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

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USSHER was consecrated Bishop of Meath in St. Peter's, Drogheda, December 2nd, 1621. [1] The consecrating prelates were Archbishop Hampton, Primate; Robert [Echlin], Bishop of Down and Connor; Thomas [Moygne], Bishop of Kilmore; and Theophilus [Buckworth], Bishop of Dromore. [2] Forthwith he entered on the high duties of his office. He started with the purpose of being a preaching Bishop of the type of Latimer; and he bound himself by the legend on his episcopal seal - Va mihi si non Evangelizavero. [3] The pulpit through his life was a favourite place with Ussher.

[1] On his consecration, his friends presented Ussher with an anagram on his new signature, "James Meath” - Bernard's Life  p. 52.

[2] Ware's Bishops p. 52.

[3] We are told by Bernard, who was his chaplain, that at the first confirmation held by Ussher after his consecration, when a great number received the rite, the Bishop delivered a powerful address on the antiquity and good use of Confirmation. - Clavi Trabales p. 63.

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Years afterwards, when an exile from Ireland and visiting Oxford, he desired no greater pleasure than to preach to the students. Several of his sermons on these occasions were taken down and published after his death. That he had great admirers of his style, etc., is evident from the many references of contemporaries to his sermons. Amongst others, the learned Hebraist, Ralph Skynner, writes, October 31, 1625: "My lord, I would gladly be your scholar to learn your method and facile way, of preaching. O that I might be beholden unto you for some of your directions in that kind, and that I might see but a sermon or two of your Grace's in writing, according to those directions: for therefore did I enter in the last hour of the day of my life into God's house"; and he concludes with the Hebrew text of Psalm xcii. 13. [4]

We learn that as a preacher Ussher preferred the extempore method. ."As he was," says one of his biographers, "all excellent textuary, so it was his custom to run through all the parallel places that concerned the subject on, which he treated, and paraphrase and illustrate them as they, referred to each other and their particular contexts: he himself, as he passed on, turning his Bible from place to place, and giving his

[4] Ussher's Works, xv. 314-15.

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auditory time to do the like: whereby, as he rendered his preaching extremely easy to himself, so it became beneficial to his auditors, acquainting them with the Holy Scripture, and enabling them to recur to the proofs he cited by which the memory was very much helpful to recover the series of what was discoursed upon for them. He never cared to tire his auditory with the length of his sermon, knowing well that as the satisfaction in hearing decreases, so does attention also, and the people instead of minding what is said, only listen when there is like to be an end."  [5]

No doubt Mr. Skynner's desire to know the secret of Ussher's art as a preacher was gratified if he came across the admirable instructions on the subject the Bishop was in the habit of addressing to the candidates for ordination. As they are not as well known as they deserve to be, they are set down here: -

[5] Parr’s Life, p. 86. He "constantly used a set form of prayer before his sermon, and that with a decent brevity." - Clavi Trabales, p. 61.

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I. Read and study the Scriptures carefully; wherein is the best learning and only infallible truth; they can furnish you with the best materials for your sermons, the only rules of faith and practice, the most powerful motives to persuade and convince the conscience, and the strongest arguments to confute all errors, heresies, and schisms. Therefore, be sure let all your sermons be congruous to them; and to this end it is expedient that you understand them, as well in the originals as in the translations.

II. Take not hastily up other men’s opinions without due trial, nor vent your own conceits, but compare them first with the analogy of faith and rules of holiness recorded in the Scriptures, which are the proper tests of all opinions and doctrines.

III. Meddle with controversies and doubtful points as little as may be in your popular preaching, lest you puzzle your hearers, or engage them in wrangling disputations, and so hinder their conversion, which is the main design of preaching.

IV. Insist most on those points that tend to affect sound belief, sincere love to God, repentance for sin, and that may persuade to holiness of life; press these things home to the conscience of your hearers, as of absolute necessity, leaving no gap for evasion, but bind them as close as may be to their duty; and as you ought to preach sound and orthodox doctrine, so ought you to deliver God's message as near as may be in God's words; that is, in such as are plain and intelligible, that the meanest of your auditors may understand; to which end it is necessary to back all practical precepts and doctrines with apt proofs from the Holy Scripture; avoiding all exotic phrases, scholastic terms, unnecessary quotations of authors and forced rhetorical figures, since it is not difficult to make easy things appear hard, but to render hard things easy is the hardest part of a good orator as well as preacher.

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V. Get your hearts sincerely affected with the things you persuade others to embrace, that so you may preach experimentally, and your hearers perceive that you are in good earnest, and press nothing upon them but what may tend to their advantage, and which yourself would venture your own salvation on.

VI. Study and consider well the subjects you intend to preach on, before you come into the pulpit, and then words will readily appear themselves; yet think what you are about to say before you speak, avoiding all uncouth phantastical words or phrases; or nauseous, indecent or ridiculous expressions, which will quickly bring preaching into contempt and make your sermons and persons the subject of sport and merriment.

VII. Dissemble not the truth of God in any case, nor comply with the lusts of men, or give any countenance to sin by word or deed.

VIII. But above all you must never forget to order your own conversation as becometh the Gospel, that so you may teach by example as well as precept, and that you may appear a good divine everywhere as well as in the pulpit; for a minister's life and conversation is more heeded than his doctrine.

IX. Yet after all this, take heed you be not puffed up with spiritual pride of your own virtues, nor with a vain conceit of your parts or abilities, nor yet be transported with the applause of men, nor dejected or discouraged with the scoffs or frowns of the wicked and profane." [6]

[6] Parr's Life, pp. 87-8.

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Shortly after Ussher's appointment to the Bishopric of Meath, a Royal Commission was issued for the Visitation of the Province of Armagh, and it was one of the first duties of the new Bishop to see that his diocese was duly reported. The return from Meath, dated May 28, 1622, and which is still extant [7] shows the lamentably impoverished condition of the Church of Ireland at this period. The Bishop's diocese being largely within the Pale, was comparatively prosperous; and yet the story of ruined churches, no glebes, no incomes, is painfully monotonous. [8]

[7] See Elrington's Life of Ussher, Appendix V., where the return is printed in full as "a certificate of the state and revennewes of the Bishoppricke of Meath and Clonemackenosh." A MS. copy is to be seen in the Library T.C.D. (Class E 5.6). Among the returns mention is made of "a Mr. John Gregge, a Mr of Artes, a good preacher, of good life and honest conversacion, and very paynfull in his ministry." He was the first Vicar of Trim, and died Dean of Lismore. For a notice of him, see Butler's History of Trim, p. I59, also the Journal of the Royal Hist. and Archaeol. Society, April 1873. John Gregg's tomb was discovered some years ago in a shattered condition in the churchyard of Trim. It records his death as the first Vicar, January 21, 1629. It is a coincidence that there should have been a second John Gregg, a minister of the Church of Ireland, to whom the above testimony may also be truly applied, and who died Bishop of Cork, May 26, 1879. The church and chancel of Trim were then "in reasonable good repair," and for a rectory there was "a fayre castle and a hall." It is noteworthy that at this time bishops' residences were also called castles, and not palaces.

[8] The fabrics of the Irish Church seem to have been in a state of chronic ruin. About 1440 the Archbishop of Armagh writes to his suffragans to put their churches in repair. The snow and rain came through the roofs, while the windows were unglazed and unframed. - See Prene's Register, vol. ii. (unpaged).

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The fact is, the lay impropriators had been allowed to fatten on the ecclesiastical revenues, and enrich themselves at the expense of the Church. When the Lord-Deputy Grandison with laudable zeal attempted to force the spoliators to disgorge their plunder, he was attacked on all sides, and the Roman Catholics joining in the outcry for their own ends, the Deputy was recalled by order of the King, and Lucius Cary, second Lord Falkland, was sent as Deputy in his place. The new Viceroy apparently had like good intentions towards the Church. "My Lord of Falkland," writes Dr. Ryves to Ussher, “It is wonderfully inquisitive of the defects of that Church. . . . . He intends to get particular warrants from his Majesty for the benefit of that Church." [9]

[9] Ussher's Works, xvi. p. 392. That the standard of education in Trinity College under the fostering care of Ussher was then high, may be judged from the progress made in his studies by the young Lucius Cary, who accompanied his father to Ireland in 1622, and began his studies at Dublin, being then about twelve years old. "He made," says Clarendon, "better progress in academic exercises and languages than most men do in more celebrated places; insomuch, as when he came into England, which was when he was about the age of eighteen years, he was not only master of the Latin tongue and had read all the poets and other of the best authors with notable judgment for that age, but he understood and spake and writ French as if he had spent many years in France." - Clarendon's Life, p. 42-3. Quoted by Tulloch (in his Rational Theology, i. p. 81), who holds it likely, that it was while in Trinity College; Dublin, Cary received his "first impulse towards those latitudinarian views of Church government for which he was afterwards distinguished. For the University authorities in Dublin, and Ussher conspicuously - strange as this may, seem were no less remarkable for their liberal ecclesiasticism than for their rigid doctrinal orthodoxy." - Ditto, p. 82.

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The success of the Roman Catholics in driving out Lord Grandison awakened a feeling of strong resentment in the breast of Ussher, who was loth to lose his friend. Accordingly, on the occasion of his first sermon in Christ Church Cathedral before the new Deputy, he made use of the opportunity to warn the Government of the necessity that existed for restraining the liberties of the Roman Catholic population. He selected for his text the words "He beareth not the sword in vain,” and delivered thereon an address so vigarous as to excite general alarm. Ussher subsequently wrote an account of the sermon to Lord Grandison, and justified himself for the language he had used. He quotes a Mr. Ankers, a preacher of Athlone, who told him "that going to read prayers at Kilkenny in West Meath, he found an old priest, and about forty with him in the church, who was as bold as to require him (the said Ankers) to depart until he had done his business!”

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Ussher also refers to the case of some friars, "who were going about  to re-edify an abbey near Mullingar for the entertainment of another swarm of locusts." [10] So great was the excitement, that even the Primate, Dr. Hampton, felt himself called on to rebuke the preacher for his strong language, which he did in a letter at once firm and gentle. He says he cannot play the part of a Gallio and care for none of these things. "If my wishes may take place," he writes (October 17th, 1622), "seeing so many men of quality have something against you, tarry not till they complain, but prevent it by a voluntary retraction 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 my opinion, for your lordship to withdraw yourself from those parts and spend more time in your diocese, that such as will not hear your doctrine may be drawn to love your lordship for your hospitality and conversation.

[10] Ussher's Works, xv. pp. 180-1. Ussher was charged with having said, "the sword had rusted too long in, the sheath;" "whereas in my whole sermon," he writes, "I never made mention of either rust or sheath." He had never intended the practice of "violence or cruelty towards the peasants." Killen, in his Eccles. Hist. of Ireland, ii. p. 508, considers Ussher's text to have been singularly ill advised; but the memory of the "sword" is still kept up in the "Prayer for the Chief  Governor," in the Irish Prayer-book.

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Bear with the plainness of an old man's pen, and leave nothing undone to recruit the intercourse of amity 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 and alliance [alluding to Ussher's Roman Catholic relatives], which will plead effectually and conclude the matter fully whensoever you show yourself ready to give them satisfaction." [11] A year later, the Archbishop has to write to Ussher, "If your lordship light upon petulant and seditious libels too frequent nowadays, as report goeth, I beseech you to repress them and advise our brethren to the like care." [12]

The mild hint that the Bishop was too fond of Dublin, and might with advantage to himself and his episcopal charge spend more time in his diocese, was perhaps not altogether unnecessary. Ussher enjoyed preaching, study, and the society of learned people, for all of which things he found larger opportunity in the capital than in the backward and thinly populated regions of Meath.

[11] Ussher's Works, xv. p. 184.

[12] Ditto, p. 199.

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Besides, was not that noble library within the walls of the College growing apace? And what comparison could there be between the fat kine that roamed lazily over the rich pasture lands of Meath and the wealth of learning gradually accumulating under the shelter of his alma mater!

But however much he might have been inclined to obey the injunctions of his Metropolitan, circumstances were against it. Ussher was now a Privy Councillor and in daily communion with the heads of the Government. A man of his ability and ready speech was a necessity, and his services could not easily be dispensed with. An occasion was now at hand when those services would have a fresh demand made upon them.

Strong as the language of the Bishop had been, it did not bear the harsh interpretation put upon it by the Roman Catholics. As several "Papists" of leading position in the country were refusing to take the oaths of supremacy and allegiance pressed upon them in consequence of the alarm created by the action of the Pope in flooding the island with his new bishops and clergy, Ussher was requisitioned to address the offenders. This he did in a speech so well reasoned and eloquent as to carry conviction to the minds of several who accordingly took the oath. The rest were censured.

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A copy of the speech was sent to the King, who acknowledged the receipt in a letter to the Bishop, in which he expressed his "gracious and princely thanks for Ussher's zeal to the maintenance of our just and lawful power." [13] The service done to the King had at the same time its practical reward in a royal mandate to the authorities in Ireland, to suffer Ussher to absent himself from his see and prosecute in England his studies on the antiquities of the ancient British Churches. [14]

Among the questions submitted to Ussher by his various correspondents at this time was one touching the orientation of churches in ancient times, on which the learned Selden had asked his opinion. Ussher replies in an interesting letter, dated "Dublin, April 16, 1622." [15] He quotes Strabo as saying they did not much care how they turned their churches, yet for the most part they turned to the east at prayer, and most of their churches were built in that fashion. It was so also in Ireland, according to Joceline's Life of St. Patrick. About this time we find Ussher displaying much interest in the discovery of copies of the Samaritan and Chaldaean Pentateuchs.

[13] The speech is given in full in Ussher's Works, vol. ii. pp. 461-7. Leland characterises it as “vehement, artful, and pathetic." History, ii. p. 482 (note).

[14] Calendar of State Papers, 1622, p. 353, where the mandate is given.

[15] Ussher's Works, xv. pp. 170-5.

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His letters give the impression of hard mental work in the midst of all his episcopal duties, while he ever and anon discusses with such correspondents as Dr. Ward vexed questions concerning predestination, free grace, and the liberty of the human will. [16]

On June 20th, 1624, we find Ussher preaching before the King at Wanstead. The subject of his discourse is the universality of Christ's Church. According to the pronounced opinion of Ussher, from which he never wavered, the Church of Rome was the Babylon of the Apocalypse, and the Pope, Antichrist. The sermon pleased King James, and he commanded its publication. Ussher's text on this occasion was Eph. iv. 13.

[16] "Now also began some opinions about predestination, free-will, perseverance, &c., much to trouble both the schools and pulpit." - Fuller's Church History, vol. iii. p. 146. Ward, who became Master of Sidney Sussex, was a distinguished Orientalist, and one of the translators of the Authorised Version. - Todd's Life of Walton, i. p. 120. Ward had filled (ad interim) the Chair of Divinity in Trinity College, Dublin, during the vacancy preceding the appointment of Hoyle. Urwick in his Early History of Trinity College, Dublin (p. 26), confounds the above with Samuel Ward of Ipswich, who was imprisoned by Laud as a contemner of the Book of Common Prayer. Ward, the Master of Sidney Sussex, was a Royalist, and was imprisoned as such by the Cromwellians in his own College. He died at Cambridge, September 7th, 1643, and was buried in the College Chapel. See a notice of him in the Life and Death of Bedell, by T. Wharton  Jones, p. 93.

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The sermon, which is furnished with elaborate notes, is published in vol. ii.of the Archbishop's, collected writings. He defines the Catholic Church as of one entire body “made up by the collection and aggregation of the faithful unto the unity thereof." The Bishops of the ancient Church, though they had the government of particular congregations only committed unto them, yet in regard to this communion which they held with the Universal did usually take to themselves the title of Bishops of the Catholic Church. Ussher then points out the false claim of the Church of Rome to be alone the Catholic Church. He asks, "What then must become of the poor Muscovites and Grecians, to say nothing of the Reformed Churches in Europe? What of the Egyptian and Ethiopian Churches in Africa? What of the great company of Christians scattered over all Asia, even from Constantinople to the East Indies? . . . . Must these, because they are not the Pope's subjects, be therefore deemed not to be Christ's subjects? Because they are not under the obedience of the Roman Church, do they therefore forfeit the estate which they claim in the, Catholic Church out of which there is no salvation?" [17]

[17] Ussher's Works, vol. ii. pp. 479-80.

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To the taunt, "Where was your Church before Luther?" Ussher replies, "Our Church was ever where now it is: In all places of the world where the ancient foundations were retained arid these common principles of faith upon the profession whereof men have ever been wont to be admitted by baptism into the Church of Christ: there we doubt not but that our Lord had His subjects and we our fellow-servants. That which in the time of the ancient Fathers was accounted to be truly and properly Catholic - namely, that which was believed everywhere, always, and by all, that in the succeeding ages hath been preserved and is at this day entirely professed by our Church.” [18]

[18] Ussher's Works, ii. 493-4. Another reply of Ussher has the retort: "Where was the Popish religion before Luther? Most of those poisonous errors were down, and up and down, before then, but not collected fully into a body, and so owned and headed by the Papacy till then." - Bernard's Judgment of the Archbishop, &c., p. 84. Bramhall uses the illustration of the difference between "a garden weeded, and a garden unweeded." - Works, vol. i. p. 199. At the request of Ussher, Bedell also wrote an answer to the question, "Where was your religion before Luther?” but the MS. was lost in 1641. Hooker and Field address themselves to the same question. See also Simpkinson's Laud, pp. 49-50.