Letter from him requiring answer to the former from Madrid in Spain April 14. 1619. p. 282. 3. The Answer to the last Letter Dated Aug. 5. 1619. p. 284. 4. A Letter from Mr. Waddesworth upon the receipt of the former From Madrid dated Octob. 28. 1619. received May 23. 1620. p. 291. 5. The Answer to the last Letter June 15. 1620. p. 294. 6. A Letter from Mr. Waddesworth from Madrid June 8. 1620. p. 298 7. A Letter of Mr. Dr. Halls sent to Mr. Waddesworth and returned into England with his Marginal Notes p. 300. 8. A Letter returning it inclosed to Mr. Dr. Hall p. 304. 9. A Letter sent to Mr. Waddesworth together with the Examination of his Motives Octob. 22. 1620. p. 307. 10. The Examination of the Motives in the first Letter p. 308. The Heads of the Motives reduced unto twelve Chapters answering unto the like Figures in the Margent of the first of Mr. Waddesworth's Letters OF the Preamble The titles Catholick Papist Traytor Idolater The uniformity of Faith in Protestant Religion p. 311. Of the contrariety of Sects pretended to be amongst Reformers Their differences how matters of Faith Of each pretending Scripture and the Holy Ghost p. 319. Of the want of a humane external infallible Iudge and Interpreter The Objections answered First That Scriptures are oft matter of Controversie Secondly That they are the Law and Rule Thirdly That Princes are no Iudges Fourthly Nor a whole Council of Reformers The Pope's being the Iudge and Interpreter overthrown by Reasons And by his palpable miss-inâ—erpreting the Scriptures in his Decretals The stile of his Court His Breves about the Oath of Allegeance p. 328. Of the state of the Church of England and whether it may be reconciled with Rome Whether the Pope be Antichrist PAULO V. VICE-DEO OUR LORD GOD THE POPE The Relation de moderandis titulis with the issue of it p. 358. Of the safeness to joyn to the Roman being confessed a true Church by her Opposites Mr. Wotton's perversion printed at Venice The Badge of Christs Sheep p. 372. Of fraud and corruption in alledging Councils Fathers and Doctors The falsifications imputed to Morney Bishop Jewel Mr. Fox Tyndals Testament Parsons four Falshoods in seven Lines A tast of the Forgeries of the Papacy In the antient Popes Epistles Constantines Donation Gratian The Schoolmen and Breviaries by the complaint of the Venetian Divines The Father 's not untoucht Nor the Hebrew Text. p. 384. Of the Armies of evident Witnesses for the Romanists Whence it seems so to the unexpert Souldier The Censure of the Centurists touching the Doctrine of the Antients Danaeus of S. Augustines opinion touching Purgatory An instance or two of Imposture in wresting Tertullian Cyprian Augustine p. 409. Of the Invisibility of the Church said to be an Evasion of Protestants The Promises made to the Church and her glorious Titles how they are verified out of S. Augustine falsly applyed to the whole Visible Church or Representative or the Pope p. 422. Of lack of Vniformity in matters of Faith in all Ages and Places What matters of Faith the Church holds uniformly and so the Protestants Of Wickliff and Hus c. whether they were Martyrs p. 426. Of the original of Reformation in Luther Calvin Scotland England Whether King Henry the Eighth were a good Head of the Church Of the Reformers in France and Holland The original growth and supporting of the Popes Monarchy considered p. 429. Of lack of Succession Bishops true Ordinations Orders Priesthood The fabulous Ordination at the Nags-Head examined The Statute 8 Elizabeth Bonners slighting the first Parliament and Dr. Bancrofts answer to Mr. Alablaster The Form of Priesthood enquired of p. 453. Of the Conclusion Master Waddesworth's Agonies and Protestation The Protestation and Resolution of the Author and conceipt of Mr. Waddesworth and his accompt p. 481. THE COPIES OF Certain LETTERS Which have passed between SPAIN and ENGLAND In matter of RELIGION Salutem in Crucifixo To the Worshipful my good Friend Mr. William Bedell c. Mr. Bedell MY very loving Friend After the old plain fashion I salute you heartily without any new fine complements or affected Phrases And by my inquiry understanding of this Bearer that after your being at Venice you had passed to Constantinople and were returned to S. Edmundsbury in safety and with health I was exceeding glad thereof for I wish you well as to my self and he telling me further that to morrow God willing he was to depart from hence to imbark for England and offering me to deliver my Letters if I would write unto you I could not omit by these hasty scribled lines to signifie unto you the continuance of my sincere love never to be blotted out of my breast if you kill it not with unkindness like Mr. Ioseph Hall neither by distance of place nor success of time nor difference of Religion For contrary to the slanders raised against all because of the offences committed by some we are not taught by our Catholick Religion either to diminish our natural obligation to our native Country or to alter our moral affection to our former friends And although for my change becoming Catholick I did expect of some Revilers to be termed rather than proved an Apostata yet I never looked for such terms from Mr. Hall whom I esteemed either my Friend or a modester Man whose flanting Epistle I have not answered because I would not foil my Hands with a poetical Railer more full with froth of Words than substance of Matter and of whom according to his beginning I could not expect any sound Arguments but vain Flourishes and so much I pray let him know from me if you please Unto your self my good Friend who do understand better than Mr. Hall what the Doctors in Schools do account Apostasie and how it is more and worse than Heresie I do refer both him and my self whether I might not more probably call him Heretick than he term me at the first dash Apostata But I would abstain from such biting Satyrs And if he or any other will needs fasten upon me such bitter terms let them first prove that In all points of Faith I have fallen totally from Christian Religion as did Iulian the Apostata For so is Apostasie described and differenced from Heresie Apostasia est error hominis baptizati contrarius Fidei Catholiae ex toto and Haeresis est error pertinax hominis baptizati contrarius Fidei Catholicae ex parte So that he should have shewed first my errors in matters of Faith not any error in other Questions but in decreed matters of Faith as Protestants use to say necessary to Salvation Secondly That such errors were maintained with obstinate pertinacy and pertinacy is where such errors are defended against the consent and determination of the Catholick Church and also knowing that the whole Church teacheth the contrary to such opinions yet
Church and ancient Councils there is no succession of true Pastors But among Protestants the said due Form and right intention are not observed ergo no succession of true Pastors The said due Form and right intention are not observed among Protestants in France Holland nor Germany where they have no Bishops and where Laymen do intermeddle in the making of their Ministers And for England whereas the Councils require the Ordines minores of Subdeacon and the rest to go before Priesthood your Ministers are made per saltum without ever being Subdeacons And whereas the Councils require three Bishops to assist at the consecration of a Bishop it is certain that at the Nags-Head in Cheapside where consecration of your first Bishops was attempted but not effected whereabout I remember the controversie you had with one there was but one Bishop and I am sure there was such a matter And although I know and have seen the Records themselves that afterward there was a consecration of Dr. Parker at Lambeth and three Bishops named viz. Miles Coverdal of Exceter one Hodgeskin Suffragan of Bedford and another whose name I have forgotten yet it is very doubtful that Coverdal being made Bishop of Exceter in King Edward's time when all Councils and Church-Canons were little observed he was never himself Canonically consecrated and so if he were no Canonical Bishop he could not make another Canonical And the third unnamed as I remember but am not sure was only a Bishop elect and not consecrated and so was not sufficient But hereof I am sure that they did consecrate Parker by vertue of a Breve from the Queen as Head of the Church Who indeed being no true Head and a Woman I cannot see how they could make a true Consecration grounded on her Authority Furthermore making your Ministers you keep not the right intention for neither do the Orderer nor the Ordered give nor receive the Orders as a Sacrament nor with any intention of Sacrificing Also they want the Matter and Form with which according to the Councils and Canons of the Church holy Orders should be given namely for the Matter Priesthood is given by the delivery of the Patena with Bread and of the Chalice with Wine Deaconship by the delivery of the Book of the Gospels and Subdeaconship by the delivery of the Patena alone and of the Chalice empty And in the substantial form of Priesthood you do fail most of all which Form consists in these Words Accipe potestatem offerendi Sacrificium in Ecclesia pro Vivis Mortuis which are neither said nor done by you and therefore well may you be called Ministers as also Laymen are but you are no Priests Wherefore I conclude wanting Subdeaconship wanting undoubted Canonical Bishops wanting right intention wanting Matter and due Form and deriving even that you seem to have from a Woman the Head of your Church therefore you have no true Pastors and consequently no true Church And so to conclude and not to weary my self and you too much being resolved in my understanding by these and many other Arguments That the Church of England was not the true Church but that the Church of Rome was and is the only true Church because it alone is Ancient Catholick and Apostolick having Succession Vnity and Visibility in all Ages and Places yet what Agonies I passed with my Will here I will over-pass Only I cannot pretermit to tell you That at last having also mastered and subdued my will to relent unto my understanding by means of Prayer and by God Almighty's Grace principally I came to break through many tentations and impediments and from a troubled unquiet Heart to a fixed and peaceable tranquillity of Mind for which I do most humbly thank our sweet Lord and Saviour Iesus before whom with all reverence I do avouch and swear unto you as I shall answer it in the dreadful Day of Judgment when all Hearts shall be discovered That I forsook Protestant Religion for very fear of Damnation and became a Catholick with good hope of Salvation and that in this hope I do continue and increase daily And that I would not for all the World become a Protestant again And for this which here I have written unto you in great hast I know there be many Replyes and Rejoynders wherewith I could never be satisfied nor do I desire any further Disputation about them but rather to spend the rest of my life in Devotion yet in part to give you my dear good Friend some account of my sel◠having now so good an occasion and fit a Messenger and by you if you please to render a reason of my Faith to Mr. Hall who in his said printed Epistle in one place desires to know the Motives thereof I have thus plainly made relation of some Points among many Whereunto if Mr. Hall will make any Reply I do desire it may be directly and fully to the Points and in friendly Terms upon which condition I do pardon what is past and of you I know I need not require any such circumstances And so most seriously intreating and praying to our gracious Lord to direct and keep us all and ever in his holy Truth I commend you unto his heavenly Grace and my self unto your friendly love Your very affectionate and true loving Friend James Waddesworth Sevil in Spain April 1. 1615. ✚ To the Worshipful his respected Friend Mr. William Bedell at his House in S. Edmundsbury or at Horinger be there delivered in Suffolk Kind Mr. Bedel MIne old acquaintance and Friend having heard of your health and worldly well-fare by this Bearer Mr. Austen your Neighbour and by him having opportunity to salute you with these few Lines I could not omit though some few years since I wrote you by one who since told me certainly he delivered my Letters and that you promised answer and so you are in my debt which I do not claim nor urge so much as I do that in truth and before our Lord I speak it you do owe me love in all mutual amity for the hearty affectionate love which I have and ever did bear unto you with all sincerity For though I love not your Religion wherein I could never find solid Truth nor firm hope of Salvation as dow I do being a Catholick and our Lord is my Witness who shall be my Judge yet indeed I do love your person and your ingenuous honest good moral condition which ever I observed in you nor do I desire to have altercations with Mr. Ioseph Hall especially if he should proceed as Satyrically as he hath begun with me nor with any other Man and much less would I have any debate with your self whom I do esteem and affect as before I have written nor would I spend the rest of my life which I take to be short for my Lungs are decaying in any Questions but rather in Devotion wherein I do much more desire to be hot and
Bonner laid against the First Parliament in Queen Elizabeths time to be true of all the rest Then that he accounts Bishop Bonner to have excepted against this Parliament because the Bishops there were no Bishops as not canonically ordained Where it was because there was no Bishops true or false there at all His last proof is That Dr. Bancroft being demanded of Mr. Alablaster whence their first Bishops received their Orders answered That he hoped a Bishop might be ordained of a Presbyter in time of necessity Silently granting That they were not ordained by any Bishop And therefore saith he the Parliamentary Bishops are without order Episcopal and their Ministers also no Priests For Priests are not made but of Bishops whence Hierome Quid facit c. What doth a Bishop saving Ordination which a Presbyter doth not I have not the means to demand of D. Alablaster whether this be true or not Nor yet whether this be all the answer he had of Dr. Bancroft That I affirm that if it were yet it follows not that D. Bancroft silently granted they had no Orders of Bishops Unless he that in a false Discourse where both Propositions be untrue denies the Major doth silently grant the Minor Rather he jested at the futility of this Argument which admitting all this lying Legend of the Nags-head and more too suppose no Ordination by any Bishops had been ever effected notwithstanding shews no sufficient reason why there might not be a true consecration and true Ministers made and consequently a true Church in England For indeed necessity dispenses with Gods own positive Laws as our Saviour shews in the Gospel much more then with Mans And such by Hieroms Opinion are the Laws of the Church touching the difference of Bishops and Presbyters and consequently touching their Ordination by Bishops only Whereof I have treated more at large in another place for the justification of other reformed Churches albeit the Church of England needs it not To confirm this Argument it pleaseth F. Halywood to add That King Edward the Sixth took away the Catholick Rite of Ordaining and instead of it substituted a few Calvinistical Prayers Whom Queen Elizabeth followed c. And this is in effect the same thing which you say when you add That Coverdale being made Bishop of Exceter in King Edward 's time when all Councils and Church Canons were little observed it is very doubtful he was never himself canonically consecrated and so if he were no canonical Bishop he could not make another Canonical To F. Halywood I would answer That King Edward took not away the Catholick Rite of Ordaining but purged it from a number of idle and superstitious Rites prescribed by the Popish Pontifical And the Prayers which he scoffs at if they were Calvinistical sure it was by Prophecie for Calvin never saw them till Queen Mary's time when by certain of our English Exiles the Book of Common Prayer was translated and shewed him if he saw them then Some of them as the Litany and the Hymn Veni Creator c. I hope were none of Calvin's devising To you if you name what Councils and Church Canons you mean and make any certain exception either against Bishop Coverdale or any of the rest as not Canonical Bishops I will endeavour to satisfie you Mean while remember I beseech you That both Law and Reason and Religion should induce you in doubtful thingâ— to follow the most favourable sentence and not rashly out of light surmises to pronounce against a publick and solemn Ordination against the Orders conferred successively from it against a whole Church Wherein I cannot but commend Doctor Carriers modesty whose Words are these I will not determine against the succession of the Clergy in England because it is to me very doubtful And the discretion of Cudsemius the Jesuite which denies the English Nation to be Hereticks because they remain in a perpetual succession of Bishops And to take away all doubt from you that some of these Ordainers were only Bishops elect and unconsecrated besides Miles Coverdale in King Edward's time Bishop of Exceter cast in Prison by Queen Mary and released and sent over Sea to the King of Denmark know that William Barlow was another in King Edward's days Bishop of Bath and Wells in Queen Mary's beyond the Seas in the company of the Dutchess of Suffolk and Mr. Bertie her Husband at the time of Dr. Parker's Ordination Elect of Chichester A third was Iohn Scory in King Edward's time Bishop of Chichester and at the time of the said Ordination Elect of Hereford A fourth was Iohn Hodgeskin Suffragan of Bedford And these four if they were all ordained according to the Form ratified in King Edward's days were presented by two Bishops at least to the Archbishop and of him and them received Imposition of Hands as in the said Form is appointed One Scruple yet remains which you have in That these Men did consecrate Doctor Parker by vertue of a Breve from the Queen as Head of the Church who being no true Head and a Woman you see not how they could make a true Consecration grounded on her Authority But to clear you in this also you must understand the Queens Mandate served not to give Power to ordain which those Bishops had before intrinsecally annexed to their Office but Leave and Warrant to apply that Power to the person named in that Mandate A thing unless I have been deceived by Reports used in other Countrys yea in the Kingdoms of his Catholick Majesty himself Sure I am by the Christian Emperors in the Primitive Church as you may see in the Ecclesiastical Histories and namely in the Ordination of Nectarius that I spake of before Yea which is more in the Consecration of the Bishops of Rome as of Leo the Eighth whose Decree with the Synod at Rome touching this matter is set down by Gratian Dist. 63. c. 23. taken from the example of Hadrian and another Council which gave to Charles the Great Ius potestatem eligendi Pontifâ—cem ordinandi Apostolicam Sedem as you may see in the Chapter next before See the same Dist. c. 16 17 18. and you shall find that when one was chosen Bishop of Reate within the Popes own Province by the Clergy and people and sent to him by Guido the Count to be consecrated the Pope durst not do it till the Emperors Licence were obtained Yâ—â— that he writes to the Emperour for Colonus That receiving his Licence he might consecrate him either there or in the Church of Tusculum which accordingly upon the Emperours bidding he performed Yet another Exception you take to the making our Ministers That we keep not the right intention First Because we neither give nor take Orders as a Sacrament By that Reason we should have no true Marriages amongst us neither because we count not Matrimony a Sacrament This Controversie depends upon the definition of a Sacrament
THE LIFE OF WILLIAM BEDELL D. D. Lord Bishop OF Killmore in Ireland WRITTEN By GILBERT BURNET D. D. Now Lord Bishop of Sarum To which are Subjoyned Certain Letters which passed betwixt Spain and England in Matter of Religion concerning the general motives to the Roman Obedience between Mr. Iames Waddesworth a late Pensioner of the Holy Inquisition in Sevil and the said William Bedell then a Minister of the Gospel in Suffolk LONDON Printed for Richard Chiswell at the Rose and Crown in St. Paul's Church-Yard 1692. THE PREFACE THe Contests that have been raised in this Age concerning the lawfulness and the usefulness of the Episcopal Government have engaged so many learned Men to treat that Argument so fully that as there is very little excuse left for the Ignorance or obstinacy of those who still stand out against the Evidence of a Cause made out so clearly so there is scarce any thing left to be said by any whose zeal may set him on to handle a matter that seems to be now exhausted There is one sort of Arguments yet remaining that as they are more within every ones compass to apprehend and apply so they have a greater force on Mens affections which commonly give a biass to their understandings For conviction has an easie access to us when we are already inclined to wish that were true concerning which we imploy our enquiries And in practical matters such as Government Arguments fetched from great Patterns do not only prepare us to think well of such Forms but really give us truer and juster Ideas of them than speculative Discourses can raise in us which work but coldly on persons unconcerned An Argument not foreign to this is used by all the Assertors of Episcopacy in which the force of the reasoning is equal to the truth of the assertion Which is that it is not possible to think that a Government can be criminal under which the World received the Christian Religion and that in a course of many Ages in which as all the corners of the Christian Church so all the parts of it the sound as well as the unsound that is the Orthodox as well as the Hereticks and Schismaticks agreed the persecutions that lay then so heavy on the Church made it no desireable thing for a Man to be exposed to their first fury which was always the Bishops portion and that in a course of many Centuries in which there was nothing but Poverty and labour to be got by the Imployment There being no Princes to set it on as an Engine of Government and no Synods of Clergymen gathered to assume that Authority to themselves by joynt designs and endeavours And can it be imagined that in all that glorious Cloud of Witnesses to the truth of the Christian Religion who as they planted it with their Labours so watered it with their Blood there should not so much as one single person be found on whom either a love to truth or an envy at the advancement of others prevailed so far as to declare against such an early and universal corruption if it is to be esteemed one When all this is complicated together it is really of so great Authority that I love not to give the proper name to that temper that can withstand so plain a demonstration For what can a Man even heated with all the force of imagination and possessed with all the sharpness of prejudice except to the inference made from these Premisses that a Form so soon introduced and so wonderfully blest could not be contrary to the Rules of the Gospel and cannot be ascribed to any other Original but that the Apostles every where established it as the Fence about the Gospel which they planted so that our Religion and Government are to be reckoned Twins born at the same time and both derived from the same Fathers But things so remote require more than ordinary knowledg to set them before us in a true light And their distance from us makes them lessen as much to our thoughts as Objects that are far from us do to our Eyes Therefore it will be perhaps necessary in order to the giving a fuller and amiabler prospect of that Apostolical Constitution to chuse a Scene that lies nearer and more within all peoples view that so it may appear that for the living Arguments in favour of this Government we need not go so far as to the Clement's the Ignatius's the Polycarp's the Ireneus's the Denys's and the Cyprian's that were the glories of the Golden Ages Nor to the Athanasius's the Basil's the Gregorie's the Chrysostome's the Martin's the Ambrose's and the Austin's that were the beauties of the Second but Silver Age of Christianity but that even in this Iron Age and dreg of time there have been such Patterns as perhaps can hardly be matched since Miracles ceased We ought not to deny the Church of Rome the just Praises that belong to some of the Bishops she has produced in this and the last Age who were burning and shining Lights and we ought not to wonder if a Church so blemisht all over with the corruptions of her Clergy and in particular of the Heads of them covers her self from those deserved Reproaches by the brightness of such great names and by the exemplary Vertues of the present Pope which being so unusual a thing it is not strange to see them magnifie and celebrate it as they do France has likewise produced in this Age a great many Bishops of whom it must be said That as the World was not worthy of them so that Church that used them so ill was much less worthy of them And though there are not many of that stamp now left yet Cardinal Grimaldy the Bishop of Angiers and the Bishop of Grenoble may serve to dignifie an Age as well as a Nation The Bishop of Alet was as a great and good Man told me like a living and speaking Gospel It is true their intanglements with the See of Rome and the Court of France were things both uneasie and dangerous to them but I love not to point at their blind Sides it is their fair one that I would set out and if we can bear the highest commendations that can be given to the Vertues of Heathen Philosophers even when they do eclipse the reputation of the greater part of Christians it will be unjust for any to be uneasie at the Praises given to Prelates of another Communion who are to be so much the more admired if notwithstanding all the corruptions that lye so thick about them that they could hardly break through them they have set the World such examples as ought indeed to make others ashamed that have much greater advantages But since the giving of Orders is almost the only part of their function that is yet entirely in their Hands they have indeed brought a regulation into that which was so grosly abused in former times that cannot be enough commended nor too much
Estate which has now descended to his Son his elder Brother dying without Issue After he had past through the common education at Schools he was sent to Emmanuel Colledge in Cambridge and put under Dr. Chadderton's care the famous and long-liv'd Head of that House and here all those extraordinary things that rendred him afterwards so conspicuous began to shew themselves in such a manner that he came to have a very eminent Character both for Learning and Piety so that Appeals were oft made to him as Differences or Controversies arose in the University He was put in Holy Orders by the Bishop Suffragan of Colchester THâ— I met with this passage I did not think these Suffragans had been continued so long in England How they came to be put down I do not knâ—w it is probable they did ordain all that desired Orders so promiscuously that the Bishops found it necessary to let them fall For complaints were made of this Sâ—ffragan upon which he was threatned with the taking his Commission from him for though they could do nothing but by a Delegation from the Bishop yet the Orders they gave were still valid even when they transgressed in conferring them Upon that the Suffragan said a thing that was as insolent in him as it was honourable for Mr. Bedell That he had ordained a better Man than any the Bishop had ever ordained naming Bedell He was chosen Fellow of the Colledge in 1593. and took his Degree of Batchelour of Divinity in the year 1599. From the University he was removed to the Town of S. Edmondsbury in Suffolk where he served long in the Gospel and with great success he and his Colleague being of such different characters that whereas it was said of him that he made the difficultest places of Scripture appear plain it was said That his Colleague made the plainest places appear difficult the opening of dark passages and the comparing of many Texts of Scripture together with a serious and practical application of them being the chief subject of His Sermons Which method several other great Men at that time followed such as Bishop Vsher Dr. Iackson and Mr. Mede He had an occasion given him not long after his settlement in this charge to shew his courage and how little he either courted preferment or was afraid of falling under the displeasure of great Men For when the Bishop of Norwich proposed some things to a meeting of his Clergy with which they were generally dissatisfied though they had not resolution enough to oppose them He took that hard Province upon himself and did it with so much strength of reason as well as discretion that many of those things were let fall upon which when his Brethren came and magnified him for it he checkt them and said He desired not the praises of Men. His reputation was so great and so well established both in the University and in Suffolk that when King Iames sent Sir Henry Wotton to be his Ambassadour at Venice at the time of the Interdict he was recommended as the fittest Man to go Chaplain in so critical a conjuncture This Imployment proved much happier and more honourable for him than that of his fellow Student and Chamber-fellow Mr. Wadsworth who was at that time beneficed in the same Diocese with him and was about that time sent into Spain and was afterwards appointed to teach the Infanta the English Tongue when the match between the late King and her was believed concluded for Wadsworth was prevailed on to change his Religion and abandon his Countrey as if in them those Words of our Saviour had been to be verified There shall be two in one Bed the one shall be taken and the other shall be left For as the one of these was wrought on to forsake his Religion the other was very near the being an Instrument of a great and happy change in thâ— Republick of Venice I need not say much of a thing so well known as were the quarrels of Pope Paul the V. and that Republick especially since the History of them is written so particularly by him that knew the matter best P. Paulo Some Laws made by the Senate not unlike our Statutes of Mortmain restraining the excessive Donations extorted from superstitious Men and the imprisoning two lewd Fryers in order to the executing Justice on them were the grounds of the quarrel and upon those pretences the Ecclesiastical Immunity from the Secular Tribunals was asserted to such a degree that after that high spirited Pope had tryed what the spiritual Sword could do but without success his Interdict not being observed by any but the Iesuites the Capucins and Theatines who were upon that banished the State for the age of the Anselms and the Beckets could not be now recalled he resolved to try the Temporal Sword next according to the advice Cardinal Baronius gave him who told him in the Consistory That there were two things said to S. Peter the first was Feed my Sheep the other was Arise and kill and therefore since he had aâ—â—eady executed the first part of S. Peter's duty in feeding the Flock by Exhortations Admonitions and Censures without the desired effect he had nothing left but to arise and kill and that not being an Age in which Croisades could pass upon the World and the Pope not finding any other Prince that would execute his Bulls he resolved to make War upon them himself hoping to find assistance from the Crown of Spain who he believed would be willing to enlarge their Dominions on that side but when all help failed him and he saw that his Censures had not created any distractions in the Republick and found their Treasure and Fâ—rce like to prove a match too hard to the Apostolical Chamber and to such Forces as he could levy and pay he was at last willing to accept of a mediation in which the Senate though they were content to deliver up the two profligate Fryers yet asserted their Right and maintained their Laws notwithstanding all his threatnings nor would they so much as ask pardon or crave absolution But without going further into matters so generally known I shall only mention those things in which Mr. Bedell had some share P. Paulo was then the Divine of the State a man equally eminent for vast learning and a most consummated prudence and was at once one of the greatest Divines and of the wisest Men of his Age. But to commend the celebrated Historian of the Council of Trent is a thing so needless that I may well stop yet it must needs raise the Character of Bedell much that an Italian who besides the caution that is natural to the Countrey and the prudence that obliged one in his circumstances to a more than ordinary distrust of all the World was tyed up by the strictness of that Government to a very great reservedness with all people yet took Bedell into his very Soul and as Sir Henry Wotton assured the
not for Destruction he both dispensed that Justice that belonged to his Courts equally and speedily and cut off many Fees and much expence which made them be formerly so odious and also when scandalous persons were brought before him to be censured he considered that Church-Censures ought not to be like the acts of Tyrants that punish out of revenge but like the Discipline of Parents that correct in order to the amendment of their Children So he studied chiefly to beget in all offenders a true sense of their sins Many of the Irish Priests were brought oft into his Courts for their lewdness and upon that he took occasion with great mildness and without scoffing or insultings to make them sensible of that tyrannical imposition in their Church in denying their Priests leave to marry which occasioned so much impurity among them and this had a good effect on some This leads me to another part of his Character that must represent the care he took of the Natives he observed with much regret that the English had all along neglected the Irish as a Nation not only conquered but undisciplineable and that the Clergy had scarce considered them as a part of their Charge but had left them wholly into the hands of their own Priests without taking any other care of them but the making them pay their Tythes And indeed their Priests were a strange sort of people that knew generally nothing but the reading their Offices which were not so much as understood by many of them and they taught the people nothing but the saying their Paters and Aves in Latin So that the state both of the Clergy and Laity was such that it could not but raise great compassion in a Man that had so tender a sense of the value of those Souls that Christ had purchased with his Blood therefore he resolved to set about that Apostolical work of converting the Natives with the zeal and care that so great understanding required He knew the gaining on some of the more knowing of their Priests was like to be the quickest way for by their means he hoped to spread the knowledge of the reformed Religion among the Natives or rather of the Christian Religion to speak more strictly For they had no sort of notion of Christianity but only knew that they were to depend upon their Priests and were to confess such of their actions as they call sins to them and were to pay them Tythes The Bishop prevailed on several Priests to change and he was so well satisfied with the truth of their conversion that he provided some of them to Ecclesiastical Benefices which was thought a strange thing and was censured by many as contrary to the interest of the English Nation For it was believed that all those Irish Converts were still Papists at Heart and might be so much the more dangerous than otherwise by that disguise which they had put on But he on the other hand considered chiefly the duty of a Christian Bishop he also thought the true interest of England was to gain the Irish to the knowledge of Religion and to bring them by the means of that which only turns the heart to love the English Nation And so he judged the wisdom of that course was apparent as well as the piety of it Since such as changed their Religion would become thereby so odious to their own Clergy that this would provoke them to further degrees of zeal in gaining others to come over after them And he took great care to work in those whom he trusted with the care of Souls a full conviction of the truth of Religion and a deep sense of the importance of it And in this he was so happy That of all the Converts that he had raised to Benefices there was but one only that fell back when the Rebellion broke out And he not only apostatized but both plundered and killed the English among the first But no wonder if one murderer was among our Bishop's Converts since there was a traitor among the twelve that followed our Saviour There was a Covent of Fryers very near him on whom he took much pains with very good success That he might furnish his converts with the means of instructing others he made a short Catechism to be printed in one sheet being English on the one Page and Irish on the other which contained the Elements and most necessary things of the Christian Religion together with some forms of Prayer and some of the most instructing and edifying passages of Scripture This he sent about all over his Diocess and it was received with great joy by many of the Irish who seemed to be hungering and thirsting after Righteousness and received this beginning of knowledge so well that it gave a good encouragement to hope well upon further endeavours The Bishop did also set himself to learn the Irish Tongue and though it was too late for a Man of his years to learn to speak it yet he came to understand it to such a degree as to compose a compleat Grammar of it which was the first that ever was made as I have been told and to be a Critick in it he also had Common Prayer read in Irish every Sunday in his Cathedral for the benefit of the Converts he had made and was alwayes present at it himself and he engaged all his Clergy to set up Schools in their Parishes For there were so very few bred to read or write that this obstructed the conversion of the Nation very much The New Testament and the Book of Common Prayer were already put in the Irish Tongue but he resolved to have the whole Bible the Old Testament as well as the New put also into the hands of the Irish and therefore he laboured much to find out one that understood the Language so well that he might be imployed in so sacred a work And by the advice of the Primate and several other eminent persons he pitched on one King that had been converted many years before and was believed to be the elegantest Writer of the Irish Tongue then alive both for Prose and Poetry He was then about seventy but notwithstanding his age and the disadvantages of his Education yet the Bishop thought him not only capable of this Imployment but qualified for an higher character therefore he put him in Orders and gave him a Benefice in his Diocess and set him to work in order to the translating the Bible which he was to do from the English Translation since there were none of the Nation to be found that knew any thing of the Originals The Bishop set himself so much to the revising this Work that alwayes after Dinner or Supper he read over a Chapter and as he compared the Irish Translation with the English so he compared the English with the Hebrew and the Seventy Interpreters or with Diodati's Italian Translation which he valued highly and he corrected the Irish where he found the
that Communion triumph so much Where was our Religion before Luther and what became of our Ancestors that dyed in Popery Archbishop Vsher prest him to have printed it and he had resolved to do it but that with all his other Works was swallowed up in the Rebellion He kept a great correspondence not only with the Divines of England but with many others over Europe for he writ both Latin and Italian very elegantly He was very free in his conversation but talked seldome of indifferent matters he expressed a great modesty of Spirit and a moderation of temper in every thing he spoke and his Discourse still turned to somewhat that made his company useful and instructing He spoke his own thoughts very plainly and as he bore well with the freedom of others so he took all the discreet liberty that became a Man of his Age and station and did not stick to tell even the Learned and Worthy Primate Vsher such things as he thought were blame-worthy in him and with the same sincerity he shewed him some critical mistakes that he met with in some of his Works They were very few and not of any great importance but they did not agree with the Primates exactness in other things and so he laid them before him which the other took from him with that kindness and humility that was natural to him His Habit was decent and grave he wore no Silk but plain Stuffs the furniture of his House was not pompous nor superfluous but necessary for common use and proper His Table was well covered according to the plenty that was in the Country but there was no luxury in it Great resort was made to him and he observed a true hospitality in House-keeping Many poor Irish families about him were maintained out of his Kitchin And in the Christmass time he had the Poor always eating with him at his own Table and he brought himself to endure both the sight of their Rags and their rudeness He was not forward to speak and he expressed himself in very few Words in publick companies At publick Tables he usually sat silent Once at the Earl of Strafford's Table one observed That while they were all talking he said nothing So the Primate answered Broach him and you will find good liquor in him Upon which that person proposed a question in Divinity to him and in answering it the Bishop shewed both his own sufficiency so well and pusled the other so much that all at Table except the Bishop himself fell a laughing at the other The greatness of his mind and the undauntedness of his Spirit on all occasions has appeared very evidently in many of the passages of his life but though that height of mind is often accompanied with a great mixture of Pride nothing of that appeared in the Bishop He carried himself towards all people with such a gaining humility that he got into their Hearts He lived with his Clergy as if they had been his Brethren When he went his Visitations he would not accept of the Invitations that were made him by the great Men of the Country but would needs eat with his Brethren in such poor Inns and of such course fare as the places afforded A person of Quality that had prepared an entertainment for him during his Visitation took his refusing it so ill that whereas the Bishop promised to come and see him after Dinner as soon as he came near his Gate which was standing open it was presently shut on design to affront him and he was kept half an hour knocking at it the affront was visible and when some would have had him go away he would not do it but said They will hear e're long At last the Master came out and received him with many shews of civility but he made a very short visit and though the rudeness he met with prevailed not on him either to resent it or to go away upon it yet it appeared that he understood it well enough He avoided all affectations of state or greatness in his carriage He went about always on foot when he was at Dublin one Servant only attending on him except on publick occasions that obliged him to ride in Procession among his Brethren He never kept a Coach for his strength continued so entire that he was alwayes able to ride on Horseback He avoided the affectations of humility as well as of Pride the former flowing often from the greater pride of the two and amidst all those extraordinary Talents with which God had blest him it never appeared that he overvalued himself nor despised others that he assumed to himself a Dictatorship or was impatient of contradiction He took an ingenious device to put him in mind both of his Obligations to purity and humility It was a flaming Crucible with this Motto in Hebrew Take from me all my Tin The Word in Hebrew that signifies Tin was Bedil This imported that he thought that every thing in himself was but base alloy and therefore he prayed that God would cleanse him from it His great humility made the secreter parts of his goodness as to his private walking with God less known except as they appeared in that best and surest indication of it which his life and conversation gave yet if the Rebells had not destroyed all his Papers there would have been found among them great discoveries of this for he kept a daily Journal for many years but of what sort it was how full and how particular is only known to God since no Man ever saw it unless some of the Rebells found it Though it is not probable that they would have taken the pains to examine his Papers it being more likely that they destroyed them all in a heap He never thought of changing his See or of rising up to a more advantagious Bishoprick but considered himself as under a tye to his See that could not be easily dissolved So that when the translating him to a Bishoprick in England was proposed to him he refused it and said he should be as troublesome a Bishop in England as he had been in Ireland It appeared he had a true and generous notion of Religion and that he did not look upon it so much as a System of Opinions or a set of Forms as a Divine Discipline that reforms the Heart and Life and therefore when some Men were valued upon their zeal for some lesser matters he had those Words of S. Augustine's often in his Mouth It is not Leaves but Fruit that I seek This was the true principle of his great zeal against Popery It was not the peevishness of a party the sourness of a speculative Man nor the concern of an interested person that wrought on him But he considered the corruptions of that Church as an effectual course for enervating the true design of Christianity and this he not only gathered from Speculation but from what he saw and knew during his long abode in Italy
will persist in them And yet further if there be any doubt he must manifest unto me which is the Catholick Church Thirdly to make it full Apostasie he should have convinced me to have swarved and backslidden as you know the Greek Word signifies like Iulian renouncing his Baptism and forsaken totally all Christian Religion a horrible imputation though false nor so easily proved as declaimed But I thank God daily that I am become Catholick as all our Ancestors were till of late years and as the most of Christendome still be at this present day with whom I had rather be miscalled a Papist a Traytor an Apostata or Idolater or what he will than to remain a Protestant with him still For in Protestant Religion I could never find Uniformity of a settled Faith and so no quietness of Conscience especially for three or four years before my coming away although by reading studying praying and conferring I did most carefully and diligently labour to find it among them But your contrariety of Sects and Opinions of Lutherans Zwinglians Calvinists â—rotestants Puritans Cartwrightists and Brownists some of them damning each other many of them avouching their Positions to be matters of Faith for if they made them but School Questions of Opinion only they should not so much have disquieted me and all these being so contrary yet every one pretending Scriptures and arrogating the Holy Ghost in his favour And above all which did most of all trouble me about the deciding of these and all other Controversies which might arise I could not find among all these Sects any certain humane external Iudge so infallibly to interpret Scriptures and by them and by the assistance of the Holy Ghost so undoubtedly to define questions of Faith that I could assure my self and my Soul This Iudge is infallible and to him thou oughtest in Conscience to obey and yield thy understanding in all his determinations of Faith for he cannot erre in those Points And note that I speak now of an external humane infallible Iudge For I know the Holy Ghost is the Divine internal and principal Iudge and the Scriptures be the Law or Rule by which that humane external Judge must proceed But the Holy Scriptures being often the Matter of Controversie and sometime questioned which be Scriptures and which be not they alone of themselves cannot be Judges And for the Holy Ghost likewise every one pretending him to be his Patron how should I certainly know by whom he speaketh or not For to Men we must go to learn and not to Angels nor to God himself immediately The Head of your Church was the Queen an excellent notable Prince but a Woman not to speak much less to be Iudge in the Church and since a learned King like King Henry the Eighth who was the first temporal Prince that ever made himself Ex Regio jure Head of the Church in Spiritual matters a new strange Doctrine and therefore justly condemned by Calvin for monstrous But suppose he were such a Head yet you all confess that he may erre in matters of Faith And so you acknowledge may your Archbishops and Bishops and your whole Clergy in their Convocation-House even making Articles and Decrees yea though a Council of all your Lutherans Calvinists Protestants c. of Germany France England c. were all joyned together and should agree all which they never will do to compound and determine the differences among themselves yet by the ordinary Doctrine of most Protestants they might in such a Council err and it were possible in their Decrees to be deceived But if they may err how should I know and be sure when and wherein they did or did not err for though on the one side Aposse ad esse non valet semper consequentia yet aliquanâ—o valet and on the other side frustra dicitur potentia quae nunquam ducitur in actum So that if neither in general nor in particular in publick nor private in Head nor Members joyntly nor severally you have no visible external humane infallible Iudge who cannot err and to whom I might have recourse for decision of doubts in matters of Faith I pray let Mr. Hall tell me Where should I have fixed my foot for God is my Witness my Soul was like Noah's Dove a long time hovering and desirous to discover Land but seeing nothing but moveable and troublesome deceivable Water I could find no quiet center for my Conscience nor any firm Foundation for my Faith in Protestant Religion Wherefore hearing a sound of Harmony and Consent That the Catholick Church could not err and that only in the Catholick Church as in Noah's Ark was infallibility and possibility of salvation I was so occasioned and I think had important reason like Noah's Dove to seek out and to enter into this Ark of Noah Hereupon I was occasioned to doubt Whether the Church of England were the true Church or not For by consent of all the true Church cannot err but the Church of England Head and Members King Clergy and People as before is said yea a whole Council of Protestants by their own grant may err ergo no true Church If no true Church no salvation in it therefore come out of it but that I was loth to do Rather I laboured mightily to defend it both against the Puritans and against the Catholicks But the best Arguments I could use against the Puritans from the Authority of the Church and of the ancient Doctors interpreting Scriptures against them when they could not answer them they would reject them for Popish and flye to their own arrogant spirit by which forsooth they must control others This I found on the one side most absurd and to breed an Anarchy of confusion and yet when I came to answer the Catholick Arguments on the other side against Protestants urging the like Authority and Vniformity of the Church I perceived the most Protestants did frame evasions in effect like those of the Puritans inclining to their private Spirit and other uncertainties Next therefore I applyed my self to follow their Opinion who would make the Church of England and the Church of Rome still to be all one in essental Points and the differences to be accidential confessing the Church of Rome to be a true Church though sick or corrupted and the Protestants to be derived from it and reformed and to this end I laboured much to reconcile most of our particular controversies But in truth I found such contrarieties not only between Catholicks and Protestants but even among Protestants themselves that I could never settle my self fully in this Opinion of some reconciliation which I know many great Scholars in England did favour For considering so many opposite great Points for which they did excommunicate and put to death each other and making the Pope to be Antichrist proper or improper it could never sink into my Brain how these two could be descendent or Members sound nor unsound
as Bellarmine himself will teach you lib. De Clericis cap. 3. For amongst the Lutherans and Calvinists also saith he which have taken away almost all Ecclesiastical Rites they only lay on hands and make Pastors and Ministers who though they be not Pastors and Bishops indeed would be so accounted and called In England you miss first the lesser orders and say we are made Ministers per saltum as if all that are made Priests among you were Psalmists Sextons Readers Exorcists Torch-bearers Subdeacons and Deacons before Remember I pray what the Master of the Sentences saith of Deaconship and Priesthood Hos solos primitiva Ecclesia legitur habuisse de his solis praeceptum Apostoli habemus He means in the Epistles to Timothy and Titus Again Subdiaconos vero Acolâ—thos procâ—donte tempore Ecclesia sibi constituit What and were the Primitive and Apostolick Churches no true Churches or need we to be ashamed to be like them Besides those Councils that ye speak of it should seem were of no great either Antiquity or Authority when not only Presbyters without pasâ—â—â—g through any order but Bishops wiâ—â—â—ut being so much as baptized were ordained As Nectarius of Constantinople Synesius of Cyrene Ambrose of Millaine Constantine II. of Rome it self This therefore is a very slight Exception Your next is well worse touching the Ordination at the Nags-head where the Consecration of our first Bishops as you say was attempted but not effected It is certain you say and you are sure there was such a matter although you know and have seen the Records themselves that afterward there was a Consecration of Doctor Parker at Lambeth Alas Master Waddesworth if you be resolved to believe Lies not only against publick Acts and your own eye sight but against all Probability who can help it I had well hoped to have found that Ingenuity in you that I might have used your Testimony unto others of that side touching the Vanity of this Fable as having shewed you the Copy of the Record of Doctor Parker's Consecration which I had procured to be transcribed out of the Acts which your self also at your return from London told me you saw in a Black Book Now I perceive by your perplexed Writing and enterlining in this part of your Letter you would fain discharge your Conscience and yet uphold this Lye perhaps as loth to offend that side where you now are and therefore you have devised this Temper that the one was attempted the other effected But it â—ill not be For first of all if that at the 〈◊〉 head were but attempted what is that to the purpose of our Ordinations which are not derived from it but from the other which as you say was effected at Lambeth And are you sure there was such a Matter How are you sure Were you present there in Person or have you heard it of those that were present Neither of both I suppose but if it were so that some body pretending to have been there present told you so much how are you sure that he lied not in saying so much more when you have it but at the third or fourth hand perhaps the thirtieth or fortieth But consider a little is it probable that men of that sort in an action of that Importance and at the beginning of the Queens Reign when especially it concerned both them and her to provide that all things should be done with Reputation would be so hasty and heedless as to take a Tavern for a Church Why might they not have gone to the next Church as well They thought to make the old Catholick Bishop drunken Thus the Wisbich and Framyngham Priests were wont to tell the tale Is it likely that they would not forethink that possible this good old Man would not drink so freely as to be drunken and if he were yet would not be in the humour to do as they would have him For who can make any Foundation upon what another would do in his Cups What a scorn would this be to them Men are not always so provident in their Actions True but such men are not to be imagined so Sottish as to attempt so solemn an Action and joyned commonly with some great Feast and as you observed well out of the Acts with the Queens Mandate for the Action to be done and hang all upon a drunken fit of an old man Besides how comes it to pass that we could never understand the names of the old Bishop or of those whom he should have consecrated or which consecrated themselves when he refused to do it For so do your men give it out howsoever you say it was not there effected And in all the space of Queen Elizabeths Reign wherein so many set themselves against the Reformation by her established is it possible we should never have heard word of it of all the English on that side the Seas if it had been any other than a flying Tale After forty five years there is found at last an Irish Jesuit that dares put it in print to prove by it as now you do that the Parliamentary Pastors lack holy Orders But he relates sundry Particulars and brings his Proofs For the purpose this ordainer or consecrater he saith was Laudasensis Episcopus homo senex simplex His name Nay that ye must pardon him But of what City or Diocess was he Bishop For we have none of that Title Here I thought once that by errour it had been put for Landaffensis of Landaffe in Wales save that three times in that Narration it is written Laudasensis which notwithstanding I continued to be of the same mind because I found Bishop Bonners name twice alike false written Bomerus But loe in the Margent a direction to the Book De Schismate fol. 166. where he saith this matter is touched and it is directly affirmed that they performed the Office of Bishops without any Episcopal Consecration Again that great labour was used without an Irish Archbishop in Prison at London to ordain them but he could by no means be brought thereto So it seems we must pass out of Wales into Ireland to find the See of this Bishop or Archbishop But I believe we may sail from thence to Virginia to seek him for in Ireland we shall not find him Let us come to those that he should have ordained what were their names Candidati if that will content you more you get not Why they might have been remembred as well as the Nags-Head as well as Bonners name and his See and that he was Dean of the Bishops he means of the Archbishoprick sede vacante and that he sent his Chaplain his name also is unknown to forbid the Ordination At least their Sees To cut the matter short Quid plura Scoraeus Monachus post Herefordensis pseudo-episcopus caeteris ex caeteris quidam Scoraeo manus imponunt fiuntque sine patre filii pater à filiis procreatur res seculis omnibus