that afterwards came to be Lord Chancellour Coventrie Sic me servavit Apollo So that Jehova saved me to whom I have committed my self ever since and vowed I would praise him and thank him and do him the best service that I could while I lived as I shewed in an Epistle before the seven golden Candlesticks Then immediately after this being then about twenty seven years old I went to Cambridge and though my former troubles wasted my means being by reason of the former accusations of mine enemies suspended by the Bishop of London and driven to be released by an appeal to the Prerogative Court yet I took my degree Bachelour of Divinity and returning to London I presently petitioned to my Lord of Canterbury Abbats whom ever after I found my very gracious Lord and to my Lord Chancellour Egerton whom I found so likewise and shewed them the great wrongs and abuses to my utter ruine that I had suffered from the Bishop of London and those bloudy persecutors without any shadow or colour of truth in any of all their Accusations and they presently pitying my case gave me the Parsonage of Llan-Llechyd worth to me a 100 li. per annum a better Rectory than that which mine enemies caused the Bishop of London to take from me that was rightly presented to it by the Earl of South-hampton But sicut unda sequitur undam so one affliction comes in the neck of another for I was no sooner arrived in Llan-Llechyd but the Bishop of Bangor because I refused to take another living for this that he saw was so commodious for him began to persecute me afresh and devised certain Articles which ex officio he prosecuted against me and I was fain again to appeal unto the Arches and my Lord of Bangor being in London my Lord of Canterbury sent for him and me and checked him exceedingly for his prosecution and gave me a Licence to preach throughout divers Diocesses of his Province and a Protection from being molested by my Lord of Bangor yet still I found that busie Bishop would not be quiet but as the Poet saith Manet alta mente repostum judicium paridis so my complaint against him to my Lord of Canterbury stuck in his mind as I had but a little respect or joy in his Diocess especially from his Lordship therefore after I had continued there four years about 32 years old I went to Cambridge again and took my degree Doctor of Divinity and then returning to London I became a domestical Chaplain to the Earl of Montgomery afterwards Earl of Pembroke and Lord Chamberlain to his Majesty to whom I had been Chaplain at large for many years before And then blessed be God I had a little rest from my persecution and began to study hard to Print Books of no small Volumes nor of mean Subjects as the seven Golden Candlesticks and many other Sermons now termed The best Religion and The true Church divided in six several Books And to be promoted to some eminent places to be his Majesties Chaplain a Prebend of Westminster and Dean of Bangor and before I was full forty years old in Election and very like to have been made Bishop of St. Asaph But when the Sun shineth brightest it continueth not long without Clouds and often times follow stormes and tempest so after I had spent these halsion daies and lived many years in the Kings Court I found some rubs and obstacles of my desires by reason of some discontent and difference betwixt me and the then Archbish of Canterbury * About my seeking to be Bishop of Asaph that clouded the brightness of my hopes for some while yet at last when the Long Parliament began to struggle and not only to chop off the head of the wise and stout Earl of Strafford but also to clap up the Bishop of Canterbury in Prison and to clip the wings of all the rest of the Bishops his Majesty of his own gracious mind and accord without any motion of any man made unto him when the Lord Primate of Ireland delivered him a Petition from the Bishops of Ireland to desire his Majesty to nominate a very worthy man Doctor Sybâ—horp that was Bishop of the poor Bishoprick of Kilfanora unto the Bishoprick of Ossory answered the Primate that he had reserved the same for Doctor Williams Dean of Bangor To whom the Primate replied Your Majesty bids him to his loss to use the Primates own words as he told me and his Majesty answered He could make him a saver and therefore let him have the refusal of it and when I heard of this passage from my Lord Primate I thought I were a very unworthy man if I refused so gracious an offer of so gracious a Master and considering that as my Predecessor and a man of my spirit Bishop Bale was called by the sole free motion of that pious King Edw. 6. so I was called by the sole free motion of the most religious King Charles I. I thought my self rightly called by God unto it and I accepted the same and yielded unto the divine calling with all thankefulness unto his gracious Majesty And now the storms and tempest begin to darken the Sunshine of my prosperity for I was no sooner arrived in Ireland seen Kilkenny and preached once in that Cathedral and consecrated in Dublin about Michaelmas but the Rebellion there brake out the October following after I had spent well-nigh 300 li. and had received not one penny then was I forced to fly towards his Majesty and the next Summer after having occasion to go to Dublin after I had setled my Wife and Family in a house that I had by Tocester and the first night that I came to my house after my return from Ireland the Rebels in North-hampton having heard how zealously I had preached for his Majesty and that now I was returned to my house by Tocester again sent a Troope of horse under the command of Captain Flaxon and so he carried me a prisoner to North-hampton where at my first entrance into the Town I saw a whole troop of Boys and Girls and other Apprentices that expected my coming and as the boys cried to Elizeus come up thou bald pate come up so they cried along the street a Bishop a Bishop and with this Io paean was I carried to the Commissioners Lodging where I was clapt up close in a Chamber and one of the Commissioners Sir John North I believe the civillest of them all came to me with a Satchel of Writings that Captain Flaxon found in my house and opening the same the first writings that came into his hand was the Treatise that I had written and had intituled it The Grand Rebellion and had written those words on the outward leaf thereof and as soon as ever he took it out of the bag I made bold And if I had not done so I had been undone before he had cast his eye upon the Title to take it
Majesty herein doing more then I desired And when I was very willing to have given 5 l. in Gold for Sir Henry Bennets Fee that most Courteous Gentleman Mr. Quod-dolphin said I should not pay one penny but Sir Henry would lay that upon the Church and my Lord of Canterburies score So fairly and so friendly was I used at his Majesties Court The Lord bless them and reward them for it and grant them alwaies the like Favour a I found with them And when I came with his Majesties Reference to my Lord Duke of Ormond I found his Grace as honourable and very gracious in his Answer and Direction to me but when his Grace referred the Petition that I drew to his Grace to do as his Majesty directed and his Majesties Reference to the Council-Table I must acknowledge that I feared the success and so it happened according to my fear for when I was called before the Council his Grace said he was no Lawyer but he left the Matter to them to inform me what was to be done according to Law and my Lord Chancellour said that both my self in my Relation and my Lawyers and Counsel confest that the Judges did act and their Proceedings were according to Law and therefore I must even begin again and it was my best course to proceed according to Law and I answered if all this in my Proceedings were Law I pray God send us a better Law for I shewed the whole Proceedings to his Majesty and to divers of the Judges of England and they said this was a fair proceeding indeed to set up a man of straw and then shoot at him to bring a false Indictment to the Court and then quash it for I proved it in the open Court by the Confession of the Clerke of the Peace that brought the true Indictment with him to the Court and acknowledged that the other was falsified either by the Clerke that he trusted to write it or by some other he knew not who that the Indictment brought to the Court was not the true Indictment that was found by the Jury and so without any more words my Lords Grace seemed to me very graciously to smile and so I was dismist But I fear that the favour which Sir Geo. Ayskue finds in every place against me may produce no good effect And then I called to mind the cause that moved me to fear the success I should have at the Council-Table not Injustice that I mean not I know that they are just but that the Justice I should have would not be to my advantage and the favour that I desired For when I still indâ—ed the forcible Enterers and still proceeded against Sir George Ayskues Tenants he preferred a Petition to the Council-Table about this Lordship of Bishops Court and I hearing of it conceived that before any thing should be done thereupon I should have the favour to be made acquainted with the same Petition that I might answer it but I could hear nothing of it until a little while after some of the Bishops by reason of the power to my L. Lieutenant and Counsel given by the last Proviso in the Act of settlement fearing that they would alter and retrench some of his Majesties Favours and Additionals granted unto them by the said Act petitioned that they would not do so but leave all things that concerned the Bishops statu quo as they are expressed in the Act without Alteration or retrenchment and my Lord Lieutenant and Counsel granted their Petition but with this only Proviso that Sir George Ayskues right might be preserved that is as I conceive against all the Bishops for that none is named and this Proviso of all the men in Ireland is but only for Sir George Ayskue and of all the Bishops in Ireland it seems by all likelihood only prejudicial to the Bishop of Ossory Which notwithstanding if the last Proviso in the Act of Settlement be well understood and rightly followed can be no prejudice to him at all as I conceive it for that the Power given to my Lord Lieutenant and Counsel by that Proviso is as I understand it a power to alter and retrench any thing in part or in whole which they shall find either contrary to his Majesties Declaration or inconsistent with Which are the very words in the Proviso or to the general settlement of the Kingdom and I conceive that the suffering of the Bishop of Ossory to enjoy his own House and Lands where the Bishops used to live and reside cannot be contrary to his Majesties Declaration not inconsistent with the general settlement of the Kingdom And therefore I humbly conceive that my Lord Lieutenant and Counsel have no power by that Proviso granted unto them to take away his Majesties Grant and Favour to the Bishop of Ossory and to settle the same upon Sir George Ayskue especially if his Majesty was deceived in his Grant to Sir George Ayskue as I verily believe he was for his Majesty grants him the Lands setled upon him for his Service in Ireland and I have searched and examined the Matter as much as ever I could and yet could never find nor understand what Service he had done in Ireland that deserved to carry away the House and Lands of the Bishop of Ossory or indeed of any Service that he did in Ireland at all either for King or Parliament And if for all this he carries the Bishops House away I will sing Mopso Nisa datur and seeing how many of the Bishops Houses and Lands that were by an Order of the House of Lords delivered to my possession by the Sheriffe of the County and were peaceably in my Tenants possession and paid me Rent ever since his Majesties happy coming in were given away while I was in London Petitioning about this Cause and could not be at Dublin to answer them that sued for them nor dreamed of any Suites against me and being not able in mine old Age especially seeing what Pains Charge and Success I have hitherto had with Sir Geo. Ayskue to follow so many Suits against so many men so powerful as they are in the Courts of Justice at the Council-Table and in all places I will like Balaams Asse so unjustly beaten lie down under my burden too heavy for me to bear and call and cry to God to arise and maintain his own Cause and the Cause of his own Son Jesus Christ Yet in this Suit betwixt me and Sir Geo. Ayskue because I have taken so much paines and spent so much Money and specially because I do hate and abhor that any man * I mean not Sir G. Ayskue but whosoever he be which hath fought under the Standard of the Beast and Long Parliament against that Most Pious King and my Most Gracious Master Charles the First should carry away the Houses and Lands that Religious Princes have dedicated for the Honoâ—r and Service of Jesus Christ for the Reward of that wickedness
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
lift up his Rod over the Sea and promised the Sea should be divided Exod. 14.16 so that the children of Israel might go on dry ground through the midst of the Sea and so likewise when he commanded him to smite the Rock of stone and promised that the waters should flow thereout which had no possibility with all the power of nature to be done yet Moses never doubted of Gods Promise but presently did what God commanded both in the one and the other Even so when God commands us to do any thing and promiseth we shall have such and such blessings by doing it as to have our sins remitted by being baptized in a little water and by the worthy receiving of a little Sacramental Bread and Wine to injoy all the benefits of the body and bloud of Christ and by a stedfast faith in the death of Christ to be assured of eternal life how unlikely soever they may seem to be we ought with Abraham and Moses and the rest of Gods faithful Servants most readily do what God biddeth us and undoubtedly believe what he promiseth And though it may seem a strange wonder that cannot sink into worldly mens heads that Christ his death should procure to us eternal life and therefore the preaching of this doctrine is to the Jews that looked for such a Christ that should abide alive for ever a stumbling-block and to the Grecians that gloried only in their eloquence and ascribed all things with Aristotle to their natural causes meer foolishness 1 Cor. 1.23 as the Apostle testifieth Yet if you truly weigh this doctrine of our deliverance from eternal death How just it is that the death of Christ should free all men that believe in him from eternal death and obtaining of everlasting life by the death of Christ we shall find it very consonant to just reason and no wayes to be doubted of and that in a twofold respect 1. Because that although we for our sins deserved most justly to die the death that is to suffer the eternal wrath of God whom we have and do so highly offend yet seeing it Reason 1 pleased Christ out of his great pity to our miserable condition and his infinite love to mankind to become our Surety and to die and so satisfie the wrath of God for us Is it not agreeable to reason that Christ paying our debt and suffering for our sins as the Prophet testifieth he hath done we should be discharged and have our lives spared For so when the Officers came to apprehend Christ and to arrest him and he asked them Whom seek ye And they answered Jesus of Nazareth And he said I am he and if you seek me then let these that are my Disciples and do believe in me go their way It is apparent by these words that Christ held it agreeable to all reason that if he paid the debt the debtor should be free and if he suffered death for us we should be delivered from that death which we deserved Reason 2 2. Because that although the death of Christ was but the death of one man and we that sinned and deserved death are many thousand millions of men even all the posterity of Adam yet the death of this one man Propter unionem hypostaticam by reason of the hypostatical union of the Godhead with the manhood in the person of that one man whereby he is not only man but also God himself his death being the death of God must needs be of sufficient worth and value to satisfie God and be more satisfactory to his justice then the death of all Men on Earth and all the Angels in Heaven in as much as the death of the Creator is of more infinite value then the death of all creatures And therefore well might Christ say and happy are we that he said it That the Son of man must be lifted up that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life And I if I be lifted up or being lifted up will draw all men unto me that is all which will believe in me And so you have seen what was typified in the Wilderness unto the Jews by the brazen Serpent was presented and performed to us by Jesus Christ to whom for his infinite love and favour towards us and his bitter Passion and death when he was lifted up and crucified for us to deliver us from eternal death be all honour and glory and thanks and praise for ever and ever Amen A SERMON PREACHED AT THE PUBLICK FAST The eighth of March in St MARIES OXFORD Before The Great Assembly of the Members Of the HONOURABLE HOUSE OF COMMONS There Assembled By GRYFFITH WILLIAMS L. Bishop of OSSORY And Published by their Special Command JOHN 14.6 I am the way the truth and the life London Printed by J. Hayes 1664. Die Sabbati nono Martii 1643. ORdered that Mr. Bodvell and Mr. Watkins give the Bishop of Ossory thanks and desire him to Print his Sermon Noah Bridges THE ONLY VVAY TO PRESERVE LIFE Amos 5.6 Seeke the Lord and you shall live LIght is the first born of all the distinguished Creatures The excellency of the light the first word that the Eternal Word after so many ages of silence uttered forth was Let there be light Gen. 1.3 light that giveth life to all Colours that is the mother of all beauties which hath no positive contrary in nature which maketh all things manifest to the detestation of all evil and the crowning of every good and which is a creature so beloved of the Creator that he calleth himself by this name saying 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 1 John 1.5 and he makes it the most worthy associate of Truth when he saith Send forth thy light and thy truth therefore Light is a Jewel Psal 43.3 not to be valued by the judgment of man And yet the sight by which we partake of all the benefits of the light and without which the light will avail us nothing nor yield us any comfort as good old Toby sheweth saying Quale gaudium est mihi qui in tenebris sedeo is but one sense and but scarce the fifth part of the happiness of the sensitive Creature a small thing in respect of that most invaluable good which is termed Life Life how precious and which is of more worth to every living creature then is all the world for the Father of Lies spake Truth herein though to a lying end That Skin for Skin and all that ever a man hath Job 2.4 he will give for his life Therefore as the greatest threatning that God laid upon Adam to deter him from Rebellion and to detain him within the Compass of his Obedience Gen. 2.17 was In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt die the death so the greatest Blessing that he promiseth to any man for all his Service is Life or to live â—s The just shall live by faith Hab.
visit for these things saith the Lord and shall not my soul be avenged on such a nation as this Yes saith our Prophet and for these things the Israelites lost the Lord and we may fear he hath left us for the same faults 2. 2. The waies whereby God is lost from us The means or waies by which we depart from God and so lose the Lord are very many I will only name unto you these three whereby Joseph lost our Saviour in Jerusalem And they are 1. Negligent security 2. Ignorant blindness 3. Obstinate opinion 1. Joseph went with Christ into the Temple but through negligence Way 1 to look after him he went homewards without him so the neglect to seek God is the only way to lose God becâ—use as Saint Gregory saith Quem tentationis certamen superare non valuit saepe securitas deterius stravit 2. Joseph knew not that Christ was left behind him and Way 2 so many men know not that they are without the Lord being like the Inhabitants of Egypt that reap the benefits of Nilus but are ignorant of the fountain from whence it springs because they are ignorant of their faith and of their own most desperate condition while they have moâ—e care of the Evidence of their Lands than they have of the assurance of their Salvation Way 3 3. Joseph thought that Christ was gone before with their friends and thereby he was deceived so many men lose the Lord by their false perswasions for Arius thought he found Christ when he denied his Deity Saint Paul thought he did God good service when he persecuted the Saints of God and so many men as those seditious Preachers and Brownists about London and many other parts of this Kingdom do think perhaps they teach the truth of God when as God knoweth they teach the people nothing else but the most desperate and damnable doctrine of devils when they perswade them to resist the ordinance of God Rom. 13. which commandeth every soul to submit it self unto the higher powers and that is the King as Saint Peter testifieth 1 Pet. 2.13 and so by these false thoughts they do uterly lose the true God and shall finally lose themselves unless they do speedily change their minds and therefore as the Emperour Antoninus was wont to say in another case so I say in this ejice opinionem si vis salvus esse cast away such false opinions and believe the truth relie not on your selves nor on your lying Leaders but as our Prophet saith Seek the Lord and you shall live And so much for the causes and the waies by which we lose the Lord. What we ought to do when we have lost God Gen. 2. Now when the Lord is lost the only remedy that we have is to seek him but alas beloved is it in our power to find him or have we any ability to seek him Can the lost sheep find her shepherd or could Adam ever seek after God if God had not sought after him and called him Adam where art thou I must answer like Athanaeus riddle a man and no man with a stone and no stone kill'd a bird and no bird that sate upon a tree and no tree that is an Eunuch with a pummy killed a bat upon a fennel so I say it is and it is not for if you speak of a man unregenerate and as yet destitute of Gods grace he can no more seek for grace than dead Lazarus could raise himself out of his grave because the Apostle affirmeth all to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Eph. 1.2 dead in trespasses and sins and our Saviour saith Without me you can do nothing Joh. 15.5 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Prosper de lib. arbit and Prosper calleth the grace of God Creatricem bonorum in nobis the Creator of all the good that is in us according to that saying of the Apostle 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 we are his workmanship 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 created in Christ Jesus and you know that a creation is from nothing But when the Lord hath quickned our dead spirits and mollified our hard hearts then he looketh that we should not be quasi dormientes quasi non volentes as men asleep and negligent of our own good but that we should diligently seek the way and finding the same to walk therein Eph. 2 10â— for this exhortation to seek the Lord and our Saviours invitation to come unto him and the like do sufficiently evince Mat. 11.28 that in all Christians God worketh not sicut in lapidibus insensatis as in senseless stones or in creatures that have no reason as Saint Augustine speaketh but in men that have a freedom of will to follow after those things which do pertain unto salvation Aug in Epist 89. quaest 2. Quia liberum arbitrium non ideo tollitur quia juvatur sed ideo juvatur quia non tollitur because our free-will is not taken away because it is helped but it is therefore helped because it is not taken away as the same St. Augustine speaketh And Fulgentius hath the like saying l. 2. De veritate praedest And therefore seeing the Devil can neither forcibly compel us to any evil nor violently detain us from any good How the devil inticeth us and cannot compel us to sin but only by the proposal of seducing objects and by the subtle obscuring the beauty of the perfect good to allure us unto the one and to withdraw us from the other we ought to arm our selves with a resolution to follow the counsel of the Prophet to Seek the Lord that we might live and not die for Why will you die O ye Inhabitants of England But in this our inquisition and search after God Four things to be considered in our search for God we ought carefully to consider of these four particulars 1. To find out the cause why he left us 2. To go to the place where he resideth 3. To know the time when he may be found 4. To understand the manner how we are to seek him For 1. To know the cause why God left us Psal 147.14 1. God was amongst us as in the holy place of Sinai and then Kings with their Armies did flee and were discomfited and we of his houshold divided the spoyl and then God sent a gracious rain upon his Inheritance and refreshed it when it was weary and poured his benefits upon us he made peace in all our borders and filled us with the flower of wheat and he blessed us so that we were even envied for our happiness Job 19.11 but now he hath forsaken us and hideth his face from us and goeth not forth with our Armies but he hath kindled his wrath against us and counted us as one of his enemies Cap. 6.4 he hath made his arrows drunk in our bloud and his terrours do set themselves in array against us so that now we are a
out of his hands and said this is a Sermon that I carried with me to preach where I should rest on the Lords day but that the Letters that were to the King and to the Bishop of York and others were in the Satchel and he for haste to see the Letters suffered me to put my Sermon and the Grand Rebellion into my Pocket which I feared would have been my death or utter ruine if the Commissioners had seen it Then Sir John having taken out the Letters asked me how I durst at those times carry Letters unto the King I answered they were Letters from those poor Bishops that therein shewed to his Majesty how they were pillaged and persecuted by the Popish Irish Rebels and I knew and had a Copy of what was in them before I would carry them then Sir John said I did wisely to do so and so he went in unto the rest of the Commissioners and left me lockt in the room yet very joyful for having gotten my Grand Rebellion out of his hands but behold still the malice of Satan and the subtilty of his Instruments while I was walking up and down the room and had torn the worst case that I had writ against the Parliament and chewed it in my mouth and threw it away an arrand knave was peeping at the key hole and went unto the Commissioners and told them that I had some desperate or treacherous Papers which he saw me tear then Sir John North comes to me again and aked what Papers those were that I was seen tearing I smilingly answered Alas Sir ever since I came from Sea I was troubled with a looseness and having by chance a loose leaf in my Pocket I pluckt it out and said this is the Paper that I had in my hand to go to the house of office and he looking upon it and finding it of no effect said Is this all And went his waies and then I remembred what our Saviour said When you are brought before Rulers Mark 13.11 take no thought what you shall speak for it shall be given you in illa hora in that very hour what to answer and God also wrought in the Commissioners such thoughts of me and my sufferings by the Irish that they gave me a Pass to go home and delivered me my horses which Captain Flaxon hoped to have had for his reward and the forty pounds which he found in my house and which I told the Commissioners was all that I had to keep me and my Family So graciously did God help me that I went home with joy contrary to the expectation of my Neighbours that informed the Rebels of my return to those parts And within a few daies after was the Battel at Edge-hill at which time I went to his Majesty and waited on him untill he came to Oxford And here in Oxford I printed fiâ—st my Grand Rebellion and afterwards my discovery of mysteries and last of all The rights of Kings where immediately I printed my Grand Rebellion and finding how well and how graciously his Majesty accepted of my endeavours therein I went to Wales and studied my discovery of mysteries or the plots of the Parliament to overthrow both Church and State and by the next Winter I came to Oxford to Print it and being printed Secretary Faukeland misliking a passage that I had set down of the Episcopal power in causa sanguinis would have had it called in but his Majesty would not suffer it to be supprest therefore I resolved by the next Winter to publish as I did my Book of the Rights of Kings both in Church and Commonwealth and the wickedness of the pretended Parliament and in the interim I was perswaded to go to London to see what I could work upon my Lord of Pembroke whom I had served so many years and tutored all his Children whereof two were now with his Majesty and when I came to London I took the opportunity to go unto him For I conceived that time to be the safest time while he was in bed and after much conference with him about the differences betwixt the King and his Parliament and their disloyalty to his Majesty and that I saw he began to be offended and very angry for fear he should deliver me to the Parliament that formerly had caused all that they found of my Grand Rebellion to be burnt I took my leave of him and presently highed me to go out of Town but was denied to pass untill I used my wit to the Maior of London to get a Pass by telling him that I was a poor pillaged Preacher of Ireland that came to London to see my friends and now having some other friends in North-hampton and thereabout And I have his Pass by me to this very day I humbly desired his Pass to go to see them and he pitying my case called for a cup of Wine and commanded his Clerk to write me a Pass without a Fee And then after I had passed a good way towards North-hampton I turned to Oxford and from thence within a while to Wales and from thence to Ireland and after Nasby fight being bound with my L. Taafe in a thousand Marks a peece unto his Majesty for the appearance of Collonel Vangary that returned at Edge-hill fight from the Parliament unto the King with Sir Faithful Fortescue at Beaumares Sizes for taking away a Drove of Cattle from the Drovers of Anglesey and he not appearing our Recognizans were forfeited and I was fain to return to his Majesty with Letters from my Lord of Ormond that Van-garie could not come out of Ireland and therefore his Majesty was humbly desired to remit the forfeiture of our Recognizance which his Majesty by his Letters to the Justices of Peace of Anglesey very graciously did and sent another Letter by me again to my Lord of Ormond but in my passage to his Majesty I was like to be carried to the Parliament by a knave that about ten miles from Aberystwith began to examine me and said that I was a Spy for the King and therefore I must be carried before some of the Parliament Officers to be examined and I had no other shift but to commend him for his care and to tell him that there were too many Spies abroad and I was but a poor pillaged man in Ireland that would very willingly go before any man and I still called for drink until he was perswaded that I was a very honest man and so he let me go in peace And before I could pass into Dublin General Mitton with his Army had entred into our Country and I preaching that Sunday that he came at Rhudhland had an Alarm about midnight and was fain to flee to Carnarvon shire and when he came to Carnarvon shire to slee too Anglesey And because Anglesey was an Island and could not be won if the Inhabitants would be true among themselves we that were true Royalists summoned the chiefest
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
I resolved once more to enter into the List to follow my alwaies very honourable Friend my Lord Chancellours Advice and try the Success with him by the Verdict of an honest Jury and Lindired 6 of the Tenants and Servants of Sir Geo. Ayskue for a forcible Entry and 5 of them now the third time and I had six Counsellours help to draw and compose the Indictment and so to review it and correct it if any thing was amiss therein that being found Billa Vera by the Jury it might so stand good and not be quashed as my two former Indictments were by the Judges of the Kings Bench. And the 6 forcible Enterers being indited for fear lest the Record should be falsified and corrupted as the former indirement of them had been I got the Clerke of the Peace to send it inclosed in a Letter sealed up by my man to his Agent in Dublin to be â—elivered into the Office which mine Adversaries presently told to my Lord of Santree and was objected as a Piaculum Meaning as I conceived by the Relation that I had printed of the former Proceedings and when the Record came to the Court my Lord Chief Justice said upon the Bench that my Lord Bishop had abused the Court to whom I replied that I had not abused the Court for that I had set down nothing but the Truth and was as Ioah as any man to offer the least Abuse to any of his Majesties Courts or Judges of his Courts And after my Lord Chief Justice and my self had conferred together I found him my very honourable Friend and I retained three of the Kings Counsel to follow the said Cause for his Majesty and the Counsellours of the Fanaticks failing to quash the Indictment my Lord Chief Justice told them they must either submit or be bound to prosecute their Traverse and they became bound in 200 l. to prosecute the same upon the 10th day of Easter Term which was the sixth day of May. And when upon that day the Jury were sworn That their children and their childrens children may understand from what I will not say Canaanites but Catharisâ—s they are sprung Who and what my Witnesses proved viz. William Baker of Ballytobin John Pursel of Lismore William Baxter of Earlstown Isaac Jackson of Kâ—lamery John Jones of Ri _____ Robert Hawford of Ballyneboly Nicholas Pharoe Thomas Tomlins of Lismoteag Chrystopher Render of Fadenarah John Nixon of Brawnebarn William Cheshire of _____ and Thomas Huswife of Gowran good men and true or neither good men nor true 1. I brought in evidence Mr. Sheriff Reigly who was the Sheriff that gave me possession and Mr. Connel and Hugh Linon that was thought needless to prove my possession given by the Sheriffe of the County of Kilkenny by vertue of an Order of the House of Lords of this Lordship of Bish Court the Lands thereto belonging and of the Tenements in Freshfoord as it was expressed in a Shedule annexed to the Order of the Lords upon the 29th day of April 1662. and that the Tenants did atturne Tenants and gave pieces of money in earnest of their rents and promised to keep the possession and to continue Tenants unto me during my pleasure 2. Mr. Thomas Bulkley Mr. William Williams Thomas Davies and my self proved the multitude of persons to the number of ten or twelve that upon the 8th day of October 1662. were entred into the said Bishops Court and there forcibly kept the possession against the Bishop and some one with a sword by his side and a staff or Cane in his hand and another with a long staff in his hand threatned that they would make him repent his doings and coming there and that Sir George Ayskue would spend 500 li. before he would leese this Bishops Court and that Captain Burges said he would keep and uphold the possession for Sir George Ayskue with his life and fortune and others having shut the Iron Grate to hinder the Bishop to go out or his Servants to come in when his Servants demanded what they meant to murder their Lord And desired to come in to wait upon their Master they threatned them and said that if they offered to come in there they would beat them down and knock out their Brains 3. Mr. Richard Marshal Mr. George Farre Mr. John Murphey and Ed. Dalton that proved how he was thrust out of the house by head and shoulders proved the forcible entry with arms and weapons a Gun and a Pike and Staves into some of the Tenements in Freshford and that for nine daies they kept the same with such a company of Fanaticks Anabaptists and other Sectaries that they seemed rather to be a Garrison than the keeping of the possession of any house And after nine daies they bound George Farre and others in a bond of a thousand pounds that they should continue true Tenants to Sir George Ayskue and keep the possession for him against the Bishop of Ossory And because the said George Farre proved this point so fully and so plain that nothing could be said against it one of the Fanaticks Counsellours said what I conceive was very unfit to be spoken in so publick a place and before such honourable Judges of any of the Kings Witnesses that this man the principal of the Witnesses was a parricide which I dare justifie to be most untrue 4. For impounding the Cattle and beating and wounding them that sought to hinder it the said George Farre proved the same so fully and that one of the women that was beaten lay long sick after her beating that Sir Audley Mervin and Serjeant Gruffith would not suffer three other Witnesses that I had there at the Bar that is John Duran Barbara Marshal and another Wench to be sworn and examined and so to trouble the Court any further because said they you see the Lords Justices and the whole Court are sufficiently satisfied that I had more than abundantly proved the forcible entry and detaining of this Bishops Court but they gave way to six of the Intruders Counsel to say what they could for their Clients And when each one of them had made his Oration and spent much time and my Lord Chief Justice heard them with a great deal of patience to prove what I never denied but was ready to confess all that they said touching the large Writings and Evidences that they produced to prove the Title and Interest of Mr. Robert Shea to this Bishops Court which at this time when the question was only of the forcible entry I had no reason to contradict and which perhaps might be good and perhaps not before he forfeited the same unto his Majesty But for Sir George Ayskue that for his Service How S. George Ayskue came to have this Bishops Court. you know to whom which makes me believe it will never prosper with him had a Commission from the Usurper Crummel that for 200 li. which was due unto him for
some Service that he had done as I am informed the Commissioners should allot him so much Lands as they thought worth 200 li. and they out of favour to him and getting Lands so cheap as they did gave him this Bishops Court and so much more other Lands as are now far better worth than 200 li. per annum his Counsel said never a word touching his Title and Interest for he injoyed it not peaceably and quietly but only during the time of the Rebellion and Usurpation which I conceive to be no true Possession for as soon as ever his Majesty was so happily restored before one year had gone about I sent to enter upon it and to distrain for my Rent and Captain Burges Sir George Ayskues prime Tenant gave me a Writing which I have to shew under his hand to become answerable unto me for the whole Rent of this Bishops Court and Freshfoord when I should be peaceably setled in it So when these six Counsellours had spent their spirits in tyring the worthy Judges and beating the soft air to no purpose but only like those Fanatick Preachers that read their Text and never touch it after to amaze the simple and Jury which I may justly term for that I am confident the most of them were resolved what to do before ever they heard the Evidence My Counsel that were Sir William Dunvil the Kings Atturney Sir Audley Mervin * The Speaker of the House of Commons Sir John Temple the Kings Sollicitor Sergeant Gruffith and Mr. Rian all very worthy men and worthy to be named thinking it no wisdom in them as one of themselves told me nor any waies beneficial either to the King for his Fine or to me for the Possession to follow those extravagant Counsellours in their devious waies and to answer their needless discourses so far from the point in question as being only about Sheas Title and no waies touching nor contradicting the forcible entry were very silent and said never a word to all that the adverse Counsellours had said but left the Evidence to be explained to the Jury by the Judges who had so exactly examined them and so patiently heard what both sides could say for which some of the adverse Counsellours and some of my friends blamed them very much for making no manner of replication at all to Sir George Ayskues Counsel But truly I do conceive that digitus dei erat hic that as he openeth the mouth of babes and sucklings to shew forth his praise so he shuts the mouths of the Wise and Learned when it pleaseth him as here he did for the trial of this Jury whether they would be true and honest that being found * Like Belshazzar weighed in the balance and found too light as I conceive they are they might be made an example which he knew I would do to the uttermost of my power for all other Juries to terrifie them from falshood and wrong to the great benefit of the whole Kingdom which without some severe censures upon such high Offenders would rather prove to be a Den of thieves than a seat of safety for honest men that were best if Juries may still do what they list to obey the voice which cried in the air at the Siege of Hierusalem Migremus hinc Then my Lord of Santry that is my Lord Chief Justice seeing my Counsel silent began most nobly rightly and truly as a most upright Judge and like himself in all his judgements told the Jury that for the title and matter of Law and the Interest of either in this Bishops Court it was not in their charge to inquire of it but they that were the Judges of the Law and of the right interest were to do it and would do the same when my Counsel should move for the possession but they were for the King to enquire only of the matter of fact and force whether after possession was given to the Bishop by the Sheriff by vertue of an Order of the house of Lords and the Bishop continued his possession from April to the eighth of October The which saâ—d he a Disscisor should not forcibly be put out though he should be a Disseisor yet was he not forcibly put out and kept out of the same This was their only charge to inquire after and for this said my Lord Chief Justice you see what is proved a multitude of persons ten or twelve at the least when as one may make a forcible entry you heard also said he what weapons they had Gun Pike Sword and Staves and you heard what threatning words they used that they would make the Bishop to repent his coming there that they would knock down his Servants and beat out their brains if they attempted to come in and you heard likewise how they had beaten and wounded those Servants that sought to hinder them to impound their Cattle and all this said my Lord Chief Justice makes the forcible entry plain so that you need not stand upon it So justly and so fairly did my Lord of Santry deal herein without either fearing or favouring the one or the other So the Jury was dismist and all that heard the evidence Sure if I had not been a Bishop they would never have given such a Verdict and what my Lord Chief Justice said would have laid some twenty to one some forty to one and some a hundred to one that the Jury would not stand upon it but presently find the Verdict for the King Yet they brought their Verdict for the Defendants And as I am informed all the Grave and Reverend Judges wondred and were discontented at their Verdict And who will prosecute for the King if Juries be suffered to do thus and whereas some would have the Jury fined and imprisoned for the wrong they had done to the King my Lord Chief Justice answered there was a fitter place to punish them meaning as I conceive the Star-Chamber And if such men that formerly most of them were against their King be thus permitted to drive men out of house and home and forcibly to enter into their possession though they should be Peeres of the Realm which is a violence offered unto the Law and a peâ—ty Rebellion the next degree and fore-runner of rebellion against their King himself and when any oppressed and expulsed man shall with a great deal of pains and labour and with a vast expence of money and an indictment upon indictment thrice over bring the same to a travers and they the Jury without any Conscience contrary to all justice and contrary to all their evidence and the plain Declaration and Judgement of the Lords the Judges of the Court and of the whole Court shall do what they please and say Quod volâ—â—us id sanctum est what we do is Law without any speedy remedy against them to the utter undoing of many poor oppressed men who had better suffer any the greatest wrong than
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
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
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
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
for his service they should be snatched out of his hands and transferred to Lay and prophane uses but that like those Censers they should ever continue for the service of his Altar and so St. Augustine sheweth as much in his 154 Epistle to Publicola And thus you see how God is robbed his Service neglected and his Servants deprived of their means and maintenance so that they can neither discharge their duties to God nor feed the flock of Chrâ—st and instruct the people committed to their charge as they ought to do and would no doubt do the same if they were enabled to do it which is a lamentable thing and yet I can shew you a greater abomination Ezek. 8.6 even in the Visitations of these poor and pillaged Clergy-men I remember God hath a twofold visitation the one in mercy to relieve the oppressed to deliver the Captives out of their Captivity as he visited the Israelites in Egypt and the like the other in justice to punish the malefactors and the transgressors of his Laws as he visiteth the sins of the Fathers upon the Children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate him but whether the Visitations of our Clergy-men be in mercy or in justice or whether it be pro correctione morum or collectione pecuniarum and refectione corporum or both I will not determine I believe their first institution aimed at our good for the praise of them that do well and the punishment of the refractory and evil-doers but time and craft corrupteth the best things and as the wicked turn the graces of God into wantonness so covetous men and corrupt minds do abuse all the good institutions of our Ancestors so the service of the true God was in time translated to become the service of the Idols of the Gentiles and so I fear me these Visitations of the Clergy that at first aimed at their good and for their reliefe are now become in many places an oppression and a heavy yoak upon their necks and a burden scarce portable upon their shoulders As 1. In the multiplicity of them 1. The multiplicity of Visitations three or four that may be in one year as first the Archdeacon he visits and gathers up his Procurations perhaps all the money that the poor Clergy can procure then comes the Bishop and he visits and the Clergy must now double their file his Procurations being twice as much as the Archdeacons then every third year the Archbishop comes about in his triennial visitation and if in either the Bishop or the Archbishops visitation the Clergy fail either in the payment of their Procurations or making such refections as shall be to the satisfaction of their Visitors their Livings may be sequestred and let them live as they list and after all this the Lord Primate if he please may come in the same year to make a regal Visitation and he being so good a man and coming from so good and so gracious a King deserves no less than the best and the best entertainment that can be made for his Grace is fit to be made for him And can these many visits think you be for the profit of the poor Clergy But 2. 2. The Refections The refections seem to be more burthensome than the Procurations especially because the Procurations are certain what every man must pay but the Refections contrary to the mind of our Saviour that saith unto his Disciples Into what house soever ye enter eat what shall be set before you Luk. 10.7 must be to the satisfaction of the delicate and delicious company of the visitors and not according to the power of the poor Clergy when they remember not the old Proverb That the full dog knoweth not how or what the empty dog doth bark and if they be discontented with their entertainment their Censures must be as they please and none dares say that it is unjust or how can it be so from the men of God Yet as all powerful great men can easily find a staffe to beat a dog so the superiour Bishop or Archbishop can if they please soon find a fault in a poor inferiour Clergy man Now I will set down for I fear no man living what information I have by Letters from the last Visitation of the Archbishop of Dublin that was held in my Diocess of Ossory by his Surrogate Mr. Archdeacon Bulkley and these be the very words of the Letters that the World may thereby see and the Judge of all the World may judge in what case the poor Clergy do stand My Lord IT pleased God a little after your journey to Dublin to take out of this life your Grandchild Mrs. Cull who discovered much Religion on her death bed and as she wanted not attendance in her sickness so neither decency nor solemnity at her Funeral Since your Lordships departure your Maid did unknown to me marry Mr. Barry the Smiths man whom she brought to lye in your Lordships house whereupon there arose some quarrels between Thomas and her insomuch that Thomas sate up a whole night with Candle-light for fear of the men as he complained unto me whereupon I charged the man not to lye at night time in your Lordships house till your Lordship did return which hath prevented the like inconvenience since As to the triennial Visitation I shall give your Lordship this brief account The Lord Archbishop did not come in person but sent Mr. Bulkley whom we waited on three miles to bring him into Town he told us what noble refections he met with in the Diocess of Kildare Leighlin but that here he was resolved to lodge at his Daughters house he asked what Provision we had made for his Register we told him Mr. Connels house when his Register came to Town though his men some of them and his Portmantle were in Mr. Connels house he did not like his lodging and complained to the Vicar General On Monday after the Commission was read he told us that in regard the refection for the Archbishop was neglected he suspended the Jurisdiction for six months and whereas he thought to behave himself as a loving brother he would prove a severe Judge and that we should expect nothing but utmost justice we invited him that day to dine at Whitles where we bespoke a Dinner for his refection which cost six or seven pounds but he refused and every day we invited him but could not prevail on Tuesday and Wednesday he seemed very mild and respective and earnestly desired to be an happy Instrument in the reconciliation of Mr. Dean and my self Mr. Cull and Mr. Drisdale upon which importunity that we might not discover our selves to be litigious I was willing to be reconciled to him whom I had no visible quarrell with so was Mr. Drisdale but Mr. Bulkleys awe upon Mr. Cull made him condescend to a great submission and aske him forgiveness flexis genibus the next day the Archdeacon told me that if we
would discharge his Servants quarters he would take off the Inhibition upon the Jurisdiction whereupon Mr. Connel and my self engaged to discharge the Reckoning and so we thought that all things had been ended in a fair correspondence but upon his departure he did privately sequester all the Livings of Mr. Cull Junior the Vicaredge of Aghaboe into the hands of one Manby the Archbishops Chaplain he sequestered out of my own poor means Donnoghmore and Rosconnel and two Livings more of Mr. Cull Senior and there were many other Sequestrations that I could not get an account of which they carried to Dublin Thus praying for your Lordships speedy return to countenance and support the Clergy I rest Kilkenny July 23. 1664. Your Lordships most obliged Servant Joseph Teate And now having set down this Letter I would have my Reader to understand that whatsoever I set down here touching my Lords Grace his Visitation I say it not to accuse any of his Officers of the least fault or to lay the least blame on them for any unjust proceeding therein The things acted by Mr. Archdeacon Bulkley in my Lords Grace his Visitation which the Bishop of Ossory understands not as 1. The suspension of the Bishops jurisdiction Canon 24. But I only set down rem gestam to shew how heavy the Censure was and how burthensome which a just judgement may be unto the poor Clergy whose neglect or fault I excuse not if they committed any but only pitty their case under their Censure and likewise to shew how far beyond my understanding which notwithstanding might be most just many things were acted therein As 1. The Suspension or inhibition of the Jurisdiction I know not for how many months together nor for what cause if as Mr. Teates Letter saith for the neglect of the Archbishops Refection I find the Canons say that neither the Archbishops in their Visitation shall charge their Suffragans nor the Bishops their Clergy with any noctials or refections over and above their ordinary Procurations reserving notwithstanding unto the Archbishops the refections heretofore usually received in those Diocess where the same Procurations are not received by them which are yearly paid by the Clergy unto their Bishops But the Archbishops do receive from the Clergy of the Diocess of Ossory all the Procurations that they do yearly pay unto their Bishops And yet notwithstanding this exemption of Refections by the Canon I am sure I paid seventeen pound for the Archdeacons refection in the Archbishops last Visitation which is a great deal more than the Subsidy and twentieth part that I pay unto his Majesty any year and it may be more than ever was bestowed upon a Dinner for the blessed Apostles S. Paul But you see in the Letter how highly they do extoll the Bishop of Kildare which is the prime Bishop in the Kingdom for the noble entertainment that he made at this Visitation spending as some say forty pounds at least for their Refection and the Bishop of Lachlin and Fernes in like manner that was not much behind the former to shew his love and respect to his Metrâ—politan my Lords Grace of Dublin Truly I do honour respect and reverence and do heartily love my Lords Grace of Dublin as a most noble Gentleman and a most reverend and a worthy Father of the Church and as much and it may be more than any of them and have suffered somewhat for the love I bare him though my large expence for the rights of the Church darkened the expression thereof in the Archdeacons Refection as the Archdeacon represented it to his Grace Or it may be as some say my Jurisdiction for the Jurisdiction is mine and not my Archdeacons nor Register was suspended because I appeared not at the Visitation but went to England without my Lords Grace his leave especially after I had notice of his Visitation Indeed I must confess I went after I had notice of the Visitation but my only business was the business of the Church and I had my Lord Lieutenants leave under his hand and seal to go without any prejudice unto me neither was I so forgetful of my duty or of civil respect as to neglect my Lords Grace but I went unto his Grace to excuse my absence from his Visitation and to desire his leave to go on my journey and he very graciously yielded unto me And why after such leaves obtained my Jurisdiction which is half my Episcopal Function should be inhibited I understand not If Mr. Bulkley saith quomodo constat that you had my Lords Grace leave to be absent I answer quomodo constabat how did I know that Mr. Archdeacon Bulkley should visite me and would think me so uncivil and so ill bred as to forget my respect and duty to my Lords Grace as to go away without his leave I but why did not you saith the Archdeacon send a Certificate under the Archbishops hand that you had his Grace his leave 1. Because I did not understand that if I were at Corke or Kerry or some other such remote place from Dublin it is absolutely necessary by any Canon or Law that I must either go or send to Dublin to get my Lords Grace his leave to go about my most unavoidable occasions of what consequence soever they be or else to be sequestred from my means or to be suspended from my jurisdiction 2. Because that having his leave ore tenus by word of mouth I did not believe that Mr. Archdeacon would imagine that a man should not trust the Archbishops words except he had it under his hand and seal when as I never doubted of any honest mans word and much less of the words of my Lords Grace of Dublin Yet the Jurisdiction was suspended as they say for six months till all the harvest and the profit of the year should be past over and what a grievance this is to all those parties that have suits depending in the Bishops Court to have justice retarded all this while and to those also that would sue for their Tythes or for any other right within the cognizance of the Ecclesiastical Court I do not understand it but am sorry for it and let others judge of it 2. The taking of the Articles exhibited against the Dean out of the Bishops Court 2. When as Articles were exhibited unto me of high nature against the Dean of S. Kenny and I calling him into my Court to answer them and giving him his own time that he desired to have to make his answer that he might not be surprized and this long before any inhibition of my Jurisdiction came into my hands I do not understand how the same suit depending in my Court could be taken off but by an appeal and transmitted by a due Course of Law or otherwise all the suits and causes depending in my Court might be cancelled and taken off as well as this and what a grievance is this to the prosecutors of any suit
their superimendents would not be negligent of my duty to do according to my Lords Grace his Order but I sent my Apparitor to all the particulars of my Clergy mentioned in the Schedule to come and make satisfaction for their Procurations or to expect what might succeed which they were better like wise men to prevent And they when they came unto me shewed me their Acquittances under Mr. Juxe his hand that they had already paid them So I thought this storm was over Yet within a while I heard that about some ten poor Parish Clarkes and five of the Clergy were cited to appear at Dublin a journey to some fifty or sixty miles in the short Winter daies and over waies as foul as any is in Ingland to answer Articles that should be objected against them Then divers of the Clerks came crying to me that they had rather leave their Clerkeship than to take such a journey to Dublin and one of the Clerks the Archdeacon Bulkley had given a Licence to and yet cited him to Dublin to shew his Licence the which when he shewed the Officers of the Court said they mistook it and dismist the cause and yet afterwards sent a Citation for the Fees And my Clergy entreated me to intercede for them that did not know wherein they had offended nor what could be objected against them and I answered them all that I would neither meddle nor make in their business but if they have done well then all would be well if otherwise let them suffer for it I would never excuse their negligence nor Patronize their offence then some of them appearing at Dublin expecting their Charge and desiring earnestly to be dispatcht Archdeacon Bulkley answered Your Bishop is writing of Books for he had some inkling of mine intent and will not apply himself to my Lords Grace to intercede for you Yet my Lord Archbishop very nobly and graciously willed the Archdeacon to take their answer and to dispatch them that they might go home and the Archdeacon Bulkley willed them to confess their faults and to submit unto the Court and they should be discharged and I hearing of this advice willed them to confess the truth but not of any guilt wherein they were innocent And therefore when they had their Articles ten or twelve read unto them for they had no Copy of them they saw they were but meer suggestions and not any thing in any of them that could any waies touch them or prejudice them in any thing and they presently made their answers unto them And when they had answered and confest no fault that they committed upon the payment of their Fees for the charges of the Court they were dismist Whereby it seems to me that if they were guiltless and nothing could be proved against them they might as well cite all the Clergy and all the men in Kilkenny and suggest Articles against them to bring them unto Dublin to pay Fees to enrich the Officers of the Court and that being done to send them home glad that they are dismist Then after this the Churchwardens of S. Maries in Kilkenny having very justly as I understand presented divers persons at the Archbishops Visitation Canon 65. and 67. they were contrary to the Canons cited to appear at Dublin forty seven miles to make good their Presentation as the Churchwardens informed me which was so ill resented that we could hardly get any that would take the Churchwardenship upon them for fear of the like troubles if they presented any man But when I demanded of the Archdeacon why the Churchwardens were cited to make good their Presentment He answered it was not so but they retained a Proctor to prosecute against those that refused to pay the Church taxes and they not following their suit they were sent unto either to come and prosecute or the Defendants should be dismist which if so I blame not the proceeding but let the Churchwardens suffer for their own errour when they sue out of my Court without a dismission or an appeal Yet out of all my former discourse it appeareth what an heavy burthen and an infinite charge this last triennial Visitation of the Archbishop hath been to the indigent Clergy of Ossory both in their threefold Procurations their manifold Sequestrations and long Winter journeys to procure their Relaxations and the manifold losses that they sustained by their Tenants that by reason of the Sequestrations were disappointed of those tythes that they had taken from the Incumbents which makes me think that we do not follow our Saviours Counsel and Precept to S. Peter To feed his flock nor what we learnt in the old Adage that saith Boni pastoris est pecus tondere non deglubere for certainly these foresaid things do seem deglubere pecus non tondere and to cause his shepwards to starve and not to enable them to feed his Lambs And therefore as the sin of Solomon moved God to raise up Hadad the Edomite and Rezon the Son of Eliadah and Jeroboam the Son of Nebat to vex Solomon for the sins of Solomon 1 Kings 11.14 23 26. So I do not wonder that God suffereth the devil to stir up Presbyterians and Quakers Why God suffereth Sectaries to vex the Bishops and other Anabaptistical Sectaries to vex the Bishops for these and the like sins of the Bishops against God and his poor people when they suffer and countenance their Commissaries Registers and other Officers to be like a talent of lead upon the necks of Christ his Sheep But I do therefore demand if these things Whether the foresaid abuses ought not to be redressed and all the things I shewed to be amiss in this Treatise ought not to be reformed and amended I know some will say they ought not thus to be published to the World to discover the weakness and imperfections of our Brethren to make them more contemptible in the eyes of the scoffers of our Calling than they are and therefore will much blame me for this my publication of these things But as Caligula was so wicked and his life so beastly Reynolds in the life of Caligula fol. 31. that some Historiographers have been in doubt whether it were best to bury them in oblivion or commit them unto memory and it is answered by mine Author That seeing it is profitable to the Readers and to Posterity to know the evil doings of others and the disgrace they have thereby to make them affraid to do the like evils lest in like manner they should be published to their shame therefore it is far better to discover the faults of Governours and great men than to conceal them because it is done Why great mens faults ought to be discovered not with any desire of any evil to the doers of those evil deeds but out of an earnest endeavour to amend them and to prevent the like carriages in all others not to disgrace any but to prevent the disgrace 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