Preface

THE LIFE AND TIMES OF JAMES USSHER, ARCHBISHOP OF ARMAGH

BY J. A. CARR, LL.D. VICAR OF WHITECHURCH, DUBLIN, CANON OF CHRIST CHURCH CATHEDRAL LONDON 1895

WELLS GARDNER. DARTON AND CO.

3 PATERNOSTER BUILDINGS, E.C.

VICTORIA STREET, WESTMINSTER, S. W.

INTRODUCTION

This writer’s apology for this book will be found in the fact that there exists no accessible and popular Life of Archbishop Ussher. Anyone seeking to become acquainted with the principal events of his life will naturally have recourse to the most modern biography, that of Dr. Elrington, Regius Professor of Divinity in the University of Dublin, and published in 1848; but while the learning and research exhibited in this volume are undoubted, it must be acknowledged that the work itself is not conceived in a popular style, and the continuous narrative, unbroken into chapters, becomes tedious. Sufficient advantage, moreover, has not been taken of Ussher's voluminous correspondence, which is so helpful in giving the reader a proper idea of the times he lived in, the character of the man, and the friendships he formed, and is also so useful in affording an index to much of his literary work. Besides, Dr. Elrington's Life of Ussher was never intended, as he says himself, to be an independent publication, and is really only the introduction to an edition of the Archbishop's works, extending to seventeen volumes.

When we pass from Elrington's biography, we must go back to the close of the seventeenth century, and have to deal with the Lives by Parr and Bernard, both full, indeed, of interesting information, but antiquated in style, confined to old and scarce editions, and obtainable, for the most part, only in public libraries.

The Lives by Smith and Dillingham are in the Latin tongue, and are therefore not of general service. Aiken's Life is written with an animus that deprives it of value. The Ussher Memoirs, however, compiled by the Rev. W. Ball Wright cast much light on the history of the Ussher family in its wide and important ramifications. The present volume is an effort to place the Irish Primate before the reader as he was, in his day a great ecclesiastic, a profound scholar, and a much-tried Churchman. The writer has availed himself of all the sources of information he could command, and if he draws renewed attention to the life and work of a great Irishman he will have found his best reward.

It is not necessary to mention in detail the works consulted in the preparation of the volume, as they are sufficiently enumerated in the several footnotes. It may be observed that the edition of Ware's works uniformly referred to be that by Harris, published in Dublin in two volumes in 1764. Wood's Athena Oxonienses is that edited by Bliss, in three volumes. It is now known that the interesting sketches of Ussher that appeared (with portrait) in the Dublin University Magazine in 1841 were written by the late Bishop Fitzgerald (see the memoir prefixed to his Ecclesiastical Lectures, i. p. 16). The portrait prefixed to the present volume is inserted by permission of the Board of Trinity College (to whom the writer takes his opportunity of proffering his thanks), from the frontispiece to Dr. Elrington’s work, with the addition of the Ussher arms.

Some, trouble has been taken to remove an undeserved slur on the memory of Archbishop Ussher, and to prove from contemporary literature that he did not counsel the death of Strafford. A vindicating of the Irish Church policy of Laud and Strafford will also be found in these pages.

It may be added that some trouble has been taken with the Ussher Chronology, and an effort has been made to fix correctly the principal events of his life.

Chapter 1 - LIFE OF USSHER INTRODUCTORY

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Chapter 2 -IRELAND AT THE CLOSE OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY

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Chapter 3 - EARLY EDUCATION OF USSHER:THE FOUNDING OF TRINITY COLLEGE

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Chapter 4 - STUDENT LIFE: THE YOUNG CONTROVERSIALIST: PURITANISM IN TRINITY COLLEGE

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Chapter 5 - USSHER AND THE ROMAN CATHOLICS

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Chapter 6 - USSHER'S FIRST ESSAYS IN LITERATURE

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Chapter 7 - THE IRISH ARTICLES OF 1615: CORRESPONDENCE

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Chapter 8 - USSHER A COURT PREACHER: BISHOP OF MEATH

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Chapter 9 - USSHER'S ADVICE TO PREACHERS: A PROVINCIAL VISITATION: THEOLOGICAL OPINIONS

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Chapter 10 - THE ANSWER TO A JESUIT

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Chapter 11 - BOOKS AND MANUSCRIPTS: ARCHBISHOP OF ARMAGH: THE ? OF TOLERATlON

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Chapter 12 - THE PROVOSTSHIP OF BEDELL: USE OF THE IRISH LANGUAGE IN PUBLIC WORSHIP: RELIGIOUS DISSENSIONS: GOTTESCALCUS

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Chapter 13 - ARCHBISHOP USSHER AND BISHOP BEDELL: THE STORY OF THE IRISH BIBLE

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Chapter 14 - ARCHBISHOP USSHER AND LAUD: CORRESPONDENCE: THE NATURE OF SACRAMENTAL GRACE: APPOINTMENTS TO THE PROVOSTSHIP OF TRINITY COLLEGE

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Chapter 15 - ARCHBISHOP USSHER'S PERSONAL APPEARANCE AND CHARACTER: PRIVATE LIFE IN DROGHEDA: "RELIGION OF THE ANCIENT IRISH"

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Chapter 16 - USSHER AND THE PRESBYTERIANS: THE QUESTION OF EPISCOPACY: AN EIRENICON

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Chapter 17 - LORD STRAFFORD AND THE CHURCH OF IRELAND: QUESTION OF PRECEDENCE BETWEEN ARMAGH AND DUBLIN: ARTICLES OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND AND NEW CANONS ADOPTED BY THE IRISH CONVOCATION

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Chapter 18 - FRESH LITERARY LABOURS: "THE ANTIQUITIES OF THE BRITISH CHURCHES": THE EPISTLES OF ST. IGNATIUS

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Chapter 19 - USSHER IN ENGLAND: DEATH OF STRAFFORD: REVOLUTIONARY CHANGES IN CHURCH AND STATE

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Chapter 20 - USSHER IN LONDON: STRAITENED MEANS: CROMWELL AND USSHER: THE DEATH OF CHARLES I

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Chapter 21 - PERSECUTION OF THE CHURCH: USSHER'S FRESH LITERARY LABOURS: CORRESPONDENCE: DECLINING HEALTH, AND DEATH: HISTORY OF HIS BOOKS AND LIBRARY: CONCLUSION

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Appendix - Irish Articles of Religion

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Back in 2002 I started working on the James Ussher project. At first the work was praised until people saw the 6000 year 6 day implications. Problem, from The Beginning. But there was another problem.

I was just ending a second 7 year church, which in my mind both were prospering until the ‘seminary curse’ surfaced. ‘Believe in the Canons of Dort and you will be saved’.

(I suppose today it is ‘you are chosen, live with it. And don’t forget to act like it’. How dumb it that? If our heart and mind is in our salvation, it is also in the Mission.)

A third church for 3 ½ years was free will and again in my mind, prospering, until some leadership went to conference and came back with the same ‘strange fire’: agree to disagree, the sheep scattered and confused.

I wrote a prologue for the Ussher Book back in 2002 but since then I have embraced ‘classical arminian’ism’.

We are chosen for a purpose, not salvation. I cannot agree to disagree on some issues which have heavenly and mission implications.

Maybe I have to go back to 1975 for my beginning:

Heroes of Faith:

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