or more to one day of the seven than to any other let us next see by what Authority the day was changed and how it came to be translated from the seventh to the first Concerning which it follows thus in the said Homily viz. This Example and Commandment of God the godly Christian People began to follow immediately after the Ascension of our Lord Christ and began to chuse them a standing Day of the week to come together in yet not the seventh Day which the Jews kept but the Lord's Day the Day of the Lord's Resurrection the Day after the seventh Day which is the first Day of the week c. sithence which time God's People hath always in all Ages without any gainsaying used to come together on the Sunday to celebrate and honour God's blessed Name and carefully to keep that Day in holy rest and quietness So far the Homily And by this Homily it appears plainly that the keeping of the Lord's day is not grounded on any Commandment of Christ nor any Precept of the Apostles but that it was chosen as a standing day of the week to come together in by the Godly Christian People immediately after Christ's Ascension and hath so continued ever since But the Doctor has been very careful in his Quotations not only to take whatsoever in this Homily he thinks makes for his purpose but has also been so wary as to leave out whatsoever he thinks is against him and therefore the Reader is to take notice that the place first cited by the Doctor immediately precedes that before quoted by the Lord Primate being connected to it by this passage which the Doctor omits And therefore by this Commandment we ought to have a time as one day in the week wherein we ought to rest yea from our lawful and needful works So likewise doth he omit that which immediately follows the words quoted by my Lord Primate viz. So that God doth not only command the observation of this Holy Day but also by his own example doth stir and provoke us to the diligent keeping of the same And after the obedience of natural Children not only to the Commands but also to the Example of their Parents is urged it follows thus as an Argument for its observation So if we will be the Children of our heavenly Father we must be careful to keep the Christian Sabbath Day which is the Sunday not only for that it is God's express Commandment but also to declare our selves to be loving Children in following the Example of our gracious Lord and Father After which it follows again in the next Paragraph which is also concealed by the Doctor tho it connects the words aforegoing and the passage he next makes use of together Thus it may plainly appear that God's Will and Commandment was to have a solemn time and standing-day in the week wherein the People should come together and have in remembrance his wonderful Benefits and to render him thanks for them as appertaineth to loving and obedient People From all which put together I shall leave it to the ingenuous Reader to judge who hath most perverted the sence of this Homily the Lord Primate or the Doctor and whether or no these Conclusions following do not clearly follow from the passages above-cited first that by the fourth Commandment it is God's perpetual Will to have one solemn and standing Day in the week for People to meet together to worship and serve him Secondly That this day tho it be not the seventh day from the Creation yet is still the Christian Sabbath or day of Rest being still the seventh day and still observed not only because of our Saviour Christ's Resurrection on this day but also that we keep the Christian Sabbath which is the Sunday as well for that it is God's express Commandment as also to shew our selves dutiful Children in following the Example of our gracious Lord and Father who rested on the seventh day Thirdly That on this Christian Sabbath or Sunday we ought to rest from our lawful and needful works and common and daily business and also give our selves wholly to Heavenly Exercises of God's true Religion and Service And therefore this being the express words and sence of this Homily that we may not make it contradict it self the passages which the Doctor relies so much upon must have this reasonable construction viz. That the Maker thereof tho he supposed that we Christians were not obliged to the precise keeping of the seventh day after the manner of the Jews Yet notwithstanding whatsoever is found in this Commandment appertaining to the Law of Nature c. as most just and needful for the setting forth of God's Glory ought to be retained and kept of all Christian People Which words must be understood in a clean contrary sence to the Doctor 's viz. that the meaning of the Author was and which our Church confirms that by the Law of Nature the seventh day or one day in seven is to be kept holy or otherwise to what purpose serve these words before recited viz. thus it may plainly appear that God's Will and Commandment was to have one solemn and standing Day in the week wherein People should come together c. that is now under the Gospel as before under the Law And what follows which the Doctor thinks makes for him viz. This Example and Commandment of God the Godly Christian People began to follow immediatly after the Ascension of our Lord Christ and began to chuse them a standing day of the week to come together in yet not the seventh day which the Jews kept but the Lord's Day the Day of the Lord's Resurrection the day after the seventh day which is the first day of the week c. does rather make against him that is by Gods Example as well as Command they were obliged after Christs Ascension to chuse them one standing day of the week to meet together in And if so that must be one day in seven by an immutable moral institution or else the Church might if they had so pleased have celebrated the Lord's Resurrection not as the Homily says on one standing day of the week but only at Easter and the Law of Nature according to the Doctor not tying us to observe one day in seven if this Commandment of keeping the Sabbath or seventh day oblige none but the Jews then the primitive Church might if they had pleased have quite left off setting aside any particular day of the week for God's Service and have thought it sufficient to have kept one day suppose in a month or two for Men to meet together for the Service and Worship of God which whether those of the Doctor 's Party would be pleased with I shall not dispute but sure I am that the Church of England maintains no such Doctrine But the Doctor because he thinks the Homily not enough of his side undertakes to shew us upon what grounds the Lord's day
scilicet qualis nulla unquam fuit nisi in primo seu aureo seculo quando hominibus praeerant Dii sicuti mutis animalibus homines quam fabulam prolixe tractat in eodem libro Plato non magis conferendum sit quam homines Diis Quanquam enim utrique 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 unum idemque 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 nomen sit commune ac ambo Reges appellentur latissimum tamen inter ipsos esse intervallum Ex illo igitur loco non potest Platoni attribui acsi dixisset Regem esse velut Deum inter homines quum illud dixerit non de Regibus quales sunt fueruntque in mundo sed qualem inter reliquas Ideas sibimet ipse consinxit quod quia videre non poteras si nuda tantum verba illa de quibus R. D. T. quaerebat ascripsissem ideo me in tantam prolixitatem necessario diffudi I do not in any part of my Studies take so much delight as I do in what may be serviceable to your Grace Whom praying to rest fully assured of that and accordingly to employ me as often as occasion shall be offered I humbly take leave ever remaining Your Grace's most affectionate Servant Arnold Boate. Dublin Nov. 15. 1639. LETTER CCIV. A Letter from the most Reverend James Usher Arch-bishop of Armagh to the Learned Lewis de Dieu Reverendissimo in Christo fratri D. Lodovico de Dieu Ecclesiae Lugduno-Batavae Pastori fidelissimo Leydam POstremae tuae Literae dilectissime frater Londini mihi sunt redditae unà cum Catalogo librorum quos mihi comparaveras Pretio quod ut illic persolveretur probi cujusdam Bibliopolae Londinensis fidei commendavi Interim gratissima mihi fuit tua cura de locupletandâ Bibliothecâ meâ novo hoc auctario cui xx illa volumina Graecorum Aristotelis interpretum accessisse mihi jam gratulor ea cum reliquis libris Londinum ad Bibliopolam illum de quo dixi post pretium enumeratum transmitti velim Quas Britannicarum turbarum futurus sit exitus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Hiberniae enim nostrae status adhuc est pacatissimus de cujus motibus inanes apud vos sparsi fuerant rumores sed de nostris rebus omnibus certiores vos reddet D. Boswellus noster qui confestim ad vos iter ingressurus est Deus te Custodiat piis tuis laboribus benedicat Scripsit haec raptim 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ja. Usserius Armacanus Londini Jun. 28. M. DC XL. LETTER CCV A Learned Letter of the late Arch-bishop of Armagh concerning the Sabbath and observation of the Lord's Day Worthy Sir YOur Letter of the first of February came unto my hands the seventh of April but my journy to Dublin following thereupon and my long stay in the City where the multiplicity of my publick and private Employments would scarce afford me a breathing time was such that I was forced to defer my Answer thereunto untill this short time of my retiring into the Country Where being now absent also from my Library I can rather signify unto you how fully I concur in judgment with those grounds which you have so judiciously laid in that question of the Sabbath than afford any great help unto you in the building which you intend to raise thereupon For when I gave my self unto the reading of the Fathers I took no heed unto any thing that concerned this Argument as little dreaming that any such controversy would have arisen among us Yet generally I do remember that the word Sabbatum in their writngs doth denote our Saturday although by Analogy from the manner of speech used by the Jews the term be sometimes transferred to denote our Christian Festivities also as Sirmondus the Jesuite observeth out of Sidonius Apollinaris lib. 1. Epist. 2. where describing the moderation of the Table of Theodorick King of the Goths upon the Eves and the excesse on the Holy-day following he writeth of the one that his convivium diebus profestis simile privato est but of the other De luxu autem illo Sabbatario narrationi meae super sedendum est qui nec latentes potest latere personas And because the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the fourth Commandment pointeth at the Sabbath as it was in the first institution the seventh day from the Creation therefore they held that Christians were not tied to the observance thereof Whereupon you may observe that S. Augustine in his speculum in operum tomo 3o. purposely selecting those things which appertained unto us Christians doth wholly pretermit that Precept in the recital of the Commandments of the Decalogue Not because the substance of the Precept was absolutely abolished but because it was in some parts held to be ceremonial and the time afterwards was changed in the state of the New Testament from the 7th to the first day of the week as appeareth by the Author of the 25 Sermon de tempore in 10 o tomo Operum Augustini and that place of Athanasius in homil de semente where he most plainly saith touching the Sabbath 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Whereupon Caesarius Arelatensis in his twelfth homily doubted not to preach unto the people Verè dico Fratres satis durum prope nimis impium est ut Christiani non habeant reverentiam diei Dominico quam Judaei observare videntur in Sabbato c. Charles the Great in his Laws taketh it for granted that our observation of the Lord's Day is founded upon the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the fourth Commandment Statuimus saith he libro 1o. Capitularium cap. 81. secundum quod in lege Dominus praecepit ut opera servilia diebus Dominicis non agantur sicut bonae memoriae genitor meus in suis Synodalibus edictis mandavit And Lotharius likewise in legibus Alemannorum titulo 30. Die Dominico nemo opera servilia praesumat sacere quia hoc lex prohibuit sacra scriptura in omnibus contradicit Accommodating the Law of God touching the Sabbath unto our observation of the Lord's Day by the self-same Analogy that the Church of England now doth in her publick Prayer Lord have mercy upon us and incline our hearts to keep this Law The Jewes commonly hold two things touching their Sabbath as Manasses Ben-Israel sheweth in his eighth Probleme de creatione which he published at Amsterdam the last Year First that the observation thereof was commanded only unto the Israelites where he speaketh also of the seven Precepts of the Sons of Noah which have need to be taken in a large extent if we will have all the duties that the Heathen were tyed unto to be comprised therein Secondly that it was observed by the Patriarchs before the coming out of Egypt For that then the observation began or that the Israelites were brought out of Egypt or the Egyptians drowned upon the Sabbath I suppose our good Friend Mr.
Primis Haereticis Haeresibus Judaeorum Annotationes Rabbinicae ex Scriptis Rabbinorum eorum Scarae Scripturae Interpretum Imperatorum Christianorum à Constantino magno usque ad Justinianum Constitutiones Epistolae collectae recensitae Veterum Anglo-Saxorum Monumenta Anglo-Saxonicarum Epistolarum Sylloge ex variis Manuscriptis Epistolae Alcuini variae ad diversos Missae ineditae in Bibliothecâ Cottonianâ Manuscriptis collectae recensitae Epistolae venerabilis Archiepiscop Lanfranci ad diversos Missae ex antiquissimo exemplari Bibliothecae Cottonianae collectae recensitae Collectiones Genealogicae Historicae Mathematicae Astrologicae Chronologicae Theologicae variae de quibus passim judicium fertur Memorandum THat out of the forementioned Manuscripts the Incomparable Sir Math. Hale late Lord Chief Justice having borrowed them extracted those four Volumes which he calls Chronological Remembrances extracted out of thë Notes of Bishop Usher mentioned in the Catalogue of his Manuscripts which he Left to the Honourable Society of Lincolns-Inn Besides those Manuscripts above cited the Primate Usher had Written his Polemical Lectures in the University of Dublin while professor there touching the Points in Controversie between the Protestants and Pontificians 3 Volumes 4 to Lost His Lectures pro formâ when he commenced Dr. of Divinity touching the 70 Weeks Dan. 9. 24. and de Mille Annis mentioned Apocal. 20. 4. Lost His Treatise of the Hermage and Corban Lands in England and Ireland yet to be seen in Bibliothecâ Lambethianâ His Collections and Observations touching the Advancement and Restauration of our Northern Antiquities in the Gothick Anglo-Saxonick and the like obscure Languages and also concerning the Doxology found in the very Ancient Gospels in Gothick His Numerous Epistles Latin and English touching matters of Learning and Religion many of them now Printed in Collection with others An APPENDIX to the Life of the Lord Primate USHER containing a vindication of his Opinions and Actions in reference to the Doctrine and Discipline of the Church of England and his Conformity thereunto from the Aspersions of Peter Heylin D. D. in his Pamphlet called Respondet Petrus FInding that Dr. Heylin hath taken the pains to write this Book on purpose to callumniate and asperse the Lord Primates Memory and arraign his Opinions and Actions as not conformable to the Doctrines of the Church of England I cannot well omit to consider what that Author hath there laid to his charge how justly I shall leave to the impartial Reader to judg for I hope I shall make it appear that what the Lord Primate hath either publish'd or written in private Letters on those Subjects was on very good grounds and such as may very well be defended as agreeable to the Sence and Doctrine of our Church contained in the 39 Articles Or if after all I can say the Reader shall happen to think otherwise I desire him not to censure too hardly but to pass it by since such difference if any be was not in the fundamental Doctrines of our Religion but only some Points of lesser moment or in which the Church it self has not tied men either to this or that sence and that the Lord Primate held these Opinions not out of contradiction or singularity but only because he thought them more agreeable to Scripture and Reason tho in most of them I doubt not but to shew that the Doctor has stretched the Lord Primate's words farther than ever his own sence and meaning was But to come to the Points in which the Doctor hath made bold to question his Judgment the first is his Opinion of the Divine Morality of the Sabbath or Seventh days rest asserted by him in two several Letters published tho perhaps not so prudently with those private reflections by Dr. Bernard in which Controversy whether the Authorities made use of by the Lord Primate out of the Fathers and other Writers do not make out the Assertion by him laid down or whether the Doctor has fairly and ingenuously answered those Quotations he cites in those Letters I shall not here take upon me to examine but shall observe thus much That as it is a Doctrine held by some of the Fathers as also maintained by divers learned Divines and Bishops of our Church and therefore could not be so Puritanical as the Doctor would have it especially since the Lord Primate thought that he had the Church of England on his side as she hath declared her sence of this matter in the first part of the Homily of the time and place of Prayer viz. God hath given express charge to all Men that upon the Sabbath day which is now our Sunday they shall cease from all weekly and work-day labour to the intent that like as God himself wrought six days and rested the seventh and blessed and consecrated it to quietness and rest from labour even so God's obedient People should use the Sunday holily and rest from their common and daily business and also give themselves wholly to the heavenly exercise of God's true Religion and Service Which passage being expresly in the point of my Lord Primat's side the Sabbath day mentioned in the fourth Commandment being there called our Sunday and the same reason laid down for its observation viz. because God had rested on the seventh day c. The Doctor has no way to oppose this so express Authority but to make if possible this Homily to contradict it self and therefore he produces another passage just preceding in this Homily as making for his Opinion which that you may judge whether it does so or no I shall put down the passage as he himself hath cited it with his Conclusions from it and shall then further examine whether it makes so much of his side as he would have it viz. As concerning the time in which God hath appointed his People to assemble together solemnly it doth appear by the fourth Commandment c. And albeit this Commandment of God doth not bind Christian People so strictly to observe and keep the utter Ceremonies of the Sabbath day as it was given unto the Jews as touching the forbearing of work and labour and as touching the precise keeping of the seventh day after the manner of the Jews for we keep now the first day which is our Sunday and make that our Sabbath that is our day of rest in honour of our Saviour Christ who upon that day rose from death conquering the same most triumphantly yet notwithstanding whatsoever is found in the Commandment appertaining to the Law of Nature as a thing most godly most just and needful for the setting forth of God's Glory ought to be retained and kept of all good Christian People So that it being thus resolved that there is no more of the fourth Commandment to be retained by good Christian People than what is found appertaining to the Law of Nature and that the Law of Nature doth not tie us to one day in seven
is our Sunday For which they produce the Letter of the Law Levit. 23. 15 16. where the Feast of the first Fruits otherwise called Pentecost or the Feast of Weeks is prescribed to be kept the morrow after the seventh Sabbath which not they only but also amongst our Christian Interpreters Isychins and Rupertus do interpret to be the first Day of the Week Planius saith Isychius Legislator intentionem suam demonstrare volens ab altero die Sabbati memorari praecepit quinquaginta dies Dominicum diem proculdubiò volens intelligi Hic enim est altera dies Sabbati in hâc enim resurrectio facta est qua hebdomadae numerantur septem usque ad alterum diem expletionis hebdomadae Dominicâ rursus die Pentecostes celebramus festivitatem in quâ Sancti Spiritus adventum mernimus Where you may observe by the way that although this Author made a little bold to strain the signification of altera dies Sabbati which in Moses denoteth no more than the Morrow after the Sabbath yet he maketh no scruple to call the Day of Christ's Resurrection another Sabbath Day as in the Council of Friuli also if I greatly mistake not the Matter you shall find Saturday called by the name of Sabbatum ultimum and the Lord's Day of Sabbatum primum with some allusion perhaps to that of St. Ambrose in Psal. 47. Ubi Dominica dies caepit praecellere quâ Dominus resurrexit Sabbatum quod primum erat secundum haberi caepit à primo not much unlike unto that which Dr. Heylin himself noteth out of Scaliger of the Ethiopian Christians that they call both of them by the name of Sabbaths the one the first the other the latter Sabbath or in their own Language the one Sanbath Sachristos i. e. Christ's Sabbath the other Sanbath Judi or the Jews Sabbath But touching the old Pentecost it is very considerable that it is no where in Moses affixed unto any one certain day of the Month as all the rest of the Feasts are which is a very great presumption that it was a moveable Feast and so varied that it might always fall upon the day immediately following the ordinary Sabbath And if God so order the matter that in the celebration of the Feast of Weeks the Seventh should purposely be passed over and that Solemnity should be kept upon the First what other thing may we imagine could be presignified thereby but that under the State of the Gospel the solemnity of the weekly Service should be celebrated upon that day That on that day the famous Pentecost in the 2d of the Acts was observed is in a manner generally acknowledged by all wherein the Truth of all those that went before being accomplished we may observe the Type and the Verity concurring together in a wonderful manner At the time of the Passeover Christ our Passeover was slain for us the whole Sabbath following he rested in the Grave The next day after that Sabbath the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or sheaf of the first Fruits of the first or Barly Harvest was offered unto God and Christ rose from the Dead and became the first Fruits of them that slept many Bodies of the Saints that slept arising likewise after him From thence was the Account taken of the seven Sabbaths and upon the morrow after the seventh Sabbath which was our Lord's Day was celebrated the Feast of Weeks the day of the first Fruits of the second or Wheat Harvest upon which day the Apostles having themselves received the first Fruits of the Spirit begat three thousand Souls with the Word of Truth and presented them as the first Fruits of the Christian Church unto God and unto the Lamb. And from that time forward doth Waldensis note that the Lord's Day was observed in the Christian Church in the place of the Sabbath Quia inter legalia saith he tunc sublata Sabbati custodia fuit unum planum est tunc intrâsse Dominicam loco ejus sicut Baptisma statim loco Circumcisionis Adhuc enim superstes erat sanctus Johannes qui diceret Et fui in spiritu die Dominicâ Apoc. 1. cùm de Dominicâ die ante Christi Resurrectionem nulla prorsùs mentio haberetur Sed statim post missionem Spiritus sancti lege novâ fulgente in humano cultu sublatum est Sabbatum dies Dominicae Resurrectionis clarescebat Dominicâ The Revelation exhibited unto St. John upon the Lord's Day is by Irenaeus in his fifth Book referred unto the Empire of Domitian or as S. Hierome in his Catalogue more particularly doth express it to the fourth Year of his Reign Which answereth partly to the forty-ninth and partly to the ninty-fifth Year of our Lord according to our vulgar computation and was but eleven or twelve Years before the Time when Ignatius did write his Epistles Of whom then should we more certainly learn what the Apostle meant by the Lord's Day than from Ignatius who was by the Apostles themselves ordained Bishop of that Church wherein the Disciples were first called Christians And in his Epistle to the Magnesians clearly maketh the Lord's Day to be a weekly Holy-Day observed by Christians in the room of the abrogated Sabbath of the Jews than which can we desire more But here you are to know beside the common Edition wherein the genuine Epistles of Ignatius are fouly depraved by a number of beggarly Patches added unto his Purple by later hands There is an ancient Latin Translation to be found in the Library of Caius Colledg in Cambridg which although it be very rude and corrupt both in many other and in this very same place also of the Epistle to the Magnesians yet is it free from these Additaments and in many respects to be preferred before the common Greek Copy as well because it agreeth with the Citations of Eusebius Athanasius and Theodoret and hath the Sentences vouched by them out of Ignatius and particularly that of the Eucharist in the Epistle to the Smyrnians which are not at all to be found in our Greek and hath in a manner none of all those places in the true Epistles of Ignatius against which exception hath been taken by our Divines which addeth great strength to those Exceptions of theirs and sheweth that they were not made without good cause Now in this Translation there is nothing to be found touching the Sabbath and the Lord's Day in the Epistle to the Magnesians but these words only Non ampliûs sabbitazantes sed secundùm Dominicam viventes in quâ vita nostra orta est Whereunto these of our common Greek may be made answerable 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 All those other words alleadged by Dr. Heylin Part. 2. pag. 43. to prove that Ignatius would have both the Sabbath and the Lord's Day observed being afterwards added by some later Grecian who was afraid that the custom of keeping both days observed in his
Sydney to his Son Sir Philip Sydney MY Son the vertuous Inclination of thy matchless Mother by whose tender and godly Care thy Infancy was governed together with Education under so zealous a Tutor puts me rather in assurance than hope that thou art not ignorant of that summary Bond which only is able to make thee happy as well in thy Death as Life I mean the Knowledg and Worship of thy Creator and Redeemer without which all other things are vain and miserable so that thy Youth being guided by so sufficient a Teacher I make no doubt but he will furnish thy Life with Divine and Moral Documents Yet that I may not cast off the Care that beseemeth a Parent towards his Child or that thou shouldest have cause to derive thy whole Felicity and Welfare rather from whom thou receivest thy Birth and Being than from those unto whom the Charge of well-living is allotted I think it fit and agreeable to help thee with such Advertisments for the squaring of thy Life as are rather gained by long Experience than much Reading to the end that thou entring into this exorbitant Age mayest be the better prepared to shun those Courses whereunto this World and the want of Experience may easily draw thee And because I would not confound thy Memory I have reduced them into ten Precepts and next unto Moses's Tables if thou imprint them in thy Memory thou shalt reapt the Benefit and I the Contentment and here they follow 1. When it pleases God to bring thee to Man's Estate use great providence and circumspection in the choice of thy Wife for from thence will spring all future Good or Evil and it is an Action like a Stratagem of War wherein a Man can err but once If thy Estate be good match near home and at leasure if weak far off and quickly enquire diligently of her Education and how her Parents have been inclined in their Youth let her not be poor how generous soever for a Man can buy nothing in the Market for Gentility nor chuse a base or uncomely Creature although Wealthy for it will cause contempt in others and loathing in thy self Neither make choice of a Dwarf or a Fool for by the one thou shalt beget a race of Pigmies and the other will be thy daily disgrace and it will irk thee to hear her talk for thou shalt find to thy great Grief that there is nothing more irksom than a She-Fool And touching the Government of thy House let thy Hospitality be moderate and according to the measure of thy Estate rather plentiful than sparing but not costly for I never knew any grow poor by keeping of an ordinary Table But some consume themselves through secret Vices and then Hospitality beareth the blame But banish Swinish Drunkards out of thy House that is a Vice that impaireth Health consumes much and makes no shew And I never heard Praise ascribed to a Drunkard but the well-bearing of Drink which is a Commendation fitter for a Brewer's Horse or Dray-man than for a Gentleman or a Serving-man See that thou spend not above three of the four parts of thy Revenues nor above a third part of that in thy House for the other two parts will do no more than defray thy Extraordinarie which will always surmount the Ordinary by so much otherwise thou shalt live like a rich Beggar in continual want and the needy Man can never live happily nor content for every one left in an unfortunate estate makes him ready to sell Lands and that Gentleman that sells one Acre of Lands sells one ounce of Credit for Gentility is nothing but Ancient Riches So that if the Foundation shrinks the Building must needs follow after 2. Bring thy Children up in Learning and Obedience yet without austerity praise them openly reprehend them secretly give them good Countenance and convenient Maintenance according to thine Ability otherwise thy Life will seem their Bondage And what Portion thou shalt leave them at thy Death they will thank Death for it and not thee I am perswaded that the foolish cockering of some and the over-stern carriage of others causeth more Men and Women to take ill courses than their own vicious inclinations Marry thy Daughters lest they marry themselves and suffer not thy Sons to pass the Alps for they shall bring home nothing but Pride Blasphemy and Atheism And if by Travel they get few broken Languages it will profit them no more than to have one sort of Meat serv'd in divers dishes Neither by my Advice trained up to Wars for that he that sets his rest to live in that can hardly be an honest or good Christian for that every War is of it self unjust except the Cause make it just Besides it is a Science no longer in request than use for Souldiers at Peace are like Chimnies in Summer 3. Live not in the Country without Corn and Cattel about thee for he that presents his hands to his Purse for every expence is like him that thinketh to keep Water in Fire and what Provision thou shalt want prepare to buy it at the first hand for there is a penny in four saved between buying at they need and when the Season and Market serveth fittest for it 4. Be not served with Kinsmen Friends or Men intreated to serve for they will expect much and do little nor with such as are amorous for their Brains are ever intosticated and rather be served by two too few than one too many Feed them well and pay them with the most and thou mayst boldly require Duty and Service at their hands 5. Let thy Kindred and Alliance be welcome to thy Table grace them with thy Countenance and further them in all honest Actions for by these Means thou shalt find Advocates to plead an Apology for thee behind thy back but shake off those Glow-worms I mean Parasites and Hypocrites who will feed and fawn upon thee in Prosperity but in Adversity will shelter thee no more than an Harbour in Winter 6. Beware of Suretyship for thy best Friends he that payeth another Man's Debt seeketh his own overthrow but if thou canst not chuse rather lend thy Mony thy self upon good Bonds though thou borrow for so shalt thou both please thy Friend and secure thy self Neither borrow Mony of a Neighbour or Friend but of a Stranger where paying for it thou shalt hear no more of it otherwise thou shalt eclipse thy Credit lose thy Freedom and yet pay as dear as to another But in borrowing be precious of thy Word for he that hath a care to keep his Days of Payment is a Lord over another Man's Goods 7. Undertake no Suit against any poor Man without much wrong for thou makest him thy Competitor and it is a base request to triumph where there is small resistance neither attempt Law with any Man before thou be throughly resolved that thou have right on thy side then neither spare for Mony nor
After his coming over again he was for some time engaged in answering the bold challenge of Malone an Irish Jesuite of the Anno 1624 Colledge of Lovain which Treatise he finished and published this year in Ireland which he so solidly and learnedly performed that those that shall peruse it may be abundantly satisfied that those very Judges the Challenger appealed to viz. the Fathers of the Primitive Church did never hold or believe Transubstantiation Auricular Confession Purgatory or a Limbus Patrum Prayer for the Dead or to Saints the Use of Images in Divine Worship Absolute Free-Will with Merits annexed with those other points by him maintained And though about three years after the publishing of this Treatise when the Colledge of Lovain had been long studying how to answer it the said Malone did at last publish a long and tedious reply stuffed with Scurrillous and Virulent Expressions against the Lord Primate his Relations and Calling and full of quotations either falsly cited out of the Fathers or else out of divers supposititious Authors as also forged Miracles and lying Legends made use of meerly to blind the Eyes of ordinary Readers who are not able to distinguish Gold from Dross all which together gave the Bishop so great a disgust that he disdained to answer a fool according to his folly and made no reply unto him though some of his worthy friends would not let it pass so But the learned Dr. Hoyl and Dr. Sing and Mr. Puttock did take him to task and so fully and clearly lay open the falshood and disingenuity of those his Arguments and Quotations from the Ancient Records and Fathers of the Church which had been cited by this Author that he had very little reason to brag of his Victory After the Bishop had published this Treatise he returned again into England to give his last hand to his said Work De Primordiis and being now busied about it the Arch-Bishoprick of Armagh became vacant by the death of Dr. Hampton the late Arch-Bishop not long after which the King was pleased to nominate the Bishop of Meath though there were divers competitors as the fittest Person for that great charge and high dignity in the Church in respect of his own great Merits and Services done unto it and not long after he was Elected Arch-Bishop by the Dean and Chapter there After which the next Testimony that he received of His Majesties favour was his Letter to a Person of Quality in Ireland who had newly obtained the Custodium of the Temporalties of that See Forbidding him to meddle with or receive any of the Rents or Profits of the same but immediately to deliver what he had already received unto the Receivers of the present Arch-Bishop since he was here imployed in His Majesties special Service c. Not long after which favour it pleased God to take King James of Pious Memory out of this World Nor was his Son and Successor our late Gracious Sovereign less kind unto him than his Father had been which he signified not long after his coming to the Crown by a Letter under his Privy Signet to the Lord Deputy and Treasurer of the Realm of Ireland That Whereas the present Arch-Bishop of Armagh had for many years together on several occasions performed many painful and acceptable Services to his Dear Father deceased and upon his special directions That therefore he was pleased as a gracious acceptation thereof and in consideration of his said Services done or to be done hereafter to bestow upon the said Primate out of his Princely bounty 400 pound English out of the Revenues of that Kingdom But before the return of the said Arch-Bishop into Ireland I shall here mention an accident that happened about this time to let you see that he neglected no opportunity of bringing men from the darkness of Popery into the clearer light of the Reformed Religion I shall give you his own relation of it from a Note which though imperfect I find of his own hand writing Viz. That in November 1625. he was invited by the Lord Mordant and his Lady to my Lord's House at Drayton in Northampton-shire to confer with a Priest he then kept by the name of Beaumont upon the points in dispute between the Church of Rome and Ours And particularly That the Religion maintained by Publick Authority in the Church of England was no new Religion but the same that was taught by our Saviour and his Apostles and ever continued in the Primitive Church during the purest times So far my Lord's Note What was the issue of this Dispute we must take from the report of my Lord and Lady and other Persons of Quality there present that this Conference held for some days and at last ended with that satisfaction to them both and confusion of his Adversary that as it confirmed the Lady in her Religion whom her Lord by the means of this Priest endeavoured to pervert so it made his Lordship so firm a Convert to the Protestant Religion that he lived and died in it When the Lord Primate had dispatcht his Affairs in England he year 1626 then returned to be Enthroned in Ireland having before his going over received many Congratulatory Letters from the Lord Viscount Falkland then Lord Deputy the Lord Loftus then Lord Chancellor the Lord Arch-Bishop of Dublin and divers others of the most considerable of the Bishops and Nobility of that Kingdom expressing their high satisfaction for his promotion to the Primacy many of which I have now by me no way needful to be inserted here Being now returned into his native Country and setled in this Anno 1626 great charge having not only many Churches but Diocesses under his care he began carefully to inspect his own Diocess first and the manners and abilities of those of the Clergy by frequent personal Visitations admonishing those he found faulty and giving excellent advice and directions to the rest charging them to use the Liturgy of the Church in all Publick Administrations and to Preach and Catechise diligently in their respective Cures and to make the Holy Scripture the rule as well as the subject of their Doctrine and Sermons Nor did he only endeavour to reform the Clergy among whom in so large a Diocess and where there was so small Encouragements there could not but be many things amiss but also the Proctors Apparitors and other Officers of his Ecclesiastical Courts against whom there were many great complaints of abuses and exactions in his Predecessor's time nor did he find that Popery and Prophaneness had increased in that Kingdom by any thing more than the neglect of due Catechising and Preaching for want of which instruction the poor People that were outwardly Protestants were very ignorant of the Principles of Religion and the Papists continued still in a blind obedience to their Leaders therefore he set himself with all his power to redress these neglects as well by his own example as by his Ecclesiastical
alteration that every year should afford matter enough to be taken notice of in this account therefore I shall only here give you in general the more remarkable transactions of his Life from this time till his going over into England not long before that unhappy War After his being Arch-Bishop he laid out a great deal of money Anno 1627 in Books laying aside every year a considerable Sum for that end and especially for the procuring of Manuscripts as well from foreign Parts as near at hand having about this time by the means of Mr. Thomas Davis then Merchant at Aleppo procured one of the first Samaritan Pentateuchs that ever was brought into these Western Parts of Europe as Mr. Selden and Dr. Walton acknowledge as also the Old Testament in Syriack much more perfect than had hitherto been seen in these Parts together with other Manuscripts of value This Pentateuch with the rest were borrowed of him by Dr. Walton after Bishop of Chester and by him made use of in the Polyglot Bible All which Manuscripts being lately retrieved out of the hands of the said Bishop's Executors are now in the Bodleyan Library at Oxford a fit Repository for such Sacred Monuments About this time the Lord Viscount Falkland being re-called Anno 1629 from being Deputy of Ireland was waited on by the Lord Primate to the Sea side of whom taking his leave and begging his Blessing he set sail for England having before contracted an intimate friendship with the Lord Primate which lasted till his death nor did the Lord Primate fail to express his friendship to him on all occasions after his departure doing his utmost by Letters to several of the Lords of his Majesties Privy-Council here for his Vindication from several false Accusations which were then laid to his charge by some of the Irish Nation before his Majesty which Letters together with the Vindication of the Council of Ireland by their Letter to his Majesty of his just and equal Government did very much contribute to the clearing of his Innocence in those things whereof he was then accused This year the happy news of the birth of Prince Charles his late Gracious Majesty then Prince of Wales being brought into Ireland Anno 1630 by an Express on purpose the Lords Justices and Council order'd a Solemn Day of Thanksgiving for that great happiness and the Lord Primate was invited as I find by their Letter to preach before them on that occasion as he did accordingly My Lord Primate published at Dublin his History of Gotteschalcus Anno 1631 and of the Predestinarian Controversie stirred by him being the first Latin Book that was ever printed in Ireland Wherein after a short account of Pelagianism which had then much spread it self in Spain and Britain he proceeds to the History of Gotteschalcus a Monk of the Abby of Orbais who lived in the beginning of the IX Century and his Opinions shewing out of Flodoardus and other approved Writers of that Age that the points then held by this learned Monk and that were then laid to his charge by Hincmar Arch-Bishop of Rhemes and Rabanus Arch-Bishop of Mentz and which they got condemned in a Synod held in that City as also in another at Quierzy were notwithstanding defended and maintained by Remigius or St. Remy Arch-Bishop of Lyons and the Church of that Diocess as consonant to the Scriptures and Writings of the Fathers And that indeed divers dangerous Opinions and Consequences were imputed to this learned Monk which he was not guilty of And after an account of the heads of a Treatise written by J. Scotius Erigene in defence of Free-will and the contrary Opinions to those of Gotteschalce the Lord Primate then likewise gives the sum of the Censure which Florus Deacon of Lyons writ against the same in the name of that Church As also of several Writings of Remigius Arch-Bishop of Lyons Pudentius Bishop of Troyes and Ratramus a Monk of Corbey in defence of the said Gotteschalce's Opinions and against the extravagant Tenets of Scotus Which Disputes produced two other Synods at Bonoil and Neufle in France wherein the Opinions held by Gotteschalce were asserted and the contrary as maintained by Scotus were condemned Though those Councils were still opposed and censured by Hincmar in a large Book dedicated to the Emperour Charles the Bald the heads of which are there set down out of Flodoard Which yet did not at all satisfie the contrary party nor hinder Remigius Arch-Bishop of Lyons and his Provincial Bishops from calling another Council at Langres wherein the Canons of the Valentinian Council were confirmed and those Propositions maintained by Scotus were again condemned Which Canons were also referred to the judgment of the General Council of the XII Provinces assembled at Thoul and being there debated were not by it condemned as Baronius and others will have it but for quietness sake were again referred to the judgment of the next General Assembly that the Doctrines of the Church and Fathers being produced those should be agreed on that should then appear most Sound and Orthodox And in the Conclusion my Lord there shews the great constancy of this poor Monk who notwithstanding his cruel whippings and long imprisonment to which he had been condemned by the Council of Mentz till his death yet he would never Recant but made two Confessions of his Faith which are there set down and by which it appears That many things were laid to his charge and condemned in those Councils which he never held In this Treatise as the Lord Primate has shewn himself excellently well skill'd in the Church History of those dark and ignorant Ages so he there concludes that men should not Dogmatize in these Points And indeed there ever have been and still will be different Opinions concerning these great and abstruse questions of Predestination and Free-will which yet may be tolerated and consist in any Church if the maintainers of either the one side or other will use that Charity as they ought and forbear publickly to condemn rail at or write against each other About this time the Romish Faction growing there very prevalent Anno 1631 by reason of some former connivance by the State as also for want of due instruction as hath been already said and likewise that divers abuses had crept into the Church not only among the inferior Clergy but the Bishops themselves all which had been represented by the Lords Committees for Irish Affairs to his Majesty who thereupon thought fit to send over his Letters into Ireland to all the Arch-Bishops of that Kingdom as well to put them in mind of their duty as to strengthen their Authority which were as follows CHARLES REX MOst Reverend Father in God right Trusty and entirely Beloved We Greet you well Among such disorders as the Lords of Our Privy-Council Deputed by Us to a particular care of Our Realm of Ireland and the Affairs thereof have observed and represented to Us in
the unhappy Wars which not long after followed yet he made shift to subsist upon it with some other helps until that Rebellious House of Commons seized upon all Bishops Lands and though in consideration of his great losses in Ireland as also of his own Merits and to make him some satisfaction for what they took away they Voted him a Pension of four hundred pounds per Annum yet I cannot hear that he ever received it above once or twice at most for the Independant Faction getting uppermost soon put an end to that payment His Majesty having now left London by reason of the Tumults Anno 1642 there and the undutifulness of the House of Commons towards him the Lord Primate being more deeply afflicted for these breaches than for all his own private sufferings Having now no more satisfaction in abiding longer at London he resolved to remove thence for Oxford not long before his Majesty's coming thither and here though the Lord Primate's outward condition was much lessened to what it was before yet his greatness being founded upon a more solid bottom than riches and outward splendor he was received with the same or rather greater kindness and respect than before The Reverend Dr. Prideaux Bishop of Worcester his good friend lent him his House adjoyning to Exeter Colledge which he accepted of as being near his business at the publick Library where he now pursued his studies preparing divers Treatises for the publick view some of which he also printed there as shall be hereafter mentioned nor did he less endeavour to be serviceable to mens Souls than to the common-wealth of Learning preaching commonly at one Church or other every Sunday and for great part of the time in the forenoons sometimes at St. Olives and sometimes at Alhallows where he had constantly a great Audience both of Scholars and others where notwithstanding the Learnedness of most of his Hearers he rather chose a plain substantial way of Preaching for the promoting of Piety and Vertue than studied Eloquence or a vain ostentation of Learning so that he quite put out of countenance that windy affected sort of Oratory which was then much in use called floride preaching or strong lines And I remember I then heard that there was a person in the University very much famed for that kind of preaching who after he had sometimes heard the Lord Primate's Sermons and observing how plain and yet moving they were and being sufficiently satisfied that it was not for want of Wit or Learning that he did not do otherwise he was soon convinced that this was not the most ready way of gaining Souls and therefore quitting his affected Style and studied Periods took up a more plain and profitable way of preaching so that coming afterwards to visit the Lord Primate he gave him many thanks and told him he had now learned of him how to preach and that since he had followed his example he had found more satisfaction in his own Conscience and comfort in his Ministry than ever he had before And I remember one Sermon above the rest which he preached in Exeter Colledge Chappel about that time the Text Prov. 18. 1. Through desire a man having separated himself seeketh and intermedleth with all Wisdom in which Sermon he so lively and pathetically set forth the excellency of true Wisdom as well Humane as Divine and that desire which every ingenious and vertuous Soul ought to have for it that it wrought so effectually upon the hearts of many of the younger Students that it rendered them more serious and made them ply their Studies much harder than before The first Sunday after his Majesty's return to Oxford from the fights of Edge-hill and Brainford the Lord Primate was called to preach before him as he did likewise on divers other more solemn occasions both in this and the following year About this time likewise the Lord Primate came acquainted year 1643 with the most Learned and Pious Dr. Hammond with whom he contracted so intimate a friendship that it continued to his dying day and though some persons I suppose rather out of misinformation than malice have reported That the Lord Primate should give a scandalous unbeseeming Character of the Doctor he was ever so far from it that he never mentioned him without due kindness and respect as you will find by some Letters in this Collection wherein you may see the Lord Primate much concerned for an aspersion of the like nature with this imputed to him but cast upon him indeed by a foreign Writer a learned though violent and obstinate asserter of his own Anti-Episcopal Opinions contrary to those of the Doctor 's This Summer the Lord Primate was nominated though against his desire to be one of the Assembly of Divines at Westminster as were also Dr. Brownrig Bishop of Exeter Dr. West field Bishop of Bristol and divers others of the Orthodox Clergy but the Lord Primate neither approved of the Authority that named him nor yet of the business they met about so that he never troubled himself to go thither but when that mock Assembly found he scorned to come among them they complained of him to the House of Commons who soon voted him out again which yet the Arch-Bishop took more kindly than their chusing him into it And now when this prevalent Faction sitting at Westminster found that the Arch-Bishop was not for their turn but to the contrary had in divers Sermons at Oxford preached against their Rebellions Proceedings they were so inraged at him that the Committee they had appointed for Delinquents Estates as they Nick-named those who now faithfully served their Prince made an Order for the seizing of a Study of Books of a considerable value which he had either brought over with him or bought here and were left behind in Chelsy Colledge which were seized accordingly and had been sold by them had not Dr. Featly who was then in some favour with them by reason of his being one that sate in that Assembly though otherwise Orthodox and Loyal made an interest with them by the means of Mr. Selden a Member of the House as also of the Assembly to obtain those Books for his own use either as a gift or by laying down some money for them and so got them into his hands and secured them for my Lord Brimat's use at least as many of them as were not imbezled or stollen away whilst they were in their custody as amongst other things divers Papers and Collections of his own Writing with all his Letters either to or from his learned friends which he had left behind him there were then plundered and for which loss this ensuing Collection does fare the worse About this time my Lord Primate published a small but learned Treatise Entided A Geographical and Historical disquisition touching the lesser Asia properly so called Viz. The Lydian Asia so often mentioned in the New Testament and by Ecclesiastical and other Writers by the
IT is Lawful to fight in the Company of notorious wicked men and of a different Faith looking at the Cause whatever inordinate ends they have The Primitive Christians fought in the Company of Heathens and Idolaters under their Heathen Emperors and did by prayer obtain relief for the whole Army when it was in distress Which did also shew That God approved that their Service it being the duty they owed to their Lawful Emperors From the performance of which duty to a Sovereign the many evil Examples and occasions of Sin which the Military life abounds with cannot excuse that Subject that is justly Commanded to it But the Conscionable Souldier must commend himself to the Grace and Protection of the Almighty who is able to keep him from the dangers as of the Body so of the Soul too Remember the Examples of the good and faithful Centurion that came to our Saviour Luke 7. And of the Godly Centurion Cornelius who is approved of God Acts 10. To the Seventh FOR obeying Extrajudicial Precepts of his Majesty If they be such as command a Man to be Active in doing that which is unjust by the known Laws of the Land he yields truest Obedience that denies to fulfil such a Command Only this must not be generally pronounced as a Rule in time of War where necessity will be in many things a stronger Law than that which is fixed for a peaceable Government But if they be such Commands as make me only Passive by requiring some of my Estate upon a Loan or Tax I may not hastily square with my Sovereign by denyal and standing out For any Man as he may recede from his right and that which is his own so ought he not to contest with his Sovereign upon matters of no very great Moment As for the Infringing of the Liberties of the Subject such Taxes or Loans or any other Extrajudicial Commands of the King must be General extending to all or most Subjects and Customary being often imposed before they can be judged so immediately to infringe the Subject's Liberty as to make a Subject think he is bound to deny To the Last TO yield to Martialists quartered upon him if they be the King 's he is bound in duty if of the Rebels he is directed by prudence to yield unto it when they can by force command it About this time he also preached before the King on a Fast day the Text 2 Chron. 7. 14. If my people which are called by my name shall humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways Then will I hear from Heaven and will forgive their Sin and will heal their Land In this Sermon among other things suitable to the occasion he had this remarkable passage viz. The casting of our Eyes upon other mens sins more than upon our own makes us to esteem the things we suffer to be the injuries of men and not the punishments of God When the outward senses fail we take it to be a sign of approaching death and so when we are given over to have Eyes and see not Ears and hear not it is an argument of decaying Souls For as no Prayers or Fastings in the World can sanctifie a Rebellion nor tempt God to own an unjust party so neither will a good cause alone justifie us any more than a true Religion without practice we must first do our duties otherwise neither the one nor the other will do us any good with many other things against that looseness and debauch'dness of manners which he had observed in too many who believed that the being of the right side would atone for all other faults Thus he neither spared or flattered any when his duty required him to speak the truth and to reprove those sins that were most scandalous at that time and place He would also tell them in conversation that such actions would frustrate all our hopes of success for how could they expect that God should bless their Arms whilst they were fighting against him Nor was he less severe against the actions of the then Rebellious Houses against his Majesty and declared against the War they made as wicked and of fatal Consequence and which cast an irreparable scandal upon the Reformed Religion so that they thereby rendered themselves liable to the Censures of the Church that might justly have been pronounced against them And during the Treaty of Peace at Uxbridge he preached likewise before the King on a Fast day upon Jam. 3. 18. The fruits of Righteousness is sown in Peace of them that make Peace Wherein he shewed from vers 16. the great evils which come of Contention Strife and War and from whence they proceed and the great happiness and blessings of Peace and wished that those then up in Arms in a Rebellious manner against their Prince would seriously consider this and speedily accept of those gracious Concessions that His Majesty then offer'd though all to no purpose for the Treaty quickly after broke off the Rebels being too stout to yield to any equal Terms and so that unhappy War for a short time suspended broke out again with greater violence never ceasing till at last it ended not only with the murder of the best of Kings but also with the loss and destruction of those very Rights and Priviledges for which these men pretended to shed so much blood And now it being given out that Oxford would soon be besieged year 1644 5 and that the King would speedily quit that place the Lord Primate was advised by his friends if it were possible to be avoided not to run that hazard and therefore having been before invited by his Son-in-law Sir Timothy Tyrrel who had married his only Daughter to come to them to Caerdiffe in Wales where the said Sir Timothy was then Governor and General of the Ordnance under the Lord Gerard Lieutenant General of his Majesty's Forces in South Wales which invitation the Lord Primate resolved to accept and so having taken leave of His Majesty he with his approbation took the opportunity of waiting upon his Highness the Prince of Wales our late Gracious Sovereign as far as Bristol and from thence he went to Caerdiffe where his Son and Daughter welcomed him with all that Joy and Affection which so good a Father after so long an absence could expect Here he staid almost a year free from the dangers of War this being a strong Garrison and well manned which invited many persons of good Quality to come thither for safety so that the Lord Primate had a good opportunity to pursue his Studies having brought many Chests of Books along with him and he now made a great progress in the first part of his Annals Whilst he was at Caerdiffe his Majesty after the fatal Battle at Naseby came into Wales to my Lord Marquess of Worcester's at Ragland and from thence to Caerdiffe where he staid some days And the Lord Primate then enjoyed the satisfaction
likewise see by what he writes in the same Chap. in these words viz. Not that I am against the managing of this Presidency and Authority in one man by the joynt Counsel and Consent of many Presbyters I have offered to restore that as a fit means to avoid those Errors Corruptions and Partialities which are incident to any one man And so likewise in the Chapter about the Reformation of the Times he has this passage I was willing to grant or restore to Presbytery what with reason or discretion it can pretend to in a Conjuncture with Episcopacy but for that wholly to invade the Power and by the Sword to Arrogate and quite Abrogate the Authority of that Ancient Order I think neither just as to Episcopacy nor safe for Presbytery nor yet any way convenient for this Church or State And that the most Pious and Learned Dr. Hammond was about the same time of the Lord Primate's judgment in this matter may appear by this passage in the Preface to his Treatise of the Power of the Keys That a moderate Episcopacy with a standing assistant Presbytery as it will certainly satisfie the desires of those whose pretentions are regular and moderate craving nothing more and in some things less than the Laws of the Land so that it will appear to be that which all parties can best Tolerate and which next himself both Presbyterian Independant and Erastian will make no question to choose and prefer before any of the other Pretenders And though it may be true that divers of the more sober of the Presbyterian party have seemed to have approved of these terms of Reconciliation yet it has been only since the ill success their Discipline hath met with both in England and Scotland that has made them more moderate in their demands for it is very well known that when these Terms were first proposed the Ring-leaders of the Party utterly cryed them down as a great Enemy to Presbytery Since this Expedient would have yet left Episcopacy in a better condition than it is at this day in any of the Lutheran Churches but they were not then for Divisum Imperium would have all or nothing and they had their desires So that it is no wonder if the Lord Primate in this endeavour of Reconciliation met with the common fate of Arbitrators to please neither party But thô the Church is now restored beyond our expectation as well as merits to all its just Rights and Priviledges without the least diminution Yet certainly no good Subject or Son of the Church either of the Clergy or Laity at that time when this Expedient was proposed but would have been very well contented to have yielded farther than this to have preserved his late Majesty's life and to have prevented those Schisms and Confusions which for so many years harrassed these poor Nations But if our King and Church are both now restored it is what then no man could fore-see it is the Lord 's doing and is marvellous in our Eyes but I have dwelt so long upon this subject that I forgot to relate a passage though not of so great moment as the Affair we last mentioned yet as it happened in order of time before it so was it too considerable to be passed over viz. the Sermon which the Lord Primate now preached before the King at Newport in the Isle of Wight presently after his coming thither on the 19th of Novemb. being his Majesty's Birth-day which because it then was the occasion of a great deal of discourse I shall give you the heads of it being there present at that Sermon which afterward was published though very imperfectly by some that took Notes the Text was Gen. 49. 3. Ruben thou art my first-born my Might and the beginning of my Strength the excellency of Dignity and the excellency of Power These remarkable passages he had in this Sermon among others in Explication viz. The Regal power which comes by Descent is described by a double Excellency The Excellency of Dignity and the Excellency of Power By Dignity we understand all outward Glory by Power all Dominion And these are the two branches of Majesty The Greeks express it in the abstract And so in respect of Dignity The Supreme Magistrate is called Glory and in respect of Sovereignty he is called Lord Both these are joyned in the Epistle of Jude ver 8. There are a wicked sort there described that despise Dominion and speak evil of Dignities and make no Conscience to Blaspheme the Footsteps of the Lord 's Anointed And what is their Censure ver 13. To whom is reserved the blackness of darkness for ever We used to say That those that have God's Tokens upon them are past hopes of life here you may plainly see God's Tokens upon these men they are reserved to everlasting Damnation After he had shewen in many instances of the outward Splendor and Pomp which peculiarly belong to Majesty and are lawful and requisite to maintain the Dignity of a Prince c. then he proceeded to shew the Eminency of Power belonging thereunto For a King to have great State and to have no Power he were then but a poor weak King There is a subordination of Power in all Governments which because it cannot go in Infinitum it must needs rest some where and that is in the King Let every Soul be subject to the higher power whosoever resisteth the power resisteth the Ordinance of God And the Apostle 1 Pet. 2. 13. To the King as Supreme If any Professors of Religion do Rebel against the King this is a scandal to Religion and 't is the fault of the Professors and not of the Profession for the Church of England doth teach the contrary But when men shall not only practise but teach Rebellion this amounts to a very high Crime indeed The King as St. Peter saith hath the Excellency of Power as sent by God But what need I say any more we all swear that the King is the Only Supreme Governor in his Dominions A man would think that that word Only might be spared since nothing can be above a Supreme but it is put there by way of Eminency I read in Josephus That Herod having offended Cleopatra she besought Antony to call him to account for it But Antony refused so to do for then said he He will be no King And after he had enlarged somewhat on these points he added this In the word of a King there is power saith the Preacher It was wont to be so and by the word of God it ought to be so I might enlarge upon this but some Ears will not endure sound Doctrine The King you see must be acknowledged to be Supreme and no Superior to the King on Earth far be it from me to flatter any man I thank God I fear no flesh but do deliver the Truth This day is the Birth-day of our Sovereign Lord. Birth-days of Kings have been usually Celebrated
with great Solemnity in former times it pleaseth God that this day begins the 49th year of his Majesty's life and let me call it the year of Jubilee to his Majesty The Jews had a Custom that in the 49th year of any mans life he should be at liberty whatever his sufferings were before It must be the desire and prayer of every Loyal heart that the King may have a Jubilee indeed This is that which Loyalty bids us do I will not stand too much upon this particular but this I will say Oh! that we knew our happiness to have a King that is the Son of Nobles a King that is not a Child a King that is at full Age to Govern by Wisdom and Prudence And truly as God gives us this blessing so he expects we should acknowledge it thankfully Eccles. 10. 16. Wo be to thee O Land saith the Preacher when the King is a Child To have him when his experience hath riveted in him sound judgment and ability to Govern The Lord threatned Jerusalem in Isa. 3. 4. I will give Children to be their Princes and Babes shall rule over them Those that would have their own Wills could I warrant you be content that the youngest should Reign To have a base man exalted is one of the things that the Earth cannot bear but some Body must have the Government it doth not belong to all you see here is one that alone hath a right to it After which he concluded to this effect That all true Christians are the First-born of God Heb. 12. The Congregation of the First-born they are all Heirs of Heaven in the same relation that Christ is by Nature we are by Grace and Adoption c. This Sermon together with the Arch-Bishop's steady carriage in the point of Episcopacy did so much enrage both the Presbyterian and Independant Factions that in their News Books and Pamphlets at London they reproach'd the Lord Primate for flattering the King as also for his perswading him not to abolish Bishops and that he had very much prejudiced the Treaty and that none among all the King's Chaplains had been so mischievous meaning to Them as He which reproaches whether the Lord Primate did deserve or not I leave to the candid Readers both of the said Sermon and Reconciliation above mentioned to judge I am sure his Majesty's Affairs were in as ill a condition to tempt any man to flatter him as the temper of his Soul was then to suffer it But the truth is the Lord Primate did no more than assert his Majesty's just Rights and Prerogative then trampled upon and it was no more than what he had both preached and written before in that Treatise since published Of the Power of the Prince and Obedience of the Subject After the Lord Primate had taken his last leave of his Majesty and done him and the Church all the service he was able at that time though not with that success he desired he returned to Southampton in order to his going towards London where he was kindly received by the chief of the Town and withal intreated to preach there the next day being Sunday but when he thought of complying with their desires the Governor of the Garrison hearing of it came to my Lord Primate and told him he had been informed he intended to preach on the morrow to which when my Lord answered yes 't was true he replyed that it might be at that time of ill consequence to the Place and therefore wished him to forbear for they could not permit it and so they suffered him not to preach there for they were afraid of his plain dealing and that he would have declared against that Villainy they were then about to execute For not long after my Lord's return to London his Majesty was brought up thither as a Prisonerby the Army in order to that wicked piece of Pageantry which they called his Tryal And now too soon after came that fatal Thirtieth of January never to be mentioned or thought on by all good men without grief and detestation on which was perpetrated the most Execrable Villainy under the pretence of Justice that ever was acted since the World began A King Murthered by his own Subjects before his own Palace in the face of the Sun For which the Lord Primate was so deeply sensible and afflicted that he kept that day as a private Fast so long as he lived and would always be wail the scandal and reproach it cast not only on our own Nation but Religion it self saying That thereby a great advantage was given to Popery and that from thence forward the Priests would with greater success advance their designs against the Church of England and Protestant Religion in general Nor will it be impertinent here to relate a passage that happened to the Lord Primate at the time of his Majesty's murther The Lady Peterborough's House where my Lord then lived being just over against Charing-Cross divers of the Countesse's Gentlemen and Servants got upon the Leads of the House from whence they could see plainly what was acting before White-Hall as soon as his Majesty came upon the Scaffold some of the House-hold came and told my Lord Primate of it and askt him if he would see the King once more before he was put to death My Lord was at first unwilling but was at last perswaded to go up as well out of his desire to see his Majesty once again as also curiosity since he could scarce believe what they told him unless he saw it When he came upon the Leads the King was in his Speech the Lord Primate stood still and said nothing but sighed and lifting up his Hands and Eyes full of Tears towards Heaven seemed to pray earnestly but when his Majesty had done speaking and had pulled off his Cloak and Doublet and stood stripped in his Wastcoat and that the Villains in Vizards began to put up his hair the good Bishop no longer able to endure so dismal a sight and being full of grief and horror for that most wicked Fact now ready to be Executed grew pale and began to faint so that if he had not been observed by his own Servant and some others that stood near him who thereupon supported him he had swounded away So they presently carried him down and laid him on his Bed where he used those powerful weapons which God has left his People in such Afflictions viz. Prayers and Tears Tears that so horrid a sin should be committed and Prayers that God would give his Prince patience and constancy to undergo these cruel Sufferings and that he likewise would not for the vindication of his own Honour and Providence permit so great a wickedness to pass unpublished This I received from my Lord Primate's Grandson who heard it from the mouth of his Servant who lived with him till his death After this sad Tragedy the Government if it may be so called was managed by a
the Peritonaeum somewhat below the Diaphragma so that I have heard him say he never felt his heart beat in the most Exercise and the Chyrurgeon said That had it not belonged to the Body of a Person of his Eminency he would have taken it out and preserved it as a rarity which he had never found or heard of in any other Body besides and therefore the quickness of his Digestion considered it was no wonder if he bred blood so fast as he did so that he used to have frequent Evacuations thereof from the Veins on one side of his Tongue but more usually in some lower parts of his Body to the stopage of which for some time before his death may very well be ascribed that Distemper which was the cause of it As for his natural temper and disposition he was of a free and easie humour not morose proud or imperious but courteous and affable and extremely obliging towards all he convers'd with and though he could be angry and rebuke sharply when he ought that is when Religion or Vertue were concerned yet he was not easily provoked to passion rarely for smaller matters such as the neglects of Servants or worldly disappointments He was of so sweet a nature that I never heard he did an injury or ill Office to any man or revenged any of those that had been done to him but could readily forgive them as our blessed Lord and Master enjoyns Nor envyed he any man's happiness or vilified any man's Person or Parts nor was he apt to Censure or Condemn any man upon bare reports but observed that rule of the Son of Syrach Blame not before thou hast examined the Truth understand first and then rebuke His natural endowments were so various and so great as seldom are to be met with in one man viz. a Fertile Invention a Tenacious Memory with a Solid and Well-weigh'd Judgment whereby he was always from a young man presently furnished for any Exercise he was put upon which lay within the compass of those studies he had applied himself to so that in short that Character given of St. Augustin might be very well applied to him viz. Insignis erat sanctissimi praesulis mansuetudo ac miranda animi lenitas quaedam invincibilis clementia Linguam habebat ab omni petulantia convitiis puram Ingenii felicitas prorsus erat incomparabilis sive spectes ingenii acumen vel obscurissima facile penetrans sive capacis memoriae fidem sive vim quandam Mentis indefatigabilem c. But that which is above all he was endowed with that Wisdom from above Which is Pure Peaceable Gentle easie to be Intreated full of Mercy and good Fruits without Partiality and without Hypocrisie No man could charge him of Pride Injustice Covetousness or any other known Vice he did nothing mis-becoming a prudent or a good man and he was so Beneficent to the Poor that when he was in prosperity besides the large Alms with which he daily fed the attendants at his door he gave a great deal away in money keeping many of the Irish poor Children at School and allowing several Stipends to necessitous Scholars at the University not to mention other Objects which he still found out on whom to bestow his Charity And after the Irish Rebellion when he himself was in a manner bereft of all it is incredible to think how liberal he was to poor Ministers or their Widows and others that had been undone by that wicked Insurrection and I scarce ever knew he refused an Alms to any person whom he believed to be really in want insomuch that I have heard this passage from his Servant who then waited on him That once at London when he was out of the way there was brought to my Lord a poor Irish Woman pretending great necessity but he being either somewhat displeased to be called off from his Study upon which he was then very intent or perhaps he might not have at that time much to spare told her in short He was not able to relieve all that came to him upon that account if he did he should soon have nothing left for himself which this poor Woman was so far from taking ill that she went away praying for him which he immediately reflecting was much concerned at for fear he should have neglected his duty when a fit Object of Charity was offered him wherefore he presently commanded some of my Lady's Servants to run after her and if possible overtake her and bring her back but they could not light of her So when his Servant returned home he told him this accident with great concern ordering him to go the next day to some places where such people used to resort to inquire out such a Woman whom he described as exactly as he could to him which orders his man obeyed though without success At which his Lord was much troubled and could she have been found no question but she would have been very well rewarded for her being sent away empty the day before by him Yet notwithstanding all these Vertues none was more humble and free from vain glory than this person who was endowed with them so that what high esteem soever others might have of him he never put any value on himself but was little in his own thoughts and would often bewail his own infirmities and the want of those Graces he thought he saw in others and which he most earnestly desired He was so great a lover of real Piety that he thought no other accomplishments worth speaking of without it and he heartily loved and respected all humble devout Christians and would always say they were God's Jewels highly to be valued and with these though of the meanest condition he would gladly discourse speaking kindly to them causing them to sit down by him and if they were bashful he would encourge them to speak their minds freely in any words that might best express their love to God and the State of their Souls and he was so skilful a Physician in Spiritual matters that he could readily perceive every man's case and necessities and would apply suitable remedies thereunto if wavering to settle them if doubting to resolve them if sad to comfort them if fallen into a fault to restore them administering means to prevent the like Temptations nor did he neglect any opportunities by good advice and admonitions to reclaim those that were corrupted with Errors or Vices So that in all his discourses as well publick as private he still endeavoured to bring Religion into reputation and to make sin and a wicked course of life odious shameful and destructive to the Souls and Bodies of men And he would press this point with such a concerned earnestness that one would have believed those to whom he then applied himself must needs resolve not to love sin any longer And on the other side he would so magnifie the happiness and excellencies of a Vertuous and Pious Life
judicio praeterquam suo Praesul verè Magnus Qui Ecclesiam Veterum institutis Clerum suo Exemplo Populum Concionibus Affidue instruxit Chronologiam sacram pristino nitori restituit Bonarum artium Professores Inopia Afflictos Munificentiâ sublevavit Denique qui Haereses repullulantes calamo erudito contudit His ingenii dotibus his animi virtutibus ornatus Praesul optimus piissimus meritissimus Cum inter bella Civilia Ecclesiae Patriae suae funesta Sibique Luctuosa Nec Ecclesiae nec Patriae diutius prodesse poterat In Christo pacis Authore placide obdormivit Anno Aerae Christianae 1655. Aetatis suae 76. Riegat in Comitatu Surrey Martii 21. Obiit Sepultus apud Westmonast In Hen. 7mi Capellâ Apr. 5. 1656. A Catalogue of the Lord Primate James Usher's Works and Writings already Printed In Latin DE Ecclesiarum Christianarum Successione Statu cum Explicatione Quaestionis de Statu Ecclesiarum in partibus praesertim occidentis à tempore Apostolorum De primordiis Ecclesiarum Britannicarum Epistolarum Hibernicarum Sylloge Historia Gotes-Chalci Polycarpi Ignatii Epistolae Graec. Lat. cum desertatione de eorum Scriptis deque Apostolicis Canonibus Constitutionibus Clementi tributis Appendix Ignatiana De Romanae Ecclesiae Symbolo Apostolico vetere aliis fidei formulis De Anno solari Macedonum Epistola ad Lodovicum Capellum de textus Hebr. variantibus Lectionibus Annales Vet. Test. Annales N. Test. Chronologia Sacra De Graecâ Septuaginta Interpretum versione Syntagma Desertatio de Cainane In English AN Answer to Malon the Jesuits Challenge The Religion professed by the Ancient Irish and Britains A Sermon Preached before the House of Commons Westminster A Sermon of the Visibility of the Church Preached before King James Jun. 25 1624. A Speech delivered in the Castle Chamber Dublin concerning the Lawfulness of taking and danger of refusing the Oath of Supremacy Nov. 22. 1622. A Speech in the same Place upon the denial to contribute for the Supply of the Kings Army for the defence of the Government April 30 1627. Immanuel or the Mistery of the Incarnation of the Son of God A Geographical Description of the lesser Asia A Discourse of Bishops and Metropolitans A small Catechism entitled the Principles of Christian Religion with a brief Method of the Doctrine thereof His Annals of the Old and New Testament Translated into English with the Synchronisms of the Heathen Story to the destruction of Jerusalem The Power of the Prince and Obedience of the Subject stated with a Preface by Dr. Robert Sanderson late Bishop of Lincoln Published from the Original Copy written with his own hand by James Tyrrell Esq Grandson to the Lord Primate A Body of Divinity or the Summ and Substance of Christian Religion by way of Question and Answer collected by himself in his younger years for his own private Use and through the Importunity of some Friends communicated to them but not with a Design to be Printed though afterwards published by others with good Acceptance A Volume of Sermons in Folio Preached at Oxford before his Majesty and elsewhere published since his Death These that follow were gathered out of the Fragments of the Lord Primate and Published since his Death by Dr. Bernard HIS Judgment and Sense of the State of the present See of Rome from Apocal. 18. 4. Ordination a Fundamental His Sense of Hebrews 6. 2. Of the use of a Set form of Prayer in the Church The extent of Christs Death and Satisfaction with an Answer to the Exceptions taken against it Of the Sabbath and Observation of the Lords Day His Judgment and Sense of John 20. 22. 23. Receive ye the Holy-Ghost Whose Sins ye Remit c. A Catalogue of the Lord Primate Ushers own Manuscripts of various Subjects not Printed Lemmata Manuscriptorum CEnsura Patrum aliorum Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum five Bibliotheca Theologica Historiae dogmaticae Quaestionum inter Orthodoxos Pontificios Controversarum Specimen in Quaestione de Communi Sacrarum Scripturarum usu contra Scripturarum lucifugas De veterum Pascalibus Scriptis de ratione Paschali quibus computi Ecclesiastici in Universo orbe Christiano ante Gregorianam reformationem apperiuntur ex vetustissimis Manuscriptis codicibus notis Illustratum Veterum de tempore Passionis Dominicae Phaschalis 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Variae Lectiones Collationes Vet. Nov. Instrumenti 1. Genesis Longe antiquissimum exemplar Graecum Cottonianum cum editione Francofurtensi Collatum 2. Collatio Psalterii à B. Hieronymo ex Heb. conversi à Jacobo Fabro Parisiis An. 1513. editi cum aliis exemplaribus Manuscriptis Impressis 3. Annotationes variarum Lectionum in Psalmis juxta Masoreth Judaeorum five cum notâ aliquâ Masoreticâ 4. Psalterium cum versione Saxonicâ interlineatâ in Bibliothecâ Salisburiensis Ecclesiae 5. Psalterium Gallicum cum Romano collatum Hebraico 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 oppositum Manuscripto in Westmonasteriensis Ecclesiae Bibliothecâ 6. Collatio Canticorum utriusque Testamenti cum editione vulgatâ Latinâ 7. Variae Lectiones Collationes N. Test. ex vetustissimis Exemplaribus 8. Collatio editionis Chronici Eusebii à Josepho Scaligero edit cum Manuscripto è Regiâ Bibliothecâ 9. Collatio variorum Pentateuchi Samaritani Exemplarium cum notis Observationibus 10. Chronologia Legum Codicis Theodosiani Justiniani collata cum Malmesburiensi Manuscripto Julianae Periodi ad Juliani anni usum vulgaris aerae Christianae ad anni Juliani pariter Gregoriani Methodum accommodatae fixa jam Epochâ cum Tabulâ reductionis dierum Anni Juliani veteris ad dies Anni Gregoriani Novi hodie usitati in pluribus partibus orbis Ratio Bissextorum literarum Dominicarum Equinoctiorum Festorum Christianorum tam mobilium quam immobilium De Institutione Chronologicâ viz. De Tempore illius Mensurâ de Die ejusque partibus de horis scrupulis de Hebdomadibus Mensibus de Anno Astronomico de variâ Annorum Supputatione Secundum Graeca Exemplaria De differentiâ circuli spherae de cursu septem Planetarum Signorum Coelestium de quinque Parall in sphera Zonasdistinguent Veteres Observationes Coelestes Chaldaicae Graecae Aegyptiacae Insigniorum Imperiorum Regnorum quae ante Christi adventum in orbe floruerunt successiones et tempora ad usum veteris Historiae studiosorum eorum praesertim qui exoticam Chronologiam cum Sacra conferre cupiunt Series Chronologica Syriaca Regum Imperatorum Babylonicorum Persarum Graecorum Romanorum à Nebuchadnezzar ad Vespasianum ab Anno Mundi 4915. ad Annum 5585. De fastis Magistratuum Coss. Triumphorum Romanorum ab Urbe Condita usque ad excessum Caesaris Augusti ex fragmentis Marmoreis foro Romano effossis à doctissimis nostri temporis Chronographis suppletis Catalogus Consulum ex variis Authoribus De Ponderibus Mensuris De
that passage be left out of the present Article according as it passed in the Convocation of the Year 1562 yet cannot it be used as an Argument to prove that the Church hath altered her Judgment in that Point as some Men would have it that passage being left out for these Reasons following For first that passage was conceived to make the Article too inclinable to the Doctrine of the Church of Rome which makes the chief end of Christ's descent into Hell to be the fetching thence the Souls of the Fathers who died before and under the Law And secondly because it was conceived by some Learned Men that the Text was capable of some other construction than to be used for an Argument of this Descent The Judgment of the Church continues still the same as before it was and is as plain and positive for a Local Descent as ever she had not else left this Article in the same place in which she found it or given it the same distinct Title as before it had viz. De Descensu Christi ad Inferos in the Latin Copies of King Edward the 6th that is to say Of the going down of Christ into Hell as in the English Copies of Queen Elizabeth's Reign Nor indeed was there any reason why this Article should have any distinct place or title at all unless the maintenance of a Local Descent were intended by it For having spoken in the former Article of Christ's Suffering Crucifying Death and Burial it had been a very great Impertinency not to call it worse to make a distinct Article of his descending into Hell if to descend into Hell did signifie the same with this being buried as some Men then fancied or that there were not in it some further meaning which might deserve a place distinct from his Death and Burial The Article speaking thus viz. as Christ died for us and was buried so is it to be believed that he went down into Hell is either to be understood of a Local Descent or else we are tied to believe nothing by it but what was explicitly or implicitly comprehended in the former Article And lastly That Mr. Alex. Noel before mentioned who being Prolocutor of the Convocation in the Year 1562 when this Article was disputed approved and ratified cannot in reason be supposed to be ignorant of the true sence and meaning of this Church in that particular And he in his Catechism above mentioned declares that Christ descended in his Body into the bowels of the Earth and in his Soul separated from that Body he descended also into Hell by means whereof the power and efficacy of his Death was not made known only to the Dead but the Devils themselves insomuch that both the Souls of the Unbelievers did sensibly perceive that Condemnation which was most justly due to them for their Incredulity and Satan himself the Prince of Devils did as plainly see that his tyranny and all the Powers of Darkness were opprest ruined and destroyed But on the contrary the L. Primat allows not any such Local Descent as is maintained by the Church and defended by the most learned Members of it who have left us any thing in writing about this Article And yet he neither followeth the Opinion of Calvin himself nor of the generality of those of the Calvinian Party who herein differ from their Master but goes a new way of a later discovery in which although he had few Leaders he hath found many Followers By Christ's descending into Hell he would have nothing else to be understood but his continuing in the state of separation between the Body and the Soul his remaining under the power of Death during the time he lay buried in the Grave which is no more in effect tho it differ somewhat in the terms than to say that he died and was buried and rose not till the third day as the Creed instructs us In vindication of the Lord Primat's Judgment in the sence of this Article I shall lay down some previous Considerations to excuse him if perhaps he differed from the sence of the Church of England in this Article if it should appear that it ought to be understood in a strict and literal sence For first you must understand that this Article of Christ's Descent into Hell is not inserted amongst the Articles of the Church of Ireland which were the Confession of Faith of that Church when the Lord Primat writ this Answer to the Jesuit the Articles of the Church of England amongst which this of Christ's Descent into Hell is one not being received by the Church of Ireland till the Year 1634 ten years after the publishing of this Book so that he could not be accused for differing from those Articles which he was not then obliged to receive or subscribe to 2dly Had this Article been then inserted and expressed in the very same words as it is in those of the Church of England could he be accused of being Heterodox for not understanding it as the Doctor does of a Local Descent of Christ's Soul into Hell or the places of Torment since the Church of England is so modest as only to assert that it is to be believed that he went down into Hell without specifying in what sence she understand it For as the Lord Primat very learnedly proves in this Treatise the word Hell in old Saxon signifies no more than hidden or covered so that in the original propriety of the word our Hell doth exactly answer the Greek 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which denotes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the place which is unseen or removed from the sight of man So that the word Hell signifies the same with Hades in the Greek and Inferi in the Latin Concerning which St. Augustin gives us this Note The name of Hell in Latin Inferi is variously put in Scriptures and in many meanings according as the sence of the things which are intreated of do require And Mr. Casaubon who understood the property of Greek and Latin words as well as any this other They who think that Hades is properly the seat of the Damned be no less deceived than they who when they reade Inferos in Latin Writers do interpret it of the same place Whereupon the Lord Primat proceeds to shew That by Hell in divers places of Scripture is not to be understood the place of the Wicked or Damned but of the Dead in general as in Psal. 89. 48. What Man is he that liveth and shall not see Death shall he deliver his Soul from the hand of Hell And Esa. 38. 18 19. Hell cannot praise thee Death cannot celebrate thee they that go down into the Pit cannot hope for thy Truth The Living the Living he shall praise thee as I do this day Where the opposition betwixt Hell and the state of Life in this World is to be observed Therefore since the word Hell does not necessarily imply a place of Torment either in Scriptures or
there be any other places or other Mansions by which the Soul that believeth in God passing and coming unto that River which maketh glad the City of God may receive within it the lot of the Inheritance promised unto the Fathers For touching the determinate state of the faithful Souls departed this life the ancient Doctors as we have shewed were not so throughly resolved The Lord Primat having thus shewn in what sence many of the ancient Fathers did understand this word Hades which we translate Hell proceeds to shew that divers of them expound Christ's Descent into Hell or Hades according to the common Law of Nature which extends it self indifferently unto all that die For as Christ's Soul was in all points made like unto ours Sin only excepted while it was joined with his Body here in the Land of the Living so when he had humbled himself unto the Death it became him in all things to be made like unto his Brethren even in the state of dissolution And so indeed the Soul of Jesus had experience of both for it was in the place of human Souls and being out of the Flesh did live and subsist It was a reasonable Soul therefore and of the same substance with the flesh of Men proceeding from Mary Saith Eustathius the Patriarch of Antioch in his Exposition of that Text of the Psalm Thou wilt not leave my Soul in Hell 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the place of humane Souls which in the Hebrew is the world of Spirits and by the disposing of Christ's Soul there after the manner of other Souls concludes it to be of the same nature with other Mens Souls So St. Hilary in his Exposition of the 138th Psalm This is the Law of humane Necessity saith he that the Bodies being buried the Souls should go to Hell Which descent the Lord did not refuse for the accomplishment of a true man And a little after he repeats it that desupernis ad inferos mortis lege descendit He descended from the supernal to the infernal parts by the Law of Death And upon Psal. 53. more fully To fulfil the Nature of Man he subjected himself to Death that is to a departure as it were of the Soul and Body and pierced into the infernal seats which was a thing that seemed to be due unto Man I shall not trouble you with more Quotations of this kind out of several of the ancient Greek and Latin Fathers which he makes use of in this Treatise most of them agreeing in this That Christ died and was buried and that his Soul went to that place or receptacle where the Souls of good Men do remain after Death which whether it is no more in effect but differing in terms than to say he died and was buried and rose not till the third day which the Doctor makes to be the absurdity of this Opinion I leave to the Judgment of the impartial Reader as I likewise do whether the Lord Primat deserves so severe a Censure after his shewing so great Learning as he has done concerning the various Interpretations of this word Hades or Hell both out of sacred and prophane Writers that it only serves to amaze the Ignorant and confound the Learned Or that he meant nothing less in all these Collections than to assert the Doctrine of the Church of England in this particular Or whether Christ's Local Descent into Hell can be found in the Book of Articles which he had subscribed to or in the Book of Common-Prayer which he was bound to conform to And if it be not so expressed in any of these I leave it to you to judge how far Dr. H. is to be believed in his Accusation against the Lord Primat in other matters But I doubt I have dwelt too long upon this less important Article which it seems was not thought so fundamental a one but as the Lord Primat very well observes Ruffinus in his Exposition of the Creed takes notice that in the Creed or Symbol of the Church of Rome there is not added He descended into Hell and presently adds yet the force or meaning of the word seems to be the same in that he is said to have been buried So that it seems old Ruffinus is one of those who is guilty of this Impertinency as the Doctor calls it of making Christ's descent into Hell to signifie the same with his lying in the Grave or being buried tho the same Author takes notice that the Church of Aquileia had this Article inserted in her Creed but the Church of Rome had not which sure with Men of the Doctor 's way should be a Rule to other Churches And further Card. Bellarmin noteth as the Lord Primat confesses that St. Augustin in his Book De Fide Symbolo and in his four Books de Symbolo ad Catechumenos maketh no mention of this Article when he doth expound the whole Creed five several times Which is very strange if the Creed received by the African Church had this Article in it Ruffinus further takes notice that it is not found in the Symbol of the Churches of the East by which he means the Nicene and Constantinopolitan Creeds the latter of which is nothing else but an Explanation or more ample Enlargement of Creed Apostolical Tho this indeed be not at this day read in the Greek or other Eastern Churches or so much as known or received in that of the Copties and Abyssines But the Doctor having shown his Malice against the Lord Primat's Memory and Opinions in those Points which I hope I have sufficiently answered cannot give off so but in the next Section accuses him for inserting the nine Articles of Lambeth into those of the Church of Ireland being inconsistent with the Doctrine of the Church of England But before I answer this Accusation I shall first premise that as I do not defend or approve that Bishops or others tho never so learned Divines should take upon them to make new Articles or define and determine doubtful Questions and Controversies in Religion without being authorized by the King and Convocation so to do Yet thus much I may charitably say of those good Bishops and other Divines of the Church of England who framed and agreed upon these Articles that what they did in this matter was sincerely and as they then believed according to the Doctrine of the Church of England as either expresly contained in or else to be drawn by consequence from that Article of the Church concerning Predestination And certainly this makes stronger against the Doctor for if with him the Judgment of Bp. Bilson Bp. Andrews and Mr. Noel in their Writings be a sufficient Authority to declare the sence of the Church of England in those Questions of Christ's true and real Presence in the Sacrament and his Local Descent into Hell why should not the Judgment and Determination of the two Arch-Bishops of Canterbury and York with divers other Bishops and
though in substance they agree yet in many circumstances they disagree as for example in many particulars in the said Prefaces also in the distinction of Canons and sometimes in Titles So it should seem also for number of Decretal Epistles if that which Eckius saw were the same with that H. Canisius had for it should seem that Eckius's Book had the Decrees of 15 Popes whereas Codex Moguntinus hath but 13 and not 11 only as you seem to say out of Pithoeus And now since I mention Pithoeus if his copy of Ferrandus's Breviary of the Canons were true there were other Canons amongst the Sardican Canons than those we have as may appear in Ferrandus his Breviary num 92 93 and 214 for the 1. and 13. Tit. there alledged are not to be found in the Canons of Sardica now extant Another thing also touching Pithoeus He saith in the Preface of Ferrandus's Breviary that that Version which is in Codice Moguntino is not that of Dionysius Exiguus but I assure you Baronius Ant. Augustinus and the Recognisers of Gratian in their Annotations and Binius in the late Cologne Edition take that which is in Codice Moguntino to be that of Dionysius Exiguus You alledge Hincmarus Rhemens in lib. de variis capitul Eccles. I would know whether you have the Book or you have it from some others who do alledge him I would desire your help for such Books as were pertinent to this business Hincmarus was an excellent man and a stout Champion against Innovations and all such as prejudged ancient Canonical Liberties As for the Decretal Epistles I am of opinion with you That first they were brewed in Spain and broached by Riculfus and afterward by Otgarius or Autcarius as Bened. Levit. proefat in 5. lib. capitular termeth him And so much doth Hincmarus lib. contra Hincman Laudunens insinuate alledged inter testimonia proefixa capitularibus and in Fr. Pithoeus his Glossary lit R. and by Baron ad an 865. n. 5. But in one thing I cannot accord to Fr. Pithaeus in the forenamed place That Isidorus Mercator was the Collector of the Decretal Epistles from Clement to Gregorius Magnus It seemeth tho that the Decretal Epistles began chiefly to be in request about the time that Isidore lived according to your account for in the XIV Council of Toledo Can. 11. there is somewhat which may argue so much But I do not think that Cresconius followed Isidore his Collection considering it may be doubted whether ever he saw it and therefore though Isidore gathered the Decretals to Gregory the Great as he intimateth in his Preface yet Cresconius as it should seem followed some former My Error in Concil Cellensi was in that I presupposed that all the Councils mentioned by Ferrandus excepting those which are in Codice Tiliano were in Africk whereas Tela is in Spain as Antoninus's Itinerarium witnesseth I have not that Edition of Isidore printed by Merlinus 1530. but by those your directions I shall acknowledge it when I meet with it I have included here a note by which you may know how to find the whole Codex Moguntinus in Crab's Edition I had verily thought you had had it As for the Acts of the Councils in Greek which are promised to be set out at Rome and have been a long time I do fear me there will be jugling in that work It is much to be lamented that Ant. Augustinus who had gotten Manuscript Copies out of the chief Libraries of Asia and Europe of the IV General Councils and had them almost in a readiness for the Press was prevented in this Work by untimely death I have been at Bennet Colledge but could not get into the Library the Master who had one of the Keys being from home I will remember sometime for to look the places out of Burchardus As for that other place of your Irish Synod alledged Dist. 82. Can. 5. But of that Canon thus writeth Ant. August emendat Gratian. lib. 1. Dialog XIV Post Concilium Carthaginens III. quaedam fragmenta sunt incerta quibus proeponitur illud quod Gangrensi Concilio falsò Gratianus poenitentiale Romanum tit 8. c. 6. ascribunt cujus initium est Presbyter si fornicatione Concilio Hiberniensi vindicatur in lib. Anselmi Lucensis Romano lib. 8. cap. ult Et ut audio ita inscribitur à Gregorio Presbytero in Polycarpi lib. 4. titulo De Incontinentia Clericorum Poenitentiali Theodori in veteri lib. Mich. Thomasii certè illud Hiberniense Concilium sub eodem Theodoro Cantuariensi habitum est Since the time in which I writ the former part of this Letter which was in the beginning of Lent upon the receipt of yours I have been occasioned to be going and coming from and to Cambridge to have some settled place of abode being limited in my time for the keeping of my place in our Colledge which if I could have enjoyed I should hardly have removed hither where I am now with the Bishop of Bath Wells or any where else But the Bishop sending for me and offering me a Competency in that kind I requested of him then when I was unprovided I could not neglect God's Providence and was advised hereunto by my best Friends This unsettled Abode of mine was the Cause why I finished not this Letter so long since begun and sent it not before this I have since got Jacob Merlin's Edition of Isidore's Collection and before that at my being in the North I borrowed out of Durham Library the Manuscript of it which is all one with Corpus Canonum in Bennet Colledge Library and in Trinity Colledge Library newly erected there is another Copy of the same I got also in the North a fair Transcript of the Greek Canons which as I understand Erasmus caused to be copied out of an ancient Copy which was brought to Basil at what time the Council of Basil was held This Copy Erasmus sent to Cuthbert Tunstall Bishop of Durham where it hath been since Bishop Barnes who was Bishop there since gave it to his Son and his Son to me It is the same with that which is translated by Gentian Harvett and which Balsamon commenteth upon The other day my Lord shewed me a Letter which came from one of his Chaplains at Windsor who signified unto him that Sir Henry Savil had an intendment to set out the Greek Councils I fear me he will hardly get Copies I will inquire further into it and will further it what lyeth in me Antonius Augustinus had gathered all the Acts of the 4 first General Councils out of all the Libraries of Italy and had purposed to have set them forth as Andreas Schottus reporteth in a funeral Oration upon him Nay he saith further he had writ a Book thus entituled Concilia Graeca Latina cum Historia Scholiis Variae Lectiones But surely they will be suppressed for ever As for the Title of Volusianus ad Nicholaum in
Consecrated and thereupon desire Justice I shall be ready to shew reason and yield account of my Opinion as well in the King's Courts as in Theological Schools For to pass the general words of his grant cum omnibus Jurisdictionibus which grant him Jus ad rem but not in re The Statute of 2 Eliz. cap. 1. expresly forbiddeth all that shall be preferred to take upon them receive use exercise any Bishoprick c. before he hath taken the corporal Oath of the King's Supremacy before such person as hath Authority to admit him to his Bishoprick As for the Statute of Conferring and Consecrating Bishops within this Realm I find not the words you have written viz. That he which hath the King's Letters Patents for a Bishoprick is put in the same state as if he were Canonically elected and confirmed But that his Majesties Collation shall be to the same effect as if the Conge delire had been given the election duly made and the same election confirmed for the Dean and Chapters election in England is not good until the King have confirmed by his Royal assent then it followeth in the Statute upon that collation the person may be consecrated c. Afterward in the same Statute it is further enacted That every person hereafter conferred invested and consecrated c. shall be obeyed c. and do and execute in every thing and things touching the same as any Bishop of this Realm without offending of the Prerogatives Royal. Now by an argument à contrario sensu it appeareth that it is not I which stand against his Majesties Prerogative but they which exercise Jurisdiction without the form prescribed in these Statutes Confider again how impertinent the opinion of Canonists is in this case where the King's collation is aequivalent to a Canonical Election and Confirmation The Confirmation which the Canonists speak of is from the Pope not from the Prince Gregoriana constitutione in Lugdunensi Consilio cautum est Electum infra tres menses post consensum suum electioni proestitum si nullum justum impedimentum obstat confirmationem à superiore Proelato petere debere alioqui trimestri spatio elapso electionem esse penitus irritandam When the See of Armagh falleth void the Dean and Chapter have Authority by the Canons to exercise Jurisdiction which the Bishop elect hath not until he be consecrated as you may read in Mason's Book and elsewhere and so it is practised in England Behold the cause which maketh the Dean capable namely the Authority Canons and Custom of the Church So is not the Bishop elect warranted and standeth still in the quality of a simple Presbyter until he be further advanced by the Church When Jo. Forth shall bring his Libel I will do the part which belongeth to me In the mean time I commend you to God and rest Your Lordships very loving Friend Armagh 13 July 1621. LETTER XLIII A Letter from Mr. Thomas Gataker to the Right Reverend James Usher Lord Bishop of Meath Right Reverend MY duty to your Lordship remembred This Messenger so fitly offering himself unto me albeit it were the Sabbath Even and I cast behind hand in my studies by absence from home yet I could not but in a line or two salute your Lordship and thereby signifie my continued and deserved remembrance of you and hearty desire of your welfare By this time I presume your Lordship in setled in your weighty charge of Over-sight wherein I beseech the Lord in mercy to bless your Labours and Endeavours to the glory of his own Name and the good of his Church never more in our times oppugned and opposed by mighty and malitious Adversaries both at home and abroad never in foreign Parts generally more distracted and distressed than at the present Out of France daily news of Murthers and Massacres Cities and Towns taken and all sorts put to the Sword Nor are those few that stand out yet likely to hold long against the power of so great a Prince having no succours from without In the Palatinate likewise all is reported to go to ruine Nor do the Hollanders sit for ought I see any surer the rather for that the Coals that have here been heretofore kindled against them about Transportation of Coin and the Fine imposed for it the Quarrels of the East-Indies the Command of the Narrow Seas the Interrupting of the Trade into Flanders c. are daily more and more blown upon and fire beginneth to break out which I pray God do not burn up both them and us too I doubt not worthy Sir but you see as well yea much better I suppose than my self and many others as being able further to pierce into the state of the times and the consequents of these things what need the forlorn flock of Christ hath of hearts and hands to help to repair her ruines and to fence that part of the Fold that as yet is not so openly broken in upon against the Incursions of such ravenous Wolves as having prevailed so freely against the other parts will not in likelihood leave it also unassaulted as also what need she hath if ever of Prayers and Tears her ancient principal Armor unto him who hath the hearts and hands of all men in his hand and whose help our only hope as things now stand is oft-times then most present when all humane helps and hopes do fail But these lamentable occurrents carry me further than I had purposed when I put Pen to Paper I shall be right glad to hear of your Lordship's health and welfare which the Lord vouchsafe to continue gladder to see the remainder of your former learned and laborious Work abroad The Lord bless and protect you And thus ready to do your Lordship any service I may in these parts I rest Your Lordships to be commanded in the Lord Thomas Gataker Rothtrith Sept. 19. 1621. LETTER XLIV A Letter from Sir William Boswel to the Right Reverend James Usher Lord Bishop of Meath My very good Lord IF your Lordship hath forgotten my name I shall account my self very unhappy therein yet justly rewarded for my long silence the cause whereof hath especially been my continual absence almost for these last eight years from my native Country where now returning and disposed to rest I would not omit the performance of this duty unto your Lordship hoping that the renewing of my ancient respects will be entertained by your Lordship as I have seen an old Friend or Servant who arriving suddenly and unexpected hath been better welcomed than if he had kept a set and frequent course of visiting and attendance With this representing of my service I presume your Lordship will not dislike that I recommend my especial kind friend Dr. Price one of his Majesties Commissioners for that Kingdom and for his Learning Wisdom and other Merits which your Lordship will find in him truly deserving your Lordships good affection The most current news I can signifie to
of that Chapter which I had undertaken to answer as a principal motive of his Conversion to them which he hath added to the Oration of the motives to his Conversion I suppose you have seen the Book Now having been lately chosen upon my Lord of Sarum his promotion to be Reader of the Margaret Lecture in our University Lam advised by my good friends and namely the Lords Bishops of Wells and Sarum to read those Controversies mentioned in that Chapter And upon more mature advice have resolved to set down positively the Fathers Doctrine not barely by Thesis but with their several proofs and the Vindication of them from the Adversaries cavils I will be bold to communicate with you the special difficulties which I shall observe if it be not troublesome unto your Lordship In the first Controversie touching the Real Presence they except against the testimony produced by P. Martyr of Chrysostom ad Caesarium Monachum I have heard your Lordship say it is alledged by Leontius but by what Leontius and where I remember not I cannot find it in such Tractates of Leontius as I find in Bibliotheca Patrum I desire your Lordship in a word to certifie me It seemeth P. Martyr read it in Latin for otherwise it is probable he would have alledged the Greek Text if originally he had it out of the Greek I suppose your Lordship hath seen the third Tome of Spalatensis containing his VII and IX Book I fear me he may do some harm with the Treatise which he hath lib. 7. c. 11. touching the matter of Predestination wherein he goeth about to shew That both Opinions may be Tolerated both that of St. Austin's which makes Predestination to be gratuita and that other which maketh Predestination to be Ex proevisis fide operibus But chiefly he goeth about to invalidate St. Austin's Opinion It will confirm the Remonstrants in their Error for he hath said more than any of them but all in vain for doubtless St. Austin's Opinion is the truth and no doubt but it is special Grace which doth distinguish Peter from Judas and not solum liberum arbitrium It is great pity the man was so carried away with Ambition and Avarice otherwise I think he is not inferior to Bellarmine for the Controversies I write this Letter upon my way being at Sarum where my Lord Bishop of Sarum doth salute you I cannot now dilate further but with my best service and wishes commend your Lordship to the Highest Majesty and so rest Your Lordships in all service Samuel Ward Sarum Sept. 25. 1622. I intreat your Lordship that I may know where Leontius doth alledge that Tractate of Chrysostom LETTER LI. A Letter from the Right Reverend James Usher Lord Bishop of Meath to the Right Honourable Oliver Lord Grandison My very good Lord I Had purposed with my self long ere now to have seen your Honour in England which was one reason among others why I did forbear to trouble you hitherto with any Letters But seeing I think now it will fall out that I shall remain here this Winter I thought it my duty both to tender my thankfulness unto your Lordship for all the honourable favours which I have received at your hands and withal to acquaint you with a certain particular which partly doth concern my self and in some sort also the state of the Church in this poor Nation The day that my Lord of Falkland received the Sword I preached at Christ-Church and fitting my self to the present occasion took for my Text those words in the 13th to the Romans He beareth not the Sword in vain There I shewed 1. What was meant by this Sword 2. The Subject wherein that power rested 3. The matters wherein it was exercised 4. Thereupon what it was to bear the Sword in vain Whereupon falling upon the Duty of the Magistrate in seeing those Laws executed that were made for the furtherance of God's Service I first declared That no more was to be expected herein from the subordinate Magistrate than he had received in Commission from the Supreme in whose power it lay to limit the other at his pleasure Secondly I wished That if his Majesty who is under God our Supreme Governour were pleased to extend his clemency toward his Subjects that were Recusants some order notwithstanding might be taken with them that they should not give us publick affronts and take possession of our Churches before our Faces And that it might appear that it was not without cause that I made this motion I instanced in two particulars that had lately fallen out in mine own Diocess The one certified unto me by Mr. John Ankers Preacher of Athloane a man well known unto your Lordship who wrote unto me That going to read Prayers at Kilkenny in West-Meath he found an old Priest and about 40 with him in the Church who was so bold as to require him the said Ankers to depart until he had done his business The other concerning the Friars who not content to possess the House of Multifernan alone whence your Lordship had dislodged them went about to make Collections for the re-edifying of another Abby near Molengarre for the entertaining of another swarm of Locusts These things I touched only in general not mentioning any circumstances of Persons or Places Thirdly I did intreat That whatsoever connivance were used unto others the Laws might be strictly executed against such as revolted from us that we might at least-wise keep our own and not suffer them without all fear to fall away from us Lastly I made a publick Protestation That it was far from my mind to excite the Magistrate unto any violent courses against them as one that naturally did abhor all cruel dealings and wished that effusion of blood might be held rather the Badge of the Whore of Babylon than of the Church of God These points howsoever they were delivered by me with such limitations as in moderate mens judgments might seem rather to intimate an allowance of a Toleration in respect of the general than to exasperate the State unto any extraordinary severity yet did the Popish Priests perswade their followers that I had said The Sword had rusted too long in the Sheath whereas in my whole Sermon I never made mention either of Rust or Sheath yea some also did not stick to give out That I did thereby closely tax your self for being too remiss in prosecuting of the Papists in the time of your Government I have not such diffidence in your Lordships good opinion of me neither will I wrong my self so much as to spend time in refelling so lewd a calumniation Only I thought good to mention these things unto your Lordship that if any occasion should be offered hereafter to speak of them you might be informed in the truth of matters Wherein if I have been too troublesome unto you I humbly crave pardon and rest Your Honours in all Duty ever ready to be commanded Jac.
Midensis Dublin Oct. 16. 1622. LETTER LII A Letter from the Most Reverend Dr. Hampton Arch-Bishop of Armagh to the Right Reverend James Usher Bishop of Meath Salutem in Christo. My Lord IN the exceptions taken by Recusants against your Sermon I cannot be affected as Gallio was at the beating of Sosthenes to care nothing for them I am sensible of that which my Brethren suffer And if my advice had been required I should have counselled your Lordship to give lenitives of your own accord for all which was conceived over harsh or sharp the inquisition whether an offence were given or taken may add to the flame already kindled and provoke further displeasure it is not like to pacifie anger But let your case be as good as Peter's was when the Brethren charged him injuriously for preaching to the uncircumcised the great Apostle was content to give them a fair publick satisfaction Act. 11. and it wrought good effects for the Text saith His auditis quieverunt glorificaverunt Deum it brought peace to the Congregation and glory to God My Noble Lord Deputy hath propounded a way of pacification that your Lordship should here satisfie such of the Lords as would be present wherein my poor endeavours shall not be wanting howbeit to say ingenuously as I think that is not like to have success for the Lord of Kilkenny and your other friends trying their strengths in that kind at Trim prevailed not but can tell your Lordship what is expected And if my wishes may take place seeing so many men of Quality have something against you tary not till they complain but prevent it by a voluntary retractation and milder interpretation of the points offensive and especially of drawing the Sword of which spirit we are not nor ought to be for our Weapons are not Carnal but Spiritual Withal it will not be amiss in mine opinion for you Lordship to withdraw your self from those Parts and to spend more time in your own Diocess that such as will not hear your Doctrine may be drawn to love and reverence your Lordship for your hospitality and conversation Bear with the Plaines of an Old mans Pen and leave nothing undone to recover the Intercourse of Amitie between you and the People of your Charge Were it but one that is alienated you would put on the Bowels of the Evangelical Shepherd you would seek him and support his Infirmities with your own Shoulders how much more is it to be done when so many are in danger to be lost But they are generous and noble and many of them near unto you in Blood or Alliance which will plead effectually and conclude the matter fully whensoever you shew your self ready to give them Satisfaction In the mean time I will not fail to pray God for his Blessings unto the Business and so do rest Your Lordships very loving Brother Armagh Tredagh October 17. 1622. LETTER LIII A Letter from the Right Reverend James Usher Lord Bishop of Meath to Dr. Samuel Ward Master of Sidney Sussex Colledge Cambridge Worthy Sir I Was heartily glad when I heard that upon my Lord of Sarum's Promotion you were chosen to succeed him in Reading the Lady Margaret's Lecture and do very well approve the Judgment of them who advised you to handle the Controversies mentioned in that Chapter of Cardinal Perron's Book which Bertius pretendeth to have been the principal Motive of verifying in himself the Title of his old Book Hymenoeus Desertor His Oration of the Motives to his Perversion I saw before I left England than which I never yet did see a more silly and miserable Discourse proceed from the Hands of a learned Man The Epistle that Chrysostom wrote unto Caesarius against the Heresie of Apollinarius and others that confounded the Deity and Humanity in Chirist is not cited by Leontius but by the Author of the Collections against the Severians who is thought to have lived about the time of Damascen In the 8th Tome Bibliothecae patrum Edit Colon. An. 1618. pag. 336. you shall find these words alledged by him ex Chrysostomo ad Caesarium Monachum Hoc est absurdum dogma Apollinarii amentis haec est hoeresis impiissima introducentium mixtionem et compositionem Sir Henry Savil was of your mind that Pet. Martyr met with this Treatise only in Latine but I shewed him the contrary by the Controversie that was betwixt Gardiner and Him Respons ad Object 201 concerning the Interpretation of the Word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Martyr mistaking it as if it had been derived from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and so translating it in that Sentence Sic et divinâ mundante corporis naturâ and Gardiner on the other side contending it should be rendred Firmante corporis naturâ and the righter of the three peradventure being that which I follow divinâ naturâ in corpore insidente I am at this present in hand with such a Work as you are imployed in being drawn thereunto by a Challenge made by a Jesuit in this Country concerning the Fathers Doctrine in the Point of Traditions Real Presence Auricular Confession Priest's Power to forgive Sins Purgatory Prayer for the Dead Limbus Patrum Prayer to Saints Images Free-will and Merits I handle therein only the positive Doctrine of the Fathers and the Original of the contrary Error leaving the Vindication of the Places of Antiquity abused by the Adversary until I be urged thereunto hereafter by my Challenger The better part of the Work I have gone through already As soon as the whole is finished I will not forget to send it unto you or else deliver it with mine own hands In the mean time I send you a Treatise written by one of our Judges here touching these Controversies with a Discourse of mine own added thereunto concerning the Religion professed by the Ancient Irish And so leaving you and all your painful Endeavours unto the Blessing of our good God I rest Your own in all Christian Love and Affection Jac. Midensis Tinglass March 18 1622. LETTER LIV. A Letter from Sir Henry Bourgchier to the Right Reverend James Usher Lord Bishop of Meath Salutem à fonte Salutis Most Reverend in Christ I Cannot hope to send you any Portion of our London News which common Fame will not bring sooner to you I notwithstanding fail in my Duty if I adventure not The same day of your departure hence the Houses of Parliament presented their Petition concerning Recusants to the King to which they received a large and very satisfactory Answer and a Proclamation to that purpose is expected within a few days On Saturday the day following the Spanish Ambassador I mean the Marquess desiring Audience acquainted the King with a Practice of Treason namely That the Prince and my Lord of Buckingham had conspired That if they could not draw the King to their Desires this Parliament by the Authority thereof they would confine him to some place of Pleasure and transfer the Government to
the Princes About this there is now much consultation in what manner to proceed Salvo legatino jure and Sir Robert Cotton as you know his manner is hath been very busie in ransacking his Papers for Presidents Of this more hereafter This day my Lord Treasurer makes his Answer about the beginning of the next Week we shall know his Doom Our good Friend D. Lyndsel was cut on Munday and is yet God be praised well after it there was a Stone taken out of his Bladder about the bigness of a Shilling and rough on the one side I am now collating of Bede's Ecclestastical History with Sir Robert Cotton's Copy wherein I find many Variations I compare it with Commelyn's Edition in Folio which is that I have All that I expect from your Lordship is to understand of the Receipt of my Letters which if I know I shall write the more confidently I should also willingly know how you like your Dwelling My Lord of Bristol is come I pray you present my Love and Service to Mrs. Usher And so with many thanks for all your kind Respects I will ever remain Your very affectionate Friend and Servant Henry Bourgchier London April 28. 1623. Sir Robert Cotton is like to get a very good Copy of Malmsbury de Antiquit Glaston It is a Book I much desire to see I pray you remember the Irish Annal which you promised me before your going out of Town LETTER LV. A Letter from Mr. H. Holcroft to the Right Reverend James Usher Lord Bishop of Meath My Lord IT hath pleased his Majesty now to direct this Letter to the Lord Deputy to admit you a Privy Counsellor of that Kingdom I am ashamed it hath staid so long in my hands before it could be dispatch'd But if it had come at the first to me during the Duke of Buckingham's being here it had not staid three days but gone on in the plain High-way which is ever via sana After the Lord Deputy was pleased to put it into my Hands at my first Access I moved his Majesty and shewed his Lordships Hand But the King willed it should stay and it became not me to press it further at that time I know the Cause of the Stay was not any dislike of your Person or Purpose not to grant it But if the Duke had come home in any time you should have been beholding to him for it I pray your Lordship not to think it strange that about the same time his Majesty dispatch'd the Letter for Sir Edward Trevour to be a Counsellor The Grant was gotten by my Lord of Buckingham before his going and by his Commandment I drew it I do strive to give your Lordship a particular Accompt of this Business and do pray your Lordship to endeavour to satisfie the Lord Deputy of whose Commands herein I was not negligent So soon as I acquainted his Majesty with his Lordships second Letter I had his Royal Signature of which I wish you much Joy My Lord Grandison is in reasonable good Health So I remain Your Lordships most assured Friend Henry Holcroft Westminster June 13. 1623. LETTER LVI A Letter from Dr. Goad and Dr. Featly Chaplains to the Arch-Bishop of Canterbury to the Right Reverend James Usher Bishop of Meath Admodum Reverende Domine HAving so convenient a means we send to your Lordship which perhaps you have not yet seen translated and thus Armed with a Preface by a worthy and learned Gentleman Sir Humphrey Lynd our Neighbour To whose Observations concerning the Censures upon this Tractate de Corpore Sang. Christi if you will add any thing which he hath not espyed we will impart the same from you to him whereby your Lordship shall more encourage this well deserving Defender of the Cause of Religion to whom in other Respects the Church and common Cause oweth much For at this instant upon our Motion he hath undertaken the Charge of printing the particular passages of many late Writers castrated by the Romish Knife The Collections are made by Dr. James and are now to be sent unto us for preparation to the Press We shall begin with Polydore Virg. Stella Mariana and Ferus Proeterea in eodem genere alia texitur tela The Story of the Waldenses written in French and comprising Relations and Records for 400 years is now in translating into English to be published Before which it is much desired that your Lordship will be pleased to prefix a Preface for the better pass which we think will be very acceptable and the rather because we hope your Lordship will therein intimate that in the same Subject jamdudum aliquid parturis whereto this may serve for a Midwife unless the Masculine birth deliver it self before this foreign Midwife come Thus desiring to hear from your Lordship but more to see you here upon a good occasion we take our Leave and rest Thomas Goad Your Lordships to be commanded Daniel Featly Lambeth June 14. 1623. LETTER LVII A Letter from Sir Henry Bourgchier to the Right Reverend James Usher Lord Bishop of Meath Salutem à Salutis fonte D. N. Jesu Christo. Most Reverend in Christ THough I have little to say more than the remembrance of my love and best respects I could not forbear to lay hold on the opportunity of this Bearer our common friend thereby to present them as many ways most due from me to your Lordship You have been so long expected here that your Friends Letters have by that means come more rarely to your hands We have little News either of the great business or any other though Messengers come Weekly out of Spain And I conceive that Matters are yet very Doubtful The new Chapel for the Infanta goes on in Building and our London-Papists report That the Angels descend every Night and Build part of it Here hath been lately a Conference between one Fisher a Jesuit and one Sweete on the one side and Dr. Whyte and Dr. Feately on the other The Question was of the Antiquity and Succession of the Church It is said that we shall have it Printed All our Friends are in good Health namely Sr. Robert Cotton Sr. Henry Spelman Mr. Camden Mr. Selden and the rest and Remember themselves most Affectionately to you Mr. Selden will send you a Copy of his Eadmerus with the first opportunity which should have been done before this time had not his expectation of you here stayed his hand Philip Cluverius is lately Dead at Leyden of a Consumption Before his Death he was so happy as to finish his Italia which they say is done with great diligence and the Impression so forward that we shall have it this Autumnal Marte My Lord Chichester is to go within a Fortnight to Colen to the Treaty and Meeting there appointed for the Restitution of the Palatinate But some think that the Armies now a-foot in Germany will much hinder it Bethlem Gabor troubles the Emperor again in Austria The Duke of Brunswick in
Bohemia Lusatia and Silesia and Manfeyld in other places I believe I shall see your Lordship in Ireland before I see you here If your Answer to the Challenge be Printed I hope I shall be beholding to you for a Copy And thus wishing your Lordship as much happiness as to my self I will ever remain Your Lordships most Affectionate Friend and Servant Henry Bourgchier London July 14. 1623. Divers of my fellow-Commissioners remember their best Affections to your Lordship especially Sr. Nath. Rich and Mr. Crew My Lord Marshal speaks of you often with much Affection you will find him a noble Friend if occasion be to use him which if it be in your absence and my self present I shall be most glad to be your Sollicitor LETTER LVIII A Letter from the Right Reverend Thomas Morton Bishop of Coventry and Litchfield to the Right Reverend James Usher Bishop of Meath Salutem in Christo Jesu Right Reverend and Dear Brother 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I Do much joy to hear of your health wherein consisteth the comfort of many I have been much beholding unto Mr. Dr. Barlow for his pains both in commending your Lordships health unto me and in inviting me by his presence to write unto you yet more especially for the view that he gave me of your Treatise which is now lately published At the sight of the Inscription viz. The Religion professed by the Ancient Irish I was compelled to usurp that saying Num boni quid ex Galiloea Yet when I came and saw it is that good which beyond expectation doth much affect me This is Ex tenebris lucem Macte industriâ sanctitate and bless the World with your labours When I shall have any thing that may seem acceptable I shall be ready to impart it unto your Lordship My request is That when you shall have occasion for London I may be your Host for I lie directly in the Road In the interim let us I pray you enjoy the Rite of Christian Absents to pray one for another And thus desiring our Lord Jesus to preserve us to the glory of his Saving Grace I rest Your Lordship's loving Brother and Friend Tho. Coven Litch Eccleshall July 19 1623. LETTER LIX A Letter from the Right Reverend James Usher Bishop of Meath to the Most Reverend Dr. Hampton Arch-Bishop of Armagh My very good Lord IT is now above a fortnight since I received your Graces direction for prosecuting the Order for settlement of the payment of Tithes in the Escheated Counties whereof some question was made at the Council Table My Lord Docwra and my self the next day after we received your Letters addressed our selves unto the Lord Deputy and possessed him fully with the substance of the business Within two hours after your Graces Letter was openly read at the Table together with which I exhibited the Orders set down in your Triennial Visitation Anno 1620. Whereupon my Lord Deputy very honourably moved that the former Act of State might be renewed and enlarged with the addition of such particulars as were in your Orders expressed and there omitted It was replyed That the matter was of great importance and much concerned the Country and therefore it was not suddenly to be resolved upon until the advice of the Judges and some other of the Bishops were had therein In the mean time for the preparing of matters Mr. Vice-Treasurer my Lord Chief Justice Sir Roger Jones Sir Adam Loftus and my self were appointed to meet in private and to consider of those particulars in your Graces Order which were not formerly contained in the Act of State The things questioned at that meeting were 1. For the Titles of Warrens and Fish of which they made doubt whether they ought to be paid or no. 2. Of Tradesmen Merchants and Sellers of small Wares under which Title they said all sellers of Ale all manual Occupation and day Labourers might be comprehended yea and the Servants of all the Trades also as well as the Masters 3. To the Title of Milk and Calves they would have the words of Cheese and Butter added to take a way all questions about them 4. That no Seed of Hemp and Flax should be paid but such as are in the Bundle with the stalks of the Hemp and Flax as it was no otherwise I told them in the Order intended 5. Of Mortuaries was the last and greatest Controversie which being given heretofore as was alledged for praying for dead mens Souls it was by some said That it was against Law and Conscience to demand them now when such praying is held to be unlawful But generally the exception taken against the Order was That the poor only did suffer therein and therefore it was wished that a certainty might be laid down for all Mortuaries This is the substance of all that passed at that meeting since which I have attended divers times to see unto what issue these things might be brought at the Table And to be sure that nothing should be done therein in my absence I took with me your Graces Orders and the Commissioners Animadversions upon them and still detain them in mine own custody At last considering that it was your Graces pleasure that my Lord Chancellor should be made acquainted with this business before it came to the Table seeing by reason of his absence that could not then be done I thought it not amiss yesterday to move my Lord Deputy that things might be deferred until my Lord Chancellor's coming hither for now that my Lord Docwra is in England I think we shall not find any like affected unto us in this business as my Lord Deputy and Lord Chancellor have always shewed themselves to be My continual expectation of the ending of this matter hath occasioned the delay of my writing unto your Grace therein now as you shall be pleased to give me further direction I will either proceed in the same or forbear until we may have the benefit of my Lord Chancellor's presence While I was writing of this I received your Graces Letter brought by this Bearer together with his complaint made against Heglye and others in the prosecution of that suit I will according to your direction give order to my Official that these violent courses may be stayed until the truth of things upon further examination may appear I find more trouble with Mr. Heglye and Mr. Shepherd in causes of this nature than with all the Ministers in Meath beside and in truth my Lord unless some course be taken for restraining such unquiet spirits as these our whole Clergy will pessime audire for their sakes Yesterday I was fain my self to prefer a Petition to my Lord Deputy in the behalf of my Clergy that no Indictments might be permitted to proceed against them at the Assizes for matters of this kind but they might be referred to the Ecclesiastical Court unto which the cognisance of the right of Tithes doth properly appertain And I do discern at
Pitch Rabbi David Kimchy cites this Chaldaical Exposition and confirms it saying That all the Section is spoken against Edom that is Rome And Elias Levita in his Methurgaman in the word Roma cites the Chaldee Paraphrast so against Rome and so doth Munster All these follow the true and best Bumberges Bibles But in Buxtorffs Bibles lately set forth which follows the third Edition of Bumberg's Bibles that be purged there the word Rome is left forth in the Targum and in Kimchy's Comment and four times in Rabby Shelemaes and Kimchies Comments instead of the word Edom by which they mean Rome they have put the word Javan that is Greece and once the word Cuthith that is Samaria And in the 35th Chapter four times the word Cuthith Samaria So Rome is both Samaria and Greece and in other places Persia and a mess of Wax And on the 16th Verse of the 34th of Esay Kimchy comments thus Whosoever will see into the Destruction of Rome let him search over the Book of Jehova and wade in c. in Bumbergs Bibles But in Buxtorffs Bible you have no more but these words whosoever will see into leaving out the words of Kimchy the Destruction of Rome and doth not tell one that he must see for that they would have the Reader blind and not to see Rome's Fall which for all this their Legerdemain with Scholars must yet in the end be sacked with Sword and burnt with Fire for her Idolatry and Filthiness Rev. 17. Now for that the Romans came of the Edomites as himself saith on Obadiah And the Edomites came of Esun Gen. 36. 9. otherwise called Edom of his red Pottage Therefore they by Edom mean Rome and the Roman Antichrist whereof Esan was the type of his Brother Jacob the type to the Elect which agrees with that of the Apostles Rom. 9. Heb. 11. And again what can be plainer in Mysteries then to wrap up the thing typified in the name of the Type it self as is done in this word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Edom that is Rome the two Letters D and R which is very frequent in the Scripture being changed 15. Mat. 12. 36. But I say unto you That of every idle word that Men shall speak they shall give an account in the day of Judgment Maymon saith The Wise have said even the light and idle or wanton Speech that is in secret or private between the Husband and his Wife the Lord will give even Judgment upon that And Maymon saith that this was a Cabbala grounded on the 4th of Amos ver 13. Who declareth unto Man what is his secret Thought or Speech Mameshico the 70 have on purpose by a Metathesis or Transposition of Letters made thereof one word Hammeshico and translated it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 shewing unto Man that his Messiah or Christ. For that the Agadah Annunciation Evangelization of the Messiah to the Gentiles was one of the greatest Secrets of God reckoned up there by Annas It is one of the 13 places of Scripture which the 70 did of purpose change for the reason alledged as I conjecture It is not therefore a Corruption of the place as some do unjustly accuse them but a witty mutation and signification done by them of purpose to teach us Gentiles to know the Messiah who then when they translated this was unknown to us Mark how Christ still confutes the Rabbies of the Jews by the saying still of their own Talmudicks and here by an Argument taken à minore ad majus thus If a Man by the saying of your Doctors must give an account of every idle word much more for a Blasphemy but the first is true out of your Doctors ergo the second For Mat. 12. 24. they had spoken Blasphemy against Christ that he cast out Devils by Beelzebub which was the occasion Christ alledged this Talmudical Sentence against them 16. Mat. 5. 37. Christ having condemned the Jewish Rabbins for swearing teacheth them out of their own Books of Ethicks that swearing was forbidden in a Rabbi saying But let yoar Communication be yea yea and nay nay for whatsoever is more then these cometh of evil So James 5. 12. But above all things my Brethren swear not but let your yea be yea and your nay nay lest you fall into Condemnation Maymon in his Tractate of the Manners of the Rabbies Cap. 5. § 13. saith The Contracts or Commerce of the Scholar of a wise Man are in Truth and Fidelity he saith of that which is not so that it is not so and of that which is so that it is so he saith I I or No No Yea Yea or Nay Nay or of a negative No and of an affirmitive 1. 17. Acts 22. 3. I was brought up in this City saith Paul at the feet of Gamaliel and taught c. The latter expounds the former for Scholars were wont to sit on lower Seats at the Feet of their Masters Maymon in his Tractate of the Manners c. Cap. 6. Sect. 2. saith The Wise have charged saying Dust thy self in the dust of their Feet and drink with thirst their Words The Hebrew Verb 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies in pulvere seu arenam descendere as Virgil saith Fulva luctatur arena It is a Metaphor borrowed from Antagonists of the Olympian Games wrestling and striving together for Victory till they lay in the dust as Jacob did wrestle with God Gen. 32. 25. where this word is used he wrestled and strove with God till he lay in the dust again which also is interpreted of Prayer Hosea 12. 5. which overcomes God invincible Be ye holy as I am holy be ye merciful as your heavenly Father is merciful Maymon in his Tract Ethics Cap. 1. § 6. saith The wise Men have taught us thus what is meant by this that is called holy even this that thou shouldst be holy What is meant by this that God is called merciful◠even this that thou shouldst be also merciful Acts 2. 10. Mat. 23. 15. Wo unto you Scribes and Pharisees Hypocrites for ye compass Sea and Land to make one Proselite and when he is made ye make him twofold more the Child of Hell then your selves Maymon in his Tractate of Idolatry cap. 10. sect 4 6. tells us of the difference between 1. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an Israelite 2. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Stranger and 3. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Proselite who is also of two sorts 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Proselite of Righteousness a true Israelite indeed one of the Covenant who receiveth the 613 Precepts of Moses's Law and was received at all times after and was circumcised such were Shemagjah and Abtalian saith Maymon in his Preface 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is Proselites of Righteousness and Rabby Maiir 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is the Son of a righteous and true Proselite Such were the Sichemites Urias Hettaeus Achor
can Mr. Walker hath not Gersham nor any Comment on Daniel but the same that I have only he lent me 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and so I have read over the whole Tractate 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but there is not any word touching the duration of the Babylonian Kingdom or any other Kingdom It only handleth on what days the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is to be read and their Rites and Ceremonies I confess I read only the Text of Megillah I read not Rambanus nor Bartinorah's Comment for that would require many days and I found no one word in the Text tending any thing at all towards any such Matter and therefore my Lord I would be glad to know what Author referred you to that Tractate of Megillah or whether your Grace hath mistaken the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I humbly thank your Grace for your Lordship's last kindness unto me when I was at Much-Haddam for defraying my Charges at mine Inn. And now my Lord vetus conferendo beneficium invitas novum It hath pleased my Lord Carew who lieth at Nonesuch some mile and an half from Sutton before whose Honour I have often preached to be pleased to write his Letter to the Right Honourable my Lord Keeper Sir Thomas Coventry that he would be pleased at his Request to bestow a Benefice on me when any shall fall in his Gift And he was pleased moreover to send the Letter by Sir Thomas Stafford to my Lord Keeper to sollicit the Matter also by word of mouth And so I was there at Hampton-Court and presented my self to my Lord Keeper who gave me his hand and promised that within three months or sooner he assured himself he should provide for me And now my Lord my request is that your Grace would be pleased to write your Letter also unto my Lord Keeper in my behalf to this effect having relation to my Lord Carew's Precedent That whereas your Lordship is informed that my Lord Carew hath sollicited my Lord Keeper to bestow a Benefice on one Ralph Skynner Minister and Preacher of the Word at Sutton under Mr. Glover a Man of honest Life and Conversation and conformable to the Orders of our Church and so forth as it shall please your Lordship to write of me that you would be pleased to second my Lord Carew's Request effectually for that I am but mediocris fortunae Vir and have not means and maintenance to buy me Books and other Necessaries This your Grace's Letter in my behalf to my Lord Keeper if your Lordship would be pleased to send it before Christide inclosed in a Letter to Mr. Burnet's and to give me leave to seal it after I have read it it 's likely my Lord Keeper would remember me the sooner I have given my Lord Carew satisfaction in many Questions at sundry times of conference and especially in these three 1. That the Pope and Conclave be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 2. That the Points and Vowels were given by God from Sinai and not the invention of the Masorits 3. That the Hebrew Tongue is the most ancient Tongue and that Moses wrote in it and not in the Caldee and Egyptian and all this proved expresly out of the Text of the Scripture For which my Lord hath given me a greater commendation in the ancient Tongues to my Lord Keeper than I either have deserved or can answer unto And thus with my humble Service to your Grace I end 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Per Metathesin RADULPH SKYNNER London Decemb. 8. 1625. LETTER CVII A Letter from Mr. James White to the most Reverend James Usher Arch-bishop of Armagh Illustrissime Reverendissime Antistes QUòd venerandae Antiquitatis Monumenta quae meae curae non ita pridem conferenda credidit Dominatio vestra tardiùs multò quà m vellem ad umbilicum perduxerim est quod sperem apud tantum Candorem veniae locum me inventurum Quòd autem eo auspicio dicam an infortunio transacta sint ut neutiquam industriae meae specimen exhibendi nedum judicio vestro sublimi satisfaciendi copia fiat quicquid veniae audacia arrogaverit nullam fidenter sperari posse exploratum habeo Siquidem quod minimè dissimulandum existimavi vel ipsae liturae quibus inter scribendum imprudens indulsi incuriae me vel invitum coarguunt Quin inter sacras illas paginas conferendas semel atque iterum in ea loca incidi unde me facilè expedire non potui Intelligat obsecro Dominatio vestra Psalmos 117 147. Quo utroque in loco idem scrupulus eadem occurrit difficultas Utrobique enim Psalmi duo fronte satis distincti materiâ varii titulis etiam à se invicem diversi Identitatem numericam si ipsum Catalogum spectemus mirum in modum prae se ferunt Porrò naevo haud minore laborant Psalmi 145 146. ad quos liber ille typis excusus quem praeire voluisse expectavi claudus adeò inventus est ut id spatii meâ solius conjecturâ in versibus à nnotandis emetiri coactus fuerim Has istiusmodi densiores ingenii mei nebulas vestro benignè affulgente candore opportunè dispersum iri nullus dubito Colophonem imposuimus quatuor S. S. Evangeliis ante-Pentecosten coronidem pariter Actis Apostolorum si Deus dederit breve addituri Interim quà m sim obstrictus Dominationi vestrae quòd me indignum ullis negotiis hisce sacris dignatus fueris Praesul amplissime preces meae testatum faciant Deo Opt. Max. apud quem ardentissimis uti par est votis contendo ut Reverentiam vestram Ecclesiae suae columen diutissimè conservet Reverendissimae vestrae Dominationis Observantissimus Jacobus White Cantabrigiae ex Col. Sid. Nonas Junii 1626. LETTER CVIII A Letter from Mr. Samuel Ward to the most Reverend James Usher Arch-bishop of Armagh Most Reverend and my very good Lord I Received your Lordship's I understood by others this Commencement of your 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the Sermon before his Majesty as touching the repressing of the Arminian Faction God's Blessing be upon you for this good Service to opportunely performed I pray God his Majesty may have a true apprehension of the ensuing Danger I was told by some that notwithstanding the Proclamation Mr. Mountague was to set out a Book but I cannot say it for certain Mr. Whalley spoke to me above a month ago to write to your Lordship to leave Mr. Lively his Chronology with him and me and we would take care for the publishing thereof If your Lordship have not sent it away we desire it may be sent hither I had quite forgot in my last Letters to mention it I did your Lordship's Message to Mr. Chancy I have sent your Lordship the Book which Mr. Boys had as also his Transcript which he doth expect hereafter again Those Commencement-Affairs here so distracted me that I cannot recollect my self to bethink of some things which I would
you may live many heathful and happy Years I rest Your Grace's most humbly devoted Servant John Bainbridg Oxon. Octob. 3. 1626. LETTER CXI A Letter from Mr. Thomas Davis to the most Reverend James Usher Arch-bishop of Armagh Most Reverend Sir AFter I had writ the former Lines came to my hands your Lordship's Letter of the 31th of July from Oxford whereto I have given due perusal and thereby take notice that your Grace hath received mine of the 16th of January with the Books sent you by the Ship Patience of London being very glad thereof but more joy ful that your Lordship finds such content in them being sorry that I am not able to perform to the full what you desire The Patriarch's Name that sold me the Books of Moses is Jesu Jáb which in the Chaldee Tongue is as much as to say Jesus give me And whereas I writ he was a Jacobite I pray take notice that he is a Nestorian and hath his residence in Emite and Zert and continually comes to this Town to visit them that are of that Heresy His promise to me he hath not kept neither could I ever hear from him since he sent me that Book now in your Lordships possession yet I caused divers Letters to be writ to him and at this present have given order to write to him again But as I often writ to your Grace those Books are rare especially in the Chaldean Tongue and Character the greatest part of the Chaldee Books are written in the Arab Character which I think you would not have nor esteem As for the remainder of the Old Testament in the Chaldee I have sent a Man to Mount Libanus to take a Copy thereof intending to send you the whole Old Testament in one Volume notwithstanding I know you have the Books of Moses and the Psalms those you have are old Copies and this will be a new Transcript presuming your Lordship will not think much of the Charge which if I had excepted would have been very little less than now it will be And as for the Samaritan Books in the hands of the Damasceen Spahee I will use my best diligence to find him out again and redeem them at as easy a rate as I can And so continue my care in accomplishing your Lordship's Will in every thing desiring the benefit of your particular Prayers And so fearing to be further troublesom to your Grace humbly take my leave and remain Your Graces most humbly to command Thomas Davis Aleppo Novemb. 14. 1626. English Account The 14th day of the 3d Month of the Turkish Account and the 1036 of Mahomet The Turks and Moors begin their Month when they first see the Moon after the Change LETTER CXII A Letter from Mr. Alexander Cook to the most Reverend James Usher Arch-bishop of Armagh My good Lord IAcknowledg my self much bounden unto you for your Letter sent me from Liverpool in your return to Ireland Yet I confess I had not from this place where now I am returned you thanks but that I was desirous to acquaint you with an Accident lately fallen out some Circumstances whereof I had better occasion to know than many my betters It concerneth my Lady Faukland She within this fortnight hath declared her self to be a Papist One of the Priests who perverted her goeth under the Name of Fitz Gerard though his true Name is George Pettinger a York-shire Man an idle pâ—ating Companion and a Serving-man not many years ago a frequenter of Baudy-Houses and a Cozener of Trades-men in London as I my self in part know and as I am credily informed by Sir Tho. Savile to whom he was well known and by some Gentlemen of his own Kindred Mr. Mountague Mr. Coseâ—s and the Colledg as it is called at Durham-house are sensible of the disgrace which they sustain by reason of her fall Mr. Mountague told her That dying an English Papist she died in the state of Damnation Mr. Coosens told her That she had sinned damnably in departing from that Church wherein she was born and baptized before she had consulted with the Governors thereof Besides Mr. Coosens gave her a few Notes which she sent unto her Priest to answer whose Answer came to my hands and in my poor Opinion was a very silly one Yet Mr. Coosens would not reply but took his farewel of the Lady without purpose of ever visiting her again She protested that if ever she turned again she will turn Puritan not Moderate Protestant as she phraseth it for Moderate Protestants viz. Mr. Coosens c. are farther from Catholicks than Puritans And thus much concerning her who for any thing I know is neither fallen from Grace nor to Grace Here is 15000 l. offered as it 's said for the Bishoprick of Winchester by the Dean of Winchester And some say it is worth it for he may make of the Leases at his first entrance 10000 l. The other Bishopricks are rated proportionably and destinated to Men of corrupt Minds Dr. Laud is Dean of the Chappel and Dr. White Bishop of Carlisle Chamierus is lately come forth against Bellarmine they are sold as fast as they come over But Mr. Fetherston looks daily for 40 more of which I hope to have one The Papists brag that God hath not shewed himself a Hugonite for these three years last past They have great hopes but I trust their hopes shall perish Yet wise Men are afraid of what may follow and are more inquisitive than heretofore to know Whether Dotage may not be wrought by Sorcery I shall be glad to see your second part of the Succession of Christian Churches or any thing else of yours against the common Adversary Your Lordship had need now to do something for few go with a right foot and the Enemies are many I thought all this while I had been writing to Mr. Usher which made me write so carelesly but ere-now my Memory serves to tell me that it is my Lord Primat of Armagh to whom I ought to have written more respectively yet I cannot find in my heart to burn what I have written but to pass it a way as it is not doubting of a pardon from your Lordship if for no other respect yet for this that I live in the North where we know not well what Manners mean And so with remembrance of my humble Duty and Service I rest Your Lordship 's poor welwiller A. Cook Lond. Nov. 30. 1626. LETTER CXII A Letter from the most Reverend James Usher Arch-bishop of Armagh to the Right Honourable the Lord Deputy Falkland May it please your Lordship MY diligence hath not been wanting either in treating with my Lords the Bishops when they were present or in writing unto them when they were absent touching the Augmentation and the present paiment of the Loan-monies demanded of the Clergy in the Province of Armagh The Augmentation with one Voice they did deny alledging that your Lordship in your Letters directed unto them did not
Incitation hath so happily planted in the Diocess of Armagh by making the Rectories that did belong to the Vicars Chorals of Armagh to be Lay-fee unto which Incumbents have been hitherto by his Majesties own Direction still presented and the Livings also taxed with payment of First-fruits as all other presentative Livings are Dawson is a Man so notoriously branded for his lewd Carriage that I dare not trust him with the keeping of the Records or suffer him any ways to intermeddle with the businesses of the Church To see therefore whether I can fairly rid my hands of him I have made a grant of his places unto others and so left them to the trial of their Titles by course of Law Which hath so incensed Dawson that he laboureth now by his Emissary Chase to disgrace me in Court with all the Calumnies that his wicked Heart can devise Wherein I doubt not but your Grace as occasion shall require will be ready to stand for me in my just defence As for the general state of things here they are so desperate that I am afraid to write any thing thereof Some of the adverse part have asked me the question Where I have heard or read before that Religion and Mens Souls should be set to sale after this manner unto whom I could reply nothing but that I had read in Mantuan that there was another place in the World where Coelum est venale Deusque I procured a meeting of all the Prelates at my House who with one voice protested against these Courses and subscribed this Protestation of theirs with their hands But forasmuch as we knew that the Project was wonderful distastful unto the Papists themselves we contained our selves in publick and suffered the Breach to come from their side I know their Agents are not asleep at Court but our hope is that your Grace is as vigilant there to make opposition unto their Practices and to advise of some other course to give the King content which may be more for his honour and the good of the Church All which I humbly leave unto your Grace's sage Consideration and evermore rest Your Graces ready to do you all Service Ja. Armachanus Drogheda February 9. 1626. LETTER CXVII A Letter from Dr. Ward to the most Reverend James Usher Arch-bishop of Armagh Most Reverend and my very good Lord MY best Service premised c. I received your Lordship's last Letters to me dated from Leverpool and have heard by others since of your Lordship's safe arrival in Ireland As touching Sir Gerard Harvy I have been with him at Hadham since and have had Letters once or twice about his business from him I consulted with Mr. Whalley and wrote to Sir Gerard what Fine will be expected besides his coming in Rent-corn which he is willing to pay The Fine will be about 200 l. for renewing his Lease and adding of ten Years to the time he hath about Easter he will be with us about it I am sorry your Lordship missed of that Epistle of Chrysostom ad Caesarium Monachum at Oxford I was in good hope your Lordship would have hit upon it It is to be feared it is purloin'd away I received Mr. Boys his variae lectiones in Liturgiam Basilii which your Lordship left to be sent him I spake with Mr. Patrick Young who telleth me that Sirmondus hath all Fronto's Papers and that he is in hand with Theodoret and that after he is set out I shall have my Transcript upon the Psalms He saith your Lordship hath the Greek Transcript of Euthymius I have seen Athanasius Graecol newly set forth at Paris it hath some Homilies added by one Holstein but it wanteth the varia lectiones which are in Coâ—mâ—lin's Edition Eusebius in three Volumes Graecol is daily expected but not yet come Dr. White now Bishop of Carlisle hath sold all his Books to Hills the Broker His Pretence is the charge of Carriage so far by Land and the danger by Water Some think he paid for his Place I did hear of his Censure of your Lordship which I would not have believed but that I heard it credibly reported about the time of your Lordship's departure hence Sundry Bishopricks are still remaining unbestowed The Precedent is not good Concerning Court and Commonwealth-affairs here I suppose you have better Information than my Pen can afford I would I could be a Messenger by my Letter of better news than any I hear here The 25th of January deceased your good Friend and mine Mr. Henry Alvey at Cambridge I was with him twice when he was sick the first time I found him sick but very patient and comfortable He earnestly prayed that God would give him Patience and Perseverance The later time I came he was in a slumber and did speak nothing I prayed for him and then departed Shortly after he departed this Life He desired to be buried privatly and in the Church-yard and in a Sheet only without a Coffin for so said he was our Saviour But it was thought fitting he should be put in a Coffin and so he was I was at his interring the next day at night Thus God is daily collecting his Saints to himself The Lord prepare us all for the Dies accensionis as St. Cyprian stileth it Since the decease of Dr. Walsall Dr. Goslin our Vice-Chancellor and Dr. Hill Master of Katherine-Hall are both dead In their places succeed in Bennet-Colledg Dr. Butts in Caius-Colledg Mr. Bachcroft one of the Fellows in Katherine-Hall Mr. Sibbs of Grays-Inn Concerning the place of Chrysostom Homilia de Encaeniis which you mention in your last Letters I cannot write now as I would I having not my Book by me My last Lecture was touching it I see a great difference in the Reading between the reading in the Manuscript of New-Colledg in Oxon which Sir H. Savill printed and the reading in M. Baraciro which is in the Notes of Sir H. Savill The Latin Translation is answerable to that of New-Colledg That speech 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 gave occasion I think to Damascene to say the like Though I do somewhat suspect some corruption by later Grecians in that Point especially Origen writing to the contrary as you know in Matth. 15. In the similitude following from Wax the words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is translated in the Latin Translation nihil remanet substantiae contrary as I conceive to the Greek for it should be nihil substantiae perdit For 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 est aliquid substantiae perdo It is not easy to conceive the sense of that Similitude both for the Protasis and Apodosis But of this when I come home at better leasure I do purpose God willing in my Determinations when I shall dispute upon any to go in the Point of Free-will for that as I conceive it is the chief ground of the rest of the Errors maintained by the Remonstrants or at least of most of them I have been here above a fortnight
and Physick and attend only to the ordering of one poor Colledg of Divines whereas with a little more labour and a few Priviledges attained a great many more good Wits might have been allured to study and seasoned with Piety and made Instruments for the bringing in Learning Civility and Religion into that Country I did communicate the Plat to my Lord of Canterbury at my first being with him especially in that Point of admitting all Students that should be matriculated though they lodg in Dublin in private Houses and of the four Faculties with their several Promoters c. who seemed not to dislike it but required it should be maturely thought of by your Grace and the University and promised his assistance if it were found fit At that time I left with him the Statutes of our Colledg which I had this Winter written out with mine own hand and caused to be fair bound He retained them with him till the very morning of my departing from London At which time he signified his good approbation of the whole only accounted that too strait for the Provost's absence but six weeks whereas many Causes there would be which would require longer discontinuance I shewed his Grace that Colledg-Business was excepted and that we had not innovated any thing in that Statute it being so before my Election Another Point he disliked was touching Students wearing Gowns always in the Colledg and if it might be when they went into the Town Whereas that of all other said he would have been provided for I answereth The Streets in Dublin were very foul and that by the Statutes Scholars were not permitted to go ordinarily into the Town without their Tutors consent He said they might if the Streets were never so foul take their Gowns under their Arms. I told him that this was also an old Statute e're I came there With the occasion I told his Grace of the new Stirs I heard of in the Colledg for even but the day before I had understood by other Mens Letters more perfectly of my Lord Deputy's putting in certain Fellows and of their displacing of Mr. Lloyd by your Grace and the Visitors whereof I had no intelligence till then save by Rumors only I added of mine own fears that I should make a very ill Pilot in so rough Seas He perswaded me to go on using that Verse Tu ne cede malis c. I told him of my deafness and that the Law not allowing surdum procuratorem how could it be but absurd in the Provost of such a Society He told me that was not so great a matter for a great many did male andire He bad me not be dismayed representing to me the future Reward I told him indeed if that were not I had little eneouragement sith neither I should for ought I saw have the Maintenance for the Lecture which I was put in hope of nor retain the Title of my Benefice only renouncing the Profits To that he said there was no question I might that I had not beneficium and he would maintain it to any Man c. With these Discourses having brought his Grace from his Chamber to his Barge I recommended my self to his Prayers The same morning e're my departure I wrote to Dublin amongst others to Mr. Lloyd endeavouring to let him see his Fault and to keep him from being hardned in it At my return home I found one of my Sons yet afflicted with an Ague which hath held him these six weeks and the Ways being not yet fit for travel the Spring having been very late and winterly I have resolved to attend your Grace's Letters both in answer to my Case propounded in my Letters of September and of my last from London wherein I did put my place there wholly in your disposition and if you think it may be more to the good of the Colledg and Church there that I forgo it did and do again by these Presents absolutely resign it into your hands or the hands of them whom it may concern Your Grace may be pleased to consider seriously my insufficiency which by my last being there partly by your own experience and the report of others you may have understood to be more than perhaps you imagined before And by these new Accidents you may perceive the need the Colledg hath of a more able Head I have ever liked and loved to proceed by that good old Form Ut inter bonos bene ageir c. I have seen it written from thence that you and other wise Men account me a weak Man and in truth I do know my self so to be Do not the Colledg that wrong to clog it with me hitherto iâ— hath received no great damage and these new Broils may serve fitly as a good occasion to cover my defectiveness I may without any disgrace and with much content fit still That which Annibal when in the Common-Council at Carthage he plâ—cked down a turbulent Orator that stood up to disswade a necessary Peace said to excuse his uncivility That the Feats of War he had meetly learned but the Fashions of the City he was to be taught by them I would crave leave to invert the Arâ— of dutiful Obedience and just ruling also in part I did for 17 years endeavour to learn under that good Father Dr. Chaderton in a well temper'd Society the câ—â—nning tricks of paching siding bandying and 〈◊〉 with and between great Men I confess my self ignorant in and am now I fear too old to be taught And me thinks the Society it self like to the Frogs in the Tale weary of the Block set over them esteem the neither worthy to be acquainted with the Colledg-Affairs nor so much as answered in mine own and wherein they do extreamly wrong not me only but your Grace also as I verily believe do keep your Letters from me I wish them a more active Governor Concluding I be send your Grace vouchsafe me your last resolution for my coming or stay and esteem 〈◊〉 as you shall ever truly Your Grace's humble Servant in Christ Jesus W. Bedell Horningerth April the 15th 1628. LETTER CXXVII A Letter from Dr. Samuel Ward to the most Reverend James Usher Arch-bishop of Armagh at Tredagh Most Reverend and my very good Lord THough I must needs acknowledg my neglect in writing or forgetfulness or both since your last going into Ireland yet now I could have no further pretext for the omission of that Duty by which I am obliged by no few Bonds especially having such conveniency of sending by my most worthy Friend with whom I am most loth to part but that upon higher considerations I conceive God may use him as an Instrument of much good in that place if God send him health and life I assure your Lordship I know not where you could have pitched upon a Man every way so qualified for such a place He is a sincere honest Man not tainted with avarsee of ambition pious
First For that they gave me assurance of your Recovery then that among your weighty Affairs of Church and Common-wealth you should descend to think on me so remote in Application to your Lordship though no Man nearer in Affection and Devotion I register it in my Memorials of your Goodness as also your sending to me the Copy of the Synod of St. Patrick which I much desired and many thanks to your Lordship for it Touching the Books it pleased you to require my help in procuring them by some of my Friends and Kindred in France your Grace knoweth that all intercourse between us and them is now stopped up Yet have I taken order with Mr. Boswell who is gone over with my Lord of Carlisle and to pass near Province that if any opportunity may serve he will endeavour to procure them and my Son who is gone after them shall put him in mind of it It is said that my Lord of Carlisle having treated beyond the Sea with the States of the Low-Countries and not satisfied in their Answer hath left some Protestation against them as he passed from them and that the States have done the like against us I hope it is not true we have Enemies enow I suppose your Lordship would gladly hear how the great Orb of State moveth here in Parliament your own and many others depending on it And I would very willingly have been the first that should have done you that Service if the Messenger had staid a day or two longer that we might have seen the Event For all hangeth yet in suspence but the Points touching the Right of the Subject in the Property of their Goods and to be free from imprisonment at the King's Pleasure or without lawful cause expressed upon the Commitment hath been so seriously and unanswerably proved and concluded by the Lower House that they have cast their Sheat Anchor on it and will not recede from any tittle of the Formality proposed in their Petition of Right touching the same The Upper House hath in some things dissented from them proposing a Caution to be added to the Petition for preservation of the King 's Soveraign Prerogative which the Lower House affirms they have not rub'd upon in ought that of right belongeth to it Yet will they not admit that Addition lest it impeach the whole intent of their Petition Wherein they are so resolute that having upon Thursday last admirably evinced the Right of the Subjects in every part thereof at a Conference with the Upper House they refused to meet the Lords the day following in a Committee required by them for qualification as was conceived Thereupon the Lords spent Saturday in debate among themselves but concluded nothing that we hear of It is reported the Lord Say did then speak very freely and resolutely on behalf of the Subject with some unpleasing rubs upon the Duke there present but by others interposition all was well expounded What this Day will produce Night must relate And of what I have written I have nothing but by hear-say for I am no Parliament-man My Lord of Denbigh with the Navy that went for the rescue of Rochel is returned without blow or blood-draught It is said their Commission gave them not sufficient Warrant to fight and one Captain Clark suspected in Religion is committed to the Gatehouse for disswading them Thus praying for your Health and Happiness I rest Your Grace's most humbly devoted in all Service Henry Spelman Barbacan May 26. 1628. LETTER CXXIX A Letter from J. King to the most Reverend James Usher Arch-bishop of Armagh Most Reverend and my especial good Lord TWo things do occasion me to write to your Lordship the one to show the continuance of my dutiful and best respect to your Lordship which I have born to your Lordship ever since your Childhood which indeed descended first from your Father who loved me always in his life-time as I did him truly and faithfully The other is upon some mislike I understand your Lordship hath conceived of the Lord Camfield my Son-in-Law which indeed I am sorry for for I never found him but honest and religious I know he may have ill Instruments about him and the World is full of Pick-thanks and such as usually do lewd Offices amongst Men of Place and Quality But if your Lordship would please to take him into your favour and upon any occasion if any happen to make known to him what is or may be reported to your Lordship of any of his miscarriages or unfriendly dealings towards your Lordship I would not doubt of his conformity and giving of your Lordship meet satisfaction and this is my Suit and Petition to your Lorship for of all Men in that Kingdom I do wish him and all others that are my Friends to be serviceable and respective to your Lordship and for my self so long as it shall please God to give me Life I will pray for your Lordship which is all the Service I can do you Our worthy Bishop here who I have found here ever since I came hither a worthy Friend and a godly Pastor and Pillar of the Church hath many times and often most kindly remembred your Lordship and surely he is as good a Man as may be yet in this Parliament which is yet scarcely ended some have conceited not so well of him as before but who can or doth escape the malice of wicked Men this being the last and worst Age of the World and surely for all crying and notorious Sins as Whoredom Lying Swearing and Drunkenness I am perswaded that now our own Nation is become the very worst of any in the Christian World which makes me much afraid that God Almighty hath some heavy Judgment a preparing for us It is certain that in Spain are wondrous great preparations for War especially for Sea-Service which some think is rather for Denmark and those Eastern parts than for us and the rather it is conjectured of because Monsieur Oillur lies yet with a great Army of above 60000 Men about Stoade Hambourgh and other parts If his Fleet come on this Summer as it is thought it will and pass the Narrow Seas unfought withal and unbeaten by us it is to be feared that Spain and France or one of them will next land upon our Continent and sit down and fortify being hopeful as it may be well imagined of aid from English Papists whereof the Kingdom is too well stored Rochel is much doubted cannot long hold out and then there is little hope of any Mercy from the King of France which would be a woful case to have so many poor Souls put to the Sword It is thought his Majesty would relieve them if these Subsidies could come in time And it is to be wished now that his Majesty had never medled with them for in the beginning they were well provided to have made their own Peace It is strange to be believed how this Kingdom is weakned by the
all Monuments of Antiquity hath emboldned me at this time to put your Lordship in mind of a present occasion which may much conduce to the general good of all of us that employ our Studies in this kind of Learning That famous Library of Giâ—cono Barocci a Gentleman of Venice consisting of 242 Greek Manuscript Volumes is now brought into England by Mr. Fetherstone the Stationer Great pity it were that such a Treasure should be dissipated and the Books dispersed into private hands If by your Lordship's mediation the King's Majesty might be induced to take them into his own hand and add there unto that rare Collection of Arabick Manuscripts which my Lord Duke of Buckingham purchased from the Hens of Erpenius it would make that of his Majestys a Royal Library indeed and make some recompence of that incomparable loss which we have lately sustain'd in the Library of Heidelberg We have 〈◊〉 a poor return unto your Lordship of our Commission in the business of Pbeliâ— Mâ—â— Fâ—â—gh Birr and his Sons And because the directions which we received 〈◊〉 the Lords required the dispatch thereof with all convenient expedition 〈◊〉 we have made more haste I fear than good speed fully purposing in our selves that the examination which 〈…〉 taken should have come unto your 〈…〉 your Lordships Resolutions 〈…〉 have been notified before the beginning of Hilâ—â—y Teâ—m That things have fallen out otherwiseâ— iâ— that I confess wherein we shall be hardly 〈…〉 â—â—â— selves 〈…〉 that this important Business might in such 〈◊〉 be 〈…〉 that the Honour and Dignity of his Majesty 〈…〉 might withal be very tenderly respected for the least shew of 〈…〉 that may 〈…〉 he given from thence 〈◊〉 Authority will add encouragement to such â—â— are too apt to 〈…〉 his Majesty's Ministers here from being so forward as otherwise they would be in prosecution of such publick Services of the State Which I humbly leave unto your Lordship's deeper consideration and evermore rest Your Honour 's in all dutiful Service ready to be commanded Ja. Armachanst Dublin Jan. 22. 1628. LETTER CXXXIV A Letter from the Right Reverend William Laud Bishop of London to the most Reverend James Usher Arch-bishop of Armagh My very good Lord I Have received your Grace's second Letters and with the Letters from Dr. Barlow a Man known to me only by Name and good Report I have upon receipt of these a second time humbly presented Dr. Barlow's Suit to his Majesty with all fair representation to his Majesty of the necessity of a good Commendam to the Arch-bishop of Tuam And tho in my judgment I hold it very unfit and of ill both Example and Consequence in the Church to have a Bishop much more an Arch-bishop retain a Deanery in Commendam Yet because there is as I am informed much service to be done for that Arch-bishop and because I have conceived this Man will do that Service for so he hath assumed and because much of that Service must be done at Dublin where that Deaury will the better fit him as well for House as Charge and because it is no new thing in that Country to hold a Deanry with a Bishoprick I made bold to move his Majesty for it and his Majesty is graciously pleased to grant it and I have already by his Majesty's special Command given order to Sir Hen. Holcross to send Letters to my Lord Deputy to this purpose But there two things his Majesty commanded me to write to your Lordship The one that young Men be not commended to him for Bishops The other that he shall 〈◊〉 be drawn again to grant a Deanry in Commendam Any other Preferment though of more value he shall be content to yield I am glad I have been able to serve your Grace's desires in this Business And for Dr. Barlow I with him joy but must desire your Lordship to excuse my not writing to him for between Parliament and Term I have not lenure So I leave you to the Grace of God and shall ever rest Your Graces loving Friend and Brother Guil. London Jan. 29. 1628. My Lord Arch-bishop of Tak Dr. Barlow's 〈…〉 that was is of my 〈◊〉 for holding a 〈…〉 LETTER CXXXV A Letter from Dr. William Bedell to the most Reverend James Usher Arch-bishop of Armagh at Drogheda Right Reverend Father my honourable good Lord SInce your Graces departure from Dublin I began to peruse the Papers you left me of Dr. Ghaloner's hand about the first foundation of the Colledg which although in some places I cannot read word for word yet I perceive the sense and have transcribed so far as they go without interruption But they refer to some Copies of Letters which I have not nor yet are in our Chest as namely the City's Letter to Queen Elizabeth and the Lord Deputy and Comisales and hers to the Lord Deputy here for the founding of the Colledg All which if they might be had would be inserted into the History of the Colledg ad Verbum And which is worse the third Duernion is wholly missing noted it seems in the Front with the Figure 3. This makes me bold to write to your Grace to search if you can find any thing more of this Argument that there may be somewhat left to Posterity concerning the beginnings of so good a Work I have also since your Grace's departure drawn a Form of the Confirmation of our Rectories from the Bishop of Clougher in conformity to two Instruments viz. the Resignation of George Montgomery sometime Bishop thereof and Derry and Rapho and our Colledg Patent I have used all the means I can to know whether any Predecessor of your Grace did in like manner resign into the King's Hands any Patronages within your Diocess and what their Names be which if I could understand I would entreat your Grace to go before in your Diocess and to be our Patron in the soliciting the other Bishops to follow in theirs I send your Grace the form of the Confirmation and the Names of the Rectories in our Patent referring the rest to your wisdom and love to the Colledg This is a Business of great importance to this Society and hath already been deferred so long and Mr. Usher's sudden taking away to omit my Lord of Kilmore admonishes me to work while the day lasts Another Business there is which enforceth me to have recourse to your Grace which is this Yesterday as I was following Mr. Usher's Funeral there was delivered me a Letter from my Lord Chancellor containing another to his Lordship from Mr. Lloyd together 〈◊〉 a Note which I send herewith He demandeth of the Colledg not only his Diâ—t in his absence which the Statute expresly denies to a Fellow and which a your Grace and the Visitors intended to grant him you did him a Favour instead of a Punishment but Wages for being a Prime-Lecturer whereas his Year came out at Midsummer and he had till then his Allowance although he performed not the
Privy Counsellor who was present and assistant in all the Consultations about setting it forth and privy to the Resolutions of the Board thereupon But since this is come to my hands from another I do hereby pray and authorize your Lordship calling to your assistance Mr. Justice Philpot who is now resident there to enter into a serious examination of the Premises and to give me a full information of what you find thereof by the first opportunity So desiring to be remembred in your daily Prayers I am Your Lordship 's very affectionate Friend Falkland Dublin-Castle Apr. 14. 1629. LETTER CXL A Letter from Mr. Philpot to the most Reverend James Usher Arch-bishop of Armagh My good Lord I Have had some Conference with my Lord Deputy about those Matters wherein your Grace and I were lately imployed he telleth me that this day he will advise with the Counsel upon the Informations sent by us and afterwards will take such course therein as shall be thought fit His Lordship insisteth much upon that part of Mr. Sing's Information where he saith That the Titulary Bishop of Rapho did make a Priest at a publick Mass in an Orchard He saith That the said Bishop is as dangerous a Fellow here in Ireland as Smith is in England and that he hath good Bonds upon him and would be glad to this occasion to call him in and therefore I pray your Grace to wish Mr. Sing to be ready to make good his Accusation for the said Bishop is bound not to exercise Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction I told my Lord Deputy how careful you were to see him before his going from hence and that your Grace intended to make a journey of purpose hither having now no other business here He told me that if your Grace had any such purpose that you need not make any great haste for he hoped to have time enough before his going to make some good progress in the Business begun concerning the Jesuits and their Houses c. and that he had not his Summons yet to go away which could not come till the Wind turned and if it came then he said he would stay ten days after at the least in which your Grace may have notice time enough to perform your desire I told my Lord that your Grace was somewhat troubled at his Letter for which he was sorry and blamed his Secretary protesting he did not intend to give your Grace any cause of discontent His Lordship told me that the News of Mantua is true which is relieved and the French King returned but there is no certainty but a common report of any Peace concluded with France I shall be ready upon all occasions to do your Lordship any acceptable Service and will for ever remain Your Grace's faithful Servant Jo. Philpot. Dublin April 27. 1629. LETTER CXLI A Letter from the Lord Deputy c. to the most Reverend James Usher Arch-bishop of Armagh After our right hearty Commendations to your Lordship BY your Letters of the 6th of this Instant which we the Lord Deputy thought fit to communicate to the Council we perceive and do well approve the care and pains you have taken as well in searching out the truth of the Matter concerning the Titulary Bishop of Raphae as in endeavouring to inform your self of the Proprietors and Possessors of the Popish Conventual-Houses in that Town Touching the Titulary Bishop we rest satisfied by your Lordship 's said Letters that at that time he did no publick Act nor gave Orders to any But as yet remain unsatisfied whether there were any great Assembly of People at that Meeting and what Persons of Note were among them wherein we desire to receive further satisfaction from your Lordship As to their Conventual-Houses we have given his Majesty's Attorney-General a Copy of the Paper enclosed in your Letters to us and gave him direction to put up Informations in his Majesty's Court of Exchequer against the Proprietors and Possessors of those Houses that thereby way may be made to such further course of proceeding as the several Cases shall require And this being all for the present we bid your Lorship very heartily farewel From his Majesty's Castle of Dublin May 15. 1629. Your Lordship 's very loving Friends H. Falkland A. Loftus Canc. Anth. Midensis Hen. Docwra W. Parsons Tyringham LETTER CXLII A Letter from the Right Reverend William Laud Bishop of London to the most Reverend James Usher Arch-bishop of Armagh My very good Lord I Am glad Mr. Bedell's Preferment gives your Grace such contentment Your former Letter came safe to my hands so did your second I see nothing is so well done but Exceptions can fret it for I hear that which I looked not for concerning Mr. Bedell's Preferment whole Name was never put to the King till both the other Competitors were refused by his Majesty as too young Ardagh is not forgotten in the Letter for since upon receipt of your Lordship's last Letters I spake with Sir Hen. Holcroft about it Beside those of your Lordship's I have received Letters from Mr. Bedell and from the Fellows about their freedom of election of a Provost My Lord his Majesty would fain have a Man to go on where Mr. Bedell leaves I am engaged for none I heartily love Freedoms granted by Charter and would have them maintained If they will return which are come hither and all agree or a major part upon a worthy Man that will serve God and the King I will give them all the assistance I can to keep their Priviledg whole The King likes wondrons well of the Irish Lecture begun by Mr. Bedell and the course of sending such young Men as your Grace mentions I hope before our Committee for the establishment of Ireland end I shall find a time to think of the Remedy your Lordship proposes about scandalous Ministers in which or any other Service I shall not be wanting For the particulars concerning Clark I have your inclosed and if he stir any thing while I am present you shall be sure I will do you right Now my Lord I have answered all your Letter save about the Arch-bishop of Cassa's for the old Dean I have done all I am able for that reverend and well-deserving Gentleman but the King's Majesty hath been possessed another way and it seems upon like removes hereafter will move more than one And at this time he will give Cassils to my Lord of Clougher if he will take it and so go on with another to succeed him of whom he is likewise resolved And who shall be Cassils if my Lord of Clougher refuse There is nothing which the Dean of Cassils can have at this time unless he will with a good commendam be content to take Kilfanora To which tho I do not perswade yet I would receive his Answer And I add it will be a step for him to a better As for Betts the Lord-Elect that was he hath lapsed it by not proceeding to
service to your Grace I rest Your Grace's in all duty W. Kilmore Kilmore Decemb. 28. 1629. LETTER CL. A Letter from L. Robinson to the most Reverend James Usher Arch-bishop of Armagh My honourable and most dear Lord MY poor Prayers to God shall never be wanting for the continuance and increase of your Lordship's Health and all true Happiness nor my serviceable and thankful Affections for all your noble Favours done to me and mine I forbear to treat with my Lord of Kilmore altogether about any of those things which are divulged under his hand being perswaded his Desires were only to do good and assured himself sees his expectation fail in them partly by the Apology he made for himself amongst his Ministers gathered together in the Church of Kilmore at the inhibiting of Mr. Cook where he shewed much grief that there were divers scandalous Reports rais'd of him As that he was a Papist an Arminian an Equivocator Politician and traveller into Italy that he bow'd his Knee at the Name of Jesus pull'd down the late Bishop's Seat because it was too near the Altar preached in his Surplice c. There generally he affirmed his education in Christian Religion and his love to the Truth shewing the Reasons of his Travels and the Use of the Ceremonies not to hinder any Man's liberty of Conscience nor urge Conscience but as he had voluntarily practis'd them in England for the good of some others so here Some things he denied and others he shew'd Reasons for so that he gave us all good satisfaction and we hope we shall have much comfort in him Yet 't is true he sent a strange Absolution to an Irish Recusant in a Letter using many good Instructions for the Man was sick in this form If you be content to receive Christ and believe in him by the Authority which is given to me I absolve you from all your Sins you have confessed to Almighty God and are truly contrite for in the Name of the Father Son and Holy Ghost Amen Thus craving pardon for being troublesome to your Grace I take leave and will ever rejoice to remain Your Lordship 's poor Servant to be commanded Lau. Robinson Farnh Jan. 18. 1629. LETTER CLI A Letter from Sir Henry Bourgchier to the most Reverend James Usher Arch-bishop of Armagh Most Reverend in Christ and my very good Lord I Did very lately presume to present my Service to your Grace by my Servant whom I sent into Ireland whose return from thence I expect very shortly and by him to hear at least of your Grace's Health and welfare than which no news can be more welcome to me Your Friends here as many as I know are all well Sir Rob. Cotton is not altogether free of his Trouble but he and his Friends hope he shall shortly Mr. Selden is also a Prisoner in the King's-Bench but goes abroad when he pleaseth so that his Friends enjoy him often I hope we shall have his Titles of Honour very shortly At Paris there is ready to come forth the King of Spain's Bible that was It will be now in ten Volumes whereas the other was but in eight and much fairer than the other as they say that have seen it which I think can hardly be Here is little News at this present The French Army is gone into Italy commanded by the Cardinal Richleau The Imperialists are so terrified with their coming that they have raised the Siege of Mantua and drawn themselves into the Dutchy of Milan for the defence thereof There is a Treaty of Peace there and in the Low-Countries of a Truce between the King of Spain and the States and the Spanish Ambassador is here about the same Business and ours in Spain And these several Treaties depend so one upon another that it is thought it will either prove a general Peace or a general War I wrote to your Grace in my former Letter of Mr. Vossius being here in England Within these two days I heard from him by Mr. Junius his Brother-in-law who went over with him He liked his entertainment so well in England that he hath now a good mind to settle himself here Concerning our own poor Country I can say nothing only that the Business of Philim Mac Teagh is in question which I mention the rather because your Grace had your part in it as a Commissioner The King hath sat two days already with the Lords and heard it with great patience and attention My Lord of Falkland as I hear hath ended his part which was to answer the Certificate and Report of the Commissioners in Ireland as far as it touched himself Sir Henry Beatinges part is next when those have done the other side shall have liberty to reply I cannot hear any speech of a new Deputy I believe the Government will continue as it is and the rather because it is a saving way which these Times do easily hearken unto I have sent your Grace here inclosed something that hath been lately done concerning the Church of England I doubt not but your Grace hath received it from other hands but I thought good to adventure it howsoever I intend with God's Assistance to be in Ireland about the midst of March at the farthest If your Grace desire any thing from hence I shall willingly conveigh it to you and if they be Books I can do it conveniently because I carry many of my own I will desire your Grace to esteem me in the number of those who most reverence and honour you and will ever approve himself Your Grace's most affectionate Friend and humble Servant Henry Bourgchier London Jan. 21. 1629. LETTER CLII. A Letter from the Right Reverend William Bedell Bishop of Kilmore to the most Reverend James Usher Arch-bishop of Armagh Most Reverend Father my honourable good Lord THE report of your Grace's indisposition how sorrowful it was to me the Lord knows albeit the same was somewhat mitigated by other News of your better Estate In that fluctuation of my mind perhaps like that of your Health the saying of the Apostle served me for an Anchor That none of us liveth to himself neither doth any die to himself For whether we live we live to the Lord or whether we die we die to the Lord Whether we live therefore or die we are the Lord's Thereupon from the bottom of my heart commending your Estate and that of his Church here which how much it needs you he knows best to our common Master though I had written large Letters to you which have lien by me sundry Weeks fearing in your sickness to be troublesom I thought not to send them but to attend some other opportunity after your perfect recovery to send or perhaps bring them When I understood by Mr. Dean of his Journey or at least sending an express Messenger to you with other Letters putting me also in mind that perhaps it would not be unwelcome to you to hear from me though you
I meant I do it very willingly for I never meant him nor any Man else but thought it concerned your Grace to know what I credibly heard to be spoken concerning your Court Neither as God knows did I ever think it was fit to take away the Jurisdiction from Chancellors and put it into the Bishops Hands alone or so much as in a Dream condemn those that think they have reason to do otherwise nor tax your Grace's Visitation nor imagine you would account that to pertain to your Reproof and take it as a Wrong from me which out of my Duty to God and you I thought was not to be concealed from you I beseech you pardon me this one Error Si unquam posthac For that Knave whom as your Grace writes they say I did absolve I took him for one of my Flock or rather Christ's for whom he shed his Blood And I would have absolved Julian the Apostata under the same form Some other Passages there be in your Grace's Letters which I But I will lay mine Hand upon mine Mouth And craving the blessing of your Prayers ever remain Your Grace's poor Brother and humble Servant Will. Kilmore and Ardaghen Kilmore March 29. 1630. LETTER CLVI A Letter from the most Reverend James Usher Arch-bishop of Armagh to the Lords Justices My most Honoured Lords I Received a Letter from your Lordships without any Date wherein I am required to declare what Motives I can alleadg for the stopping of Sir John Bathe's Patent Whereunto I answer That I cannot nor need not produce any other reason than that which I have done and for the maintenance of the sufficiency whereof I will adventure all I am worth namely that for the Particular now in question Sir John Bathe's Letter hath been gotten from his Majesty by meer surreption and therefore no Patent ought to be passed thereupon For although I easily grant that my Lord Treasurer and the Chancellor of the Exchequer might certify unto his Majesty that there was no other thing left to be passed here but Impropriations though Sir John Bathe I think hath found already somewhat else to be passed in his Book and may do more if he will not be so hasty but take time to enquire Yet how doth it appear that either of these two noble Gentlemen did as much as know that his Majesty had taken a former Order for the settlement of these things upon the Church To which Resolution had they been privy I do so presume of their Nobleness and care of the Publick Good that the remittal of a Matter of two thousand pounds would not induce them to divert his Majesty from making good that precious Donation which by the Example of his Father of never-dying memory he had solemnly devoted to God and his Church such an eximious Act of Piety as is not to be countervalued with two or twenty thousand pounds of any earthly Treasure But whatsoever they knew or knew not of his Majesty's own pious Resolution and constant Purpose never to revoke that which he hath once given unto God I rest so confident as I dare pawn my Life upon it that when he did sign those Letters of Sir John Bathe's he had not the least intimation given unto him that this did any way cross that former Gift which he made unto the Church upon so great and mature deliberation as being grounded upon the Advice first of the Commissioners sent into Ireland then of the Lords of the Council upon their report in England thirdly of King James that ever blessed Father of the Church and lastly of the Commissioners for Irish Affairs unto whom for the last debating and conclusion of this business I was by his now Majesty referr'd my self at my being in England I know Sir John and his Counsel do take notice of all those Reasons that may seem to make any way for themselves But your Lordships may do well to consider that such Letters as these have come before now wherein Rectories have been expresly named and those general Non obstantes also put which are usual in this kind and yet notwithstanding all this his Majesty intimateth unto you in his last Letters that he will take a time to examine those Proceedings and punish those that then had so little regard to the particular and direct expression of his Royal Pleasure for the disposing of the Impropriations to the general benefit of the Church Which whether it carrieth not with it a powerful Non obstante to that surreptious Grant now in question I hold it more safe for your Lordships to take Advice among your selves than from any other bodies Counsel who think it their Duty to speak any thing for their Clients Fee As for the want of Attestation wherewith the credit of the Copy of a Letter transmitted unto you is laboured to be impaired If the Testimony of my Lord of London who procured it and the Bishop Elect of Kilfennora who is the bringer of it and of a Dean and an Arch-Deacon now in Ireland who themselves saw it will not suffice it will not be many days in all likelihood before the Original it self shall be presented to your Lordships In the mean time I desire and more than desire if I may presume to go so far that your Lordships will stay your hands from passing Sir John Bathe's Patent until my Lord of London himself shall signifie his Majesties further Pleasure unto you in this Particular And it my Zeal hath carried me any way further than Duty would require I beseech your Lordships to consider that I deal in a Cause that highly concerneth the good of the Church unto which I profess I owe my whole self and therefore craving Pardon for this my Boldness I humbly take leave and rest still to continue Your Lordships in all dutiful Observance J. A. Droghedah April the 3d 1630. Instructions given to Mr. Dean Lesly April 5. 1630. for the stopping of Sir John Bathe's Patent 1. YOU are to inform your self whether Sir John Bathe's Patent be already sealed and if it be whether it were done before Saturday which was the day wherein I received and answered the Lords Justices Letters touching this business and at which time they signified the Patent was as yet unpast and use all speedy means that the Patent may not be delivered into Sir John Bathes hands before you be heard to speak what you can against it and if that also be done I authorize you to signifie unto the Lords Justices that I must and will complain against them to his Sacred Majesty 2. You are to go unto Sir James Ware the younger from me and enquire of him whether he gave any Certificate unto my Lord Treasurer and the Chancellor of the Exchequer that the King had not of Temporal Lands the annual Rent of 300 l. to grant in reversion but that of necessity must be supplied with the Grant of the reversion of Tithes impropriate And withal learn
you as bringing with it the joyful news of your Life together with your godly Caveat of putting us in mind of our subjection to the Law of Mortality which Instructiâ—n God did shortly after really seal unto me by his Fatherly Chastisement whereby he brought me even to the Pits brink and when I had received in my self the Sentence of Death was graciously pleased to renew the Lease of my Life again that I might learn not to trust in my self but in him which raised the Dead our Comfort is that Life as well as Death and Death as well as Life are equally ours For whether we live we live unto the Lord and whether we die we die unto the Lord whether we live therefore or die we are the Lords I heartily thank you for your large Relation of the state of your Differences there Let me intreat you to take present care that a fair Copy be taken as well of your Lectures touching Grace and Free-will as of your others touching the Euchariâ—t which I much desire you should finish that it may not be said of you as it hath been noted of Dr. Whitaâ—er 〈◊〉 and Chamier That God took them all away in the midst of their handling of that Argument making an end of them before they made in end of that Controversie It is great pity your Lectures should be hazarded i◠〈◊〉 exemplari two at least I would have and preserved in two divers places lest that befal to them which happened to Dr. Raynold's Answer to Sanders touching the King's Supremacy a Copy whereof I have by God's good Providence recovered and his writing of Christ's Descent into Hell which I fear is utterly abolished Mr. Vâ—ssius having some notice that I intended to publish Marianus Scotus the printed Fragment of his Chronicle being scarce worthy to be accounted his sent me word that he likewise had a like intention to print the same out of a Manuscript Copy which he received from Andr. Scotus and desired that either I would receive his Notes for the setting forward of that Edition or else send unto him what I had in that kind I purpose to send unto him my Transcript both of Marianus himself and of his Abbridger Robertus Lotharingus Bishop of Hereford as also the History of Gotteschalcus and the Predestination-Controversy moved by him which I am now a making up whereunto I insert two Confessions of Gotteschalcus himself never yet printed which I had from Jacobus Sirmondus I touch there also that Commentitious Heresy of the Predestinatians which was but a Nick-name that the Semi-Pelagians put upon the Followers of St. Augustine who is made the Author thereof in the Chronicle of Tiro Prosper whose words in the Manuscript are Praedestinatorum Haeresis quae ab Augustino accepisse dicitur initium not as in the printed Books Ab Augustini libris male intellectis for which I desire you should look your Manuscript Prosper which is joined with Eusebius his Chronicle in Bennet-Colledg Library I could wish also that when you came thither you would transcribe for me Gulielmus Malmesburiensis his short Preface before his Abbreviation of Amalarius which is there in Vol. 167. and Scotus de Perfectione Statuum which is there in Vol. 391. cum Tragediâ—â— Seneca if it be but a short Discourse I have written a large Censure of the Epistle of Ignatius which I forbear to publish before I have received a Transcript of the Latin Ignatius which you have in Caius Colledg Vol. 152. of Dr. James Catalogue if I could certainly have learned that Mr. Thâ— Whaley had been in Cambridg I should have written to him for procuring it unto me but if he fail I must make you my last refuge whatever Charges be requisite for the transcription Mr. Burnet will see defâ—ayed You have done me a great pleasure in communicating unto me my Lord of Salisbury's and your own Determination touching the Efficacy of Baptism in Infants for it is an obscure point and such as I desire to be taught in by such as you are rather than deliver mine own Opinion thereof My Lord of Derry hath a Book ready for the Press wherein he handleth at full the Controversy of Perseverance and the Certainty of Salvation He there determineth that Point of the Efficacy of Baptism far otherwise than you do accommodating himself to the Opinion more vulgarly received among us to which he applieth sundry Sentences out of St. Augustine and among others that De Baptismâ— Sacramenta in solis electiâ— hoc verè efficiâ—nt quâ—d figurant I have finished the History of Gotteschalcus and the Predestination Controversy stirred up in his Time whereunto you have given a good furtherance in your learned Observations sent unto me touching the original of the Nick-name of the Predestinatiani imposed by the Semi-Pelâ—gians upon the Followers of St. Augustine I have had out of Corbey Abbey in France two Consessions written by Gotteschalcus himself which as yet have not been printed If we could but obtain Râ—thranâ—s his Treatise of the some Argument written unto the Eâ—peror Charles the same time I doubt not but it would give us as great contentment as his other Work doth De 〈◊〉 ◠〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for he held constantly St. Augustine's Doctrine against the Semi-Pelagians I have now in hand Institutionum Chronologicarum Lib. 3. wherein I labour by clearness of method and the easy manner of handling to make that perplexed Study familiaâ— to the Capacity of the meanest Understanding Therein I handle only 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 making up as it were the Body of an Act. After which I intend if God spare my Life and Health to fall upon the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the Sacred Chronology and there to handle all the Controversies of that kind which may bring Light to the Sacred History and the Connexion of it with the Exotical I have review'd also my Answer to the Jesuit's Challenge and enlarged it with many Additions which by this time I suppose are newly printed â—n London Forget not in your Prayers Ja. Armachanâ—t Your most assured Friend and Brother Drogheda Dec. 10. 1630. LETTER CLX A Letter from Dr. Ward to the most Reverend James Usher Arch-bishop of Armagh Most Reverend and my very good Lord I Received your Lordship's Letter sent by Mr. Stubbin by which I understood of your Lordship's late Recovery even from the Jaws of Death but more fully by Mr. Stubbin himself who related unto me the great hazard you Lordship was in by so excessive bleeding so many days together as is almost ineredible So that as it is said of Abraham that he received his Son from the Dead 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so we all even God's Church have received your Lordship in like manner à â—aucibus Oxci Praise be to the Lord of Life who killeth and reviveth again who bringeth down to Hell and bringeth back again To him be given all Glory for ever Amen Amen Since the receipt of your Lordship's
Quotis ad R. D. Tuam unà cum Eucharisticis missimus rectè redditas esse Ita nunc etiam pro novissimis duabus Quotis quae 185 libras Sterl 8 Solidos continuerunt hic nostrae Monetae florenos 1231 confecerunt Catalogum hisce adjunctum mittimus Ut hanc distributionem non minùs quà m priores duas fideliter à nobis factas esse inde constare possit In quem finem etiam Apocham pro acceptis pecuniis non tantùm à nobis collectae Administratoribus sed etiam ab aliis Primariis Viris subscriptam ad opt humaniss Virum Dom. Christianum Bor. Mercatorem Dublinensem missimus Habemus praeterea hîc ad manus diligenter asservamus singulorum Participantium Chirographa quibus se portiones in Catalogo assignatas accepisse attestantur Si fortè ad probandam Accepticum Expenso congruentiam iis aliquando opus sit Quod restat quod unum gratitudinis argumentum edere nunc possumus nos non tantùm pro salute incolumitate tuâ seduli ad DEUM precatores verùm etiam tuorum in nos meritorum laudumque tuarum grati buccinatores apud homines futuri sumus ita ut quocunque terrarum nostra nos fata deferent fidelem tui memoriam nobiscum simus ablaturi Bene vale Pater eximie venerande DOMINUS JESUS opus manuum tuarum confirmet ad nominis sui gloriam Ecclesiae suae incrementum Amen Norinburgae die xiii Septembris Anno Dei Hominis facti M. DC XXXI Reverendiss Dom. Tuam Subjectissimo Studio colentes Sacrae Collectae pro Exulib Archipalatinatus Superioris Administratores Fratrum omnium nomine Ambrosius Tolner quondam Pastor Ecclesiae Tursehennentensis Dioceseos Waldsassensis Inspector unde nunc exul in agro Norico suo Ln. Georgii Summeri nomine jam absentis Gebhardus Agricola Ecclesiae Aurbacensis quondam Pastor Inspector nunc in Marchionatum exulans c. Jonas Libingus Judex quondam Archipalatinus Caenobii Weisseno nunc in Exilio ad facrae Collectae negotia Deputatus Norimbergae LETTER CLXXII A Letter from the most Reverend James Usher Arch-bishop of Armagh to the most Reverend William Laud Arch-bishop of Canterbury My most gracious Lord WHen I took Pen to write the first thing that presented it self to my thoughts was that saying in the Scripture Why are you the last to bring the King back to his House For methought I could not but be much blamed for coming thus late to congratulate both his Majesty's safe return and your own advancement joined therewith unto the highest place of Church-Preferment that is within his Highnesses Dominions Wherein I may truly say thus much for my self to begin withal that since the time I received the Letter you wrote unto me the day before you began your Journey for Scotland no day hath passed hitherto wherein I have not made particular mention of you in my Prayers unto Almighty God who hath graciously heard my Request and granted therein as much as my Heart could desire But thus in the mean time did the Case stand with me Upon the arrival of the Lord Deputy I found him very honourably affected toward me and very ready to further me as in other things that concerned the Church so particularly in that which did concern the settlement of the Lands belonging to the Arch-bishoprick of Armagh Wherefore not being willing to let slip so fair an opportunity I presently obtained a Commission for making an inquiry of all the Lands that remained in my quiet possession and took my Journey though in an unseasonable time of the Year into the Northern Parts of the Kingdom Where beside the speeding of the Offices that were taken in the three several Counties of Armagh Tirone and London-Derry there was offered the opportunity of solemnizing the translation of the Bishop of Raphae and a Consecration of the Bishop of Ardagh in the Cathedral Church of Armagh where no such Act had been before performed within the memory of any Man living And much about this time had we the News of your Grace's Election into that high Dignity which his Majesty hath called you unto for which as this poor Church in general so none more than my self in particular have great cause to rejoice God having no doubt given you such high favour in our Master's Eyes that you might be enabled thereby to do the more good unto his Church and especially to put a happy end to that great Work which hitherto hath received so many Impediments of setling the Reversion of the Impropriations of this Kingdom upon the several Incumbents Whereunto I assure my self your Grace will easily work my Lord Deputy who every day sheweth himself so zealous for the recovering of the dissipated Patrimony of the Church that mine Eyes never yet beheld his match in that kind By the death of your Predecessor our University of Dublin was left to seek a new Chancellor whom I advised to pitch upon no other but your self which they did with all readiness and alacrity If your Grace will design to receive that poor Society under the shadow of your Wings you shall put a further tie of observance not upon that only but upon me also who had my whole breeding there and obtained the honour of being the first Proctor that ever was there I am further intreated by our Lord Treasurer the Earl of Corke to certify my knowledg touching the placing of his Monument in the Cathedral Church of St. Patrick's in the Suburbs of Dublin The place wherein it is erected was an ancient Passage into a Chappel within that Church which hath time out of mind been stopped up with a Partition made of Boards and Lime I remember I was present when the Earl concluded with the Dean to allow thirty Pounds for the raising of another Partition betwixt this new Monument and the Quire wherein the Ten Commandments might be fairly written Which if it were put up I see not what offence could be taken at the Monument which otherwise cannot be denied to be a very great Ornament to the Church I have nothing at hand to present your Grace withal but this small Treatise written unto Pope Calixtus the 2d by one of your Predecessors touching the ancient Dignity of the See of Canterbury Which I beseech you to accept at the hands of Your Grace's most devoted Servant J. A. 1632. LETTER CLXXIII Another Letter to the same May it please your Grace UPon my return from my Northern Journey I wrote unto you by Sir Francis Cook declaring the cause of my long silence together with the extraordinary Zeal of our noble Lord Deputy I may justly term him a new Zerubbabel raised by God for the making up of the Ruins of this decayed Church who upon an occasion openly declared himself an opposite to the greatest of those that have devoured our holy Things and made the Patrimony of the Church the Inheritance of their Sons and Daughers I likewise made bold
stood in the Church of England at the time of the making this Homily and therefore he has put down the Proem of an Act of Parliament of the fifth and sixth years of Edward the 6th concerning Holy-days by which he would have the Lord's day to stand on no other ground but the Authority of the Church not as enjoyned by Christ or ordained by any of his Apostles Which Statute whosoever shall be pleased to peruse may easily see that this Proem he mentions relates only to Holy days and not to Sundays as you may observe from this passage viz. which holy Works as they may be called God's Service so the times especially appointed for the same are called Holy-days not for the matter or nature either of the time or day c. which title of Holy-days was never applied to Sundays either in a vulgar or legal acceptation And tho the Doctor fancied this Act was in force at the time when this Homily was made and therefore must by no means contradict so sacred an Authority as that of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal and Commons assembled in Parliament because this Act tho repealed by Queen Mary he would have to be revived again the first year of Queen Elizabeth and so to stand in force at the time of making this Homily whereas whoever consults our Statute-Book will find that this Statute of King Edward the 6th was not revived nor in force till the first of King James when the Repeal of this Statute was again repealed tho certainly the reviving of that or any other Statute does not make their Proems which are often very carelesly drawn to be in every clause either good Law or Gospel But tho the Doctor in other things abhors the Temporal Powers having any thing to do in matters of Religion yet if it make for his Opinion then the Authority of a Parliament shall be as good as that of a Convocation But I have dwelt too long upon this Head which I could not well contract if I spoke any thing at all to justifie the Lord Primat's Judgment in this so material a Doctrine The next Point that the Doctor lays to the Lord Primat's charge as not according to the Church of England is a passage in a Letter to Dr. Bernard and by him published in the Book intituled The Judgment of the late Primat of Ireland c. viz. That he ever declared his Opinion to be that Episcopus Presbyter gradu tantum differunt non ordine and consequently that in places where Bishops cannot be had the Ordination by Presbyters standeth valid And however saith he I must needs think that the Churches in France who living under a Popish Power and cannot do what they would are more excusable in that defect than those of the Low-Countries that live under a Free-State yet for the testifying my communion with these Churches which I do love and honour as true members of the Church Universal I do profess that with like affection I should receive the blessed Sacrament at the hands of the Dutch Ministers if I were in Holland as I should do at the hands of the French Ministers if I were at Charenton Which Opinion as I cannot deny to have been my Lord Primat's since I find the same written almost verbatim with his own hand dated Nov. 26. 1655 in a private Note-Book not many months before his death with the addition of this clause at the beginning viz. Yet on the other side holding as I do That a Bishop hath Superiority in degree above Presbyters you may easily judg that the Ordination made by such Presbyters as have severed themselves from their Bishops cannot possibly by me be excused from being schismatical And concluding with another clause viz. for the agreement or disagreement in radical and fundamental Doctrines not the consonancy or dissonancy in the particular points of Ecclesiastical Government is with me and I hope with every man that mindeth Peace the rule of adhering to or receding from the Communion of any Church And that the Lord Primate was always of this Opinion I find by another Note of his own hand written in another Book many years before this in these words viz. The intrinsecal power of Ordaining proceedeth not from Jurisdiction but only from Order But a Presbyter hath the same Order in specie with a Bishop Ergo A Presbyter hath equally an intrinsecal power to give Orders and is equal to him in the power of Order the Bishop having no higher degree in respect of intension or extention of the character of Order tho he hath an higher degree i. e. a more eminent place in respect of Authority and Jurisdiction in Spiritual Regiment Again The Papists teach that the confirmation of the Baptized is proper to a Bishop as proceeding from the Episcopal Character as well as Ordination and yet in some cases may be communicated to a Presbyter and much more therefore in regard of the over-ruling Commands of invincible necessity although the right of Baptising was given by Christ's own Commission to the Apostles and their Successors and yet in case of Necessity allowed to Lay-men even so Ordination might be devolved to Presbyters in case of Necessity These passages perhaps may seem to some Men inconsistent with what the Lord Primate hath written in some of his printed Treatises and particularly that of the Original of Episcopacy wherein he proves from Rev. 2. 1. that the Stars there described in our blessed Saviour's right hand to be the Angels of the seven Churches 2. That these Angels were the several Bishops of those Churches and not the whole Colledg of Presbyters as Mr. Brightman would have it 3. Nor has he proved Archbishops less ancient each of these seven Churches being at that time a Metropolis which had several Bishops under it and 4 that these Bishops and Archbishops were ordained by the Apostles as constant permanent Officers in the Church and so in some sort Jure Divino that is in St. Hierom's sence were ordained by the Apostles for the better conferring of Orders and for preventing of Schisms which would otherwise arise among Presbyters if they had been all left equal and independent to each other And that this may very well consist with their being in some cases of Necessity not absolutely necessary in some Churches is proved by the Learned Mr. Mason in his defence of the Ordination of Ministers beyond the Seas where there are no Bishops in which he proves at large against the Papists that make this Objection from their own Schoolmen and Canonists and that tho a Bishop receives a Sacred Office Eminency in Degree and a larger Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction than a Presbyter yet that all these do not confer an absolute distinct Order and yet that Bishops are still Jure Divino that is by the Ordinance of God since they were ordained by the Apostles and whereunto they were directed by God's Holy Spirit and in that sence are the Ordinance of