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

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THE relation of Archbishop Ussher to the Presbyterians, now becoming an important colony in the North of Ireland, has been the subject of much discussion. On one side it has been attempted to be proved that Ussher recognised the orders of the Presbyterian Church, and was anxious that its ministers should be retained in the benefice which they held. The opposite view is as strongly maintained by others, who assert that the Archbishop has been quite misrepresented. The contradictory statements made on each side render it difficult to arrive at the exact truth, but the facts of the case seem to lean towards the view that Ussher was prepared at one time to recognise the validity of Presbyterian orders, and to sanction the occupation of incumbencies in the North of Ireland by Presbyterian ministers. One of these latter - a Mr. Blair - was hospitably entertained by Ussher, at his palace in Drogheda, and, if we are to believe him, enjoyed the approval of the Archbishop, who lamented the differences that kept them apart.

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It required a letter from Laud, then Bishop of London, to the Lord-Deputy Strafford, to inaugurate a severer regime, and so defeat the bold bid on the part of Scottish Presbyterian ministers for the benefices of the Church of Ireland by recalling Ussher to his obligation to maintain episcopal discipline in the Church. He writes to say that the King’s pleasure that Ussher would see the jurisdiction of the Church established in Ireland, to be maintained both against the Recusants and all other Factionists, and that he should do his best endeavor to stop all such rumours as may dishearten the Bishops in God’s service and his. [1]

Sir James Hamilton and other Scottish settlers in the North of Ireland had acquired along with their lands the patronage of certain benefices, to which they nominated Presbyterian ministers, and it will be readily seen how action of this kind was likely to introduce disorder into the Church. Unfortunately, the two Bishops who the presided over the dioceses of Down and Connor, and Raphoe respectively - Drs. Echlin and Knox, themselves of Scottish extraction - where not averse to making things as easy as possible for their countryman.

[1] Strafford’s Letters, i. p. 82.

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After a manner these ministers submitted to episcopal ordination, but their hearts did not go with their acts. Among those who thus accepted orders to qualify for their livings were Edward Brice, [2] Prebendary of Kilroot; James Glendinning, Vicar of Carmoney; Robert Cunningham, Rector of Holywood and Craigavad; Robert Blair, Rector of Bangor; James Hamilton, Rector of Ballywater; Josias Welsh, Rector of Templepatrick; Andrew Stewart, Rector of Kilbride; George Dunbar, Rector of Larne; and John Livingston, Rector of Killinchy. Of these Blair alone seems to have come into personal contact with Ussher, who sent for him with a view to obtaining information as to the state of the Church in the North of Ireland. If we are to believe Presbyterian authorities, these clergymen never really discarded their Presbyterianism, and only submitted to the form of episcopal ordination to secure their livings.

[2] Edward Brice was the first Presbyterian minister to settle in Ireland. In 1614 he had been deprived of his benefice in Scotland on the charge of adultery, but Bishop Echlin either disbelieved or condoned the offence, as he admitted him to the cure of Templecurran or Broad Island. His tomb may still be seen at Ballycorry in the county of Antrim. - See Dist. Nat. Biography, vi. P. 311; King’s Ch. Hist. p. 869.

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When Blair objected, Bishop Echlin said to him: “I must ordain you, else neither you nor I can answer the law, nor enjoy the land.” [3] After repeated irregularities, Blair and Livingstone were suspended from the benefices. In the records of the Prerogative Court in Dublin for 1634 may be seen the names of the above ministers, with the date of their ordination as deacons and priests, and the names of the Bishops who ordained them. [4]

As to Ussher’s personal feelings on the subject, we know he had a desire to deal gently with the Presbyterian party. He wrote to Bishop Echlin desiring him to “relax his erroneous censure,” when the latter was inclined to bear severely on the irregular ministrations of these men, and he only forbore to throw his shield over them when the Lords Justices interfered by order from the King. [5]

[3] See Grub’s Eccl. Hist. Scot., ii. p. 341; Mant’s Ch. Hist. Ireland, i. pt. ii. p. 454. For the Presbyterian view, Reid’s Hist. Presb. Church Ireland, i. p. 137, &c.; Adair’s Narrative, p. 25, &c.; Killen’s Eccl. Hist. Ireland, ii. pp. 11-16, may be consulted.

[4] Grub’s Eccl. Hist. Scot. ii. p. 343 (note). Grub mentions how Blair endeavoured to prevent Lord Claneboy and his lady kneeling to receive the Lord’s Supper. As to the controversy between the Bishops and the Presbyterian ministers, especially on the point of kneeling to receive the Holy Communion, see Reid’s History, i. pp. 523-42.

[5] Mant’s History as above, pp. 463-4. Bishop Leslie, who succeeded Echlin in 1635, went so far in his efforts to conciliate the Presbyterian ministers as to allow them to substitute the best translation they could find for the Scripture passages in the Prayer-book, and read from the Chronicles, the Song of Solomon, and the Revelation, and omit the lessons from the Apocrypha, if they only subscribed, which they refused to do. - See under “Brice,” in Dict. Nat. Biog., vi. P.311.

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At a later date, when it was going hard with the King, and Presbyterian influence was in the ascendant, Ussher took a leading part in seeking to bring about a reconciliation by drawing up an eirenicon, which he hoped might be accepted on both sides. Doubts have been thrown on the genuineness of this treatise, but Elrington so far recognises it claim that he publishes it in the twelfth volume of the Archbishop’s collected works. [6] Ussher’s plan was proposed in 1641; and seven years later, when matters were in extremis between the Royalists and the Parliamentarians, we shall find that he proposed his plan for a second time, with the approval of the Presbyterians, who accepted it as being as much as they could expect. The King was also won over to the same view, and even at the late hour the compromise might have been carried, except for the antagonism of the Parliamentary Commissioners, who were inexorable in their determination to abolish episcopacy altogether.

[6] Works, xii. P. 527 sq.

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If we are to accept as genuine what is related of the Archbishop by Baxter, as well as by Dr. Bernard, Ussher’s chaplain, he was certainly prepared to recognise the validity of the Presbyterian orders on the Continent. The later, in his Life of Ussher, gives the following extracts from a reply made by the Archbishop to a query on the subject: “Touching Mr. - I cannot call to mind that he ever proposed to me the question in your letter enclosed, neither do I know the Dr. who hath spread the report; but for the matter itself, I have declared my opinion to be that Episcopus et Presbyter gradu tantum differunt non ordine, and, consequently, in places where Bishops cannot be had, the ordination of Presbyters standeth valid. [7] Yet, on the other side, holding as I do that a Bishop hath the superiority in degree over a Presbyter, you may easily judge that the ordination made by such Presbyters as have severed themselves from those Bishops unto whom they had sworn canonical obedience, cannot possibly by me be excused from being schismatical; and howsoever I must needs to think that the Churches which have no Bishops are thereby become very much defective in their government, and the Churches in France, who, living under a Popish power, cannot do what they would, are more excusable in this defect of the Low

[7] This was the view of Cranmer, who went so far as to maintain that ordination might be effected by princes or even a congregation. - See Tulloch’s Rational Theology, i. pp. 47-9.

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Countries that live under a free State; yet for 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 in Charentone.” [8]

We must not suppose from this, however, that Archbishop Ussher was indifferent to, or unmindful of, the claims of episcopacy, as the primitive and apostolic form of Church government. Quite the contrary; and, therefore, acting as he did, we may judge how intense was his desire to see peace established in the midst of the Commonwealth, and what sacrifices he was ready to make, with this object in view.

[8] Bernard’s Judgment of the Archbishop on Ordination, pp. 123-27. Ussher seems to have drawn a curious difference in this matter between foreign and home Presbyterian orders. Says Collier: “This learned prelate seems to have an overbalance of affection for the foreign Protestant Churches. This put upon him some strain to vindicate their orders and make their ministrations valid. For this purpose he revived the novelty of some of the schoolmen and made no scruple to affirm the office of Bishop and Presbyter was the same as to substance, and only different degrees of the same order . . . But notwithstanding this charitable bias, Ussher made no difficulty to censure the practice of the English and Scotch Presbyterians. He would neither allow their orders nor communicate with them.” - Eccl. Hist., ii. p. 868.

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“Like Jonas, he was ready to be cast overboard for the stilling of the tempest." [9] No one was readier at a later date to defend episcopacy, with all the vast learning he had at his command, which is proved by his two tracts, one The Original of Bishops and Metropolitans briefly laid down, and the other, A Geographical and Historical Disquisition touching the Asia properly so called. The first of these he wrote at the request of Bishop Hall [10] and proves therein, from the Christian writings of the second and third centuries, how the Episcopate may be traced back to apostolic times. [11] According to Ussher, the angels of the Seven Churches represent "seven singular Bishops who were the constant presidents over the Churches.” In the second tract he proves that the Asia of the New Testament, and more particularly these Seven Churches, lay within the limits of Lydia, and that each of the seven cities was a metropolis, and were seats of the principle Churches in accordance with the civil arrangements of the Empire.

[9] Preface to Clavi Trabales.

[10] See Bishop Hall's letter to Ussher, making the suggestion. - Lewis, Life of Hall, p. 317. It was to be a Tractarian movement of the seventeenth century. Laud, Morton, and Davenant were to represent England, Bedell and Leslie, Ireland. Some of the Scottish Bishops were also able to help. The movement fell through, Ussher and Hall alone taking part in it.

[11] “To do the Bishops justice and support the government of the Church, Archbishop Ussher published a seasonable tract to combat the Root, and Branch Bill; and prove episcopacy of apostolic institution." - Collier's Eccl. Hist., ii. p. 808.

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A third tract was a confirmation of the Judgment of Dr. Rainoldes touching the original of episcopacy, “more largely confirmed out of antiquity.” All these tracts are published in vol. vii. of the Archbishop’s works.

“The ground of episcopacy,” Ussher maintains, “is derived partly from the pattern prescribed by God in the Old Testament, and partly from the imitation thereof brought in by the Apostles and confirmed by Christ himself in the time of the New. The government of the Church of the Old Testament was committed to the priests and Levites, unto whom the ministers of the New do now succeed, in like manner as our Lord’s Day hath done unto their Sabbath, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet touching the vocation of the Gentiles, “I will take of them for priests and for Levites, saith the Lord.” [12] The writers to whom Ussher appeals in favour of his thesis are Ignatius, Justin Martyr, Dionysius, Hegisippus, Irenaeus, Tertullian, Polycrates, and Clemens. “From St. John’s time,” says Ussher, “we have this continued succession of witnesses.” [13]

[12] Works, vii. P 43.

[13] Ditto, p. 70.

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As the Archbishop’s treatise alluded to above, and which we have ventured to call an eirenicon, is not generally known, we will lay a few of its principal points before our reader. [14] The purpose had in view in drawing it up is clearly notified on the title-page: "The reduction of episcopacy unto the form of Synodical Government received in the ancient Church; proposed in the year 1641 as an expedient for the prevention of those troubles which afterwards did arise about the matter of Church Government."

[14] In 1670 Archbishop Leighton drew up a somewhat similar scheme entitled "Defence of a Moderate Episcopacy." Bernard says Ussher's plan “was proposed in the tempestuous violence of the times as an accommodation by way of a prevention of a total shipwreck." - Clavi Trabales, p. 54. See also Bishop Andrewes on Church government, continued and enlarged by Archbishop Ussher in Clavi Trabales, pp. 95-136. Andrewes gave his MS. to Ussher in 1640. In 1659, Edward Stillingfleet tried his hand on the same question from a Broad Church point of view, and published his "Irenicum: A Weapon-Salve for the Church's Wound"; or the Divine Right of Particular Forms of Church Government, Discussed and Examined according to the Practice of the Apostles and the Primitive Church, and the Judgment of Reformed Divines, whereby a Foundation is laid for the Church's Peace, and the accommodation of our Present Differences." These were all "Home Reunion" efforts of the seventeenth century. The Irenicum is very fully examined by Tulloch in his Rational Theology, i. ch. vii. 

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"The original," says Dr. Bernard, in his address to the reader, "was given me by the most reverend Primate, some few years before his death, written throughout with his own hand, and of late have found it subscribed by himself and Doctor Holsworth, with a marginal note at the first proposition, which I have also added. In writing it," continues his chaplain, the Archbishop was “far from the least suspicion to be biassed by any private ends, but only aiming at the reducing of order, peace and unity, which God is the author of and not of confusion." Ussher thus introduces the subject:

"Episcopal and Presbyteria1 Government conjoined - By order of the Church of England, all Presbyters are charged to administer the doctrine and sacraments and the discipline of Christ as the Lord hath commanded, and as this realm hath received the same; and that they might the better understand what the Lord hath commanded therein; the exhortation of St. Paul to the elders of the Church of Ephesus is appointed to be read unto them at the time of their ordination: 'Take heed unto yourselves and to all the flock among whom the Holy Ghost hath made you overseer, to rule the congregation of God, which he hath purchased with His blood.’

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Of the many elders who in common thus ruled the Church of Ephesus, there was one president whom our Saviour in His Epistle unto this Church in a peculiar manner styleth the angel of the Church of Ephesus, and Ignatius, in another epistle written about twelve years after, unto the same Church, calleth the bishop thereof. Betwixt the Bishop and the Presbyter of that Church, what an harmonious consent there was in the ordering of the Church government, the same Ignatius doth fully there declare; by the Presbytery, with St. Paul, understanding the community of the rest of the presbyters or elders, who then had a hand not only in the delivery of the doctrine and sacraments, but also in the administration of the ‘discipline of Christ.' For with the Bishop, who was the chief President, the rest of the dispensers of the word and sacraments joined in the common government of the Church; and therefore where in matters of ecclesiastical judicature, Cornelius, Bishop of Rome, used the received form of 'gathering together the presbytery,' of what persons that did consist, Cyprian sufficiently declareth when he wished him to read his letters ‘to the flourishing clergy which there did preside,' or 'rule with him'; the presence of the clergy being thought to be so requisite in matters of episcopal audience that in the fourth Council of Carthage it was concluded that ‘the Bishop might hear no man’s cause without the presence of the clergy, and that otherwise the Bishop's sentence should be void unless it were confirmed by the presence of the clergy'; which we find also to be inscribed unto the Canons of Egbert, who was Archbishop of York in the Saxon times, and afterwards unto the body of the Canon law itself."

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"True it is, that in our Church this kind of presbyterial government hath been long disused, yet seeing it still professeth that every pastor has a right to rule the Church (from whence the name of rector also, was given at first unto him), and to administer the discipline of Christ as well as to dispense the doctrine and sacraments, and the restraint of the exercise of that right, proceedeth only from the custom now received in this realm; no man can doubt but by another law of the land this hindrance may be well removed. And how easily this ancient form of government, by the united suffrages of the clergy might be revived again, and with what little show of alteration the synodical conventions of the pastors of every parish might be accorded, with the presidency of the Bishops of each diocese and province the indifferent leader may quickly perceive by the perusal of the ensuing propositions.” Then follows Ussher’s plan - “how the Church might synodically be governed, Archbishops and Bishops being retained.”

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I. The rector, churchwardens, and sidesmen were to constitute a tribunal of discipline for every parish, with powers to present those which cannot be reclaimed to the next monthly Synod: and meanwhile the Pastor might debar such "from access to the Lord's table."

II. An old statute of Henry VIII., revived in the first year of Queen Elizabeth, might be put in force creating suffragans to equal the number of the rural deaneries, who would be what the Chorepiscopi were to the ancient Church, and who might summon a Synod of all the rectors monthly. This Synod would possess powers of excommunication.

III. The Diocesan Synod might be held once or twice in the year, in which "all the suffragans, and the rest of the rectors or incumbent pastors, or a certain select number of every deanery within the Diocese,” would have seats, and “with whose consent, or the major part of them, all things might be concluded by the Bishop or Superintendent, call him whether you will; or, in his absence, by one of the suffragans, whom he shall depute in his stead to be moderator of that assembly.”

IV. The Provincial Synod was to consist of "all the 'bishops and suffragans; and such other of the clergy as should be elected out of every Diocese within the province"; and "the Archbishop of either province might be the moderator of this meeting, or in his room some one of the bishops appointed by him.”

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 “This Synod might be held every third year; and if Parliament do then sit, according to the act of triennial Parliament, both the Archbishops and provincial Synods of the land might join together and make up a National Council, wherein appeals from inferior Synods might be received, all their acts examined, and all ecclesiastical constitutions which concern the state of the Church of the whole nation established.” [15]

This plan bears the imprimatur of the Archbishop and of Dr. Holsworth. “We are of the judgment that the form of government here proposed is not in any point repugnant to the Scriptures, and that the suffragans mentioned in the second proposition may lawfully use the power both of jurisdiction and ordination according to the word of God and the practice of ancient Church.” [16]

The early Irish Church in the days of her primitive purity clearly showed an approximation towards the form of Church government sketched above by Ussher, and it was no doubt his intimate acquaintance with her early history that suggested much of this plan.

[15] Ussher’s Works, vol. xii.

[16] At the Restoration, Ussher’s plan was brought forward by Calamy and Reynolds on behalf of the Presbyterian ministers, in the hope that it might form a groundwork for reconciliation. - See Collier’s Eccl. Hist. pp. 871.

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A record preserved in Wilkin’s Councils proves that Ireland originally was full of village bishops, whose office was gradually merged into rural deaneries. Thus a canon of the third Council held at Kells, in Meath, in 1152, enacts that the Churches of Athenry, Kells, Slane, Skyrne and Dunshauglin, being heretofore bishops' sees, should hereafter be the heads of rural deaneries, with archpresbyters residing therein. In the present Diocese of Dublin rural bishops were to be found established in Swords, Lusk, Finglas, Newcastle, Tawney, Leixlip, Bray, Wicklow, Arklow, Ballymore, Clondalkin, Tallaght, and O'Murthy. Here again we have evidence forthcoming of the Eastern derivation of the ancient Irish Church, such rural sees being a characteristic of the East, where St. Cyril, for example, had under him fifty rural bishops. In the six African provinces there were five hundred of these rural sees.

It will be remarked that throughout this plan, Ussher only deals with the question of Church government. The question of the scriptural sanction and authority of episcopacy is untouched. No one knew better than Ussher from his investigations into the subject, especially in the region of ancient Church history in Ireland, that the grace of the episcopate flows down from the earliest sources.

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Ussher was not the man to make shipwreck of fundamentals. As Dr. Barlow, afterwards Bishop of Lincoln, writes of him, he "even found old orthodox truth maintained by him upon just and carrying grounds, where elsewhere he had often sought but seldom found.” [17] On the above subject of the powers of the Chorepiscopi, Barlow points out to Ussher that in accordance with the Council of Ancyra, even these might not ordain without licence first had from the bishop. The theory that they were only simplices presbyteri, according to the counterfeit Damascus and others, he will not hear of. He conceives that it is demonstrable undeniably from carrying principles in antiquity that they were bishops. It was impossible that the presbyteri civitatis might ordain, if that be the meaning of the canon, with licence from the bishops, "it never appearing in antiquity that any presbyter's ordination of a presbyter was canonical." It is unfortunate that we do not possess Ussher's reply to Barlow's query as to the real force of the above canon. [18]     

[17] Ussher's Works, xvi. Pp. 98-100.

[18] On the subject of this canon, see Gore's Church and the Ministry, Appended Notes D and E, pp. 370-7; also Bingham, vol. i. pp. 56-9; Reeves’ Eccl. Antiq. Down and Connor; and art.  "Chorepiscopi," in Smith's Dict. Of Christian Antiq. For the institution in Ireland, Ussher's Works, vol. x.; Lanigan’s Hist., vol. ii. p. 128, &c.; King's Hist., p. 1013.