of
all But though it be not amiss to make known the injustice and the faults of Great men that there may be a redress of them yet who dares complain and speak of the Vices of their Superiours An tutum est scribere in eos qui possunt proscribere I have read how the Mice held a Consultation The Fable of the Mice how they might escape the fury of the Cat and one wiser than the rest said it might easily be done if there were but a Bell tied about the Cats neck for so they might heare her coming and they might get away and all liked well and applauded the device but to this day they could never agree which of them should tie the Bell about the Cats neck So all the poor and inferiour Clergy all sigh and groan and complain of their Taxes and Pressures and Oppressions by the Bishops and Archbishops and Archdeacons and their Suffragans and all that come to Censure them but not one of them all dares tie the Bell about the Cats neck and complain of these Great Powers unto the Higher Powers to have their abuses redressed for fear of a worser consequence no less than to be crusht and torn all to pieces Yet I remember what Seneca saith that he which is careless of his own life may when he will be Master of another mans life so he that is careless of his own state or promotion and regards not the confluence of wealth and worldly things may without fear do things that other timorous men dare not venter to do The manifold deliverances of the Author And truly I must confess that since the great Jehovah my continual deliverer hath delivered me from that multitude of those malicious Enemies that sought after my life when I was scarce budded in the world and ever since hath preserved me so many times from such great and so unimaginable dangers as from Captain Flaxen when I was carried Prisoner to North-hampton from Captain Beech when I was taken prisoner at Sea from the drunken Captain that would have delivered me to the Power of the Parliament hard by Aber-ystwith from Sir John Carter and Courtney that would have clapt me in prison when I preached for his now Majesty at Conway from the wicked Committee of plundered Ministers that said I deserved rather to have my head cut off than to have any Articles performed with me from so many desperate Sea-voyages and Land journeys that I passed through and from Captain Wood when I was under his hands in the Parliament Ship from the Great Antichrist the Long Parliament and especially from the devil himself when he threw me down at West-Wickham and God said unto him as he did of Job He is in thy hand but save his life I never feared what man could do unto me but as the Prophet David said the Lord delivered me from the mouth of the bear and of the Lion and he will deliver me from this uncircumcised Philistine So I say the Lord that preserved me so many times from so many dangers will still preserve me while with a sincere heart I endeavour to discharge my duty especially seeing the Lord saith I even I am he that comforteth you and who art thou that art affraid of a man and of the son of man that shall be made as grass and forgettest the Lord thy Maker that hath stretched forth the heavens and laid the Foundations of the Earth and hast feared every day because of the fury of the oppressour as if he were ready to destroy Therefore as I have been alwaies resolute and in a manner desperate in the judgment of the timorous as it appeareth by the three Books that in the behalf of our late King I printed in Oxford and the three Books that I writ of the Great Antichrist while the Long Parliament and the false Prophet were in their greatest prevalency and by the Sermons that I preached at St. Nicholas and other Churches in Dublin at Conwey before the Judges at Llaâ— Sannan and in all places So now in mine old age when I am so near my grave I have less reason to fear and more cause to be resolute to say the truth to discharge my duty and to implore my most honourable Friends my Lords Grace of Canterbury my Lord of London and my old familiar Acquaintance my Lord of Winchester whom God hath placed so near his Majesty and hath raised to that eminency of dignity pre consortibus above their brethren not so much for their own sakes as for his honour and service and the good of his Church and like so many religous Josephs to relieve their distressed Brethren to joyn in mine assistance most earnestly to beseech and most humbly to petition to his Sacred Majesty that he would be graciously pleased to relieve and help the Church of Ireland in those threefold grievances that I have foreshewed as that 1. Seeing the Lands and Revenues of the Church were I am sure in many places of my Diocess given for their reward that fought against his late Majesty and that by reason of their wealth and great friends to uphold them therein they do possess them and we that would erect our Churches therewith are disinabled to do it without our means that are so forcibly with strong hands and by such friends detained from us his Majesty would be pleased to cause them or some others some waies and by some means to have the Churches of God for the service of Jesus Christ to be erected and repaired * Especially the Bishops Cathedral Church in Kilkenny and not to the scandal of our Religion which the Jews Turks and Gentiles would not do to suffer our very Cathedrals and so many other Parish Churches to lie so ruinous and so rooted up as they are 2. That seeing so many great and goodly Impropriations are taken away from the Church of Christ and from the service of God and are held in the hands of such great persons and powerful men that will not part with them as I shewed to you before and the poor Vicars of such Rectories impropriate have scarce so much means belonging to the Vicaredges as will put bread into their mouths whereby they are constrained for the relief of their Families to take Farms and other Lands to occupy like Lay men and to neglect their duties and the service of Gods Church and to suffer the poor people either to be instructed and to have their children baptized married and buried by the Popish Priests or to have no Priests at all and we that are the Diocessans by reason of the small values of those Vicaredges can find no men that are worthy and able Ministers that will come and accept of those slender maintenances and those that do accept them we cannot make them by reason of their smalness to discharge them And seeing as I said the Churches are down and the Lands Livings and Revenues of the Church are thus as I
EIGHT SERMONS DEDICATED TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE HIS GRACE The Lord Duke of Ormond AND To the most Honourable of Ladies the Dutchess of Ormond her Grace Most of them preached before his Grace and the Parliament in Dublin By the Right Reverend Father in God Griffith Lord Bishop of Ossory The Contents and particulars whereof are set down in the next Page LONDON Printed for the Author Anno Dom. 1664. Imprimatur Geor. Stradling S. T. P. Rev. in Christo Pat. D. Gilb. Episc Lond. à Sac. Domestic Ex Aed Sab. Jul. 1. 1663. THE DESCRIPTION AND THE PRACTICE Of the four most admirable BEASTS Explained in four SERMONS Upon REVEL 4.8 Whereof the first three were preached before the Right Honourable JAMES Duke of ORMOND And Lord Lieutenant of IRELAND his Grace And the two Houses of Parliament and others very Honourable Persons By the Right Reverend Father in God Gr. Lord Bishop of OSSORY London Printed by Tho. Roycroft for Philemon Stephens and are to be sold at the Golden Lion in St. Pauls Church-Yard 1663. The particular Sermons and Contents of the whole Book THe description and the practice of the four most admirable Beasts upon Revel 4.8 In four Sermons The only Way to the Kingdom of Heaven upon Matth. 6.33 In one Sermon The Saving Serpent upon John 3. In one Sermon The only Way to preserve Life upon Amos 5.6 In one Sermon The ejection or destruction of Devils upon Mat. 17.21 In one Sermon but prevented to be finished Whereunto is added The persecution and oppression of two right Reverend Bishops of Ossory TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE THE Duke of ORMOND His GRACE WHen the Parliament out of their love to Christ and respect to the Reverend Bishops his Servants humbly moved his Majesty for some augmentation to be made to the means of divers of them and had omitted the Bishop of Ossory out of their List as a man that either needed it not or cared not for it seeing he never moved any man as some others did to seek for any augmentation for him Your Grace was the only Advocate to put his Majesty in mind of the Bishop of Ossory and to add four hundred pounds per annum for his augmentation to the perpetual Obligation of the present and succeeding Bishops of that See to your Grace and to all your succeeding Family But what your Grace hath then so graciously begun I humbly beg your Grace would be pleased as graciously now to finish and perfect that pious work which you have so religiously begun not so much in regard of my self who after I was cast down to the dust and there lay wallowing a long while and was at last beyond my desert and any certainty of expectation lifted up again to mine Office and restored to mine Honour and Dignity have vowed and resolved to spend what God hath restored to me for the Honour of God and the service of the Church of Christ that is besides my necessities to repair his Church to relieve the distressed to punish perjurers and such high Malefactors * Which is equal to the relieving of the distressed and to do my best to hinder any man that fought against that most Excellent pious King Charles the First under the Standard of the Beast to carry away and injoy any part of the inheritance of the Church of Christ for his reward for that transcendent wickedness And therefore I spent already about four hundred pounds in repairing the ruinous Cathedral and above three hundred pounds more in seeking the right of the Church out of the hands of Hucksters and the Adversaries of King Charles the First And I do profess that having food and rayment and to defray my necessary occasions I weigh not one straw either of mine augmentation or of any other supportation that I have †I dare take my oath I am not to this day one penny the richer for my Bishoprick When as the reparation of the Church and Bishops house the Suits in Law to recover the revenues of the Bishoprick and the printing of my Books for the service of the Church and the good of Gods people hath consumed all that I received God is El Shaddai a God all-suficient for me as he hath been hitherto But I beg this of your Grace in respect of the poor See of Ossory and the succeeding Bishops that perhaps shall not pass through so many storms as I have done and therefore shall not be so well able to abide the weather and to endure the wants that I did but will be most willing to do God that good service which God and such good men as the King and your Grace will inable them to do And I doubt not but as your Grace hath alwayes been so sweet a Friend and so bountiful a Benefactor and Patron both to my self and many more of the Servants of Christ so your Grace without any motion of mine will do far better things and things far better then I can prescribe or imagine And therefore craving pardon for my presumption I rest Your Graces daily Orator Gr. Ossory TO THE Most vertuous and the most honourable of Ladies THE LADY ELIZABETH Dutches of ORMOND Her Grace Elect Lady YOur dayly Orator that formerly hath written Books and Epistles to mighty Kings and most honourable Princes doth now beg leave to dedicate these ensuing Sermons unto your Graces view I know many Scholers expecting their preferment will not be wanting to express the noble Acts unparaleld Fidelity and most justly deserved Honours and Praises of the thrice honourable your dear Husband the Duke of Ormond's Grace but my age bids me expect my dissolution and not worldly promotion and therefore onely challengeth that presumption to dedicate these few Sermons unto your Graces view not as some others use to do to beg for any patronage or defence for any thing that I have said therein for what is good will justifie it self and what is amiss let it be justly blamed I will never protect it but to shew unto the world how highly I do honour your Grace and would needs finde out by what wayes I should propagate and perpetuate your Graces Worth Piety and Vertue to the indelible view and remembrance of all your Off-spring for their glory and the glory of all their Posterities for their example throughout all the remainder of these last Ages of the World for I believe that I may truly say it without errour that neither Gorgonia nor Trasilla nor any other of those glorious Stars that in their times shined in the Firmament of the Church and which are registred to Posterities for their everlasting praise by Saint Nazianzen Saint Jerome and other Fathers of the Church were comparably so blessed in the choicest of the blessings of this life * Id est in their Husbands and Children nor were they so patient in their afflictions so pious in their conversation so humble and so meeke in their demeanour towards the worthiest of
nature is noted unto us by him that had the face and appearance of a man And as his natures and the quality of his person are here thus mystically exprest so his offices that he was to discharge are here likewise in the same manner of the Egyptian Hieroglyphicks set forth unto us as 1. His Regal and Kingly office whereby he was to rule and govern his Church is here to be understood by the Lion which is the King of all the Beasts 2. His Priestly office whereby he was to teach and to instruct his people and to offer sacrifice unto God to appease his wrath and so to take away the sin of the world is here most aptly exprest by the Oxe or Calfe that was deemed the most acceptable sacrifice that could be offered unto God Num. 23.1 as you may see by the sacrifice of Balaam And as his natures and his offices are here thus to be understood so the chiefest things that he was to do and the chiefest points that we are to believe are likewise here fairly exprest under what is signified by these four Beasts as 1. His Incarnation by him that had the face of a man 2. His Passion by the Oxe or Calf 3. His Resurrection by the Lion 4. His Ascension by the flying Eagles Fourthly and lastly not onely the foresaid particulars concerning Christ and these main points of Christian Religion are hereby to be observed but also all the whole duty of man and the chiefest points that every Christian ought to discharge if he looks for eternal happiness are here exprest unto us under the qualities conditions description and practice of these Beasts as hereafter I shall more fully declare unto you And so you see here is sententia brevis a short speech but materia uberrima an Ocean of matter to sail over And do you think that I can passe through such a world of most weighty points within the compasse of one inch of time lesse then one little houre that cannot be by a far better head then mine Therefore I must crave leave onely to go as far as I can untill I shall have your Grace and this honourable audience leave to proceed at some other time unto the rest of these points And for our more orderly proceeding at this time I shall humbly desire you to observe these three points 1. The number of these Beasts 2. The description of these Beasts 3. The practice of these Beasts 1. The number of the Beasts four Gen. 31.7 1. For their number it is said they were four Beasts And you must remember that sometimes a certain number is put for an uncertain as when Jacob said unto Laban Thou hast changed my wages ten times that is several times But here I take this number to be as it is set down to signifie four Beasts and neither more nor less 2. The description of the Beasts 2. The description of these Beasts is two-fold 1. Particular and proper to each one 2. General and common to them all 1. The proper and particular description of the Beasts 1. Touching their particular description we are to consider 1. Who and what they are that are thus exprest by these Beasts 2. Why each one of them is so exprest as they are here described unto us Aug. de civit Dei l. 8. c. 3. For the first I may truly say with St. Aug. Alii atque alii aliud atque aliud opinati sunt several men have had their several interpretations of them and I finde four expositions of them to be most of all respected 1. Of the Papists 2. Of the Puritans 3. Of some latter Writers of the Protestants 4. Of the Ancient Fathers 1. The Papists interpreting this vision of the Militant Church do understand the same by Heaven and by the seat that was set therein they understand the authority of the Church of Rome by the Lamb or him that sate on the seat their universal Bishop the Pope and by these four Beasts they would have us to understand the 4. Patriarchships 1. Of Antioch 2. Of Ephesus 3. Of Jerusalem 4. Of Alexandria Which have always had the greatest power and cheifest authority next after the Church of Rome And by the 24. Elders that sate upon the 24. seats they understand the six Arch-Bishops that were in every Patriarchship as 1. in Antioch The Arch-Bishop 1. of Mesopotamia 2. of Ninivee 3. of Babylon 4. of Assyria 5. of Parthia 6. of Media 2. In Ephesus The Arch-Bishop 1. of Smyrna 2. of Pergamus 3. of Thyatira 4. of Philadelphia 5. of Sardis 6. of Laodicea And so the rest of Jerusalem and of Alexandria But this exposition seemeth furthest from the truth I. Because they interpret it of the Priest-hood Church and Government thereof altogether externally Whereas indeed the Kingdom and Priest-hood of Christ is altogether spiritual Chrysost hom 82. in c. 18. Johan Non quod hoc etiam temporaliter non possideat sed quod in coelis habeat imperium as St. Chrysost saith II. For that the Church of Rome was not as then Empresse and cheif Lady of all other Churches nor afterwards till the time of the Emperour Phocas In Regist ejusdem Gregorii as it appeareth by the Epistles of Gregory Bishop of Rome unto the Emperour Mauritius III. Because that if this exposition were true the Arch-Bishopricks of Italy Spain France Britany Germany and the like should be excluded which were too great a wrong from this vision or they could not tell under which Patriarchship they should be comprehended 2. Exposition The second Exposition is of Brightman and his followers that say these four Beasts do signifie the four-fold state quality and condition of the Ministers of the Church of Christ from the time of our Saviours Ascension to his coming to judgment As 1. Age. 1. In the infancy of the Church they were bold and stout like Lions to preach the Gospel of Christ so that although as Eusebius saith Alii flammis exusti alii ferro perempti alii patibulo cruciati Euseb l. 8. c. 11 12. alii flagris verberati Some were burn'd to ashes some slain with the sword Some hanged and others whipped to death yet they ceased not to publish the truth of Jesus Christ because they knew that as S. Bern. saith Vere tuta pro Christo cum Christo pugna in qua nec vulneratus nec occisus fraudaberis à victoria To fight for Christ and with Christ is very safe when neither wounded nor killed we should not be deprived of the victory 2. Age. 2. In the next age of the Church after Constant the Great that closed up the dayes of Persecution the Ministers of Christ were as painfull and laborious in their vocation of Preaching the Gospel of God as the Oxen are in tilling our ground or treading out the Corn for us And so their voluminous works and pious devotions left behind them do sufficiently
unjust to himself as all covetous men and the prodigal persons are when as the one hath the blessings of God and hath not the heart to use them and the other doth abuse them to the shame and destruction of himself profusely wasting them in feasting and drinking or as some do in beautifying their Tiaras and some others in sweeping the streets with Si ks and Velvets which are vanities that I know not how they shall answer when they come to appear before Almighty God and yet we that are the Preachers shall be but laught at for reproving of these vanities and telling them how it is far from that justice which we should render unto our selves besides the abuse that they offer to Gods creatures And thus I have shewed you what is just and righteous and directed you the right way to the Kingdom of God God give us grace to walk therein But you will demand Where is justice without partiality now to be found among Neighbours or in the Courts of Justice or in the Parliament House I cannot and I dare not say you shall not find justice therein yet this I dare say I have seen faction and friends contrary to justice to have carried things in all these places and therefore seeing that Injustice and Oppression do make wise men mad especially if they see the servants of Rebels and Traitors favoured and countenanced against the most faithful servants of their King and the Ambassadors of the living God And seeing that as Solomon saith Eccles 3.16 I saw the place of judgement and wickedness was there and the place of righteousness and iniquity was there My advice to you all is to follow our Saviours counsel If any man will sue thee at the Law Matth. 5.40 and take away thy coat let him have thy cloak also for in so doing in your patience you shall possess your souls and walk in the right way to the Kingdom of God And then secondly what is here promised shall be undoubtedly performed All these things shall be administred unto you through Jesus Christ our Lord to whom be glory and honour and thanks and praise for all his mercies and favours for ever and ever Amen THE SIXTH SERMON JOHN 3.14 And as Moses lifted up the Serpent in the wilderness even so must the Son of man be lifted up THe Holy Apostle Saint Paul speaking of many things that befell the Jews while they wandered in the Wilderness saith 1 Cor. 10.11 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 All these things happened to them in a Figure Heb. c. 8. c. 9. and c. 10. and so were Types of things to come for our ensamples saith our Translation and so the Apostle proveth at large in his Epistle unto the Hebrews As 1 Aaron whose type he was Exod. 28. 1. Aaron their High-Priest was a Type of our High-Priest Jesus Christ and he ascending into heaven left his Apostles and they the Bishops to be his Substitutes to govern his Church here on earth in the place of the High Priest and the Priests and Levites were Types of our Priests and Deacons and his holy garments and most glorious ornaments which the Rabb called Bidge Zahab golden vestments as were the Ephod the Breast-plate with precious Stones the Vrim and Thummim the robe of the Ephod set with golden Bells and Pomgranates the plate of the Miter and the embroydered Coat all so exceeding glorious that when Alexander saw the High-Priest Simeon the just thus attired coming to meet him he was ready to adore him saying That God had thus appeared unto him the night before And so indeed he was the Type of our true God Jesus Christ and his glorious apparel signified the honour glory and respect that should be yielded to the ministery of the Gospel 2 Cor. 3.7 and the servants of Jesus Christ for so the Apostle reasoneth that if the ministration of death i. e. of the Law written and engraven in stones were thus glorious and this glory was to be done away then how shall not the ministration of the Spiririt i. e. of the Gospel which is to continue be much more glorious For as Kings and Princes and great Lords if they have no means nor servants to uphold their estate and to maintain their greatness with great power when there is need they shall not be respected nor secured against rebellious spirits so if the Ministers of Christ be poor Pauper ubique jacet and no great regard will be had of their words for all the brethren of the poor do hate him how much more do his friends go far from him And though Solomon tells you that the poor wise man delivered the City that was besieged by a great King Prov. 19.7 yet he saith no man remembred this poor man but his wisdom is despised Eccles 9.15 16. and his words are not heard And therefore it is no wonder that the poor Vicars preaching brings such poor fruits of charity when the great men of the Countrey carry all the great Livings from them or that poor Bishops can do no great good when those that have been great offenders Bene nota shall carry away the greatest Lordships from them 2. As Aaron the High-Priest of the Jews 2 The Tabernacle what it typifieth and what the Temple typified was a Type of our High-Priest Jesus Christ so the Tabernacle that Moses made in the Wilderness and the Temple that Solomon built on mount Moriah where Abraham was to sacrifice his Son Isaac and which was one of the three hills which were in the same tract of ground Sion Moriah Calvary were types and figures of the Christian Churches that should be erected under the Gospel For As in their Temple there were three things considerable First the Sanctum Sanctorum Secondly the Sanctum Vide Goodwin and thirdly the Atrium answerable to our Cathedral Churches that have 1. The Quire 2. The Body of the Church and 3. The Church-yard and In the Holy of Holies were the golden censer and the Ark of the Testament wherein were 1. The pot of Manna Heb. 9 4. 2. Aarons Rod. And 3. the Table of the Law signifying that the Christian Bishops that have the charge of the Sanctum Sanctorum must always preserve these three things first the Manna to feed the flock of Christ secondly the rod of Discipline to correct them and thirdly the Law to keep them within the bounds of their obedience And there was a covering of the Ark What the Propiriatory signified which was called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Propitiatory or mercy-seat because it covered and hid the Law that it might not appear before God to plead against and accuse sinfull man for the transgression of this Law Rom. 3.25 and this signifieth our preaching of Jesus Christ to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 our Propitiatour as the Apostle calleth him and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 our Propitiation as S. John calleth him
1 John 2.2 2. In the Sanctuary there were two things 1. The Incense-Altar 2 What the Incense Altar Shew-Bread and Candlestick signified 2. Table whereon were 1. The Shew-Bread 2. The Candlestick And these were Types and Figures that signified the chiefest things in our Church as the Incense-Altar betokened the prayers of the people Psal 141.2 as the Prophet David sheweth and whereas this Altar of Incense was to be sprinkled by the High-Priest with the bloud of the Sacrifice once every year it signifieth that our prayers be they never so many and never so fervent Exod. 30.10 yet if they be not purified and perfected by the bloud of Christ they are unvaluable before God 2. The Shew-bread and the Candlestick signified the light that the people should receive by our explaining of the Word of God and the feeding of their souls by the preaching of the Gospel and blessed Sacrament of the body and bloud of Jesus Christ 3. The Court of the Temple was divided by a wall of three cubits high Joseph l. 8. c. 3 John 10.23 Acts 3.11 that the one part of it might be for the Priests and the other for the people And this Court of the people was sometimes called the Temple and sometimes Solomons Porch So you see the Jews had Jesus Christ and the Gospel of Jesus Christ but veiled over and we have them with open face And in this Court was their Corban or Alms-box which the Greeks termed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the Latines from the Greeks Gazophylacium the treasure and the alms that was put into this box the Hebrews called Tsedaka which properly signifieth justice to teach us that it is justice for us to relieve the Poor and that the matter of our alms and relief should be goods justly gotten and not as many do steal a Goose and stick a feather rob many and relieve a few These were the chiefest parts of the Temple and the chiefest things therein and this Temple was thrice built 1 Reg. 6.37 1. By Solomon that finished the same in seven years 2. By Zorobabel that finished it in the ninth year of Darius Hystasp Joseph l. 11. c. 4. and so from the second year of Cyrus that began it it was fourty six years in building 3. By Herod that finished the same in eight years Idem l. 15. c. ult 1 Chron. 29. v. 3. And what provision David left for the erecting of this you may read Besides this Glorious Great and Magnificent Temple What their Synagogues Typified that was answerable to our Cathedral Church they had many Synagogues that were as our petty Parish Churches for though 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 As 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Copia lactis Goodw. l. 2. c. 2. from the Verb 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to gather together doth properly signifie a Collection of any things that may be gathered together yet commonly the Synagogues are taken for the Houses dedicated to the worship of God wherein it was lawful to Pray to Preach and to Dispute but not to Sacrifice And it is likely they began to build these Synagogues when the Tribes were settled in the promised Land When their Synagogues began to be built because the Temple being too far distant from those that dwelt in the remote parts of the Land they built to themselves Synagogues to Pray to God in them instead of the Temple For so we read that Moses of old time had in every City them that preached him Act. 15.21 being read in the Synagogues every Sabboth day and David in his time findeth great fault with those wicked and prophane wretches that like our late Rebells Psal 74.8 destroyed and burnt up all the Synagogues of God in the Land And of these Synagogues Sigonius writeth Sigon l. 2. c. 8. de Repub. Heb. Matth. 4.23 Act. 9.2 c. 13.5 c. 13.14 Maymon in Tephilla c. 11. Sect. 1. there were four hundred and eighty in Jerusalem and in other Cities and Provinces there were many other Synagogues as in Galilee in Damascus at Salamis at Antiochia and they held him for a very good man and a lover of their Nation that built them a Synagogue where they might pray and serve God And Maymonides saith the tradition was that wheresoever ten Families of Israel were they ought to build them a Synagogue And were the Jews that were under the Law and burthened with such infinite taxes and ceremonies of their Religion as were more then they were able to bear so Zealous so Religious and so ready to part with their Wealth and the best things they had to build so sumptuous and so glorious a Temple and so many Synagogues for the service of God that were but the Types and Shadows of our Cathedrals and parish Churches that are for the Preaching of the Gospel of Jesus Christ And shall we that are freed from all the ordinances of their Law be so cold and so careless to repair the houses of Jesus Christ But we may remember what Hor. saith Delicta majorum immeritus lues Romane donec Templa refeceris aedesque labenâ—es deorum foeda nigro simulacra fumo l. 3. Od. 6.3 All that happened to the Jews are Types and ensamples for us 1 Cor. 10.11 that hath don so much for us as I shall shew you by and by Truly I am sorry to see it and I am ashamed to speak it that such a Cathedral Church as this and so many other Churches as I have seen in this Diocese should be so Barbarously demolished as they are and so little regard had of their repayring They weep for us because we weep not for their abuse But to go on and 3. As the High-Priest of the Jews was the Type of Jesus Christ and their Temple was the Type and Shadow of our Cathedral Churches so all that they did and all that happened unto them were Types and Ensamples for us that are now under the Gospel and as the Apostle saith they are all written for our admonition And so our Saviour here tells Nichodemus that As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness even so must the Son of man be lifted vp wherein you may observe these two things 1. The Type which is expressed in the Historie 2. The thing Typified which is the Mysterie signified by the Historie For 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And 1. For the Historie you may read it in Numb 21. v. 4. to the tenth verse and which you must well observe before you can understand the Mysterie And therein you may observe these four parts V. 5. 1. The Sin committed by the Israelites v. 5. V. 6. 2. Their Punishment inflicted upon them for their sin 3. Their Repentance and confession of their sins v. 7. V. 7. 4. The Remedie that preserved them v. 8. and 9. V. 8.9 4. Parts of the History 1 Their sin four fold 1. Their sin seems to be morbus
that all my brethren the Bishops and Prelates will say with Jonas If we alone be the cause of all this storm and if our persons by any thing that could be done to us could appease these distractions and procure the peace of the Church and State do what you will to us Non multum nos movebit Si propter nos haec tempestas if you see just cause cast us all into the sea so you save the Ship of Christ preserve the Church rent not the garment of Christ devour not the revenues of the Clergy and destroy not the government that was established by the Apostles and continued to Gods glory and the gaining of so many thousand souls to Christ from his being on earth to this very day because the dishonour that must infallibly redound to God and the detriment that must fall to the Church of Christ by the abolishing of Episcopacy troubleth us a great deal more than any loss that can happen unto our selves for did we see the same government with the same power as it ought to be setled on any other persons though our selves were degraded how justly we would leave the censure unto God you should never hear me speak much thereof So you see what it is to seek the Lord not his Essence which is incomprehensible but to do his will and to obey his Commandments which is most acceptable unto him as to love him to pray unto him to rely upon him and to do towards all men that which is just and righteous in his sight What we ought to do to live Or to set down all in a word do as the Lord directs you and you shall live and that is 1. To do your own best endeavours to preserve your lives And yet 2. Refer the preservation of your lives only unto God 1. In the time of peace and prosperity 1. To do our best to preserve our own lives 1. In the time of peace Psal 55.23 the best way for us to preserve our life is to serve God for if you honour your father and mother your daies shall be long in the Land saith the Lord himself and so the keeping of his other Precepts is the preservation of our lives But the bloud-thirsty and deceitful man shall not live out half his daies and so the drunkâ—rd the luxurious and the malicious shall by their sins diminish their years because sin is that sharp Atropos which cutteth off the thread of mans life and the great Epitomiser which abbreviates all things unto us as it wasteth our wealth it destroyeth our health it confineth our liberty it shortneth our daies and to sum all in one Catastrophe it brings us all into our graves Niceph. l. 11. c. 3. when as Trajan said unto Valens it sends victory unto our enemies and destroyeth us sooner than our enemies and therefore as you love your life so you must hate your sin and as the Heathens clipped the wings of victory lest it should fly away from them unto their enemies So we must clip our sins or else victory will fly unto our enemies 2. In the time of dangers wars plagues 2. In the time of dangers or any other distress we are commanded by God to do our best to preserve our lives for it is not enough for us to say the Lord will save us but we must do our best to save our selves So the Mariners that carried Jonas prayed unto their Gods and yet rowed their best to preserve their lives So Jehosaphat Ezechias and Josias when the Armies of their enemies came against them did put their whole trust in Gods assistance and rely upon his help for their deliverance yet they prepared the instruments of War they fortified their Cities and gathered all the strength of men that they could make to withstand the violence of their Foes and we must do the like when we are in the like danger for though the Scripture bids us cast our care upon God yet it bids us not to cast away our care or to be without care but to have a care and the best care that we can take to preserve our lives from the danger of the enemy to raise men and money and as Solomon saith 2. To rely wholly upon God to prepare the horse for the day of battel And then 2. When the horse is prepâ—red and we have endeavoured our best we must refer our lives only unto God it is not in him that willeth nor in him that runneth but as the Prophet saith salvation belongeth unto the Lord for it is he that giveth victory in the battel and it is he that saveth our life from destruction for as his help will not preserve us without our care so all our care cannot save us without his help but when both these go together then we may be sure that our care and indeavour with his favour and assistance will so preserve us that we shall live Therefore when we lose and are put to the worst we should not be dejected which is the fault of too many of us but we should say with King David I will yet trust in God which is the help of my countenance and my God and when we gain and get the better of our enemies we should not be puffed up with pride and diminish the praise of God who gave us the better which is the fault of as many more that ascribe too much unto themselves and too little to Gods goodness but as the Poet saith of Pompey so much more should we say that are Christians Non me videre superbum Prospera fatorum nec fractum adversa videbunt Or as Menivensis saith of King Alfred Si modo victor erat ad crastina bella pavebat Si modo victus erat ad crastina bella parabat So should we do in all fortunes go on eodem vultus tenori and in all our actions rely on God and refer our selves wholly unto him and doing so we shall be sure to live 1. Because he hath promised us that if we thus seek him according to his will we shall live according as we desire and he is not as man that he should lye nor as the Son of man that he should change his mind but he is Yea and Amen he is truth it self and therefore sicut verus est in retributione malorum ita verà x est in promissione bonorum as he is most certain in the punishment of the wicked so he is as certain in his promise to the godly Reason 2 2. Because he is willing to save us and therefore cryeth unto us Why will ye dye why will ye dye O ye house of Israel For as I live saith the Lord I desire not the death of a sinner and it is worth our observation to consider how pathetically and how feelingly he speaketh to this purpose Psal 81.14 15 16. O that my people would have hearkened unto me for if Israel had walked in my waies I should
Father and the Holy Ghost be ascribed all honour and glory for ever and ever Amen Jehovae Liberatori FINIS THE PERSECUTION AND OPPRESSION Which as Solomon saith is able to make a wise man mad OF JOHN BALE That was called to be Bishop of Ossory by the sole Election without any other mans Motion of that pious King Edw. 6. AND OF GRUFFITH WILLIAMS That was called after the same manner to the same Bishoprick by the sole Election without any other mans Motion of that most excellent pious King and glorious Martyr Charles I. Two Learned men and Right Reverend Bishops of Ossory LONDON Printed for the Author 1664. I. THis John Bale was a great Schollar and a Doctor of Divinity in the University of Oxford in the time of King Edward the sixth and he himself wrote a Book which the Right Worshipful and my much honoured Friend Sir James Ware lent me wherein he setteth down the vocation persecution and deliverance of himself and out of that Book I have drawn this Abstract of his life and persecution and expulsion from that very house from whence I was also expulsed and for which I am still oppressed and troubled 1. His Vocation was by the meer good will without any sollicitation of any other of that good King Edwards when he saw him in South-hampton he sent unto him by divers of his Nobility to bid him prepare himself to go to be the Bishop of Ossory which he obediently did and transported himself and his Family into Ireland and being consecrated at Dublin though with some opposition by reason of the Popish inclination of the Catholick Clergy he presently went to Kilkenny where 2. His Persecution did begin for he no sooner began to preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ which he incessantly did but the most part of his Prebends and the Popish party opposed and contradicted him and within a very little while after the death of King Edw. 6. he was exceedingly persecuted by Barnaby Bolger and the Popish Priests and others that sought his death in his house this Bishops Court alias Holms Court Rich. Foster a Deacon Rich. Headly John Cage and the Maid where he saw five of his houshold Servants four men and a maid of sixteen years of age killed before his face and so had he been slain also had he not shut the Iron Grate of his Castle and kept the Kearnes out until the good suffereige of Kilkenny with a hundred horsemen and three hundred footmen brought him away in the night time and so delivered him out of their hands and forthwith sent him to Dublin from whence his life being there likewise hunted after he was conveyed away in a Marriners apparel and in his passage to Zealand was cruelly tossed by tempests and was taken at sea and carried to St. Ives in Cornwall where a wicked fellow named Walter accused our Bishop Bale of High Treason before the Justices there yet being not able to prove any thing against him the good God delivered him out of their hands And yet not long after one Martin an English Pirate did most falsly accuse him of many hainous crimes as the pâ—â—ting down of the Mass in England caused Doctor Gardiner Bishop of Winchester to be imprisoned and poysoned the King and many other hainous things which brought him abundance of troubles and vexations with the Captain of the ship wherein he passed towards Holland as himself relateth at large from fol. 38. of his Book of his persecution unto fol. 42. And because they are so fully exemplified and expressed by himself there together with the rest of his troubles and persecutions which he had in Ossory in Dublin and in his passage by Sea towards Germany in the Book that himself printed of his Vocation to the Bishoprick of Ossory and his persecution in the same I will set no more down here but refer my Reader to that Book II. GRiffith Williams born at Carnarvon at fourteen years old was sent to Oxford from whence by reason of the hard usage of him Junonis ob iram by an angry Juno that was his Unckles virago he was fain to betake himself within two years after alienas visere terras and failing to pass into France where he intended he was forced to retire into Cambridge where having no friends nor money a Country Gentleman of Harleton named Mr. Line having but one little Son about eight years old took affection unto me and entertained me into his house and table to tutor and teach that young Child and being there I got my self admitted into Jesus Colledge where as it came to my course I kept my Exercise and within two years after having gotten a Certificate from Christ-Church in Oxford of my study and good carriage there for two years before I had my degree Bachelour of Arts and within three years after I took my degree Master of Arts at 21 years of age and being admitted into the holy Orders of a Deacon by the Reverend Bishop of Rochester and of Priesthood by the Bishop of Ely after I had been a while Rector of Foscot in Buckingham-shire I became a Preacher and Lectorer in St. Peters the Proud in Cheapside and in the Cathedral Church of S. Paul For I found it so And then printed my first Book intituled The resolution of Pilate and my second Book intituled The delights of the Saints for the full space of five years I Lectored upon St. Pauls Epistle to the Romans and then began my persecution by the Puritans as they were then called and Fanaticks of those daies saving a little opposition that I formerly had by the same generation while I was Curate of Hanwel in Middlesex for now the more pains I took to study and to preach the truth boldly unto them as I ever did without fear the more mad they were against me and so mad that not only forty as they were against St. Paul but I believe above twice forty conspired together to work my death and most falsly accused me of such things as I never knew never did and never said yet they prosecuted the same so maliciously that I was bound over and they did their very best to hinder me to get any bayl to answer for my life at the Sessions house upon the Goal delivery of Newgate where I might demand tantenae animis terrestribus irae But he that dwelleth in the Heavens and knew mine Innocency and the cause of their malice laughed them to scorn and became to me as he is alwaies to them that fear him Deus in opportunitatibus a present help in trouble Who seeing that they would prefer no Bill against me quitted me and said they had forfeited and should pay their Recognizance as they well deserved to the King See the Epistle to the Reader before the seven Golden Candlesticks and delivered me with credit and honour out of the mouth of those Lions that were exceedingly blamed and checked by that worthy Judge
was risen in Cheshire and was so near the time that I expected and foreshewed his Majesties restauration I took a young Philly that I had of three years old and in a very cold snow and frost in January I went soft and fair towards London hoping that now so many men looking after the coming in of our King and Collonel Monk expected to assist him I should have my Great Antichrist published yet still the Rump was so strong that it could not be therefore I was fain to retire towards Wales again and going from my house by Tocester where I had left my Mare some ten miles in a frosty morning a foot I afterwards went a horse-back but had not rid one quarter of a mile but my Mare whom all my Neighbours there said she was great with foal lay down under me and I fearing she would cast her Foale and so perhaps lose my Mare or forced to leave her behind me was resolved to lead her in my hand and so I did from that place which was Daintry to my house in Wales about seven score miles the way being somewhat fair in the latter end of March. Then having some occasions to go to Ireland being at Holy Head I had notice with the Post from London that the Parliament according as I found in Scripture had voted the coming in of the King and I landing in Dublin about seven of the Clock the next morning being Sunday preâ—ched at St. Brides and publickly prayed for the King I am sure the first man in the Kingdom of Ireland and the next morning went towards Kilkenny and going to Donmore to present my service to my Lady of Ormond I found her as she was ever the most honourable of all the Ladies that ever I knew and taking me aside informed me of the state of Kilkenny and of all things thereabouts so I went to Kilkenny and preached there and publickly prayed for his Majesty the next Sunday after I had done the like at Dublin and then hasted back to Dublin and from thence without stay to Holy Head and resting but one night in mine own house I rode as fast as I could to London and having left all the Lands that I had in Ireland in pawn for 100 li. which mine own self carried to London I agreed for the Printing of my Great Antichrist and immediately after his Majestiâ—s happy arrival in London having the same printed in three Printing-houses and my self paying for the printing of it with ready money I got it presently done and presented it to his Majesty who very graciously accepted thereof But one of my Countrymen had begg'd of his Majesty the Deanery of Bangor yet when I informed his Majesty that my good King and gracious Master his Father had conferred it upon me to hold it in commendum so firm as Law could make it his Majesty was most graciously pleased presently to send to Sir Edward Nicholas to recall the Grant that he had made to Mr. Lloyd but the same being past to the Great Seal my Lord Chancellour to whom I ever was very much obliged knowing my Faithfulness to my late King and best Master and my sufferings for him did most honourably stop it before I could come unto his Lordship and so by his Majesty and my Lord Chancellours goodness I still enjoyed my Masters favour Then things being somewhat setled I went to live upon my Bishoprick in Kilkenny where I found the Cathedral Church and the Bishops house all ruined and nothing standing but the bare walls without Roofs without Windows but the holes and without doors yet I resolved presently to mend and repair one Room and to live in the Bishops house and as I had vowed that if I should ever come to my Bishoprick I should wholly and fully bestow the first years profit for the reparation of the Church so my witness is in heaven that I have done it and have since bestowed more as forty pound the last Summer for repairing the Steeple of the Cathedral * And this Summer six score pounds for to make a Bell worth they say 200 l. and yet a thousand pounds more will not sufficiently repair that Church which I vowed to bestow If I recover the Bishops house and live to it and a great deal of cost more I laid out upon the Bishops house Yet now began my Oppression which grieves me much more than my Persecution because my persecution was personal and concerned my self alone but mine Oppression doth now reach to the dishonour of God and the robbing of Jesus Christ of his service and the destruction of his Servants when as the Church of Christ cannot be ruled without Governours nor instructed without Teachers and neither of them can subsist without maintenance And yet now Noblemen and Gentlemen Souldiers and Citizens and all think no Bread so sweet no Wine so pleasant as that which they snatch from the Altar and no Land so fertile as that which they hold from the Church and keep it by force from the Church-men and to give you a taste of this truth I have printed a Narrative and a true Relation of a Law proceeding betwixt my self and Sir George Ayskue a civil Gentleman I confess and one that hath been Vice-Admiral to the Long Parliament but now is very faithful to our present King and sorry for what he hath been as I verily believe and is a man of a very fair carriage and of very good parts yet bewitched with the disguised spirit of Sacriledge to hold fast in his hands the Lands of the Church and not only he but many others are sick of the same disease as appeareth by the subsequent of this relation A true Relation of a Law-proceeding betwixt the Right Reverend Father in God Griffith L. Bishop of Ossory and Sir George Ayskue Knight c. Sheweth THat the Lordship of Bishops Court alias upper Court belongs to the Bishop of Ossory And as I am informed Jo. Bale Bishop of Ossory dwelt in the Mannor house thereof and was from thence driven by the Tories in Queen Maries daies to flee to Geneva to save his life when he looking out at his Window saw his Steward that was with his Hâ—y-makers killed before his face and he being fled to Geneva Jo. Tonery was made Bishop of Ossory and he made away divers Lordships and among the rest this Bishops Court in Fee-farm as they pre end to one Rich. Shea Bishop Bale being yet alive and lived in Queen Elizabeths daies after Tonery came Bishop Gafney and Bishop Bale still alive and after Gafney came Bishop Walsh and he finding the invalidity of the Fee farmes made by the Popish Bishops while the right Bishop was alive petitioneth to Queen Elizabeth and had her Letters to the Lord Lieutenant and Council to hear the Cause and to relieve the Bishop according as they found the equity of his Cause but before he could have any redress he was killed by some Irish man to
prevent the recovery of the said Lordship as it is conceived in his own house After that came Bishop Deane and he vigorously prosecutes the recovery of the said Lordship and he had not done much more then begun but he dieth Then came Bishop Wheeler and he petitioneth to my Lord of Strafford for the said Lordship of Bishops Court and by the great care and desire of the now most Reverend Primate of all Ireland to benefit the Church of Christ Bishop Wheeler had the Lordship of Frenis-Town that was one of the pretended Fee-farms made by Tonery and formerly yielded the Bishop but 4 li. yearly and doth now yield 50 li. every year yielded up unto him so that Shea might still continue in the Bishops Court and when Wheeler died my gracious King and good Master Charles the First commended me to the Bishoprick of Ossory then came the Rebellion and I was driven to flee before I had received one Penny from my Bishoprick or had continued two Moneths therein but blessed be God for it I was restored by our now most gracious King and having an Order from the most Honourable House of Lords to be put into the possession of all the Houses and Lands of the Bishop of Ossory that the last Bishop died seized of the Sheriffe of the County of Kilkenny did put me among divers other places into the possession of the said Bishops Court and the Tenants attourned Tenants unto me and continued from the _____ dâ—y of April until the 8th day of October following 1662. at which time one Captain Burges and divers others Anabaptists and Sectaries the Tenants of Sir George Ayskue that never come into the Church yet came into the Bishops House and thence expelled the Bishop and his Tenants from his possession And I the Bishop hearing of it went thither my self with two men and my Chaplain Mr. Thomas Bulkley and finding the door open I and my Chaplain went in and one of them that kept the possession affronted and justled me at the door of the Loft to hinder my entrance in and yet I got in and then more and more came into the Room to the number of 9 or 10 persons And some of them especially Captain Burges vilified and threatned me to the fear of my Life and some did shut the Iron Grate and locked it as I conceived to keep me there for their Prisoner and to hinder my two servants that I had sent with my horses to Freshfoord to come in and when they demanded if they meant to murder their Lord and desired to come in one of them that had a Cudgel in his hand said that if he offered to come in there he would knock him in the head and my man answered him with the like menaces and I hearing of their high threats and fearing what mischief might fall out there sent a peremptory command to my men to go home and let what death soever pleased God come to me but after that I got liberty to go unto mine own house I called a private Sessions and Indicted Will. Portis Tho. Collins Jo. Rayman Josias Scot Will. Burges for their forcible entry but the Indictment being removed by a Certiorari to the Kings Bench though I had retained two Counsellors and gave them twenty shillings for their Fee to do things right and according to Law yet through the errour of the Clerke there were some faults found in the Indictment and so the same was quasht by the Judges of the Kings Bench Then I got the best Attourney that I thought was in Dublin and is so reputed by all my friends to draw me another Indictment against the foresaid forcible enterers and being drawn I carried it to Sir William Donvil the Kings Atturney and gave him his Fee to review it and mend it if any thing was amiss in it and make it so as it might stand good in Law the which thing he very carefully did and amended some things with his own hands And I knew not what I could or should do more to draw a good Indictment Then I desired the Justices of the Peace to send a precipe to the Sheriffe to summon a Jury to examine the force which they did upon the said place where the force was committed And though Sir George Ayskue had for his Atturney Mr. Smith the now High Sheriffe of the County of the City of Kilkenny and Mr. Johnson the Recorder of the City of Kilkenny for his Counsellour to plead against the finding of the Indictment true as much as ever they could and another Counsellour stood against it as much or more than either of them both and I had neither Atturney nor Counsellour to say any thing for it but what the Witnesses proved yet the Jury did presently find it Billa Vera. Then I desired the Justices of the Peace to restore me to my Possession but to prevent the same Mr. Smith Sir George Ayskues Atturney having a Certiorari ready in his Pocket did immediately as soon as ever the Jury had brought in their Verdict deliver the same into the hands of the Justices of the Peace and they delivered it to the Clerk of the Peace and the Justices said that now they could not restore me to my Possession because that their hands were stopt and all the proceedings must be transmitted to the Kings Bench by Octab. Hillarii And when I came to Kilkenny I went to the Clerk of the Peace and examined the same Indictment which the Jury found and which I had done before ad amussim very diligently with that Copy which the Kings Atturney had amended and averred to be sufficient and I prayed the Clerke of the Peace to give me a Copy of that Indictment which the Jury found the which he did under his hand and I examined all again and found them in all things to be verbatim word for word agreeable one to another Then by Octab. Hillarii the time set to return the proceedings to the Kings Bench I went to Dublin But there was no Indictment returned still I expected but still in vain At last I complained to the Lords Justices but they answered that they could not help it for they knew not whether the Certiorari was delivered or not At last seeing it was neither returned nor like to be returned I was advised to make Affidavit that I had seen it delivered into the hands of the Justices of the Peace and that I heard it read and then saw it delivered to the Clerke of the Peace and then upon the reading of my Affidavit and a motion made by my Counsel thereupon there was an Order set down that there should be 20 li. fine set upon the Clerke of the Peace if the proceedings and the Indictment came not in by such a day So at last it came in but it was the last day of the Term that it came into the Court and then the Kings Sergeant moved for my possession but the Counsel on the other side
corrigere est nefas and as our Saviour saith If any man sue thee for thy Coat let him have thy Cloak also So I say if any great man that hath a great Place or great Friends take away thy Lands let him take away thy House also rather then spend thy Money and lose that with thy Lands for as Christ saith If these things be done to the green tree what shall be done to the dry So if these Proceedings pass against me that can both speak and follow my businesse to the uttermost and I thank God have ability to go through with it what shall become of thee and thy Cause that art a poor man when thou swimmest against the stream and kickest against the pricks Therefore I advise thee rather in such a case to cry to God than complain to any Judge lest that as the Poet saith Excessit medicina modum thy remedy will prove worse than thy disease For thou seest how I am served put our of my House and spend above 60 li. and have no redress 2. If this proceeding and dealing with me be as I conceive it not so fair and so just as it should be both for the King and my self that am ejected out of my House and Lands then I conceive His Majesty and the Parliament should to prevent the like Oppression and wrongs to poor men provide an easier and plainer way to relieve the oppressed and to set down an usual Form of Indictment or to cause that the Indictments should not be so easily and so frequently upon every Lawyers motion quasht as they are reported to be Especially when the matter of Force is plain and evidently proved And this redress of Injuries I petition and move for for these four special reasons 1. Because the difficulty of framing the Indictments so that a cunning Lawyer cannot easily find a fault and a flaw in it and then the frequent quashing of such Indictments as are found faulty is a great wrong to his Majesty in depriving him of those Fines that otherwise are due and should be rendered unto him 2. It is a great Abuse and injury unto the poor Subject that shall be driven out of his Possession and for want of a sufficient Clerke or Counsellour to draw the right form of his Indictment which as I see few can do he shall both spend his Money and lose his labour and perhaps he is not able to do as I did three or four times to draw Indictments till he finds one that may stand good 3. This frequent quashing of Indictments is a great encouragement for Oppressors and wicked men to wrong their neighbours more and more for say they I will enter upon him and thrust him out and if he doth indite me I will remove it to the Kings Bench and I shall find a Lawyer that will quash his Indictment by and by 4. This very practise and proceeding may be feared to prove the very bane and destruction of whole Nations and Kingdoms For if Righteousness exalteth a Nation and a Kingdom is translated from one Nation to another People because of unrighteousness as Solomon saith and as we may read it in all Histories Then you may see how requisite it is for Kings and Princes to look to those things and not to suffer unrighteous Judges either for favour to one or hatred to another to do what they list and to make their Laws like a Nose of Wax to bend which way they please or like a Spiders Web that catcheth the small Flies but is broken by the great humble Bees all to pieces but to be like the Chancellour Steel that although he hated my person yet he said though I deserved it not I should have Justice and so he did me Justice presently and I love to do right to my Adversary and to say the truth of mine enemy But for my self I thank God for it as I lived many years very quietly and contentedly with far less means then 20 li. a year and with far less pains and troubles then I have now so I doubt not but I could live so still and I resolved and vowed as I have attested in my Epistle to his Majesty that if I should recover this Bishops Court unto the Church I would wholly and fully bestow the same for the repairing of the Cathedral Church of Kilkenny So that recovering it I should not be one Penny the richer or not recovering it not a Penny the poorer and so the wrong done by this Proceeding whosoever did it is as I conceive more against the King and the Church than against my self And if the Proviso for Sir George Ayskue carrieth this Bishops Court to him from the Church which in my understanding is clean contrary to the very words of the Act pag. 72. Let him pray that he hath it not with that Sauce which God prescribeth in Psal 83. And so I end and so be it as God pleaseth Amen And after I had delivered this same Relation unto his Majesty and shewed the Effect and sum thereof by the next day I gave him this Petition To the Kings Most Excellent Majesty The Humble Petition of Gruffith Lord Bishop of Ossory Sheweth THat your Petitioner hath caused five of the Tenants of Sir George Ayskew to be twice Indited for a forcible Entry upon the House and Lands of the Bishop of Ossory and yet your Petitioner with the Expence of above 60 l. could not prevail to have them punished as the Law requireth whereby your Majesty is wronged in not receiving the Fines that should be imposed upon them for that offence and your Petitioner is abused in being still kept out of his Possession to about 300 l. Damages May it therefore please your Majesty to write to the Duke of Ormond or to the Parliament to see that the former Proceedings may be reviewed and that your Petitioner may be relieved according to Justice And your Petitioner shall ever pray c. And my Lords Grace of Canterbury very graciously and like a most Religious Father and Countenancer of the Fathers of the Church going with me to deliver it to his Majesty and to let him understand the substance of it said here is the good Bishop of Ossory so his Grace was pleased beyond my Desarts to stile me that hath a very reasonable Petition to your Majesty and telling him the sum of it his Majesty like a most Pious King most graciously answered I will do it with all my heart and my Lords Grace sent for Secretary Benet and he drew me this his Majesties Answer the next day Whitehal July 16th 1663. HIs Majesty is graciously pleased effectually to recommend the Consideration of this Petition to his Grace the Duke of Ormond Lord Lieutenant of Ireland to the end his Grace may forthwith take care to settle and establish the Petitioner in his Right and that such who disturb him may be punished according to Law I know not what more I could have desired his
seek to be relieved And as the Poet saith Excessit medicina modum by such a way whereby usura superat sortem and the seeking of a Remedy shall so far exceed the Disease I know not with what safety either of Life State or Fortune which are all in the power of the Juries to determine of them any man can live in this Kingdom For here especially in the County of Kilkenny where that perfidious Rebell and Traytor Axtell planted his Colony such a multitude of Anabaptists Quakers and other worser Sectaries What I say against these I say not against the worthy Gentlemen and good Protestants that are also very many and my very good Friends in these parts Neither do I say it against those wel-bred Gentlemen that were Officers and Commanders in the Arâ—â— but of the generality of the Common â—ouldiers and some of the meaner Officers that for their small Arrears got large Territories and are now great Free-holders and the chiefest Jury-men and Judges of our Lives Lands and Fortunes that in the beginning of the English Rebellion were broken Citizens and Tradesmen Taylers and Tinkers Shoomakers and Coblers Plow-men and others the like men of no fortune thought to raise themselves by the Irish Wars and having some Arrears of Pay due unto them go Orders to set out Lands unto them for the same and the Kingdom being depopulated and wasted and made a Wilderness without Inhabitants the Lands were of nothing worth and they had what Lands they pleased and as much as they pleased for their Arrears for ten pounds as much as is now worth a hundred pounds a year and for a hundred pounds as much as I will give a hundred pounds per annum These men that followed Axtells Religion and were of his Plantation being mounted up on Cock-horse to be such great Eâ—â—eholders the Irish Proprietors being for the most part driven away and the Church Lands also taken into these Souldiers hands they must now be for the most part the principal Jury men and so the Judges of our Lives Lands and Fortunes And they considering their own interest to be alike in the Lands both of the Church of the Irish and of all from whomsoever they hold it do stick and cling together like sworn brethren or rather like forsworn wretches to defend and maintain each others Title and Interest in the Lands that each one holdeth both against Clergy and Laity God or the King be the same right or wrong they will not lose their lands And they do incourage each other thus to continue in their wickedness saying that they got their Lands with the loss of their bloud and the hazard of their lives and therefore to get the King some small fine whereof he shall have but the least part of it and be but very little the better for it and to dispossess their own fanatick Party and give the Lands unto their Enemies especially unto the Bishops whom of all others they hate most of all and Bishop Williams above all the rest as he that hates their former Rebellions and their now practices more than any man else they will never do it though they hazard the loss both of body and soul Indeed for the Bishop of Ossory he understands their malice towards him well enough I pray God forgive them so great that were it not for some honest and truly religious Irish Gentlemen and some of the Catholick Religion I profess that I durst not live amongst these that formerly warred against their King and if the truth were known do as I believe as little love their present King as they do much hate our Church and the Bishops of our Church when as they that hate their Bishops cannot be said to honour their King as I have most fully shewed in my Grand Rebellion And therefore I went unto his grace my Lord Lieutenant and related to his Grace the Verdict of the Jury plain contrary to their evidence and the Declaration of my Lord Chief Justice and the Judgement of the whole Court and therefore did most humbly desire his Grace to give me leave to go for England to dispatch some necessary occasions and to signifie unto his Majesty that if there were no Court of Star-Chamber here nor any other provision made to punish all perjured Juries and all high Transgressors of the Laws and hainous offendors that deprive his Majesty of the fines justly due unto him and his Subjects of their right we the true Protestants and his Mâ—jesties loyal Subjects were not in safety nor able to live among such Confederates of wickedness but must as King Boco said to the Senate of Rome depart thence lest the ire of the Gods or the rage and injustice of such men do utterly destroy us And his Grace very mildly and graciously answered my Lord the Bill for a Star-Chamber is already arawn and sent to his Majesty to be signed and will speedily come down to pass the Houses and then such Malefactors may be fully punished according to their offence And I protested and do protest that I would be with the first that would do my uttermost endeavour to punish this Jury and all false and forsworn perjured Juries and the like high Transgressours that concern me whatsoever For It is most certain that Impunitas peccati invitat homines ad malignandum And therefore I do believe that I am as equally bound in conscience to punish this Jury as I am to recover the Lands of the Church and as Solomon saith because the punishment is deferred the hearts of the children of men are altogether set to do evil and my Divinity assureth me that to punish a perjured person and a transcendent Transgressour of the Law is as acceptable unto God as the relieving of the Oppressed because that hereby we do our best that those which will not be perswaded by good Counsel to be honest and vertuous may be forced with stripes to do their duties or at least terrified from being so vicious for that as St. Bernard saith Qui non vult duci debet trahi And therefore with what means that God hath given me I will with his assistance do my best to repair Gods House to relieve the Distressed and to punish the Perjured and the Oppressors of Gods People and the rather because that here in the parts where I live I have seen in three or four years more forcible Entries Riots and Oppressions than I have seen in England or Wales that might be thought a little more wild than England in all my life so that a Stranger might rather think it a Country of Robbers Tyrants and Oppressours much like unto Albion when Brutus entred it than a Country where with safety he might dwell amongst them for I do profess were it not for some honest Irish that are not all of my Religion nor I of theirs that do further me incourage me and protect me in Gods servicâ— and the advancement of Gods
Kerry the Bishop of Waterford hath Lysmore the Bishop of Laghlin hath the Bishopprick of Fermes the Bishop of Dublin hath also the Bishopprick of Glandelo the Bishop of Downes hath likewise Conner and Kilmore whose Lands and Lordships the great Lords and Gentry hold and they the names of those Bishoppricks whereof formerly each Bishopprick was sufficient to maintain an able Bishop If you say the Bishops themselves made away their Lands in Fee-farme I dare boldly and truly say as Christ doth of the like case that they who did it were thieves and robbers Joh. 10.8 and they that received them were no better but they that retain them worse When as now two or three Bishoppricks must be soddered and conglutinated together to make an honest competent means for one learned Bishop This I say sheweth he miseries of our Churches and the difference betwixt the fruits that the purity of the Gospel produceth in our times and the Piety of our forefathers that lived in the Primitive times and afterwards under the manifold mysts and several Superstitions of the Romish Church when the Lands and revenues that they gave to God to maintain the Bishop of Ossory to do him service is now * As I believe worth fifteen hundred pounds per annum and our zealour Gospellers have brought iâ— in the last Bishops time to be scarce worth two hundred pounds per annum and I believe the other Bishoppricks are not now and then much unlike it and so we and our forefathers are not much unlike those two Sons whereof our Saviour speaketh whose Father said unto the first Go work to day in my Vineyard and he said I will not but afterwards he repented and went and he came to the second and said likewise and he answered and said I go Sir and went not So our forefathers lived in the times of blindness and knew not well what was acceptable unto God yet they did to the uttermost of their endeavours and knowledge what they were able to please God and to serve him and we have his Truth and his Will his Gospel and his Mercies plentifully published and poured forth amongst us and we do all that we can to obstruct his service and to evacuate the Religion of Jesus Christ And therefore I do much fear that these blind Christians as our Gnosticks contemptuously call them The Papists shall rise in judgment to condemn our fruitless and sacrilegious Protestants shall rise in judgment to condemn the great and quick-sighted worldlings and fruitless Christians of our time who by their prophaneness and Sacriledge have so much hindered Gods Service and caused our most holy Profession to be so much blasphemed and slighted among Infidels and Pagans and the rest of the enemies of Jesus Christ Object But you will say how can that be Sacriledge or those men blamed that for the reformation of the Church took away those things that were usurped by the Pope and abused by the Monks and Friers to uphold Masses and Dyrges and to continue their Superstition to the great dishonour of God and the hazard of many thousand souls Answ I answer if a thief steals my horse wilt thou take it away from the thiefe and keep it still from me Art thou any better than the thiefe to me or any juster in the sight of God So the Pope and his Popelings took away the Tythes and Oblations the Lands and the Livings of the Church and thou tookest them from the Pope and his Friers And why dost thou not restore them to the Churches to the which they do belong For thou mayst remember that when Nebuchadnezzar had like the Pope robbed the Temple of God at Jerusalem and abused the Vessels thereof in the service of his false God and Belshazar his Son had in like manner prophaned the same by his lascivious quaffing therein with his Queens and Concubines for which he was justly punished by the revenging hand of God Dan. 5.3 25. yet Cyrus when he had taken Babylon and so robbed the thiefe that had robbed God and understood that these holy Vessels did belong to the Service of God in the Temple of Solomon he durst not meddle with them to retain them for himself but lest he should be punished for his Sacriledge as Belshazar was he commanded them to be carried to Jerusalem and to be restored to their former proprietors and for their former use in the divine Worship of Almighty God And so should Hen. 8. and those Lords and Ladies that have taken away the Revenues of the Church from the Pope have restored them to the Protestant Bishops and the reformed Ministers of our Church Cod. Theod. l. 4. C. 16. tit 44. contra Donat. And so S. Aug. sheweth all the godly Emp did Ep 50 ad bonisac militem For so you may find a Decree of the godly Emperours Honorius and Theodosius against the Montanists in these words If there be now any of the Edifices of the Montanists standing which are rather to be termed Dens of wild beasts than Churches of Christ let them with their revenues be appropriated to the Sacred Churches of the Orthodox Faith and in the said Code it is said let the Bishops Priests and Prelates that is of the Donatists be stript of all their Revenues and be banished to several Islands and let those possessions where Superstition hath reigned be annexed to the holy Catholick Church And good reason for it for as the Ark of God when it was taken and abused by the Philistines yet did it not then cease to be the holy Arke of God and therefore when it was afterwards sent home by the Philistines it was received respected and as much reverenced and to the same ends used by the Israelites as it was before as were also the Vessels of Solomons Temple after their return from Babylon So the Revenues of the Church though taken from the Church and abused by the Pope yet being restored again to the Church as they ought to be they have the same effect notwithstanding their former abuse to promote the service of God as they had before For being once dedicated for Gods service they ought never be to alienated from it as I have most fully shewed in my Declaration against Sacriledge but as those Censers wherewith the two hundred and fifty Rebels impiously usurping the Priests Office would needs offer Incense to God were hallowed and therefore God would not suffer them afterwards to be at any time employed for any common uses but commanded that they should be made into broad plates for a covering of the Altar Num. 16. and so the Brass which those Rebels had so wickedly abused should be religiously used by the true Priests for Gods service So the Lands and Revenues of the Church that were once hallowed and consecrated for Gods Divine Worship though the Idolaters did abuse them and the Lay Lords usurp them yet God cannot endure that being once in his possession and given
this as finding any fault or laying the least blame upon the Canons and Constitutions of the Church and the Laws of these Kingdoms for all must confess that the Office and Calling of an Archbishop was not so from the beginning nor is jure divine of Christs institution that ordered and appointed the same to be governed and guided by the Bishops subordinate to their Archbishops that are to have the oversight of them which is a most excellent way that all things may be done right in the rule and government of Gods Church So it be done with that temper and moderation that it ought to be done But I say this to the same end as our Saviour said it to his Disciples that all things might be done Leni spiritu non dura manu rather by an inward sweet influence than an outward extream violence and that all the Bishops and the Archbishops in their Visitations and in all their actions should study and strive to be like Moses that in the Government of Gods people was the gentlest and the meekest man upon earth and endeavoured as he saith himself to carry them in his bosome which is the greatest commendation and the best quality that can be in any Bishop of whom it is a shame to say Non pater est Aeacui thou art not the son of Moses sed te genuere ferae but thou art more like the savage beasts when thou art so cruel so unmerciful and so severe in the censure of thy brethren of thine own Coat For as I said long ago so I say now and will say it still One of the chiefest causes of the late distractions in our Church that the rigid carriage of some severe Bishops and their undiscreet Surrogates on the one side and the high stomacks and proud behaviour of the Presbyters on the other side when the Governours ruled and domineered like Tyrants and the Presbyters like stubborn Children refused to be obedient hath been one of the chiefest causes of the late distraction and miseries that we have felt in this our Church But I will demand of the Lay men whether that Censure be commendable when for a fault that deserves a penny fine the offender shall be punished with a pound And that delinquency which springs through ignorance or forgetfulness and not of obstinacy shall be equally punished with the highest transgressours which is in my judgment like Draco that wrote his Laws in bloud Yet may you see the like Draco's sometimes in the Sequestrations and Censures of some Clergy-men Poor souls I can but pity them And I will not be the Judge but let the Reader consider it A young man is newly instituted into a little Living and becomes bound to his Majesty for his first fruits then goeth to his study to the University that he may be the better enabled to do God service in the Church of Christ yet because that either through bashfulness to go to so great a Prelate that he never was acquainted with or through ignorance of his duty or forgetfulness or perhaps for haste to save his passage by Sea when as time and tide stay for no man or some other excusable cause he goeth to Oxford without his Archbishops being acquainted therwith though his own Bishop sent for him in all haste to come up before the Act yet for this hainous crime and great piccadillo fault he is sequestred from all the means he hath before he receives the first harvest fruits or perhaps one penny from the same whereby he is disinabled to pay the Kings first fruits and to maintain himself in the University and so undone and if this Censure be equivalent and not exceeding the fault judge you And as dislike and disaffection produce sometimes heavy Sentences upon the poor Clergy for light faults so I have often seen great oppressions and much baseness used by some great dignified Clergy-men that I could name and yet they were so far from Censure that others were upheld and applauded in their wickedness and so Juven 1. Satyr 13. as the Poet saith Multi Eademcommittunt diverso crimina fato Ille crucem pretium sceleris tulit hic diadema One man is applauded and crowned for the same fact for which another man is condemned and hanged The last Visitation of the Archbishop in this Diocess of Ossory But for the last Visitation of the Archbishop in this Diocess of Ossory I shall besides what I have said already of the Inhibition and Suspension of the Jurisdiction say somewhat more than I said of the Sequestrations of the Clergy And 1. Of the Number of those persons that were sequestred 2. Of the Causes for which they were sequestred 3. Of the Consequents of their Sequestrations 1. You must understand that in all my Diocess of Ossory I have but twenty two beneficed Clergy-men and of them twelve are non-resident and eight of the twenty two were sequestred viz. 1. Mr. Barry 2. Mr. Cull Senior 3. Mr. Cull Junior 4. Mr. Drisdall 5. Mr. Moor. 6. Mr. Spencer 7. Mr. Teate 8. Mr. Kerny Whereof fix were continually resident and in my judgment the most learned and most frequent constant Preachers that have any Ecclesiastical preferment in my Diocess 2. For the Causes why their Livings were sequestred I cannot and I do not say but that they may be very just either for not rendering to Caesar what belongs unto Caesar as the twentieth part Subsidies and the like payments due unto his Majesty or for not rendering to God what is Gods as the due and diligent serving of their Churches and the payment of their Procurations and the discharging of all other dues and accustomed duties unto his Grace or to them whom he sent to visit them or for holding their Livings contrary either to the Civil or the Ecclesiastical Laws of the Land or for the unworthiness of the persons uncapable of them or some other just and lawful cause My Registers Letter informs me that Mr. Cull Juniors Livings were sequestred for going to the University without his Grace his leave whereof I have spoken before and others for distance of miles if they were above six miles one from another though they say that for the tenuity of their Livings they had the Kings Pattent under the Broad Seal to hold them some thirty and others twenty miles distant in which case I say no more but if they shall not keep them above six miles distant they might live better and grow richer here in Ireland by keeping Sheep than by feeding of Christ his flock or if the Law prohibits them to keep them beyond that distance I wonder why they are admitted by the Relaxations of the Sequestrations to keep them still if they were sequestred to get Fees for the Relaxation to Mr. Proby my Lords Grace his Register and not to deprive them of either Living my Lords Grace dealt more graciously and like himself in granting the Relaxation of them than his Surrogate did
shewed in the hands of the great and powerful men and rich Cities and we can as easily pluck the club out of Hercules hands as get any of them out of their fingers when the poor men dare not scarce aske their dues of them or if they sue for them the remedy will prove far worse than the disease to go to Law with Corporations or with mighty men to spend their money and commonly to go without their right as they have a plain-example in my proceedings with Sir George Ayskuâ— and the detention of all my Procurations which as Bishop Bale saith in the Page of his Book was almost half the Revenue of the Bishopprick of Ossory by the foresaid great men and Cities ever since his Majesties restauration and I know not how to get them it is no wonder to me that Popeâ—â— should not only continue but encrease more and more and the Service of God decay more and more and injustice Idolatry and wickedness abound in this Kingdom more and more and I tell you herein the plain truth let who will be angry and let others think what they please And further seeing that beside the payments and taxes that they are bound to pay to his Majesty by the hand of their Bishop and to their Bishop and Archbishop and all other payments for their Churches they are frequently contrary to the Acts of Parliament exceedingly molested taxed and distrained for the same taxes which they have formerly paid by the Lay Collectors and the trouble to be discharged from those unjust Taxations is worse then the repayment of them again when as excessit medicina modum the remedy is worse than the disease Therefore that it would please his Majesty for the honour of God and the good of the poor people and the poor Clergy likewise to cause the Churches to be built * Especially the Bishops Cathedral Church at Kilkenny and some competent means and sum to be deducted out of those Impropriations and to be added for the augmentation and better support of the poor Vicars and some fairer and easier way to be devised for the poor Clergy to recover their right and a prohibition of the Layty under a Subpaena to recharge them for those payments which they are charged with and enjoyned by the Act of Parliament to pay to their Diocessans 3. That seeing three or four Visitations that may be of the Archdeacon Bishop Archbishop and Primate in one year cannot choose but be a grievance and a great burthen unto the poor Clergy that are poor enough without the charge of so many Visitations added unto the rest of their taxes That it would please his Majesty to cause the Government of the Church of Ireland to be brought to the same form manner and fashion that is used in the Church of Ingland that is for the Archdeacon to Visit for two years and the Bishop to visit every third year and then the Archdeacons Visitation to cease for that year the Bishop visits and the Archbishop to visit once in his time and both the Archdeacons and the Bishops Visitations to cease when the Archbishop shall visit And thus the Clergy and the Church-Officers shall have but one Visitation quot annis in every one year which I think is very sufficient for the rectifying of all abuses and for the far greater ease both of the Clergy and Layty and which I believe none should be against the same unless it be such as are too miserably covetous for a small matter unto themselves to bring a heavy grievance to very many which for my part the Lord knoweth that I never liked it and I suppose it should be for the honour and praise of the Chief Governours and Fathers of the Church as we are stiled to deal with our Clergy as with our Children to ease them what we can and not to make them fast for our feasting And I find great reason that we should in all things here in Ireland conform our selves to the Church of Ingland for as Polydor Virgil wriâ—e h that Pope Adrian Polyd. Virg. l. 13. Hist Angl. and after him Alexander moved S. Christian the famous Bishop of Lismore their Legate to call a Synod at Cashel wherein they defined eight Articles whereof the last was That forasmuch as God hath Universally delivered the Irish into the government of the English they should in all Points Rights and Ceremonies accord with the Church of Ingland and Gelasius Campians hist of Ireland l. 2. c. 1. Primate of Ardmagh in the presence of King Hen. 2. gave his consent to those Articles And therefore I wonder what hath altered or hindered this our conformity with the Church of Ingland unless it be pride covetousness or ambition aviditas dominandi which are weeds fitter to be rooted out of Churchmens hearts than to be cherished in the Primates of Gods Church and which I verily believe are now far enough from the thoughts of our most grave and most religious Archbishops who as I hope will most easily yield to this conformity that neither the Bishops be so abridged in their Jurisdictions nor their Clergy so much oppressed in their Visitations as they have been Yet here I would not have my Reader to imagine that I speak for the ease or remittance of the Procurations Taxes or other Impositions of them that hold the Abbies Priories and Impropriate Rectories which they have for nothing and as it appears to me contrary to all divine right and therefore should pay the same continually every year to them that do the Service of God but I speak it only for the ease and benefit of the poor incumbent Rectors and Vicars that labour and take pains for the good of Gods people and for the saving of their souls that hold their means from them And if this may not be done to reduce the Government of the Church of Ireland to the same form and after the same manner as the Church of Ingland is governed yet that the Archbishops and Bishops should take special care to see that their Surrogates Chancellours and Deputies should not any waies to enrich their Friends Officers and Servants and to feast themselves oppress the poor Clergy and others the poor Servants and Officers of the Church of Christ I doubt not but the Bishops and the Archbishops are all just and merciful and tender-hearted towards all their inferiour Clergy and can no waies be justly blamed for the faults of their subordinate Officers or Deputies which they are ignorant of And I do profess without flattery and in the word of a Christian that my Lords Grace of Dublin in all that he did or said was so noble just and gracious towards those honest Clergy men whom his Archdeacon so severely trounced that the least shadow of the least blame cannot be laid upon him And I believe Archdeacon Bulkley would never have done what he did but to satisfie the mind and desire of a most unworthy person
forgiveness upon his knees and truly to this day I could not learn for what unless it were for complaining that the Dean dealt with him as the Wolfe did with the Lamb. And not only so but the report goeth that the poor man who spends what he hath to maintain his two Sons in Oxford was awed as the word of my Letter is that is threatned and terrified that if he did not do as Archdeacon Bulklâ—y enjoyned him he should be deprived of all the means he had and should not be suffered to serve in all Ireland which if true as I easily believe it is the readiest way to encrease the oppressions and wickedness of men to the great dishonour of God and not to further the reformation of those offences that ought most severely to be reproved especially in those men that by the dignity of their places should be the light and good example unto others yet will be indeed the very scandal shame and reproach of their Calling I say no more but that such proceedings do seem very strange to me that never saw the like in the Kingdom of Ingland nor ever read the like done in any Ecclesiastical Court 3. For the Sequestration And for the Sequestrations I can say little or nothing to them because I know not well the causes for which they were sequestred but I pity the poverty and the loss and want that must thereby follow to the sequestred parties to disinable them for a while to do that good which otherwise they might do to themselves and their Families Yet as the old Axiom is that Corruptio unius est generatio alterius so their loss is a gain to the Officers and friends of the Sequestor though perhaps they have not so much need of it as those that are sequestred because Mr. Archdeacon Bulkley as I am informed wrote his Letters to the Dean and to his Cosin Mr. Lloyd who notwithstanding his Letters dealt like a Gentleman with the sequestred parties to make the best agreement they could with the Sequestred Clergy for their own profit and advantage before they should have their relaxation which I believe was never so intended when Sequestrations were first ordered to be extended But for Jonathan Cull that is said to be sequestred for not going to his Grace to aske leave to go to Oxford before he went which was indeed a fault in Cull and no man will excuse him unless he can yield a very good reason for his neglect But for his Non-residency from his Livings I think that the Statuâ—e doth allow him to be absent from his Living and to live in the University studendi gratia untill he be forty years old and I having sent him word from the Rector of Lincoln Colledge where he is a student that he must make haste to come before the Act and his new-married Wife being lately dead he might be thereby so troubled and in such an extasie as to forget his duty and obedience to my Lords Grace not so much out of contempt or neglect of his Grace as out of ignorance bashfulness or forgetfulness that might well excuse him before any mild and no severe Judges à tanto licet non à toto and therefore consideratis considerandis the fault which might be accounted venial might be conceived not to deserve so heavy a Censure as to be deprived of all his means whereby he is disinabled to continue his study in the University which makes me believe the Sequestrator conceived some greater cause to sequester him either against him or against some other of his relation which is probable as I conceive it to be against my sâ—â—f whom some thought to wound through the side of Jonathan Cull because I know the man to be so civil and of so fair a carriage as to give no just offence to any one or in any place I would the accuser of his brethren were so blameless but many times Aristides is punished for being just and Clodius applauded for his wickedness Or if he or any other of my Clergy hath justly deserved punishment I will not be their Advocate to justifie or to excuse any hainous crime And for the Visitations themselves The Visi ations of this Kingdom the Bishops Visitation seems to be clipped here in this Kingdom of Ireland more than seems convenient for the chief parts and duties of this Office of Episcopacy different from Presbytery do consist in these two special things 1. Ordination of the Priests and Deacons to be the Teachers and Pastors of the Church to feed the flock of Christ 2. Jurisdiction to rule and govern all the members of the Church Clergy and Layty according to the Laws Canons and Constitutions of the Church And if in this Triennial Visitation of the Archbishop he inhibits the Bishop Jurisdiction for two or three months before he visits and then when he visits suspends the Jurisdiction for six months more as here you see he doth or for more than that if he please and this every third year and in any part of the year when he will hath not the Archbishop swallowed up almost all the Jurisdiction of the Bishop And then as the Pope sends his Legatos a latere to do only what the Pope directs him so the Bishop shall stand by the Archbishops side and shall be set aside as oft as he pleaseth which seems to me to be a Jurisdiction ad placitum and so little better than a Cypher that standing by himself signifieth nothing and so is worthy of a Presbyterial correction But as Monarchy is the best kind of Government in the World when the same is well ordered and rightly used as I have most amply shewed in my Book of the Right of Kings so the multiplication of powers into one hand being abused hath produced Tyranny among the Tyrants of the Gentiles and as Presbyterians say iâ— the Popes of Rome Therefore our Saviour Christ seeing how ambitious and how greedy his Disciples were to usurp authority forbiddeth them not to use their authority and the jurisdiction that he gives them but he forbiddeth them to abuse it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i.e. not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to domineer one over another as the heathen Tyrants did 1 Pet. 5.3 and to that end the most Divines say and I think all except the Popes Parasites I am sure all the Presbyterians affirm it that Christ equally distributed the power and authority that he gave to the Governours of his Church See Bishop Howsons Sermons that proves this Point at large which were the twelve Apostles amongst them all and therefore they had all equal jurisdiction though S. Peter had the priority of nomination in respect of order which must be observed in all the actions and the works of God which is the God of order Yet I that am and will be as observant respective and obedient to my Archbishop as any Bishop in Ireland shall be to his Metropolitan say not