Chapter 10 - THE ANSWER TO A JESUIT

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AT this time Ussher took advantage of his visit to England to publish his famous polemical work, [1] "The Answer to a Challenge made by a Jesuit in Ireland." Writing from Finglas on March 18th, 1622, Ussher had confided to Dr. Ward, Master of Sidney Sussex College, that he was preparing such a work for the press, "being drawn thereto by a challenge made by a Jesuit in this country." At the same time he forwards to Ward a copy of his essay, "Concerning the Religion Professed by the Ancient Irish." [2] Dr. Morton, Bishop of Coventry, also received a copy, and in his acknowledgment he writes to Ussher, "At the sight of the inscription I was compelled to usurp that saying, Num boni quid ex Galilea."  [3] So much for the esteem in which an English bishop of the time could hold Irish Church history and antiquities.

[1] Vol. iii. of Ussher's collected Works.

[2] Ussher's Works, vol. iv.

[3] Ditto, xv. p. 195.

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The Jesuit answered by Ussher in the above work was, Father Malone, who was born in Dublin about 1586, and was educated at Rome, where he joined the Order and was for a time the Rector of the Irish College. The challenge is thus epitomised by Ussher: "What Bishop of Rome did first alter that religion which we commend in them of the first four hundred years? In what Pope's days was the true religion overthrown in Rome?" To which he thus briefly and generally answers in the opening chapter: First, we do not hold that Rome was built in a day; or that the great dunghill of errors, which now we see in it, was raised in an age; and therefore it is a vain demand to require from us the name of any one bishop of Rome by whom and under whom this Babylonish confusion was brought in. Secondly, that a great difference is to be put betwixt heresies which openly oppose the foundations of our faith, and that apostasy which the spirit hath evidently foretold should be brought in by such as speak lies in hypocrisy…. Thirdly, that the original of errors is oftentimes so obscure and their breed so base, that howsoever it might be easily observed by such as lived in the same age, yet no wise man will marvel if in tract of time  the beginnings of many of them should be forgotten, and no register of the time of their birth found extant." [4]

[4] Ussher's Works, iii. pp. 9, 10.

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Ussher then goes on to discuss the following points in which the Church of Rome has wandered from the primitive faith, and lapsed into heresy and superstition: - Traditions; The Real Presence; Confession; The Priest's Power to Forgive Sin; Purgatory; Prayers for the Dead; Limbus Patrum and Christ's Descent into Hell; Prayers to the Saints; Images; Free Will; Merits.

On the first of these subjects he thus speaks: "That the traditions of men should be obtruded unto us for articles of religion, and admitted for parts of God's worship, or that any traditions should be accepted for parcels of God's word, besides the Holy Scriptures and such doctrines as are either expressly contained therein, or by sound inference may be deduced from thence, I think we have reason to gainsay;" [5] and he goes on to establish his position from Scripture. The ancient Fathers are next taken up one by one, beginning with Tertullian, and from their writings Ussher collects a catena of passages all averse to a traditional theology outside of Holy Scripture.

[5] Ditto, pp. 41-2.

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Thus from Origen: "But if any thing do remain which the Holy Scripture doth not determine, no other third Scripture ought to be received for to authorise any knowledge;" from St. Athanasius: "The Holy Scriptures given by inspiration of God are by themselves sufficient to the discovery of truth;" from St. Ambrose: "The things which we find not in the Scriptures, how can we use them?" from St. Hilary: "It is well that thou art content with those things which be written;" from St. Basil: "Believe those things which are written, the things which are not written seek not;" from St. Augustine: "In those things which are laid down plainly in the Scripture all these things are found which appertain to faith and direction of life," and so forth. [6]

On the next question of the "Real Presence," Ussher repeats his views, as already given in his sermon before Parliament: "In the receiving of the Blessed Sacrament we are to distinguish between the outward and the inward action of the communicant. In the outward, with our bodily mouth we receive really the visible elements of bread and wine; in the inward, we do by faith really receive the Body and Blood of our Lord, that is to say, we are truly and indeed made partakers of Christ crucified to the spiritual strengthening of our inward man." [7]

[6] Ussher's Works, iii. pp, 43-4.

[7] Ussher's Works, iii. p. 52.

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He contests the position that after the act of consecration there remaineth no longer any bread or wine to be received, but that the Body and Blood of Christ are in such a manner present under the outward show of bread and wine, that whosoever receiveth the one, be he good or bad, believer or unbeliever, he doth therewith really receive the other. Here, too, Ussher fortifies his position with numerous quotations from the Fathers and early English writer's, Aelfric, Wulfstane, &c.

On the subject of confession, Ussher thus delivers himself: “Be it, therefore, known . . . . that no kind of confession, either public or private, is disallowed by us that is in any way requisite for the due execution of that ancient power of the keys which Christ bestowed upon the Church; the thing which we reject is that new picklock of Sacramental confession obtruded upon men's consciences as a matter necessary to salvation by the canons of the late Conventicle of Trent, where those good Fathers put their curse upon anyone that either shall deny that sacramental confession was ordained by divine right, and is by the same necessary to salvation, or shall affirm that in the sacrament of penance it is not by the ordinance of God necessary for the obtaining of the remission of sins to confess all and every one of those mortal sins, the memory whereof by due and diligent premeditation may be had.

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This doctrine, I say, we cannot but reject as being repugnant to that which we have learned both from the Scriptures and from the Fathers." [8] The quotations made throughout this chapter from the early writers are very effective and to the point.

The next chapter, "of the Priest's power to forgive sins," is a continuation of the subject. "We must, in  the first place,” says Ussher, "lay this down for a sure ground, that to forgive sins properly, directly and absolutely, is a privilege only appertaining unto the Most High." [9] Having supported this statement by many  references to the teaching of the early Church, he goes on: "Having thus, therefore, reserved unto God His prerogative royal in cleansing of the soul, we give unto His under-officers their due when we account them as of the ministers of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God; not as lords, that have power to dispose of spiritual graces as they please; but as servants that are bid to follow their master’s prescriptions therein; and in the following thereof, do but bring their external ministry (for  which itself also they are beholding to God's mercy and goodness); God conferring the inward blessing of His spirit thereupon when and where He will." [10]

[8] Ussher's Works, iii. pp. 90-1.

[9]Ditto, pp. 119-20.

[10] Works, iii. pp. 126-7. 

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The chapter on Purgatory opens in this quaint style: “For extinguishing the imaginary flames of Popish Purgatory, we need not go far to fetch water. Seeing the whole current of God's word runneth mainly upon this - that ‘the Blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth us from all sin’; that all God's children die in Christ, and that such as die in Him rest from their labours, that as they be absent from the Lord while they are in the body, so when they be absent from the body they are present with the Lord, and in a word that they come not into judgment, but pass from death unto life. And if we need, the assistance of the ancient Fathers, behold, they be here, ready with full buckets in their hands.”  Then follow copious extracts from Tertullian, St. Gregory, of Neo Caesarea, St. Basil, St. Augustine, St. Cyril, &c. "The first whom we find to have held that for certain light faults there is a purgatory fire provided before the day of judgment, was Gregory the First, about the end of the sixth age, after the birth of our Saviour Christ.” Ussher goes on to show that even this "Gregorian fire," founded on the misapprehension on the part of Gregory "that the end of the world was at hand, and that revelations

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were being made of the condition of departed souls, did not suit the Romanists, who, from this small beginning, went on to elaborate a purgatory of  their own unknown to the Greek Church, and so unto this day the Romish purgatory is rejected as well by the Grecians as by the Muscovites, and Russians, the Cophites and Abassines, the Georgians and Armenians, together with the Syrians and Chaldeans, that are subject to the Patriarch of Antioch and Babylon, from Cyprus and Palestina unto the East Indies, and this may suffice (concludes the Bishop) for the discovery of this new found creek of purgatory." [11]

In the following chapter, on  "Prayers for the Dead," Ussher shows with much learning the distinction between the commemoration of the faithful departed, as observed by the primitive Church, and the prayers founded on the Popish doctrine of Purgatory. The important point laid stress on by Ussher is this, that these early prayers and commemorations are on behalf of the dead in Christ who are in bliss, and always take the form of thanksgivings for their happiness; in no case do they take the form of a prayer for deliverance from purgatorial fires.

[11] Ussher's Works, iii. pp. 196-7. Ussher was writing at a time when English sailors were everywhere awakening interest by the discovery of new creeks, islands, &c.

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The chapter on the “Limbus Patrum, and the Descent of Christ into Hell," is an exhaustive treatise in itself of some 140 pages, and bristles with authorities from Origen to Suarez. Ussher's own view seems to amount to this: that hell is but a synonym for the grave. "To lay down all the places of the Fathers wherein our Lord's ‘rising again from the dead’ is termed His rising again from Hades, inferi, or hell, would be a needless labour; for this, we need go no farther than the canon of the Mass itself, wherein the prayer that follows next after the consecration, there being a commemoration made of Christ's passion, resurrection, and ascension; the second is set out by the title ‘ab inferis resurrectionis,' of the 'resurrection from hell.' . . . If, then, 'the resurrection from the dead’ be the same with the resurrection from 'Hades, inferi, or hell,' why may not 'the going unto Hades, inferi, or hell,' be interpreted to be the 'going unto the dead'?" Ussher shows how the passage in I Peter iii. 19, 20, was interpreted by St. Jerome, St. Augustine and others, as meaning that Christ by His spirit acting on Noah, a preacher of righteousness, wrought among those ancients.

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He quotes the Venerable Bede to the effect, 'He who in our time coming in the flesh preached the way of life unto the world, even He Himself also before the flood coming in the Spirit preached unto them which then were unbelievers and lived carnally." [13] As we have said, the entire chapter is a study in itself and an exhaustive examination of the question. Ussher ends this portion of his "Answer" by protesting that in the discussion he has aimed at peace. "In the Articles of our faith common agreement must be required, which we are sure is more likely to be found in the general than in the particular. And this is the only reason that moved me to enlarge myself so much in the declaration of the general acceptions of the word Hades and the application of them to our Saviour's descent spoken of in the Creed." [14]

In the chapter dealing with "Prayers to Saints", Ussher contrasts in abundantiam the teaching of the early Church with that of Rome. In one passage he briefly sums up a number of authorities, SS. Basil, Gregory Nyssen, John Chrysostom, John Damascen, and others, all laying down the same principle, that prayer is essentially a converse or conference with God; “and, therefore, where the names of the martyrs were solemnly rehearsed in the public Liturgy of the Church, St. Augustine interpreteth it to be done for our honourable

[13] Ussher's Works, iii. pp. 307-8.

[14] Ditto, p. 419.

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remembrance of them, but utterly denieth that the Church therein had any intention to invocate them." (De Civ. Dei, 22, cap. 10.) In contrast to this teaching of the early Church, Ussher quotes among other Roman documents, Bonaventure's "Lady's Psalter": - Lady, how are they multiplied that trouble me. . . . My Lady, in thee have I put my trust; deliver me from mine enemies, O Lady. O come let us sing unto our Lady; let us make a joyful noise to Mary our Queen that brings salvation. O sing unto our Lady a new song, for she hath done marvellous things,” [15] &c.

In the chapter on Images, Ussher clearly shows that the teaching of the acknowledged Fathers of the Roman Catholic Church involved the highest kind of worship to images; thus, "It is the constant judgment of divines that the image is to be honoured and worshipped with the same honour and worship wherewith that is worshipped whereof it is an image." [16] "We impart latria or divine worship to the image of God, or of Christ, or to the sign of the cross also; hyperdulia at the image of thy holy Virgin, but dulia at the image of other saints." [17]

[15] Works, iii. pp.490-1.

[16] Azarius the Jesuit cited, ditto, p. 501.

[17]Jacobius de qraffiis, ditto, p. 502.

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In the eleventh chapter Ussher grants man the possession of a free will as essentially belonging to him as reason itself. Even in doing works of grace our free will is not suspended, but being moved and guided by grace does that which is fit. The Manichees, who bring in the necessity of sinning, are condemned. At the same time, since the fall of man, the ability which the will once had for spiritual duties is "quite lost and extinguished." Ussher completely endorses the teaching of Art. X. on the subject of "Free Will." [18] In carrying on this part of the controversy, St. Augustine is Ussher's great authority. Pelagius and Celestius were the first two who taught a doctrine of free will contrary to that anciently received in the Church, to the effect that supernatural assistance was not needed for the conversion of man and the right direction of his will.

In the closing chapter, on "Merits,” Ussher clearly shows how late “in this main and most substantial point which is the foundation of all our comfort, the Church of Rome departed from the faith of its forefathers," contrasting the teaching of Roman authorities as recent as the thirteenth century with those that followed in the fifteenth and sixteenth.

[18] Ussher's Works, iii. pp. 518-19.

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As an instance of the manner in which the Roman authorities had perverted the grace of the Gospel, Ussher refers to the form for preparing men for their death which was commonly to be found in all libraries, and particularly was found inserted among the Epistles of Anselm, Archbishop of Canterbury, who was commonly accounted to be the author of it. The substance of this treatise was to be found in a tractate, written by a Cistercian monk; entitled "Of the Art of Dying Well" (which, says Ussher, "I have in written hand, and have also seen printed in the year MCCCCLXXXVIII; and MDIV."), and in a book called Hortulus Anima. From treatises of the kind the Spanish Inquisition command, such interrogatories as these to be blotted out: - "Dost thou believe to come to glory not by thine own merits, but by the virtues and merit of the passion of our Lord Jesus Christ?" “Dost thou believe that our Lord Jesus Christ did die for our salvation, and that none can be saved by his own merits or by any other means but by the merit of His passion?" In some copies of this same instruction the last question propounded to the sick man was this: "Dost thou believe that thou canst not be saved but by the death of Christ?" and he was instructed to say: "Lord, I oppose the death of our Lord Jesus Christ betwixt me and Thy judgment; nor otherwise do I contend with Thee. . . . Lord, I put the death of the Lord Jesus betwixt Thee and my sins.

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Lord, I set the death of our Lord Jesus Christ betwixt me and my bad merits, and offer His merit instead of the merit which I ought to have, but have not . . .  Lord, I interpose the death of our Lord Jesus Christ betwixt me and Thine anger." [19]

This laborious treatise of Dr. Ussher has been a mine of wealth for later controversialists. Those who have since crossed swords with the champions of Rome have been indebted to it for many of their arguments. Its learning is unquestioned, as well as the accuracy and relevance of its references. Nearly four hundred authorities in all are quoted, including ancient liturgies and conciliar edicts, and ranging from the spurious Gospel of Nicodemus to Johannes de Selva, A.D. 1500. Nothing richer or fuller in the way of a general answer to the particular tenets of the Roman Catholic Church has since been presented to the world. The work, which forms vol. iii. of Ussher's collected writings, is dedicated to James I. It professes to base itself entirely upon "the judgment of antiquity," and bears upon its title-page the significant saying of our Lord: "From the beginning it was not so." [20]

[19] Ussher's Works, iii. pp. 567-8.

[20] Malone attempted a reply in 1629, but it was so stuffed with inaccuracies and falsities that Ussher took no notice of it. -See Parr's Life, p. 25. The reply was published without the name of printer or place of publication, but it is supposed to have been printed at Douai. All copies were seized and detained at the London Custom House, and few got abroad. - Ussher's Works, xv. p. 434. The book was answered by Hoyle, Singe, and others. For lists of forbidden and intercepted Popish books, see Arber's Stat. Reg., i. pp. 393-4, 492.

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The publication of this important work synchronised with a time when the Jesuits were making unusual efforts, fair or foul, to extend the influence of their Church. We find Dr. James writing from Oxford, on January 28th, 1623, to draw Ussher's attention to the enormous corruption by shameless forgeries and otherwise in the Roman Catholic editions of the Fathers: "The notedest cozenage which is rife and most beguiling in these days is a secret Index Expurgatorious, and therefore the more dangerous; that is, the reprinting of books, not making mention of any castigation or purgation of them, and yet both leaving and adding, and otherwise infinitely depraving them . . . There are about five hundred bastard treatises and about a thousand places in the true authors which are corrupted." Dr. James adds that he has got together "the flower of their young divines, who will examine into and collate such corruptions." [21]

[21] Ussher's Works, xv. pp. 206-7.

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Another correspondent, writing in September of the same year, observes, "Never were the Popish priests and Jesuits more busy than at this day, seeking by all means to seduce and pervert unstable souls and such as are not firmly grounded in the knowledge of the true religion." [22] It will be thus seen that Ussher's work appeared at a most seasonable moment in the religious history of the country. The approaching marriage of the King's son with the Spanish Infanta was also exercising public opinion, and many were dubious as to the consequences. Dr. Ryves, however, writes to the Bishop, October 8th, 1623, that the Prince had returned from Spain a better Protestant, and that it was the same with the Duke of Buckingham; "they all return more resolved Protestants than ever, being thoroughly persuaded, ex evidentia facti, that Popery is idolatry if ever any were." [23] Among other correspondents was the Bishop of Elphin, who writes to Ussher from Elphin 1623, to say that he (Ussher) is “with him every day in Latin and English." The Bishop, like all his contemporaries, is in hourly dread of Popery. "The devil beginneth to act his part more busily … It is time that the Lion of the tribe of Judah doth destroy the roaring lion with all his works, both in his sheep's and lion’s skin."

[22] Ussher's Works, xvi. p. 407.

[23] Ditto, xv. pp. 201-2.

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He goes on to witness to Ussher's increasing literary labours: "I know your lordship's indeffesible studies and intolerable toils do not permit you to answer every one”; but he pleads that he may be among Ussher's "unfeigned friends, whom he makes choice to answer for.”

During Ussher's absence in England, his mother, who had joined the Roman Catholic Church, to the great grief of her son, died in Drogheda; Ussher was much afflicted by the event and the fact of his absence. He would have desired to have been with her when she passed away, that he might have helped the departing soul by his counsels and commended her to God in his prayers. [24]

[24] Smith's Life, pp. 8-9.