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

Page 180

THE question of a new appointment to the Provostship of Trinity College was now occupying much of the Archbishop's time and attention. On January 10th, 1627, he writes from Drogheda to the Archbishop of Canterbury, to say the time had come when he had succeeded in prevailing on Sir William Temple, who had been provost for seventeen years, to resign the office. On the same day, Ussher writes to the same effect to the Society of Lincoln's Inn, and in both letters he suggests Mr. Sibbes, the Preacher of Gray's Inn, as his successor. Failing Mr. Sibbes, he suggests Mr. Bedell, or Dr. Featley; and if the Archbishop can persuade the Fellows of the College to elect Bedell, "that poor house shall ever have the cause to bless his memory."

Page 181

Writing back from London on March 19th, Archbishop Abbot says: "I send unto you Mr. Sibbes . . . I hope that College shall in him have a very good Master which hitherto it hath not had." [1] The Fellows were now divided into two parties, and neither of them would elect Mr. Sibbes. Archbishop Ussher next recommended Mede, "a single man, very eminent in learning, and one that will wholly apply himself to the government of the house without seeking any further preferment." [2] The Senior Fellows, who claimed the sole right of appointment, nominated Mede, and the Juniors, Robert Ussher, a cousin of the Archbishop's. Mede, on being pressed, refused the office. He was not willing "to adventure into a strange country upon a litigious title." He was, moreover, "slow and difficult of speech," and knew not how far that would disqualify him for the duties of the place. [3]

[1] Ussher's Works, xv. p. 375.

[2] Ditto, xvi. 453-4. Sibbes was a pious and eloquent Puritan theologian. Among other treatises, he wrote, "The Saints’ Cordial," "The Soul's Conflict with Itself," and "The Bruised Reed," books which still command some attention.

[3] Ussher's Works, xvi. p. 455. See also Stubbs' Hist. Univ. Dublin, pp. 390-1. Mede was afflicted with a bad stutter. It was a hopeless matter with him to pronounce the letter "r." "R was a shibboleth to him," says Fuller, Worthies, i. p. 520.

Page 182

The King now interfered, and Mr. Parry, one of the Senior Fellows, afterwards Bishop of Killaloe, writes to Ussher that, his Majesty has granted a letter for the appointment of Mr. Bedell to the Provost's place, and so will put an end to all tumults, and effect the long desired settlement of the College. [4] Archbishop Abbot, who was Chancellor of the University, writes to the Senior and other Fellows to the same effect: "It hath pleased his Majesty to give a remedy thereunto [the distractions of these frequent elections] by appointing unto you for that place Mr. Bedell (sic), a man of great worthe, and one who hath spent some time in the parts beyond the seas, and so cometh unto you better experienced than an ordinary person." [5] Dr. Ward also writes from Cambridge of Bedell in the highest terms as a "sincere honest man, not tainted with avarice or ambition, pious, discreet, wise, and stout enough, si res exigat."  [6]

William Bedell, thus appointed to the Provostship, was born in Essex in 1570, and was therefore eleven years older than Ussher. He was elected a Fellow of Emmanuel College, Cambridge, in 1593, and received his orders from Dr. John Sterne, the Suffragan Bishop of Colchester. Inconsequence of the promiscuous way in which these Suffragans dispensed holy orders, the institution was allowed to fall into disuse, only to be revived in our own day.

[4] Ussher's Works, xvi. p. 457.

[5] Elrington's Life, p. 87 (note).

[6] Ussher's Works, xv. p. 402.

Page 183

This particular Suffragan being called to account for his carelessness, replied that he had ordained one man (meaning Bedell) better than anyone ever ordained by any Bishop. When Sir Henry Wotton was sent by King James as Ambassador to Venice, Bedell went with him as chaplain; there he fell in with Father Paul (Sarpi), the learned friar and historian of the Council of Trent, who took Bedell “to his very soul." He taught him Italian, and in return Bedell taught Father Paul English. [7] So great was the intimacy between the ambassador and his chaplain and the leading citizens of the Republic, that it was at length given out that Venice was about to turn Protestant, and an attempt was made to assassinate Father Paul. After eight years thus spent, Bedell returned to his living of Bury St. Edmunds. In 1615 he was presented to the parish of Horninger, in the diocese of Norfolk.

[7] Walton's Life of Sir Henry Cotton (S.P.C.K. edition), pp. 107-8. Monck Mason's Life of Bedell, pp. 62-6.

Page 184

He refused to pay the exorbitant fees for institution and induction on the ground that it was simony, and the Bishop then instituted him without them. [8] Here Bedell remained for twelve years, until 1627, when he was invited to become Provost. According to Sir James Ware, he only accepted the office on the strong representation of the King, who promised that it would lead to something better. As a matter of fact, two years later he was made Bishop of Kilmore. Bedell himself tells us what his feelings were as to his acceptance of the Provostship. "Thus I stand," he writes to a friend from Bury, March 6, 1627, "I am married. I have three children; therefore if the place require a single man the business is at an end. I have no want, I thank my God, of anything necessary for this life. I have a competent living of above one hundred pounds a year in a good air, and seat, with a very convenient house near to my farm, a little parish not exceeding the compass of my weak voice."

[8] The Bishop was Dr. John Jegon, according to Dict. Nat. Biography; Dr. Samuel Horsnet, according to Clogy's Memoirs of the Life and Episcopate of Bedell, p. 25 (note). These memoirs were first printed in 1862, with notes from the original MS. in the Harleian Collection, British Museum. Clogy was a native of Scotland, admitted to holy orders by Bedell and promoted to the vicarage of Cavan. Bedell seems on principle to have objected to fees of every kind, and would take none afterwards from his clergy, when Bishop of Kilmore. He would see them to the door lest anyone else might exact them after they left his presence. See Bedell's Life of the Bishop, p. 72; Clogy's Memoirs, p. 55. The Life of Bishop Bedell, by his son, was published by John E. B. Mayor, Fellow of St. John's, Cambridge, from the Tanner MS., British Museum (Class 278, f. 15 sq.) in 1871. Bedell, we learn, always addressed his clergy as "fratres et compresbyteri." - Clogy's Memoirs, p. 47.

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"I have often heard it said [he adds] that changing seldom brings the better, especially to those who are well; and I see well that my wife (although resolving, as she ought, to be content with whatsoever God shall appoint) had rather continue with her friends in her native country than put herself into the hazard of the seas and a foreign land with many casualties in travel. All these reasons I have if I consult with flesh and blood, which move me rather to reject this offer, yet with all humble and dutiful thanks to my Lord Primate for his mind and good opinion of me . . . If I may be of any better use to my country, to God's Church, or of any better service to our common Master, I must close thine eyes against all private respects; and if God call me I must answer, Here I am." He is ready to obey if it were not only to go into Ireland, but into Virginia," [9] and even though "death itself" should meet him in the performance. [10] The Senior Fellows on their part write to Bedell, tendering him all hearty entertainment and due respect." [11]

[9] Sir Walter Raleigh had a short time before he planted the English flag on the shores of Virginia.

[10] Ussher's Works, .xvi. pp. 442-3. See also Stubbs' History of the University, who prints a copy of the appointment from the College Register. It was evidently considered a serious business in those days to cross over into Ireland; it was a "foreign land.”

[11] Stubbs' History, p. 393. Bedell's salary as Provost was £100 a year, and he received £20 a year additional as Lecturer in Christ's Church Cathedral. - Bedell's Life, p. 41.

Page 186

Immediately on being sworn in, a meeting of the Board was held, at which it was agreed that all former quarrels should be forgotten. Bedell never showed himself quite confident of his ability to fill the place; he evidently accepted it with misgivings. [12] Writing to Ussher from Ringes (qy. Ringsend), September 10th, 1627, he says: “I have taken upon me the government of that society, though with privity to myself of very much insufficiency thereto. I have endeavoured hitherto to set order first in the worship of God (much neglected, as appeared by the very ill array of the chapel itself, and omitting of communions these many years)." [13] He finds the statutes which he is revising to consist of a few papers tacked together, part English, part Latin, and all out of order." [14] He arranges for the keeping of two "common places" weekly instead of one. The finances of the college are in a bad way. He finds no money in the chest to pay for commons and stipends as they are due. From the first things did not run smoothly.

[12] On the day of his arrival in Dublin, Bedell took lodgings at the house of Dr. Siler in Copper Alley, and in the afternoon paid his respects to the Lord-Deputy at the Castle. - Bedell's Diary, August 16, I627.

[13] Ussher's Works, xvi. p. 458. There was no communion table in the College chapel in 1627 when Bedell entered on his duties, as we learn from his diary. "

[14] Ussher's Works, xvi. 458; Stubbs'  History, p. 395.

Page 187

On April 1, 1628, he complains “of a new broil, that old grudges and factions are revived," and hints at his possible resignation. On April 15th he writes to Ussher that he had informed the Archbishop of Canterbury that he feared he would be "a bad pilot in such rough seas," and that he was deaf. [15] Still later he writes again to Ussher from his old parish in Suffolk, whither he had gone to bring over his family to Dublin, that he considers it has been an error all this while to neglect the faculties of law and physic, and "attend only to the ordering of one poor college of divines." Archbishop Abbot had approved of the new statutes, [16] as Bedell informs Ussher, but while it was insisted upon that the students should always wear their gowns in college, Abbot did not approve of their being excused when they went into the town - a point which, he says, of all others should have been provided for. Bedell replied that "the streets in Dublin were very foul," and the Archbishop's rejoinder was that they might "if the streets were never so foul take their gowns under their arms.” [17]

[15] Ussher's Works, xv. p. 396. These constant quarrels and emeutes arose very much from the enmity that existed between the British and Irish students, who divided the College between them. - See Bedell's Life of Bedell, p 44.

[16] Bedell's statutes were subsequently revised by Jeremy Taylor, and were in consequence called Taylor's statutes, but their foundation was Temple's statutes. - Todd's Catalogue of Graduates, p. vii.

[17] Ussher's Works, xv. p. 396.

Page 188

In another letter to the Archbishop of Armagh, Bedell complains of the "new-fangleness in apparel, and long hair and ruffles, wherein this city (Dublin) and the very greatest of the clergy are, methinks, very exorbitant." [18]

[18] Ditto, xvi. p. 458. Bedell was an enemy to all kinds of clerical dandyism, and set an example of simplicity of dress as a Bishop. Among his synodical instructions to his clergy was the following - "ut clerici comam ne nutriant, et habitu clericale . . . . incedant." - Clogy's Memoirs, p. 63. We are told that he would not wear silk, but dressed in plain stuff. In Dublin, he would not ride up and down the streets with his three or four men attending, as was the common usage of the bishops there, but always walked with one man. He very seldom used to ride with the State to church on Sundays, and when he did so it was with as little show as possible. - Ditto, pp. 48-9. Clerical vanity was as rife in the English Church. Bishop Hall writes to his brother, about to become a clergyman. His attire should not be “youthfully wanton, nor affectedly ancient, but grave and comely like the mind, like the behavior of the wearer." Archbishop Bancroft likewise, in his letter on Pluralities (1610), speaks of clerical pride in dress as never so great as it was then, from the dean to the curate. Nothing was left to distinguish a bishop from any of them.  Deans, and even archdeacons and inferior clergy, were to be found in their velvet or satin cassocks with silk stockings. Their wives were likewise given similar failings, and this caused a great outcry against "double beneficed men,” and much envy and heart-burning. - See Lewis's Life of Bishop Hall, pp. 117-121. The clergy had also begun to smoke at this time, and Hall condemns the new habit before Convocation in 1623. Even of the mouths that were sacred to God, "there were some which out of a wanton custom savoured of nothing by Indian soot, and took more pleasure to put forth a cloud of smoke than the thunderings and lightnings of the Law." - Ditto, p. 66. See Simpkinson's Laud, p. 13.

Page 189

The College continued to be an unruly place, as we can easily see from Bedell's Register. Thus he notices how two students, Dean and Wilson, are mulcted a month's commons for their insolent behaviour, assaulting and striking the butler. Sir Springham is said to keep a hawk. Rawley, for drunkenness and knocking Strank's head against the seat of the chapel, is to have no further maintenance from the house. Booth, for taking a pig of Sir Samuel Smith's, and that openly in the daytime before many, and causing it to be dressed in town, is condemned to be whipped openly in the hall, and to pay for the pig. [19] Writing to Ussher, he tells him how on St. Matthews day, the scholars at night pulled down, between supper and prayer-time, a wooden enclosure, "every stick, and brought it away into the college to several chambers; upon warning, at prayer-time, they brought it all back, and there was a great pile reared up in the night.

[19] See Monck Mason's Life of Bedell, pp. 163-4; Stubbs' History of the University, pp. 58-9, where these extracts from Bedell's Register are given. Bedell's insistence on religious instruction during meal times does not seem to have profited the students much; we are told that he required "a chapter to be read in the Latin Bible, and after meat was brought in, and a little space of time allowed, the reader was to go up to the Fellows' table (where seldom but the Provost himself was present), and there recite some verse of the chapter that was read to give occasion of savoury and profitable discourse." - Bedell's Life of Bedell, p. 43.

Page 190

This "insolency grieved" Bedell “much.” [20]

One of the first enterprises of the new Provost was to set himself to learn the Irish language, with the praiseworthy purpose of being able to give religious instruction in it. [21] He writes to Ussher, asking for a loan of an Irish Psalter. [22] He quickly turned his attention to the great work of giving the Irish people the Bible and Book of Common Prayer in their own tongue. He also established in the college an "Irish lecture,” which gave the King great pleasure. [23] The instruction of the Irish people by clergymen of the Church of Ireland who could speak their language was a matter on which the previous King (James I.) had set great importance. He had written to the Earl of Cork, complaining that Trinity College, which had been founded by Elizabeth with the object of thus instructing the Irish-speaking people, had failed in this respect. [24]

[20] Ussher's Works, xvi. p. 427.

[21] While in Venice, Bedell had learned Italian, and had translated the English Prayer-book into that tongue.

[22] Ussher's Works, xvi. p. 476. 

[23] Ditto, xv. p. 443.

[24] Stubbs' History, p. 58 (note).

Page 191

The ordinance of Queen Elizabeth, already referred to, that where the natives did not understand the English language the Liturgy should be said in Latin, had been, as might be supposed, a most effectual check of the progress of the Reformation. A natural result was that the clergy of the Established Church did not care to master a language that could be of no practical value to them in the discharge of their public duties. On the other hand, the Roman Catholic clergy kept the language alive among the people by ministering to them, if not in public, at least privately, in a tongue they loved to hear. [25] An Act passed in the twenty-eighth year of Henry VIII. (cap. xv.) had provided that spiritual promotions should be given only to such persons as could speak the English tongue, and none other, and promise to maintain a school to learn English.

[25] Bedell complained to Laud of the clergy in his diocese that they had not "the tongue of the people," and could not perform any divine offices nor confer with them, which was no small cause of the continuance of the people in Popery. - Letter to Laud, April 1st, 1630. - See Clogy's Memoirs, pp. 36-8. Bedell drew up an Irish Catechism for the people, which he called "ABC, or the Institution of a Christian." It was printed in Dublin by the Company of Stationers in 1631; on the reverse of the title-page is a coarse woodcut representing children picking-up fruit from a tree. The whole, which contains among other things the Creed and the Lord's Prayer, consists of eight leaves. This Catechism is extremely rare, only one copy of it being known to exist, in the Library of the British Museum. - See Cotton's Fasti Hib., iii. p. 162, and T. Wharton Jones' Bedell, pp. 172-4.

Page 192

By the statute of Queen Elizabeth, (2nd Eliz. cap. xiii.), it was enacted that where the parish minister had not the use of the English tongue, "it shall be lawful to say or use all their common and open prayer in the Latin tongue.” The eighty-sixth (Irish Canon) sought to get rid of the difficulty by permitting the parish clerk to read the most important portions of the service after the clergyman in the Irish tongue. We shall see what further efforts Bedell made in this direction, and how they were thwarted.

All this time affairs were in a very unsatisfactory state in Ireland. The discontent of the Recusants was slumbering; Laud, then Bishop of London, was commencing to turn his attention to Irish matters, and was in correspondence with Ussher. [26] The Roman Catholics had refused the bounty, but they had made overtures to the King, and sent representatives to London with an offer of a large sum of money.

[26] It is curious to see how far back the opposition to the use of the Irish tongue in religious instruction goes. We find that it required a special act of Parliament in 1485, to allow of the Archbishop of Dublin sending an Irish-speaking of his flock who only understood that language. - See Hardiman's Patent Rolls, temp. Richard II. It was regarded in the light of treason to back up the Irish. Thus in 1421, the Bishop of Cashel was accused by the Bishop of Lismore "that he made very much of the Irish, and that he loved none of the English nation, and that he bestowed no benefice upon any Englishman, and that he counselled other bishops not to give the least benefice to any of them." - Marleburrough's Chronicle, p. 222; Ware, i. pp. 480-1.

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The favours they asked for in return were not altogether of a religious nature, but embraced also domestic and political advantages for the entire country. A free and general pardon was promised in return, and that all landholders should be confirmed in their estates. The Roman Catholics were elated, and considered, in accordance with the instructions issued from London, that they had again full licence to celebrate, without let or hindrance, the observances of their religion. The consequence was, they seized upon some of the parish churches for the purpose, and established a Popish seminary in the city of Dublin. It was now the turn of the Protestant party to be irritated, and they called on the Lord-Deputy to interfere and put the laws in force against the Recusants. In response to this demand, Lord Falkland was compelled to issue a proclamation to the effect that “the late intermission of legal proceedings against Popish pretended titular archbishops, bishops, abbots, deans, vicars-general, jesuits, friars and others, deriving their pretended authority from the See of Rome, in contempt of his Majesty's royal power and authority, had bred such an extravagant insolence and presumption in them; that he was necessitated to charge and command them in his Majesty's name to forbear the exercise of their Popish rites and ceremonies." [27]

[27] Leland's History iii. pp. 4-5.

Page 194

This proclamation was very badly received, and in Drogheda (the residence of the Archbishop) was treated with the utmost contempt, so much so as to draw forth a strong remonstrance addressed to Ussher by the Lord-Deputy, April 14th, 1629. "It was done," writes Lord Falkland, “in scornful and contemptuous sort, a drunken soldier being the first set up to read it, and then a drunken sergeant of the town, both being made by so much drink incapable of that task." It was more like a "May-game" than anything else. He had expected that Ussher, from the eminent place he held in the Church, and being a Privy Councillor, would have communicated with him on the subject. [28] The Primate was deeply hurt by the tenor of his letter, and the Lord-Deputy subsequently apologised.

Representations adverse to the government of the Lord-Deputy followed, and the English Government recalled him. Lord Falkland, on his departure from Ireland, took an affectionate leave of Ussher, and, knelling down, begged his Grace's blessing." [29]

[28] Ussher's Works, xv. p. 438.

[29] Illius benedictionem plexis genibus rogavit. - Smith's Life, p. 65.

Page 195

The Roman Catholic party, looking on his recall as a great triumph, suddenly burst out into the wildest licence, and paraded the streets of Dublin with public ceremonies, monks and friars walking in procession in full ecclesiastical habiliments, a thing that had been unheard of for many years. The consequence of these proceedings was a serious riot in the city, on the occasion of the Archbishop of Dublin (Bulkeley) and the Lord Mayor attempting by force to put down a religious service in Cook Street. The Archbishop was attacked, and was compelled to fly for his life, and take refuge in a neighbouring house. [30] How far it was becoming for a minister of religion, and especially one of his high rank, to appear at the head of a body of men armed with muskets and pole-axes, it is not for us to pronounce. The English Government, however, took his side.

[30] The religious order was that of the Capuchins, who established themselves in Ireland in 1623, under the rule of one Father Ling, an Irishman. For a notice of the riot, see Leland's Hist. of Ireland, iii: p. 7. Butler, in his History of the Roman Catholic Church, represents the Archbishop to have been Ussher, but the Primate was not present. It was Dr. Bulkeley, Archbishop of Dublin. - See Elrington's Life, p. 280, Wall and Leland (and after them Elrington) seem to have been mistaken in representing the order as that of the Carmelites. - See Todd, as below.

Page 196

The house where the service was celebrated was demolished, as "a mark of terror to the resisters of authority," and the building, which had been set apart as a Roman Catholic seminary, was confiscated and handed over to the University of Dublin. [31] Protestant lectures were delivered there, which were attended occasionally by the Lords Justices. It was subsequently brought as a charge against Lord Strafford on his trial, that he had restored the building to the Roman Catholics. His answer was that he had done so in consequence of a successful suit before the Privy Counci1. [32]

The Protestants were still excited, and representations were made to the King on the state of affairs. In return, Charles addressed a letter to the four Archbishops, in which he called on them to exercise greater vigilance in their work, to exhort their clergy to do their duty by preaching and catechising in the parishes committed to their charge, and to live answerably to the doctrine which they preached to the people. The Bishops were not to hold any benefice or ecclesiastical dignity whatsoever along with their bishoprics; and when livings fell vacant they were to fill them up at once, and not keep the revenues in their own hands. [33]

[31] It was called St. Stephen's Hall, and was known for some time as "the College in Bridge Street." - See Todd's List of the Graduates of the University of Dublin - Introduction, pp. lxiv. - lxv.

[32] See Rushworth’s Tryal of the Earl of Strafford, p. 27.

[33] See the letter in Parr's Life, pp. 38-9.

Page 197

This severe letter, almost amounting to a reprimand, in return for the complaint of the Protestant party, was written, no doubt, at the suggestion of Laud, who was at this time busying himself about Irish matters, and in particular with the abuses of the Established Church. The entire letter suggests that the Church was itself responsible for much of the growing strength of the Roman Catholics.

And in truth the abuses at this time were manifold and glaring. How could a Church be a successful missionary institution which owned Bishops like Dr. Boyle, Bishop of Waterford and Lismore? A Fellow of St. John's, Oxford, by the interest of his relative, the Earl of Cork, he had got possession of the See of Waterford and Lismore, with a patent to hold in addition any amount of dignities and promotions. His nephew, the Bishop of Cork, afterwards Lord Primate and Lord Chancellor, perpetuated this shameful abuse, seizing on the livings in his diocese under the excuse that he could not find clergymen to occupy them. Things were not better in the northern dioceses. Bishop Moygne, the immediate predecessor of Bedell in the See of Kilmore, "had set up such a shop of mundination and merchandise as if all things spiritual and temporal belonging to episcopacy had been ordinary vendible commodities, as in the "Church of Rome . . . orders and livings sold to those who could pay the greatest fines." [34]

[34] Clogy's Memoirs, pp. 34-5.

Page 198

Of a far different character in his life and work was the Archbishop of Armagh, and if other prelates before and after him had been men of the same zeal and determination of purpose, the Reformed Church of Ireland would have flourished and made converts through the diligence of its pastors, bishops, and parochial clergy alike. Ussher, we are told, devoted himself to missionary work among those who had been "bred up in the Roman Catholic religion from their infancy; for which end he began to converse more frequently and more familiarly with the gentry and nobility of that persuasion, [35] as also with divers of the inferior sort that dwelt near him, inviting them often to his house and discoursing with them with great mildness of the chief tenets of their religion, by which gentle usage he was strangely successful,

[35] The proselytizing of the sons of the nobility has been carried on with consistent impartiality by both Churches. Ussher took into his house two young scions of noble houses, James Dillon, afterwards Earl of Roscommon, and the young Viscount Iveagh (Arthur Mac Ongusa or McGuinness), who both became Protestants. Mac Ongusa afterwards married the daughter of Hugh O'Neill, Earl of Tyrone. - See Elrington's Life, p. 109; O'Hart's Irish Pedigrees, p. 157.

Page 199

convincing many of their errors, and bringing them to the knowledge of the truth." [36]

The Archbishop also laid himself out to reform the secular abuses of the Church, restraining impropriations, as far as he could do so, and endeavouring to protect the property of the Church from falling into the hands of the great landed proprietors, in which good work he was ably seconded by Laud. [37] But none of these troublesome questions were allowed to interfere with Ussher's studies. He received a letter from his agent at Aleppo, informing him, that he had shipped off a parcel of books for him - an imperfect copy of the Old Testament in the Chaldean; a Syriac tract of St. Ephrem's, &c.

[36] Parr's Life of Ussher, p. 39. The general want of missionary enterprise, on behalf of the Roman Catholic population of Ireland, arrested at a later date the attention of the famous Puritan, John Owen. "How is it," he asks, "that Jesus Christ is in Ireland only as a Lion staining all His garments with the blood of His enemies, and none to hold Him up as a Lamb sprinkled with His own blood, to His friends . . . For my part, I see no further into the mystery of these things, but that I could heartily rejoice that innocent blood being expiated, the Irish might enjoy Ireland so long as the moon endureth, so that Jesus Christ might possess the Irish - Sermon before Parliament on the Day of Humiliation, Feb. 28, 1650.

[37] Irish Churchmen, at least, have every reason to regard the memory of Laud with gratitude. He laboured hard to regain its possessions for the Church. Even a strong Protestant like Fuller writes: "He was a worthy instrument in moving the King to so pious a work." - Ch. Hist. iii. p. 426.

Page 200

Later, he writes again (July 29th, 1628): "The books in the Ethiopian tongue I have not been so happy as to be able to procure. Jerusalem yields none of them." [38]

In March, 1629, we find Ussher writing from Drogheda to Dr. Ward, informing him that he is about to edit the history of Gottescalcus with two of his confessions never before published.

In 1631, Archbishop Ussher issued from the press this work, and thereby gratified the strong Calvinistic opinions he held at the time. It was one of the first books printed in Ireland in the Latin tongue. [39] Gottescalcus was a Benedictine monk in the diocese of Soissons, who flourished about the ninth century. He devoted himself to the Pelagian controversy, and maintained the doctrines of predestination and irresistible grace, against Maurus, the Archbishop of Mentz, Johannes Scotus, and others. On his side appeared Ratramnus of Corbey, Prudentius of Troyes, and Remigius, Archbishop of Lyons. His opinions were ultimately condemned, he was sentenced to be degraded and whipped, his book, in which he appealed to Scripture, thrown into the flames, and himself imprisoned in the monastery of Hautvilliers.

[38] Ussher’s Works, xvi. P. 472.

[39] Ussher says he supposes it was the first Latin book ever published in Ireland (Works, xv. p. 583), but, as Elrington points out (Life, p. 123), Ware had already published two Latin treatises in Dublin, and Professor Killen mentions a Latin book printed in Dublin in 1619 - a medical treatise on hereditary diseases. - See Reid's Hist. of Presbyterianism, i. p. 29.(note).

Page 201

Refusing to retract, he lingered in prison for twenty years, and after his death was denied Christian burial. [40]

It casts a strange light on the theological controversies of the seventeenth century that Ussher thought it worth his while to produce this history. [41] He leans strongly to the side of Gottescalcus, and defends him as an Augustinian. It is also remarkable that the English Court should have thought the subject worthy of its notice, and that the King should have issued an order against reviving the Predestinarian controversy. Although the Archbishop's book escaped notice, a publication by Downham, Bishop of Derry, "A Book against the Arminians and the totall and finall Apostacie of the Saints from Grace," as Prynne calls it, was not so fortunate, having been suppressed by royal authority. [42]

[40] See, for an account of this controversy, Kurtz' Church History, i. pp. 546-548; Hagenbach's Hist. Of Doctrines, ii. pp. 293-297.

[41] Gotteschalchi Praedestinatianae controversiae ab eo motae Historia: uma cum duplice ejusdem confessione nunc primum in lucem edita Dublinii, 1631. The work, which is dedicated to Vossius, is a treatise of 233 pages, and forms the first part of vol. iv. of the Archbishop's collected writings. - Ussher's Works, vol. iv.

[42] The King, through Laud, ordered Ussher to call in Downham's book. The Archbishop’s reply was found in Laud's study at Lambeth, endorsed with his own hand. In the course of it, Ussher says he had caused all the copies unsent into England to be seized. He adds that he had no eye to the Dublin press, because it was out of his province, and the case, he supposed, more properly belonged to his brother of Dublin. Bedell was then ordered to overlook the press in Ireland. Ussher's book escaped because it was written in Latin, and because of the eminence of the writer. - Collier, Eccl. Hist. ii. p. 750; Doom of Canterbury, p. 172. See also for a note on Downham's treatise, Reid's Hist. Pres., i. p. 164.

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At the same time that this was done, three Puritans were expelled from Oxford - Ford, of Magdalen Hall, Thorn, of Balliol, and Hodges, of Exeter; and Prideaux, Rector of Exeter, College, was publicly censured for defending them.

If we are to believe some, Gottescalcus taught an extreme antinomianism. One of his opponents - Archbishop Rabanus - wrote that he had seduced many, who had become less careful of their salvation, since they had learned from him to say: “Why should I labour for my salvation? If I am predestinated to damnation I cannot avoid it; and on the contrary, if I am predestinated to salvation, whatever sins I may be guilty of, I shall certainly be saved. However this may have been, his opinions sufficiently interested Archbishop Ussher to induce him to write a book on the subject.

The Archbishop seems afterwards to have considerably modified his theological opinions. Having begun as an extreme Calvinist, under the training of men like Travers and Alvey, he ended as a man of more reasonable views on such subjects as the extent of Christ's atonement, election, reprobation, &c.

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"Another very eminent contemporary," says Bishop Christopher Wordsworth, "whose sentiments concerning the Calvinistic points appear to have undergone at a much later period of his life a change very similar to that which took place in those of his friend, Dr. Sanderson, was the truly pious and primitive Archbishop Ussher, who had often exerted himself as an earnest and public advocate and propagator of those notions which he latterly disclaimed.” Dr. Hammond gives similar testimony. [43]

[43] Wordsworth's Eccl. Biography, iv. p. 437 (note). It is worth dwelling upon this point, as there are those who believe Ussher remained all his life an extreme Puritan and Calvinist. Collier says "Ussher was a strict Calvinian, and held the Predestinarian controversy in the sense of the Lambeth Articles; but some time before his death he changed his opinions touching the five points, and came over to the other side." - Eccl. Hist., p. 868. See ante, p. 107; "In later years the effects of this prava disciplina were almost obliterated." - Elrington's Life, p. I7. See also the subject fully entered into in Todd's Life of Walton, i. pp. 203-9.